Question about GBA Flash Carts

[Retro Pro]

I know this has been discussed before in other threads, so I'm guessing it's not a taboo topic here.

Anyway, I'm very interested in acquiring one of these, but I have a few questions:

1) Where are they sold? I don't see them at lik-sang.com, which is usually the first place to find devices like this.

2) Would I be able to store more than one regular GBA game on one of these carts? I want to store more than one game I already own because it's inconvenient having to lug around all of those small carts since they can easily get lost and all of the GBA carrying cases currently on the market are incredibly childish looking and clearly geared toward the Pull-Ups set.

3) How easily available are the emulators that work with these flash carts? I remember one person saying that he/she was able to play old NES games with one of these carts.

4) Are they available in different storage sizes and at what cost? I'd want one that could store as much as possible.

Thanks in advance for your help!

[Darth Sensei]

I'm not an expert on what is or what isn't allowed on here. However, I do believe that if you talk about GBA Backups the mods will likely lock the thread.

I use mine primarily for NES emulation and it's wonderful. It's fairly easy to set up PocketNES and it works well.

I've read that SMS emulation on GBA works well too. The Atari 2600 is supposedly more spotty and I haven't tried it.

I bought 8 EZF Advance linkers (256mb) from:

http://www.mwelectronics.com/

They were prompt and communicated at all steps in the transaction. I am very happy with them. I don't have any relationship with them, I'm just satisfied with what I bought.

You can look there for prices. There are 512mb and 1 Gb cards out, but I've I haven't read much about their stability. I don't want to be an early adopter and have to deal with ROM patches and such.

Feel free to ask me anything else you'd like to know or to PM me.

D

[SoulBlazer]

I plan to pick up one of these at some point, so....

Just how many NES games can you fit on a 256k cart? Are they easy to download into the flash cart? Will the flash cart handle any other games besides NES games?

[Retro Pro]

Feel free to ask me anything else you'd like to know or to PM me.
Just sent you a PM. Thanks!

[Darth Sensei]

I plan to pick up one of these at some point, so....

Just how many NES games can you fit on a 256k cart? Are they easy to download into the flash cart? Will the flash cart handle any other games besides NES games?

Yes, SMS is emulated, but I haven't tried it.

I have approximately 60 NES Roms on mine right now and it takes up 1/4 of my 256Mb Card.

http://gbatemp.m4d.sm/

is a great site.

D

[SoulBlazer]

How did you pay for yours? I admit that having a portable NES on my GBA SP is awfully tempting, but paying more then I did for the GBA is'nt. :o

[Darth Sensei]

How did you pay for yours? I admit that having a portable NES on my GBA SP is awfully tempting, but paying more then I did for the GBA is'nt. :o

I bought 8 of them for nephews and 2 girlfriends. You can get a 256mb flash cart for around $107 shipped.

Let's see, I can play any NES game ever created on both my GBA and GC using the player. I can pause the action and save the state of the game anytime I want. I can play two player versus someone else with the card via a cable. Exactly how is this not worth more than $107? This doesn't even include the other things you can do with it that would anger the mods if we discussed them.

Hell, I paid more than $107 for my Game Axe and it's a p.o.s.

D

[SoulBlazer]

Well, it is tempting -- more money then I have now, but thanks for the infio. So you really suggest that company you linked to in the first post? Do these ever turn up on EBay or in local stores? And if 256 is enough for about 240 NES games (give or take) then that should be big enough, right? I did'nt know you could use it with the Game Boy Player, though -- cool! 8-)

Okay, I don't think this question steps on the mod's toe's either -- could you download old Game Boy games (the ones from 10 years ago) onto the flash cart and play those?

[Darth Sensei]

I haven't played the old GB games on it, but there are emulators to do it. You can also play some GB Color games on it.

I recommend that site because they communicated with me during the sale well and the product works very well. Your mileage may vary. Some people prefer to get the items cheaper from Korea, but you pay through the nose for shipping and Western Union fees.

D

[Keir]

I have approximately 60 NES Roms on mine right now and it takes up 1/4 of my 256Mb Card.
That sounds right. I have about that many on my 64Mb card which is not quite full.

In fact, if all you want to do is emulate NES, than a 64Mb card is all you need. They aren't that expensive. I paid $60 for mine but they've probably come down in price since then due to the larger ones being much more popular.

