Hacking GBA and Sakura

[YoshiRiRu]

Hey everyone.

Is there a problem with Sakura and saving on (fairly newer) Mario GBA games? I got a new M3 GBA adaptor to replace my defective one and was a little disheartened to find that Mario Advance 3 and 4 in addition to Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga didn't save. (Mario Advances simply say "Save Data is corrupt" at the opening of the game, while Superstar Saga waits until I attempt a save before denying me.) Mario Advance 1 and 2 both save fine; and I got them from the same place that I got the 3rd and 4th. I also know that it isn't just new games that are messed up because Final Fantasy VI saves fine and I know it isn't just first party games because Metroid Zero Mission saves fine. Pokemon Fire Red proclaims at start-up "The SM-1 Subboard is not properly installed" (or something). When trying to save in game, I get the message "Save error: Please exchange the backup memory."

I'm a little concerned that a brand spankin' new GBA expansion (Recieved yesterday from Gameyeeah, to be exact) is already failing on me. Is there something I'm missing? Am I messing up in some way? Or has anyone experience (and fixed, hopefully) this problem?

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks in Advance! (Pun intended.)

 

[thedicemaster]

those games often require save-patching.
they use a save-system not supported by most flashcards(1Mb/128KB)

 

[YoshiRiRu]

So, does that mean I'm simply doomed to not play those games on my M3? Or is there a way to patch these saves? IIRC, I was able to save on Fire Red quite readily before my first GBA adapter broke.

 

[thedicemaster]

i think gbata has a savepatcher.
otherwise you can google for some ips savepatches.

 

[YoshiRiRu]

Actually, my friend; that's a negative! Success achieved!

As soon as you said "Patching saves", I thought of the M3Real's GUI and how the GBA mode had 2 boot modes; Patch and Fast load. Looking into the M3 Sakura's OS a little more, I found that if you slide the game to the left, you can get to an options screen that has the option to "Low-Speed Load", which is the same as "Patch-Load" on the M3Real. As soon as I swapped that setting, every game that gave me trouble worked fine.

The only hassle is that you have to set it individually for each game (which entails setting it and then restarting your DS) but it's a small price to pay. Besides, once you set it once it's set for good, so one good 5 min session should have everything you need running. Thanks again for your help, TDM.