Emulation (posted in 3ds 'cause I'm using GodMode9 to dump a cart) Trying to run a dumped repro of SoulSilver on melonDS, but I just get a white screen.

[Charcoal4thee]

TLDR; Repro SoulSilver used to work, but barely, so I dumped the cart and it died a few days later.

A friend let me borrow their illegitimate copy of SoulSilver they mistakenly bought to test it, and it worked...decently. Sometimes it wouldn't show up on my 3ds home screen, sometimes it would white screen after the title screen, crashing randomly, etc. So, figuring it'd get worse, I dumped the cartridge and continued playing SS using the cart. The cart promptly stopped working altogether a while later.

In hindsight, I should've dumped the *save*, but it's too late for that now :/

Anyway, when I looked at the file on my laptop, it didn't show up as a .nds file, just a normal file. I changed the name to have .nds at the end (which somehow worked??) and tried to load the rom into melonDS, but was greeted with a white screen and silence.

Post automatically merged: Sep 18, 2024

update: I clicked "rom info" and was met with this lovely display

 

[4d1xlaan]

verify it against no-intro. sounds like it was broken already while dumping and the file you have is bad

 

[Moonscape9043]

Are you sure the cart is dead-dead? I don't think the internal chips would be failing, I think it would be the contacts.

I have a DS flashcart that is similarly flaky; not showing up on home screen, white screen after boot or boots to "An error has occurred." Crashes in-game, like would happen if you ejected the cart, or in this case if the low-quality contacts lost connection briefly.
Usually I just reinsert my cart over and over until it works. It has gotten worse over time, but it still works sometimes.

You can try cleaning the contacts. Get a toothbrush or similar. Use 91% or 99% isopropyl alcohol: Pour gently into the removed lid of the bottle, then pour from the lid onto the toothbrush (pouring from bottle to brush is hard to control). Brush up and down on the cart contacts. Let dry for 10 minutes.

nah it could be the internal chips, I have a counterfeit GBA cart that randomly stopped saving (not battery). But try cleaning the contacts if you haven't.