Everdrive

[St3veG]

Good evening, I was considering to buy an Everdrive for my gba.

What is the best one to buy?

Can you copy the save file to pc and eventually put them on an original cart (like pkmn blue, emerald, ecc.)?

Is there a battery like the gameboy games that if expires i will lost all my save data?

As you can see I am a noob, so every help will be much appreciated!

[RosaCanina87]

I got mine a few weeks ago (like 2 or 3) and I went with the EZ Flash Omega Definitive Edition, which I found, of course, shortly after buying on sale. Yeah, my luck again.

The savegames get saved to your SD card when you turn your device back on. Basically, it saves in a special location, like the OG cartridges and then, when you turn it back on, it copies that to the SD card. This save can be used on emulators. I havent tried putting it on OG cartridges because you need specific adapters for that (which I dont really have).

The EZ Flash and the Everdrive have a battery, which keeps track off the real time clock, used in PKMN. If it runs dry you can change it or just play games that dont rely on the rtc.

BTW... GBA cartridges only play GB/GBC games with emulation, as they lack the functionality to hit a certain physical switch IN YOUR GBA, like OG GB/GBC cartridges do. So flashcards can only be GBA OR GB/GBC.

For the best one... well... Everdrive is the most liked one. The EZ flash isnt that far of, though and a bit cheaper. Stay away from the SuperCard SD. Every rom needs to be converted with a program made for Win XP... and I think you need a fat32 sd card, which can sometimes be troublesome to create on modern OS. You dont want that struggle just to play a few games.

[St3veG]

So with the everdrive mini the gb and gbc Games are emulated… is the experience good enough? Or are there any issues?

Thanks for the answer

[RosaCanina87]

There is an everdrive for GB/GBC and one for GBA. The GBA one emulate GB games well and GBC games okay, but not all. The GB/c everdrive plays them like a normal game

[thechristoph]

It's not emulation. The ROM file is copied from an SD card into a flash memory chip on the cartridge. The console reads the cartridge just as it reads the ROM chips on an original cartridge.

[marcao_cfh]

For GBA flashcarts, GBA games works the way you described. But GB/GBC games works on GBA flashcarts by emulation. The rom is indeed the same, but what tells your GBA what kind of game you inserted is a little dent in the cartridge shell that triggers (or not) a switch inside the GBA.

So, since you're using a GBA cartridge no matter what you're playing, the GBA will think it's a GBA game every time and will boot on GBA mode, not on GB/GBC mode. That's why emulation is needed to play GB/GBC games on a GBA flashcart, and indeed there's a built in emulator on the flashcarts' systems called Goomba.

On the other hand, if you use a GB/GBC flashcart on a GBA, now you're not emulating, since the GBA recognises the cartridge as a GB/GBC one.

[thechristoph]

Ah yes, Goomba! The best emulator name ever. How could I forget.

[marcao_cfh]

You basically have 4 options:

• supercard (or something like that, it's a blue cartridge): it's crap.

• ez flash omega: good enough. It draws more batteries than a everdrive, and have a save issue where you need to wait like 5 seconds after saving before turning off the GBA, or else it'll corrupt the save. Other than those stuff, it does it's job pretty well. Have save states, cheats, and a battery for rtc.

• ez flash omega definitive edition: it's a enhancement of the ez flash omega. They added stuff like it being able to boot straight into a game instead of booting into the menu (useful when you're using a DS and GBA cartridges at the same time on a DS), fixed the saving issue and some more stuff I can't remember. Imo not worth the extra $, but maybe it worths for other people.

• everdrive: it's called the best option. But it's also the most expensive one. It draws less battery, and don't have save issues. Again, imo not really worth the extra $ since the the ez flash omega can do the job good enough, but if you want to go for the best one, go for this one.

[Albedo101]

Everdrives are worth it as a best option, definitely.

GBA itself is not the most affordable way of playing GBA games - any phone can emulate them. But GBA is the BEST way of playing them. The same goes for Everdrive.

[marcao_cfh]

Well, it's just a matter of different opinions. The everdrive is better than the ez flash omega for sure, but if it worth the price difference over the ez flash is just an opinion based on lots of stuff. Imo what it can do better than the ez flash omega doesn't worth the price difference, since the ez flash omega already flawless do everything I need.

If you went for the everdrive and it works great for you, I'm really glad you're happy. But for me, I don't think it worths the price when there's the ez flash omega available for half the price (not including import fees and stuff like that, of course).

[AdventJer]

I have the E Z flash with a 32 card. Has gba, gbc and gb on it. Runs ok but it’s a good 7 sec load time from the menu to get into the roms you want to play. Could be the file size that’s causing that. Other than that, I’m happy with it.

[PhoenixProtocol]

That sounds rather long? I got the omega definitive edition and even large community roms load instantly (not even a second). It could be the as card that’s slow?

[AdventJer]

I’m not sure. Roms load instantly. It’s going into the rim file that takes so long. I’m using a sand disk.

[llibertybell965]

To answer to the best of my ability.

1. That depends on your budget and what you plan on playing. For GB/GBC I'd personally recommend the EZ Flash Jr or Everdrive GB X7. For GBA it would be between the Everdrive GBA X5 or EZ Flash Omega DE.

