Hacking EZ-Flash IV or Supercard miniSD?

[Hobosam]

Hi everyone!
I have been interested in buying a gba flashcart for some time now and have narrowed down my choices to these two carts (both are available to me).
I have read the reviews available onsite but I am still unsure which to get.

In your opinion which would be a better cart? The Supercard or the EZ-flash IV?
I am only going to be playing GBA games, I understand that neither has RTC (to my knowledge). Also if I choose the EZ-flash IV, are there any tools available to change the Star Wars theme?

Thanks!

 

[Deleted member 473940]

Supercard miniSD is much cheaper, but since you want to play GBA games it woudnt be a good choice.

Ez-IV

. Go for it.

 

[Hobosam]

Thanks for the quick reply! I guess I should order an EZ-Flash IV. How is the emulation on it? I would also like to play GBC and NES games on it. Any good?

 

[FAST6191]

Yes you can change the theme. Quite easily- there are skinning tools on the US forum as well as a bunch of skins (it is not too hard to bash one of the EZ3 ones into shape either).

Emulation- it runs the GBA and DS code emulators well enough (you might have to fiddle with the save or use a special version of the emulator but that is about it). NES and GBC are well represented in those.
Link
http://ezflash.sosuke.com/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=12660

 

[Deleted-236924]

It doesn't emulate GBA.
Pretty sure it doesn't emulate NDS either.

If you want to play NES games, use PocketNES.
For GB games, use Goomba Color.

I've tried Goomba Color myself. Be aware that it doesn't run games as well as if you were using a retail GB/C cart.
If you want to play GB/C natively, you should get a Flash2Advance with a GB bridge, since GB/C flashcarts are much harder to come by.

 

[Hobosam]

Okay, so I have decided to order this cart. Where would be the best place to purchase it? Also does goomba colour work like an regular gbc emulator with rtc or will I have to still patch the game?

 

[libertyernie]

On an EZ-Flash IV, which has no RTC, Goomba Color will play Pokemon G/S/C just fine, except the clock stands still. You won't have to patch the GBC game ROMs at all.
And if you want a nice EZ4 theme, how about the one I made: http://ezflash.sosuke.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=17257 Skins are embedded in the firmware, so that .zip file has a firmware file in it that you can apply.

 

[Deleted-236924]

On an EZ-Flash IV, which has no RTC, Goomba Color will play Pokemon G/S/C just fine, except the clock stands still. You won't have to patch the GBC game ROMs at all.
And if you want a nice EZ4 theme, how about the one I made: http://ezflash.sosuke.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=17257 Skins are embedded in the firmware, so that .zip file has a firmware file in it that you can apply.

Have you used firmware 1.720 RESET to make that skin?

 

[Hobosam]

Hi everyone!
Didn't want to make a new thread but I just received my EZ-Flash IV and I have a few questions.
1. What problems have been encountered by using a microSD to miniSD adaptor? I am unable to get a miniSD at this point in time (I'll get one soon) so I'll have to use one of these adaptors.
2. How does one go about changing the skin?
3. Is there a specific length that I can name each file/game?

Thanks for the help!

 

[FAST6191]

1) Usually detection issues with the memory card which leads to crashing, games not be detected, saves not being there/written back or corrupted- if you already have an adapter or one is cheap then by all means give it a spin as some have got them to work but bad things happen often enough (and are almost invariably and instantly solved by the arrival of a proper miniSD) that we make a point of telling people to avoid them.

2) Basic method involves grabbing http://ezflash.sosuke.com/viewtopic.php?f=...590&start=0 and a skin (you can bash EZ3 GBA skins into working on the EZ4 easily enough too) and using it to generate a new ezfla_up.bin file which you put on the miniSD and hold R when booting. Watch a number go up (it can take a few seconds to start) and your skin is changed. After this there are more advanced tweaks with regards to fonts, text placement and such but that is all in that section just linked.

3) I forget the exact limit (it has been a while since the last proper releases of GBA games and with it my last updating of the list) but if memory serves it was around 48 characters for the vast majority of games. I usually only had a problem with the 2 or 3 or more in 1 titles or romaji in some of the longer Japanese games. The odd game (although this includes the super mario advance titles) seems to only work when the name of the gba rom and corresponding save is 8:3 style (that is to say up to 8 characters in the first part and a 3 letter extension). It was narrowed to the point where the save is written back to the card but after that it was considered easier to just use 8:3 naming. Any other issues with commercial GBA roms are usually sorted by patching with GBATA- http://www.no-intro.org/tools.htm and homebrew issues again with GBATA, flash advance toolkit ( http://www.gameboy-advance.net/rom_tools/f...nce_toolkit.htm - it has a nice header maker) or some of the links already given in this thread.

 

[Deleted-236924]

(although this includes the super mario advance titles) seems to only work when the name of the gba rom and corresponding save is 8:3 style (that is to say up to 8 characters in the first part and a 3 letter extension)

That is untrue.
I have all four Super Mario Advance (U) games on my EZ-Flash IV and they all work perfectly without having to use a 8.3 naming format.
I'm using 1.720 RESET, if that matters.
(I don't see why it wouldn't work with someone using the same setup as me if it works for me.)

 

[Hobosam]

Great! Thanks for the help!

I have some more questions:
How do I view text files on my GBA?
How do I enable reset so that when I reset my GBA, it will return to the EZ-Flash IV screen?

The skin creator doesn't seem to be working on my Windows 7 for some reason. Is there anything else I could try?

 

[FAST6191]

@Pingouin7 Interesting.... Mario games needing 8:3 naming unlike just about everything else is a long standing bug on the EZ4 but one easily bypassed and most people use the RESET loader.

As for text files. The GBA loader does have some support along with bookmarks (saved in SRAM all the time) but GBA text viewing homebrew is a better bet.
http://www.bookreader.co.uk/ is considered the cream of the crop but is payware and I have not heard of anybody trying to buy it in the last few years.
Some switch up and go image viewer
http://www.caimans.net/gba/
Back on text though
http://filetrip.net/f22900-Dan-Cotter%27s-...dvance-1-0.html is probably the best outside the bookreader homebrew. Others might be around but I never really pushed ebooks on the GBA (although I did read a couple of discworld novels).

Reset (note that the RESET loader thing is something else entirely- it was a bug workaround for DS mode launching GBA games)- frankly speaking I use the button and alongside this the hooks and such used for it can interfere with link cable stuff if you are heading down that path and it was not exactly stable when it does work. I am not actually sure what works these days either but you can try GBATA, BOMA and the inbuilt EZ4 client stuff if you like (although you will have to edit the EZ4para.ini in c:\windows\temp to change the buttons in later versions of the client).

Skin program not working..... not surprised given it is visual basic. Perhaps give the compatibility modes a spin else you are probably going to want to go virtual machine. There are the original skinning tools if you like but they are not as pretty as the normal one people use http://ezflash.sosuke.com/viewtopic.php?f=...935&start=0

 

[DanTheManMS]

Seconding the suggestion of GBA Book Reader. There are other programs but they're not nearly as polished. I personally read the 7th Harry Potter book between GBA Book Reader and DSReader.