EZ Flash IV (EZ Flash 4)

What does the cartridge look like?

Let's take a closer look:

What else do we need to buy?

Out of the box, the EZ Flash IV cartridge comes bare. That is, just the cartridge and nothing else. For normal use of this cartridge in the Gameboy Advance SP, you need to purchase a few more things:

1. Micro SD memory card. This can be a Micro SDHC memory card. (the official website states that the memory card must be between 4 and 32 GB)

If after inserting the cartridge you see black stripes on the screen, don't worry, it means you haven't inserted the memory card.

2. Memory card reader. (To write games from the computer to the memory card). Of course, this is not for piracy purposes (we strictly oppose this! And condemn such behavior), but solely for informational purposes. Moreover, you can write not games, but, for example, books in txt format.

All this needs to be purchased separately. And after you have the cartridge itself, the memory card, and the card reader, you can proceed further.

What format should the memory card be formatted in?

The MicroSDHC memory card should be formatted in FAT32 format.

How to work with the EZ Flash 4 cartridge?

So, we insert the memory card into the cartridge, and then the cartridge into your Game Boy Advance SP, turn it on, and get to this menu:

Here we have 4 buttons:

1. File manager. From here, we launch games and books and will spend most of our time in it.

2. TXT Saver. This can be conditionally called a book manager. Through the File manager (the first button in the menu) after we have written a TXT file to our EZ Flash IV cartridge, we open the file, read it, and use the Start button to set a bookmark. After that, we go to this menu and can open the book from here. (But unfortunately, this doesn't work for me). And you need to understand that the cartridge does not understand Cyrillic fonts.

3. Settings (in the program itself, it says that these are time and language settings. And if the language part is true, there is no time setting, but there is a save setting.

3.1. Language setting. How to change the language? If suddenly your menu is in Chinese, you need to do the following: In the start menu, select the third item and press A. (If on the first press of A an explanatory window with text opens, then you need to press A again).

In the second menu, select the first item and press A.

In the third menu, select English (the bottom item) and press A.

3.2. Save method. There are two options here. In fact, they don't change anything, the difference is only that in the first case, the save can be skipped (and here saves are automatic after you exit the game), while in the second case, the save cannot be skipped and it will definitely be written.

4. Help. Mine is in Chinese and there's no help at all.

How to change the time (and see it)?

To see the time, you need to go to the File manager and press the R button (the back right button). This menu will appear:

But you won't be able to set the time. This feature is left over from previous versions of EZ Flash and it doesn't work. They forgot to remove it.

How to write games to the EZ Flash IV cartridge?

Just copy and paste to the memory card. Before firmware 2.0, you had to download special software and write games to the cartridge through it, but now it's enough to just copy the ROM image of the game to the memory card and you can play.

How to launch games?

Games can be launched in two ways. The first way: open the File manager, then go to the EZ-Disk folder, then if we wrote the games to the root of the memory card, select the game and press the A button, and then the game loading timer will start. It's long enough to get annoying.

The second way: write the game to NOR memory. The writing process is long (longer than just loading) and looks like this:

After the game is loaded into NOR memory, it launches almost instantly. You can write many games to NOR memory.

To write a game to NOR memory, you need to find your recorded game and press Select, and this window will appear:

And confirm with the A button.

To reload the game from NOR memory, you need to go to the File manager and right on the first tab (before entering the EZ-Disk folder) there will be a list of games written to NOR memory.

To delete games from NOR memory, you need to press START on the same first tab and agree to delete.

I don't think it's necessary to write this, but still, don't forget to insert the EZ Flash 4 cartridge into the Game Boy Advance SP, without this you won't be able to play the games!

Can I run anything besides Gameboy Advance games?

If the SuperCard cartridge has many different emulators built-in, the EZ Flash 4 cartridge does not have them :( So you need to install separate emulators to play NES or GB/GBC games.

How to save in the game?

Saves in the EZ Flash 4 cartridge are done automatically after exiting the game. That is, to save, you need to wait until you pass a checkpoint in the game (where the game automatically saves) or a save point, or press the save button yourself (if the game supports saves) and exit the game by pressing buttons or immediately turn off the console, and the next time you turn it on, the cartridge will automatically write the data from the SRAM chip to the memory card.

If the EZ Flash IV cartridge does not save the game (which by the way happened to me), then you need to follow the following algorithm:

1. Check that you have the latest firmware version installed (2.01-2.05).

2. Use a clean ROM file of the game (without any interference from programs like GBATA or any other programs).

3. Delete the .sav file of the game in the SAVER folder (in case it is corrupted).

4. Check for the .sav file of the game in the SAVER folder, and if it is not there, you need to open any GBA emulator, open your game, make a save, and write it to the cartridge (the same can be done if it exists but does not work).

5. Try another SD card (I had problems because of the card, although after formatting the card everything worked).

6. Check the battery.

How to exit the game?

There are two ways to exit the game:

1. Turn off and on the console.

2. Starting from firmware version 2.02, the developers added the GSS (GLOBAL SOFTRESET AND SLEEP) function, and to exit, you need to press L + Up + B.

What other key combinations are there?

A button - Launch game/Confirm

B button - Go back/Cancel

SELECT button - Write game to NOR memory

L + SELECT buttons - Write game to NOR memory without GSS (the ability to exit the game with a key combination, sometimes this setting breaks the game).

L + A buttons - Write game with Hard Reset

L + B buttons - Launch game without GSS

A button - Launch game

START button - Delete all games from NOR memory

SELECT button - Delete the last game from NOR memory

L + UP + B buttons - Exit the game

L + R + START buttons - Enable SLEEP mode

START + SELECT buttons - Exit SLEEP mode

Can I remap key combinations?

Yes, you can, using the KEYSET.CFG file.

This file needs to be written to the root of the memory card.

You don't need to open this file in the file manager, just throw it into the root of the memory card and it will automatically work. Also, games written to NOR memory, before copying this file to the memory card, will work with the old key combinations and need to be rewritten.

This file allows you not only to change key combinations but also to change some settings.

HARDRESET = 0 - some games require a hard reset before launching, and you can make it so that such a reset always happens.

USE_KEYSET = 0 - for your button settings to work, you need to set it to 1.

[SLEEP] - setting the key combination to enable sleep mode.

[WAKEUP] - setting the key combination to disable sleep mode.

[RESET] - setting the key combination to exit the game.

DISABLE_GSS = 0 - disable GSS for all games (change to 1 to disable GSS for all games).

AFTE = 1 - disable GSS for the specific game F-14 Tomcat(UE)

APLP = 1 - disable GSS for the specific game Pinball Challenge Deluxe(EU)

To disable GSS for a specific game, you need to know the unique ID of that game (Nintendo assigns a unique ID to each game, including regional versions of games, the easiest way to find this code (from what I found) is to find the game for sale on Ebay and look at the cartridge for this identifier, it consists of three parts and we need the middle one).