Hacking M3Real: Horrible GBA compatibility

nitro2k01

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I have a problem with a bunch of ROMs that won't work at all on the GBA extension to the M3Real. When I try to boot any of these games, there's a progress bar at the bottom of the screen, but when the game is booting there's no Nintendo logo, iow the same behaviour as if there's no cart inserted into a GBA. NDS Slot 2 booting works fine.
First I though it had to with the recasing of the lite cart, but I don't think that's the problem. I've also borrowed a G6 GBA flash cartridge from a friend, which works in exactly the same way. (Some ROMs are working, some are not, NDS Slot 2 boot works)
When booting the G6 cart in pure GBA mode (Ie not opening a ROM from within M3, but rather using the G6's own menus) everything works as it should.

Here's my compatibility list:

Not working (No Nintendo logo)
Super Mario Advance 2 - Super Mario World
Mario Kart - Super Circuit
Bomberman Tournament
Sonic Advance
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2
Pocketnes

Working
Mortal Kombat - Deadly Alliance
Puyo Pop
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3

If it matters, I'm using a DSPhat with M3 Manager V2.6 X.
 

nitro2k01

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My oh my... Downloading GBATA helped, even though the problem had nothing to do with SRAM saving. For some reason many of the files on my friend's G6 had invalid headers. (That list of course perfectly matched the non-working list)
I checked the files in a hex editor, and it seems G6 had added an extra header to the file. And even so the files appeared pretty dirty. Eg, I found a null character in the middle of the name in the GBA header. They still run fine from the G6 cart, so there has to be some reason...
But I'm getting new files.

Edit: And I'm relieved to find out this is not a problem with the M3.
 

Grimalkin

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My oh my... Downloading GBATA helped, even though the problem had nothing to do with SRAM saving. For some reason many of the files on my friend's G6 had invalid headers. (That list of course perfectly matched the non-working list)
I checked the files in a hex editor, and it seems G6 had added an extra header to the file. And even so the files appeared pretty dirty. Eg, I found a null character in the middle of the name in the GBA header. They still run fine from the G6 cart, so there has to be some reason...
But I'm getting new files.

Edit: And I'm relieved to find out this is not a problem with the M3.


Lol, I was surprised there, all the GBA games I've tried work flawless on the M3DS Real.
 

nitro2k01

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Yeah, I was pretty curious myself. First I thought something was wrong with my slot 2, even, but that didn't make sense. All I needed was a kick in the butt to find the error.
If there are any actual problems they would be related to saving, but that should be easy to fix with patches.
 

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