Hacking M3 Real GBA Support Issues?!

[MrGoomba]

Many of my GBA games, that worked perfectly on my Supercard SD (albeit some had slowdown here and there) are not working, at all, on my M3 Real + GBA Expansion. Yes I used clean copies of the ROMs, not the Supercard modified ones.

So far, going down my list I have less games that work, then those that fail. (Bad ratio...)

I have checked the CRC32 of many that didnt work against the list on http://www.advanscene.com/ and they check out fine. I checked the CRC32 directly on the card also to make sure that it copied over properly.

As far as I know, there is no manual patching needed for GBA roms.

Here is a short, preliminary list of games that are not working on my M3 Real:

Breath of Fire
Breath of Fire 2
Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow
Castlevania: Circle of the Moon
F-Zero Maximum Velocity
Megaman Zero Mission
Gradius Galaxies

I would have a bigger list, but it seems that when a game fails to load, it has a random chance of failing on the next game, even if its a known working game, and I dont like powering my DS on and off like that.

Note that I have a Kingston 2 GB MicroSD (Japan).

What happens when I go to load one of these games?

Nothing. It puts me back to the ROM list (as always) but it doesn't 'process' or load the game in any way. If I keep trying, eventually (usually 3-4 tries) it just locks up hard.

Am I missing something?

 

[Scorpei]

I guess, just tested F-zero and Castlevania CotM and had no real problems (though both didn't like the rts option).

 

[MrGoomba]

I guess, just tested F-zero and Castlevania CotM and had no real problems (though both didn't like the rts option).

What versions exactly ? (What were their CRCs?)

 

[Scorpei]

I guess, just tested F-zero and Castlevania CotM and had no real problems (though both didn't like the rts option).


What versions exactly ? (What were their CRCs?)

Not a clue, the dumps are of my own EUR carts. As for M3DS real OS, the latest greatest (v2.6).

 

[leetdude_007]

From GBAtemp wiki for 3 in 1 EZ

For example, I just tried 1386_Famicom_Mini_Vol_5_Zelda_no_Densetsu_JPN_GBA-RS (eeprom save), which will not save (gives an error message after naming your character). It gives the same error unpatched, patched with gbata, and patched with ezclient4. The famicom mini games are notoriously picky

Try that and thx!

 

[MrGoomba]

Try that and thx!

Try what? You posted a problem, not an answer,

How would the EZ 3 in 1 have anything to do with the M3 DS Real GBA Expansion? They are different technology, different companies, running different software...

The M3 DS Real has clean rom support, there is no patching utility, only an option to patch on the fly or not. Neither method makes any difference.

 

[leetdude_007]

Sorry. I misread. I thought you were testing out the ROMs.

As for a solution... here are some obvious ones that you probably already followed. try minimising the number of options you put into your patch-on-the-fly if possible. Also e-mail M3 team, if possible. They've responded to me in some fashion before.

 

[MrGoomba]

There are not any options to speak of other than cheat and rts, I have tried all the possible variants of those options to no avail.

I noticed that my card was FAT16, so I formated to FAT32, it didnt fix the problem.

After formating the card I put just one game on (one of the many that doesnt work), and no luck.

Typically the first two tries, it wont even create a save file (if none exists) its only on the third try (when it locks up hard) that I get a save file created.

I also noticed that the save file it creates is bigger its creating a 128 KB save file when its supposed to be a 64 KB save. I dont know if this matters or not.

So far in tests, about 80% of my GBA games do not work on the M3 DS Real + GBA Expansion.

 

[tomgibbes]

I have just ordered a M3 and i have seen multiple gba complaints so i am a bit worried about this.

 

[leetdude_007]

I waited for reviews of the EZ 3in1 before I bought it. Maybe I should do the same for the M3 real expansion. Ewin looks mighty fine, but I'm waiting for their GUI/hardware/software to mature.

 

[Xeronage]

Got an M3 Real recently, tested out some GBA games, they all worked fine..

The only thing is you have to put in the GBA cart BEFORE you boot up the DS or it wont work.(that means if you have rumble in(or nothing), turn off the DS, then switch them, or GBA mode will crash when you do it from inside the menu