#16701 - Dymitrix - Mon Feb 23, 2004 4:23 am
I was thinkin of gettin some hardware to transfer my games that I write ti use with the GBA. It seems a lot of ppl like to use flash cards... whether it's ezflash or whatnot... I stumble upon an item called a g-bank which was cheaper than the flash cards and has the capablities to store more info. However, I can't find any review on it. Is there a reason ppl stay away from this product when it appears to be more bang for the buck?
#16703 - SimonB - Mon Feb 23, 2004 10:00 am
URL?
#16706 - Mill - Mon Feb 23, 2004 11:07 am
You can see the info here.
http://www.g-bank.tk
I have one more question if anyone is using it.
I want to transfer EEPROM save data from original carts into
PC(So that I can share the save data with flash carts).
It looks like g-bank can be used for this purpose. But I'm not sure.
So if anyone is using it, please tell me if this is possible.
Also, if someone knows other methods to transfer EEPROM
save data into PC, please let me know. I need it both ways.
(Move original EEPROM save to PC and PC EEPROM save
to original carts).
Thanks,
#16723 - ampz - Mon Feb 23, 2004 7:08 pm
Looks a bit large...
#16846 - dragonmc - Wed Feb 25, 2004 9:09 pm
From what I read on the official site, it doesn't look like the G-Bank can make roms for transferring over to your PC (and that would include game save data), but rather it only "reads" roms located either on the onboard 128Mbit memory or the option SD Card (up to 512MB). At least that's what I gathered from the site. For the purposes of being able to put your game collection on one device and taking it on the road, this seems ideal, but it's use for development is dubious.
I don't actually have one, so I can't tell for sure. Does anyone know different?
#16852 - tepples - Wed Feb 25, 2004 10:41 pm
Does it store ROMs on the flash card in standard .gba format, or does it add some sort of undocumented encryption? If the former, then anybody with a USB SD card reader could use it for development.
_________________
-- Where is he?
-- Who?
-- You know, the human.
-- I think he moved to Tilwick.
#16853 - torne - Wed Feb 25, 2004 11:11 pm
It stores roms as .gba and needs no PC-side software or drivers (as long as your OS is recent enough to support the USB Mass Storage profile - win98se and above, any linux which supports USB and SCSI, and mac os 9 or above). You plug it in, the SD card appears as a new removeable drive (or as a SCSI disk under Linux), and you can stick .gba files directly on it.
Whether or not you can copy to/from the flashcart memory directly from the PC I don't know; you certainly can't do this through the Mass Storage profile (as that kind of access just doesn't work) but there may be an additional access mechanism available that does use extra software. If you cannot, then the device would be no use without the SD card, but they claim the card is optional; this suggests either dubious marketing or that there is some mechanism.
If you can write direct to the flashcart memory from the PC, it's identical to all other flashcarts for development purposes. If you can't, then the development round trip time will be longer (you will have to copy to SD, then use the g-bank menu to copy to the flashcart, and then run it, and repeat for each new compile you want to test) but it should still be perfectly useable.
#16897 - dragonmc - Thu Feb 26, 2004 4:33 pm
Well, it doesn't look like it's possible to write directly to the flash memory from the pc, so if you don't have an SD or MMC card to stick into the device, connecting it to your computer would be useless. It CAN copy cartridges directly to the flash memory or the SD card, but that's pretty standard fare for these types of devices. I can't write to external flash cards also, in case anyone was wondering. You can only write to the SD Card in the slot (from the original cartridge or from the PC) or to the built-in flash memory (from the original cartridge or from the SD Card).
The value in this device is when you consider that you can get a 256MB SD Card for like 30 bucks. That's 256 MEGABYTES, so you can store something over 32 full-size roms on that one card, and all those roms are instantly accessible for play with the card in the slot. That's the most amount of storage for roms that I have heard from any device to date, but then again, I don't know much about the GameWallet.
Anyway, some feedback from someone who actually owns or has tried it would be awsome. Anyone out there?
#16903 - ampz - Thu Feb 26, 2004 6:43 pm
Well, not exactly "instantly available". It takes a few minutes to transfer a game from SD card to the flash memory before you can play it.
#16932 - dragonmc - Fri Feb 27, 2004 3:29 pm
Ah. I see you're right. A game has to be transferred to the flash memory from the SD card before you can play it. I wonder how fast it writes to the flash memory. Would it compare to the relatively fast speeds of the EZF Advance? Hmmm....
#16990 - jasebro - Sat Feb 28, 2004 2:01 pm
To use this device do you still need a flash cart?
#17001 - SimonB - Sat Feb 28, 2004 4:52 pm
yes.
#17003 - torne - Sat Feb 28, 2004 5:03 pm
| jasebro wrote: |
| To use this device do you still need a flash cart? |
No, you don't. This device has a built-in flash cart, which you must copy roms onto. You don't have to buy a seperate cart.
#17006 - SimonB - Sat Feb 28, 2004 6:22 pm
my mistake. I have only used the gamewallet and to use it you need a (flash2advance?) flash cart.
#17042 - dthadamaja - Sun Feb 29, 2004 1:10 pm
its known to really eat your batteries.
#17590 - jasebro - Wed Mar 10, 2004 8:08 pm
Got this the other day, and it works a treat...you can only connect the thing to a PC and it appears as a removable drive, however this is not the case for a mac. if anyone knows of a driver for mac or workaround for this then please do let me know.
Cheers.