Gameboy flash carts?

[retrogamer73]

I've been interested in Gameboy/Color/Advance flash carts, and have been having trouble finding them. Are there any good trustworthy sites that someone on here has bought one from. I was wanting one like the Powerpak, that will let you store several roms at once. Are there any like that? and if so where would I buy from?

Edited February 8, 2012 by retrogamer73

[Reaperman]

The best GBA flashcart I've seen available lately is the EzFlash IV. Ndscardsale.com still sells them (under DS flash carts).

 

EzFlash IV has a few weaknesses, like not supporting 256mbit roms and lack of rtc, but is overall one of the better cards for the system--especially since the M3 family is no longer available. It won't do b/w or color games in 'legacy GB mode,' however GBA does have software emulators for them in GBA mode.

 

More primative cards (no sd storage) can be combined with a device called a gb-bridge (good luck finding one these days) to provide full legacy gb support. Occasionally I see those primative gba cards still, but not the bridge.

 

Finally there have been a few gb/gbc flash cards recently, but they're mostly for music and lack the storage to hold the largest commercial gbc games.

[+wood_jl]

This is just opinion, but.....

 

The "M3 DS Real Perfect Bundle" (what a name) is for the DS Lite. It's the best "Gameboy-type" flashcart around. Not only DS, but GBA ROMs, obviously. But the emulator runs original Gameboy and Gameboy Color games, and you can increase the screen size to touch the sides of the DS Lite screen, making the game MUCH more visible. I love it! The emulator will also display Super Game Boy enhancements right on the DS screen - the borders, etc. It's great!!

 

I got mine from Dealextreme, back when they used to sell them. Anybody know where these are still selling, if at all? Getting one of these and a DS Lite is like a Gameboy-lover's dream.

[Drixxel]

Finally there have been a few gb/gbc flash cards recently, but they're mostly for music and lack the storage to hold the largest commercial gbc games.

 

The one that comes immediately to mind in this category is the USB 64M Smart Card and it definitely has its quirks. Low storage capacity, weird compatibility issues, questionable build quality, only one save file stored on the cart at a time, the need to use proprietary software to manage files... That being said, it does work if all you want is to play non-emulated GB/GBC ROMs on the Game Boy of your choice and you're willing to jump through some hoops to do so. I bought it as a gift for a friend and felt like a bit of a jerk having to explain the baggage this thing comes with.

[gliptitude]

 

EzFlash IV has a few weaknesses, like not supporting 256mbit roms and lack of rtc, but is overall one of the better cards for the system--especially since the M3 family is no longer available. It won't do b/w or color games in 'legacy GB mode,' however GBA does have software emulators for them in GBA mode.

 

 

What exactly does it mean to support or not support "256mbit roms"? I have an EFA gba flash cart that I bought years ago, but it no longer connects through the USB port, so I'm stuck with the last stuff I wrote to it. I seem to remember "256" appearing often when I was writing files to it in the past. Mainly trying to run the various emulators. Can I do this on the EZflash IV?

[goldenegg]

What exactly does it mean to support or not support "256mbit roms"? I have an EFA gba flash cart that I bought years ago, but it no longer connects through the USB port, so I'm stuck with the last stuff I wrote to it. I seem to remember "256" appearing often when I was writing files to it in the past. Mainly trying to run the various emulators. Can I do this on the EZflash IV?

 

It's referring to the maximum ROM size supported by the cart. Basically it means that you can't run games which are 32MB (256mb = 32MB) in size.

[godslabrat]

I look into this every now and again. I've often wanted something to tinker with creating GB/GBC romhacks and homebrews, but I usually don't get too far into the buying process. It seems most of the good GB/GBC flashcarts are out of production, stupidly expensive, and/or require tons of hardware/software I don't have. Looks like the time to get in on that game was about 15 years ago... :-/

[PFL]

^

You can always get an EZ-Flash IV and use GB/GBC emulation (the best one is called Goomba). That's how I try out the ROM hacks. The emulation is surprisingly accurate and does feel like your playing on the real harware.

