Hacking G6 lite can you help me out?

[jalaneme]

i just want to ask a few questions before i decide to buy this flash cart...

with the original GBA adapter installed can you plug & play it on the GBA player?

i looked on G6's official website and had a look at their tutorial on some of the pictures the gba roms's name was cut off, is this a major problem with the G6? and has it been fixed? or is this problem only in the G6 program on the PC?

how is gamesave support for gba games? not much is mentioned about how the G6 saves gba games? i know it uses real time save and saving to Sram but how do i write the gamesave to the flash cart? can you backup saves to the PC? and biggest question of all does it support eprom save type? (minish cap)

can you use a action replay or a codebreaker cart with gba games on the G6? i know you can use cheat files but they seem quite limited, can you turn codes off and on with the gba cheat files or are they always on when you play the gba game?

can you boot this flash cart within the R4DS slot 2 menu? or does it just show 2 white screens when you attempt to do this?

does dipstar work fully with the G6 and slot 1 device such as the R4DS? with no problems? if yes do you have to patch the DS games first before you use dipstar on them?

how good is the real time clock? does it work well with games like pokemon and boktai?

how easy is it to play and install other types of roms onto the flash cart? are there patching involved or is it simply drag and drop? i mainly want to play gameboy and gameboy colour roms, how is the speed? is it choppy as hell or decent enough?

if you do attempt to answer my questions i would like to thank you in advance, i just can't seem to find answers for my questions anywhere as the gba scene is basically dead, the G6 forums are dead too

 

[xalphax]

with the original GBA adapter installed can you plug & play it on the GBA player?

- if i understand this right, you dont need to flash your system for playing gba roms with this...



i looked on G6's official website and had a look at their tutorial on some of the pictures the gba roms's name was cut off, is this a major problem with the G6? and has it been fixed? or is this problem only in the G6 program on the PC?

- not happened to me, everything fine and full


how is gamesave support for gba games? not much is mentioned about how the G6 saves gba games? i know it uses real time save and saving to Sram but how do i write the gamesave to the flash cart? can you backup saves to the PC? and biggest question of all does it support eprom save type? (minish cap)

- the game is first saved to the sram and after you power up the machine again its saved from sram to the flash
you can just copy your saves over to a pc and store them, convert them hex them whatever.
afaik minish cap works no problems


can you use a action replay or a codebreaker cart with gba games on the G6? i know you can use cheat files but they seem quite limited, can you turn codes off and on with the gba cheat files or are they always on when you play the gba game?

-sorry, idk


can you boot this flash cart within the R4DS slot 2 menu? or does it just show 2 white screens when you attempt to do this?

- works like a charm

does dipstar work fully with the G6 and slot 1 device such as the R4DS? with no problems? if yes do you have to patch the DS games first before you use dipstar on them?

-idk

how good is the real time clock? does it work well with games like pokemon and boktai?

-like real catridge imho


how easy is it to play and install other types of roms onto the flash cart? are there patching involved or is it simply drag and drop? i mainly want to play gameboy and gameboy colour roms, how is the speed? is it choppy as hell or decent enough?

-you dont need to patch gba games (if you dont want softreset or real time save) just ds games need patching if you want to save, that is.


if you do attempt to answer my questions i would like to thank you in advance, i just can't seem to find answers for my questions anywhere as the gba scene is basically dead, the G6 forums are dead too

- your welcome

 

[jalaneme]

with the original GBA adapter installed can you plug & play it on the GBA player?

- if i understand this right, you don't need to flash your system for playing gba roms with this...

i was talking about the gameboy advanced player adapter for the gamecube, this;

it's the thing at the bottom of the cube i am talking about, can anyone answer the questions about the cheats? if not i t i guess i will find out myself when i buy it.

QUOTEhow easy is it to play and install other types of roms onto the flash cart? are there patching involved or is it simply drag and drop? i mainly want to play gameboy and gameboy colour roms, how is the speed? is it choppy as hell or decent enough?

-you dont need to patch gba games (if you dont want softreset or real time save) just ds games need patching if you want to save, that is.

i was talking about old mono gameboy games not gameboy advanced games, i'm not using this flash cart for DS games so i don't care about that.

 

[xalphax]

oh, i see

sorry for the misunderstanding

 

[Destructobot]

with the original GBA adapter installed can you plug & play it on the GBA player?
As far as I know, yes. It works in a GBA, so it should work in a GBA player.

i looked on G6's official website and had a look at their tutorial on some of the pictures the gba roms's name was cut off, is this a major problem with the G6? and has it been fixed? or is this problem only in the G6 program on the PC?
The GBA game menu uses the internal rom name from the file header, not the filename. This means that if you want to change the name that is displayed you have to edit the .gba file with a utility of some sort, or a hex editor. This is also why emulated games always show up as the name of the emulator rather than the name of the emulated rom.

