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What are the differences between flash cartridges: EZ-Flash IV, EZ-Flash Reform, EZ-Flash Omega, EZ-Flash Definitive Edition, and EZ-Flash Junior
Friends, there’s a new article on the site: EZ-Flash Air Review: Features, Limitations, and Comparison with Other Models.
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Friends, I noticed that many people don't quite understand the differences between the flash cartridges released by the EZ-Team.
Older flash cartridges like EZ-Cart I, EZ-Cart II, and EZ-Flash III are almost impossible to find and buy. Newer ones like EZ-Flash IV and EZ-Flash Reform can still be found on platforms like Avito. The latest models, EZ-Flash Omega, EZ-Flash Definitive Edition, and EZ-Flash Junior, are readily available in stores.
In this article, I would like to explain the main differences between the flash cartridges: EZ-Flash IV, EZ-Flash Reform, EZ-Flash Omega, EZ-Flash Definitive Edition, and EZ-Flash Junior.
PSRAM and NOR Memory
Before diving into the differences between flash cartridges, let's talk a bit about memory types: NOR and PSRAM.
Simply put, there are two types of memory: ROM and RAM.
ROM memory is where data is stored. This type of memory does not require power, and its data will NOT be erased after the power is turned off.
RAM memory is where programs are executed. It is volatile, meaning that after the device is turned off, the data in it will be lost.
To give an example, a hard drive is ROM memory. It doesn't matter if you turn off the power or not, the data on the hard drive will not disappear. The computer's RAM is where programs are executed - this is RAM memory. If you turn off the computer, this memory will lose power, and the data in it will not be saved.
ROM memory, in turn, also has two main types: NOR and NAND.
NOR - reads quickly but writes very slowly, while NAND, on the other hand, reads slowly and writes quickly.
When Nintendo was choosing the type of memory, they settled on ROM memory so that games on the cartridge would not disappear after being removed from the console. As for the types of ROM memory, they chose NOR (slow to write, fast to read). This is also understandable. If Nintendo spends 2 minutes to write a cartridge at the factory, nothing bad will happen, but if players have to wait 2 minutes after turning on the console, that would be quite sad.
For a long time, flash cartridges tried to replicate the architecture of original cartridges. They had NOR memory installed, and games were slowly and painfully loaded into it. Just for understanding: the process of writing a game to EZ-Cart I could take 10 minutes.
Over time, the creators of flash cartridges figured out how to use PSRAM memory (a type of RAM memory that is erased after the device is turned off) for games.
You would turn on the console and select a game. It would be written to PSRAM memory, and you could play. But every time you turned on the console, this process had to be repeated. On some flash cartridges, launching games through PSRAM memory could take 30-40 seconds.
Typically, such flash cartridges had two types of memory (NOR and PSRAM). You had a choice: write the game to NOR (this process could take up to five minutes) and then launch the game instantly, or launch it through PSRAM every time (meaning you had to wait for the game to load). For small games (up to 8 megabytes), the PSRAM option was excellent and fast. For larger games, this option only made sense if you launched the game 1-2 times, after which the loading time would outweigh the time it took to write to NOR.
Now we can move on to examining the features of flash cartridges.
All Types of EZ-Flash IV and EZ-Flash Reform
I am combining these flash cartridges because they are practically the same, with one exception, which we will discuss later.
In fact, the name EZ-Flash IV hides not one flash cartridge, but a whole series of six flash cartridges! But we will compare in detail the three flash cartridges you see in the photo above. If you are interested in learning about the other three flash cartridges, read more about them under the cut.
The white EZ-Flash IV is the first flash cartridge from the EZ-Team that could take a memory card to store ROM images of games. This meant that the number of games was limited not by the cartridge's memory but by the capacity of the memory card.
This flash cartridge could be used to launch Game Boy Advance games. But with the help of an emulator, it could also launch Game Boy and Game Boy Color games, although this was still emulation, not native game launching.
The EZ-Flash IV can only be used with the following consoles: Game Boy Advance, Game Boy Advance SP, Game Boy Micro, Nintendo DS, and Nintendo DS Lite.
There were two versions of this cartridge: white (released in 2006) and black (released in 2014).
The only difference between the white and black versions (besides the label design and cartridge color) was that the memory card slot was changed from Mini SD to Micro SD.
In October 2017, EZ-Team released the EZ-Flash Reform. Essentially, it was the same flash cartridge as the black EZ-Flash IV. It also had a Micro SD memory card, but its board was smaller, and if you changed the case, it would fit completely into the Nintendo DS Lite.