I may even sell mine since I got a GP32 which does all the GBA flashcard does and so much more.

[FF6]

Damn, im always learning something new on this site. I was wondering if these cards are the exact same size as the regular gba sp games. I have no idea how it works and don't know if theres a site that explains it.....but Im trying to picture what you guys are talking about. Do you connect your Gba into you computer? very confused. I bet its probably going to be simple too.

[Jive3D]

There are a bunch of different types of flash cards but its really simple. Most of them are all conforming to the same type of flashing method.

The flash cards are the exact same physical size as a regular GBA cart, except for the older "Xtreme Cards" which were a little bigger, if you have seen the BOKTAI gba cartridge, then think of it as looking like that.

You put the flash cartridge/card into your GBA/ GBASP, there is a USB cable that plugs into the ext. port on the gba and the other end into your PC usb port. The card will come with software or you can DL it from the homepage of the Flash Card maker and you use that to write the roms to the cartridge, not unlike sending mp3s to an iPod. Very Easy Stuff.

One note when you are looking for flash cards, some of the older Flash 2 Advance cards came with a Parallel Cable rather than the new USB standard, the parallel cables wont work with a GBASP (unless you modify it, which it tough). This is due to the internal voltage of the SP being different from that of the regular GBA. The flash card will work on both systems, but the flashing method with the Parallel cable will only work on a regular GBA. They have since updated those with USB cables, so there is nothing to worry about, but I thought I would meantion that if you happen to buy yorus on eBay or something.

to all who are interested in buying: the best deal, as meantioned above is the 256 EZFA for $107 shipped from www.meelectronics.com

BUT the real round of 512 and 1G cards are begining to be released, there are not many product reviews on them yet, but these seem very promissing so all of you who are thinking about buying one might want to wait. The current 1G cards cost around 250.

256 really is enough for games though, the largest GBA roms are only 128 and you can fit 2 of them on a 256, but most games are 64, and many games can be truncated to be smaller.

ADvantage to the 512 and 1G cards are if you plan to put video on the card. YES, there is a video compression tool called Meteo and you can compress almost any pc video file into a .gba file. but they are big, I think that a 23 minute movie was compressed to about 400mbit, NOT mega byte, mega bit.

Anyway, food for thought ^_^.

[SoulBlazer]

Hum, very interesting. Thanks for the info, guys.

That 64mb one would be big enough for me, I think, but the 256mb sounds like a nice bargin as well.

So you can play NES and SMS games with the system.....could someone makea emulator to play other 8-bit and older systems in the flash cart?

[Bratwurst]

There's a Tg-16 emulator out there too, but I haven't tried it yet. One day.. :P

[NE146]

I bought one offa jandaman.com. It came in like 2 days :)

[Goblin]

I followed cuewarriors advice and ordered one from mwelectronics, and can honestly say it is the best gaming product I've bought for myself in years. I'll be doing quite a lot of traveling in the next few months, and this thing will be great. I ordered it in the afternoon on Newyear's day, it shipped that Friday and arrived at my house on Monday. Like many others I've wanted one for a while, but never wanted to import one from overseas. Having a domestic source solved that problem. After I ordered I did some comparison shopping and they do have the best price. These units appear on ebay, but they are either around the same price or slightly higher, so if you are thinking of taking the plunge do it.

So far I've played around with pocketnes, and a few of the homebrew titles and utilities. Pocketnes is fantastic, it's so great to play a number of NES titles that I haven't thought to pull out in years. Some of the homebrew things are neat, and quirky - like the slide show generator. It's cool to actually have my own picture appear on the GBA, but its a one time thing. I did download an SMS emulator image: basically the DrSMS emulator and about 16 different titles. They play rather well, but I didn't like the selection of games and have been unsuccessful in compiling my own. There is always room from improvement, but so far I'm highly impressed with the emulation scene.

My goal right now is to make the perfect optimized image with every nes game I will likely want to play. This is harder than you think because I want to it be significantly diverse, without any overlap (for instance I like tengen tetris not the nintendo version). I'm attempting to keep my image around 4MB (or multiple of), so I can also through backups of titles I already own on, without wasting any space. That way I can travel with a single cartridge.

[GaijinPunch]

Seems that meleeelectronics.com isn't working. Is the URL correct? I need to get one of these, so I can play TG16 stuff on the train. :)

[Darth Sensei]

Seems that meleeelectronics.com isn't working. Is the URL correct? I need to get one of these, so I can play TG16 stuff on the train. :)

It's http://www.mwelectronics.com/

Jive mis-stated the address.

