Hacking What is the best flashcard for GBA SP?

[sweis12]

$40 costs less than two pokemon games on ebay. Its worth it. Its not that expensive. You can buy 2 games, or the Ez Flash IV.

 

[Count Duckula]

They are expensive...

Older consles like the GBA used actual ROM chips in their official cartridges. Data on these are directly addressable by the system, it's almost as good as all data being in RAM (fast).

SD cards are NAND flash, which must be paged into RAM then accessed.

Official cartridges on newer consoles like DS use more modern forms of storage that is first paged into memory then used. Games on newer consoles are designed to work this way (for one thing the consoles have enough RAM for it to be possible), games on old consoles expect the data to be directly addressable like it is on the official carts.

Becuase of this, a DS flash cart does not require a lot of components, the data is read off the microSD as needed, translated or whatever needs to happen and passed to the console.

Flash carts for older systems (the EZ-Flash, or any of krikzz's carts etc) must make the ROM data accessible in the same way as the original carts do. This means they need to load the ROM from SD card into either RAM or NOR flash (within the flash cart) before it can be run.

That makes the carts more expensive. There's also economies of scale: DS carts are poduced in massive numbers and there is a lot of demand. GBA carts are more of a niche market so both cost more to produce and sell less so the manufacturer needs a larger margin.

I just paid $200 for a 64drive (Nintendo 64 flash cart), but dammit it's worth it.

 

[Metoroid0]

I just paid $200 for a 64drive (Nintendo 64 flash cart), but dammit it's worth it.

Now THAT'S expensive!

 

[enarky]

Now THAT'S expensive!

Still not expensive. Back in the days when N64 Backup Units were new they cost in the 500 USD regions. Adjust that for inflation and you'll see that prices nowadays are ridiculously low.

 

[Count Duckula]

Still not expensive. Back in the days when N64 Backup Units were new they cost in the 500 USD regions. Adjust that for inflation and you'll see that prices nowadays are ridiculously low.

FPGAs are wonderful things

 

[Metoroid0]

Still not expensive. Back in the days when N64 Backup Units were new they cost in the 500 USD regions. Adjust that for inflation and you'll see that prices nowadays are ridiculously low.

I said It's expensive... not expensive compared to

I said It's expensive, not expensive compared to...
I payed my 3DS XL that much...lesser

 

[Fibosten]

Does anyone know a reliable website where I can buy the Flash IV which has cheap shipping to the UK? Cheers.

 

[Metoroid0]

Does anyone know a reliable website where I can buy the Flash IV which has cheap shipping to the UK? Cheers.

Hope this helps. And i now it's not the lowest price but i have really good experience with NDS-card.com

http://shoptemp.net/products/EZ%2dFlash-IV.html?sort=price#wtb

 

[migles]

Does anyone know a reliable website where I can buy the Flash IV which has cheap shipping to the UK? Cheers.

that answer have been answered if you read the third and fourth post on this thread.

 

[160R]

Does anyone know a reliable website where I can buy the Flash IV which has cheap shipping to the UK? Cheers.

Here is other UK user from GBATemp who ordered at chollomedia.es and trust them. I also ordered a couple of times there. They are serious and good price

EZ Flash IV yet in stock there.

They are expensive...

Not so expensive: 29.95eur (less than 40usd after change)