It also had a battery slot. On previous cartridges, the battery was soldered to the board.
And here, for those who have read the text under the cut, a question may arise: did nothing else change?
Yes, friends, having a smaller board with increased PSRAM memory and support for Micro SD memory in 2006, the EZ-Team developers managed to change the memory card slot to Micro SD (with support for Micro SDHC up to 32 gigabytes) in the white EZ-Flash IV after 8 years. It took them another 3 years to reduce the board size again. Unfortunately, they never managed to increase the amount of PSRAM memory.
Since these cartridges are the same, with the exceptions described above, I won't write all the pros and cons three times.
In fact, the developers were not idle. On June 8, 2017, firmware version 2.0 was released. And it had one major change - you no longer needed to use a program to patch ROM images of games. Now you could just copy the game to the memory card and play.
Of course, there were also downsides - with this firmware, the cartridge no longer launched in NDS mode, as the developer simply removed this feature.
Also, all EZ-Flash IV cartridges lack RTC (Real Time Clock), although you can call up the clock, you cannot set it, as this feature remained from older cartridges.
In addition, there is no Instant Save feature (instant save at any point in the game). Regular saves are written to SRAM memory. The cartridge uses the battery specifically to support SRAM memory. If it runs out, you can still save, but after turning off the console, you will immediately lose the save. This is because the save is written to the memory card after the console is turned on.
Another problem is that out of all these cartridges, the black EZ-Flash IV is the most likely to be found for sale. It often appears on platforms like Avito. But its price is comparable to the price of a new EZ-Flash Omega (from 2 to 4 thousand rubles). The other cartridges are very hard to find for sale. If the white EZ-Flash IV still pops up occasionally, I have only seen the EZ-Flash Reform for sale once, and I have never seen any versions of the EZ-Flash IV Lite for sale.
But, in my opinion, the main problem with these flash cartridges lies elsewhere. The largest Game Boy Advance game was 256 megabits (32 megabytes), while the PSRAM memory on these cartridges was only 128 megabits (16 megabytes). This created a strange situation: a 32-megabyte game had to be written to NOR memory anyway. But, frankly, considering the speed of launching a 16-megabyte game from PSRAM memory (about ~50 seconds), I would write all games larger than 8 megabytes to NOR memory. To wait longer once, but then launch games instantly. This creates another problem: NOR memory is limited to 32 megabytes, and if, say, you wrote Mother 3 (which is 32 megabytes) to it, you couldn't write anything else to it. So you needed strict memory management and a clear understanding of what you wanted to play constantly and what you would have to load each time through PSRAM memory.
Interesting pros include: the ability to exit the game to the menu (for example, Everdrive cartridges cannot do this), sleep mode, and the ability to remap buttons.
In conclusion. This is a solid flash cartridge (it doesn't matter which version you buy, except that it's hard to find a Mini SD memory card now, and the capacity of such cards is small). The main thing to remember is that despite the games being stored on the memory card, you need strict NOR memory management. If you spend a minute launching each game, you might smash the flash cartridge along with the console.
EZ-Flash Omega
On March 23, 2018, the EZ-Flash Omega cartridge was released to the market. I can say with full confidence that this is the best cartridge in terms of price/quality ratio.
This flash cartridge is also designed to run Game Boy Advance games. It already has built-in emulators for GB and GBC games. And if in EZ-Flash IV you had to install them separately, here you can just drop a GB or GBC ROM image on the memory card, and it will launch (it will still be emulation).
This flash cartridge can be used with the following consoles: Game Boy Advance, Game Boy Advance SP, Game Boy Micro, Nintendo DS, and Nintendo DS Lite.
Let's talk about how the EZ-Flash Omega differs from the EZ-Flash IV.
The EZ-Flash Omega board is as small as the EZ-Flash Reform, which means it can be "redressed" and used with the Nintendo DS Lite.
But if the EZ-Flash Reform has a replaceable battery, the EZ-Flash Omega has it soldered.
And since we're talking about the battery, let's immediately talk about saves and RTC.
The EZ-Flash IV used the battery only for saves (the save was written to SRAM memory, and after turning off and on the console, the save was written from SRAM memory to the memory card). The EZ-Flash Omega handles saves differently. They are written directly to the memory card.
This raises the question: why is there a battery in the EZ-Flash Omega at all? The answer is simple: for the RTC (Real Time Clock) to work. Yes, the EZ-Flash Omega has an RTC function, and you could set the time yourself in the menu.
