Hacking Question on Supercard DSone and EZflash V

[smashism]

I've been looking around everywhere, and I can't get a clear answer on the subject. I either run across responses written in 5th grade english or badly translated engrish faqs. I am currently using the Supercard DS(OS?)one and the 3 in 1 expansion pack.
I just want to know how to use the GBA exploader program. Why is there no clear documentation on how to use the program.
So when I first start up the program it asks to "Write SRAM to SAV file"
1. What does this mean? Either way I selected the first option "SAV"
2. So SRAM mode doesn't save games when I turn off my ds? Isn't that essentially useless? Is there a way to save GBA games on SRAM after shutting down?
3. Can NOR mode only keep 1 game saved at a time? Can someone explain this option more to me?
4. What are the (x) and (y) buttons representing on each menu? Write SRAM to save? Backup whole SRAM to SRAM.bin? What is this stuff? Where is the readme for this part?

I can get the games to load, I just don't really understand SRAM or NOR mode, and how to save. Is there a FAQ somewhere or some better documentation?

Also,
In the supercard menu under the "other" menu there is GBA union option and stuff. What is this all about?

Sorry for all the questions, but I couldn't find anything useful in the stickies. My google and GBAtemp searches turned up more useless responses.

 

[Destructobot]

First off, SRAM and PSRAM are not the same thing. The 3-in-1 can run games from PSRAM or NOR flash memory, the SRAM holds save data. There is no SRAM mode in GBA ExpLoader, just PSRAM mode, NOR mode and Expansion mode.

On to your questions:
1. It's asking you which save slot you want to write the save to. You get six save slots per game. When you start a game it will ask you which slot to load the save from. I personally find all of this very annoying, so I disable the multi-save feature. To do this, open the GBA_ExpLoader.ini file in a text editor, remove the # from the beginning of the No_MultiSave line, save the file, and place it in the root of your memory card.

2. PSRAM mode and NOR mode both retain the saves just fine (as long as you don't run the games through the EZ4 Client, it will cause lost saves). Slot 1 is not accessible in GBA mode, so the save data stays in the 3-in-1's SRAM until GBA ExpLoader has a chance to write it to the save file. The save for PSRAM mode is automatically written to the file as soon as you start GBA ExpLoader. The save for NOR mode is automatically written to the file when you write a different game to NOR. You can force GBA ExpLoader to write the save for either mode to the file at any time by pressing B in that mode.

3. You can only have one game written to NOR at a time. Once you write a game to NOR it stays there until you erase it (unlike PSRAM mode, which has to write the game to PSRAM every time you play). You can run the game in NOR just like a regular GBA game pak, you don't need to start GBA ExpLoader to run it. As I stated above, the save for NOR mode is automatically written to the save file when you load a different game into NOR.

4. In PSRAM Mode, X writes the entire contents of the 3-in-1's SRAM to a file named SRAM.BIN. Y replaces the data in SRAM with the contents of the SRAM.BIN file. You should always back up your SRAM before running some other program that uses the 3-in-1 (the NDS Backup Tool for example), some of them don't play nice with your save data.

In NOR mode, X switches the DS to GBA mode and runs the game that is currently written to NOR. Y replaces the save for the current game with the data from that game's .sav file.

Why is there no clear documentation on how to use the program.

There is, we just don't happen to speak the same language as the person that wrote the program.

 

[smashism]

Grade A response Destructobot.
Thank you very much, everything is very clear now.