Hacking Supercard needs new firmware

[Sweater Fish Del]

First of all, I guess I should say that I only have the original Supercard SD, so maybe the Lite version has a better firmware or something, but if so that only makes it even worse that they're forgetting the users of their older products.

In addition t my Supercard SD, I also have a G6 Lite and, man, the G6 just has a wonderful interface. Nice large menu with icons for each game and best of all, it's all works throught he touchscreen. Compared to that, the Supercard is sad, just a simply file browser and it's all through the top screen with the touchscreen just wasted by a static splash that says "Supercard DS." On the other hand, I really like the fact that you can load GBA ROMs through the same menu as DS stuff (can't do that on the G6) and the plugin system that lets you run older systems' ROMs in emulators directly, so if the Supercard had a nicer look and touchscreen support, it wuld really be way better than the G6.

So then, why haven't the Supercard people updated their firmware to take advantage of what the DS can do and to match what their competitiors are doing? Their interface is obviously justa slightly modified version of the GBA interface, it's time to update it. And they should update the plugin system to use DS emulators instead of GBA ones while they're at it. And add direct MP3 playback, too.

If the Supercard team won't do it themselves, homebrew firmwares are always better than what the manufacturer supplies even when they do try to keep up-to-date anyway. So that's what I'd really like to see is some homebrew hacking of the firmware. I'm sort of surprised that there hasn't been any. Doesn't seem to be anything like that with any of the GBA/DS flash carts as far as I can tell.

Is the firmware updating method even cracked? It seems to just write a bunch of files to it internal memory, it'd probably be trivilaly simple to crack the method and write our own firmwares with all the features we want. HAs there ever been any discussion of this before?


...word is bondage...

 

[RottenFox]

i just cant understand people that moan about the menu..
you switch it on,you pick a game,programme,or file to run.
you press the button----it loads in.
what more do you need.
if they improve the compaibility as they have before..great,thats whats most important.
if they concentrate on making it more attractive for the ones who want eye candy,at the expense of not doing the first fix,then ill move on to another card.

 

[pte]

At least I don't spend my freetime by watching my GUI. The GUI does exactly what it is meant to do, not less or more. I wouldn't fix anything unless it is broken, the M3 menu doesn't use the touchscreen so for me it would just be a bad thing since it makes things slower. You boot up, start a game and it took what... 4 seconds. If you want to play for a menu do it, I won't.

And for your info again, the homebrew do MP3 just fine. Why to add something that is not needed? At least I don't want my product to cost more because they spent time coding something unecessary.

Using a custom made firmware is like trying to turn a sapphire into an opal. Never gonna happen...

 

[Hanafuda]

I can't flat disagree, cuz there's some things in there I guess I partially agree with. I really like the Supercard for playing NDS and homebrew. I don't even bother with GBA, because even though the GBA support isn't as bad as people usually make it out to be, the saving procedures are a pain and take too much time. (I use an EFA cart in a GBASP2 for my GBA needs) So, just looking at Supercard for its NDS-related functions, I agree with you that if theyre going to embed emulators into the firmware, its time for those emulators to be NDS-based emus instead of GBA-based. NESDS (the emukidid WIP version) rocks. However, I would much rather that they don't put any built-in features on the card. I would rather always be able to update Moonshell, an emulator, or any other homebrew app manually and independent of the SC's firmware. Of course I can do this anyway, but I just dont think homebrew apps need to be included in the SC's firmware. Unnecessary clutter.

As for the interface, the only thing I want changed is that the highlighted item should auto-scroll if the d-pad is held down. Other than that, I like the plain text, no BS approach very much.

Don't fix it if it aint broken.

 

[5uck3rpunch]

What is the max size SD card the SuperCard will read? I heard 2 GB & I also heard 4GB...

 

[pte]

I read that you can get 4GB to work but 2GB works without any extra hassle.

 

[richardv]

I've been using a 4GB Transcend sd for the last 8 months with no problems.

 

[5uck3rpunch]

I need to get me a 4GB then too! I almost filled a 2GB with DS & the SCUMM games! Thanx!

 

[adgloride]

I've had the supercard lite for a few days now. It looks great and fits well into the DS lite. The only thing I don't like about it is the new games (Apart from lego star wars 2 and harvest moon of course) take a lot of messing around with the patcher to get it to work.

With the supercard SD most of the games worked with any settings, on the supercard lite I have to mess loads with the settings. On mech assault I patched it differently 3 times to get it to work properly. Hopefully it'll be better come the next firmware update.

 

[Garouken]

people who talk that supercard is a gba card, talk bs...

for gba games we got ezflash, the ones who started the flashcards on the gba.. and those other bad brands

when the ds came, along came all the extern memory card based flashcards.
which where used to play DS games.

everyone who has a supercard, has a DS flashcard, not a gba.

