Any reputable recommendations for a place to buy one?
Found a couple online: $54 sound about right?
Found a couple online: $54 sound about right?
Probably should've added: I want to run PocketNES on it and it must support saving/battery RAM.
SuperCard SD at DealExtreme
To save the SRAM to the SD card after you play, you have to do a quick power cycle. Turning the GBA's power off for one second on a SuperCard acts like a long reset on a PowerPak.
To save the SRAM to the SD card after you play, you have to do a quick power cycle. Turning the GBA's power off for one second on a SuperCard acts like a long reset on a PowerPak.
Thanks tepples, looks perfect.
This means I'd better finish rewriting the sound engine soon.
Dwedit wrote:
This means I'd better finish rewriting the sound engine soon.
You've some time yet, I've not even wrote one line of audio code for NTRQ.
But yeah, you'd better....
My SuperCard cart turned up today but I'm not having much luck with it.
I can build a PocketNES GBA ROM (using "Thingy") and it runs fine in VirtualBoyAdvance (though I do get a "A BIOS file is needed" error but it doesn't seem to care?).
However, copying this to an SD->SuperCard and putting it in a GBA doesn't seem to work.
I get the SuperCard menu and the GBA ROM I built appears but I just get a black screen. Bizarrely you can still access the PocketNES menus (pressing both shoulder buttons on the GBA).
So I thought I'd try just putting a game ROM on the card to make sure it's working OK. I loaded up "Mother 3" (Japanese) and you get the loading progress but on completion, white screen and it hangs.
Any ideas?
I can build a PocketNES GBA ROM (using "Thingy") and it runs fine in VirtualBoyAdvance (though I do get a "A BIOS file is needed" error but it doesn't seem to care?).
However, copying this to an SD->SuperCard and putting it in a GBA doesn't seem to work.
I get the SuperCard menu and the GBA ROM I built appears but I just get a black screen. Bizarrely you can still access the PocketNES menus (pressing both shoulder buttons on the GBA).
So I thought I'd try just putting a game ROM on the card to make sure it's working OK. I loaded up "Mother 3" (Japanese) and you get the loading progress but on completion, white screen and it hangs.
Any ideas?
Oh gosh, I feel like I'm back on Pocket Heaven.
VBA ordinarily uses high-level emulation for BIOS syscalls, but it can use a BIOS file dumped from a GBA instead. "A BIOS file is needed" means you've hit an unsupported syscall. In the case of PocketNES, it's the syscall used to distinguish GBA BIOS from DS BIOS and change the brightness compensation accordingly; you can just ignore it. Once you get the SuperCard working, you can use the DLDI BIOS dumper to copy the BIOS from the GBA into a file on your SD card to use in VBA.
All three Mother games tend to have crazy copy protection. But apart from that, SuperCard's low-cost SDRAM runs only in slow-ROM mode. Games have to be patched not to write to the register that enables fast-ROM mode. Try putting TOD or Luminesweeper on your SD card and seeing if it works. (These games run inside the GBA's built-in work RAM and rarely if ever access ROM, so they need not turn on fast-ROM.)
VBA ordinarily uses high-level emulation for BIOS syscalls, but it can use a BIOS file dumped from a GBA instead. "A BIOS file is needed" means you've hit an unsupported syscall. In the case of PocketNES, it's the syscall used to distinguish GBA BIOS from DS BIOS and change the brightness compensation accordingly; you can just ignore it. Once you get the SuperCard working, you can use the DLDI BIOS dumper to copy the BIOS from the GBA into a file on your SD card to use in VBA.
All three Mother games tend to have crazy copy protection. But apart from that, SuperCard's low-cost SDRAM runs only in slow-ROM mode. Games have to be patched not to write to the register that enables fast-ROM mode. Try putting TOD or Luminesweeper on your SD card and seeing if it works. (These games run inside the GBA's built-in work RAM and rarely if ever access ROM, so they need not turn on fast-ROM.)
Thanks tepples.
I had success with TOD, that works fine.
The BIOS dumper just shows a white screen and nothing is written to the SD card.
As for the patching (of PocketNES?) you described, I'm unsure what you're telling me I need to do?
I had success with TOD, that works fine.
The BIOS dumper just shows a white screen and nothing is written to the SD card.
As for the patching (of PocketNES?) you described, I'm unsure what you're telling me I need to do?
