Hacking EZ4 Lite (TF): DS Saves + my mini review

[DjFIL]

I just (4 days ago now) got my EZ-Flash IV TF (SD Micro) + SuperKey (old version) from winsunx.com (arrived 1 day late!... stupid ups.) It works great. I had no issues with needing to file\trim down anything, but saying that I do have to unscrew the cover everytime to remove the Micro SD (man these things are amazingly small). The patcher works great (they fixed the other passme issue and tony hawk now works 100%) and is very easy to use (for me in a Guest PC XP virtual desktop in OS X), and I can bring the files (saver and patched rom) to my OS X desktop and do the transfering back and forth there instead of in my Virtual Desktop of Windows XP (which is great). I'm so glad I got this... best pickup ever, and it's just the start for awesome ds titles to come (can't wait for zelda).

One thing I noticed is for the save to work, after you shut down the system, you must reboot to the loader main screen for it to write the save to the micro sd (i guess it keeps it temperarly in the onboard memory, or eeprom). I've forgotten once, i'd say after 10-15 minutes with power off the save info (if not written to sd micro) is lost. Also, sleep mode works perfectly, and I haven't tried any homebrew yet.

Glad I got that first batch. Thanks winsunx.

 

[Darkspark]

Hi, I have the same card.

I noticed this for saves, but it does not love the save after power off on mine.

When ever I turn on the DS, I get the save message for whatever game I played last. Even if i played it 12 hours ago. Only if I restart the DS LIte twice, do no save messages appear.

Does anyone know how to get to ez4 loader screen within a game without restarting the DS?

 

[FAST6191]

2 things leave your EZ4 in a powered GBA/DS for a couple of hours if you are losing your saves. If you have a linker even better and use that instead.

As for homebrew save the stuff build around SATA's fat library will not work (picodrive is about the only thing I care about/can not find an replacement for that does this).

Oh and thanks for testing/making the MAC workaround I am sure a few people will appreciate this one.

 

[zone97]

Hi, I have the same card.

I noticed this for saves, but it does not love the save after power off on mine.

When ever I turn on the DS, I get the save message for whatever game I played last. Even if i played it 12 hours ago. Only if I restart the DS LIte twice, do no save messages appear.

Does anyone know how to get to ez4 loader screen within a game without restarting the DS?

This is also how the M3 works, when you finish a game, and upon the next "boot" it will save the previous games save. if you do not load a new rom, and turn off and back on you do not see this message. Seems to be the normal practice for this type of device for DS.

 

[DjFIL]

Ok... is it the on board battery (cause there is something that looks like a battery, i think). recharged by the connection to a powered up DS? That'd make sense, I'll try that and hopefuly it won't be as lost easily. And that's good to know it's normal for most flash carts.

And DarkSpark, they don't have an option to do that... yet. EZF Team said it is something on their agenda for a future kernel update.

 

[bennyx8903]

O_O i was just reading and im really confused, im about to get a EZ4 lite, but to save you hav to reboot?! wtf, that suks

 

[CrazyPeon]

I think when you save it saves it into a temporary storage which is kept alive by the cart's battery. The next time you reboot it transfers that saved data into a permanent storage.

 

[TheVirus]

By reboot you mean power off the DS and power it back on? I haven't received my EZ4 yet so I don't know what this means. What's the exact process for saving data?

If you are playing Brain Age or Mario Kart and you finish playing, it will save your data to a temporary place on the EZ4, so you need to do what after you finish playing?

 

[ole jason]

That's correct. You "save" in-game as you would if you had the real game. Then, the next time you power on the DS it will write the save to the card. It's not something you have to do immediately. I've left mine off for 12 hours or more and it will still write the save when I go back and turn it on.

 

[yuwing]

how about some pictures with the review!

 

[westboy]

I have the supercard minisd but i never need to reboot to save ds games... the need to reboot to save sucks!

i wish supercard can come out with a microsd version that fit flush with the ds lite....

 

[DjFIL]

you want it, you got it... 8 photos of my ds lite and the ez4 lite tf and superkey... as well as the screen (on reboot) that shows you it's writing the .sav data.

oooh, the box

everything it comes with: 3 cases, the pcb, usb extender and usb sd reader

my superkey (v1), microSD 1gb (damn it's small), pcb and the white case in 2 pieces

edge view

as you can see, unmodded it really only sticks out 1mm at most

the ds loader

after you reboot it gives you 2 screens, the first (giving an option to cancel the .sav write)

and the second (2 second after the first) telling you which file it is writing to

also an update... i've been able to leave the ds powered off for nearly a day, and it has been able to retain the save data in tact so it can write the .sav file upon next reboot. so basically, after you finish playing your game (no matter if the game "auto saves" or you chose to save with in the game) when you boot off the system the save data is saved via the onboard sram... then on your next time booting in to the ds loader it will show those two last screens (seen above) which will then write the data from the sram to the .sav file (created by the EZ4 Patcher) on your SDMicro. I haven't found any major issues yet, and none of the titles that i've wanted to try have given any issues in patching or playing stages.

EDIT: took me a while to get the images working... site i have it posted on is picky with case-sensitivity

 

[jerky666]

BTW Ez Flash 3 works the same way with the saves.

It saves to an internal memory, which is being kept alive by the battery.

after restarting the DS, it writes this part of memory to a place in memory on the cart
(this is why if you fill an ez3 up too much, saves will corrupt, no place to write them).

This just seems to be the way in which ez-team has implemented saves.

There should be no issue with it working this way.

--JErky666

PS- Glad to see that the EZ-teams new product is up to snuff.

It will be a tough choice with which cart to go with once i start my new job

 

[Dirtie]

As long as the battery charge is retained so the SRAM stays charged, you should never lose your save. That can be quite a while

 

[zone97]

About how long is the delay at startup when it is writing the saves?

 

[ZildjianKX]

About how long is the delay at startup when it is writing the saves?

Probably about 2-3 seconds, it has to give you enough time to cancel the save in case you don't want to keep it (and want to keep your older save).

Also I think the review mentions they fixed the issues with other passme devices, if you're referring to nopass devices, they didn't.

Also for OS X users, you're probably going to get .DS_STORE files on your memory cards, kind of annoying that you will have to erase those manually.

 

[DjFIL]

i haven't had the .ds_store file appear on my memory card yet, maybe cause i never formated it in os x? and yeah... the wait for it to save the load durring boot is no more then 3 seconds, tops.