supercard lite mini-review (very mini)

sneef · July 26, 2006, 08:10:13 PM

I Don't know if it's related to the scummvm problem, or if it's something about the latest patcher (since i haven't played GBA in a long time) but Real Time Save for GBA seems to be broken. it just says "please wait" indefinitely.

hmm.. hope there's an update..

[edit] was going to reflash the firmware, but after thinking about the message:

Now SC Version: 1.62
hardware ID: 61195f73a935954b

I was wondering whether the "hardware ID" may be part of the 1.62 firmware on my supercard lite, and whether I had better wait till they release an official firmware on friday. hmm... [/edit]

UPDATE: my curiousity got the better of me, so I loaded firmware 1.62 onto my microSD, and tried to do the update. It wouldn't let me! "flash ID error". So that means there probably is hope.. there might be a microSD specific firmware coming out? maybe the 1.62 on mine is tailored to microSD.. but in that case, they need to fix write access to the microSD for realtimesave..

KujaDS · July 26, 2006, 08:35:45 PM

Thanks for the quick lil review sneef.

I think the "hi-speed" microSD cards play a big role in speed. I'm using a 2GB OCZ 133x SD card with my SC and I have never experienced slowdowns in Animal Crossing or Tony's Hawk. As for the Castlevania intro, it slightly stutters but the game play is peferct.

Maybe we need a high speed 120x or higher microSD card to get the best performance out of the SClite?

sneef · July 26, 2006, 08:48:50 PM

haha. i know that, but there's no such thing yet, so it would be strange if that was required to make the "high speed" claims true..

the highest speed microsd that i know of is the sandisk ultra II, and it's rated around 60x

FifthE1ement · July 26, 2006, 09:05:07 PM

ATP has a 512MB 80X microSD but they have yet to release a 1GB yet. However you can buy them from usamemory.net

Its really sad to see that they made the SuperCard Lite just a carbon copy of the miniSD version. I was hoping for real improvment! Now if G6 would just release a 1GB version of the G6 Lite and I'd be all over that!

FifthE1ement

AnalogMan · July 26, 2006, 11:06:19 PM

Could you try some SD writting homebrews like DSOrganize and DSlinux to see if homebrew designed for SD works with the microSD?

sneef · July 26, 2006, 11:16:20 PM

i cant try for another 6 hours or more.. at work now. heh.

But i found it's not only realtimesave that didnt work with GBA. even qpc, after saving to sd .sav, the supercard menu crashes with graphical glitches.

I'm sure there will be a more permanent firmware soon.

emoo55 · July 26, 2006, 11:19:04 PM

I think since you got it early. The new firmware for It didnt come out yet or maybe I'm wrong ?

sneef · July 26, 2006, 11:24:24 PM

yeah. i hope that on friday there will be a proper firmware... because... i just discovered something disturbing.. all supercard kernel's write-access to the microSD card is broken! not just GBA saves.. DS too. I just didnt know because saving in DS games didn't crash the supercard. But later, after much painstaking gameplay (not really), I went back to find out my save game is untouched, and didn't get written to at all!

I dont want to jump the gun, maybe it's something to do with this microSD card... but i think it's probably the kernel that my supercard lite shipped with.

FifthE1ement · July 26, 2006, 11:41:39 PM

Nope, you're not crazy and I just IM'ed my friend and asked him to see if his SuperCard Lite was saving: IT'S NOT! He was playing Mario Basket 3 on 3 and lost 2 Cups worth of data! He also said his GBA saves don't crash his SC Lite but they act like they save but don't, and sometimes it just freezes. So I know its not your SC but one should hope they release a FW update on Friday or the SC Lite is basically useless. I really think SC blew this whole release as I don't think they are going to be able to fix GBA slowdown with a patch. And I don't think the read speed from the microSD is going to improve either.

FifthE1ement

sneef · July 27, 2006, 12:00:19 AM

heh.. well, i have hope though. I used this same microSD with ez4 lite and I can tell you it's better on the supercard lite. so that's one plus!

And also, I just really like supercard team.

I'm sure they'll resolve any issues. they always have (i'm not talking about gba slowdown issues, i'm just talking about faults like the no-save fault). When microSD cards get faster, it'll be a sweet device to have.

too bad the sites that sell faster microSD cards (after searching on pricewatch.com and all around the net) either don't ship to singapore, or charge like 30 dollars for international shipping. I'm not talking about sandisk ultra II, i'm talkin about other brands that supposedly are around 12.5MB/s reading.

hadal · July 27, 2006, 12:07:55 AM

Quote from: "The_Legend"
have you tried Moonshell or DSOrganize? the main reason I'm getting teh SC Lite instead of the G6 Lite is the capacity to read/write on the card, something not possible on G6 Lite, I guess. since it uses the same firmware as SC SD/miniSD, everything should work out just fine...

What are you doing that you need to write to the card? Writing to texts files, contact lists, etc.? I've been trying to decide between a g6lite and SC lite and hadn't considered this.

The_Legend · July 27, 2006, 12:43:38 AM

Quote from: "hadal"
Quote from: "The_Legend"
have you tried Moonshell or DSOrganize? the main reason I'm getting teh SC Lite instead of the G6 Lite is the capacity to read/write on the card, something not possible on G6 Lite, I guess. since it uses the same firmware as SC SD/miniSD, everything should work out just fine...

What are you doing that you need to write to the card? Writing to texts files, contact lists, etc.? I've been trying to decide between a g6lite and SC lite and hadn't considered this.

I use Chism's FAT GBA / NDS FAT lib, and I don't think it supports G6 (normal one or Lite). So I would not be able to load images, sounds, texts, etc, from the flashcard (not using PA_lib, hehe

).

Not to talk about homebrews. There are some already that read/write stuff from/to the flashcard/flash cart, so this feature is quite important for me, as a coder and homebrew user.

But there's a version of Moonshell that works just fine on the G6 Lite afaik... so this kind of support MAY be possible, but I don't know if it will be possible...

sneef · July 27, 2006, 04:53:55 AM

the new patcher is out. got it from the chinese supercard site. transflash-specific patcher. my supercard dealer was kind enough to sms me today to tell me that in order to save properly, I need to patch the games with a new patcher.

couldn't get through to the english site, but got the chinese download page.

it includes an app for patching "moomshell" for supercard lite. hahaha.. good old MOOMshell..

and it's called supercard patcher for Micro SD PRO Version. not sure what it means by "pro version"... gonna try it in a bit

ratx · July 27, 2006, 04:58:14 AM

Rar. Thats good news sneef. Looking forward to getting mine now...

sneef · July 27, 2006, 06:05:47 AM

i dont know why, but after patching animal crossing with the new patcher, it runs quite acceptably! it is, of course, a little slowed down at the menu, but its better, and not bad at all considering its a standard microSD.

They must have done something.. maybe i'm just so tired from work that everything seems to be moving faster, to my tired mind. haha..

UPDATE: NICE.. whatever they've done, its excellent. Tony Hawk runs quite acceptably too! acceptable: meaning that there is a bit of a slower response than the original cart, but not bad at all, and doesn't feel sluggish.

I am pretty impressed. very glad I bought this!

gonna sell one of the g6 Lites (got a second "final version" g6 Lite)