GBA Emulation on the DS Lite

[Frag Mortuus]

Hey Guys (and possibly Gals),

I have a DSL and a DSTTi emulation card. The card has a GBA Mode that allows you to boot from slot 2. Well I thought that I could just put GBA roms onto my DSTTi card and play them as well, but I was wrong. Apparently, I need to have some sort of emulation card in slot 2 with roms on it in order to play GBA games.

While doing some research, I found that also some tweaking is needed to make GBA games save to the SD card instead of the EPROM of the GBA cart.

Well, what I want to know is if anyone can shed some light on if things have gotten any easier regarding GBA emulation on the DS and if so what equipment do I need? Ideally, I would like to have my DSTTi card in slot 1 with all of my DS roms and a GBA emu card in slot 2 with all of my GBA games so that I dont have to worry about switching cards or anything like that. Is this possible?

Thanks!

[Hatta]

I have a DSTT (not i) and a DSL with an EasyFlash 3-in-1 in slot 2. I keep my gba roms on the DSTT and launch them with GBA ExpLoader. It does save to the RAM on the 3-in-1, but every time you start ExpLoader it will prompt you to save the GBA ram to a file. And when you start a game, it will prompt you to load the GBA ram from a file. Sounds like a hassle, but it actually works out pretty well.

I also have YSmenu as the firmware on my DSTT. It can directly launch GBA roms and dumps the save to a file every time you reset the DS IIRC. It's completely transparent to the user. I had a few games that wouldn't save properly without patching though, so I switched to ExpLoader. The 3-in-1 never leaves slot-2.

[avrame]

Hey hey, totally unnecessary, but just a chime that it's EZFlash if you are having a hard time finding it online. I think realhotstuff.com still has them for sale if you are looking for a USA distro.

[Frag Mortuus]

Thanks Hatta,

I looked up the EZFlash carts and I saw one that uses an SDHC card instead of being limited to the built in flash memory of the 3-in-1. Does that work similarly to the 3-in-1? Do you know if I can use the SDHC card to store all of my roms saves instead of having to transfer it to my DSTTi card?

If not, can you breakdown in stupid terms how to use the XPloader and all of that for me?

Thanks Again!

[jp1]

If you are considering buying new hardware anyway you might want to check out the DSTWO.

http://shoptemp.com/products/Supercard- ... -p-97.html

It lets you play GBA/SNES/and DS games all from slot 1 without a slot 2 memory expansion. It has it's own on board processor. Check out the reviews.

It might be a few dollars more than a 3in1 but you will also get better DS compatibility than you do with the DSTT.

[flex wood]

I am actually in the market for a 3 in 1 ez flash but I have a phat ds.

wondering if anyone can knows where I could get one since all I can find are ones for the the ds lite that look way to small for slot 2 on a phattie.

sorry not trying to thread jack at all just trying to kill 2 birds with one stone er.. thread

that super card does look very interesting. Would that be a better buy since I dont have a flash cart yet I could just get that instead getting a slot one and slot two card?

[Hatta]

Frag, I think you're talking about the EZFlash IV. I haven't used it myself, but there's a wiki here.

GBA ExpLoader is pretty simple to use. Just drop the file on your sd card, and run it. It starts up a file browser, you select your GBA game. It'll ask you what save file you want to load, and away you go. Save ram is saved to flash next time you start ExpLoader.

[Niode]

I use an ezflash 3-in-1 with GBA Exploader on my DSTT as well. Works fine. Fits into DSL without overhang. I never remove it.