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[SuitCase]

Hey, I was directed to this forum by a friend who said it was a good place to go for advice on the Supercard devices. It'd be great if you could help.

Basically, I have a Supercard Rumble microSD, Supercard, and Nintendo DS Lite. I sent it to my girlfriend with a loaded microSD card so she can play stuff on the plane when she comes to visit me, so she can't actually change the files on the card with a computer or anything.

She says that it all works (thank god! I couldn't test over here as I don't have a DS) but she has trouble saving games. Basically, I have a bunch of DS games I loaded onto it with the Supercard software, and while they all show up in the menu and work, the game will "forget" any changes made to it. For example, if she goes to play Canvas Curse, saves a game and then turns off the DS, when she starts it up again, that slot will be empty and the game will be "fresh" again.

Why might this be occurring, and what is the solution? I told her to try the L+R+B+SELECT shortcut to save the state, but apparently it doesn't do anything if she tries that. She also mentioned that some (not all) games complain about corruption of some sort. The games were converted with default settings as recommended by my friend - the real time save option was enabled.

I know this is a bit of an annoyance as the games can't be modified until after her plane trip, but can anyone suggest what might be the cause of this problem? All I want is for it to save games in the normal way, so that she can progress in a game, use the in-game save method, then reload from that save later on.

Thank you so much for your assistance!

[sinkhead]

Are you using the correct patcher for the SuperCard and are the save files (.sav) named correctly?
For example, if the game name is 'game.nds.dsq' the save file should be called 'game.nds.sav' (or at least on slot-2 SuperCards)

- Sam

[SuitCase]

I recall that the files were indeed saved with the extensions you described. I don't think the filenames are the problem - I was extra careful as I didn't want to make a mistake with my one and only shot at making it work.

What do you mean by correct patcher, though? The correct program from the Supercard site? If you meant that, I believe I had the right software - I used "SuperCard Rumble Series V2.56", as I was pretty certain that was the date of the firmware on the SuperCard, which I bought a few days prior to the 2.57 firmware update.

[rorix_bladewing5]

What do you mean by "I was pretty certain that was the date of the firmware on the SuperCard"?  And do you recall updating the firmware at all?

The L+R+B+SELECT combination is only for gba games.  DS games save automatically and cannot have save states.

[SuitCase]

I made the assumption that you need to use the right software version with the corresponding firmware version. As I had no DS available to upgrade the Supercard to the latest firmware, I downloaded the Supercard software version that I guessed to be the same as the firmware version on the card.

.. Make sense?

That makes sense that the combination does not work on DS games. Thanks for that. I guess that narrows it down to just figuring out why it's not retaining the save information for each game. Is there a special procedure involved in shutting down the DS so that it saves the game? Is there an option I might have accidentally set that makes the save games fail?

[rorix_bladewing5]

I think supercards usually come with an old firmware version.  That might be the problem since you are using a relatively new patcher.  Unfortunately, you might not be able to fix it without access to the card

[sinkhead]

Yeah, you probably should have updated the firmware on the SuperCard.

- Sam

[Shinster]

Yes. My cousin had the same problem. We upgraded to 1.70 and it worked perfectly after.

[SuitCase]

I'm not sure how accurate the page is, but it appears to have a history of all past versions for the Supercard Rumble (itself a newer Supercard type:)

http://eng.supercard.cn/soft_scrumble.htm

Since I bought the card November 2nd, it would be impossible for it to have the 2006.11.05 firmware on it. If this page is complete, since there is only one version before that one, it is certain that the Supercard Rumble came with firmware compatible with the 2006.08.28 release, which is the software I used to convert the games.

The page might be incomplete, though, and I might be wrong - certainly, it would have been best if I could have updated the firmware myself. Do you guys know if it's possible to see the firmware number on the DS itself, and is it a known symptom of messing up firmware and software versions that games don't save? I would have expected it to either work perfectly or not recognise the games at all.

Edit: Shinster - ah, really? Was your cousin using incompatible versions, or was the setup I used (the earliest software and the earliest firmware) simply buggy by itself and unable to save games?

[dantheman]

Have her hold L and R at startup and press A a few times until it states the Supercard's firmware version.  Then see which patching software was released at the same time as that firmware.  I had a similar issue when I downgraded my SC miniSD to fix QPC saving and found that none of my games could save because I had patched them with the software that came with the 1.7 release.  Going back a version with the software patcher and repatching the games fixed the issue.

[SuitCase]

Thanks for all your help, everyone. I regret not responding to this sooner but in case someone else has trouble with the same things I do, I should finish it off by saying that it was indeed a firmware issue.

When the DS came I was able to install the 1.7 firmware, which I use along with the 2.58 PC program. It works fine. It turns out that I didn't realise the 2.57 program was bundled with 1.7 firmware, and so my prediction that the card came with the right firmware for that patcher was wrong.

Moral of the story? Update firmware!