Homebrew SCFW: Custom Firmware & Kernel for Supercard

[KWG-08C]

Have you been playing games using both the official firmware and SCFW?
It might be that the official kernel loaded a save file without SCFW knowing about it, causing the wrong save to be written later.

Not as far as I remember. I've only been using SCFW because of how easy it is to just drop the games and play them.


But the last part of your post does make me wonder if it would be better to delete the patched roms from the SD in order to prevent something like that from happening. Maybe that's what I did wrong and the reason Medabots Metabee behaves like that on top of the issues with the savefiles other games are experincing.


I think I'll go ahead and delete those patched roms then just to be safe. I'm also deleting the savefiles of both the medabots and zoid games just to make sure I start with a fresh savefile.

Post automatically merged: Apr 5, 2024

Nope, I keep getting the same message on the Metabee version "If you start a new game and save,previously saved data will be erased. Is that OK?"

I think I Know what happened here. It's likely a compatibility issue with specific versions/regions of the rom.



I accidentally downloaded an European rom of Medabots Rokusho version and had no problem with that one. Then I downloaded an American one just so I could play the American version (for some reason the pound sign for money bothered me a little. I guess I'm notused to it? anyways) and much to my surprised it did the same exact thing as the Metabee version.

I played until I was able to save, saved normally and then did a soft reset just to see if it worked. It did save so I quit the game shortly after confirming it. I did something else and then decided to go back and play for a bit just to realize the American Medabots Rokusho version didn't have a save file again. The European version seems to work well so far.


I decided to try Jurassic Park III Park Builder and same issue. The game works and "saves" but then I turned the system off after a while, got the Micro SD out so I could get/delete some games and when I put it back in I discovered it had no save file. Medabots Rokusho version and Baldur's Gate still have their savefiles intact however.


EDIT: I was curious and checked The Legend of Zelda The Minish Cap since I just assumed it also got its savefile deleted when the other ones did (the first time) but it turns out it didn't so the savefile is fine on that one.

 

[Peeteris]

Any idea why save files randomly are empty again?
Have played Drill Dozer a week ago, got pretty far. Now wanted to pick it up again, turned on the console, it did autosave when turned on, and now there's nothing saved?
Maybe something to do with the fact that I'm on version 0.4.5?
Bought this supercard a month ago, don't think that battery is gone bad (is there a way to check it?).

 

[metroid maniac]

Any idea why save files randomly are empty again?
Have played Drill Dozer a week ago, got pretty far. Now wanted to pick it up again, turned on the console, it did autosave when turned on, and now there's nothing saved?
Maybe something to do with the fact that I'm on version 0.4.5?

Is your Supercard's battery still alive? If the battery has run out, save files won't be retained unless you make sure to reboot immediately to autosave to the SD card.

 

[Izotov]

SCFW v0.5.2 GBA-mode
FAT system initialised
Kernel file open failed
Critical failure
Press A to restert

WTF?

 

[ak1nok]

Can someone please explain what these functions mean?

Boot games through BIOS
Autosave after cold boot

 

[TheBoomer54]

Can someone please explain what these functions mean?

Boot games through BIOS
Autosave after cold boot

Boot games through BIOS: Shows the Game Boy logo when the game starts.
Autosave after cold boot: Saves the SRAM to the sd card when powering on the console rather than a soft reboot. (If your battery is dead, it will write a blank save file to the sd card.)
Please correct me if I'm wrong on any of this

 

[ak1nok]

Boot games through BIOS: Shows the Game Boy logo when the game starts.
Autosave after cold boot: Saves the SRAM to the sd card when powering on the console rather than a soft reboot. (If your battery is dead, it will write a blank save file to the sd card.)
Please correct me if I'm wrong on any of this

If "Autosave" is on and "Autosave after cold boot" is off, the game is saved in both cases. Both if you turn off the console and then turn it on, and if you quit the game with soft reset.

Did I get that right?
"Autosave" enables a save attempt in both cases (when you turn the console off and on and when you quit the game). And "Autosave after cold boot" enables saving only in case of quitting the game with soft reset? Just for a dead battery, so you don't lose a save.
After you play Supercard with a dead battery you have to quit the game anyway or you will lose your save. And then Autosave should be disabled.
Tested, if "Autosave" is disabled and "Autosave after cold boot" is enabled, no saves are written to the memory card at all.
I'm confused

What's the benefit of displaying the logo?

0.4.2 Add booting through BIOS. Game compatibility seems to be higher with this enabled - probably the fast reboot is buggy. This is enabled by default.
What is the difference between "booting through BIOS" and "the fast reboot"?

 

[metroid maniac]

Autosave off -> Autosave never occurs. You can only manage save files with the file browser. You should use this if you want to have full control over when and how you save.
Autosave on + Autosave on cold boot off -> Autosave only occurs when soft resetting. You should use this if you have a dead battery.
Autosave on + Autosave on cold boot on -> Autosave always occurs. Most people should use this and it is the default.

Booting through the BIOS fixes some compatibility issues, like Street Fighter II. There's probably a bug in the way I reboot the console to skip the BIOS, but I don't know what that is yet.

 

[ak1nok]

Autosave off -> Autosave never occurs. You can only manage save files with the file browser. You should use this if you want to have full control over when and how you save.
Autosave on + Autosave on cold boot off -> Autosave only occurs when soft resetting. You should use this if you have a dead battery.
Autosave on + Autosave on cold boot on -> Autosave always occurs. Most people should use this and it is the default.

Booting through the BIOS fixes some compatibility issues, like Street Fighter II. There's probably a bug in the way I reboot the console to skip the BIOS, but I don't know what that is yet.

