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[teaeff]

Hi,
Sorry if this is covered elsewhere, I had a good look but could not find an answer...
I just got my supercard lite, but am having a bit of trouble figuring out a few things, mainly to do with saving games.
I have tried pressing the relevant buttons in game to do a realtime save, but nothing seems to happen at all... none of the button combinations that are described in the help section seem to do anything at all.

I am having a bit of trouble understanding the saving tab: is it right that I can just treat nds roms pretty much as if they were actual carts? I dont really understand the option for four save slots, what are these intended for?

Also, I have been trying to get my nintendog off of my original nds cart, so that I can keep it on the microSD instead. I have tried rein, versions r15 and r16, but the progress bar that comes up doesn't seem to move.

Any help with these issues would be very useful.

BTW I have upgraded the firmware to the latest version, so I am assuming that is not an issue.


thanks

[meangreenie]

I don't know about the rein problem ( have you put it through the moonshell patcher? )

But with the DS game options .. maybe I can. The options tab at the top when running the client is for GBA only, to find the DS options you have to double click (or right click and choose properties) on each DS rom in the list of the client before pressing the 'out' button, this is the only place to see the DS options (you will know because it looks completely different from the gba options). Note some DS options can only be set individually for each rom.. ie they won't stick from rom to rom, so check each rom.

So, to generalise.. double click each rom in the list when running the client to see the options.

[NotoriousBOG]

I tried looking into REIN r16, but couldn't get it to work w/ the DS Lite.  What I ended up finding was ETool v3.13 which you can grab here:

http://nds.cmamod.com/files/ETool_v3.13.zip

If you open the ZIP, you'll see two files, ETool3.nds and ETool3.sav, in the bin/DS/Supercard folder.  Put these onto your microSD card.  Load up the ETool3.nds like you would any other ROM.  After ETool loads, pop out your Superkey and put your game into the DS slot.  Save the contents of the game file to SRAM.  Put your Superkey back into the DS slot.  Do a quick power cycle (turn off and on your DS quickly) to get back to the Supercard main menu. Select the Saver tab, find the ETool3.sav file and save the contents of the SRAM to the SD card.  You'll have dumped your game's save file into ETool3.sav.  Then, copy that onto your PC and drag the file onto the ETxtract.exe file in the /bin/PC/ directory of the original ETool ZIP you d/led.  This will output a .sav file which you must rename to whatever your .nds game is.  So, for abcde.nds, you must rename the file abcde.sav.  Copy this .sav file back onto your microSD card, start up your NDS and start up your game.  You should have your save state as if you were playing the cartridge!

Hope that helps.

[teaeff]

Brilliant! Thanks for explaining etool, it worked great.

Still having problems with the realtime save though. Should I be able to get back to the supercard menu by pressing L R Start and Select? because that just seems to cause the rom to restart.
I had a look at the properties tab in the supercard software, and I dont see anything for realtime saving in there: the default options appear to be checked (sd card, sd card, enable restart, faster play game).
Any ideas about what might be wrong would really help.

I never formatted the micro sd card (although the properties say it is FAT). I don't know if this could be an issue.

[ratx]

Real time save is only for GBA....

[teaeff]

ah, that would explain it!

I thought this might be the case, but descriptions of the sc lite do seem to give the impression that realtime save is availible for nds games.

Is this feature availible for any other flashcarts?

[phoood]

teaeff, I have the same problem too (i have a sc lite with firmware 2.55c)

I wanted to make another topic, but that would be usless, since I have a similar problem.

I can't save.  Period.  I'm totally clueless on how to fix this.
Before I patch the ds games (i put in 81 to sample the problem), all the entries for the column labeled "Save" was NO.  The only ones that were YES was "Restart" and 'Patch".

The properties for all of them are just:
Saver patch: SD card
Rom position patch: SD card
& only "Enable Restart" is checked.

Most game's I've tried work, but did load back after restarting when I saved.