 

If anyone's looking for respectable sellers I'd recommend popping over to GBATemp and look at the sponsors or follow the Shoptemp link. There are lots of places to buy eg/ Kicktrading and Deal Extreme...

[gliptitude]

I look into this every now and again. I've often wanted something to tinker with creating GB/GBC romhacks and homebrews, but I usually don't get too far into the buying process. It seems most of the good GB/GBC flashcarts are out of production, stupidly expensive, and/or require tons of hardware/software I don't have. Looks like the time to get in on that game was about 15 years ago... :-/

 

This looks current and reliable:

 

http://r4-3.com/ez-flash-iv-mini-gba-card-ez4-for-nintendo-gba-ds-ds-lite-p-19.html

 

At $38 including shipping that's about half what I paid 6 years ago for a GBA flash cart that stopped working after a year or two.

[Austin]

Has anyone been able to confirm if these GBA flash carts work on the Game Cube Game Boy Player?

[PFL]

Yes they do. I do most of my gaming using EZ-Flash IV. I play GBA games as well as, through emulation, GB/GBC, NES, SMS & Game Gear!

 

I use my GBA needs and the GB Player on my CRT at home and have never come across any compatibility issues. After all, the GB Player is basically a GBA without a screen...

[godslabrat]

I look into this every now and again. I've often wanted something to tinker with creating GB/GBC romhacks and homebrews, but I usually don't get too far into the buying process. It seems most of the good GB/GBC flashcarts are out of production, stupidly expensive, and/or require tons of hardware/software I don't have. Looks like the time to get in on that game was about 15 years ago... :-/

 

This looks current and reliable:

 

http://r4-3.com/ez-f...-lite-p-19.html

 

At $38 including shipping that's about half what I paid 6 years ago for a GBA flash cart that stopped working after a year or two.

 

I was actually thinking of something that would work in an original Gameboy... but that's not a bad price at all! :-)

[goldenegg]

You have to be careful when buying the EZ-Flash IV. There are so many fake carts flooding the market, that even reputable vendors are getting duped. I still haven't figured out how to tell the carts apart yet.

[cloudmann]

I've had my EZ-Flash IV for a while now and am very happy with it. Couple of quirks though. It WILL support 32megabyte (256 Megabit) games, though not on the fly like games 16 Megabytes and below. For example, for large games (like Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, just as an example), the cart has its own 32Megabytes of NVram (turn the system off, the binary loaded in stays there). This is seperate from whater miniSD you put in the cart. So if you load your SD with 2GB of games (the largest SD size the cart will accept), you have to do the following for larger games: they'll be accessable through the main user interface, just like the smaller roms. Unlike the smaller roms (that load up in 4 to 10 seconds before the system reboots), the larger games are copied into the NV ram. Takes about a full minute for large games. However, when you reboot the system, the rom image stays in NV ram, so you don't have to do a lengthy reload every time. if you have more than one large game, well, you'll need to do that every time.

 

There are some hoops to jump through (initially, anyhow). The cart comes with software that'll convert the roms for compatibility with the cart. Then it generates save files (just like ones used in emulators) for saving on the SD. It supports these operations in batch, and you can set up directories for alphbet, genre, whatever. But the process is a bit slow and tedious. Start to finish, I seem to remember it taking about 2 and a half hours to load my 2GB card with roms. Once I did that, I was set, though. I only repeat the process to upload newer dumps (haven't seen one in quite a while, nor do I expect to) and homebre (LOTS going on there).

 

Great cart that DOES in fact support 32 megabyte games, with a bit of a workaround. Just make sure you have an MINI sd card. This does not use micro. Also, a GOOD quality mini to SD adapter is recommended. Very pleased with mine for two years, and haven't had to replace the watch battery in the cart (used for menu settings and the NV Ram).