Reflashed a fake 300 in 1 gba cart

[Antwan3672]

Hey all!

I reflashed a 300-1 gba a cart to play Pokémon unbound and it boots and plays but once i try and save it freeze and makes a bunch of glitching noises and doesn’t save. Anyway to fix this?
I’m using a program on a DS lite to flash the cart

 

[anotherthing]

I wonder if the problem is that Pokemon Unbound is 32MB and either the flasher or the hardware itself isn't expecting anything that large.

 

[Antwan3672]

I know how to adjust the size of it so should I do that?

Post automatically merged: Nov 28, 2023

The cart does have a battery in it to

 

[anotherthing]

I know how to adjust the size of it so should I do that?

I wouldn't think that would fix it since we're talking about cartridge ROMs that had fairly specific size limits. 4MB, 8MB, and 16MB were what were common for the GBA and you had to fit your game within those limits. If you went over, you had to go to the next size ROM, which was more expensive.

The thing about it is that, for the most part, I don't think the actual GameBoy Advance cares what size ROM is on the cartridge. I'm sure there's some sort of limit you'll hit, but if you have a legit flash cartridge and a means of doing it that will accept larger ROM sizes, the GBA can handle 32MB ROM like most robust ROM hacks are. It's entirely possible though that the NDS utility you're using to flash the cartridge has a 24bit addressing limit or the 369 in 1 cartridge has that limit somewhere, since that's 16MB. Trimming the ROM file you have won't solve the issue that what's left over will be larger than exactly 16MB.

I don't know any of this for sure, it's just a guess. I know there are flash cartridges and flashers that can do it, but I'm just not sure about the limits of what you're using.

 

[Antwan3672]

Okay. So what are my options for fixing this problem. I kinda don’t wanna go buying a flash cart if I don’t have to.

Post automatically merged: Nov 28, 2023

Is there a better software for the NDS I can use for that?

 

[anotherthing]

Are you using GBABF? If so, how many sectors did it write? I'm looking at the github for GBABF and it says it supports two different chips, the MSP55LV128 and MSP55LV128M. You might want to pop open that cartridge and check to see if the 369 in 1 has that chip in it. It'll be the biggest chip on the left hand side of the cartridge.

 

[Antwan3672]

Im using ,”Burn to slot” the chip is MSP44LV1009

 

[anotherthing]

You could try this:

https://gitlab.com/Fexean/gbabf/-/releases

I dug through the sourcecode on Burn2Slot and it looks like it does two different methods of flashing based on two criteria for flashing. That version of GBABF I posted the link to seems to detect various cards that start with the MSP prefix, but none of them is MSP44LV. In fact, the crazy thing is that I can't find "MSP44LV1009" from any of the three search engines I commonly use. That said, that GBABF has a fall back for "unknown MSP" cards, so it might work.

 

[Antwan3672]

Ty man. I’ll try it. Also it’s 55 not 44 I miss typed my bad

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Hey all!

I reflashed a 300-1 gba a cart to play Pokémon unbound and it boots and plays but once i try and save it freeze and makes a bunch of glitching noises and doesn’t save. Anyway to fix this?
I’m using a program on a DS lite to flash the cart

Bootlegs often use SRAM saves, Pokemon normally uses flash saves. You might need to SRAM patch the game (there are tools available to do this)

 

[Antwan3672]

ive already sram patched it and it still didn't work

Post automatically merged: Nov 28, 2023

You could try this:

https://gitlab.com/Fexean/gbabf/-/releases

I dug through the sourcecode on Burn2Slot and it looks like it does two different methods of flashing based on two criteria for flashing. That version of GBABF I posted the link to seems to detect various cards that start with the MSP prefix, but none of them is MSP44LV. In fact, the crazy thing is that I can't find "MSP44LV1009" from any of the three search engines I commonly use. That said, that GBABF has a fall back for "unknown MSP" cards, so it might work.

Tried this and same thing happened. The rom is sram patched.

Post automatically merged: Nov 28, 2023

Are you using GBABF? If so, how many sectors did it write? I'm looking at the github for GBABF and it says it supports two different chips, the MSP55LV128 and MSP55LV128M. You might want to pop open that cartridge and check to see if the 369 in 1 has that chip in it. It'll be the biggest chip on the left hand side of the cartridge.

Also it wrote 512 sectors

 

[anotherthing]

Also it wrote 512 sectors

Well, that would be a full 32MB since each sector is 65,536 bytes. I also can't find anything about MSP55LV1009 being a ROM chip either. I did find this, though:



If I drop the "9" at the end, there's this thread on here:

https://gbatemp.net/threads/burn2slot-re-programm-gba-bootlegs-on-ds.583984/#post-9385466

That suggests that Burn2Slot should have worked with your flash cartridge, so I'm at a loss here. So, here's my next stupid question. What are you trying to play the flash cartridge of Pokemon Unbound on?

