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Flash Equipment > Cory1492's GBALdr

#152794 - arch feline - Thu Mar 20, 2008 10:45 pm

Being as one runs GBALdr on a flash card from a flash card my best guess is to post in the Flash Equipment forum.

GBALdr mostly works. And I should in all honesty qualify this with a "for me." Because maybe it works fine for everyone else. I have an R4 with 2g. Kingston transflash and an EZ-Flash 3 in 1. GBATA is used to patch GBA games so that the SRAM of the EZ-Flash 3 in 1 is used for game saves.

GBALdr runs as a Nintendo DS game on slot 1 and loads a GBA game onto slot2 into NOR.

1. The game always gets loaded as it is supposed to. This part always works.
2. Games that have been SRAM patched and loaded always work on a stand alone basis.

3. The dump menu works at least some of the time.

* * *

3. I have some issues with the saves when I reload and with the saves retrieved when I dump but *throws up hands* I do stupid stuff so this could be me.

4.I want to import and export game saves. I want to edit a VBA save and a GBALdr save so that I can put a game save into either format.

Placing the VBA save on GBALdr save
(i) address 0 causes the first save slot to be empty. The next two load at a safe location in the game with an in game warning.
(ii) address X 10000 causes the third save slot to be empty. The previous two load at a safe location in the game with an in game warning.
(iii) In both (i) and (iii) the save is at a lower level than the saves being copied. For instance a level 25 character is level 24.



Does anyone know at which address of GBALdr.SAV I should overwrite the save from VisualBoy Advance?

#152804 - tepples - Thu Mar 20, 2008 11:51 pm

The kind of patching you need depends on which GBA programs you are using. Which specific titles are you trying to get working? (Keep in mind...)
_________________
-- Where is he?
-- Who?
-- You know, the human.
-- I think he moved to Tilwick.

#152807 - arch feline - Fri Mar 21, 2008 12:47 am

Pardon me. I am not asking for patches. I am asking about game save formats used by VisualBoy Advance and GBALdr. I only mentioned GBATA to make it clear that my GBA games running on the EX-Flash 3 in 1 are saving to SRAM.

Visual Boy Advance produces a 64K battery *.sav and GBALdr produces a 256K sram *.sav. I can see that the save of a game is going to be game specific, but as GBALdr and VisualBoy Advance are automated in how they handle saves I expect the process to be game independent. It is possible that each of these programs has a table for each game ever written. Even so there would be a table for me to use in converting.

Surely what we have is game X churns out X.sav. GBALdr does process A on X.sav. VisualBoy Advance does process B on X.sav. They have automated processes. Am I missing something complex in thinking that there is one process to convert?

I know that when I convert between gameshark GBA format and gameshark GBA SP format I need to manually look for a common string in the header. However, I believe that there is an algorithm that would make it possible to automate going from gsv to sps.

I believe that I am asking about GBALdr and that I am not asking for help for the games that I am playing.

#152814 - antiaverage - Fri Mar 21, 2008 2:44 am

Have you tried GBA ExpLoader instead? I find it to be a bit better and more reliable... also it offers much better control over the RAM and Rumble features of the 3-in-1.

http://www009.upp.so-net.ne.jp/rudolph/nds/GBA_ExpLoader_051.zip

You would just toss your save files into GBA_SAVE folder on the root of your card, ensuring the name of the save matches the name of the rom minus the extension. So if you have game.rom your save would be game.sav

#152818 - arch feline - Fri Mar 21, 2008 5:06 am

Have you tried running one of your saves on VisualBoy Advance?

This is not a problem with knowing where my saves are or knowing how to have my saves placed on the memory card. This is not a problem of different file sizes either

It is a matter of different file formats. It may be that Rudolph's solution gives saves that have the same format as the battery save and are consequently compatible with VisualBoy Advance. I think that you have not tested this.

I have viewed battery files from both VisualBoy Advance and from Cory1492 GBALdr in a binary editor and I can move blocks around.

The battery save that is retrieved from the 3 in 1 by GBALdr is constructed by the author of the program. If Cory1492 encrypts this save in some wise, someone should be able to tell me this.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

I am slow but I do randomly get an idea now and then. It occurred to me that if I dump a cart using Cory1492 dumper and I dump the save using GameShark, I will have a point of comparision. Does this sound reasonable?