Hacking help me using my old ezflash iv.. there is a problem with my ezflash iv

[Markus Luki]

hello I'm new here.. I got a lot of questions
I'm using GBA SP AGS-001 (bought in 2007) + EZFLASH IV & V-GEN mini SD 1GB (bought in 2010)
I haven't played it for about 1 year. my current firmware is v1.680.
Yesterday I played it again but some roms didn't work. Megaman battle network got blank screen after I selected new game or continue. But other games like DK country, medabots, mario got no problem.
I have checked the CR2025 battery with multitester and the voltage = 3.19V.
and I'm planning to update my firmware to 1.720
I have read this forum and also sosuke ezflash forum. The newest firmware is the 1.720 RESET, right?
Now I forget how to install the firmware and use the ez4 client. please guide me
And my questions :
1). Anyone knows why the rom is blank screen? I did face the error rom several times back there. then I patched the same rom with ez4client

2). Please explain to me about the 1.720 RESET. What does the word "RESET" mean?
and this link http://ezflash.sosuke.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=17257 include the 1.720 RESET?

3). ABOUT EZ4CLIENT, What should I chose the save size? SRAM/ FLASH/ EEPROM AND 0/64/128/256/512/1024 K Bits ?

4). Is it possible to change the soft reset button combo? The default is L+A+B+UP and I often pressed it accidentally while playing Megaman Zero.
THANKYOU

 

[FAST6191]

1) Never heard of the game being a problem before. Sounds like it might be a problem with the save. If you can not sorted and is not a problem with 3) then try patching with the SRAM patch options of GBATA http://www.no-intro.org/tools.htm

2) I bundled it with the EZ4Client pack we tend to suggest to people as well. http://nocash.emubase.de/gbatek.htm#dsbackwardscompatiblegbamode describes a bug when launching GBA mode from the DS, it was not present originally but then it crept in with the loaders that added support for the EZ4 lite compact and lite deluxe. There were several methods to sort this but Modulo made a hacked version (actually two but one just stripped the DS loader and forced the GBA one to load, it tends to mess with skinning tools so I do not push it) which did a hard reset before launching a GBA game from DS mode which sorts the problem by default. It is not so useful if you are only using a GBA though. That loader/link should have it if you want it however.

3) You do not, you leave it for EZ4client to decide. There was the possibility it could be wrong one day* (and with some emulators it was, though most use Kuwanger's kits for them instead) so the options are there for you to force it in those events.

*VBA had far worse save handling than flash carts which is why you might have had to select the save size for games like pokemon if you tried to play it VBA.

4) There was an option in the menu but playing with it makes it crash. Still in "C:\windows\temp" there will be a file called ez4para.ini which has the button combo. Personally I disable soft reset but if you like it then you can use that to change it.
In it will be a section that looks like

[KEY]
A=FALSE
B=FALSE
SELECT=TRUE
START=TRUE
L=TRUE
R=TRUE
UP=FALSE
DOWN=FALSE
LEFT=FALSE

The rest should be obvious.

 

[Markus Luki]

thanks for your answer
1). What's the differrence between patching with GBATA and patching with ez4client??
If I use the GBATA then I don't have to use ez4client to patch the rom?

2). So just use the original v1.720 ? Is the file "ezfla_up.bin" from this link http://ezflash.sosuke.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=17257 the original v1.720 ?
Should I reformat my MINI SD to update the firmware? format type FAT right?

3). What's Kuwanger's kits ? And all GBA roms use SRAM?
So just choose the rom and ez4client will decide everything by itself then just patch it to the MINI SD directory?

4). Oh, the checkbox RESET in ez4client is to enable/disable the soft reset function in every rom?
okay I got it. Finally I can play Megaman Zero series without worrying about softreset..
Does the soft reset function embedded in the firmware ?

 

[FAST6191]

1) Technically there should be nothing, give or take minor variations in the patch instructions, but it sometimes holds up where others might fall short. I have a few theories as to what they might work in some cases (mainly trimming can break games from time to time) but that is a different matter.

2) Either will work. No need to format but if you did then yes it would be FAT/FAT16 (not FAT32). v1.720 means not little as the EZTeam did not change the version numbers, instead we tend to use dates ( http://ezflash.sosuke.com/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=793 ) or just stick with Modulo's stuff.
Realistically the only ones people use as the last one released, modulo's loaders and the last one from before the EZ4 lite deluxe and compact (it lacks a DS function or two but works well).
In case you did not know you put ezfla_up.bin on the root of the card and hold R when booting up. It will then write the loader/skin and whatever else that is part of the loader. The only thing you need on your card are a saver directory (plus some ROMs and their saves, assuming you do not find the onboard help and version of minesweeper to be reason alone to own a cart of course).

3) http://ezflash.sosuke.com/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=12660 -- Kuwanger made build tools for the emulators so they have proper save and exit patches and work well with the EZ4 where before people some people had issues using them on the EZ4.
GBA ROMs use various saves types, GBA flash carts use SRAM saves and patch all games to use SRAM as well (it is a fairly simple process, but one that needs a PC really hence why you can not just put clean ROMs on most of the time*). When you patch a game you are not patching the SRAM of the game but patching the game to use SRAM.

