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[ghod]

After spending even more time trying to get the SuperCard to play GBA roms correctly on my NDS, I am pretty much ready to give up.  I have tried multiple CF cards, formatted in every imaginable way, tried every version of firmware, and with many different combinations of patch settings for the roms, and have absolutely no luck at all.

I still haven't heard back from tech support at http://www.supercard.cn, and I highly doubt at this point it will be helpful if I do.  My last hope is to try a SanDisk UltraII CF card to see if that makes any difference at all.

My general feeling at this point is that there is some problem that likely(hopefully anyway) can be fixed through a firmware update.   The flash cards are obviously interfacing with the SuperCard well enough to play music, movies, emulators, etc, yet the GBA roms simply crash if I leave the CF card in.

After all of the time I have wasted on this thing, I would definately not recommend the SuperCard for use with the NDS, even though it does seem to work for some.

[Diablo]

I'm wondering if there wasn't a bad batch sent out recently...

[nvs]

nvs is a 'he'.

The theory is correct - ROM is uploaded to the card's RAM, run from there.  No further correspondence with the CF..

BUT, the crashing occuring whilst the card is inserted does suggest there is a type of polling occuring against the CF at random intervals.  I have no way of confirming this, but I'm sure if someone can speak to romman he could shed some light.   With the card removed, the game should play continously without a problem.

The question - is the suspected 'polling' triggering something in the CF hardware or is it related to the software side (filesystem on the card?).  I'm leaning towards hardware.

Of course this all flies out the window when you take into consideration the fact that it works fine in a GBA SP!  

I think this is one for the developers.

[NT]

I'm wondering if there wasn't a bad batch sent out recently...

I think there probably is.  We weren't seeing this many problems a couple of months ago and there's no good reason for all these Supercards to mysteriously be incompatible with so many different CF cards.

[ghod]

I think there probably is.  We weren't seeing this many problems a couple of months ago and there's no good reason for all these Supercards to mysteriously be incompatible with so many different CF cards.

I am not so sure of this.   If a bad batch was sent out it would seem that they shouldn't work on the SP either, or shouldn't KEEP working once you yank the CF out on a DS.  I wonder how many people are actually using their SuperCard with a DS.

Also, keep in mind that they do seem to work on the DS with certian CF cards, and the DS is still a fairly new system.  A couple of months ago many people may not have been using the SuperCard with a DS.

Is there any way that those of you who have had a SuperCard for a while and know it works would be able to try it on a DS system?

nvs,  what type of SanDisk card do you have that works sucessfully with your DS? Is it an Ultra or regular speed card?

[Diablo]

I think there probably is. We weren't seeing this many problems a couple of months ago and there's no good reason for all these Supercards to mysteriously be incompatible with so many different CF cards.

I am not so sure of this. If a bad batch was sent out it would seem that they shouldn't work on the SP either, or shouldn't KEEP working once you yank the CF out on a DS.

Unless, as I said, the GBA/GBA SP encounters the same programming error that is causing the problems but works fine regardless, but the DS is not so forgiving in the matter.

The theory is correct - ROM is uploaded to the card's RAM, run from there. No further correspondence with the CF..

BUT, the crashing occuring whilst the card is inserted does suggest there is a type of polling occuring against the CF at random intervals. I have no way of confirming this, but I'm sure if someone can speak to romman he could shed some light. With the card removed, the game should play continously without a problem.

But that does not make sense, because there cannot be a "polling" against the CF, otherwise the ROM would freeze when it attempts to access the card that is not there.  Yet, it also does make some sense...consider this:

The previously mentioned suspected poor coding, for whatever reason, makes a call to the CF card.  The GBA allows this, of course, and, though the call is unnecessary (the ROM is already in the SRAM) and returns an invalid value, it is not a fatal error to the GBA/GBA SP hardware.  Yet, when the DS makes a call to the CF card, the same invalid return on the DS hardware causes a fatal error and freezes the game.  But when the call occurs on a DS without the CF in place, and there is no CF for the call to access, the call returns null and the ROM continues to play as usual.

I, personally, believe there may just be a recent batch of bad Supercards.  Of course, I also believe these problems are related to a routine/sub-routine or line of code that the DS is not capable of performing, translating, or handling that is causing these problems.   Whether this is because Romman has recently modified the Supercard, because the Supercard was never really designed with the DS in mind, or because there was just a bad batch recently, we shall have to see...

[Nyllet]

First of all. Great Forum !

I guess I'll share my story as well

Bought a supercard and a CF card and formatted the CF card to FAT (with default cluster size chosen in windows)... and after that I've walked in crap.

First 50 tries I got "not find the CF" error. Changed the settings on the DS to start automatically instead of manual... and suddenly it worked (thought I had found a weird work-around for the problem)... but after a while the "not find the CF" problem popped up again and now I can't get rid of it. When the card booted up I had no problem with freezes or anything, but the problem is that it won't even boot anymore because of the "not find the CF" problem.

I have tried the supercard on another DS and with another CF card (unfourtnetley only a CF card with same brand and size though) with no success. I have no possibility to test the supercard on a GBA though.

The CF memory is a 512 MB Kingston CF card.


This is not the same problem as above, but could be related. Is it less current in the DS GBA slot then in a GBA or something ?

Anyway... I'll try and format with different cluster sizes to see if it help (I'll post the result aswell)

[Diablo]

Have you cleaned the connector pins on the Supercard, and made sure none of them are damaged or bent (both in the CF slot and the GBA slot)?  That would be my first guess, based on your symptoms.

BTW, what is that CF brand and size? :wink:

[Nyllet]

About my problem mention earlier... I've done a test trying to boot the supercard using different cluster sizes on the CF card.

