Understading ancient GBA flash cartridges

[vorob]

Hello!

I've had a GBA for quite some time but never really dived deep into it. Back in the '90s, I had the original Game Boy, and then there was a huge PC gap and now I own pretty much everything, including the Steam Deck. But I'm really wanting to get into the GBA theme. So, I've got the perfect AGS-101 and two flash cartridges.

My first question: which one is better? I believe I read somewhere that the M3 (the left one) is better. Both batteries are dead, but I thought it's not important since they were only needed for real-time clock (RTC)-required games. Or I'm wrong? Because I can't get save game to work I honestly believed that flash cartridge trick these games and save files into flash via file.

Another question is about some weird app I found - "M3 Game Manager," an ancient piece of software from 2006. I can upload games onto flash and there are some options I can't understand:


Save section with option:Real Time Save and Rom Patch section with options: Soft Patch, Hardware Support 1, and Hardware Support 2. I have no idea what all that means.

-

Can you please guide me how to properly use this m3 cartridge to have saves. Maybe there is newer tool?

Additional question. If i format card into fat32 i'm getting black screen. Only fat works. Is that normal?

 

[SylverReZ]

Can you please guide me how to properly use this m3 cartridge to have saves. Maybe there is newer tool?

Post automatically merged: Jan 15, 2024

Additional question. If i format card into fat32 i'm getting black screen. Only fat works. Is that normal?

These flashcards only work with 2GB or lower capacity Mini SD cards. You can buy an adapter to convert your microSD into a Mini SD, since they use the same protocol and all. Downside to the SuperCard Mini SD is that ROMs need to be patched in order to use them, and some games either freeze during gameplay or crash onto a white screen. I don't know much a lot about the M3 Movie Player, other than it being another GBA flashcart with the ability to play multimedia files and ROMs.

Special software isn't required, I believe. You simply just transfer the files over onto the card, and it just works.

Post automatically merged: Jan 15, 2024

Additional question. If i format card into fat32 i'm getting black screen. Only fat works. Is that normal?

Yes. FAT32 is not supported by these cards.

 

[vorob]

These flashcards only work with 2GB or lower capacity Mini SD cards. You can buy an adapter to convert your microSD into a Mini SD, since they use the same protocol and all. Downside to the SuperCard Mini SD is that ROMs need to be patched in order to use them, and some games either freeze during gameplay or crash onto a white screen. I don't know much a lot about the M3 Movie Player, other than it being another GBA flashcart with the ability to play multimedia files and ROMs.

Looks like M3 is better cause i just upload files and don't patch anything. At least every game i've tried worked without any additional moves.

But still saves don't work. Maybe i do need to install battery?

 

[SylverReZ]

But still saves don't work. Maybe i do need to install battery?

Yes. Do change the battery if you can.

 

[vorob]

Ye, I can do this. Thx!

Post automatically merged: Jan 16, 2024

It looks like this thing uses a rechargeable battery. However, since I removed and disposed of it, I'm not exactly sure what was in there.

 

[vorob]

I don't get it. I've tried to add battery with 3v but no luck, cartridge still doesn't save progress. I've tried to rename files to a shorter one, both game file and it's save, no luck.

 

[Janni9009]

The SCGBA and M3 series both require using their dedicated patching software to save. Luckily M3GM still works fine under Windows 10 (the SCGBA patcher meanwhile has a broken SRAM patcher, use GBATA beforehand, you'll also wanna grab the prefetch patcher to make that cart more bearable).
Both carts also require a working battery to save as they rely on SRAM. The SCGBA uses a normal CR cell, while the M3 series use rechargeable VL cells.

 

[Apache Thunder]

What about the SuperCard Lite? I recently saw a ebay listing for some and curious how similar it is to the Mini SD version...

Looks something like this by the way:

 

[Janni9009]

@Apache Thunder Good call, the SCLite is a bit... special in that regard. It doesn't have a battery, at all. (best photos I could get, this thing sucks to take apart)

 

[Apache Thunder]

Interesting. It's been on my watch list for a bit now and I finally reacquired a DS Lite so I was thinking of getting a GBA flashcart for it. Maybe the SuperCard Lite will work out. Don't really want to spend $50+ for something and the seller I found only wants $29 for it which is maybe a bit much but not sure what pricing to compare it against as GBA flashcarts are kinda hard to find these days. Interesting that it has no battery. One less thing to worry about. Last time I got a GBA flashcart was several years ago and it arrived with a dead battery.

 

[zxr750j]

Supercard from ali: 15$, though I would go for the more expensive EZ-flash.

 

[Apache Thunder]

ehh...I'm not really ready to buy anything from ali at the moment.

 

[metroid maniac]

ehh...I'm not really ready to buy anything from ali at the moment.

