Hacking Where to get a GBA SP Flash card

[calenk]

im looking for a flash card for a GBA SP and i can't seem to find one anywhere...what would be the cheapest and best option and where would i look in Canada would be best but US would do to
thanks

 

[fuctfuct]

Not in Canada but free shipping

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.10447

or

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.10369

Im still trying to decide which one i want. At that price either one seems like a great deal. They even have a 128Mbit one for like $9.

 

[janitormane]

wow, in '03-'04 those were over 100 bucks

 

[DanTheManMS]

wow, in '03-'04 those were over 100 bucks

Yeah, prices are falling since nobody wants NOR-based devices anymore. Of course, the one I bought in 2004 is still over $100 though that's not saying much.

 

[DanTheManMS]

No clue about the original F2A devices unfortunately. The link I posted above is the only place I know of to get a F2A Ultra, though you'd want to email them first to make sure they still have them in stock and aren't lying on the website.

The only real appeal I see in getting an old F2A cart nowadays would be to use Pogoshell on its native device or to use the DS-side F2A flasher that I can't remember the name of at the moment. The F2A carts were actually woefully underfeatured from what I understand, which is why Pogoshell became such a godsend for F2A users, as it gave them decent save management and a cool plugin system to expand its capabilities.

Oh, and if you want to use the GB Bridge to run GB or GBC roms natively on a GBA, you'd need an original F2A cart.

 

[Jaejae]

That EFA Linker is looking tempting right now, I don't really need more than 64MB do I?

 

[DanTheManMS]

Hmmm from what you said, I'm guessing Real Time Save was never implemented?

The only Real-Time Save added to any F2A product, at least that I'm aware of, is the "die-hard" feature of the F2A Ultra carts. I tried this feature a bit, but it only works with a few commercial games. It tries to search for the address to hook into when you add the game to the list and check the checkbox, but even if it can find it, it doesn't always work. I haven't really bothered with it too much myself, though I guess it could be handy before boss fights. For instance, I believe it worked with Metroid Fusion, where it could be useful.

If you want reliable RTS for GBA games, look into a different device. On a side note, I like my F2AU, but I didn't like having to hex-edit the game database to get a full 64 KB of save space for homebrew (PocketNES savestates didn't work until I did this for instance).