Flashcarts

From Bibliotheca Anonoma
Revision as of 20:26, 18 February 2017 by Antonizoon (talk | contribs) (→‎EZ Flash)

A Flashcart is a device that can play ROM game backups in the original game console. This can be useful for playing especially rare or unreleased games on the original hardware, without having to pay for expensive collectible cartridges. Usually a flash memory section or a flash memory card is used to hold the data: hence the name Flashcart.

There are flashcarts for all sorts of devices from very old devices such as early commodore "personal computers" through the SNES and Genesis/Megadrive right up to the N64 and GBA and DS.

General Info

Nintendo DS

Game Boy Advance

  • DLDI - GBA Homebrew can make use of FAT space on the SD Card.
  • Emulation
  • Emulators - Emulate other consoles on your GBA, such as the NES.
  • Multimedia - Play videos and music on your GBA.
  • Development - Develop Homebrew on your GBA.

Everdrive GBA

Released in summer 2016, the Everdrive GBA costs $100, and has a real-time clock. No need to patch every ROM with a tool to play.

EZ Flash

One of the last GBA Flashcarts still in production. Uses a microSD. Some are designed to be used with the DS Lite.

Since the original wiki is disused and falling apart, we have imported it's data into here.

EZ Flash/VI

EZ Flash/V

EZ Flash/IV

SNES

Flashcarts on SNES can be a tough and expensive proposition depending on the game you want to play, since some SNES games use special accelerator chips such as the SA-1 and the SuperFX, which can only be simulated through FPGAs.

  • SD2SNES $200 - Contains an FPGA allowing you to simulate some accelerator chips with high accuracy. Of course, this makes it cost $200, but that may cost less than most of those rare cartridges.

Custom Made

If you're cheap and handy with electrical engineering, you can create your own flashcart by hacking shovelware games that have the accelerator chips you need.

Sources