Hardware Supercard SD Problems

[Jamstruth]

I'm having problems with my Supercard SD (the miniSD one) in conjunction with my Supercard DSOne. I bought it as a RAM expansion and for playing GBA games. It works great as a RAM expansion (well...it only runs at slowest possible settings) but as a GBA solution it isn't doing too well. I'm loading the GBA ROMs from the SCDSOne's microSD card too my Slot 2 and then booting from there but I've found a mere 1 game that works (although I have only tried 3) So far all I can play on it is Metroid Fusion. Other games tried are Metroid: Zero Mission and Pokemon Emerald. I know there exists a firmware update for this card on the Supercard site but have no idea how to put it on without a miniSD card with the OS for the SupercardSD loaded onto it.

Basically: I can't load the GBA games I want to play. Metroid Zero Mission produces a white screen with random noises in the background and Pokemon Emerald produces a white screen with no noise. Can anyone help?

 

[Jamstruth]

Bump.

Does anybody have any comment on this? Even if its just "Buy a miniSD card and upgrade the firmware"

 

[DanTheManMS]

I don't really use my SC miniSD for GBA gaming, so I can't confirm if the other two games you tried work. I imagine loading it directly from the SCDS doesn't help much. I would indeed suggest just getting a cheap miniSD card and upgrading the firmware, as long as you don't get a card larger than 2 GB (slot-2 Supercards don't support SDHC).

 

[Jamstruth]

Luckily miniSD cards are outdated and now dirt cheap. I quickly found a 2gb miniSD with an SD adaptor for £5 including shipping. Will use it to update the firmware and run the games on it.
How do I find out what firmware version I have on it? I read somewhere that you have to update sequentially up to a point then you can skip straight to the newest firmware. Can't remember which firmware version it was though.


Oh yes and something I noticed about this card. I can boot it without using my SCDS as a passme. Obviously as there is no SD in it it just shows "not find the SD" but..I thought passme's were needed for Slot-2 cards.

 

[DanTheManMS]

You hold L+R upon bootup to initiate the self-test, then press A a few times to run through the various tests until it tells you your firmware version. You progbably will have firmware version 1.63 or 1.7, and I recommend going to 1.7 first and then skipping directly to the latest 1.85.

A passthrough device is only needed if you want to boot the slot-2 Supercard in DS mode. How would it run on a GBA if it needed a card for a slot that the console didn't have? =P

 

[Jamstruth]

Thanks. Unexpectedly it has version 1.85 on it already (I guess they're still making these and this isn't just old stock) Hopefully the GBA games will load directly from the card's actual firmware well enough if not well...it was only £5 for the miniSD card

 

[DanTheManMS]

The slot-2 Supercards aren't known for the GBA compatibility, I'll tell you that. However, I do believe (or at least hope) that loading it from the SCDS has a lower compatibility than loading the game from the slot-2 Supercard itself.

Also, while you're waiting, go ahead and install the latest patcher software. Since you'll be loading the games directly from the slot-2 Supercard, you'll need to patch them like normal. Patches roms appear in "C:\Program Files\SC\out" by default. You can change this location, but don't set it directly to the miniSD card, as this is known to cause problems.

 

[Jamstruth]

I had already installed that to try patching them before putting them on my SCDS.
It didn't work.

 

[DanTheManMS]

Well yeah, when loading from the SCDS you need to use clean GBA roms.