Thanks a lot! That makes more sense.
If Autosave is turned off. Is there any button combination to force save from SRAM to the memory card?
What's the point of ignoring booting using BIOS? Is it a little faster?

 

[Reun]

Hello, your custom firmware saved me from having to order an older SD from the web (things are super hard to find nowadays).
So far, Metroid Zero Mission just crashes after the BIOS.
I'm trying to also play Pokemon Radical Red which does work, but the savefile is not kept.
Do you have any idea on why that might be?
Thank you.

 

[metroid maniac]

Hello, your custom firmware saved me from having to order an older SD from the web (things are super hard to find nowadays).
So far, Metroid Zero Mission just crashes after the BIOS.
I'm trying to also play Pokemon Radical Red which does work, but the savefile is not kept.
Do you have any idea on why that might be?
Thank you.

I have also seen that Zero Mission doesn't work. I don't know why yet.
Pokémon Radical Red uses a 128KB save file without a backup save. The Supercard only has 64KB save memory. So, the save file is too large.

 

[Gamemaster2022]

Hello,
I really like this CFW and I'm glad something like this is being made in 2024 despite the cart's age. However, I'm having a problem - saving. No matter what I do, all games end up with "Save Type Patch Error" and games don't save. I don't know what I'm doing wrong, I even tried multiple ROMs, SD cards but still no success. I opened an issue on the github page too.

Help is appreciated. Thanks!

 

[SuperCardDeepFan]

Hello I'm new here in GBA temp I know the super card is not the best thing in the world but for some reason I love this shit so much I think this little card has potential. I just want to thank the developer of this custom firmware you make me happy I'm literally checking everyday for any updates of the cfw I just want to let you know guys that everything has worked perfect for me the games runs flawlessly no problems with saves or anything else I swear everything's been working so nice I love the kernel and I wish with all my heart that this one support cheats and save States trust me people for this cheap this card is good. by the way I do have a question. My SuperCard I receive it recently because I bought it on AliExpress it's the micro SD version and it's been working fine the battery is great it saves the game and all that is fine but a lot of people says that as soon as I get the card I need to upgrade to 1.85 and I tried to do that and load the bin file from the root of the SD card it load and everything so far good. My actual problem is when I try to upgrade for some reason it says something about ID error that could not be read it's there anyway to check which firmware I have so that way I can check if I have the latest one? Correct me guys if I'm wrong it could be a possible that im allready on 1.85 and thats why the error ? And also how possible is that I already have a card that it's been upgraded already because everything works the cfw just fine

Post automatically merged: Apr 14, 2024

Long Life to this piece of hardware so beautiful

 

[AdeC]

Im told Fat Initialization failed, critical failure.

Can't seem to get past it. All worked fine on the original FW

 

[Reun]

Hello, is it possible to make savefiles generated after being patched, compatible with emulators?

 

[SuperCardDeepFan]

Dont know if this is a major problem ?

 

[JaviXR]

I tried to be clear in the original post that this is project is still in an early phase, and that NDS mode is only a planned feature for now.


You can revert to the official firmware by running the updater. It's a little hard to find these days, so I've attached it to this post. You need to rename sd_v185.bin to sd_v185.gba for SCFW to recognise it.

Hi, new there. Just creted an account so I can ask for help. I was trying your custom firmware, and trying to get to the original one, I get the error "read flash id error c2ba". Not a big problem since this seems like a very active project and well, original fw doesnt update since 2008, so I doesn't mind stick to it, but I'm curious as why this error shows. I have been reading about possible version missmatch, so I tried sd_v185 and cf_v185. The first one shows the error I explained, the second one doesn boot (black screen). Is there another firmware around the web that I'm missing?

My version is this one:

Many thanks.

 

[SuperCardDeepFan]

Hi, new there. Just creted an account so I can ask for help. I was trying your custom firmware, and trying to get to the original one, I get the error "read flash id error c2ba". Not a big problem since this seems like a very active project and well, original fw doesnt update since 2008, so I doesn't mind stick to it, but I'm curious as why this error shows. I have been reading about possible version missmatch, so I tried sd_v185 and cf_v185. The first one shows the error I explained, the second one doesn boot (black screen). Is there another firmware around the web that I'm missing?

My version is this one:

View attachment 431816

Many thanks.

Same thing here same same error but i dont know why and i dont know what is id flash but my card beside that its working perfectly fine

 

[Gamemaster2022]

Dont know if this is a major problem ?

I have the same issue but it's probably just a bug in the stock firmware. The card works just fine. I only have problems with SCFW's saving feature

 

[metroid maniac]

Supercard clones today seem to ship with the 1.85 firmware. It isn't necessary to manually upgrade them yourself.

Looks like newer Supercard clones are using different flash chips. This might be a problem for installing either custom firmware or original firmware. The ID identifies the flash chip, but different flash chips also use different flashing commands and will require more code to support installing a new firmware.

Hi, new there. Just creted an account so I can ask for help. I was trying your custom firmware, and trying to get to the original one, I get the error "read flash id error c2ba". Not a big problem since this seems like a very active project and well, original fw doesnt update since 2008, so I doesn't mind stick to it, but I'm curious as why this error shows. I have been reading about possible version missmatch, so I tried sd_v185 and cf_v185. The first one shows the error I explained, the second one doesn boot (black screen). Is there another firmware around the web that I'm missing?

My version is this one:

View attachment 431816

Many thanks.

Were you able to install custom firmware with this? SCFW performs its own flash ID check when trying to install the firmware.