#15022 - Mill - Fri Jan 16, 2004 5:09 am
Hello,
I was toying with F2A Ultra 1G for a while and I decided that it's time to share my experience.
First, F2A Ultra claims that it has 8M SRAM but according to the user's guide, you can use only 1M space for this purpose. Other spaces are reserved for the realtime save (aka snapshot, diehard mode). Now this 1M space (half of other flash carts) should be enough to hold TWO 512k save games. But to support 1M flash save of some recent games, F2A Ultra seems to be using the whole 1M space for just one savegame. So basically you can hold only one save game. Generally, I use the flash cart only to play the games I purchased and if I can carry only one game, this cart is meaningless because I can just carry my original cart.
Second, F2A Ultra claims that it handles all the save types but I couldn't save the game when I tried "Sword of Mana" and "SD Gundam G Generation Advance" (Rom images were dumped from my original carts).
Third, the buttons on the cartridge are very very annoying especially if you, like me, don't care about the realtime save feature.
Anyway, as someone else pointed out, I had good experience with F2A non ultra. That's the reason why I bought F2A Ultra immediately. But so far it falls far behind my expectation.
So, until they resolve these save issues I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who wants to play the game with save feature.
By the way, if anyone is interested, my current favorite is EZF Advance. I just wish that EZF Advance 1G will be available soon...
If someone else has better experience or knows any alternative save solution, please let me know.
Thanks,
#15029 - malone - Fri Jan 16, 2004 7:02 am
Very interesting, thanks for sharing with us. I don't have my hands on one yet, unfortunately, but if I do in a few weeks I'll post a review of it.
Good luck with the game save issue.
#15144 - beerthebear - Sun Jan 18, 2004 12:11 am
Hey since you have the 1 gig ultra, i was wondering if you could help me. I have it, but the instructions are sucky. I was wondering if you know of a site that has tutorials or something. Because im having probs, when i try to write to the cart, it says that the cart is only 256 and can hold only 256 even though its 1 gig. thanks
#15230 - halljames - Mon Jan 19, 2004 12:35 pm
I have seen numerous posts across the boards about people not understanding how the save system works on F2A Ultra Carts. The 1M save area is designed to hold the save info for the current game being played. When you choose a different game, the 1M save area is compressed to a file and stored in the rest of the Flash RAM. When you next come to play the game, the appropriate file is uncompressed and saved into the 1M save area so you can resume your game.
This works just like pogoshell.
#15231 - stealthy - Mon Jan 19, 2004 1:41 pm
Nice. I kinda understand it. Was gonna start a new topic but see if I can get my answer here....
I have a game on my old 256mb F2A cart. Saved it off to a 32/64mbit .save file. I now have a 1G ultra and want to xfer the .sav file onto that. My questions are:
1. I used Power Writer to flash the 1G ultra with the same game and Power Writer to write the .sav onto the 1G cart, but the game does not load the .sav file?
2. Does it matter that Power Writer does not have the memory block assignment (eg. 1A/2B/etc) option like the old F2A software?
3. Can games and .sav files be mix'n'matched to F2A files with F2A ultra cart?
Sorry for the questions, just trying to get my head around it as the help doc does'nt really explain it :(
Thanks.
#15232 - TheGuardian - Mon Jan 19, 2004 2:48 pm
I think I'll just add my cents : http://members.tripod.com/DreamWeb81/f2a/
My personal review :)
I will update it as they upgrade the soft, or I get to know something new.
#15255 - Mill - Tue Jan 20, 2004 3:19 am
beerthebear, I think you are experiencing the problem because you are using the old writer program. You should use the "F2A Power Writier". Though you can save only one game with the 1.00b version, it seems that the new version fixed the problem according to TheGuardian. I'm very glad to hear that they solved this save issue.
Anyway, I'm travelling right now and I can't try the new writer program. But I did experience another problem with the F2A Power Writer 1.00b. The program didn't recognize the ultra 1G cart after first several tries. Anyway, I gave up trying because due to the save problem I had no intention to use the cart until the new version of writer program is available. I'll let everyone know about my experience with the new writer program once I get back to home.
#15281 - pjoyce - Tue Jan 20, 2004 11:44 am
TheGuardian,
In your review you mention "You cannot rename the games as they will show up in the menu" as a Bad point. If you want to rename the Internal ROM Name, use the "Flash Advance Toolkit v8" available from ->
http://207.44.176.77/~admin28/gbaemu/fatools.htm
It works fine for me on my F2A Ultra 512 cart.
I've not tried to backup a commerical ROM yet with this software (my games were backed up using another card) but I will try it and let you know how it goes on the 512 cart. I agree that both the 'Power Writer' software and the new style boot menu needs some more work but so far I've not had any problems with my 512 cart.
#15282 - halljames - Tue Jan 20, 2004 11:56 am
I too am having problems with my 1G cart.
Any comercial roms I place at the end of the cart (approx 900M in to it), simply refuse to work. I have not tried PD ROMS or demos as I am only interested in comercial games :)
Does anyone have an email address for flash2advance. I want to send them some views and bug reports. I blindly tried sending an email to anyone@flash2advance.com with the hope that they have an email account associated with their domain name. Not heard anything yet, or got an error yet.
#15304 - TheGuardian - Tue Jan 20, 2004 6:36 pm
James look above I have the same problem it's written in my review.
I believe it's a problem with adressing. (Making the commercial rom think its the only rom on the card..)
#15351 - pjoyce - Wed Jan 21, 2004 8:35 am
Coming back to the issue of multiple saves not being stored on the Ultra carts. I checked the http://www.flash2advance.com website this morning and noticed something I had missed previously. Under the 2004-01-16 heading it lists the WINF2A10.GBA loader but under the 2004-01-17 heading it lists the same filename BUT also says "(add Virtual Disk management, now over 100 save files can be stored in SRAM's Virtual Disk ! User just play game and the WinF2A10 manages the saver for you automatically, so simple and efficiency!)"
Has anyone tried this specific file? I just wondered if there IS a difference. I'll try tonight (I'm at work!)
#15353 - halljames - Wed Jan 21, 2004 9:48 am
I am using that file and saves works like a charm.
I am still having problems with some games, but I have since read that they may need to be patched to allow them to save. I certainly have had no problems running games of the 1G ultra (as long as you dont fill it up to the 1G capacity, stay under 800M) and they all save properly, appart from some of the newer games such as The Sims Busting out and Final Fanstasy Tactics advance.
#15363 - pjoyce - Wed Jan 21, 2004 1:05 pm
Thanks for the confirmation, I shall try it out tonight.
Actually in a forum on the supplier "Success-HK"`s site someone posted:
"Loader WINF2A10.GBA seems to be in 2 version. I've downloaded the one from 17/01 and then I discovered new message when starting my GBA SP "Creating CIZ..... Then on each icon, there is now a small windows pop-up and showing (when press A) Game Info, GID ??, and saved files and when pressing B showing number of save file. I've played number of games (10 loaded) and I could now manage the Sav function."
I'll give it a go later.