Hacking Importing my GBA save files to my PC and back.

[AetherN]

First off, I was going to submit this into the general discussion & simple questions sticky thread, but my topic is going to be quite long, so I'll just make a thread for it. And hello all on GBAtemp.

My questions:

I want to put my GBA Pokemon cartridge save files onto my flash card (since this is the Supercard Two section I'm posting in, then it's most likely I'm going to buy a Supercard Two rather an R4 for my DS/DS Lite) and then from there put the save file onto my PC through either the GBA back up tool or Rudolph's back up tool. Load my save file onto VBA, use cheat codes to put in some Pokemon, items, and whatnot, and then put the save file back onto my cartridge game, then turn on my game and see all that I have put on VBA on my cartridge game as it will be the same save file.

Now, I have seen a video for this, and it's good for soft resetting reasons as VBA speeds things up for legit Pokemon, and I enter a few Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald/FireRed/LeafGreen tournaments and they do infact check your Pokemon/team for complete legality, and soft resetting is the best way to get legit, good Natured, etc. Pokemon. Importing my save file to my Supercard Two (which I hope to buy soon, once I know all my questions get answers) then to my PC, loading it up to VBA, and making the process go much faster will surely make things less stressful. If you've played the Pokemon games, you'll know it's a very slow and tedious process.

Basically, what I'm asking is this: I want to import my GBA Pokemon save files from my real store bought Pokemon cartridge games (Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald, and FireRed) to my slot 1 flash card (Supercard Two, which I will buy soon once I get some questions out of my mind, hence this post) and then from there put the save file onto my PC through either the GBA back up tool or Rudolph's back up tool (whichever one works better in this case), soft reset for good, legit Pokemon, use some cheat codes to get tons of items like TM's, and then save my game and import the save file back to my cartridge game and continue to play from there. I will be doing this multiple times as I will need items soon again, and I will be soft resetting for more Pokemon over and over as well.

I saw a video for such a thing on Youtube, but the guy was using an Edge flash card, which are no longer being sold (his version, at least -- I don't want the new Edge flash card either, and I sent the guy a message on Youtube and he said either buy a Supercard Two - recommended - or a cheap R4, so I'll be going with the Supercard Two). So I'm wondering if I can do this all with the Supercard Two, and do this process back and forth. I'm also interested in buying the a Supercard Two because GBA Action Replays are very hard to buy nowadays, and I tried to buy one off of Codejunkies, and they said they were all out of stock, and not to mention I would have to manually enter in codes, and if I import my save file to my PC through the slot 1 flash card and onto my PC and load it on VBA, then I can add in codes so much faster.

So in conclusion, can I do this if I buy a Supercard Two or would I have to buy a different flash card (like an R4 for my original DS's and DS Lite)? (Also, just a quick side sentence here -- if you read my thread, and some of my wording is off, then do point it out as I'm still understanding the terminology for all this stuff.) Thanks to anyone who can help out.

Edit: Forgot to mention that I do have a Micro SD card, but it's only a 128 MB one. Do I/should I buy a bigger one (like a 2 GB/4 GB/8 GB one) or is a 128 MB Micro SD card good enough for now to help me out with my questions above?
~ AetherN

 

[Schlupi]

Use Rudolph's GBA Backup Tool to extract the save with your DSTWO, having the GBA Pokemon in Slot 2. You use the Tool like a NDS game.

Then copy the save to your SAVE folder for the GBA Emulator, rename it to match the rom, and VOILA!

Note that there are different versions of the roms (bugfixes and such, 1.0 1.1 etc) so it MAY not work unless you have the right version of the rom to match your cart.

 

[AetherN]

Use Rudolph's GBA Backup Tool to extract the save with your DSTWO, having the GBA Pokemon in Slot 2. You use the Tool like a NDS game.

Then copy the save to your SAVE folder for the GBA Emulator, rename it to match the rom, and VOILA!

Note that there are different versions of the roms (bugfixes and such, 1.0 1.1 etc) so it MAY not work unless you have the right version of the rom to match your cart.

Okay, cool, so I can do it with the Supercard DSTWO. Is Rudolph's GBA Backup Tool capable of working with the DSTWO?

Yeah, thanks for the tip of the different versions of ROMs, as I do know a few games that will need the right version of ROM.

Now with all that out of the way, I have two more questions that I kind of need answered as well: 1) How do I put the save file back onto my DSTWO and back to my cartridge game? That one kind of puzzles me. I think the video I saw has that part included, but asking just in case wont hurt lol; and 2) As I stated in my edit in my first post, I have a 128 MB SD micro card -- is that enough space for a GBA save state? If not, what would be the recommended SD Micro card size (for DS ROMs and exporting/re-importing my GBA save files)?

~ AetherN

 

[Terminator02]

128 MB isn't near enough, you might be able to fit 2 games on that thing, i'd recommend getting a 4gb card if you just want quite a few games on there with a few extra features, but if you want a ton of games, and some of your music, and some videos, etc. i'd recommend 16gb

Edit: added "quite"

 

[AetherN]

128 MB isn't near enough, you might be able to fit 2 games on that thing, i'd recommend getting a 4gb card if you just want a few games on there with a few extra features, but if you want a ton of games, and some of your music, and some videos, etc. i'd recommend 16gb

Yeah, kind of figured it wasn't. But will it be enough for putting my save state from my Pokemon GBA cartridges in slot 2 on there? I'm mainly going to only try out one of the Pokemon games on it when I get it, so I think 128 MB's is at least enough space for just one save state.

