Hacking expansion slot help

[neko138]

Edit: see last post for solution. Maybe this will help someone else who is stuck too... maybe.


Hi all,
I'm running Offical M3 Sakura 1.35x 2nd Euro/USA and I have the official M3 Real expansion slot bundle.

I've got some .gba games in the GBA root folder but when i boot them, Sakura says "creating save file" and then it Black Screens me and doesnt do anything.

On an older version of Sakura that I tried, it was loading the "gameboy" coloured screen and then hanging there.

I'm a total noob at this so, what do i do?

I've looked at the FAQs and Guides and GOogled it but cant seem to find a solution... :/

Is the .gba file the wrong type orsomething?

Thanks in advance!

~Neko.

 

[how_do_i_do_that]

you need the M3 gba expansion pack to be able to use any gba games.

 

[neko138]

I do. I bought the M3 Ds Real + Expansion Slot Pack, I said that in the OP.

I thought it might be a sakura problem, so I loaded up the latest version of M3 Real and it hasnt made any difference.

Is there a file size limit? If so, how do I shrink the files to that size?

 

[how_do_i_do_that]

you can use a gba rom trimmer, find one here:
http://gbatemp.net/index.php?dlcategory=29
or
http://gbatemp.net/index.php?dlcategory=28

 

[Joe88]

the m3 rom trimmer trims NDS and GBA games

http://down.gbalpha.com/GBalpha/Softwares/...l_V1.00beta.zip

 

[neko138]

thanks for the links guys but i still cant get it to work!

I trimmed the Rom and put it on my SD card, Sakura (1.12+1 - old I know but Im having hella dramas with the new Sakura for some reason so this one is tried and tested to play .nds) recognises the file but when I click play (with the stylus) it loads the "Gameboy" screen then does nothing. I dont know if its not recognising the Expansion pack or something.

I put the expansion slot in the DS without the M3 and it said it recognised there was an expansion slot in the GBA slot, and on another SD card, I put the new Sakura (1.40) and it said that it didnt recognise the expansion "No Exp memory", but then it was being finicky and didnt want to play DS games either...
so i thought I'll put the .gba on my ds games SD and see how it goes and no love (as per prev paragraph).

Hmmmm... too hard basket?

What I need is a really simple for completely stupid people guide that gies me dot point what to install and how to make it work.

 

[neko138]

fixed it. i tried the new version of M3 real and trimmed the .gba roms with the M3 real Trimmer (thanks for the link!), and patched before playing. It took a while to load because of the patch but it works. I tried with the new version of Sakura and again, it had to patch before loading. I tried both of these loaders on a 4gb SD card (FAT32) where before I was using a 2gb sd card. I think it took a bit of trial and error and making sure that the roms are trimmed and the expansion slot card is pushed in all the way intothe ds lite.

Anyway, maybe this will help someone else if they have similar troubles.