Hacking EZIV minisd question

[xcalibur]

Ive looked around and i dont see any posts that have really answered my questions so please bear with me.

Im gonna get a EZIV minisd(wouldve already, fate has been in the way) and i have a few questions.

1) Is there a faster/Easier way of skinning? The only one i know of is the one on the sosuke forums where you have to use EZSkinner. Cant you skin it while the card is on, like R4?
2)If so, does that mean the only way to change your skin is to modify the firmware with EZSkinner and reflash it to your EZIV?
3) Is there a different program? EZSkinner doesnt work on Vista, it seems vista doesnt use some parts XP did... which is ironically the parts that are needed by EZSkinner. I get an
4)Is the EZ4 Client any good? The general consensus seems to be that GBATA is better to use when patching games so you can use it on the EZ 3 in 1. What i want to know is if i can apply the reset patch(Which caused problems on 3 in 1) and to what type of save type should i change it?
5) What format should i use? FAT16 with 64KB clusters?
6)Would a sandisk regular minidisk 2GB be good for NDS play on the EZIV?(im getting an R4 also and i might use the extra space to stuff more DS roms on my ds)
7)How good is EZIV in terms of homebrew? I heard that a lot of homebrew doesnt work. Would homebrew.gba work good?
8) Is there any batch patcher? Id hate to do all my GBA games one by one. Im gonna put over a hundred on there...That wold take a while one by one

Thanks for any answers

 

[FAST6191]

1. Skinning is offline only, you might get something working with DSlinux and multiple files but that is convoluted.

2. Yeah but see 1.

3. There is a DOS app without the VB stuff (which I guess it came unstuck on) but I am sucessfully avoiding me v2 Vista so no idea.

4. EZ4 Client works fine, GBATA is a good backup/alternative though in case of failure.

5. For strict GBA FAT16, cluster size does not matter.

6. Yeah but the original loader does not support 2 gig carts (it was added a week or so in) so have a 1gig just to flash it (there are micro to miniSD adapters if you were unaware)

7. It has a DLDI patch and a lot of older stuff was recompiled/reassembled prior to that. Compared to something like a CF GBAMP or SCCF then some of the really ancient stuff does not work. For all the three GBA DLDI apps I know of it should work and GBA homebrew works fine.
There is a text file explaining all about homebrew in the newest clients.

8. EZ4 Client can handle a batch of roms.
5.

 

[xcalibur]

Wait, The EZIV minisd doesnt support 2gig cards?
Not even with newer firmwares or production batches?

What would happen if i tried anyway?

Edit: it seems i can use 2gig cards
maybe i misunderstood your answer FAST
I dont get your comment about micro sd to sd adapter

Taken from the EZ-flash wiki site:

http://www.sosuke.com/ezflash/wiki/index.php/EZFlash_4

Quote:
The EZFlash IV (aka EZ4) is the lastest generation of Gameboy Advance and Nintendo DS rom carts.

This cart is quite different from the previous flash carts made by EZFlash although it resembles the EZFlash III in parts of hardware design: a 256mbit section and a 128mbit PSRAM bank to use for the transfer of Gameboy Advance roms, the NAND section the EZFlash III uses has been replaced by the miniSD slot.

Differences come in that it no longer uses a linker device and no longer only contains internal memory: there is a Mini-SD slot (and the upcoming lite edition of the EZ4 is pencilled in to use micro-SD) also the RTC (real time clock) technology has been dropped (only a few GBA roms use it and DS roms use the DS clock). This allows consumers to have more than one Mini-SD card, and of various sizes. Currently the EZ4 can read miniSD cards upto 2Gbytes. Thats two gigabytes, not gigabits (2gigabytes=16Giga


Edit 2: I read it through carefully and realised what it said

sadly it wont work for me. i got a 2gig SD-C02G japan card kingston
i could use my aunts 128mb card

 

[FAST6191]

Sorry that was a bit vague even by my standards. When the cart was launched the original loader would not access 2 gig miniSD, about 6 days later there was an update that enabled it (nobody really used it though as 2 gig carts have only hit sensible prices in the last 3 months really). The carts however tend to ship with an original loader onboard (not 100% as to whether they still do though). You could always email the shop to update the loader for you as well: they are usually more than happy to test it for you, loader updating can be done just as quick.

If not you only need a "small" one for 30 seconds to update the loader with, you might try formatting it as a smaller cart but I am unsure how to pull such a thing off.

As for the micro to mini I assumed you had a micro kicking around and thought you might be interested in one of these (they are fairly rare it seems):

http://www.mobymemory.com/products/SanDisk...2-adapters).asp

 

[xcalibur]

You were right to assume, i mentioned that i was getting an R4 in my first post.
I also mentioned in my second post that i had a SD-C02G, i thought that serial only applied to japanese kingston microsd's,assuming you wouldve recognised that, so i was a bit vague too.

I think i have one of those micro to mini adapters laying around(3 in 1 SD pack), if not, i can buy the adapters for dirtcheap locally. If the updating doesnt work with my 2gig card, ill use an adapter and my aunts 128mb microsd.

As for micro to mini, are they really rare??
I see them all over the place here in egypt.
Theyre never that overpriced either, only 10 EGP more when included in a bundle, thats about $2

Thanks for your help FAST

P.S.: if its not too much trouble, could you elaborate on your answer to question 4?
You only answered one part. I want to know if you can safely apply the reset patch on GBA games and to which save type i should patch the games to, if they need patching.
I know a bit about the EZ 3in1 and i assume that the hardware is similar.

If you apply the reset patch on the 3in1 then it messes up

 

[FAST6191]

I find the adapters a pretty good way of adding a microSD slot to electronics but that is besides the point.


As for elaboration GBATA can do pretty much all what EZ4 Client can (as well as sleep mode) but there are a few games that EZ4 Client does not like (there are a few threads in the EZ4 forums with them in), if GBATA is used instead it can get them working though.

Oh and speaking of sleep mode Dwedit (same person behind Goomba color) made a sleep mode patcher which seems to work a bit better than the others I have seen, visit the forums on the site: http://dwedit.home.comcast.net/ .
If you want reset patching try and find an app called BOMA (boot-o-matic advance), it is pretty good and works where GBATA sometimes fails.