Hacking EZ-FLASH OMEGA Definitive Edition Kernel 1.02 and Firmware 3 released

[Divineheresy88]

Yeah to be expected, the definitive edition is more feature-rich and does consume a little more power. I'll do some digging into the figures later today when I wake up and hopefully get back to you (though I don't have an original EZ Flash Omega to reference, but I can test the power draw differences of a JR, the DE and some regular carts

Sounds good! Night man

 

[phantomapollyon]

Can confirm the Definitive Edition doesn't run on my GBA consolizer. It boots to where it says Game Boy but no Nintendo logo below it and sits at that screen.

I created a thread about this a while back, no solution that I'm aware of at this time. Myself and the main US contact for the GBA consolizer believe it has to do with power draw.

https://gbatemp.net/threads/ez-flas...-recognized-in-a-gba-consolizer.584342/page-2

 

[DrunkenMonk]

Sounds good! Night man

I created a thread about this a while back, no solution that I'm aware of at this time. Myself and the main US contact for the GBA consolizer believe it has to do with power draw.

https://gbatemp.net/threads/ez-flas...-recognized-in-a-gba-consolizer.584342/page-2

Yeah, there's quite a large power draw and it does indeed cause a readable voltage drop across the system, with a backlit GBA it draws around 150ma without a game. 160-180ma with a regular game inserted and playing, varies a little from game to game. 250-280ma using the definitive edition and around 210~ma using the JR, if I limit the voltage or current I'm able to produce similar results with the cart not fully initializing and it just hangs - so yeah... The solution would be to swap a component on the consolizer kit pcb to allow for the slightly increased output capacity (or just provide a separate power rail for the GBA that's not funneled through current limiting devices on the consolizer pcb itself). Though it does mean you could just solder a 5>3.3v vreg up to the 5v input and split it yourself, but that seems like it'd be a little jank, and if the consolizer kit exceeds a 220ma+ draw by itself, then some more standard usb 2.0 power supplies and cables just won't be sufficient (since some can only supply/carry 500ma)

 

[fernan1234]

If we could find someone in China who had this and who was willing to donate it to us for research, we could solve the problem in a few days, but the fact is we've asked our user community and they haven't even heard of it.

So for this very niche product compatibility, you'll just have to keep waiting until we get a free sample.

Does it need to be a free sample? You can order a bare kit for $160 now. Seems like a small cost to offer full support for the product. The Consolizer is no much more niche than this kind of flash cart itself, so it matters to a significant portion of hardcore GBA fans.

 

[KevinMX]

Does it need to be a free sample? You can order a bare kit for $160 now. Seems like a small cost to offer full support for the product. The Consolizer is no much more niche than this kind of flash cart itself, so it matters to a significant portion of hardcore GBA fans.

Just checked on game-tech.us. Considering I bought my second hand iQue GBA in China for 160 CNY (~25 USD), the GBA consolizer is 7.29x the price, which, is quite an amount of money, at least for me xDDD

And, BTW, right now this is a pre-order. Due to some COVID stuff the actual shipping might be delayed a lot, lol.

I did watched MLiG's video about the consolizer, seems pretty appealing to me, but considering the price, international shipping, etc, I might have to think twice before paying. Besides, I didn't know anyone in the Chinese Retro community who actually owns the GBA consolizer. Did know some people use NGC+GBI though.

 

[fernan1234]

Just checked on game-tech.us. Considering I bought my second hand iQue GBA in China for 160 CNY (~25 USD), the GBA consolizer is 7.29x the price, which, is quite an amount of money, at least for me xDDD

I can see how it feels expensive to an individual user, but a business like EZ-FLASH itself can definitely afford it as a small cost relative to them in their support of their product. They could choose the cheaper First Class mailing option and even with delays simply wait until it gets there, but at least eventually they would have it and be able to debug the problem.

In the meantime they could also try to reach out to Woozle, the developer of the GBA Consolizer. He is pretty responsive and perhaps would be willing to share info that leads to figuring out the problem so that it can be fixed hopefully with just a firmware update, even without having access to the actual kit.

 

[KevinMX]

I can see how it feels expensive to an individual user, but a business like EZ-FLASH itself can definitely afford it as a small cost relative to them in their support of their product. They could choose the cheaper First Class mailing option and even with delays simply wait until it gets there, but at least eventually they would have it and be able to debug the problem.

