Hacking Sky3DS + Powersaves (Does it work?)

[Osmosis]

You need three things to answer this:

1. 3DS/2DS
2. Sky3DS
3. Datel Powersaves Pro 3DS

This is not about how to use Powersaves to get headers.

This is about getting the Sky3DS to work with Powersaves dongle like the rest of your retail carts.

I know that Pokemon ORAS/XY work when trying to max items, but won't when trying to restore savedata backups. Results in "savedata is corrupt" when booting up game from Sky3DS.

If I try any other game, it blinks Powersaves software on/off until an eventual "This game is not compatible" prompt.

Anyone else have this problem? If not, how did you get it to work? Headers? Chip ID? EEPROM ID? Explain... I'd love to know.

 

[Adeka]

I'm curious about this too. Has anyone managed to get a single game to work with power saves and sky3ds?

 

[thaikhoa]

Powersaves can read games other than Pokemon XY/ORAS. However, most of the time it won't work (like 99%). I think it's a trick in this story but haven't found it out yet.

 

[Osmosis]

I'm curious about this too. Has anyone managed to get a single game to work with power saves and sky3ds?

I can get Pokemon OR, AS, X, and Y to load up on Powersaves screen and I can even edit items and have pokemon sent to my Sky3DS games.

I can make a backup, but...

I cannot restore any backups to them or they will end up corrupted savedata.

A looooong time ago I got it to work on all my Sky3DS games, but that quickly changed. I think Datel is doing something to block Sky3DS but why Pokemon can't block it interests me...

 

[Oishikatta]

Well sky3ds doesn't work with gateway's save management either, perhaps that related?

 

[Osmosis]

I have an interesting idea... I just dumped my retail carts using Gateway Menu. What if I used the actual .3ds dump as my ROM in Sky3DS and then pulled the header from that dump in SAK and put it into Sky3DS... I wonder if Powersaves would recognize it? I mean, at that point it's an EXACT copy of my retail cart... right???

 

[ManBeaPig]

There has been several discussions about this before. It is understood generally that it won't work for two reasons:

1) Powersaves somehow knows it's a Sky3DS
2) The powersaves dongle may not output enough power to fully 'run' the Sky3DS cart

 

[Oishikatta]

or

3) Neither of the above are true, sky3ds does not actually function similarly enough to a real cart

 

[ManBeaPig]

or

3) Neither of the above are true, sky3ds does not actually function similarly enough to a real cart

Toúché! Although I'd say that comes under the remit of point 1

 

[Oishikatta]

Toúché! Although I'd say that comes under the remit of point 1

But it seems more likely that it's incidental rather than intentional.

 

[ManBeaPig]

But it seems more likely that it's incidental rather than intentional.

I know what you're saying, however, I'd have thought Nintendo would be pretty good at blocking the Sky3DS if it was significantly different to a retail cart.

 

[thaikhoa]

I can get Pokemon OR, AS, X, and Y to load up on Powersaves screen and I can even edit items and have pokemon sent to my Sky3DS games.

I can make a backup, but...

I cannot restore any backups to them or they will end up corrupted savedata.

A looooong time ago I got it to work on all my Sky3DS games, but that quickly changed. I think Datel is doing something to block Sky3DS but why Pokemon can't block it interests me...

I can backup/ restore to sky3ds itself or original retail card without any issue.

 

[Osmosis]

I can backup/ restore to sky3ds itself or original retail card without any issue.

For Pokemon only? Because mine won't even let me backup other games... It'll let me backup Pokemon. But then when I restore that powersaves backup to Sky3DS it reads "corrupt savedata"

 

[thaikhoa]

For Pokemon only? Because mine won't even let me backup other games... It'll let me backup Pokemon. But then when I restore that powersaves backup to Sky3DS it reads "corrupt savedata"

Pokemon works most of the time but other games will work sometime, idk why...

 

[Osmosis]

I have an interesting idea... I just dumped my retail carts using Gateway Menu. What if I used the actual .3ds dump as my ROM in Sky3DS and then pulled the header from that dump in SAK and put it into Sky3DS... I wonder if Powersaves would recognize it? I mean, at that point it's an EXACT copy of my retail cart... right???

Nope. Same problem. So even if it has the exact same ROM and template header as a retail cart, they're blocking the Sky3DS.

Maybe do a memory dump with HxD on Powersaves when Sky3DS is connected might reveal something...

 

[zergslayer69]

Not directly related to the conversation but power saves is picky. If I am in classic mode on gateway and save on a retail cart, power saves may not be able to access it correctly on some games. Bravely default is one while kid icarus it had no problem with.

 

[Osmosis]

Anything helps... There's obviously something about the way their server does the edit and tears the SAVEDATA apart. But then it shoots it back encrypted.

Sometimes I have this weird daydream where I imagine a server rack with a few shelves of 3DS units all crunching away trying to run Powersave's traffic. (just a funny image that makes me laugh when I get tired of thinking about it)

I'm sure they have this all done by software. Which really ticks me off. Well... at least makes me jealous.

Kid Icarus and Braverly are both EEPROM-YES games and not NAND based. But do they save any data to SD card during gameplay? I think that might have something to do with it.

 

[Amost]

I had success using Powersaves pro on every game cartridge but not with ROMS.
It seems that only NAND games (pokemon, animal crossing, etc) are recognized by Powersaves + sky3DS...

I tried to convert an EEPROM game to NAND, created a custom template with SAK and wrote it back to the sky3DS with diskwriter.
Unfortunately neither the 3DS nor Powersaves recognize the game =(
Actually I didn't change the whole template, just the value that tells diskwriter it's a NAND game now.

I was wondering if this approach would be possible or if I made a mistake with the template...
I'm still new to this stuff and don't fully understand it.

Thanks for any help.