One more question, how do you patch the supercard?  I looks like you can only patch the roms. - edit - I fould UPGRADE.scu

[DjoeN]

Like ratx said NDS has no "RTS" "Real Time Save"

I'll explain a bit:

* Start the Supercard software on your PC
* You have 2 Tabs "Game List" and "Options"
* Go to "Options"
* Set your OUT patch (dir where your patched games will be saved)
* Go to "Game List" tab
* Press "ADD" to add games (You can add multiple games at once)
* Right click (you need to do this on EVERY rom seperate) on the first game
* Choose "Properties" a new window will pop-up
* in this window set "saver patch" to "SD card"
* also "Rom Position Patch" to "SD card"
* for almost all roms you can check following options
- Enable Restart
- Enable Trim Rom
- Enable Fast Play Game

* Leave the rest unchecked
(Enable Patch Cartridge access is only needed if anything else fails (some newer roms may need it)

* Enable Gameboy Union is for games that will use a gba game to trade stuff with (pokemon trading etc...)

* Press OK
* Do this now for every rom seperate (yeah i already told that!)
* once done, press "OUT"

Write the 2 files to your SD/MiniSd/MicroSD
- xxxxx.dsq
- xxxxx.sav

Play the game TILL A SAVE POSITION, this means play it till the game saves or you have an option to save.
(No, entering your name and then turn the ds off to restart will not always save it, you need to be patient and play a bit further)

When you are SURE you saved, or the game saved (mostly known when it says saving... or when you press start and go into the options menu where you have a save option, or when it asks to save, or if you have finished a level or got to a save spot into the game) THEN turn of your DS, wait a few seconds or try another game.

* Then start your game back and see if a new option is in the main menu, or if it goes straight to the play menu where you can load a save.

EXTRA NOT Related to this topic INFO:
- If you like to find out the save size/type of a game (like i always do for my compatibility list) you set the saver option to DS
- Then you play the game with a KNOWN 4kb EEPROM save in the DS slot, play till it saves, reboot ds and see if the save is still there
- If not redo all with a 64kb EEPROM game
- and if still not with a 2Mb FLASH game (and hope one will save (there are games that don't save this way regardless if the correct save type is in the DS slot, the only way to find it save type is to get the original game and find out with a tool))

- (Now you know what i go throu with every new game that comes out, to test the save and to finds out the save type, so mostly i play most games 4 times on Supercard mini (unless i'm lucky and picked the right save type orignal game first time or it was a regio dupe) and 1 time on Supercard Lite)

[phoood]

Play the game TILL A SAVE POSITION, this means play it till the game saves or you have an option to save.
(No, entering your name and then turn the ds off to restart will not always save it, you need to be patient and play a bit further)

When you are SURE you saved, or the game saved (mostly known when it says saving... or when you press start and go into the options menu where you have a save option, or when it asks to save, or if you have finished a level or got to a save spot into the game) THEN turn of your DS, wait a few seconds or try another game.

* Then start your game back and see if a new option is in the main menu, or if it goes straight to the play menu where you can load a save.

Thank you.  I've been doing thouse steps in a SIMILAR way, but incorrect, I guess.

Worked on the second time I tried with Castlevania
And worked on the thousandth time for Advance Wars Dual Strike (using the European version on the thousandth time)

To clarify what I quoted (and the steps I exacly took):

>> Turn on your DS
>> Go to the "SAVER" tab and select the .sav file for the game you are going to play.
>> Choose yes for "Do you save to SD?" (A) and choose one of the four.
>> Go back to the "LIST" tab and load up a game in the Supercard menu.
>> Play a bit untill you can save (weather a checkpoint or a menu from the START button) and make sure you saved correctly (I didn't know in Castlevania the little stars float to you when you save).
>> Turn off your DS and turn it back on a few seconds later.
>> In the "LIST" tab, choose your game and hopefuly when you choose a profile it shows up not empty.

The reason I did the whole "SAVER" thing was that when I tried doing it your way DjoeN, it didn't save.  But it may end up being redundant, but I dosen't hurt.

Thank you so very much.  HELLL YEAHH, I CAN FINALLY PLAY ADVANCE WARS!!!!

My last question is, do you have to repeat this process?  Can I just save and leave the DS off?

-- EDIT --
I think I know what my problem was.  The .DSQ and the .SAV file BOTH HAVE TO BE IN THE SAVE FOLDER.  Am I correct?  Why wasen't this clearly stated in big giant letters anywhere?  I natually like things orgnized.  Ehh.  Also the names of the files both have to be exacyly the same.

[euan33]

- EDIT --
I think I know what my problem was. The .DSQ and the .SAV file BOTH HAVE TO BE IN THE SAVE FOLDER. Am I correct? Why wasen't this clearly stated in big giant letters anywhere? I natually like things orgnized. Ehh. Also the names of the files both have to be exacyly the same.

you are a god.
seriously thanks