In the meantime they could also try to reach out to Woozle, the developer of the GBA Consolizer. He is pretty responsive and perhaps would be willing to share info that leads to figuring out the problem so that it can be fixed hopefully with just a firmware update, even without having access to the actual kit.

Agree with your point. BTW, considering how ez staff responds to the community, I bet they will improve compatibility. Someday.

 

[Divineheresy88]

If they were state-side i'd happily ship them my Consolizer for a quick firmware update. I have my Omega in my consolizer for now and it runs great. Only reason i'm keeping it.

 

[jer480]

yeah boi lol mine works good

 

[Dimensional]

They apparently released a new update, Kernel 1.03 and FW 4, but haven't announced it yet. According to the modification dates on the zip contents, it was pushed to their website on the 13th.

 

[Divineheresy88]

Any details of the update?

 

[Dimensional]

Any details of the update?

They created a new thread with the details. Check there.

 

[TTR]

Hello.

Just today I upgraded from the normal Omega to the DE version.
One of the main reason was the rumble support.

Now, the original post here says that with 1.01 the Goomba emulator was patched to support rumble with GBC games.

However with my Omega DE and firmware 1.03 I do not get rumble with any of the rumble GBC games.

With the rumble GBA games, those work, so it is not the rumble hardware itself.


I hope for EZ-Flash2 to read this but I would love to hear from anyone, maybe I'm overseeing something?

 

[El_Syd]

Hello.

Just today I upgraded from the normal Omega to the DE version.
One of the main reason was the rumble support.

Now, the original post here says that with 1.01 the Goomba emulator was patched to support rumble with GBC games.

However with my Omega DE and firmware 1.03 I do not get rumble with any of the rumble GBC games.

With the rumble GBA games, those work, so it is not the rumble hardware itself.


I hope for EZ-Flash2 to read this but I would love to hear from anyone, maybe I'm overseeing something?

Although I don't have this yet, I'm guessing it's because the Omega DE does not run GB/GBC titles natively, but through emulation.

 

[EZ-Flash2]

Hello.

Just today I upgraded from the normal Omega to the DE version.
One of the main reason was the rumble support.

Now, the original post here says that with 1.01 the Goomba emulator was patched to support rumble with GBC games.

However with my Omega DE and firmware 1.03 I do not get rumble with any of the rumble GBC games.

With the rumble GBA games, those work, so it is not the rumble hardware itself.


I hope for EZ-Flash2 to read this but I would love to hear from anyone, maybe I'm overseeing something?

did you turn off the game rtc in the setting menu? rumble needs rtc to calculator the frequency.

 

[TTR]

did you turn off the game rtc in the setting menu? rumble needs rtc to calculator the frequency.

Hello EZ-FLASH,

Thanks to everyone there for making the Definitive Edition!!
I come from the regular Omega, but now I don't have the problem anymore that the time in the Omega menu gets set back a few minutes everytime.
I don't have to worry anymore about the 5 seconds rule.
Love the RGB
I wanted the Everdrive X5 mini as an upgrade to the regular Omega, but then I rechecked all the new stuff on the Omega DE and that made my choice.
I am very glad with it!


Anyway, that did the trick! I didn't have really use for RTC, but now I do hah. Though it was nowhere to be found on how to make it work. Not added as an extra notice in the release notes or in the 1.01, 1.02 and 1.03 manual.


I have another question, how can I hard save my Goomba settings? It gets reset with every GB/GBC game I play. Is there a way?

 

[DrunkenMonk]

Hello EZ-FLASH,

Thanks to everyone there for making the Definitive Edition!!
I come from the regular Omega, but now I don't have the problem anymore that the time in the Omega menu gets set back a few minutes everytime.
I don't have to worry anymore about the 5 seconds rule.
Love the RGB
I wanted the Everdrive X5 mini as an upgrade to the regular Omega, but then I rechecked all the new stuff on the Omega DE and that made my choice.
I am very glad with it!


Anyway, that did the trick! I didn't have really use for RTC, but now I do hah. Though it was nowhere to be found on how to make it work. Not added as an extra notice in the release notes or in the 1.01, 1.02 and 1.03 manual.


I have another question, how can I hard save my Goomba settings? It gets reset with every GB/GBC game I play. Is there a way?