Now we're really becoming Pocket Heaven.
You have to patch the BIOS dumper with the SuperCard's driver. See the DLDI Wiki. See also instructions.
PHWiki:SupercardGBASlowdowns. Dwedit could probably tell you better than I.
neilbaldwin wrote:
The BIOS dumper just shows a white screen and nothing is written to the SD card.
You have to patch the BIOS dumper with the SuperCard's driver. See the DLDI Wiki. See also instructions.
Quote:
As for the patching (of PocketNES?) you described, I'm unsure what you're telling me I need to do?
PHWiki:SupercardGBASlowdowns. Dwedit could probably tell you better than I.
just so you know the supercards RAM is a little too slow, there are more compatible cards out there. are you gonna use it in gba or a NDS?
although Mother 3 dose work fine but need an additional patch, games like Metroid would not though
although Mother 3 dose work fine but need an additional patch, games like Metroid would not though
peppers wrote:
just so you know the supercards RAM is a little too slow, there are more compatible cards out there. are you gonna use it in gba or a NDS?
although Mother 3 dose work fine but need an additional patch, games like Metroid would not though
although Mother 3 dose work fine but need an additional patch, games like Metroid would not though
Using it in a GBA.
If there's a better card on the market please let me know.
M3 is considered a better card; its RAM is fast enough that games don't need to be patched. But I never had a problem with PocketNES on SuperCard.
yeah pocknes works the same on both the M3 and supercard (I have both).
the M3 is a little hard to come by these days though I was goin to suggest a NDS card with a ezflash gba expansion pack if you had a DS.
regular flash cards for the gba are still pretty easy to come by though and are cheap.
the M3 is a little hard to come by these days though I was goin to suggest a NDS card with a ezflash gba expansion pack if you had a DS.
regular flash cards for the gba are still pretty easy to come by though and are cheap.
So if you're both saying the SuperCard works well with PocketNES, and we've determined that the cart itself is working OK (with tepples' TOD game), and my PocketNES GBA ROM works OK in VBA, how come I can't get the same ROM to work on my GBA?
Like I said before, PocketNES seems to be running as you can open the settings menu. But the NES ROM that I built the PocketNES ROM with (my NES tracker) just has a black screen.
I guess another line of attack would be to build the PocketNES ROM with a NES game that will definitely (or should) work - any suggestions?
Like I said before, PocketNES seems to be running as you can open the settings menu. But the NES ROM that I built the PocketNES ROM with (my NES tracker) just has a black screen.
I guess another line of attack would be to build the PocketNES ROM with a NES game that will definitely (or should) work - any suggestions?
Quote:
I guess another line of attack would be to build the PocketNES ROM with a NES game that will definitely (or should) work - any suggestions?
How about SnowBro's Bombsweeper game? It should only require the most minimal degree of accuracy from the emulator to run.
peppers wrote:
yeah pocknes works the same on both the M3 and supercard (I have both).
the M3 is a little hard to come by these days though I was goin to suggest a NDS card with a ezflash gba expansion pack if you had a DS.
regular flash cards for the gba are still pretty easy to come by though and are cheap.
the M3 is a little hard to come by these days though I was goin to suggest a NDS card with a ezflash gba expansion pack if you had a DS.
regular flash cards for the gba are still pretty easy to come by though and are cheap.
The can still buy the M3 today. But it's easier to get the one that goes in the DS slot and has a GBA RAM cartridge and thus can't be used on a GBA only a DS or DS Lite.
neilbaldwin wrote:
I guess another line of attack would be to build the PocketNES ROM with a NES game that will definitely (or should) work - any suggestions?
I hate to toot my own horn again, but LJ65 works in PocketNES on my cousin's SuperCard.
the supercard use to come with pocketnes built in before the DS stuff started to take up too much space and they removed it, you might be able to load straight NES roms if you did not update the firmware. oviously a dated version
Ah!
So, the SuperCard came with no disc/software so I assumed I could just throw files at it and it would work.
Then I accidentally discovered their website and the patcher software.
All working now!
NTRQ looks ace on the GBA
Thanks for all your patience and information.
So, the SuperCard came with no disc/software so I assumed I could just throw files at it and it would work.
Then I accidentally discovered their website and the patcher software.
All working now!
NTRQ looks ace on the GBA
Thanks for all your patience and information.