Hacking Pokemon GBA Saves Fail on M3 DS Real

[Slyce]

I am having some problems trying to save Pokemon GBA games with M3 DS Real. Whenever I try to save the current game, I get this error message:

"Save failed. Checking the backup memory... Please wait." "Time required: 1 minute"

I have tried with patch on and off from the game manager, neither made a difference.

Package: M3 DS Real, Kingston 2 GB Micro SD, GBA Expansion Pack, DS Rumble Pack (using the GBA Expansion for these GBA games).

Has anyone got saves to work with Pokemon GBA games? I'd love to hear how you did it with the M3 Real.

Cheers.

 

[Agjsdfd]

It works fine for me.
Which game did you use?

 

[m3rox]

How many save files do you have on your cart (in the folder where your gba save files go)? I know that on my M3 Perfect MiniSD, I can only have 200 save files in my NDS save folder, otherwise it will stop saving.

 

[Lumstar]

The Pokemon GBA games use 128 kilobyte (not kilobit!) save files, which some flash carts don't handle correctly.

 

[Slyce]

m3rox: The are only a couple of save and none of them work.

theclaw: I am using M3's GBA Expansion Pack (as part of the M3 Real bundle), does that handle 128 kilobyte saves?

I haven't been able to get any GBA to save correctly. So far I have tested:

1691 Pokemon Leaf Green (produces error I mentioned in my first post)
1757 The Urbz - Sims in the City (E) (says save OK, but load an urb is greyed out)
1865 The Legend of Zelda - The Minish Cap (U)(DCS) (Unable to save file)
1986 - Pokemon Emerald (U) (produces error I mentioned in my first post)
2584 The Sims 2 Pets (game says it saved ok, and even after the DS was turned off and the game restarted the save game was not available to load (load sim was greyed out).

Kamui101: Which ROM did you use and did you Fast Load or Patch?

 

[stefanol]

For me, M3 Real saves - at least Pokemon Fire Red (E) Emerald (U), and Kingdom Hearts (U). I use "Patch" option. AFAIR, when I played Final Fantasy 1, it didn't save once.

 

[Slyce]

For me, M3 Real saves - at least Pokemon Fire Red (E) Emerald (U), and Kingdom Hearts (U). I use "Patch" option. AFAIR, when I played Final Fantasy 1, it didn't save once.

What brand RAM expansion are you using?

 

[Slyce]

I have just received a replacement M3 GBA RAM Expansion and Pokemon games save perfectly fine. I even converted some VisualBoy Advance saves over and they work too.

So in the end it was a problematic RAM expander.

 

[stefanol]

Good to hear. How do you convert your VBA savegames? I have succesfully converted my Fire Red savegame, but Emerald save is getting corrupted...

 

[Perseid]

I've had the problem where the GBA game will not save the first time, but will save on future boots of the game. To fix this I take a set of GBA save files(there are 2) copy them and rename them to work with the new ROM. Very annoying but it works.

That didn't make a lot of sense. LOL Let's try this: You want to play fireemblem.gba and you copy it to the card for the first time. To make it work you take your 2 save files for, say, warioware.gba. Copy them and rename the copies to fireemblem.sav and .0.