The rom names do get cut off in large icon mode, but you can just switch to small icon mode and get a plain list, without the names cut off at the end.

can you use a action replay or a codebreaker cart with gba games on the G6? i know you can use cheat files but they seem quite limited, can you turn codes off and on with the gba cheat files or are they always on when you play the gba game?
You cannot use those cheat devices with the G6 in DS or GBA mode. I don't know about the GBA cheat files, I never tried to use them.

QUOTEdoes dipstar work fully with the G6 and slot 1 device such as the R4DS? with no problems? if yes do you have to patch the DS games first before you use dipstar on them?

You cannot use dipstar with the R4 and G6, but it works just fine with the G6 by itself. You 'dip' the DS rom, then you go into the file browser and press X on dipstar.ds.gba to load it into the GBA ram. After that it works just like it would with a slot 1 cart and a menu-less GBA cart.

QUOTE

how easy is it to play and install other types of roms onto the flash cart? are there patching involved or is it simply drag and drop? i mainly want to play gameboy and gameboy colour roms, how is the speed? is it choppy as hell or decent enough?

The only way to play GB or GBC games is with Goomba and Goomba Color. Speed is actually quite good, though some GBC games slow down a bit. Goomba is built in to the U-disk manager, Goomba Color is not. PocketNES is also built in. You can run GB and NES roms directly from the cart without patching, but if you want to be able to save, or have them show up in the game list, you have to run them through the U-disk manager.

 

[jalaneme]

with the original GBA adapter installed can you plug & play it on the GBA player?

As far as I know, yes. It works in a GBA, so it should work in a GBA player.

i looked on G6's official website and had a look at their tutorial on some of the pictures the gba roms's name was cut off, is this a major problem with the G6? and has it been fixed? or is this problem only in the G6 program on the PC?

The GBA game menu uses the internal rom name from the file header, not the filename. This means that if you want to change the name that is displayed you have to edit the .gba file with a utility of some sort, or a hex editor. This is also why emulated games always show up as the name of the emulator rather than the name of the emulated rom.

The rom names do get cut off in large icon mode, but you can just switch to small icon mode and get a plain list, without the names cut off at the end.

can you use a action replay or a codebreaker cart with gba games on the G6? i know you can use cheat files but they seem quite limited, can you turn codes off and on with the gba cheat files or are they always on when you play the gba game?

You cannot use those cheat devices with the G6 in DS or GBA mode. I don't know about the GBA cheat files, I never tried to use them.

does dipstar work fully with the G6 and slot 1 device such as the R4DS? with no problems? if yes do you have to patch the DS games first before you use dipstar on them?

You cannot use dipstar with the R4 and G6, but it works just fine with the G6 by itself. You 'dip' the DS rom, then you go into the file browser and press X on dipstar.ds.gba to load it into the GBA ram. After that it works just like it would with a slot 1 cart and a menu-less GBA cart.

how easy is it to play and install other types of roms onto the flash cart? are there patching involved or is it simply drag and drop? i mainly want to play gameboy and gameboy colour roms, how is the speed? is it choppy as hell or decent enough?

The only way to play GB or GBC games is with Goomba and Goomba Color. Speed is actually quite good, though some GBC games slow down a bit. Goomba is built in to the U-disk manager, Goomba Color is not. PocketNES is also built in. You can run GB and NES roms directly from the cart without patching, but if you want to be able to save, or have them show up in the game list, you have to run them through the U-disk manager.

ok, well my current flash cart uses the rom name aswell, but i am able to quickly edit the game title before i load it onto the flash cart, is it the same situation here? and what do you mean hex editor?

i'm looking for a simple way to edit and rename, drag and drop my roms without having to hack rom data and such, 1 negative point for the G6 lite i think.

ok, what i meant was if you look at the official website and look at the faq guide, the name in one of the pictures are shown like this;

stree~1.gba

jut like the ninjapass x9 did at first, that's what i was worried about, but you say when you go into icon mode the name cuts off, i've seen a picture of icon mode and the name doesn't cut off like pictured above, it just cuts off because of size, i was concerned about the software of the G6 not being able to support long file names full stop in any mode.

can you please confirm, have you actually tried using a codebreaker yourself or a action replay with the G6 lite? i hope you know i was talking about putting the G6 lite in a codebreaker cart after i have put the normal gba sized case on the chip i hope that makes sense, you are answering the question based on the small DSlite case, am i correct?

ok let me get this straight, you say that the G6 lite is not supported by dipstar? again have you tried this yourself? i'm sure the readme included with dipstar said that a G6 works with dipstar as it's basically made by M3 and that is what the program is based on, M3, i would have thought that putting only the dipstar file in the GBA part and then loading the R4 and selecting a DS game and then press and hold on of the buttons should be more than enough, after all the G6 lite does boot by the slot 2 option in the R4 i would have presumed it would work, i won't be using the G6 lite with DS games at all, just gba stuff, take note, thanks.

meh, i heard from other different sources that it's not direct boot of gameboy games and such, such a shame

i already use goomba alpha for gameboy/gameboy colour games anyway so nothing will change there i guess.

edit: bah forget it, my old flash cart does exactly what this flash does, it doesn't offer anything new so i think i am going to pass buying this flash cart.

