Hacking gba games with the m3lite won't save

[gatorade]

I'm not sure how do I save gba games with the m3 lite?

 

[JPH]

Did you run them through the patching software?

 

[gatorade]

patching software?

 

[Another World]

First you must load your game using the M3 Game Manager software. This software will create a .dat save file associated with the ROM. The M3 Lite contains an SRAM battery that will only store the SRAM for the last game you played. When you boot up your NDS if you continue to play the same game your SRAM save game file will remain in the M3 Lite's memory. If you load a second differet game the SRAM will be over written. This is because the M3 Lite is not designed to keep track of what ROMs you are running, consider how Retail carts only contain SRAM for that specific cart. You can't save your Pokemon save to a Mario game for instance... The M3 team has fixed this problem by allowing you to dump your SRAM save into a .dat file. You can have your M3 set up to automatically save on boot up, and this feature can be turned on/off in the options of the main menu. The issue with automatically doing this is that if you by mistake try to load a .gba ROM in the .nds mode, on boot it the cart could save the .gba data to the first available .nds data and thus corrupt your MicroSD and require a format. I have experienced this problem and now I keep the auto save feature off. If it is off the only option is to manually dump the SRAM before you start playing a game. Hit "Start" on the "GAME" icon of the M3 to boot it into GBA mode and then press "select" to load the GBA mode save feature. The cart will ask you if you want to back up the save for the game you played before powering down last time, and to which file you want to save it. Find the correct file and then follow the onscreen information to dump your SRAM into the .dat file.

The same can be done for NDS roms, but I personally am only running homebrew with savestates off of my M3 Lite so I can't speak on that feature.

Goodluck,
-AW

 

[gatorade]

thanks for the info, I'm gonna go redo everything

seriously thanks for the info and the patience to write that, I know that took way more than 5min to write

 

[gatorade]

btw, do you know how to make that menu popup where you can select real time save, rom patch, etc?

it always disappears if I select the use same method for all

sorry for the double post, I'm used to most forums just automatically merging both posts when you do a double post

for some reason the saves dont work with gbc games?

 

[Another World]

btw, do you know how to make that menu popup where you can select real time save, rom patch, etc?

it always disappears if I select the use same method for all

sorry for the double post, I'm used to most forums just automatically merging both posts when you do a double post

for some reason the saves dont work with gbc games?

When you select the "same method for all" option the software assumes you want to use the settings on ALL roms you are about to flash, and thus does not prompt you for more input per ROM. I recommend that you don't flash ROMs in batch. I have had ROMs not load when flashed that way, forcing me to re-flash them. I now flash each ROM 1 at a time.

As for GBC ROMs it depends on what emulator you are running in your Slot2. I will assume are you using Goomba Color? I have only used it a few times but my understanding is that dwedit has it coded to dump save files to SRAM. If there is no "save state" option that you can assume it is saving to the Slot2 SRAM. I'm not 100% positive he has it set up this way, but assuming it is you would need to save your SRAM to the M3 Lite .dat file as with any ROM. As far as the M3 Lite is concerned it assumes your GoombaColor.GBA is just a normal GBA game that gets its save file stored in the battery backup SRAM. Dumping that data to the .dat file for storage should in theory work like any other game. I do make use of PocketNES in my Slot2 very often and found that SRAM dumping works just fine for keeping saved games.

You could ask dwedit personally: http://www.pocketheaven.com/boards/viewforum.php?f=29

Goodluck,
-AW

 

[gatorade]

I just stuck the m3 lite in my gba since it wasn't saving to test it and it still doesn't save

gba games save fine, just now gb games

 

[m3rox]

I just stuck the m3 lite in my gba since it wasn't saving to test it and it still doesn't save

gba games save fine, just now gb games

For GB/GBC, download the latest version of Lameboy (0.9 is the latest), to save with it, just save in game, then press the X button.

 

[gatorade]

how about if I try using the m3 lite in my gba? I occasionally switch it from my ds to the gba for traveling or if I don't want to bring my ds along

 

[Another World]

if your .gba roms still aren't saving your doing something wrong. everything i typed up already are the correct steps to dumping your sram data to the .dat file. if you are having issues with a specific emulator involving save states, please look up that emu on the pocketheaven forum and ask the people who maintain it. if you can't figure out how to dump your emulator sram saves to the .dat file, please reread what i typed above.

i can confirm that ALL emulators run in my slot2 m3 lite dump perfectly from sram to .dat. i can also confirm that .gba files have no problem at all.

-aw