Hacking M3 DS Real GBA Questions.

[I-Iybr1d]

i dont think you will since its a new card and the update rate is rather fast...

 

[MrGoomba]

To answer my own questions (for the rest of you)

1. Is the GBA Expansion memory volatile or NOR like the 3 in 1?
Volatile, games load very fast and are not kept in memory after reboot.

2. I have read that GBA support is buggy, but cannot find anything concrete except some complaints about real-time-save (which I dont care about). Is this the only GBA issue?
GBA games, the ones I have tested so far, seem to run flawlessly.

3. I understand that the GBA Expansion saves to a battery, and backs that save up on reboot. Is there a way to force that save to backup without rebooting? (I.E. a 'Save' button combination)
There doesnt seem to be a method to do this.

4. Does the GBA Expansion use raw '.sav' files that are compatible with VGBA or Supercard? (I.E. can I use my Supercard SD GBA saves on the M3DS-R GBA Expansion without conversion?)
Simply renaming VBA or Supercard SD saves, both GBA and NDS, to use a .0 file extension, and they work perfectly, no conversion needed.

5. Is GBA support fullspeed? My Supercard SD runs many games (Final Fantasy VI, FFTA, Megaman Zero, etc...) much slower then the actual cart would run them.
The Final Fantasy games I have tested, that were slow on the Supercard SD, seem to be full speed on the M3 Real.

 

[cutterjohn]

How much RAM is in the M3 expansion pack?

How much SRAM(or does it have any) is in the pack?

Did SNESemul and opera pick it up as a RAM expansion pack?

(I'm using a 3in1 myself ATM, and have a CycloDS Evolution on the way, but am still thinking about picking up the M3 DS Real Perfect combo pack early next year as a backup plan.)

 

[DjoeN]

Opera picks it up as RAM if you use the patch you downloaded form the m3 page
QuakeDS RAM doesn't recognize the ram for use.

 

[DjoeN]

To answer my own questions (for the rest of you)

1. Is the GBA Expansion memory volatile or NOR like the 3 in 1?
Volatile, games load very fast and are not kept in memory after reboot.

You have a Patch and Fast Load option, the patch option takes as long as the Ewin GBA, the fast load takes a little less of your time, but to say "very fast", i wouldn't say that.

 

[DjoeN]

The 3-in-1 has both NOR and volatile memory BTW. GBA games can be run from either.Some games can be run from either, but the volatile memory on the 3-in-1 isnt big enough to hold many games.

There are only a handful of games that big. The only ones I know of that anyone would care about are Kingdom Hearts, Riviera, and Ygddra Union (or whatever it's called). Most are just those stupid nicktoons videos.

Fully agree on that, the few 32Mbit GBA games, you wanna play is VERY low.

 

[mrbojangles]

does real time save to the ram on the slot 2 expansion to be written upon restart or does it write directly to the mircosd. is there slowdown in any game from the final fantasy series or tactics ogre.

 

[MrGoomba]

does real time save to the ram on the slot 2 expansion to be written upon restart or does it write directly to the mircosd. is there slowdown in any game from the final fantasy series or tactics ogre.

It has a battery, which means that its not writing to the MicroSD directly.

Its most likely doing one of two things (or both).

1. Writing whatever was in SRAM to the MicroSD on next boot.
2. Writing whatever was in SRAM, to the MicroSD when you choose a game.

I havent taken the time to check which it does yet, but if its important to someone I will.

As for Final Fantasy, I havent tested them all, however FFVI Advance was the most notorious for slow down afaik, and its playing at %100 full speed so far. If you have a specific game that you know is slow on other cards, that will exhibit its slowness early on in the game, I would be happy to test one for you and give you my results.

 

[shinset]

Hi

Its good to see people care about GBA fonction on M3DSR coz its pretty huge advantage to all linker


BTW is there anyway to get a SOFTRESET like M3 perfect ?

 

[Destructobot]

does real time save to the ram on the slot 2 expansion to be written upon restart or does it write directly to the mircosd. is there slowdown in any game from the final fantasy series or tactics ogre.

It has a battery, which means that its not writing to the MicroSD directly.

It is impossible for anything to be written to (or read from) slot 1 while the DS is in GBA mode. GBA saves and save states will always have to be stored on the expansion pack, and written to the memory card later (when the DS is in DS mode).

This limitation is hard-coded into the DS, so it applies to all GBA expansion packs, present and future.