Hacking Supercard MiniSD, EZ-Flash IV Lite - Work with GBA (original)?

[MajinCry]

Edit : Anyone know if the EZ Flash IV can play Gameboy colour games? It'd be brilliant if it did.

Kinda short on time, so I've got to make this question short and sweet

I found these two products :

http://www.neoconsolas.com/tienda/ezflash-...ebecdb7c21e5e1c

and

http://www.neoconsolas.com/tienda/supercar...bulk-p-269.html

My question is which one of these would work for my original Game Boy Advance (Teh thick and wide modelz). I like the sound of the Supercard, but a few of my friends (And glimpses of a few threads) suggest that the IV is the way to go.

....But I really do like the sound of that Micro-SD card support. Got tons of 'em kicking about.

I am looking to use 'em mainly for my pokemon games that have decided to either go defunct (Yay for excited 5 year olds T_T)
or gone missing (Looking at you, mr. father's friend's son!).

So, any tips?

Thanks in advance!

 

[raulpica]

The EZ-Lite only fits in DS Lites, and also has an almost non-existant GBA compatibility.

The Supercard will fit though, but expect issues in most games (mostly slowdowns). Also saving with it is a PAIN (quick-power cycle, if you forget to do it, say goodbye to your progress).

BTW, they both use miniSD, not microSD.

The only good GBA flashcart you can get today is the EZ-Flash IV (not the Lite one).

 

[FAST6191]

Ez-Flash IV Lite Compact you linked has limited GBA ability (roms 64Mbit and under) as it was made for DS roms back when people quite possibly still had GBA era devices that did really well for GBA. The EZ4 lite deluxe however (same site http://www.neoconsolas.com/tienda/ezflash-...-pink-p-70.html ) is certainly the best reasonably available GBA cart still out there and high up in the "all time list" as well. I picked up a lite deluxe the other month as did a few others around here and no objections to the site and service from it.

Only the miniSD version of the EZ4 officially fits in the large/normal GBA slots but if you mod the case a bit all versions will work (I used an EZ4 lite for years as my GBA slot device on my GBA and original DS and now moved to the lite deluxe the other week with no problems there either).

Supercards- they were top notch for DS games in the GBA slot era but their GBA abilities have never been great it I hold nobody could suggest you pick up a supercard for general GBA use in good conscience.

 

[MajinCry]

@Raul Any idea where I can get an EZ Flash IV for under 30 bucks? I really don't want to spend an awful lot on something which I am trying to save money with.

@Fast Huh. Sorry if I'm sounding a lil' newb-ish, but does that IV Lite Deluxe doozey take MiniSD cards as well? Or does it just use internal memory? It looks pretty sweet, but if it takes MiniSD/Whatever, that's brilliant. The site gives ....indeterminate specs on how much space the GBA can have for games. The price is just perfect, but if it can't take atleast one huge game (Or two Pokemon games...Nyeh :3), it's really not what I'm looking for.

Once again, thanks in advance!

 

[FAST6191]

There are 4 models of EZ4 out there but most only find the original/miniSD version. That site is one of the very few I presently know of that carries the lite deluxe (certainly the cheapest as well).

First all dumped GBA games are up to 256Mbit aka 32Megabytes but most are 16 megabytes or less with only a few (including handful of notable games) being any bigger (I have pasted the list in various places over the years). Homebrew you can usually control the size of (no real multimedia on the GBA to speak of and you can always make another emulator pack and rename it).

GBA games need fast memory to run (this is why the supercards fall short as they skimped here- if you fancy some tech http://www.pocketheaven.com/ph/wiki/SupercardGBASlowdowns but otherwise just assume they are no good for GBA) and standard NAND memory (your USB drive and XD, cf, SD.... memory cards use this) is not up to the task so at run time they are copied to other memory sections. In practice this boiled down to two types of memory

NOR- slow to write (several minutes) but once it is there then it sticks until you erase it. Has a quirk in that say you had files 1,2,3 and 4 on it to delete 2 you need to remove 3 and 4.

