GBAtemp's G6-Flash 3rd Generation review

[Opium]

G6-Flash 3rd Generation Review

GBAtemp's official review of the G6-Flash 3rd Generation is now up! Be sure to check out the REVIEW.
Hopfully this will help some people out their deciding whether or not this is the flashcart for them. The G6-Flash boasts the best DS rom compatibility on the market with cartridge sizes varying from 1Gbit to 4Gbit.

 

[matt1freek]

Thanks for the very informative review.. and to be completely honest it is also very reasuring
I just got my g6 in the mail last week (with the same dent in the case btw, tho free stylus's thrown in ?accidentally?

)
However i cant use it till xmas.
I really appreciate the filing tip about the button since i had no idea that would drain the battery, also while the gba compatibility and load times are indeed disappointing.. thats not why i bought it. since i currently have a fa xtreme 256 and a f2a ultra that work great.
so all in all thank you very much.. i was waiting for this review

 

[MC DUI]

Good review Opium, thanks to GBAtemp and kicktrading.ca for keeping us fully informed once again

I had my doubts over some of the features of the G6 and this review has only highlighted them to me.

The fact that you have to muck around with the saves is the biggest turnoff for me, along with the fact that you cannot fit much onto the cart compared to the Supercard or M3.

The way the Supercard simply saves its games like an original DS game makes me glad its the cart I wen't with.

 

[Mr.Curlynose1]

Thank you Opium! That educated me on a lot I didn't know.

Very good review!

 

[ym2kmobile]

When saving the game the save file is written into a temporary memory space. If you boot up the DS and boot the same game it will load correctly, however the problem arises when you boot another DS game and save. This will overwrite the save file already in the temporary space, so your previous save file will disappear.

HOLD IT!!!! There is obviously a contradiction with your above statement!

The saves will still retain if you boot another game. The default game saves will be overwrite only if you boot the same game with another save files. Let me goes into details here:

If you are using all the latest software & firmware by G6, and used G6 manager to write your NDS roms, here is the truth. Everytime you write a rom to your G6 using the manager, it will create 3 saves files. The 1st is the default, the other 2 is the actual saves. When running your roms, all your saves will be updates on the default no matter which slots you choose when running the game. The saves file you choose, only tell G6 to boot with that saves. Any other new saves in the rom progress will still be write in that game default saves. The reasons why we are advise to backup is because if we boot the same games with another saves, it will overwrite your previous saves in the default saves if you never backup to the actual saves. Since each games has it own default saves & actual saves, you can never overwrite the default saves when running other games.

To sum it, it will be fine to just use the default save for all your games in your G6 if you only intend to use 1 save file for each games.

I request the witness to re-testify!!

lol, pardon me, i just play too much Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney.

 

[Opium]

When saving the game the save file is written into a temporary memory space. If you boot up the DS and boot the same game it will load correctly, however the problem arises when you boot another DS game and save. This will overwrite the save file already in the temporary space, so your previous save file will disappear.

HOLD IT!!!! There is obviously a contradiction with your above statement!

The saves will still retain if you boot another game. The default game saves will be overwrite only if you boot the same game with another save files. Let me goes into details here:

If you are using all the latest software & firmware by G6, and used G6 manager to write your NDS roms, here is the truth. Everytime you write a rom to your G6 using the manager, it will create 3 saves files. The 1st is the default, the other 2 is the actual saves. When running your roms, all your saves will be updates on the default no matter which slots you choose when running the game. The saves file you choose, only tell G6 to boot with that saves. Any other new saves in the rom progress will still be write in that game default saves. The reasons why we are advise to backup is because if we boot the same games with another saves, it will overwrite your previous saves in the default saves if you never backup to the actual saves. Since each games has it own default saves & actual saves, you can never overwrite the default saves when running other games.

To sum it, it will be fine to just use the default save for all your games in your G6 if you only intend to use 1 save file for each games.

I request the witness to re-testify!!

lol, pardon me, i just play too much Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney.

....you lost me. You see what I mean when I said the save system is unnecessarily complicated? Or is it just me?

I hate fiddling around with saves, that's why the EZ-Flash 3 and Ewin are so great, their GBA save management systems are awesome.

I also said in the review that contrary to how I heard the save system decribed I did not lose saves from booting another game without using the backup feature

QUOTE

...Booting other games without using the backup feature has worked for me before (when I didn’t know how the backup feature worked). Problems arose when I copied the save files from the cartridge to the computer. When I decided to play a rom again and wrote the rom and save files back to the cartridge I’d find the save file either disappeared completely or I’d lost a few hours of playtime in the save.

