Hacking Want the perfect combo in my lite for DS and GBA

[Hammyface]

Hey guys, as a fairly newbish poster, I just want to say this site rocks. I love the brutally honest reviews and insane amounts of help documentation.

I wanted the best solution for DS *and* GBA at the same time, and it seems like from reading around here the G6 would be a great solution. However, I absolutely LOVE that the DS-X does drag and drop for transferring rom files. That's totally amazing for me, a guy who is used to using EZ Flash and their hilariously terrible software which takes 30 minutes to write a DS rom to the cart I have. Anyway, I also liked the DS-X because it seemed to be the only slot 1 device right now that *isn't* using microSD, and is using it's own on-board memory.

The reason I thought that onboard flash on the DS-X is better than say another slot 1 device using microSD, is because I've read microSD can lead to slowdowns (the most obvious being intro to Castlevania) and also when using MicroSD the battery life suffers a lot. Since the DS-X has no GBA compatibility, I am also looking for a flash cart for the GBA you guys would recommend. Drag and drop support is not that important since I'd pretty much be able to fit every single GBA rom I'd ever want to play on one 4gbit G6 card.

I would like someone's opinion if the DS-X and the G6 is a good combination for both DS and GBA roms with extremely high compatibility, absolutely no slow down, and minimal battery life loss. I know it's a bit expensive but it's completely worth it to not have to carry all those games around with me on the train.

Am I wrong and other slot 1 devices using microSD will be just as good with battery life and speed as the DS-X? Am I wrong and the G6 isn't that great for GBA and the compatibility on it isn't that great? I remember reading here some G6's were dying after a few months of use (or maybe files were getting corrupted?) Was that ever confirmed? Finally, I heard using the DS-X as a passme, while playing GBA will have a decent hit on battery life (just a negative aspect of using a passme). Is this still the case?

I know I asked about a million questions but the more I research the more questions I come up with! Thanks, you guys are great.

 

[Monkey01]

http://gbatemp.net/index.php?dynamic=12

GBA

I’ll start with one of the worst aspects of the G6 Flash, the GBA functionality. As I said in the introduction, those hoping the G6 is the definitive flashcart incorporating both DS and GBA features will be sadly disappointed.
I tested 16 GBA games at complete random and used default settings in the G6 Manager (Real Time Save, no compression) and my results were certainly not very comforting.

Working:

Donkey Kong Country 3
Megaman zero 3
Need For Speed Underground 2 (but some strange thin lines appeared at the top and bottom of the screen)
Mario Party Advance
Urbz: Sims in the City
Mortal Kombat: Tournament Edition
F-Zero Climax
Banjo Pilot
Fire Emblem: Sacred Stones
Tony Hawk's Underground 2

Not working:

Mario tennis
Wario land 4
GTA Advance
Top Gun
Boktai 2
Lord of the Rings: The Third Age

G6 is not a good idea for GBA it seems.

Also I'd like to comment that MicroSD carts devices may have the problem of slowdowns with some cards, but if you just buy the correct MicroSD carts with it, it just works fine as a product with internal memory does, so if you spend the money on the MicroSD cart or pay more for the all-in-one thing, doesn't matter that much.

I don't know much about battery test, but @ "Finally, I heard using the DS-X as a passme, while playing GBA will have a decent hit on battery life (just a negative aspect of using a passme). Is this still the case?":
You don't need to use passme if you want to play GBA ROMS, the passme stuff is for playing the DS Roms from a GBA slot. So you just boot from the GBA slot and you don't even need to stick your DS-X in the thing, it doesn't matter.

I think that if you have much money, ds-x is a pretty good choice, but G6 obviously isn't. I would like to recomment EZ-Flash 4 for the GBA compatibility, I know you said it has horrible software that's slow and such, but you also said "Drag and drop support is not that important since I'd pretty much be able to fit every single GBA rom I'd ever want to play on one 4gbit G6 card. " so if you just buy a 512MB (you do realise 4Gbit is 512MB do you?) MicroSD card with it, you would only have to do this process one time then.
I also don't know what version of EZFlash it was with the slow speed and if it has improved since then, but I do know they have about the best GBA compatibility.

Another device I've heard is good for GBA is euhrm EFA or something, I don't know much about it, but I think it's an older GBA only card with also perfect GBA compatibility and including a real time clock for Pokémon. It'll probably come with slow software too though, but I dunno...

 

[Hammyface]

Thanks for the helpful reply.

I am now considering microSD because of what you said, and I had a great idea. What if I bought a single microSD card, and switched between an EZ Flash IV in my GBA slot, and the M3 Simply in my DS slot? So I would load all the GBA and DS roms I want, and if I want to play GBA, I plug it into the EZ Flash IV, if I want to play DS, take it out of the EZ flash and put it in the M3 Simply for example. Would that work? That would be awesome.

However, I do not want the EZ Flash IV since it sticks out of the DS Lite a little bit. Is there one highly recommended that will sit flush in the lite for playing GBA? For example, the M3 Lite Perfect?

 

[Monkey01]

Thanks for the helpful reply.