 

[5uck3rpunch]

Yeah. I still have my old EZFlash cart for the GBA stuff along side my SuperCard for the DS stuff. Makes a good combo. 1.....2......PUNCH!

 

[Brouhaha]

people who talk that supercard is a gba card, talk bs...

for gba games we got ezflash, the ones who started the flashcards on the gba.. and those other bad brands

when the ds came, along came all the extern memory card based flashcards.
which where used to play DS games.

everyone who has a supercard, has a DS flashcard, not a gba.

You can stick a Supercard in a GBA a run games with no hardware modifications. Can you say the same about using it on the DS? Ever thought maybe it was simple evolution of the carts? I.E. fitting hundreds of gba games on a single cart rather than a dozen or two?

Please elaborate on why the supercard is a DS cart (and removable storage media is not a good argument). No offense, as I love my supercard and mostly play DS on it, but even the Supercard team themselves have mentionned it was designed for GBA purposes, so....

 

[Sweater Fish Del]

At least I don't spend my freetime by watching my GUI. The GUI does exactly what it is meant to do, not less or more. I wouldn't fix anything unless it is broken, the M3 menu doesn't use the touchscreen so for me it would just be a bad thing since it makes things slower. You boot up, start a game and it took what... 4 seconds. If you want to play for a menu do it, I won't.

And for your info again, the homebrew do MP3 just fine. Why to add something that is not needed? At least I don't want my product to cost more because they spent time coding something unecessary.
Because it would be easier if it were built in like the emulators they have. That way I could take the same SD card I use in my MP3 player and put in into my Supercard and play the tracks off it without needing to add extra .NDS files (or a whole directory structure in the case of Moonshell, which is the only usable MP3 player of the ones I've tried) to the SD card every time I load MP3s onto it.

Personally, I like the plugin system that allows you to just upload .GB or .NES files and play them directly rather than needing to also upload an emulator and launch the games through that, and it would be even nicer if the emulators supplied on the Supercard were more current and other file formats were supported like MP3. It all just gives the usage of the card a unified aesthetic.

I know that every time someone criticizes the interface, people will pop up saying that the GUI doesn't matter because you only see it briefly when you first turn on the system and then you're into the game, but that brief time when you see the cart's interface is your first impression and so it sets the tone for the gaming that will follow, at least for me it does. The aesthetics of these things don't matter to everyone, but they do for many.

QUOTEUsing a custom made firmware is like trying to turn a sapphire into an opal. Never gonna happen...

I don't know what you're talking about with the sapphire and opals thing, but homebrew firmwares have been very successful on other kinds of hardware like MP3 players and even previous backup devices like the Z64.


...word is bondage...

 

[spectral]

people who talk that supercard is a gba card, talk bs...

for gba games we got ezflash, the ones who started the flashcards on the gba.. and those other bad brands

when the ds came, along came all the extern memory card based flashcards.
which where used to play DS games.

everyone who has a supercard, has a DS flashcard, not a gba.

Since when did ezflash start flashcarts on GBA? There were others that worked fine before anyone had even heard of EZflash. Also the Supercard was originally intended as a GBA device, it came out before the DS was even announced. The software was just later updated to support NDS and it proved very good at it.

 

[kalimero]

I agree "faster boot > eye catching menu", but c'mon there are tons of things that could be improved:

1. Colors
2. use both NDS screens (it doesn't even use one screen at full resolution)
3. smaller font
4. Controls (auto scrolling, stylus, ... )

And i think the button combos for saving, RTS could be improved too.

 

[tama_mog]

I don't know, personally my gf and I love the supercard lites (I use a supercard lite in my ff3 crystal white ds and a m3 lite in my navy blue), I actually think the simple interface is an advantage....I mean I've used practically every single flashcart and supercard's the most efficient...no bs overhead of useless menus/graphics, just simple and fast as hell when launching roms and homebrew apps. I agree that compatibility (which is already near perfect except some gba games and some new ds games) should be first on the priority....not fancy menus or interface. If you want that, you purchased the wrong device, should of got a m3 lite or a ds link.

 

[rkenshin]

This is where people start telling you that Microsoft should've just stuck with Windows 3.11's look

And then charge us only $50 for their new OS, hehe..

 

[adgloride]

Lego star wars 2 has been fixed and the patched version is on the internet. This will work on the supercard SD and lite. Hopefully harvest moon will be patched soon.

 

[Deleted User]

I can never get homebrew working on my Supercard SD for some reason. Guess I'm just not technically minded or patient enough to get it to work. It always goes into a never ending load loop for some reason.

 

[Deleted User]

Lego star wars 2 has been fixed and the patched version is on the internet.  This will work on the supercard SD and lite.

Where? PM me please.

*EDIT: Don't worry I found it. lol.