Also, I'm glad to hear that it worked out for you Goblin.

D

[Bratwurst]

Just a quick shot in the dark to see if anyone's got some experience / know-how concerning putting a rom on a GBA cart, like burning your own homebrew Atari carts.

I already have my own flash cart but I'd like to make a 'dedicated' cart for something I've been working on.

[Jive3D]

I have not heard much about atari emu at all.

but I would check out www.gameboy-advance.net for other info on emuloators for use on a gba flash card.

i'm gonna try to get the sms/gg emu to work this weekend.

sorry about mis typing the link above. I, obviously, almost never read over what I type before sending it.

[FF6]

Thanks JIVE 3D, you explained that easily enough for me to understand it perfectly. Im definetly getting a card. Now for my final question.
Were can I find Roms files? If you can't post websites can you pm me?

[SoulBlazer]

ROM's are pretty easy to find, despite the crackdown by the big companies.

I can't post any links directly HERE, but if you go to www.zophar.net and click on their Link section, you'll find links for what you want. :)

(Zophar's Domain USED to be the best emulation site on the Net, so I know this is okay to post at least. :) )

[Hamsnibit]

I just recently bought this one:
http://www.jandaman.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=gbaezflashII256

It has all the features of the others except that it uses a lower voltage than other carts so it extends your battery life. I got a chance to try some roms and emulators and must say it owns. Playing metroid, contra, final fantasy on the GBA is awesome! Now i just have to test the TG-16 and SMS emulators.

[GaijinPunch]

The above site only has Flash2Advance. The EZ Flash is out of stock. Does either have any noticeable feature over the other?

[Buyatari]

I come across the dedicated multis from time to time.

But you can't save on the NES games. Is there a way to do this with these cards?

Zelda, FF ,DW1-4 are all great but worthless if you can't save.

I've seen 100in1 130in1 146in1 and 200in1

[Bratwurst]

But you can't save on the NES games. Is there a way to do this with these cards?

Yeah, the emulators written for the GBA take advantage of the battery backup in the flash carts. I've been able to keep save states and regular, in-game saves.

Those pirate carts all lack the batteries and sram so they can be cheap to produce (big duh there) cos I remember people complaining about getting Sonic Advance on ebay and whammo, no saving. Lots of pirate Hong Kong carts out there.

[Buyatari]

Thing is the GBA games on these multicarts DO SAVE just the NES ones don't.

I had the same issue on Dreamcast. Is there a way to save on your Dreamcast.

Adam

[Darth Sensei]

I come across the dedicated multis from time to time.

But you can't save on the NES games. Is there a way to do this with these cards?

Zelda, FF ,DW1-4 are all great but worthless if you can't save.

I've seen 100in1 130in1 146in1 and 200in1

You can do better than just saving the games. You can save the state. This basically stops the game at a point in time and you can re-start it from exactly that point. It's better than most games save game functionality.

D

[Darth Sensei]

The above site only has Flash2Advance. The EZ Flash is out of stock. Does either have any noticeable feature over the other?

My understanding is that the F2A is missing the clock. You need the clock to play certain games like Pokemon and some RPG's.

Jive3d would prolly know more about this.

D

[Jive3D]

GBA flash cards are totally different than dedicated multicarts. Not sure if you are understanding what we are talking about here, but its like writing songs to an mp3 player

And with the NES emulator for the GBA flash card, you CAN save. In fact with PocketNES, you can save ANYTIME you want, so if you wanna cheat and save every other second, you can beat Zelda II without a single death.

I would take the EZFA over the F2A cards any day. I have both. The F2A software is terrible, at least the most recent generation of it. ALSO, it has very little support. In addition to that many of the recent roms have needed save patches in order for saving to work on the F2A card.

In regards to the EZFA card, it has a real time clock for games like Boktai and Pokemon, F2A doesnt have that. Also, it doesnt have the save problems that plague the F2A. the PC software for use with the EZFA is always being updated and the fella that works on it frequents the GBA scene boards a lot, so ge gives the gamers what they request in his updates.

But, Like I said before, The new F2A cards are coming out in 512mbit and 1GmBit, but I'm waiting for EZFA to make a bigger card (currently I have a 256mBit card) before I jump to the next gen.