I am now considering microSD because of what you said, and I had a great idea. What if I bought a single microSD card, and switched between an EZ Flash IV in my GBA slot, and the M3 Simply in my DS slot? So I would load all the GBA and DS roms I want, and if I want to play GBA, I plug it into the EZ Flash IV, if I want to play DS, take it out of the EZ flash and put it in the M3 Simply for example. Would that work? That would be awesome.

However, I do not want the EZ Flash IV since it sticks out of the DS Lite a little bit. Is there one highly recommended that will sit flush in the lite for playing GBA? For example, the M3 Lite Perfect?

I think that would be possible yes, make sure that both cartridges use the same format though, some use FAT32 and some just FAT(16) and some support both.

It seems you're right that the EZFlash sticks out for a mm or 2, I forgot you had a lite, EFA was a bad suggestion than, since I think it's not in a lite variant. M3 Lite fits flush and has great GBA compatibility too, so I think it'll be a good option for you yes, make sure you stay away from the evil "Professional" variants, which does not support GBA at all. (well okay, just small roms, but you don't want it anyway)

M3 Simply is okay too I guess, it's not out yet, but from what I've read it's the same as the R4, which was pretty good also...

-edit: Back on the FAT thing, the slot2 m3 needs FAT32 with 8K or 16K cluster sizes for some GBA options, R4 claims to be both FAT16 and FAT32 compatible, so so will M3 Simply... meaning they should be able to use a shared MicroSD cart...

 

[Hammyface]

Thanks for the helpful reply.

I am now considering microSD because of what you said, and I had a great idea. What if I bought a single microSD card, and switched between an EZ Flash IV in my GBA slot, and the M3 Simply in my DS slot? So I would load all the GBA and DS roms I want, and if I want to play GBA, I plug it into the EZ Flash IV, if I want to play DS, take it out of the EZ flash and put it in the M3 Simply for example. Would that work? That would be awesome.

However, I do not want the EZ Flash IV since it sticks out of the DS Lite a little bit. Is there one highly recommended that will sit flush in the lite for playing GBA? For example, the M3 Lite Perfect?

I think that would be possible yes, make sure that both cartridges use the same format though, some use FAT32 and some just FAT(16) and some support both.

It seems you're right that the EZFlash sticks out for a mm or 2, I forgot you had a lite, EFA was a bad suggestion than, since I think it's not in a lite variant. M3 Lite fits flush and has great GBA compatibility too, so I think it'll be a good option for you yes, make sure you stay away from the evil "Professional" variants, which does not support GBA at all. (well okay, just small roms, but you don't want it anyway)

M3 Simply is okay too I guess, it's not out yet, but from what I've read it's the same as the R4, which was pretty good also...

-edit: Back on the FAT thing, the slot2 m3 needs FAT32 with 8K or 16K cluster sizes for some GBA options, R4 claims to be both FAT16 and FAT32 compatible, so so will M3 Simply... meaning they should be able to use a shared MicroSD cart...

Great! I am going to buy the M3 Lite Perfect now. I am gonna order this: http://www.gameyeeeah.com/m3-perfect-micro...apter-p-31.html That's the right one right? Do you guys recommend that website to buy stuff from?

I am still undecided on my slot 1 choice. Do you think the m3 Simply will run near all DS roms, with drag and drop support, and no slow down at all?

 

[Monkey01]

Great! I am going to buy the M3 Lite Perfect now. I am gonna order this: http://www.gameyeeeah.com/m3-perfect-micro...apter-p-31.html That's the right one right? Do you guys recommend that website to buy stuff from?

I am still undecided on my slot 1 choice. Do you think the m3 Simply will run near all DS roms, with drag and drop support, and no slow down at all?

It's the right one yes, says "Compatible with all GBA games - no slowdown, no craches, no extra patching required.".

The website is fine too I guess, it's gbatemp's sponsor and haven't heard bad things about it or something.

And I do think that M3 simply will run near all ds roms, with drag&drop support and without slowdowns yeah. =)

 

[Hammyface]

And I do think that M3 simply will run near all ds roms, with drag&drop support and without slowdowns yeah. =)

Awesome! Thank you so much and happy new year!

 

[Hammyface]

Thanks for all the help. I am now just wondering whether to get the R4 or the M3 Simply! I look forward to reviews!!

 

[Hammyface]

I just noticed something. I just order the M3 Lite Perfect. Do they sell an adaptor so I may use it in an old style DS if I need to?

 

[Aerquos]

I just noticed something. I just order the M3 Lite Perfect. Do they sell an adaptor so I may use it in an old style DS if I need to?

Nope you need to buy the GBA shell separately. It is usually around $5. If you contact the website they could possibly send it to you using regular postage and save on shipping fees.

 

[Hammyface]

I just noticed something. I just order the M3 Lite Perfect. Do they sell an adaptor so I may use it in an old style DS if I need to?

Nope you need to buy the GBA shell separately. It is usually around $5. If you contact the website they could possibly send it to you using regular postage and save on shipping fees.

Cool, what website do I contact? I bought it from Jandaman and he doesnt have it for sale

 

[Aerquos]

I just noticed something. I just order the M3 Lite Perfect. Do they sell an adaptor so I may use it in an old style DS if I need to?