 

[metroid maniac]

You probably need to flash a menu to the cartridge as well. GBA bootleg multicarts use a mapper located in the SRAM address space to select the game... which means that when the game tries to save, it unmaps itself and crashes. Using a menu will lock the mapper so this does not happen.
https://github.com/lesserkuma/GBA_MultiMenu
Most bootleg multicarts I have seen do not have batteries so you will additionally have to batteryless patch the game in order the save. I'm not sure if that's possible, though - bootleg mutlicarts tend to have 512K batteryless SRAM, but Pokemon Unbound bootlegs in the wild have 1M battery SRAM.

 

[Antwan3672]

Well, that would be a full 32MB since each sector is 65,536 bytes. I also can't find anything about MSP55LV1009 being a ROM chip either. I did find this, though:



If I drop the "9" at the end, there's this thread on here:

https://gbatemp.net/threads/burn2slot-re-programm-gba-bootlegs-on-ds.583984/#post-9385466

That suggests that Burn2Slot should have worked with your flash cartridge, so I'm at a loss here. So, here's my next stupid question. What are you trying to play the flash cartridge of Pokemon Unbound on?

I’m trying to play it on a gameboy advance SP bc I’m not a fan of playing it on a emulator bc it doesn’t give the same feel as if i was playing it on the original console

Post automatically merged: Nov 28, 2023

You probably need to flash a menu to the cartridge as well. GBA bootleg multicarts use a mapper located in the SRAM address space to select the game... which means that when the game tries to save, it unmaps itself and crashes. Using a menu will lock the mapper so this does not happen.
https://github.com/lesserkuma/GBA_MultiMenu
Most bootleg multicarts I have seen do not have batteries so you will additionally have to batteryless patch the game in order the save. I'm not sure if that's possible, though - bootleg mutlicarts tend to have 512K batteryless SRAM, but Pokemon Unbound bootlegs in the wild have 1M battery SRAM.

I’ll give it a shot. Why would I need to battery less patch it when it has a battery tho? And how do I get the game on the cart after the menu is flashed?

Post automatically merged: Nov 28, 2023

Okay i tried to flash the menu with the from to it and it freezes about 50% through the erase

 

[anotherthing]

I’m trying to play it on a gameboy advance SP bc I’m not a fan of playing it on a emulator bc it doesn’t give the same feel as if i was playing it on the original console

I hear you. I was wondering if there was a problem with Pokemon Unbound on a particular piece of hardware, but the first thing I found when searching for "Pokemon Unbound original hardware" was a big picture from Reddit of someone playing it on a GBA SP. So, that's not it either.

I'm at a complete loss here. I just wonder if you don't have some crazy weird implimentations of that card because, as you've said, it has a battery in it. It's funny to think about, but that cheap bootleg you have might be an interesting keepsake for a collection if nothing else and assuming you could restore it back to how you got it.

 

[Antwan3672]

I hear you. I was wondering if there was a problem with Pokemon Unbound on a particular piece of hardware, but the first thing I found when searching for "Pokemon Unbound original hardware" was a big picture from Reddit of someone playing it on a GBA SP. So, that's not it either.

I'm at a complete loss here. I just wonder if you don't have some crazy weird implimentations of that card because, as you've said, it has a battery in it. It's funny to think about, but that cheap bootleg you have might be an interesting keepsake for a collection if nothing else and assuming you could restore it back to how you got it.

Man this is a rlly weird cart then. It was able to flash it just fine but then once I put the menu on it then it just wouldn't flash and would just stop at 50%. So what do you suggest I do. At this point I'm up for anything

Post automatically merged: Nov 28, 2023

Okay so i tried again and it times out at sector 513. its trying to write 1024 sectors

 

[anotherthing]

I think the problem with the menu is that the Pokemon Unbound ROM is 32MB and that chip seems to only be 32MB. You could try trimming the Pokemon Unbound ROM at this point to make room for the menu and see if that works?

 

[Antwan3672]

I think the problem with the menu is that the Pokemon Unbound ROM is 32MB and that chip seems to only be 32MB. You could try trimming the Pokemon Unbound ROM at this point to make room for the menu and see if that works?

Ok so what do u think i should trim the rom to?

 

[anotherthing]

https://www.gamebrew.org/wiki/NDSTokyoTrim

Basically, ROM files are typically the size of what the hardware ROM would be, meaning it would be 4MB, 8MB, 16MB or in your case, 32MB. But more often than not, the software doesn't actually need all that space, so the rest of the file is filled with 0s. What Tokyo Trim does is remove all those useless 0s that take up space in order to make the file fit the size of the hardware ROM, but leaves the actual data in that file in tact.

If the trimmed ROM and the menu are less than 32MB, it might just all flash on to that MSP55LV100.

 

[Antwan3672]

I trimmed it and got...32.50. It just needs to a little lower to work. Is there anyway to get is just a tad smaller?

Post automatically merged: Nov 28, 2023

I just found out that the chip is 64MB actually so I ran it again annnnddd same thing. Im about 1mb to big for it to work.

Also the chip is

• FUJITSU DEVICES MSP55LV100S Non-volatile programmable random-access memory 64Mx16 70pin SSOP 16mm x 28.45mm

(I apologize for getting the chip wrong lol)