*obvious exception for games with no saves (password, actually nothing to save...) at all. Some games that use SRAM can do it but they will tend to be ones with the same type of SRAM that the flash cart has so still patch SRAM games.

4) Yeah the checkbox is to enable or disable it for the given ROM(s) you are patching at the time. It is both a function of the patch and the cart/firmware so if you change the keys you will have to repatch the ROM to get rid of it.

 

[Markus Luki]

I see.. thankyou sir. you save my retro gaming life
Are there any gba rom that need to be patched besides pokemon/boktai/warioware ? I mean gba rom that doesn't use RTC or other hardware add-ons.

 

[FAST6191]

http://gbatemp.net/threads/buying-a-gba-flash-cart-in-2013.341203/page-18#post-4756995
In that post I listed everything that we have seen to trouble the EZ4 as far as commercial ROM images goes.

For homebrew I mentioned the emulators which need fixing/tweaking.
Occasionally homebrew does not come with a header or comes with a bad one (various reasons, none good as far as I am concerned but it is the case) for which http://www.gameboy-advance.net/rom_tools/flash_advance_toolkit.htm can add one and GBATA from earlier (though http://www.no-intro.org/tools.htm you might as well have it again). You might have to add a header and fix it afterwards (it was the main way I got the music player advance to work, http://www.gameboy-advance.net/emulated/musicplayer_advance_gba_mp3.htm though there is no great way to play music on the GBA).
There were a few pieces of homebrew, mainly coming out of France but that did include some great ports of classic games, that had issues, they should have long since been sorted though.
After that in homebrew you are looking at pogoshell and possibly the CD side of PCE emulation to cause trouble. Kuwanger again largely sorted/provided a workaround for the pogoshell stuff though http://kuwanger.net/gba/plugin2gba/ , for my money though the main issue with a lack of pogoshell was it was one of the few things to play NSF files for a while, now available via other means.

 

[Markus Luki]

wow it's so complicated. I don't understand it..
what is header? That pogoshell use for the ezflash iv ?
What are the ezflash iv 's prohibitions? I mean what I shouldn't do with it. I don't wanna damage my ezflash iv.

 

[FAST6191]

Header varies slightly depending upon what console and style of programming you are doing. Here header refers to the very start of the ROM that contains all sorts of info about the game to come. Part of this header also includes the Nintendo logo which some homebrewers were reluctant to include, technically there were very big court cases that it was OK but they still opted out of it and the users of the homebrew got to add them in. This should only trouble a small handful of homebrew for the GBA and should be as easy as telling GBATA to fix it or flash advance toolkit to add one in (or maybe flash advance toolkit to add one and then getting GBATA to fix the result, either way two steps at most).
Other consoles (a lot of NES and SNES stuff) have user/dumper added headers but these are often very useful for emulation and those working with the games so they should be kept in a lot of cases, some people remove them for various reasons though.

Pogoshell is a kind of loader program that some very old GBA flash carts could use, it became less useful when flash carts got proper loaders and was not really kept up to date afterwards. It also had a bunch of nice plugins to allow it to load all sorts of files though, some of which did not have an alternative in normal GBA homebrew for the longest time, so people still liked it.

Things you should not do with your EZ4.
Do not use a DS program like gba exploader (used on things like the 3 in 1 and other expansion packs though technically has support for the EZ4) as it runs the risk of overwriting the loader and it is a pig to get back on. Short of treading on it this is about the only thing you can do in software that will damage it permanently.
Try not to have more than 80 files in a folder, the loader does not like it and will not display them though this will not harm your EZ4. Similarly I think the name limit is somewhere in the 50 or 60 characters range (it has been a while since I fiddled with names lists but it was around there) and it will cut them off if you go past it.

If you were saying the games stuff I linked in is complex then not really. You just asked for a list of every game that needs a patch and that served as one, plus every other quirk I have encountered over the years (really not very many at all compared to the DS and many other consoles) and the fixes for them (the only unfixed things should be the GBA personal organiser, the ereader and the LegendZ series as they all had extra hardware which is a bit harder to emulate.

 

[Markus Luki]

About the rom patch collection in this link http://sosuke.com/ezflash/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=17713&view=next
, what are that patches for ? multiplayer using linkcable ? Has it been tested ?

 

[FAST6191]

Ah yes.
Yeah they are for link games. So people had issues with some games if they patched them, it seems to be a latency thing and those patches will allow the game to save and whatever else but still link with other people.
I have tested some of them and many others have reported that they sorted their issues.

 

[Markus Luki]

so it's safe to link game ezflash with ezflash / ezflash with ori gba cart / ezflash with other flash cart ?
I added gba rom"Animaniacs - Lights, Camera, Action! (E)" with ez4client and the ez4client save size : UKNOWN_TYPE 256K Bits
Is it ok with the uknown_type ??

 

[FAST6191]

Give it a go. If it does not work try repatching without soft reset or any unnecessary patches. If that still does not work then make a post and someone will hopefully be able to give you something to try.