Nope you need to buy the GBA shell separately. It is usually around $5. If you contact the website they could possibly send it to you using regular postage and save on shipping fees.

Cool, what website do I contact? I bought it from Jandaman and he doesnt have it for sale

Gamersection has it.
http://www.gamersection.ca/product_info.ph...ss1s5u8abnvmmg5
Also Kicktrading.
http://www.kicktrading.ca/product_info.php...products_id=138
Both are reputable sellers.

 

[Hammyface]

Thanks man but is there any place in the USA that sells it? The shipping is 3x the price of the item!

 

[Hammyface]

Of course, you can rip out an older GBA cartridge and use that. Find a cheap Barbie game that used or something.

I would have never thought the PCB's were the same size. Thanks!!

 

[Hammyface]

Okay, I have a real quick question, now that I got my microSD card in the mail from newegg.

1) It's an A-DATA brand, 1GB. I heard they are good for DS roms in terms of speed and all games running perfect with no slowdowns. Is this correct? Also, the packaging I got was completely different than what newegg shows. Should this matter?

2) Do I need to format the card in anyway before using it in the M3 Simply or M3 Lite?

Thanks!

 

[Hammyface]

Sorry if I am being a pain but this is pretty important. Can anyone tell me if I need to format the MicroSD card to any type of file system or do anything to it out of the package before using the M3 Simply or Lite? If so, how do I do that? (EG: format to FAT16 or 32, and what's the difference between those two? Which should I use?)

 

[Moneo]

G6 is not a good idea for GBA it seems.

In my experience, it's a great idea for GBA.

Real-time saves do cause a lot of trouble. But I have yet to run into a GBA ROM that won't work with real-time saves disabled.

 

[Monkey01]

G6 is not a good idea for GBA it seems.
In my experience, it's a great idea for GBA.

Real-time saves do cause a lot of trouble. But I have yet to run into a GBA ROM that won't work with real-time saves disabled.


Yeah, sorry, hadn't read the 2nd opinion review yet when I posted that, where it says. "Thankfully they have improved the software with version 4.0 onwards, ‘Enable Real Time’ is no longer a default option (Real Time is the ‘save anywhere’ function better known as ‘savestates’). In my last review the Real Time save patch was responsible for lowering game compatibility dramatically, so it’s best you leave it off unless you really want to experiment. Compression as well is not that useful as it takes extra time to load the game and doesn’t provide you with that much extra space. For best compatibility leave all these options off."
So basically I think M3 and G6 have the same GBA compatibility when using the same patch-options.

QUOTE(PharaohsVizier @ Jan 2 2007, 03:58 AM)Of course, you can rip out an older GBA cartridge and use that. Find a cheap Barbie game that used or something.

Hmm, but in the Barbie cartridge... where do you put the MicroSD cart in?

And for the formatting, I think you can use it just out of the box, but if you run into any problems with certain options for GBA not working and such, you might need to format it to some kind of format. You can read about it in the M3Wiki (red text)...

 

[Inbtw33n]

hey just my luck nice little community here.

I am also looking for a combo that plays ds & gba (also snes, gbc, etc. emu).

wouldnt be better to only get m3 lite? I thought it has same functions as m3 simply + more homebrew. Still has moonshell & all that. Or is it because of the saves? I read in PH wiki that saves with flashcarts are a little complicated.

 

[FAST6191]

Regarding saves they function just like a normal game and usually next reboot the saves are automatically written to the non-volatile memory.

Using other peoples saves from different cards is a bit more complex, my apologies for probably convoluted mess that is about to follow but I am in a rush:

Max duo saves: This is the format of the 3rd party save grabbing hardware, the only thing that warrants the inclusion in this list is that gamefaqs use it for their saves as apparently emulator/flashcart ones are ethically dubious or some such nonsense. Convert them to RAW saves using max2sc: http://nds.cmamod.com/download.html

Raw saves:
Sometimes known as supercard saves these are the saves used by the EZFlash and supercard lines of products as well as orginal carts.

M3
A modified RAW save, I am unsure what has changed but I know there are apps to convert every which way (search the forum). Given the extension .dat
g6: I believe these are the same as the M3 but will have to confirm that.

DSX saves:
Pointless unless you have a DSX they are a compressed save format, an update allowed import of RAW saves.

Things of interest:
rein/rain an app to grab saves from an original cart, there exists many versions and I believe the project is discontinued.
EZ4 version is all that I have at hand: http://nds.cmamod.com/2006/11/24/ez4-can-w...ven-faster-now/
http://www.pat.hi-ho.ne.jp/sata68/nds.shtml
reinmoon a similar app:
http://mdxonline.dyndns.org/archives/2006/...oon_ver06.shtml
Another similar app is called ETool but this one uses SRAM rather than:
http://nds.cmamod.com/download.html
I believe the G6 can back up stuff and there are a few things that can do specific titles.

As I already mentioned gamefaqs has a large save database.
dualscene has some too:
http://www.dualscene.net/
Provided it is not a really obscure game a post on the forum can drum something up too usually.