Hacking EZ-Flat IV 2.05 - A skin for your EZ-Flash IV card (Kernel 2.05)

[vree]

Quick question. Are the roms themselves affected by the patches? Or are they just clean when I remove the PATCH folder?

 

[Localhorst86]

Quick question. Are the roms themselves affected by the patches? Or are they just clean when I remove the PATCH folder?

They remain clean.

 

[Sisee]

I just wanted to thank you for your work.

I had been using an old and out of date Clearlooks skin since I got my EZ-Flash IV a good while back.
Even then, the Clearlooks skin was outdated, compared to the official release.

I downloaded your 2.02 from here a short time ago.
And, I really like the style. It suits the device perfectly. Not overly stylised, but also not bland and boring.
And when I came here to download it again, so as I always had a backup for the future, I noticed that you put an even newer version up.

It's nice to have people still interested in working on these things.
Especially as a lot of people are abandoning the lesser known hardware because of peoples attention being on the EverDrive carts.

Don't get me wrong, I have a couple of EverDrives, one for my MegaDrive (Genesis, to the Americanese), and one for my GameBoy/GmaeBoy Color.
And they do exactly what I want them to, and for what I paid for them, rightly so.
The EverDrive carts are great, and offer an amazing opportunity for people to experience an entire consoles library without being ripped-off by some the countless greedy sellers on eBay.

But in contrast, the EZ Flash IV, for all it's worth, is a very good, and an extremely affordable option, when compared to the GBA EverDrive.
Not to mention it's a lot smaller, and closer to the shape of an original GBA cart.
The EverDrive X5 protrudes out horribly.
It's even worse when it's in a Game Boy micro.

I think if people were more savvy in these matters, then the EZ-Flash IV would be more apreciated, and a better rated product over the EverDrive version.
But, Krikzz managed to get some good publicity at just the right time, so he managed to managed to make EverDrive a recognisable brand with various websites and online retailers pushing behind it.

That's not to say EverDrive's are bad.
Like I said I have two, and in the future plan on getting one for my NES. Especially as that version now has save-states for some games.
It's just unfortunate that the price of the EverDrive range goes up and down more than the bow of a ship. And currently, they're at quite a high selling point.

Anyway, my personal views aside, thank you again.
It's people like you keeping these devices in use.

 

[Localhorst86]

I just wanted to thank you for your work.
It's people like you keeping these devices in use.

I appreciate you enjoy the skin. The credits for keeping the device alive and I use should go to the EZFlash team, though. It is them who keep on releasing new firmware versions that keep the device rather close behind the much newer and much more expensive EDGBA. For a long time I thought 1.78 might be the last firmware version but they then surprised us with 2.0

 

[Barrons]

Hi guys i have my roms on my micro sd card 16gb san disk. it is now drag and drop rom process now right?
also the ez-flash iv is supposedly on 2.01? should i go to 2.03??? if so how do i do so please.

sorry new to the gbA flash card stuff.

 

[Localhorst86]

Hi guys i have my roms on my micro sd card 16gb san disk. it is now drag and drop rom process now right?
also the ez-flash iv is supposedly on 2.01? should i go to 2.03??? if so how do i do so please.

sorry new to the gbA flash card stuff.

If you don't care about reset-to-menu, 2.01 is the version to go to. 2.02/2.03 introduced reset-to-menu which can cause a lot of issues.

If you really want reset-to-menu, go for 2.03 but be prepared for overall business if launching games with GSS enabled.

 

[Barrons]

So 2.01 is more user friendly?

And when you say reset to menu this is like on a DS R4 card where you press certain buttons and you can select a new game to play?

I haven’t even used my new gba flash cart yet as I thought I would see what was best around here to do with it first as you guys have the best information

 

[Localhorst86]

So 2.01 is more user friendly?

And when you say reset to menu this is like on a DS R4 card where you press certain buttons and you can select a new game to play?

Yes. But be aware. This feature is buggy, to say the least. It will straight out not work with a lot of games and cause crashes and weird behavior. You can also choose to disable the feature for individual games using Keyset.cfg.

 

[Steffenfield]

Heya Localhorst.

I'm using 2.03 of your theme.

In Mario Tennis - Power Tour, if I press Select or Start, the game reboots to the title screen.

I have this game saved in NOR.

I also have tried with Fire Emblem, which also is in NOR, and Select or Start does not reboot.

Both games are neither trimmed or patched.

Am I missing something here?

 

[Localhorst86]

Heya Localhorst.

I'm using 2.03 of your theme.

In Mario Tennis - Power Tour, if I press Select or Start, the game reboots to the title screen.

I have this game saved in NOR.

I also have tried with Fire Emblem, which also is in NOR, and Select or Start does not reboot.

Both games are neither trimmed or patched.

Am I missing something here?

