EZ Flash IV w/ DS Phat regular

[Oveneise]

Hi! I was wondering if a EZ Flash IV Gba cart would work with my R4DS (not a clone). I read on your review you flashed your DS with "Flashme7", and I was wondering if that was necessary. Example, I boot up my R4, and go to slot-2, Will that go into the EZ Flash IV menu? I was going to use the cart primarily for extra ram for homebrew programs (DSHeretic, Quake2DS, ect.) and game backups. Also, I live in Minnesota and will be ordering for a christmas gift, any guestimations if it would arrive by then? Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Oveneise

 

[Another World]

if you are using an r4 then you are running either the last firmware v1.18, some build of ysmenu, or wood r4. i can't speak about ysmenu, but the r4 firmware and wood r4 will not support the ez iv as a gba expansion natively. wood only supports the 3in1 v1 and v2, it does not support the 3in1 v3 known as the 3in1+. the r4 firmwares never supported any ram expansions without gba exploader or patching. ds heretic is a .ds.gba homebrew and does not require any ram expansion, you only need to flash that game over and have it run via passme, which the r4 does support. i had this game tested tonight and it works with wood r4's passme code as long as it has a valid checksum.

as for quake2, i just checked the archived homepage and it supports the following expansion packs.

Supported cards:

'Proper' SuperCards, eg the Lite, SD, MiniSD, and CF. The SuperCard Rumble and SuperCard One are not compatible.
'Perfect' M3s, eg the Lite Perfect, the Mini SD Perfect, and the SD Perfect. The Mini SD Pro, SD Pro, and Lite Pro are not compatible.
EZ-Flash cards which have a slot-2 component and can play GBA games over 32MBit, eg EZ 3-in-1, EZ 4, EZ 5
G6 Flash

if you are looking for something to use as RAM the m3 lite had the fastest RAM, as explained to me my Simon J Hall (quake dev). the next was the 3in1. you should just pick up the 3in1 phat that shoptemp sells. this way you can run .ds.gba games from NOR (anything up to 32MB and a 3 episode build of dsheretic with music is 32MB), you can also use it as a ram expansion for quake2, scummvmds build j, the ds web browser, etc.

if you do get the ez iv you are getting an actual gba flash kit. you will need to purchase the minisd card (or find one some place else). i've been told that the ez iv has incompatibility issues with minisd adapters. the ez iv doesn't have real time save, real time clock, etc. its basically a 3in1 with a minisd slot which will allow you to store roms to be flashed from the kit when its booted into gba mode, instead of having to write roms over to psram/nor via your slot-1 native flashing or homebrew.

you should be able to boot into the ez iv from wood r4's firmware slot-2 option, and you should be able to run what is in NOR via passme. i don't currenly have a minisd card so i can't run any tests for you. i'm sure someone who does know for sure will comment =).

whatever you do, don't pick the ez iv because it can run .nds roms from slot2 via passme. .nds compatibility is pretty low and you won't enjoy the experience.

i hope this info helps you in some way!

-another world

 

[Oveneise]

I hesitated and ordered an EZ Flash IV last night. What I wanted to use it for were gba backups (.gba files), and use it as a RAM expansion pack. I did order with the minisd. So is GBA rom compatibility high? I use both r4 1.18 and woodr4, but I wasn't looking to use it to play .nds roms, thats what my R4 is for

, anyways thanks for the quick reply. I hate to be asking so many questions, but what is NOR memory, and what is passme?

