Hardware Oldies GBC save dumper

[eldorogon]

Hello,

I've been feeling like playing my good old Pokémon games on the Gameboy lately. Of course some of those games have a dead battery that I need to change, but I'll replace them eventually so no biggie.

Some other games do not have a dead battery though, but I'm planning on changing all the batteries in one go while I'm at it, hence my question : What's the cheapest alternative to dump my saves before I change the battery so I can restore my saves once it's replaced ?

I also own both a GBA and a GBA SP, so if there's a flashcard or anything that would allow me to do this for GBA and GB games, I'd be interested in it too.

Thanks in advance.

 

[master801]

Get a GBxCART RW by insideGadgets.

They should have a distributor listed on the page near your region (France?), so the cost of shipping should be less than shipping it directly from Australia...

Otherwise if you already have a Game Boy Color (not GBA) flashcart, you can try your luck with the audio dumper.
https://github.com/FIX94/gameboy-audio-dumper

As a last resort, you can try getting a "InterAct Game Boy Mega Memory Card". These tend to be rare and expensive, so probably not a viable option. Just thought I'd mention it.

 

[eldorogon]

Hey, thanks for your quick answer !

The GBxCart RW seems like the best option here. Unfortunately, the French seller closed shop so I'd have to wait longer before receiving it. On the bright side, the price would have been the same as if it had been shipped from Australia, as you suspected. If it's worth the price then I'll probably go with this.

Anything else I should know ?

 

[Ryccardo]

https://github.com/insidegadgets/GBCartRead - classic Arduino one

Anything else I should know ?

Test points on the back of the game card, intended to measure battery voltage at various points in the circuit but that you can use to attach a third battery while you do the job

 

[fmhugo]

If you have Everdrive 64 and Transferpak theres a homebrew
http://micro-64.com/features/gbromdumping.shtml

 

[wolffangalchemist]

If you have Everdrive 64 and Transferpak theres a homebrew
http://micro-64.com/features/gbromdumping.shtml

I second this, even works on the ed64p everdrive clones that can still be gotten for $50 on aliexpress, if you habe a n64 with a gb transfer pak already it is a good investment as it can do lore than dump carts and saves. I used it before I did the f-ram mod on all of my Pokémon carts to dump the sames and again after the mod to write them back to the carts.

 

[Kwyjor]

Someone just released https://github.com/Gronis/gb-save-manager , which you can use to dump save data if you have two Game Boys, a link cable, and a GB flash cart.

Also related is https://github.com/Lorenzooone/gba-dump-gb , but that requires a special GBA-to-USB cable in addition to a GBA flashcart. (Normally it is impossible to do things with GB or GBC carts in GBA mode – that's the amazing thing!) I'm not even sure where you would get the appropriate cable or how you would make one, though. (Obviously a USB charging cable isn't going to do it.)

A jailbroken Retron5 can also be used as a dumper, but those are kind of expensive if you don't have one already. There's also the Retrode, but that's way more expensive than the alternatives.

I wish someone would make some sort of dumping program for the Game Boy Player, but if no one's done it by now, there's probably no chance of it happening.

I've been feeling like playing my good old Pokémon games on the Gameboy lately. Of course some of those games have a dead battery that I need to change, but I'll replace them eventually so no biggie.

Some other games do not have a dead battery though, but I'm planning on changing all the batteries in one go while I'm at it, hence my question : What's the cheapest alternative to dump my saves before I change the battery so I can restore my saves once it's replaced ?

I looked into this a while ago and was surprised to learn that the batteries in all my old GB carts are still ticking along just fine. Apparently reading and writing is what really drains it.

The exception is Pokemon G/S – the RTC is constantly running the battery down.

ETA: I think this is the GBA-USB cable spec?
https://blog.gbplay.io/2021/05/29/Connecting-to-a-Game-Boy-Link-Cable-From-a-PC.html

(Of course if you try to look for one online, you'll mostly find charging cables, and of course those will never work.)

 

[eldorogon]

Oh hi, I didn't think I would get this many answers! It would be tedious to reply to each message one after another but first I'd like to thank you guys for giving me all this information.
While I may not have a N64 with transferpak or any flashcart, now I know how to proceed when I'll need my saves extracted.

I looked into this a while ago and was surprised to learn that the batteries in all my old GB carts are still ticking along just fine. Apparently reading and writing is what really drains it.

The exception is Pokemon G/S – the RTC is constantly running the battery down.

Yep, that's exactly it. Blue and Yellow are still fine even though they're my very first videogames as far as I remember, and the fact that I had made a new save several times to play through the games again.

 

[Gronis]

Hi. I'm the author of gb-save-manager. I just wanted to say that I've recently added support for Gameboy Camera for those interested.

 

[GenoCL]

Hi. I'm the author of gb-save-manager. I just wanted to say that I've recently added support for Gameboy Camera for those interested.

Hi! I'm interested. In fact I just tried it right now with an EZ Flash Jr. which is able to get 128kb save files but using my Pocket Camera (japanese Game Boy Camera) I just got 7 out of 29 pictures from my camera. Is there something I did wrong?

 

[Gronis]

Hi! I'm interested. In fact I just tried it right now with an EZ Flash Jr. which is able to get 128kb save files but using my Pocket Camera (japanese Game Boy Camera) I just got 7 out of 29 pictures from my camera. Is there something I did wrong?

Hmm. That is strange...

I think I need to test it with a japanese gameboy camera.

Post automatically merged: Jun 5, 2025

Hi! I'm interested. In fact I just tried it right now with an EZ Flash Jr. which is able to get 128kb save files but using my Pocket Camera (japanese Game Boy Camera) I just got 7 out of 29 pictures from my camera. Is there something I did wrong?

I tried it with a gb camera save full with pictures and got 14 out of 30 pictures, so apparently there is a bug somewhere.

Could you try out this version? I think it might have the issue fixed I think the problem was the MBC version. Apparently MBC3 only support up to 64kB, so I changed it to MBC5 to support all 128kB

(I'm unable to test on real hardware since I don't own a gb camera, but it works in emulation)

 

[GenoCL]

Hmm. That is strange...

I think I need to test it with a japanese gameboy camera.

Post automatically merged: Jun 5, 2025

I tried it with a gb camera save full with pictures and got 14 out of 30 pictures, so apparently there is a bug somewhere.

Could you try out this version? I think it might have the issue fixed I think the problem was the MBC version. Apparently MBC3 only support up to 64kB, so I changed it to MBC5 to support all 128kB

(I'm unable to test on real hardware since I don't own a gb camera, but it works in emulation)

I'll give it a try as soon as I can today and edit this post with the results

Post automatically merged: Jun 5, 2025

Hmm. That is strange...

I think I need to test it with a japanese gameboy camera.

Post automatically merged: Jun 5, 2025

I tried it with a gb camera save full with pictures and got 14 out of 30 pictures, so apparently there is a bug somewhere.

Could you try out this version? I think it might have the issue fixed I think the problem was the MBC version. Apparently MBC3 only support up to 64kB, so I changed it to MBC5 to support all 128kB

(I'm unable to test on real hardware since I don't own a gb camera, but it works in emulation)

Mmmm doesn't seem to work.

EDIT:
NEVERMIND, I tried it again to be sure and now it worked and seems to have obtained all the pictures now. Thanks!

 

[Gronis]

NEVERMIND, I tried it again to be sure and now it worked and seems to have obtained all the pictures now. Thanks!

Awesome!
I upload this version as v1.3.1 so that others won't run into the same issue. Thanks for testing!