Yes, you probably missed reading the FAQ :

Q: My game crashes/behaves oddly when I launch it from PSRAM (example: Banjo-Kazooie - Grunty's Revenge)
A: The GSS Patch is not 100% compatible with all games, some games simply wont work with the patch running. The EZ-Flash Team has provided us with a way of launching the games without the GSS Patch enabled. Simply launch the Game with the button combination "L+B" from the file selection menu.

Q: My game crashes/behaves oddly when I launch it from NOR even though I am launching it with "L+B" (again, example: Banjo-Kazooie - Grunty's Revenge)
A: When writing the game to the NOR Flash, the GSS Patch is applied and active. Launching the game with L+B doesn't affect it (the patched ROM is already on the NOR). Again, the EZ-Flash Team has given us a way to prevent the patched ROM to be written to NOR though (but they forgot to document it - I just found this by simply trying). Instead of pressing "Select" to write the ROM to the NOR, press "L+Select". This will disable the GSS Patch from being applied to the ROM in NOR.

Also, try to avoid using colored text, the blue text is almost illegible on a dark theme.

 

[Steffenfield]

Does 2.03 have troubles with Goomba launching from PSRAM?

I'm getting some serious weirdness with it.

Blank pop up messages, freezing on the EZ-Flat screen save window, strange file names on the game selection screen, and once it started drawing black lines all over the place.

I only have one game in my Goomba .gba file and I don't remember if I trimmed it or not.

Also, the game doesn't appear in the PATCH folder.

Thanks ahead.

 

[DaRk_ViVi]

This skin is great and I love, but I would like to make a darker variant to go with my black GBA with red buttons.
Is there a way to edit the skin without creating a new one from scratch?

I don't want to redistribute it, just for personal usage.

Thanks!

 

[Localhorst86]

This skin is great and I love, but I would like to make a darker variant to go with my black GBA with red buttons.
Is there a way to edit the skin without creating a new one from scratch?

I don't want to redistribute it, just for personal usage.

Thanks!

You will have to build the kernel yourself. I posted the source files for my images somwhere in this thread (sorry, don't have the time to search): http://gbatemp.net/threads/ez-flat-iv-2-01-an-ez-flash-iv-2-01-skin.389868/
The skin builder can be found here: http://gbatemp.net/threads/ez-flash-4-skin-builder.477287/

 

[DaRk_ViVi]

You will have to build the kernel yourself. I posted the source files for my images somwhere in this thread (sorry, don't have the time to search): http://gbatemp.net/threads/ez-flat-iv-2-01-an-ez-flash-iv-2-01-skin.389868/
The skin builder can be found here: http://gbatemp.net/threads/ez-flash-4-skin-builder.477287/

Thanks! But isn't your skin featuring more improvements than the 2.03 basic firmware with a different image?

 

[Zmajchek]

Localhorst86,

thank you for creating this skin, it is much easier on the eyes than the original one. The only problem that I had with your pack is that IPS patcher made NES Classic games totally unresponsive to control input, so I had to delete them and patch the original ROMs myself and now everything works as expected. I've also completely disabled GSS, because as you've said, it completely messes up some games — for instance Duke Nukem completely freezes at one point during the intro, while Baldur's Gate froze after 10 minutes of play time.

 

[puszcza]

Hi,
I`m suprised that EZ launched new FW. And thank you Localhorst86, with your skin is much better to use : )
I`m using card with NDS Lite. With older FW and latest still buttons for soft reset do not work. Do you may know why?
Is it any way to change brightness level with this card and NDS Lite?

 

[Localhorst86]

Hi,
I`m suprised that EZ launched new FW. And thank you Localhorst86, with your skin is much better to use : )
I`m using card with NDS Lite. With older FW and latest still buttons for soft reset do not work. Do you may know why?
Is it any way to change brightness level with this card and NDS Lite?

I myself don't use soft reset. Are you using unpatched Roms or are you using the EZ client to patch them manually? If it's the first one: check the config file on the root of your SD card for the button combo and make sure GSS is not disabled. If you're using the ez client, as far as I know the 2014 version from their homepage is broken in that regard. Try grabbing the 2009 version of the client.

 

[puszcza]

I used client like a year ago, to make complete GBA databae on one 8gb SD card. Bu I do not remember which version I used.
I did not modify your KEYSET file.
Ok, I will try just to put games on SD later.

 

[rushiosan]

I just bought the newest MicroSDHC EZ Flash, and it came with 2.03 already installed. Is your build using very same official firwmare? (with changed Keyset and theme, obviously)

 

[Localhorst86]

I just bought the newest MicroSDHC EZ Flash, and it came with 2.03 already installed. Is your build using very same official firwmare? (with changed Keyset and theme, obviously)

Yes. It's based on the official 2.03 release.