Roms are pretty easy to find via websites that host the most recent 10 roms or hitting up gba channels on mIRC. mIRC can be a real pain in the ass and I only use it as a last resort. You will not have much luck finding older roms if you are jumping onto the scene now, some sites will host a few of the old goodies like Metroid Fusion and Zelda, mario kart etc, but finding full romsets will be pretty uncommon these days.

i can answer other Qs if ya pm me too.

but actually, the most recent batch of GBA games have been starting to suck. the only thing keeping me instested in my GBA right now is playing Tetris DX (a gbc rom) and playing Metal Gear (nes). I'm really excited about the PSP, but thats for another thread. I'm happy that handheld gaming wars are going to begin again.

[SoulBlazer]

Well, if anyone happens to see the EZ Flash Advance cart with either the 64 or 256 size for sale on a safe and suggested US website, let me know. :D

[Goblin]

Well, if anyone happens to see the EZ Flash Advance cart with either the 64 or 256 size for sale on a safe and suggested US website, let me know. :D

Read the posts above you. The name and link for mwelectronics has been given a few times, by a few different people. They are US based and offer the EZFA in 256.

[SoulBlazer]

The site says they are out of stock, though. Sorry, I should have said that. :o

[GaijinPunch]

Thanks for the info Jive --- I guess I'll pass on the F2A... I almost ordered it as well.

Hopefully someplace will get the other card in. I'm more than willing to take suggestions on other places besdes mweelectronics.

[GaijinPunch]

Well, there are actually sellers of these here in Japan I've found out. What does the EZ-Flash Power Star (the one w/ the lower battery voltage) usually cost in the states?

[Darth Sensei]

The site says they are out of stock, though. Sorry, I should have said that. :o

FYI. I e-mailed the admin and he replied that he should have stock Tues (1/13) or Wed (1/14).

D

[Retro Pro]

Just so everyone knows, the EZ-Flash Advance 256M carts are back in stock at mwelectronics.com. I just ordered one. I had to pay damn FL sales tax (they're in FL, I'm in FL), but I'm sure it still comes out cheaper than those places from Hong Kong, and the shipping will definitely be faster.

[MoreEbolaForYou]

just to throw in my 2 cents, i also have the EZ-Flash Advance Power Star 256 cart. i've really had no problems whatsoever, the software works well, but the realtime clock is kind of screwy. it only advances when you're actually playing the game, and they've noted this problem on their forums. maybe the newest version of the flashing software has fixed this, i'm not sure, i'm not using it.

that brings me to the point that it was a MAJOR PAIN IN THE ASS to get the driver for the usb flasher, and the software to flash the roms to work. there is like 10 versions of each, and it took me forever to figure out which ones i needed to use. probably because i have windows 2000 and that isn't exactly supported as well as other windows versions. if you have xp i'm sure it's much easier to get it going.

as for getting a full rom set, the guy up there said it would be hard...if you know where to look, no problems at all. but of course you should only want the full rom set if you own all these games anyway! :P X_x

nes emulation: some games it's very good, some games don't work at all. most of the important games work perfect though. some games that i do want to play don't work though, so keep that in mind. i'd say 75% work well enough to play them though. and make sure your nes rom dumps are clean and uncorrupted.

[MoreEbolaForYou]

Well, there are actually sellers of these here in Japan I've found out. What does the EZ-Flash Power Star (the one w/ the lower battery voltage) usually cost in the states?

i believe i paid somewhere around 110 for mine.

[Darth Sensei]

that brings me to the point that it was a MAJOR PAIN IN THE ASS to get the driver for the usb flasher, and the software to flash the roms to work. there is like 10 versions of each, and it took me forever to figure out which ones i needed to use. probably because i have windows 2000 and that isn't exactly supported as well as other windows versions. if you have xp i'm sure it's much easier to get it going.

Perhaps it is your version as I have XP and had no difficulty.

However, I will mention that if you flashed your cart with a previous version and then upgraded the software, it will erase your current cart configuration. I was almost done with the 2nd quest of the first Zelda and lost it. :roll:

D

[MoreEbolaForYou]

yeah, i was aware of that. which is another reason why i'm not planning on upgrading to the new version anytime soon. my girlfriend would kill me if i lost her pokemon pinball scores, haha. there's a bug due to the way the rom is named with a "/" in the title. you can't backup the saver.