Homebrew F-Zero Climax GBA: picture off-center.

[Lumstar]

I'm trying to play injected F-Zero Climax (on USA region N3DS XL), but the game screen is glaringly misaligned. It wraps around so the top row of pixels displays on the bottom.
I don't think I've heard of people encountering this before with GBA VC. How can this be fixed?

 

[Eddypikachu]

I remember it has to do with how the SD card is formatted, It's a problem with big SD card like 132 GB ones.
A temporary fix is to press the home button to open the prpmpt and close out and the screen willl shift up or down, and just keep pressing the home button until the screen centers itself.
For the best "permanent" solution back up your entire sd card and format it to be FAT32 with 32kb clusters using a program like guiformat, then restore your SD cards contents and the screen should always be centered now.

 

[TurdPooCharger]

@Lumstar, that's the GBA VC graphical glitch bug caused by the SD card formatted with the wrong cluster size.

This is commonly experienced for cards that are 64 GB and smaller formatted with 64 KB cluster size. The recommended cluster size is 32 KB. Most cards that are 128 GB and larger can usually get away with 64 KB cluster, but some have reported their 128 GB cards using 64 KB cluster experiencing this bug too.

To fix this

1. Copy everything off your SD card onto a computer.
2. To be extra thorough, format the card with these settings in MiniTool Partition Wizard (free edition):

• Format: FAT32
• Cluster Size: 32 KB
• Partition: Primary
• Disk: MBR

MiniTool Partition Wizard Software Tutorial Guide

1. Delete Partition
2. Initialize to MBR Disk -or- Convert GPT to MBR Disk (if it's in GPT Disk)
3. Rebuild MBR
4. Create a New Partition [ Create as: Primary | File System: FAT32 | Cluster Size: 32 KB ]

If you have the pro version of this software, do NOT use the cluster size changer feature. That option screws up setting the card with a clean reformatting.

3. Copy everything back on the card and check again.​

 

[Lumstar]

How strange, I appreciate it. Copying the games will take a while haha.
Fortunately I only need to inject games that play better than on other emulators.

 

[TurdPooCharger]

How strange, I appreciate it. Copying the games will take a while haha.
Fortunately I only need to inject games that play better than on other emulators.

Use New Super Ultimate Injector over the older Ultimate GBA VC Injector for 3DS (in case you missed the memo).

If you want to be extra super sure your SD card will reformat correct, first hit it with SD Memory Card Formatter before formatting again with MiniTool Partition Wizard.

Also, if you've never done so before, check the empty card with a full Write + Verify Test in H2testw. This will inspect the card for hardware defects and determine if the card's fake. You can never be too sure your flash memory purchases are legit these days, not even if you buy name brand from Amazon. Counterfeit products get mixed in with real goods forcing consumers to be extra careful with their SD cards and USB drives before using them.

 

[BodeIsCool]

So i followed what was described above by changing the cluster size to 32KB and it did not resolve the issue at all (I have the screen shift issue when playing Pokémon games but not other GBA games...). I searched some more on the issue and found a youtube video describing the problem. In it, it did talk about spamming the home button while in a game to slowly shift the screen to normal, and that did work for me. But in the comments of the video, people where saying that you need to format the cluster size to 64KB instead of 32KB. I did this as a last ditch effort, and IT WORKED. I don't know why TurdPooCharger (great name) suggested 32KB but I bet there was a reason for. Also note that I was using a SanDisk 128GB SD card that I got from walmart.

 

[lone_wolf323]

So i followed what was described above by changing the cluster size to 32KB and it did not resolve the issue at all (I have the screen shift issue when playing Pokémon games but not other GBA games...). I searched some more on the issue and found a youtube video describing the problem. In it, it did talk about spamming the home button while in a game to slowly shift the screen to normal, and that did work for me. But in the comments of the video, people where saying that you need to format the cluster size to 64KB instead of 32KB. I did this as a last ditch effort, and IT WORKED. I don't know why TurdPooCharger (great name) suggested 32KB but I bet there was a reason for. Also note that I was using a SanDisk 128GB SD card that I got from walmart.

32kb is the normal size for cards. if there are issues then 64kb is suggested to try. If 64kb poses issues then its 32kb to try.