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DS Flash Equipment > New EZ-Flash NDS loader

#59945 - Killjoy42 - Sat Nov 05, 2005 9:06 pm

So I tried out the new EZ-Flash Client that came out yesterday... and I have to say, it's pretty sweet.

The loader EZ-Client uses not only allows you to load multiple .nds (commercial or otherwise) files on a single cart, but is also to the first loader (that I know of) to allow .nds AND .gba files on the same cart at the same time!

If that wasn't enough, I've been going through nds roms (again, homebrew and commercial) that used to give me troubles, and now they work flawlessly. Advance Wars - Dual Strike (which I do own) even saves on the cart without issue.

The client can be downloaded at http://www.ezflash.cn/indexe.asp

Sorry, I've just been so excited about this since yesterday and have found little news about it elsewhere - thought someone might appreciate it.

#59958 - Thomas - Sat Nov 05, 2005 11:30 pm

DS homebrew doesn't work for me... I just get two white screens. Commercial DS games (including E3 demos) and all GBA software works.

#60012 - josath - Sun Nov 06, 2005 8:41 am

1. please don't talk about illegal things.
2. neener neener i was the first to make a loader that lets you put homebrew .gba and homebrew .nds files on a flash cart (unfortunately it only works with the old 'neoflash' cart, but thats the nature of loading .gba games) http://davr.drunkencoders.com/loader/

#60062 - Killjoy42 - Sun Nov 06, 2005 8:23 pm

Nice josath - I've been looking for something like that for a while - (Dakain's loader doesn't work with my card for some reason)

Also, it's true that NDS homebrew doesn't work with the EZ-flash loader, but GBA homebrew does - that where I got confused. Sorry about that.

My intention wasn't to encourage illegal usage of DS software/hardware - just wanted to share that this new software has emerged which could concievably be used to help the homebrew scene.

(especially those using this type of card)

#60105 - tepples - Mon Nov 07, 2005 3:47 am

josath wrote:
i was the first to make a loader that lets you put homebrew .gba and homebrew .nds files on a flash cart (unfortunately it only works with the old 'neoflash' cart, but thats the nature of loading .gba games) http://davr.drunkencoders.com/loader/

Plan on extending it to the better-known visoly/f2a type carts?
_________________
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#60132 - josath - Mon Nov 07, 2005 11:15 am

Adding support for other carts will be more difficult. No other ones that I know of have documented the format that roms are stored on the cart.

The neoflash for example, writes to the cart like this:
----
loader: padded to 5mbit
loaded roms info: padded to 1mbit
----
rom 1
----
rom 2
----
etc


and the structure of the rom info is documented, so i can easily pull out the offset for each game, the size, etc. Without this, i'm not sure how I would know how to find the location of each file, in order to bankswitch to the right place.

Building all the roms into a single file kinda defeats the purpose, as darkain's default multi-loader already supports that, and also I don't think gbfs supports padding files to be on 1mbit boundries (and i think all flashcarts can only bankswitch to 1mbit boundries - at least that's how the neoflash works), which means i'd have to replace that with something else. too much work for me, when i don't have the carts in order to test it.

Edit:
Actually, I have enough info to fully support the EZFlash-3 (loading .gba & .ds.gba, from the FAT partition as well). But I don't think hardly anyone has this cart. See also the testing issue again.

#60173 - tepples - Mon Nov 07, 2005 9:24 pm

josath wrote:
Adding support for other carts will be more difficult. No other ones that I know of have documented the format that roms are stored on the cart.

At least one version of the official Visoly loader just searches for valid GBA headers at 32 KiB (32768 byte) intervals because 32 KiB is the cart's bankswitch size. This sort of linear probing is similar to what find_first_gbfs_file() does.

PogoShell's format is documented if you download version 1.3 and look through the text files.

Quote:
Building all the roms into a single file kinda defeats the purpose, as darkain's default multi-loader already supports that

Only for .nds files, not for ds.gba, .gba, or .mb files.

Quote:
and also I don't think gbfs supports padding files to be on 1mbit boundries (and i think all flashcarts can only bankswitch to 1mbit boundries - at least that's how the neoflash works)

PogoShell's file system has two sections: a "file storage" section with less padding (used for .mb, .txt, .nes, and anything else that doesn't need to be loaded to 0x08000000), and a "GBA ROM" section with 32 KB padding.
_________________
-- Where is he?
-- Who?
-- You know, the human.
-- I think he moved to Tilwick.