Hacking M3DS Real Perfect not saving GBA games...

[sotu1]

hey guys,

i've been lurking on this forum for a while, it's pretty good and I appreciate all the work that goes on behind the scenes here! so thanks! I was wondering if you could help me at all?

I used to have an R4, but I sold that in favour of an M3DS Real Perfect so that I could play my old GBA games. Unfortunately, the M3 doesn't seem to want to save any data. For example, when I'm playing Golden Sun and save the game, the next time I load up it treats the game like it's never been played before. Can anyone help me on this? I'm running the latest version of Sakura by the way.

Thanks so much for your help here! I'd really like to get back into all my old GBA games, some of them utterly rock!

 

[triple-sevenz]

ok after u save, make sure u leave the gba expansion pack in there until your next bootup. it will save on the next boot up but if u take it out, all the data will be lost.

 

[sotu1]

thanks for the tip Sevenz, but I don't think that works cuz I don't take the Expansion pack out....I will give it another go tonight though. So all I need to do is turn off my DS then turn it back on again...that writes the save data to my HCSD card...

 

[triple-sevenz]

yea. but there are problematic games. you can set it to slow loading which patches the games so that it would save properly. to enter the config mode just drag the gba rom to the left.

 

[sotu1]

it doesn't seem to be working with anything i try. the mario games don't save, neither does golden sun 2 or robotech. I've also tried the slow loading and fast loading, neither makes any difference.

is it likely to be a faulty M3 unit?

cheers for the help so far mate

 

[ZyberMaster]

the battery in your gba expansion pack is probably empty so when you turn it off the data get deleted. gba save doesn't get transfer to the sd card until the next time you boot up ur ds. what you should do is load up golden sun plug ur ds charge in leave it run for at least an hour or so save and turn it off. Wait a couple of min and turn it back on and seen if it save. also if you notice that you get less then 3 hour of play time when you have ur light and volume set to medium to low then you gba exp is not full charge and it draining ur battery life

 

[sotu1]

ok, i haven't played any gba games for longer than an a few minutes because i figured it wasn't working. i will try playing for a few hours later on though.

I left my GBA on charge over night and that's made no difference.

i have noticed the battery life has dropped considerably on my ds since i've had the m3 real perfect. i normally play with level 3-4 brightness, with no sound but yesterday it died after no more than 3 hours of play.

 

[sotu1]

the battery in your gba expansion pack is probably empty so when you turn it off the data get deleted. gba save doesn't get transfer to the sd card until the next time you boot up ur ds. what you should do is load up golden sun plug ur ds charge in leave it run for at least an hour or so save and turn it off. Wait a couple of min and turn it back on and seen if it save. also if you notice that you get less then 3 hour of play time when you have ur light and volume set to medium to low then you gba exp is not full charge and it draining ur battery life

i tried this, it hasn't worked. I'm going to return the M3 to my supplier and see if another version will do the job properly.I'll be without my M3 for a week! EEK!

does anyone else have any suggestions?

 

[Perseid]

Does this happen randomly or is it when you try a new game? I have had to copy the two save files from a different game and rename them to the new game to get them to save. I just do that with all the GBA games I try now.

 

[sotu1]

Does this happen randomly or is it when you try a new game? I have had to copy the two save files from a different game and rename them to the new game to get them to save. I just do that with all the GBA games I try now.

it happens every time so it's a pretty big problem.

how does your rename system work!? so say you got goldensun.sav you just rename that to mario.sav?

 

[Lenneth]

Try to patch your gba roms with GBATA utilities (you can find it here http://gbatemp.net/index.php?download=224 ) it works for some games and don't works for other but it's the only issue I founded actually

 

[UW Ness]

I've been having this exact same issue. I've had the M3DS Real Perfect pack for a few months now and everything has worked great, but all of a sudden the GBA games will not save. I'm going to try a few things that you guys have posted to see if it'll work. Otherwise, guess I'll have to buy a replacement... sucks, I gotta get a working one before the Mother 3 translation is finished!!

But yeah, ever since I got the M3DS stuff, the battery life on my DS Lite has been pretty low. I was able to play store bought games for hours, but since I started using the M3, it's gone down to about 3. Some of the homebrew apps take more power, like saving games in SNEmulDS sucks a bit, but I gotta do a full charge and try a store bought game to compare, hopefully this isn't permanent...

 

[Joe88]

they changed the GBA saving system
thats what caused the problems

they went from .0 to .sav

 

[UW Ness]

It shouldn't be a problem, I'm using the software version that I first installed on my card...

But fortunately for me, I got it working again! I left it on, running a GBA game on patch mode and plugged into AC power, for about an hour and a half or so. Loaded a game, played a level, turned it off, and it loaded right where I had quit!! So that charging the Expansion card battery seems to work. I only tried it on one game, but it was a game that previously would not save. I'll try it on other games, but hopefully this fix will continue to work for all my GBA games.

Definitely give this a try before sending in your expansion card or buying a new one!

 

[triple-sevenz]

all my gba games save fine. for me the real loads the gba roms better than sakura and it saves better as well. also try disabling the cheats or the rts. see if that helps.

 

[sotu1]

they changed the GBA saving system
thats what caused the problems

they went from .0 to .sav

My DS is saving them all as .sav files, so that shouldn't be the problem

QUOTE(UW Ness @ Aug 14 2008, 08:02 AM) It shouldn't be a problem, I'm using the software version that I first installed on my card...

But fortunately for me, I got it working again! I left it on, running a GBA game on patch mode and plugged into AC power, for about an hour and a half or so. Loaded a game, played a level, turned it off, and it loaded right where I had quit!! So that charging the Expansion card battery seems to work. I only tried it on one game, but it was a game that previously would not save. I'll try it on other games, but hopefully this fix will continue to work for all my GBA games.

Definitely give this a try before sending in your expansion card or buying a new one!

I've tried patch mode and fast load, and also tried leaving it on with a GBA game running for a few hours, did nothing

absolutely no solutions so far!

 

[Joe88]

if you where on an older firmware, the new firmwares will create a .sav now however sometimes had problems transfering the .0 to .sav

 

[sotu1]

OK, so i finally figured it!

What happened:

my mom accidentally put my GBA expansion pack in the wash! Crazily enough, it survived! I could still play gba games, which was a massive plus

I proceeded to play a game in bed before sleeping. At the time the NDS was plugged in and I was playing a GBA game. I fell asleep, but the NDS was left on overnight. Wake up in the morning, try saving it and hey presto! a really really long overnight charge while the NDS was running GBA worked!

Thanks for all your help and advice guys, kinda stumbled on the solution accidentally but it worked!

 

[SamSwashbuckler]

I have an M3 DS Real (Perfect Bundle) with an 8GB MicroSDHC (no problems playing NDS games) and am presently trying this, leaving a game running ( Final Fantasy I & II - Dawn of Souls (USA, Australia).gba ) in patch mode while it's plugged in. Every time I've tried to use in-game save functionality before, it said something like "save failed".

Edit: it's been plugged in for a while now, and it allowed me to save with the in-game functionality (I have never seen that before, so it's a good sign), but then after turning the NDS off and loading up that same ROM again, there is no option to load game.

Edit2: while the game is reporting that it saved, it "forgets" the save very quickly, something like 15 seconds. if I go back to the save game menu after that time, it shows that the files are empty.

What am I doing wrong? I can't imagine it needs to charge up MORE.

 

[Joe88]

the save system probably just doesnt work for that game like the zelda game (I think its minish cap, it just doesnt save)

use RTS (Real Time Save) instead