The EZ-Flash Omega also had (and still has) a problem with saves. If you use cheats, there's a high chance you'll kill your save (if you don't turn off the cheats before saving). Previously, everyone thought that losing a save was related to the need to wait 5 seconds before turning off the console (while the save file is written to the memory card). But the problem turned out to be something else entirely.
But all these downsides: the soldered battery and the need to turn off cheats before saving, are outweighed by its advantages.
If we talk about the EZ-Flash IV, the maximum memory card size was 32 gigabytes. Memory cards of exactly this maximum size could be formatted in FAT 32. The EZ-Flash Omega added support for memory cards in ExFAT format with a maximum size of 128 gigabytes! But the changes didn't stop there.
As I wrote above, the EZ-Flash IV had 256 megabits of NOR memory and 128 megabits of PSRAM memory. This was not enough for comfortable use of the cartridge. The developers at EZ-Team took these shortcomings into account and increased the memory in the EZ-Flash Omega. Now the cartridge has 512 megabits of NOR memory and 256 megabits of PSRAM memory.
This means you could now load even a 32-megabyte game into PSRAM memory. But that wasn't enough, and they significantly increased the loading speed into PSRAM memory. Now even a 32-megabyte game loaded in just 3-5 seconds. It turns out that NOR memory used to be important, but now it's completely unnecessary.
Not only did the ability to exit the game to the menu at any time remain, but cheats and sleep mode were also added, along with an extremely cool feature - Instant Save (instant saves at any point in the game).
Imagine, the EZ-Flash IV was the best flash cartridge on the market for many years. And 9 years after the end of production of the Game Boy Advance console family, EZ-Team developed and released a flash cartridge that became almost the pinnacle of development. Games launch instantly. Writing them to the flash cartridge is only limited by the data transfer speed. You can save at any point, you can exit the game, there's a sleep mode and cheat codes, and memory cards up to 128 gigabytes are supported (with room to spare for all GB, GBC, and GBA games). How can you improve something that already works almost perfectly?
EZ-Flash Omega Definitive Edition
On January 11, 2021, the guys from EZ-Team released a new flash cartridge, the EZ-Flash Omega Definitive Edition. Yes, its correct name is EZ-Flash OMEGA Definitive Edition, because it is an improved version of the regular EZ-Flash Omega.
Like the EZ-Flash Omega, this flash cartridge works with the following consoles: Game Boy Advance, Game Boy Advance SP, Game Boy Micro, Nintendo DS, and Nintendo DS Lite.
I won't go into detail about all the improvements, as there is a dedicated article for that: «EZ-Flash Definitive Edition».
Despite being essentially a slightly improved version of the EZ-Flash Omega, this cartridge has huge potential. The problem is that for the average player, all these features like Mode B, RAM Memory Expansion Pak, or Link mode are simply not needed. And the change from SRAM to FRAM for saves and slightly increased battery life are not worth doubling the price.
But in any case, the EZ-Flash Omega Definitive Edition is the best flash cartridge on the market right now.
EZ-Flash Junior
All the cartridges discussed earlier were designed for native launching of Game Boy Advance games. Yes, you could launch other games, such as Game Boy and Game Boy Color, from them, but they were launched in emulation mode. This meant that some games might not launch, additional features might not work, etc.
In early 2021, the EZ-Flash Junior flash cartridge went on sale.
As you can see, it has a completely different form factor. It looks more like a regular Game Boy and Game Boy Color cartridge.
This flash cartridge is designed for native launching of Game Boy and Game Boy Color games.
The EZ-Flash Junior is compatible with the following consoles:
1. Game Boy;
2. Game Boy Pocket;
3. Game Boy Light;
4. Game Boy Color;
5. Game Boy Advance;
6. Game Boy Advance SP.
Epilogue
It's very easy to get confused with these flash cartridges, especially since they overlap in terms of the consoles they can be used with.
In conclusion, I want to note that among the flash cartridges for Game Boy Advance games, you shouldn't buy the EZ-Flash IV. It's better to buy the EZ-Flash Omega or EZ-Flash Definitive Edition.
For Game Boy and Game Boy Color games, there is no choice. Only the EZ-Flash Junior flash cartridge can natively launch them. But I want to draw your attention to the fact that if you play Game Boy games on Game Boy Advance consoles, it makes sense to consider using the EZ-Flash Omega and its emulator. The EZ-Flash Junior is still a very raw cartridge and doesn't have an instant save feature.
