Hacking M3 Lite: SDHC support for Games?

[khan]

I have an M3 Lite which I only use for GBA games atm, and I was wondering if M3 Team ever enabled use of microSDHC for games? I know that it will accept it for multimedia purposes only.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Rymel]

i'm not sure if that's a hardware or software limitation, pretty sure it's a hardware limitation. i think they'd have to release a new slot-2 cart to use that. i know that bootleggers will hop from one trend to the next and just abandon previous projects, but i really hope M3 or any other decent slot-2 company would make one final, ultimate slot-2 cart with sdhc, real-time clock, rumble, ram cart and media capabilities. i realize it's an awful lot, but why can't the ram functions be relegated to the sd card? a slot-2 card that's designed to work in sync with a slot-1 card would be even better if it's a hardware issue, cuz then you could just patch the web browser to force it to use the card for memory usage. but i don't know enough about it to do more than just dream...

 

[how_do_i_do_that]

they do have a flash that does control the storage space, its called Compact Flash. Removing those types of hardware controls allows for the smaller size of the microSD to be possible. There is another thing called standard specs. All hardware makers agree to make a device a certain way to recieve a compliancy stamp, in this case a microSD stamp on thier product.

If there was no compliance for this type of thing, you would need drivers for every piece of hardware in your computer including your cpu and ram, etc. Thats why we had drivers for every internal flash cart that fits in the slot 2 and all GBAs.


@khan
The controller chips for microSDHC is bigger than the slot 2 case will allow. It would require a complete redesign.

 

[Rob_Threat]

@khan
The controller chips for microSDHC is bigger than the slot 2 case will allow. It would require a complete redesign.

Huh? The entire M3 Slot2 SD line is SDHC compatible... but not for games. Sadly, MoonShell won't run either. Oh, and the GBA side won't even boot with a SDHC card.

Who wants GBs & GBs of GBalpha's DS MagicBox videos. :-)

I'm guessing it won't be developed further, but you never know. I'm glad GBalpha still releases a new G6 & M3 GameManager every few months.

 

[how_do_i_do_that]

They use a hybrid chip, its not standard. That is why you can play video and audio off it on a microSDHC, but not play games from one. it only has read capabilities for microSDHC chips only, no write abilities to microSDHC.