 

[Another World]

the device has psram, and nor. psram is volatile, meaning when you power down anything flashed to it is erased. nor takes longer to write to but it will hold the data regardless of power or internal battery. i’m not sure if the device has sram for save files or if saves are directly written to the minisd card. i believe the ez client is required for flashing, and i’m assuming its patching for the save type, which would mean there is sram. i actually don't know the sizes of the psram and nor included in the ez iv. i think it might have 32mb of psram and 64mb of nor, but that could have just been the specs of the old ez flahs lite deluxe.

here is the ez client for the ez iv: http://www.ezflash.cn/zip/EZ4_20070521.zip

gbatemp is planning an updated review of the product now that shoptemp stocks it. from what i've been told by our reviewer it has a really high gba compatibility with the occasional glitch, and the occasional rom which needs to be patched (real time clock for pokemon, etc).

passme was the name given to the slot-1 devices that allowed users to run ds code from the slot-2. .ds.gba games are run from slot-2 via passme, so your slot-1 card will need to support passme for you to enjoy that homebrew. anything made after the original r4ds has built in passme, except for perhaps clones or fakes. woodr4 works but it requires the checksum (header) of the game is correct. if you have problems with bad headers (the gba bios logo will boot with corrupted graphics) then give gbata a try. its a pc based application that will allow you fix .gba headers rather quickly. get it here: http://filetrip.net/f223-GBATA--GBA-Tool-Advance-0-7a.html

here is more info on passme:
http://www.dspassme.com/
http://www.ndshb.com/modules.php?name=Cont...page&pid=40 (this one is worth a read)

-another world

 

[Oveneise]

Okay, thank you for all of the help. As you can probably guess, I'm a fairly intermediate flashcart user, as I've only had my R4 for about a year now. So I assume the EZ Client is for patching ROMS for saving and real time clock? Anyways, thank you for your helpful reply.

 

[Another World]

i don't think the ez client will patch things like real time clock. i think the client is just for patching for sram saves. in the past when roms were flashed to a gba kit the software would seak out the save area and patch it for sram. when this started to happen it made the whole process more universal and made save types less confusing. sram was also cheaper to include than eeprom chips. the ez client has a database (from what i recall) that knows at what area of the rom to patch which makes the whole process that much faster. the client also patches .nds roms so that they can be properly run from the ez iv slot-2, from what i remember reading.

i'm sorry that i can't provide more specific answers. i've actually just received my ez iv and i need to grab a mini sd card before i can start to play with it. what i know so far is from research i conducted before making my purchase.

you might want to try posting in the ez forum to get more specific answers.

-another world

 

[Minox]

i’m not sure if the device has sram for save files or if saves are directly written to the minisd card. i believe the ez client is required for flashing, and i’m assuming its patching for the save type, which would mean there is sram.
All EZ Flash IV models use SRAM memory to store the saves until the GBA/DS is rebooted upon which the saves are written to the miniSD.

i actually don't know the sizes of the psram and nor included in the ez iv. i think it might have 32mb of psram and 64mb of nor, but that could have just been the specs of the old ez flahs lite deluxe.
As far as I know the EZ Flash IV (Phat) has 16MB of PSRAM & 32MB of Norflash. The EZ Flash IV Lite Deluxe should have 32MB PSRAM & 48MB Norflash if I recall correctly.

QUOTE(Another World @ Nov 23 2010, 12:22 AM)

i don't think the ez client will patch things like real time clock. i think the client is just for patching for sram saves. in the past when roms were flashed to a gba kit the software would seak out the save area and patch it for sram. when this started to happen it made the whole process more universal and made save types less confusing. sram was also cheaper to include than eeprom chips. the ez client has a database (from what i recall) that knows at what area of the rom to patch which makes the whole process that much faster. the client also patches .nds roms so that they can be properly run from the ez iv slot-2, from what i remember reading.

The EZ Flash IV client does not include Real Time Clock patching. It merely patches .gba/.nds games to save(/work) properly (although the .nds compatibility should be taken with a grain of salt, mostly early games work). Sometimes you will need other kinds of patches or fixes to solve other issues. Real Time Clock among other issues can be fixed by patching the few RTC enabled games with the application GBATA mentioned above which also features a couple of other nifty features which can be nice to have when playing GBA ROMs.


This page contains some info regarding the different models of the EZ Flash IV.