GBAtemp's Ewin Expansion Pack Review

[Sinkhead]

Ewin Expansion Pack Review
Official GBAtemp Review

I finished my review of the Ewin Expansion Pack, which allows slot-1 flashcart users to play GBA games hopefully quicker and easier than than it's main competitor, the EZ-Flash 3 in 1. Ewin mainly makes slot-2 carts and they have not yet made a slot-1 flashcart, but their slot-2 efforts were generally well-received and all-round good products, therefore I have high hopes for this!

Ewin Expansion Pack Review

Discuss this review

Official Ewin Website/Forums (Chinese)

 

[James B.]

I guess I should be glad I waited to buy a 3 in 1

.

 

[Mangofett]

Bronze award? With so many compatibility problems it really should't get any reward, IMO

 

[Sinkhead]

I was going to give it a 5/10 on the old system, the bronze award is for carts that would have gotten a 5 or 6. And I agree, the compatibility isn't exactly perfect at the moment

- Sam

 

[Salamantis]

When you ask for questions, you say M3DS Real, not EWin. Otherwise, great review once again!

 

[Sinkhead]

When you ask for questions, you say M3DS Real, not EWin. Otherwise, great review once again!

Too much copy-paste for Sinkhead tonight... And thanks, it's my pleasure

- Sam

 

[Destructobot]

Based on the 'save is corrupt' messages that Mario Advance 4 and Pokemon gave, this cart must not support 128KB saves. That is exactly what happens if you patch one of those games with GBATA (thus converting to 64KB saves) and run it from PSRAM on the 3-in-1. That isn't much of a problem though, there are only a couple of games that use 128KB saves that won't still save properly when patched to use 64KB saves.

It's too bad about the compatibility. I would buy one of these just for the faster loading speed if the compatibility were as good as the 3-in-1. Hopefully they will fix it, but I'm not holding my breath.

 

[PTtouch]

I bought one ewin from psxboy and I'm happy with it so far even though I haven't had much time to try all the games I want.


About compatibility issues and all that..well in my opinion we must see which games would we like to play in the first place...for instance i don't care about the problem with doom II since there's a DS Doom; Rayman 3 and Crash XS I'm not planning on playing them since I like those games better on the playstation or their DS versions so it isn't much of a problem in my view! It doesn't have cheats tho..it could have (I wouldn't mine having those rare items on pokemon and such

)
Of couse - and don't get me wrong - I would like to see it's loader more developed and with higher compatibility nonetheless, but we must really filter what we wish to play and see if the cart fits our needs, having 100% comp. isn't all.
So if you only intend to play Zelda, pokémon (without time based events), super mario and some others "mainstream" games I would recommend this cart for sure.

 

[Alastair]

I guess I should be glad I waited to buy a 3 in 1

.

I'm glad that I didn't wait and bought a 3in1 for myself and my girlfriend just recently! The Ewin would not have let me play games that we were both dying to play.

gotten

That's not a word (in English at least)!

Another great review that's made me feel comfortable about more previous purchases. Great work.

 

[Destructobot]

gotten
That's not a word (in English at least)!

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=gotten

 

[Harsky]

Another helpful review. Kinda makes me glad I just bought an EZFIV just for GBA playback.

 

[Mewgia]

gotten

That's not a word (in English at least)!

WHO GIVES A SHIT

...anyway, nice review

It's too bad about the compat problems, you were raving about this thing a few weeks ago iirc...

 

[Dardon]

I took a glance at reading it. Seems like if they continue to work on the current problems it has with game, it might shape up to be good. Also I didn't see this mentioned in the review, but I take it there's no RAM expansion for homebrew/opera browser?

 

[Nero]

I took a glance at reading it. Seems like if they continue to work on the current problems it has with game, it might shape up to be good. Also I didn't see this mentioned in the review, but I take it there's no RAM expansion for homebrew/opera browser?

I'm pretty sure there's 32MB of RAM for Browser/Homebrew. (Twice as much as the 3 in 1)
I think Sam just forgot to put that in.

~Nero

 

[Destructobot]

I think Sam just forgot to put that in.Â

~Nero

Nope, it's in there.

 

[Alastair]

I don't think this expansion pack has a bright future. The price is reasonable but its competition is still very cheap and has (in all of my experiences) perfect GBA compatibility.

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=gotten

American dictionary - not English.
http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/gotten?view=uk

WHO GIVES A SHIT

Anyone who cares about what comes out of their mouths (or fingers in this case) and of course the fellow that I quoted above this quote.

Edit: I'll never understand why people hate to be corrected. Someone needs to do it though and I won't stop. I don't want to see English evolve into the "slanguage" that American has become.

 

[Icarus]

I've just orderes this from Gaming Lagoon. I think 3 in 1 had lots of problems, especially with the saves and patching. I'm not too much of a GBA player but this should do it, I guess.

 

[Opium]

Edit: I'll never understand why people hate to be corrected. Someone needs to do it though and I won't stop. I don't want to see English evolve into the "slanguage" that American has become.

All language is an evolution. Time to get off the high horse.

Anyway, on topic. Good review. Personally I like the Ewin/DSTT GBA expansion card more than the 3in1. The auto-patching and save management is ace

 

[Alastair]

All language is an evolution. Time to get off the high horse.

It is but that does not mean that we have to embrace the fact that English's going to the dogs. I'm not getting off the high horse - I'll never ignore the rules of my language even though most Australians are half-way to being the fifty-first state.

 

[Cyan]

The auto-patching and save management is ace

Auto patching is a good idea, I'm a little rusty with GBA patching now

Too bad, I have a DS Phat, it should be in Cons that it's only for Lite users.


I didn't find how the saves works.
the saves from the epprom or flash are written back to the slot1 ?
- Does it create a file per game ? which format ? Can we import saves from another gba flash card format ?
- Or 1 save file for the loader.nds (managed by the slot1) with all the gba saves inside ?