Having Trouble Getting A Game To Run?
If you want newer games to run, here's what you should try, in order.
If you want newer games to run, here's what you should try, in order.
- Latest official software.
Go to the site printed on your cart (the EXACT site, pay attention when typing it), download and set up the latest software, see if that fixes it. If there's no site printed or the site is down, linfoxdomain (outdated) or filetrip are good resources for finding downloads. If the game just came out (like in the past few days or weeks) you may have to wait a bit, as flash cart companies don't update their stuff for every single game, they like to wait and fix a lot of games at once.
- AP-bypassing options.
Some carts have a setting or mode that will disable AP in games (to get them all running), but it may also disable extra features such as cheating and soft-reset, so these options tend to be turned off by default. This can be called things such as "clean mode" or "special mode". This is sometimes required to get ROMs running right after they come out, before a full update to support them has happened.
- A clean ROM.
If the ROM you're using has been modified in some way there's a chance it might not work on certain carts. This includes AP patching! You should NOT AP patch ROMs that are already supported by your cart's software, as your cart is automatically patching them as they run and being patched twice in different ways can screw things up. So if you were using an AP patch for your ROM and then your cart updates to support it, you should change over to a clean ROM. In addition sometimes when transferring ROMs between carts small amounts of damage to the data can occur (especially if you're using a cheap card reader like that T-flash one), so while the ROM may appear to be fine, it could actually have been modified on accident and may not run.
First go to the AdvanScene database and search for the game you're having issues with (make sure to check "NDS"). In the results, find the entry you have. Make sure it actually has a number (that it's not XXXX), and the region is on the right-hand side, pay attention to that. Click on the game's name. In the new page under "Rom Info:" find "Crc32", that's the hash of the known-proper release.
Download CRC32.exe (click the direct download link below the main button!) and run it. Click the ellipses button (...) to the right of the file box and select your ROM file. It may take a minute to calculate, then it will display the CRC32, which you should compare to the one listed on AdvanScene. If you find that the ROM you're having trouble with doesn't match the known clean ROM, then you'll want to redump it with more updated dumping tools, or redownload it (preferably from a site other than the one you used originally as their copy may be bad/damaged in the first place).
- A working MicroSD card.
If the filesystem on your MicroSD card is damaged it can cause all sorts of trouble with running games. First copy everything off of your MicroSD, then run this program to format it properly. After that copy everything back, and see if the game runs properly.
If, however, formatting did not fix the issue and a ROM's CRC shows up as incorrect after transferring the ROM to your flash cart (or the ROM isn't the full size once it's on your flash cart), then either your MicroSD reader, or your MicroSD is malfunctioning and needs replacement (because it has a write issue). In addition even if the ROMs show up fine after transferring them on, if they become corrupt while transferring them off, then the card has a read issue and needs replacing too. This is pretty common with cheap-o MicroSDs from china/ebay/import shops, you should always buy your MicroSDs from a physical shop in your area, and stick to known-good brands. Unbranded MicroSDs are just asking for trouble, and fakes are everywhere on eBay.
- YSmenu or other alternate software.
If there's no official support for your flash cart anymore then you can try an alternate softwareare. If you have an original R4 (not R4i Green King Hyper+ or whatever) or clone of the original (hardware-wise, not necessarily name-wise) you can try Wood R4. If you have something else you'll have to see if you can run YSMenu, it has updates to the data files to run new games.
- Individual game patches.
If there's no way to run better software on your cart, you'll have to hunt out patches for the games and apply them to your ROM. The DS-Scene ROM tool has a lot of patches, but while patching individual games used to be very common, it's increasingly rare for patches to be made because there's multiple carts that can run new games without patches now, and multiple alternate softwares for other carts that add support for new games, so not every game has a patch. For individual games that patcher doesn't support, you'll need to hunt out the patches yourself via google.
- A new cart.
If you can't run any decent software/menu on your cart and there's no patches for the games you want to play (and it's not a new game), your cart's a piece of crap and you should buy a decent one, to put it bluntly. While many sites may tout R4 clones as amazing stuff and charge $65 for them, in reality even the best flash cart is only about $35, and mainstream ones with less features (that can still play all the latest games) can be had for $20 or less.
Changelog said:
