Official: SuperChis is the best budget GBA flash cartridge.
My January orders are finally starting to arrive. SuperChis was one of them.
Update: Read the review: /superchisreview.html
I ordered it from AliExpress for about 2,400 rubles.
What makes this cartridge especially interesting is how it came about. The project brought together two people: ChisBread, creator of ChisFlash, and Davidgf, developer of the SuperFW firmware for SuperCard.
SuperFW is very good firmware in its own right, but even it could not fix SuperCard's fundamental problems: slowdowns, extremely long game loading times, and inconsistent compatibility.
The ChisFlash range, on the other hand, offers solid, reliable flash cartridges, but they are strictly “one game at a time” devices with no proper menu.
At some point, the obvious happened: ChisBread and Davidgf joined forces. ChisBread recreated the SuperCard architecture, while Davidgf adapted and improved the firmware for the new cartridge.
In practice, the CPLD code was reworked and the SuperCard circuit was cloned, but with important improvements: newer and cheaper chips were used, along with a larger NOR chip, which directly improved compatibility.
The developers plan to optimize the SDRAM controller — SuperCard's main bottleneck — and add RTC and rumble.
My tests and comparison with SuperCard:
1. Games launch without being patched on a computer first.
2. Games load noticeably faster than on SuperCard.
3. There is a fast launch mode and a slower NOR mode; the latter improves compatibility. For example, Super Mario Advance 2 runs without slowdowns from NOR.
4. Games that would not run on SuperCard at all now work, including Doom and Pokémon.
In other words, virtually every major flaw of the classic SuperCard has been fixed.
Score: 4–0 to SuperChis.
With a little more refinement, this cartridge could compete directly with the EZ-Flash Omega — the current champion of the “best value for money” category.
Bottom line: we have a new leader among budget cartridges. Not the embarrassing old SuperCard, but a neat, functional, straightforward option built by the community.