First I tried formatting the CF card with different cluster sizes. When/if the card was formatted I tried to insert the CF into supercard and start  the DS and see if it booted. Then remove the CF,  insert it again and start it up again a number of times to test if it worked.


------------------------------------------
Cluster size: 512 byte
------------------------------------------
Would have created more then 65526 total
clusters so I could not even format the
Compact Flash card with this cluster size.


------------------------------------------
Cluster size: 1024 byte
------------------------------------------
Would have created more then 65526 total
clusters so I could not even format the
Compact Flash card with this cluster size.

------------------------------------------
Cluster size: 2048 byte
------------------------------------------
Would have created more then 65526 total
clusters so I could not even format the
Compact Flash card with this cluster size.

------------------------------------------
Cluster size: 4096 byte
------------------------------------------
Would have created more then 65526 total
clusters so I could not even format the
Compact Flash card with this cluster size.

------------------------------------------
Cluster size: 8192 byte
------------------------------------------
Sectors: 16
Bytes/Sector: 512
Cluster Size: 8kb
Total clusters: 62396

Tried to boot 10 times. 0 worked.

---------------------------------------
Cluster size: 16384 byte
---------------------------------------
Sectors: 32
Bytes/Sector: 512
Cluster Size: 16kb
Total clusters: 31205

Tried to boot 10 times. 0 worked.

---------------------------------------
Cluster size: 32768 byte
---------------------------------------
Sectors: 64
Bytes/Sector: 512
Cluster Size: 32kb
Total clusters: 15604

Tried to boot 10 times. 0 worked.

---------------------------------------
Cluster size: 65536 byte
---------------------------------------
Sectors: 128
Bytes/Sector: 512
Cluster Size: 64kb
Total clusters: 7802

Tried to boot 10 times. 0 worked.



So well, I couldn't boot regardless of which cluster size used. I'm getting tired of this... thinking of returning the supercard and sell my CF card

What can be seen though is that larger CF cards forces larger cluster sizes. Is it the large cluster size that is the problem ?...

I wouldn't be surprise me though if it's the supercard that is broken, but would be a waste to throw away such a good product if it's something else that causes the problem.

[Nyllet]

Have you cleaned the connector pins on the Supercard, and made sure none of them are damaged or bent (both in the CF slot and the GBA slot)?  That would be my first guess, based on your symptoms.

BTW, what is that CF brand and size? :wink:

Yes I have cleaned it (as much as possible without opening it since I don't want to break the warranty). Also made sure that all connectors are there and not bent =) That was my first thought as well.

And the CF memory is a 512 MB Kingston CF card as also wrote down earlier....  more information can be found here: http://www.kingston.com/digitalmedia/cf_standard.asp?tabs=ds

(funny coincidence that the link ends with "=ds" )

[Diablo]

And the CF memory is a 512 MB Kingston CF card as also wrote down earlier

Don't mind me...I'm blind as a bat.

Nice work on posting your testing, BTW.

[NT]

I think there probably is.  We weren't seeing this many problems a couple of months ago and there's no good reason for all these Supercards to mysteriously be incompatible with so many different CF cards.

I am not so sure of this.   If a bad batch was sent out it would seem that they shouldn't work on the SP either, or shouldn't KEEP working once you yank the CF out on a DS.  I wonder how many people are actually using their SuperCard with a DS.

Also, keep in mind that they do seem to work on the DS with certian CF cards, and the DS is still a fairly new system.  A couple of months ago many people may not have been using the SuperCard with a DS.

Is there any way that those of you who have had a SuperCard for a while and know it works would be able to try it on a DS system?

nvs,  what type of SanDisk card do you have that works sucessfully with your DS? Is it an Ultra or regular speed card?

I've used the Supercard with my DS exclusively since January and have not had any of these problems.

[Nyllet]

I think there probably is.  We weren't seeing this many problems a couple of months ago and there's no good reason for all these Supercards to mysteriously be incompatible with so many different CF cards.

I am not so sure of this.   If a bad batch was sent out it would seem that they shouldn't work on the SP either, or shouldn't KEEP working once you yank the CF out on a DS.  I wonder how many people are actually using their SuperCard with a DS.

Also, keep in mind that they do seem to work on the DS with certian CF cards, and the DS is still a fairly new system.  A couple of months ago many people may not have been using the SuperCard with a DS.

Is there any way that those of you who have had a SuperCard for a while and know it works would be able to try it on a DS system?

nvs,  what type of SanDisk card do you have that works sucessfully with your DS? Is it an Ultra or regular speed card?

I've used the Supercard with my DS exclusively since January and have not had any of these problems.

What CF card do you use ? Brand / Size ?
And concerning the supercard: Firmware version ? And is it the new one with two "cut out" pieces or the old one with one "cut out" piece which you've modified yourself ?

[Diablo]

Not to speak for him, but I know NTolerance uses a 256 MB Kingston CF, with v1.43 firmware (I believe), and he has the new DS-compatible version of the Supercard.

[C_L_M]

hi again

after playing a bit around i even more think that it has nothing to do with the type of cf - or the format type - or leaving the cf in the sc after loading.

1) the build in nes / bg emulator works fine
2) the pocket snes also seems to work without crashes
3) it crashes only when playing gba games
4) it makes no differece between large games / small games or pull out the cf after loading or leaf it in

clusio: im not shure but sometime i guess to see that it crashes after pressing a button more likely than when you are in a menue and do nothing - it also crashes less often during an intro of an game - so maybe the input emulation of the sc for ds is not 100% compatibel with the gba's -> this is causing problems (makes also sense because the ds has more / other input buttons)

at least it makes more sense than some mysterious polling
:wink: