I just picked up an EZ-Flash Omega DE flashcard, and I've loaded it up with some of my games, however I'm struggling to get it to actually load many of them. On almost all games I've tried, attempting to start a game results in the menu getting stuck on "Loading ROM...". The only game I've tried that doesn't do this is Advance Wars, which has no problems starting for some reason. Writing a game to NOR also allows it to boot, but I'd like to not have to write every game I want to play there if I can avoid it. Any ideas as to what might be causing this?
#EZ-Flash Omega DE on GBA SP gets stuck loading most games
pure sable
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pure sable
Oh, the SD card I'm using is a 32GB SanDisk Ultra, formatted as ExFAT with 32k clusters
naive sluice
Whenever I've had issues reformatting or putting a different card in has solvetut
That's what I'd recommend trying first
pure sable
I've attempted reformatting a couple times - I'll see if a different card fares any better
naive sluice
It will at least rule that out as the problem
soft hemlock
If the different card doesn't work, format using a dedicated SD formatting program; not the Microsoft formatter.
pure sable
What formatter do you recommend?
naive sluice
I have one I can pull up when I get home but if Sheldor has it on hand he can link too
soft hemlock
This is the one recommended on the ez-flash site. Not sure if it's the one you're talking about DT.
https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter/
pure sable
Hmm, looks like one of my other cards is faring better. Might be a bad SD card in that case - thanks for the pointers!
Bit odd, since I was using this card in my 3DS previously with no issues - wonder what the ezflash doesn't like about it
Ah, no hold on - I've loaded some more games on and now those don't seem to work
Just tried a 3rd card - same behaviour
Advance Wars still works consistently though... Other games I've been trying are Pokemon Emerald, Pokemon Red Rescue Team, Pokemon Pinball, and Game & Watch Gallery Advance - none of those 4 work consistently
naive sluice
confirming that the link above is the formatter that I use - have you tried it?
pure sable
Yup, no dice
naive sluice
damn - I'd suggest reaching out to EZ flash support or checking the forum on their site then next
pure sable
ahhhhhh, i think i may have found my culprit, actually!
i use https://igir.io/ to help manage copying games over from my main storage to the SD cards - however it seems like the flashcard can't boot anything that it copies over
If I copy over manually, it starts the game fine, but if I use igir, it doesn't. Must be a bug in that tool then.
Thanks for helping - probably wouldn't have spotted this if I didn't try reformatting/different cards a bunch of times
naive sluice
yeah it might be corrupting the file in an ever so slight way (that's sort of a broad explanation but gets the point across)
pure sable
Alright, solution for any poor soul stuck in my boat who finds themselves at the mercy of Discord search - use --writer-threads 1 when copying games to an SD card with igir
igir by default copies multiple files at once, probably to be a bit faster - unfortunately this results in file fragmentation, which the EZ Flash does not like