I'm still confused with the saving system of the G6.

I'm glad you guys liked the review. GBAtemp will continue to keep you guys informed with flashcart reviews. However I wont be writing another review anytime soon. It'll be other staff member's turns since I just did the Superpass and Ewin review as well.

 

[Heil!]

Me want a M3 Perfect review!

 

[Opium]

Me want a M3 Perfect review!

One of our other staff members is going to review it. So a review of the M3 will come........eventually.

 

[assassda]

the G6 tin is dented and its bothering me....

 

[Ender15]

So which one would you recommend, you having played on a g6, should I get a G6 4Gbit card, or a M3 Perfect CF, with a 4GBYTE card?

 

[Opium]

the G6 tin is dented and its bothering me....


Deal with it, I had to

QUOTESo which one would you recommend, you having played on a g6, should I get a G6 4Gbit card, or a M3 Perfect CF, with a 4GBYTE card?

Well I haven't tried out the M3, so I don't know how well it performs. But I would suggest comparing the price of each of them. The 4GB CF card and M3 and the 4Gbit G6. If you can afford a 4GB CF card, imagine all the games you could store on that

 

[ym2kmobile]

....you lost me. You see what I mean when I said the save system is unnecessarily complicated? Or is it just me?

I hate fiddling around with saves, that's why the EZ-Flash 3 and Ewin are so great, their GBA save management systems are awesome.

I also said in the review that contrary to how I heard the save system decribed I did not lose saves from booting another game without using the backup feature

Actually, G6 saving system is not that complicated to use. Is just that G6 never really provide any clear manual to explain all their features. Reading at their offical instruction also confuse me. Since i am a G6 user, i explore it myself. In actual facts, all games that you load into G6 with game manager provide only 2 saves slot. You will see 3 saves files for each game, but in fact there is only 2 saves files for each game. The 1st save file is a temporary save, the 2nd & 3rd is the actual saves. It is actually quite easy to understand if you play with it.

Whenever you choose to load a game, you are ask to select the save slots to use for booting up the game. Remember, no matter wat slot you choose to load the game, it will only read from that slot & copy the saves to the temporary slot(if temporary was not choosen). If you ever try to save in your game, the saves will be write to your temporary slot, which is slot 1. Remember G6 had allocate 1 temporary slots for all game you put in G6, so booting different games will completely be using different temporary slot.

As you can see, since the temporary slots hold the current savings of your games, so they advise you to backup to the actual slots by pressing 'select' when choosing the game. If you press 'select', you will only see 2 slots. These are the actual saves since they can only be written using G6 loader 'select' method. Whatever slots you choose will be backup with the saves in your temporary slot. In fact, if you are only using 1 save slot for the game, you can choose not to backup at all. If you need to use 2 saves slot(maximum) for the game, this is where it require you to backup to the actual slots everytime you finish your game.

In any case when you need to do a backup to your computer, you will see 3 saves files for each game.

Slot 1 - Temporary slot, normally hold the last save that you play in the game.
Slot 2 - Actual saving slot 1
Slot 3 - Actual saving slot 2

I guess i made it quite clear for G6 saves system for NDS, never really tried GBA(never really use G6 to play GBA), but i believe it should works the same.

 

[MC DUI]

Oh that simple hey :/ lol

 

[Opium]

....you lost me. You see what I mean when I said the save system is unnecessarily complicated? Or is it just me?

I hate fiddling around with saves, that's why the EZ-Flash 3 and Ewin are so great, their GBA save management systems are awesome.

I also said in the review that contrary to how I heard the save system decribed I did not lose saves from booting another game without using the backup feature

Actually, G6 saving system is not that complicated to use. Is just that G6 never really provide any clear manual to explain all their features. Reading at their offical instruction also confuse me. Since i am a G6 user, i explore it myself. In actual facts, all games that you load into G6 with game manager provide only 2 saves slot. You will see 3 saves files for each game, but in fact there is only 2 saves files for each game. The 1st save file is a temporary save, the 2nd & 3rd is the actual saves. It is actually quite easy to understand if you play with it.

Whenever you choose to load a game, you are ask to select the save slots to use for booting up the game. Remember, no matter wat slot you choose to load the game, it will only read from that slot & copy the saves to the temporary slot(if temporary was not choosen). If you ever try to save in your game, the saves will be write to your temporary slot, which is slot 1. Remember G6 had allocate 1 temporary slots for all game you put in G6, so booting different games will completely be using different temporary slot.

