EZ4 Lite

Rob_Threat · June 23, 2006, 02:56:28 AM

Quote from: "Jinnai"
Quote from: "sneef"g6 lite looks nice, but I'll wait till they come out with one that looks as nice, but takes microSD (transflash)...
that'll be the m3 lite and they don't expect it to be out for a while. If you can wait, then it's no big deal.

My beef with the G6 isn't that it can't be upgraded...its that its only 512MB and can't be upgraded. If it were even 1GB it might be okay. 4 GB and we'd be talking.

I find it kind of weak that G6Lite is coming out before M3Lite. They're practically the same except for removable memory. I hope the lower prices of G6Lite & M3Pro means the new M3lite will cheaper than the old M3s. I'd be happy if it touched the $65 area.

kennyboy · June 23, 2006, 02:26:59 PM

Quote from: "ratx"I got mine today, I'd have to agree with sneef - can't see how you're supposed to remove the SD card without taking it to bits. I dunno if my card is atypical but the groove you'd use to get a grip is just too small/useless to get any leverage... Its not a show stopper but its certainly relegated the EZ4 lite to "ebay when something better comes out" type status for me...

yeah...the first 3 times i had to open the casing just to get the micro sd out...but then after that i got more skillful just using the edge of my nail to take the card out. And not that you don't have to push the card all the way in. Just having it flush against the entrance will still make the ez4lite work fine. Basically enjoying the sleekness of the whole ds lite itself now.

G6 lite is not an option for me cos i like expandability and using homebrew like moonshell for videos is definitely a plus for me.

p.s. the microsd is really that small....i think if i drop it it'll be lost in the carpet.

sneef · June 24, 2006, 10:54:31 AM

i'm enjoying my ez4 lite too (for aesthetic reasons).. compatibility is pretty good too.

I'm just dying to figure out a way to put a DS commercial rom onto the 256Mbit NOR flash. as far as i can tell, it's only being utilized for GBA roms larger than 128mbit. But I would love to use it for animal crossing, which behaves rather slugglishly streamed from microSD (formatting to 64k clusters seemed to help slightly)..

anyone know a way to do that?

junfeng85 · July 06, 2006, 09:47:11 PM

hey Just a question. can ezflash use the load rom into ezflash option instead of loading from sd card jus like supercard? I dont mind the wait to have a smooth running game.

sneef · July 07, 2006, 08:04:22 PM

only for GBA...

that's what i really want.. to be able to run a DS game from the 256Mb NOR Flash section.. animal crossing, to be precise.. it just isn't streaming smoothly from microSD. Try formatting your card with 64k sectors (still FAT, though).. it helped mine a bit.

Jinnai · July 07, 2006, 09:55:10 PM

Quote from: "sneef"i'm enjoying my ez4 lite too (for aesthetic reasons).. compatibility is pretty good too.

I'm just dying to figure out a way to put a DS commercial rom onto the 256Mbit NOR flash. as far as i can tell, it's only being utilized for GBA roms larger than 128mbit. But I would love to use it for animal crossing, which behaves rather slugglishly streamed from microSD (formatting to 64k clusters seemed to help slightly)..

anyone know a way to do that?

I don't think there is a way. I think from what i understand they wouldn't have even added the NOR memory except for the GBA games. It isn't as durable as the NAND memory.

sneef · July 08, 2006, 06:10:01 AM

yeah. i know they only added it for GBA.. but i was hoping there would be some way to run DS code from it, since it would probably perform better than streaming from microSD (for animal crossing)...

it would be just like playing DS games on an old-generation gba cart.. not really ideal, but it would work..

Altor · July 08, 2006, 07:18:25 PM

I know someone said you're not really concerned with GBA compatibility much, but I am. Quite. Can someone run:

That game that has the really hard intro that everyone uses as a performance benchmark because it's so complex
Metroid Fusion (*******)
and some other GBA stuff that's hard for carts

...And then report back? I want realtime Metroid Fusion and Zero Mission on the ice level and "Nightmare" boss fight, specifically.

Also, how likely do you think it is that the animal crossing bug will be fixed in the near future? Does EZ team update often, with good quality? Use SC's patch releases as a standard for comparison (I'm satisfied with SC release frequency)... I want that "do everything" cart that's inevitably going to come out and wipe the floor with the competition. I'm 100% satisfied with my Supercard except for the slowdowsn in GBA games (due to a design flaw, slow memory, which could be fixed and I'd gladly pay a higher price for) and that one, last, lingering game that I'd really like to play: Ultimate Spiderman.

blaydes99 · July 09, 2006, 03:29:50 AM

Altor, I have the EZ4 and Metroid Zero Mission runs at full speed. On the supercard (even with the QPC method/speed-up) I would still get slowdown on scenes such as where you encounter those little bug things that latch on to your suit.

Specifically, the room in which you get the bomb power-up, on the SC you get massive slowdown. On the EZ4, you get none. I've filled the screen with sprites and there is no slowdown. Note that you get the best performance when you run GBA games in native GBA mode (boot to main menu of DS, choose "gba cart" then launch the game from there.

As for updates, I see updates weekly on the EZ forum pages. Haven't had to wait for anything yet

Jinnai · July 09, 2006, 03:59:39 AM

Quote from: "sneef"yeah. i know they only added it for GBA.. but i was hoping there would be some way to run DS code from it, since it would probably perform better than streaming from microSD (for animal crossing)...

it would be just like playing DS games on an old-generation gba cart.. not really ideal, but it would work..

You might be able to see if they could do that with smaller GBA games, but i doubt they will do that for DS games.

GBA games are loaded all at once and the data architecture is completely different than DS game. A DS game was designed to only load certain parts at a time and this its why its so easy to shrink compared to a GBA game.

Anyway I think you would be shortening the lifespan of your NOR memory a lot then because NOR memory isn't made to be written on nearly as often as NAND memory.

sneef · July 09, 2006, 07:01:55 AM

i don't understand your point. many flashcarts are NOR, and can run DS games.. of course it's not ideal, as most of them need to be patched with a loader, but there's nothing incompatible about NOR flash carts and DS data.

by the way, the fact that DS games are accessed randomly, and don't need zero wait-state, does not have much to do with their compressability