(PS)RAM (not to be confused with SRAM aka save ram which is used to hold your save data until next boot where it is written to the ?SD). Much like most types of ram this loses the data when power is lost but it is quick to write to.

Anti piracy did not really exist for most of the GBA (and the few games that have it should have patches or in the case of the emulators (the nes classic/some famicom mini games) use homebrew as it is better). Most troubles came with new save types (none since 2006 or so) or the odd game that uses custom sensors (tilt, solar....) or real time clock (mainly some pokemon titles and boktai) but these games have patches as well (earlier carts had RTC onboard but it was dropped from the EZ4 line as so few games used it).
The two main links of GBA related patching http://www.pocketheaven.com/ph/bubbz/ and http://www.no-intro.org/tools.htm

None can make use of SDHC in any form (if it is larger than 2 gigs it is SDHC).

The original EZ4
This uses miniSD
It has 256Mbit (32 megabytes) of NOR memory. This is slow to write and
It also has 128Mbit (16megabytes) of PSRAM that we use by default.

The EZ4 lite
This is DS lite sized (or thereabouts) and uses microSD.
Same memory sizes as the main EZ4

The EZ4 lite compact
This is 1:1 DS lite dust cover.
This uses microSD
It only runs games up to 64Mbit (8 megabytes- a fair few games are this size or smaller but not worth it if you are wanting to explore the GBA).

The EZ4 lite deluxe
Again DS lite dust cover size and microSD.
This has 384Mbit of NOR (48 megabytes)
It also has 256Mbit (32 megabytes) of PSRAM.

 

[Deleted-236924]

If you want to play Pokémon, you want the EZ-Flash IV.
From what I've experienced, the Supercard can only use up to 64kb save files while Pokémon uses 128kb.
Even if the Supercard supported 128kb save files, you would want the EZ-Flash anyway.

 

[MajinCry]

Alright then, EZ IV it is

Thanks for the replies guys, thanks. Much obliged to yerselves for the sound advice

Edit : Got another question XD

Does the EZ IV play GameBoy Colour games as well? If so, frikin' awesome. If not, agh well. No Pokemon yeller.

 

[Deleted-236924]

They can.
You gotta use Goomba Color.

I'm not sure how well Goomba works if you pack in multiple .gb/c roms in the same file, so I'd recommend just making an individual file for each gb rom.

 

[DanTheManMS]

They can.
You gotta use Goomba Color.

I'm not sure how well Goomba works if you pack in multiple .gb/c roms in the same file, so I'd recommend just making an individual file for each gb rom.

There shouldn't be any issues. You just have to remember the 32 MB size limit for *.gba files (16 MB if you want it to fit into PSRAM). Goomba Color uses compressed saves, to my knowledge, so you don't have to worry about running out of SRAM space (though I would press L+R to go back to the menu before powering off, just to be safe, as that forces a re-compression and re-save).

 

[CyborgLizard]

So I also busted out my gameboy SP and wanted to play some game boy color games on it.

From what I read here, the EZ IV is the best thing out there for this.

I have a question about goomba color. Is it some program you put on the microSD card? Can you have GBC and GBA games on the same cart? Just wondering how it works more...

 

[tbgtbg]

I have a question about goomba color. Is it some program you put on the microSD card? Can you have GBC and GBA games on the same cart? Just wondering how it works more...

Goomba Color is an emulator http://www.dwedit.org/gba/goombacolor.php

 

[CyborgLizard]

Goomba Color is an emulator http://www.dwedit.org/gba/goombacolor.php

But how do you exactly use it on an EZ flash card so I can play gbc games on my gameboy SP system? If anyone knows off the top of their head it would really help!

 

[Count Duckula]

But how do you exactly use it on an EZ flash card so I can play gbc games on my gameboy SP system? If anyone knows off the top of their head it would really help!

The emulator download comes with a little program that you use to add the roms into the emulator's .gba file. You just run it on a windows machine, add the roms you want (mixing colour and original GB games is fine), then copy the .gba file it creates to your miniSD card like you would a normal GBA game.