 

[Destructobot]

ok, what i meant was if you look at the official website and look at the faq guide, the name in one of the pictures are shown like this;

stree~1.gba

jut like the ninjapass x9 did at first, that's what i was worried about, but you say when you go into icon mode the name cuts off, i've seen a picture of icon mode and the name doesn't cut off like pictured above, it just cuts off because of size, i was concerned about the software of the G6 not being able to support long file names full stop in any mode.
It does not do the ~1 thing to the filenames. In DS mode it uses the proper (long) filenames. In GBA mode it doesn't use filenames at all, it uses the twelve character rom name and the four character game code (usually something like AGBX) that comes after it in the rom header. In large icon mode it does not have room to display all 12 characters of the rom name, so you end up with names like 'CASTLEVA...' or 'GBAZELD...' and so on. There is no built in way to edit the rom names. You can use a utility the the Flash Advance Toolkit to edit the name, but I found a hex editor to be more useful. With a hex editor you can change the game code as well as the rom name, giving you 16 letters to work with instead of 12.

can you please confirm, have you actually tried using a codebreaker yourself or a action replay with the G6 lite? i hope you know i was talking about putting the G6 lite in a codebreaker cart after i have put the normal gba sized case on the chip i hope that makes sense, you are answering the question based on the small DSlite case, am i correct?
I have not tried them personally, but I don't think there is any way they could work. (I was actually thinking of the DS versions of those devices when I answered the first time)

When those devices look at the memory area assigned to the GBA cart, they expect to find a rom. With the G6, they find the G6's menu instead.

I was just assuming you would put the G6 in whatever case was needed to fit it into your DS/GBA player/cheat device.

ok let me get this straight, you say that the G6 lite is not supported by dipstar? again have you tried this yourself? i'm sure the readme included with dipstar said that a G6 works with dipstar as it's basically made by M3 and that is what the program is based on, M3, i would have thought that putting only the dipstar file in the GBA part and then loading the R4 and selecting a DS game and then press and hold on of the buttons should be more than enough, after all the G6 lite does boot by the slot 2 option in the R4 i would have presumed it would work, i won't be using the G6 lite with DS games at all, just gba stuff, take note, thanks.

The G6 (or any other slot 2 cart with a menu) cannot be used as the slot 2 cart for running dipped games from slot 1, because again, when dipstar looks at the GBA memory area it expects to find the data from dipstar.ds.gba, but it finds the G6's menu instead. The way you use dipstar on the G6 and slot 2 M3 carts is to use the DS/GBA union feature, which allows a DS game to "see" a GBA rom when it looks for one. This only works when the DS game is being run from the G6 (or slot 2 M3) though.


QUOTE

edit: bah forget it, my old flash cart does exactly what this flash does, it doesn't offer anything new so i think i am going to pass buying this flash cart.

Yeah, you should try to find an old menu-less GBA cart like the original F2A for cheap (maybe used) and use that for dipstar, it sounds like you have the rest covered already. If you have an old (phat) DS this is the only way you are going to get dipstar working with the R4.

The EZ-V 3 in 1 cart may be working with the R4 and other slot 1 carts soon, so if you have a DS lite, that would also work for dipstar. Who knows when it will be usable though.

 

[jalaneme]

well i had a look at the M3 lite, cheaper than the G6 lite but has no old GBA adapter, so no go, and the menu looks like crap. F2A i can't find anywhere nor can i find any other old gba flash carts most websites only sell the G6 lite, there was a few websites that sold the EZ flash III but i don't want that flash cart either as the compatibility is poor with a number of gba games and is just as expensive as the G6 lite 0_o

EZ flash 4 is out of the question either, no real time save + you have to buy mini SD, so my only option is to keep my old flash cart or cross my fingers and go for the G6 lite, and i'm sure the codebreaker would work as you can turn off the codes before you get to the actual games and then turn the codes on when you get into the actual game.

i have a DS lite, but i will be mainly using this flash cart in a GBA SP and gameboy player so that's is the reason why i need the old gba adapter, it's a big shame it doesn't work with dipstar

slot 2 is not really good for DS games so that won't be a option for me i guess.

 

[Destructobot]

The M3 lite does have a GBA shell, but it's sold seperately. AFAIK the M3 lite is pretty much the same for GBA games and dipstar as the G6. The G6 is really pretty good for DS games. There are a couple of games that it actually plays better than the R4/Simply. It's too expensive just for GBA & dipstar though.

I'm hoping the person/people working on a DLDI interface for the EZ 3 in 1 cart actually come through soon. It's looking like they might. It only holds one game at a time, but for the price and features it can't be beat.

You should check out the trading forum. there are a few old GBA carts for sale there.