As you can see, since the temporary slots hold the current savings of your games, so they advise you to backup to the actual slots by pressing 'select' when choosing the game. If you press 'select', you will only see 2 slots. These are the actual saves since they can only be written using G6 loader 'select' method. Whatever slots you choose will be backup with the saves in your temporary slot. In fact, if you are only using 1 save slot for the game, you can choose not to backup at all. If you need to use 2 saves slot(maximum) for the game, this is where it require you to backup to the actual slots everytime you finish your game.

In any case when you need to do a backup to your computer, you will see 3 saves files for each game.

Slot 1 - Temporary slot, normally hold the last save that you play in the game.
Slot 2 - Actual saving slot 1
Slot 3 - Actual saving slot 2

I guess i made it quite clear for G6 saves system for NDS, never really tried GBA(never really use G6 to play GBA), but i believe it should works the same.

Ahh k, that cleared it up a bit better. I only have one question. When I back up my saves onto the computer I would have to first backup my saves from the default save file (file.0) onto one of the backup save slots and then transfer that backup save to my computer? Because I've copied my default save files onto the computer before and then put it back onto th cart with the rom at a a later date to find the save has either disappeared or I've lost several hours of playtime.

 

[ym2kmobile]

Ahh k, that cleared it up a bit better. I only have one question. When I back up my saves onto the computer I would have to first backup my saves from the default save file (file.0) onto one of the backup save slots and then transfer that backup save to my computer? Because I've copied my default save files onto the computer before and then put it back onto th cart with the rom at a a later date to find the save has either disappeared or I've lost several hours of playtime.

From wat my experience, since i never use more than a save slot for a game, i usually do not backup(you may want to playsafe). So normally when i transfer save to my PC, i normally only transfer the "file.0" which is the temp file. Later, i got my save file recovered perfectly at where i last save. In actual fact, backup from the "file.0" is the most recommended if you only use 1 save slot, or you can choose to first backup "file.0" to "file.1 or file.2" then backup it to the PC.

As for you case, maybe it is cause by an G6 update before you backup your files. Since G6 did some saves improvement in these few release, that may be the cause for it.

One warning you may want to take note. I throw in a scenario to explain:

Let's say you never backup and only use the default save slot all the time. One fine day, you accidentally select either actual save slot 1/2 to boot your game. I have to say, good luck to all your saves and thats it. No way to retrive it back. Here is the actual facts, since you only use default slot, actual slot 1&2 is empty data. Once you boot your game with that empty slot, all empty data will be copy to your default slot before booting up the game. Hence, your default slots is now with that fresh content...

If you ever need a second slot for the same game, for example Phoenix Wright. Since it only got one save slot in that game, if you ever need to start another data, you need to do it in G6. Before starting a new slot, backup your current default slot to actual slot 1 using 'select'. It normally took less than a second to backup. Once you backup, you can start a new game data by choosing actual slot 2 to boot the game. Now since you are using both actual save slot, you are advise to backup your default save slot to actual slot everytime you finish playing.

I find the save system quite friendly, it just that it take up too much extra spaces in your limited G6

 

[Eolone]

Good review but only 0ne thing ....
why "- Passkey design" ????

I think is the best solution and design for a passme
you can also choose passkey or game....

 

[Opium]

Good review but only 0ne thing ....
why "- Passkey design" ????

I think is the best solution and design for a passme
you can also choose passkey or game....

Because I don't like the passkey design

You can't sit your DS down when playing.

 

[Eolone]

yes this is true

It's just a point of view

little OT

For me the best is the orange
but i dont find any info on the web
just the site on www.51gba.com
(the same of ewin)

someone knows something more ?

 

[Opium]

....I've never seen that orange coloured passme before. What the heck is it? Don't you need to insert an original game?

 

[assassinz]

Opium, seems you might have not tested the G6 properly. You say you used the default settings for putting GBA games on the G6. I think the reason some GBA games didn't work is because you used the realtime save patch on them. I have the M3 and when you use the realtime save patch on some GBA roms they won't run at all. So don't patch them with the realtime save on the G6 and I can almost guarantee you they will run properly.

By the way, the M3 has the same DS rom compatibility as the G6. Pokemon Dash doesn't work and Animal Crossing doesn't save correctly.