Try the version from here: http://ezflash.sosuke.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=12660
The official release wont save (save isnt written to miniSD when you exit) on an ez-flash IV, so the next time you load the emulator the saves for any GB/GBC games you've played before will be gone.
I haven't used this myself, even the GBC emulator for DS isn't overly accurate, so I prefer to play the few games I want on original carts.

 

[CyborgLizard]

The emulator download comes with a little program that you use to add the roms into the emulator's .gba file. You just run it on a windows machine, add the roms you want (mixing colour and original GB games is fine), then copy the .gba file it creates to your miniSD card like you would a normal GBA game.


Try the version from here: http://ezflash.sosuke.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=12660
The official release wont save (save isnt written to miniSD when you exit) on an ez-flash IV, so the next time you load the emulator the saves for any GB/GBC games you've played before will be gone.
I haven't used this myself, even the GBC emulator for DS isn't overly accurate, so I prefer to play the few games I want on original carts.

awww that sucks cuz I was really hoping to play Links Awakening... but no saves...

 

[Yepi69]

Yes it can, you just need an emulator for it on the flashcard.

 

[RodrigoDavy]

Edit : Anyone know if the EZ Flash IV can play Gameboy colour games? It'd be brilliant if it did.

It does play gameboy color games with goomba color, but since goomba color is an emulator it's not perfect. You could also buy a game boy color flashcard, for better compatibility. I guess you probably wouldn't want to but I just thought you should know just in case. If you're interested in the gbc flashcard, google "gbc 64m"

 

[The Real Jdbye]

The emulator download comes with a little program that you use to add the roms into the emulator's .gba file. You just run it on a windows machine, add the roms you want (mixing colour and original GB games is fine), then copy the .gba file it creates to your miniSD card like you would a normal GBA game.


Try the version from here: http://ezflash.sosuke.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=12660
The official release wont save (save isnt written to miniSD when you exit) on an ez-flash IV, so the next time you load the emulator the saves for any GB/GBC games you've played before will be gone.
I haven't used this myself, even the GBC emulator for DS isn't overly accurate, so I prefer to play the few games I want on original carts.

Is that an issue specific to the EZ4? I'm sure I was able to save in Goomba Color on my old EFAII (but you do need to press L+R to write to SRAM, and it did need the save type set manually)

Edit: Found a workaround the guy claims worked for his EZ4 here, http://www.dwedit.org/dwedit_board/viewtopic.php?pid=2785#p2785
Resetting Goomba Color means hitting L+R and choosing restart.
It's recommended not to put more than one GBC ROM in each emulator ROM to avoid saving issues.

awww that sucks cuz I was really hoping to play Links Awakening... but no saves...

Check out the workaround I posted above. It seems to be especially important to do the resetting after each save, as it doesn't save the full 64KB until you reset.

 

[CyborgLizard]

Thanks guys!

 

[Count Duckula]

Is that an issue specific to the EZ4? I'm sure I was able to save in Goomba Color on my old EFAII (but you do need to press L+R to write to SRAM, and it did need the save type set manually)

Edit: Found a workaround the guy claims worked for his EZ4 here, http://www.dwedit.org/dwedit_board/viewtopic.php?pid=2785#p2785
Resetting Goomba Color means hitting L+R and choosing restart.
It's recommended not to put more than one GBC ROM in each emulator ROM to avoid saving issues.


Check out the workaround I posted above. It seems to be especially important to do the resetting after each save, as it doesn't save the full 64KB until you reset.

The link in my original post is to patched versions of goomba color and (some other emus for GBA) that are meant to allow the 'L+R then exit' option to work on the ez-flash, they're by the same boke who posted in your link (Kuwanger).
If the official release saves fine as is (I'd just read of a fair few ppl having issues so thought the patched versions may be best), all the better


I'm sure I used to use it on my f2a 1Gb back in the day (since stolen) too, with no issues saving even with many games per .gba. Havnt bothered to test it since i got the EZ-flash IV but it does seem to be an issue with the emu and either this card specifically or likely with many of the later SD storage based carts. *shrug*