- 3
- Posts
- 14
- Years
- Seen Jan 18, 2011
Now, I know from the title the first thing that would probably pop into your mind is something along the lines of "This guy has posted in the wrong forum!" or "Easy Answer! He just needs to change his file save type to Flash 128Kb!!!" but if only my problem was that simple....
For starters, let me say that I am a novice who has been lurking around these forums for about a week or two and I've recently decided to make an account so that I could access some of the wonderful hacks made by the wonderful people of this community. The first thing that caught my eye was Pokemon Sienna, a hack which has won its fair share of glory with its grand total of seven Hack of the Year awards.
Being the resourceful man that I am, I dug up the old Pokemon Fire Red ROM from underneath my plethora of junk on my desktop and quickly downloaded Lunar IPS. Using Lunar IPS, I patched the IPS file downloaded from the Pokemon Sienna page onto the Fire Red ROM. And boom, I start up the game via Visual Boy Advance and with a bit of research, I configured the settings correctly to have the game run smoothly.
However, there was a problem. Pokemon, I felt, is suppose to be played on a hand held device. I've played Fire Red, Leaf Green, Crystal, and Emerald all on my Android with the help of the spiffy application called Gameboid. (Because when you built yourself a sexy gaming rig, why not use it on things that push it to its full potential and play smaller games on small devices?) Gameboid, when using the Flash 128KB save file type setting, still produces the "The 1M sub-circuit board is not installed." error and does not let me save. So being able to play this game on my Android is a big deciding factor in whether I play it or not. And I really want to play it. T_T
And with my very limited knowledge about ROMs and how they work, I'm at a loss on how to troubleshoot this problem. The interwebs have given me vague and often times contradictory information. I've browsed through the Help and Beginners sections of these forums, a few random threads on ngemu.com, and been scouring all over the belly of the underworld where those hackers, pirates, and other unsavory characters like me reside yet to no avail. The information on Gameboid is very limited. The only thing I've uncovered regarding this error is that it has something to do with the save file being, for a lack of more informed answer, "not Flash 128KB".
So now I pose a few questions in order for me to better troubleshoot this hack in regards to the Gameboid emulator.
1). The Pokemon Sienna thread specified the code base as "FireRed [BPRE]". Mayhaps I was supposed to have patched to a specific version of Fire Red? What exactly does "[BPRE]" signify?
2a). When using VBA, why exactly does Flash 128KB file save type fix the error and any other save file type to cause it? How does the error, seemingly to be about a hardware issue that the emulator is not properly emulating, relate to the save file at all?
2b). Could I manually create a working save file from VBA, move it to my Android device, and the open the save from there? Since the save file would be properly formatted, would Gameboid not simply use the same format found the the file that it opened? (Like you open up a .txt with Microsoft Word, it won't save it as a Word document unless you specify it to? Okay, bad example but I hope you get my meaning.)
3). In a standard Game Boy Advance, what exactly is the 1M sub-circuit board? What does it do? Why is it there?
4). Could the BIOS file I use in conjunction with the Android application, Gameboid, be causing this? Using that BIOS, I've played regular Pokemon games on my Android. Are all BIOS files the same? Should I try other BIOS files? (I assume that they are since they are simply the BIOS of the Game Boy Advance and I wouldn't expect them to differ.)
5). Are there any resources that could give me a crash course in the conceptual and technical side of emulation, ROMs, and the Game Boy Advance in general?
Thanks for reading through my long rambling post.
-Regards,
Dapeebb
tl;dr - Answer Questions 1-5. If those are still too long, then I've lost all faith in humanity.
PS: HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!! :D
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Update 1/1/11
-Reinstalled Gameboid. Redownloaded every copy of Fire Red and the patch server times to ensure there was no error in the download.
-Attempted both patching with .IPS and .APS on the USA, Eur, and Jap versions of Fire Red to check for errors in the patching process.
Eur and Jap versions didn't patch properly.
USA version patched. Same problem as before. For some reason .ASP patched produced a save file even though I could not save in game. I was unable to load from the save file. The same file was 128KB in size.
-Downloaded obtained several copies of gba_bios.bin from several different sources to check for errors in different possible bios types. Tested each gba_bios.bin file with both .IPS and .APS patched USA Fire Red ROM.
-"The 1M sub-circuit board is not installed." Error persisted.
-Attempted to use a different hack with the Pokemon Emerald base, Pokemon Flora Sky to check is Gameboid was capable of running patched ROMs at all. Pokemon Flora Sky runs with no errors on Gameboid. Saving system is intact.
So this leads me to conclude that the problem is not in the patching process, bios, or the download and that I did not mess anything up.
This leaves three options:
A). There is a problem in the emulator itself.
B). The hack was developed with VBA in mind and is incompatible with my preferred emulator.
C). There may be a problem with hacks using Pokemon Fire Red code base.
Things done:
-I've contacted the creator of Gameboid and he is currently working with me in solving the problem.
