GBA ExpLoader 0.3

[wraggster]

Eyedunno pmed me this last week and sadly i forgot to post (i did have the flu for the last 2 weeks so some of my forgetfulness goes there, heres the pm which details all :

Hey, check out Rudolph's site. There's a new GBA ExpLoader, and more carts are supported this time.

blog.so-net.ne.jp/Rudolph/2008-02-21

I went ahead and translated it myself, so you won't have to deal with a machine translation, but having never used previous versions (I prefer my Ewin to my EZ3-in-1), I wasn't sure what he was talking about in the SRAM dumping section (especially what the heck "<B> SRAM" is). Maybe others will get it. :/

--

Finally, GBA ExpLoader has reached this point...
Due to struggling with bugs, I haven't really added any new features.
Since the patching feature has been added, increasing the number of supported expansion carts has also vastly increased the number of things that need to be tested, and I haven't been able to do as much as I wanted to.

I've cut back on a lot of the features I was planning, so once again, it's may seem a bit half-done, but I'm releasing it, since I've lost the will to keep on testing and keeping it unreleased. There might be a lot of bugs. If you discover some, please let me know the expansion cart you're using, the game, and the nature of the bug.

GBA_ExpLoader_03

Just in case, I've left 0.2 available for download for the time being.

Application behavior has changed just a bit since the last release. Save data still in SRAM from the previous PSRAM/SDRAM session is written to a .SAV file the next time you boot GBA ExpLoader. Save data in <B> SRAM will be forcibly saved to a file every time.

The Ewin Expansion Pak (along with related carts) is supported, but only for carts with 256KB of SRAM (The newest carts might not work [Ed: this is because some of them reportedly only have 128KB of SRAM]).

http://kotei.blog.so-net.ne.jp/2008-02-21

[Eyedunno]

Actually, you're later than you think - 0.4 just came out yesterday.

http://www009.upp.so-net.ne.jp/rudol...pLoader_04.zip

Here are the new features/bugfixes:

• Minor message changes [presumably mainly with regard to English - Destructobot brought up one issue, and then some other people came in with recommendations for better English text elsewhere]
• Fixed soft resetting bugs with the Ewin
• Ewin Expansion Paks with under 256KB of SRAM now correctly detected
• Multiple save files now supported for each game (SAV plus SV1 through SV5, for a total of six per game)

Note that 0.3 runs but doesn't save with newer Ewins. 0.4 apparently autodetects newer Ewins and won't even run.

The reason behind this is that GBA ExpLoader makes use of 128KB of SRAM for saving, and it uses some other SRAM on top of that for save maintenance. However, newer Ewins unfortunately have their SRAM reduced from 256KB to 128KB, so unless there's a workaround, the newer carts won't be supported.