Homebrew GBA roms using R4 and a flash card in slot 2

[thunder7child]

Hi to everyone. It's my first post here, so forgive my "newbiness". I'm a new owner of a DS lite, for which i intend to buy the R4 SDHC. As i have seen from a little searching on the forum, it's not possible to play GBA roms by just using the R4 and i'll be needing a flash card for slot 2 (ez 3-1 being the first choice). As i also own a GBA SP, i'd like to ask if instead of the ez 3-1 i can use my 256mb "Smart Card" flash card for that (or any other old gba flash cards that se we used on the gba) and have the roms load from the R4.
Don't ask me y on earth i'd want to do that instead of just playing the games directly from the gba flash card, the answer is obvious. The R4 can store a lot more gba games and writing roms into those old flash cards used to take quite long.
So, if anyone else has used another flash card except of the ez to do what i described, please let me know.

Thanks to all

 

[DanTheManMS]

for which i intend to buy the R4 SDHC
NO. For the love of god NO. Stay away from anything with "R4" in the name. Any SDHC-compatible version of the R4 is either a fake or a clone, and as such we can't guarantee that it'll work well, if at all. Please, research your various options and get something else.

As i have seen from a little searching on the forum, it's not possible to play GBA roms by just using the R4 and i'll be needing a flash card for slot 2 (ez 3-1 being the first choice).
Your research is correct, and this is accurate.

QUOTE

As i also own a GBA SP, i'd like to ask if instead of the ez 3-1 i can use my 256mb "Smart Card" flash card for that (or any other old gba flash cards that se we used on the gba) and have the roms load from the R4.
Don't ask me y on earth i'd want to do that instead of just playing the games directly from the gba flash card, the answer is obvious. The R4 can store a lot more gba games and writing roms into those old flash cards used to take quite long.

The idea isn't a strange one or anything. However, I don't believe that anyone has made software that can write to the Smart Card on the DS itself. Someone has made software like that for the old Flash Advance cartridges, called "FAS1" for "Flash Advance Slot-1", but for the most part the 3in1 is your main option.

 

[thunder7child]

Thanks for ur answer, i'd have gone with the R4 otherwise. I guess i'll choose a Supercard Ds One instead and see if i can make it work with the gba flashcard i already have. If not, i'll go for a 3in1 as well.

 

[DanTheManMS]

No slot-1 device is going to have built-in support for anything except the 3in1, except for the SCDS which only has built-in support for its slot-2 Supercard products. Of course any slot-1 device can run GBA ExpLoader to manage the 3in1, but I'm talking about built-in support.

The SCDS is an okay product, though you may wish to also look at the CycloDS Evolution or Acekard 2. The SCDS has lots of features, but it's a bit more difficult to use than most other carts.

 

[Vague Rant]

No slot-1 device is going to have built-in support for anything except the 3in1, except for the SCDS which only has built-in support for its slot-2 Supercard products.

There's also the M3 Real with its expansion, and an Acekard 2 with AKAIO does support the FAS1 natively.

 

[DanTheManMS]

Yeah, forgot about the M3 Real there, though I did not know AKAIO had FAS1 code built-in, so that's news to me.

 

[thunder7child]

Is it possible to use the old gba flashcards as ram expansion?

 

[koji2009]

In general? No... most GBA flash cards used NOR memory which is too slow when written to to be used as RAM.

GBA flashcards that used SD media (super card, M3, etc) in theory can be and SDOne does this automatically with any supercard in slot-2, but I'm not sure of the particulars if there are programs individually made for other Slot-1 cards to use them.

 

[Tac 21]

why the hell are people still buying the r4?

guys, its a decent flash cart... THATS IT. Theres WAY better ones out there- save your money on them, while they still update.

 

[jruschme]

No slot-1 device is going to have built-in support for anything except the 3in1, except for the SCDS which only has built-in support for its slot-2 Supercard products. Of course any slot-1 device can run GBA ExpLoader to manage the 3in1, but I'm talking about built-in support.

YSMenu supports a few slot-2 cards. I know I was using a DSTT running YSMenu with my old SuperCard CF to run GBA games. I just needed to remember to turn the DS immediately back on after turning it off so that YSMenu would write the SRAM to the .SAV file.

 

[koji2009]

why the hell are people still buying the r4?

guys, its a decent flash cart... THATS IT. Theres WAY better ones out there- save your money on them, while they still update.

Because it simply got the most publicity. Normally when nintendo or another company goes after pirates, it doesn't name them... It only releases press statements saying how bad that company is and that how good they are for legally killing them.

With R4 though it was different. Nintendo specifically targeted that company and made it quite clear that was the big one they were after. Many people only know about DS pirating because of nintendo's trumpeting it's defeat of R4 and therefore everyone is most curios about it.

That and R4 was simply the best during it's time, some people may debate that but the R4 had great compatibility and always quickly released updates (usually within a couple days) of a non-working game being discovered and added functionality regularly as well (original the R4 supported neither cheats nor download play) so it did built up quite a following before all that happened.