Things to do:
-Continue testing hacks on Gameboid emulator with a focus on testing hacks with a Fire Red code base.
-Contact the creator or Pokemon Sienna.
For starters, let me say that I am a novice who has been lurking around these forums for about a week or two and I've recently decided to make an account so that I could access some of the wonderful hacks made by the wonderful people of this community. The first thing that caught my eye was Pokemon Sienna, a hack which has won its fair share of glory with its grand total of seven Hack of the Year awards.
Being the resourceful man that I am, I dug up the old Pokemon Fire Red ROM from underneath my plethora of junk on my desktop and quickly downloaded Lunar IPS. Using Lunar IPS, I patched the IPS file downloaded from the Pokemon Sienna page onto the Fire Red ROM. And boom, I start up the game via Visual Boy Advance and with a bit of research, I configured the settings correctly to have the game run smoothly.
However, there was a problem. Pokemon, I felt, is suppose to be played on a hand held device. I've played Fire Red, Leaf Green, Crystal, and Emerald all on my Android with the help of the spiffy application called Gameboid. (Because when you built yourself a sexy gaming rig, why not use it on things that push it to its full potential and play smaller games on small devices?) Gameboid, when using the Flash 128KB save file type setting, still produces the "The 1M sub-circuit board is not installed." error and does not let me save. So being able to play this game on my Android is a big deciding factor in whether I play it or not. And I really want to play it. T_T
And with my very limited knowledge about ROMs and how they work, I'm at a loss on how to troubleshoot this problem. The interwebs have given me vague and often times contradictory information. I've browsed through the Help and Beginners sections of these forums, a few random threads on ngemu.com, and been scouring all over the belly of the underworld where those hackers, pirates, and other unsavory characters like me reside yet to no avail. The information on Gameboid is very limited. The only thing I've uncovered regarding this error is that it has something to do with the save file being, for a lack of more informed answer, "not Flash 128KB".
So now I pose a few questions in order for me to better troubleshoot this hack in regards to the Gameboid emulator.
1). The Pokemon Sienna thread specified the code base as "FireRed [BPRE]". Mayhaps I was supposed to have patched to a specific version of Fire Red? What exactly does "[BPRE]" signify?
2a). When using VBA, why exactly does Flash 128KB file save type fix the error and any other save file type to cause it? How does the error, seemingly to be about a hardware issue that the emulator is not properly emulating, relate to the save file at all?
2b). Could I manually create a working save file from VBA, move it to my Android device, and the open the save from there? Since the save file would be properly formatted, would Gameboid not simply use the same format found the the file that it opened? (Like you open up a .txt with Microsoft Word, it won't save it as a Word document unless you specify it to? Okay, bad example but I hope you get my meaning.)
3). In a standard Game Boy Advance, what exactly is the 1M sub-circuit board? What does it do? Why is it there?
4). Could the BIOS file I use in conjunction with the Android application, Gameboid, be causing this? Using that BIOS, I've played regular Pokemon games on my Android. Are all BIOS files the same? Should I try other BIOS files? (I assume that they are since they are simply the BIOS of the Game Boy Advance and I wouldn't expect them to differ.)
5). Are there any resources that could give me a crash course in the conceptual and technical side of emulation, ROMs, and the Game Boy Advance in general?
Thanks for reading through my long rambling post.
-Regards,
Dapeebb
tl;dr - Answer Questions 1-5. If those are still too long, then I've lost all faith in humanity.
PS: HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!! :D
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Update 1/1/11
-Reinstalled Gameboid. Redownloaded every copy of Fire Red and the patch server times to ensure there was no error in the download.
-Attempted both patching with .IPS and .APS on the USA, Eur, and Jap versions of Fire Red to check for errors in the patching process.
Eur and Jap versions didn't patch properly.
USA version patched. Same problem as before. For some reason .ASP patched produced a save file even though I could not save in game. I was unable to load from the save file. The same file was 128KB in size.
-Downloaded obtained several copies of gba_bios.bin from several different sources to check for errors in different possible bios types. Tested each gba_bios.bin file with both .IPS and .APS patched USA Fire Red ROM.
-"The 1M sub-circuit board is not installed." Error persisted.
-Attempted to use a different hack with the Pokemon Emerald base, Pokemon Flora Sky to check is Gameboid was capable of running patched ROMs at all. Pokemon Flora Sky runs with no errors on Gameboid. Saving system is intact.
So this leads me to conclude that the problem is not in the patching process, bios, or the download and that I did not mess anything up.
This leaves three options:
A). There is a problem in the emulator itself.
B). The hack was developed with VBA in mind and is incompatible with my preferred emulator.
C). There may be a problem with hacks using Pokemon Fire Red code base.
Things done:
-I've contacted the creator of Gameboid and he is currently working with me in solving the problem.
Things to do:
-Continue testing hacks on Gameboid emulator with a focus on testing hacks with a Fire Red code base.
-Contact the creator or Pokemon Sienna.
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