Nintendo DS Flash SD Card, GBA Games not working....

Good day,
I recently obtained a Flash SD Card to be able to play ROMS on my Nintendo DS. It came along with the appropriate loader software all ready installed.
It boots up fine by selecting “Metroid Prime Hunters Demoâ€￾ from the menu and all DS games and mp3 music files seem to work fine and it even saves in real time, but when I try to load a GBA Roms, this error message comes up prompting me that there is no flash cartridge inserted in Slot 2 (The GBA Slot).
There was no Slot 2 Cartridge included in the package and I have tried inserting a regular GBA Cartridge, in case it needed some data from it, but with no success. None of the GBA Roms work and the error message persists.
So, what exactly am I doing wrong? Am I missing something from this package? I asked the supplier and he said that there was no Slot 2 cartridge included in this package and I needed to upgrade the loader software of the flash SD Card to support GBA Roms.

Any help to make GBA Roms work on this, will be highly appreciated
Thanks in advance.

 

You need a slot-2 card to play GBA games, some DS flashcards support Slot-2 emulation, but R4 don't

 

And where could I find a Slot 2 writable cartridge?! Shouldn't it be included in the package?

So, is there a way to make this specific slot 1 card, to play GBA games (by upgrading the software) without buying new hardware?

Thanks in advance

 

I think only one or two models were sold as a kit with both slot 1 and slot 2 carts. And you need to buy slot 2 card, Something like EZ Flash 3-in-1 or similar.
And slot 1 gba-compatible cards like DSTwo aren't perfect - they use additional CPU which drains more power and cuts battery life almost in half, and it's software emulation which is nowhere near VBA-M or Mednafen in terms of compatibility - at least 35% of games will have glitches or slowdowns. But DSTwo is the only option for DSi or 3DS (well at least until 3DS will be fully cracked so it will be possible to run GBA emulator with roms on SD card).

 

So, do they sell just the Slot 2 Flash cartridge separately, or do I have to get the whole EZ Flash 3 - in 1 package?
What about emulation. Is there a perfect GBA emulator that would work on my current Slot 1 Flash card?
I'm using a Nintendo DS Lite by the way.

By the way, would the EZ Flash 3-in-1 Slot 2 Flash cartridge work on the original GBA & SP and play ROMS on it?
I would also like to be able to play ROMS on my good old GBA SP.

Thanks in advance

 

You can use GBA Emu for DS

 

You can try to score a GBA flash cart alone. Most would sell with a linker cable (like the EZFA 256Mb I have, using the GBA itself as reader/writer) or a cart reader. I don't recall any slot-2 flash cart produced to work exclusively with a DS flash cart. In fact, I do believe all the DS firmware does is flash the .gba rom to the slot-2 cart and then boot in GBA mode. I could be wrong.

I don't think emulation is the way, unless you'd got one of those modern DS flash carts with extra cpu. Not sure how good gba emulation is, I recall some flaws in the SNES emulation but they had great support so things might have changed since.

And yes, with a GBA flash cart you can play roms on original gba/sp/micro. Thats the purpose of it. NDS will recognise it as a GBA, no problem at that. Slot-2 hacks were the first successful attempts to boot DS roms on NDS.

 

Ok Thanks!
So where can I buy a GBA Slot 2 Flashcart to load some GBA Roms on it and play on my DS Lite.

 

The only one I know of is the EZ-Flash 3in1 - it has a flashcart for GBA games, the RAM expansion for the DS web browser and a rumble cart in it. The only thing that has native support for it is the EZ-Flash V, but there are 3rd party loaders that will allow it to be used with pretty much any slot-1 cart. I have one which I use with a AK2, and it works well.

 

Real Hot Stuff has EZ-Flash iV and V in stock. They have webstores in the US and Hong Kong you can order from. Not sure of any other place that has GBA flash carts right now.

 

check aliexpress and look for the supercard gba.

 

iIt's been a looong time since I last checked how the scene was. What I mainly do is update YSmenu (booted straight after official fw) with Retrogamefan's updates (@gbatemp). Could you point me to some of those?
I'd like to give it a go, although I don't do gba gaming on ds. Screen just doesn't feel right. Much prefer the original one (under the right light conditions ). SP doesn't feel comfortable. IDK why nintendo never updated the original one with a lit screen...

 

one of my old r4s came with the gba emulation cartridge your talking about for slot two. i have it somewhere in my spare rom carts box, i will post a pic if i can find it.

 

Which runs about 2 games really slowly with a lot of glitches. DS is way too weak for full software GBA emulation, and you can't access slot 1 in GBA mode.
(i'm not talking about emulator for Supercard DSTwo i mentioned in post before since OP got R4 and that emulator is useless for him)

 

There are two types of that cart, older fat one which will work as GBA cart if you'll put a game in NOR memory and newer small cart, designed to fit in DS Lite slot 2 which won't work in GBA since it won't reach contacts in GBA cartridge slot. You can theoretically put PCB in full size GBA cart case but it will be easier to buy a separate GBA flash cart.
For older, fat cart - if you decide to buy one, get ready to replace backup battery since these cards aren't produced anymore and quite old.

 

here is my gba slot 2 cart i mentioned above. with it all you have to do is put your gb roms on your ds cart and play. stumbled across an old slot 2 rumble card too.

 

OK, so I thought I would try this GBA ExpLoader:
http://filetrip.net/nds-downloads/applications/download-gba-exploader-0-58b0mx-f10382.html

I copied the GBA ExpLoader files in the root of the Slot 1 flashcard, I created 2 directories "GBA" and "GBA_SAVE." in the R4's MicroSD card and copied the GBA Roms into the "GBA" directory; I inserted it into the R4 cartridge and into the Slot 1 of the DS Lite and I loaded the "GBA_ExpLoader_058b0_MX.nds" from the list:







How ever this error message appears telling me that Slot 2 Expansion pack was not found:



Either I press “A” or “B”…



This comes up:



And when I choose a GBA Rom from the list in the Slot 1 flashcart, it begins to load, the Gameboy Advance bootup screen appears, but no game loads up.









So there is no way to load the GBA Roms from the Slot 1 flashcart?

 

So, if I buy this Slot 2 EZ-FLASH IV Flash Cart for GBA GBA SP NDS NDSL, will I be able to play GBA Roms on my DS Lite and GBA, GB & GB Colour Roms on my GBA SP consoles?

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/EZ-F...-GBA-SP-NDS-NDSL-Game-Console/1731865594.html

Thanks in advance

 

I dont think it runs GB and GBC games. There may be an emulator available for it though. It will work on both your consoles though, but will not be flush with the bottom of your ds lite.

edit:
here is some info on some emulators for it for NES, GB, and GBC:
http://ezflash.sosuke.com/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=18553

 

fyi: as i mentioned in my post above with the pic of my gba expansion card, you can copy gba roms to the slot 1 ds card then run them from your r4 menu with no issues. i think it even ran gbc roms also, not too positive but i know gba roms worked fine, i dont have a ds any longer to test them, i only have a 3ds now with a gateway card. i have a few r4s, a dsxtreme and a couple other old carts in the old cart drawer / box

this cart is basically a slot 2 gba emulator on a cart.

i believe that is why you get the error in one of your pics thats says you need the expansion card.