Slot-2 Cart to go with my DS ONE

[Zirus Blackheart]

Hi :-)

I`m after some advice :-)

I currently have a DS ONE with an 8gb microSD mem card and am looking to buy a slot2 device to run my backups of my gba games (I have been buying games for years brand new and nvr opening the box, I can get them still shrink wrapped ! :D for selling when i`m an old man, its my pension :D).

What i`m after really is something cheap as hell that pref I don`t have to buy another microSD card for (I have 8gbs allready).
My DS ONE has my few backups on it allready, and has the option to "Load The ROM to SLOT2" so basicaly i`m simple after something that can hold that one game right?
Save Games for instance would save onto the DS ONE and its microSD I assume?

I`m looking for the cheapest option to do this, its obviously gotta run the gba rom at full speed of an actual cartridge otherwise i`m just ruining it for myself when i have the actual cartridge sitting here shrink wrapped heh :-)

Thx for your time :-)

[wiggy fuzz]

ez-flash 3 in 1 expansion pack. load your gba homebrew (!) onto the sd card from the slot 1 card (you may have to downlaod a custom loader)

you also get a rumble pack and a ram expansion pack

[Zirus Blackheart]

Cool thx :-), been doing some research into it and i`m a little confused on the internal RAM.

Amazon for instance and EZ Flash own site say it has 265MBit ram, thats 256MBits/8=32MBytes however here on this site ( http://www.dcemu.co.uk/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=70812 ) there are people saying that .gba files that are 16mbyte or above do not work.....?

So i`m confused what the situation is with it.
Will it only run a homebrew .gbaq file of 8mbyte or less or will it alow files upto 32mbyte as the marking of 256mbit ( / 8 = 32mbyte) would suggest?

Thx for ya suggestion wiggy fuzz and thx for ya time u and all who help! :D

[Zirus Blackheart]

Ugh... done more reading and NOR mode means ya can only run that 1 game and its save there, and so if ya NOR another game you will lose the old games save!
Thats awefull when ya like me and play massive RPGs (FF 1,2,4,5,6 GTA Advance and others) :'(

Plz someone tell me theres now a way to save/export/backup said game save.....?

Cheers people :-)

....Also, what does SRAM patching and ROM TRIMMING do to the game? cheers :-)

[wiggy fuzz]

what!? who told you that bull?

yes, it saves one game/homebrew at a time. but the saves should get written back to your sd card at your next power on (at least the gba pack with the m3 real does that - says "processing info" when i switch off after snesds)

i'm still suggesting the 3 in 1 pack, but i could recommend you the m3 real perfect bundle. it costs a bundle, but the m3 real also does sdhc cards, you get a seperate rumble pack (so no "buzz" everytime you switch on your ds) and the browser ram and gba pack are in one cart (which i didn't actually find out until a few days after i got my delivery)

plus, if the slot 2 cards work with your (i'm so jelous of your) supercard one, you can always sell the m3 real to some other victim :)

[DanTheManMS]

The 3in1 would still be a good choice for you. Here's how the memory works.

The 3in1 contains 32 MB of NOR flash that is used for GBA binaries. It also contains 16 MB of RAM, originally meant to be used with pirated copies of the Opera browser but can be tricked into running GBA binaries 16 MB in size or less. You'll be using a third-party loader app to manage both storage mediums from your slot-1 device, and they will handle the saves for you.

I can't get too much more specific due to the DCEmu forum rules. However, if you go to this page (http://wiki.gbatemp.net/index.php?title=3_in_1_Expansion_Pack_for_EZ-Flash_V) you can find a wealth of info on the 3in1 and how it can work with your device. The later versions of the third-party software have soft-reset support for the SCDS, just on a side note.

[Zirus Blackheart]

Ah superb!

Thx alot for clearing that up guys :-D
The cards perfect for me then w00t!
I thought it was kinda stupid that you would lose the save, makes it kinda useless for anything above 16mb heh :-)

Thx for the wiki link too, I hadn`t thought of looking for info there :-)

If ya interested here links to where I got the info about losing the save.
It was a post in a topic on this site by XDelusion, heres the 2 links :-)

http://www.dcemu.co.uk/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=70812
http://starwarslegacy.net/NDS.aspx

Cheers guys :-)

[Zirus Blackheart]

Damn.... yup.... savings giving me big probs, as in it doesn`t :-(

I`m using a DS ONE with an 8gb SanDisk microSD.
The 3in1 exp EZ Flash.
Rudolph 3in1 Expansion Pack Tool v1.9d (2007/12/1)
dled from the top link here http://www009.upp.so-net.ne.jp/rudolph/nds/3in1_ExpPack/

I had allready placed my gba files in a folder inside the root called GBA so I created the "Save" folder and placed that inside the GBA folder.

I then boot various games, Doom II, Sword of Mana, Driv3r yada yada.
The games "think" they are saving when you tell it to save, goes through the motions ect but as soon as you tell it to load there is no file there to load, even though you named it ect when you did the save.

I have tryed with a couple of games of 16mb (theyre just over 16mb, like 16,333 ect Sword of Mana and Doom II..... btw they load in PSRAM and play fine, even though theyre just over 16mb :-D )

Thinking maybe it was the roms size leaving no room for the saving, I tryed in NOR mode, same prob, I also tryed with smaller games of 8mb I think (Driv3r) with the same result in NOR and PSRAM modes....

I also attempted to backup the SRAM to a .SAV file and also the option to backup to PCSRAM.bin ect and doing this didn`t help, the DS seizes up for a few secs when i do this, prolly just coz its actualy doing it :)

I then took the microSD outta my card and whacked it into my usb doobrydongle to check the "Save" folder.
Theres .SAV files there allright (each is 128kb) for each of the games and also the PCSRAM.bin file.......

:confused:

Whats ya thoughts guys?

[Zirus Blackheart]

Ok sorted!

Ignore the above its FixXxoReD now :-)
Basicaly I dled GBATA and SRAM patched :-)

All seems fine now.

[Zirus Blackheart]

Well bleh, the games GBATA alows me to patch now save, but the ones it does not, do not.
So grand theft auto advance for instance doesn`t save :-(

[Zirus Blackheart]

I thini it mighta been me actualy, just found grand theft did have a patched file created.
Its real late now and i don`t have time to do through final fantacy 4 or 6 (won`t patch) to get to a save point to test them.