I had the 128 MB Micro SD card laying around, so I'll just use that in the time being. I believe I have a 2 GB one as well sitting around in my room in something, but I'll have to check on that later on. But thanks for the GB size recommendation.

Once my Supercard DSTWO arrives, then I'm sure I'll have more questions to ask.

~ AetherN

 

[Terminator02]

the saves barely take up any room, it's the games themselves that do

 

[AetherN]

the saves barely take up any room, it's the games themselves that do

Yeah, I figure the games will take a chunk of space, but all I'm going to be doing for right now when I get my Supercard DSTWO is put my Pokemon Ruby save file onto to the Supercard DSTWO (which I hope it can do) then put it onto my PC, use Rudolph's GBA Backup Tool, then load it up on VBA, cheat in some items, and get my hacked or legit Pokemon on there. Then I will reverse the process by putting the new updated save file back onto the Supercard DSTWO, and back onto my cartridge game.

So I'm sure I can do this process for now with my 128 MB MicroSD card.

 

[Melter]

GBA games are not that big... for example metroid fusion is 8MB, Super Mario Advance 2 is 4MB, save files are kilobytes. 128MB should be enough for GBA games. Please do not buy a 16gb card if you only plan on playing GBA games.

 

[AetherN]

GBA games are not that big... for example metroid fusion is 8MB, Super Mario Advance 2 is 4MB, save files are kilobytes. 128MB should be enough for about enough for GBA games. Please do not buy a 16gb card if you only plan on playing GBA games.

Thanks for the info. And no, no, I wont be buying a 16 GB card. I decided I'm going to go ahead and buy a 4 GB Sandisk MicroSDHC card off of eBay. The 2 GB one is 5 dollars, while the 4 GB one is 7 dollars. I already ordered my Supercard DSTWO, and I made sure that it accepts both SD and SDHC MicroSD cards.

A 4 GB card is reasonable, and I believe that should be plenty for me now and I can store at least a few games on it. It's not like I'm going to be putting in tons of DS games to play all at once in one day. At most, I'll probably only have a few GBA saves on it, and up to 3 DS games. I think it should be fine for me. I wont be putting any music or videos on my DS.

~ AetherN

 

[Terminator02]

you can store a lot more than 3 DS games, the biggest a DS ROM can go is 512 Mb, and barely any games do that (i can only think of pokemon black/white off of the top of my head)

most of them are 128 or lower

 

[Rydian]

Yeah I can fit over 90 games on my 8GB card.

 

[Deleted-236924]

you can store a lot more than 3 DS games, the biggest a DS ROM can go is 512 Mb, and barely any games do that (i can only think of pokemon black/white off of the top of my head)

most of them are 128 or lower

Black and White are 256MB.

 

[Terminator02]

huh, ur right

could have sworn they were 512, i guess the max is 256 then

 

[Rydian]

The max is 512 right now. The pokemon games aren't the largest.

 

[Melter]

What game is 512 then?

 

[Rydian]

NiNo Kuni: The Another World is one, some others, I don't know. There's only like 4.

 

[AetherN]

All right, so my Supercard DSTWO came in the mail today. All I'm waiting for now is my Micro SDHC card, which should arrive soon.

My paranoid question is this:

The instruction manual I got with my DSTWO shows me steps on how to get it running, I guess. I have to download or update something on it in order for me to start putting on DS games, and import GBA save files to it. Now, can I just import GBA save files and play DS games on it automatically without having to do all those that the instruction manual tells me to do? Or do I have to do the set up and then there will be no problems when importing GBA save files to it and playing DS games on it?

I'm kind of being a paranoid Pete right now by thinking that if I do what the manual says and I set it all up and update it, etc., then I keep thinking I wont be able to do back up GBA save files to it (which is the main reason why I bought this). No doubt I can play DS games, but is it recommended or mandatory to set it all up and then everything I ask to use it for will work just fine? I'd hate to set it up/update it then have it not be able to work with Rudolph's GBA back-up tool. I'm kind of thinking like how it is when you mod your PSP; if you get the wrong firmware, then you cant do certain things, and I hope that when I (and I guess I have to right away or else the DSTWO wont work) update it, nothing goes wrong telling me I cant do what I what to do with it, which is as of right now import my GBA game saves to it and onto my PC and back to my cartridge games.

~ AetherN

 

[Terminator02]

don't worry, updating will not kill any functionality, and you can access any files at any time

see this for the very basic setup, or follow the "How to set up iMenu" section of this guide to get set up with some of the essential homebrew

 

[AetherN]

Okay, so I finally got my SD card yesterday. Something happened with the shipping and it took over 2 weeks to get to me. But anyway, I have it now, I've been backing up GBA save states, and playing DS games.

My question now is this: How do I play GBA games on it? As well, how do I play other versions of system games like SNES games, etc.? I assume I have to put plugins or something into the 'root' of my DSTwo to play them? To do all this, how/where do I start?

Edit: Also, a very important question: How long do you recommend the DS be on with the DSTwo in it? What I mean is, I don't want it to overheat or have any internal problems because I left the DS on for too long playing games. Have any of you run across any problems for leaving it on too long? Like for example would it being on for 5 hours be too much? Maybe even 2 hours? It's not like I'd be constantly playing a game for that long, but I usually tend to leave my DS on and take short breaks then resume my gameplay, and it results in major hours of it being on. But with the DSTwo now, I don't want to burn it out or anything by leaving my DS on for too long of a time.

~ AetherN

 

[Rydian]

http://gbatemp.net/t290190-the-supercard-d...eginner-s-guide

And there's no overheating issue I've ever heard of. I leave my DSTwo in my DSi all the time.