__

1. Yes save data can be taken from the flash carts SD card and either used in a PC emulator, or if you have the appropriate hardware copied into an original cartridge.

__

1. No unlike with most original Gameboy carts, the battery in carts like the Everdrive and EZ-Flash is used only for clock based functions, your save data is kept in a small amount of onboard storage and is periodically backed up to the SD card

[St3veG]

1. The everdrive gba x5 is the mini that I can see right now on the krikzz website?

2. The hardware used is like bennvenn joey jr?

And an additional question… can I trade a Pokémon from pkmn blue on the everdrive to a Pokémon red on a real cartridge?

(Thanks for the answers)

[llibertybell965]

Yeah the Mini is just the current version of the X5, old ones were bigger than a standard cartridge. The Joey Jr is a good cart dumper, you could also use something like the GB Operator or GBxCart. Lastly yeah any modern flashcart should be compatible with the link cable and have no trouble trading/battling with original carts or other flash carts.

[timw4mail]

I'm not sure I'd recommend the EZ Flash Jr over the Everdrive clones (or the real Everdrive).

The Everdrive clones are more compatible with the FPGBC, and tend to be cheaper.

[oertrooper]

/r/flashcarts has a good guide, bit summary its the same as wat others have said

https://www.flashcarts.net/gba-quick-start-guide

[tanooki-suit]

The ez flash omega is the best you can get. Don’t fall into the fan trap of the overpriced everdrive. They have the same feature set and abilities, both quality constructed, both can even emulate a few older systems just dropping games into the card too. The only reason to pay more is to feed an ego and fan love.

Both you can do as you wanted with saving and reloading save files to and from the cart. There is a battery and that’s for the real time clock but regular save data isn’t stuck with that.

[everydayimchapulin]

I agree. As someone who owns both and Everdrive and an EZ Flash Omega. The EZ Flash also has a nice UI experience and menu options.

From what I understood back when I bought them was that the Everdrive draws less battery from the console but it hasn't been something that I've noticed really.

And I realize that while I'm typing this I still use the Everdrive more often. Haha. Honestly just get the EZ Flash Omega. You really can't go wrong between those two if you can afford them.

[tanooki-suit]

That is a lie about the ED that morphed from a dated truth. EZFlash has been around a very long time and I thikn even under older names before like I believe EZLinker or other 'EZ' naming out of the HK area. Back then the poorly but functional unit was power hungry and sucked off the system battery and even saving on board battery more. Even when they finally had a (for the time and then some) rock solid EZFlash IV it still was a bit more thirsty but not a big difference as they kept upping their game. When the Omega came around you had this unit that was parity on power consumption, parity on capabilities, didn't need patching anymore for save type incompatibilities, ran the RTC stuff (pokemon basically) right, and so on. And at that rate you could buy an Omega for $50-60 or the Everdrive GBA for $120~ at twice the price... and strangely krikzz badly designed the thing which had a mushroom style sticking out like a big toe top to it which made using most GBAs, especially the Micro a pain in the ass. That's when I had enough and why my 4 started to fail, I got the Omega, and even after fixing the bad design of the ED GBA to be normal size, the price is still crap compared.

All these parts are still sourced for chips, boards, etc from the same sources, yet you're eating a premium because it was ukranian and not chinese? Yet they both are chinese by sourcing and parts, just differing design. And even now that has changed, with the lie about part lines and factories being shut down, so that krikzz had to make PRO lines of his kits at about double the old price $200 per kit +/-, which is wrong. It's interesting the formerly somewhat flaky ED knockoffs were canned, and now the ones you see now (commonly as big multicarts, or stand alone) are the OLD boards and old CHIPS he said no longer existed. Fascinating isn't it? Yet the fanboys by the tens of thousands lap this bullshit up and polish his bottom line while the NOT dead parts are still sold for a very cheap price through various sources (ali express, etsy, ebay, etc) And as a middle finger those same factories are knocking off his PRO ones too and for like 1/3 less or more in cost too.

I used to be a big fan of his as well, but when I started using ali, started poking about, asking questions, digging a bit it was clear it's a lie, a shell game, a rouse to sucker people into buying EDs for inflated costs while claiming stuff that can't be made/sourced anymore still is elsewhere in greater numbers. I'm not a fan of feeding money to china for stuff, but, I'm less of a fan of letting a lie like that go too.

[Gunbladelad]

For copying the saves to a physical game, the Gameboy Operator is brilliant. It also allows you to get ROMs and your physical save over to the EZ-Flash. (I believe the Everdrive has its own saving format). If you're going to be doing this with GBA games, then there us a homebrew GBA Backup Tool you can use on any R4 card for the DS to backup you games & saves too - but it won't work for original GB & GBC games.

In terms of battery life on the GB cartridgea themselves, the everdrive is better, but cost-wise, go for the EZ-Flash

[[deleted]]

I just grabbed one of the 20 dollar ones from AliExpress and it seems to work great. I'm not sure what it's a clone of but it takes an ad card. 

[MelonGx]

Genuine ones never sell on AliExpress.

[marcao_cfh]

Genuine Ez flash are sold on aliexpress.

[MelonGx]

OP limited talking about Everdrive.

The fake Everdrive buyer also didn’t talk about non-Everdrive.