There are sellers for new Supercards all over eBay too. They're the same Chinese sellers and you're just spending a few quid extra for using eBay instead.

 

[Apache Thunder]

There are sellers for new Supercards all over eBay too. They're the same Chinese sellers and you're just spending a few quid extra for using eBay instead.

Well the perticular seller I found for that SuperCard I posted about is based in Florida and was where I got a few of my N-Cards from. 3 day shipping is hard to beat with anything international. At least not if you want to spend a fortune on express shipping....

But yeah if I wanted to buy from a China seller on eBay then in that instance I would probably be better off buying from Ali.

But I have specifically avoided China stuff even on eBay these days.

 

[SylverReZ]

Well the particular seller I found for that SuperCard I posted about is based in Florida, and was where I got a few of my N-Cards from. 3-day shipping is hard to beat with anything international. At least not if you want to spend a fortune on express shipping....

But yeah if I wanted to buy from a China seller on eBay, then in that instance, I would probably be better off buying from Ali.

But I have specifically avoided China stuff even on eBay these days.

Anything from China on eBay is quite expensive, compared as to what you can buy on Ali.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Anything from China on eBay is quite expensive, compared as to what you can buy on Ali.

At least stuff from eBay will usually arrive. I've had way too many packages from AliExpress that just get lost and it makes me wonder if they are faking the tracking info somehow because it seems to consistently happen with very cheap items (around $3.50 including shipping) that they presumably would be losing money on.

Post automatically merged: Feb 18, 2024

Hello!

I've had a GBA for quite some time but never really dived deep into it. Back in the '90s, I had the original Game Boy, and then there was a huge PC gap and now I own pretty much everything, including the Steam Deck. But I'm really wanting to get into the GBA theme. So, I've got the perfect AGS-101 and two flash cartridges.

My first question: which one is better? I believe I read somewhere that the M3 (the left one) is better. Both batteries are dead, but I thought it's not important since they were only needed for real-time clock (RTC)-required games. Or I'm wrong? Because I can't get save game to work I honestly believed that flash cartridge trick these games and save files into flash via file.

Another question is about some weird app I found - "M3 Game Manager," an ancient piece of software from 2006. I can upload games onto flash and there are some options I can't understand:


Save section with option:Real Time Save and Rom Patch section with options: Soft Patch, Hardware Support 1, and Hardware Support 2. I have no idea what all that means.

-

Can you please guide me how to properly use this m3 cartridge to have saves. Maybe there is newer tool?

Additional question. If i format card into fat32 i'm getting black screen. Only fat works. Is that normal?

Older GBA flashcarts universally require using their own patcher for things such as saving to work. Saves are written to SRAM which is cleared when power is lost and the save is only written to SD when in the kernel menu. To work around a dead battery, you can use the soft reset combo to reset to the kernel menu before every power off.

For the Supercard SD, there was this CFW recently released which does on the fly patching so the patcher client is not needed: https://gbatemp.net/threads/scfw-custom-firmware-kernel-for-supercard.647238/
That still doesn't make it a good GBA flashcart, nothing can fix the lack of hardware, but it's usable.

I'm not sure if the GBAMP has the onboard NOR flash or PSRAM that is needed for good GBA performance. When people refer to M3 as one of the best GBA flashcarts they are usually referring to the M3 Perfect, but some versions of the M3 lack NOR/PSRAM.

Anyways, EZFlash Omega DE is a much better flashcart these days. It costs more, but in return you get great compatibility, on the fly patching of roms with no need for prepatching, RTC, direct saving to SD, SDHC support, and more. Older flashcarts can still get the job done, as long as they have NOR/PSRAM.

 

[ultraforce]

I'm not sure if the GBAMP has the onboard NOR flash or PSRAM that is needed for good GBA performance. When people refer to M3 as one of the best GBA flashcarts they are usually referring to the M3 Perfect, but some versions of the M3 lack NOR/PSRAM.

Anyways, EZFlash Omega DE is a much better flashcart these days. It costs more, but in return you get great compatibility, on the fly patching of roms with no need for prepatching, RTC, direct saving to SD, SDHC support, and more. Older flashcarts can still get the job done, as long as they have NOR/PSRAM.

Is there a way to tell if either of these is the M3 Perfect or if neither of them are?

 

[BuddhaHunterMac]

Ah relics of times past

 

[ultraforce]

Ah relics of times past

I didn't realize until today that it actually might be able to play GBA games since the experience with it was my dad giving me it with an SD card and the PASSCARD to try and see if games he downloaded off the internet worked. Most worked but were also shovelware. There was a few that weren't able to save though.

Also testing just now seems the passcard won't load me to the M3s. It might have to do with having now pretty old batteries so I probably should open the cartridge to see.

 

[BuddhaHunterMac]

I recently found an old 3in1 flash slot for the DS and I assume GBA but gonna have to retest it tho.