Here's a thread bringing up that very topic, not sure if that's enough of an answer for you though
https://gbatemp.net/threads/ez-flash-omega-de-goomba-settings-dont-save.592166/

 

[IngegnerGeniere]

SHA1(ezkernelnew.bin)= 3d642af336845e912c8ee3071812a84812178619

Changelog
Kernel 1.02 and firmware 3
Improved stability, fixed the random freezing issue on some consoles. Fixed the nor unusable issue in firmware 2

firmware 2
Improved stability, fixed the random freezing issue on some consoles. may cause nor unusable. REVOKED

Kernel 1.01 and firmware 1.0
Embedded Goomba has been patched to support GBC rumble games



Resources offsets for skin makers

EZ-FLASH OMEGA Definitive Edition uses fixed offset at the end of data, skin makers no need to adjust offset every time when kernel updating.

Address    Size    content
0x0    0x9FFFF    Kernel codes
        
0x100000    0x2648    gImage_Chinese_manual
0x102648    0x2648    gImage_English_manual
0x104C90    0x12C00    gImage_splash
0x117890    0x12C00    gImage_SD
0x12A490    0x12C00    gImage_NOR
0x13D090    0x12C00    gImage_SET
0x14FC90    0x12C00    gImage_SET2
0x162890    0x12C00    gImage_HELP
0x175490    0x12C00    gImage_RECENTLY
0x188090    0x4B00    gImage_NOTFOUND
0x18CB90    0x1C0    gImage_icon_gba
0x18CD50    0x1C0    gImage_icon_folder
0x18CF10    0x1C0    gImage_icon_other
0x18D0D0    0x1C0    gImage_icon_FC
0x18D290    0x1C0    gImage_icon_GB
0x18D450    0x1C0    gImage_icon _nor
0x18D610    0x6E00    gImage_MENU
0x194410    0x2    color_text
0x194412    0x2    color_selectBG_sd
0x194414    0x2    color_selectBG_nor
0x194416    0x2    color_cheat_black
0x19441C    0x2    color_MENU_btn
0x19441E    0x2    color_selected
0x194420    0x2    color_cheat_count
0x194422    0x2    color_NORFULL
0x194424    0x2    color_btn_clean
 
0x195000    0x534EC    newomega_top_bin_address

Hi!
I recently purchased and ezflash de, I'm on kernel 1.04 and firmware 4 and experiencing a lot of issues..
I can't write any game larger than 4mb to NOR, it goes trough the process of writing and when it finishes the nor its just empty. Furthermore, if there was another game written (say Dr Mario for example) and I try to write a larger game (Metroid zero mission) the nor gets erased.

I also experience very frequent crashes, sometimes the game is unresponsive but the audio keeps playing, other times it just crashes completely.
It happens on all games, with or without addons enabled.

I checked all the usual suspects, tried different ROM dumps, changed the SD card, reflashed the firmware, tried on other consoles but the behaviour is still the same.

Any possibility to flash an older firmware on the card?
I saw that many of the issues i'm having where solved with kernel 1.03 and firmware 3, so it seems so strange to me that firmware 4 has the same problems..

I love the card, but it's unusable in this state

 

[EZ-Flash2]

Hi!
I recently purchased and ezflash de, I'm on kernel 1.04 and firmware 4 and experiencing a lot of issues..
I can't write any game larger than 4mb to NOR, it goes trough the process of writing and when it finishes the nor its just empty. Furthermore, if there was another game written (say Dr Mario for example) and I try to write a larger game (Metroid zero mission) the nor gets erased.

I also experience very frequent crashes, sometimes the game is unresponsive but the audio keeps playing, other times it just crashes completely.
It happens on all games, with or without addons enabled.

I checked all the usual suspects, tried different ROM dumps, changed the SD card, reflashed the firmware, tried on other consoles but the behaviour is still the same.

Any possibility to flash an older firmware on the card?
I saw that many of the issues i'm having where solved with kernel 1.03 and firmware 3, so it seems so strange to me that firmware 4 has the same problems..

I love the card, but it's unusable in this state

Contact dealer for warranty, If your console not modded.

 

[IngegnerGeniere]

Contact dealer for warranty, If your console not modded.

Hi EzFlash2, thank you for responding!
Isn't there really anything else I could try before shipping it back?
I saw that there's was a way to to downgrade the firmware on the "standard" omega, there's nothing like that for the definitive edition?
The console is not modded btw, I'm using a Ds Lite and an original GBA