| SuperCard Review | ||||
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SuperCard Review
Introduction: Having to buy a CF card in addition to the SuperCard is the most noticeable one, however pricing of the SuperCard is low enough to accommodate this. In any case I’m sure the question you’ll want answer to is ‘is it any good?’, my reply would be ‘yes’ but read through the review to find out why. The box comes with the SuperCard and that’s it. From Kick Trading you can order a CF card reader with the SuperCard for an additional price. This reader plugs directly into your USB port and the CF card plugs into the side of the reader. No drivers are needed what so ever, very easy and efficient to use and I’d definitely recommend this pack if you don’t already have a CF reader. Once again many thanks to the excellent Kick Trading for supplying this flashcart for review.
As you can see from the photos the SuperCard is purple and exactly the same size as any other Game Boy Advance cartridge. However there are two noticeable differences. One is that there is a slit along the top ridge of the cart for the CF card to go in. The other is that the cart seems to be made of cheapish plastic. Don’t get me wrong though, it’s pretty sturdy and isn’t going to fall apart on you, but still it has a cheapish type feel to it. On the bottom of mine there are some perforation marks where it was removed from the mould and it looks like it had been joined onto another piece of plastic. Originally the cartridge didn’t fit into my DS too well however I put it in and took it out a few times and now it fits fairly well. These are all very minor comments though.
The official software for the SuperCard is not a writing software like you would expect with other Flashcarts. Writing the files to the CF card is a simple measure of copying and pasting files onto the CF card using a CF reader/writer. The official SuperCard software is actually a patching utility. All roms need to be specially save patched to work with the SuperCard.
When you click ‘Out’ it will create the roms in the output folder you designated. There will be three files created, all with the same filename but a different section. These files are .gba (or .scz if your using rom compression), .sav and .sci. You need to copy over all three of these files into the same folder on your CF card.
The actual SuperCard loader is fairly straight forward, you can choose the files you want to load, view the saver information, change options to enable ‘Auto load saver’ or ‘Enable set emu options’ and view a help file. The loader isn’t skinable like the EZ-Flash 3’s loader but it is minimalistic and simple to use. Performance: I’m sure you’re eager to know how well the SuperCard performs. The list of features is certainly there, but does it deliver? I, like many others have experienced non-working games and slowdowns with some GBA roms. This seems to be a current issue with the SuperCard and seeing as how the core operation of the SuperCard is to play GBA roms this can’t be overlooked. Below I have compiled the results from 10 test roms that I’ve selected completely at random, not knowing whether they would run or not. This is just to give you a basic idea on a very small scale; the results do not represent the SuperCard as a whole. 
Test Rom 1 - Mario Party Advance 64mbit Original Size - 8,192kb Compressed Size – 7,160kb Time taken to load - 10 seconds Time taken to load (when compressed) – 15 seconds Fully working - No Test Rom 2 - Zelda: The Minish Cap 128mbit Original Size - 16,384kb Compressed Size - 9,887kb Time taken to load - 20 seconds Time taken to load (when compressed) – 30 seconds Fully working -Yes Test Rom 3 - Megaman Battle Network 4 64mbit Original Size - 8,192kb Compressed Size – 5,383kb Time taken to load - 10 seconds Time taken to load (when compressed) – 17 seconds Fully working - Yes Test Rom 4 - F-Zero Climax (Jap) 128mbit Original Size – 16,384kb Compressed Size – 8,403kb Time taken to load -20 seconds Time taken to load (when compressed) – 30 seconds Fully working - No, severe slow down Test Rom 5 - Metal Slug Advance 64mbit Original Size – 8,192kb Compressed Size – 4,910kb Time taken to load -10 seconds Time taken to load (when compressed) – 16 seconds Fully working - Yes, but slight slow downs Test Rom 6 - GTA Advance 128mbit Original Size – 16,384kb Compressed Size – 7,881kb Time taken to load -20 seconds Time taken to load (when compressed) – 31 seconds Fully working - Yes, but slight slow downs Test Rom 7 - F/A 18 Super Hornet 32mbit Original Size – 4,096kb Compressed Size – 1,803kb Time taken to load -5 seconds Time taken to load (when compressed) – 8 seconds Fully working - Yes Test Rom 8 - Lemony Snicket's a Series of Unfortunate Events 128mbit Original Size – 16,384kb Compressed Size – 14,657kb Time taken to load -20 seconds Time taken to load (when compressed) – 35 seconds Fully working - Yes Test Rom 9 -Racing Gears Advance 64mbit Original Size – 8,192kb Compressed Size – 5,488kb Time taken to load -10 seconds Time taken to load (when compressed) – 18 seconds Fully working - Yes Test Rom 10 -Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 64mbit Original Size – 8,192kb Compressed Size – 4,679kb Time taken to load -10 seconds Time taken to load (when compressed) – 15 seconds Fully working - Yes Hopefully this data will demonstrate (on a small scale) the performance of the SuperCard. Important things to note include the file sizes when compressed. I am quite happy with the rom compression on the SuperCard, it works very nicely as you can see; freeing up space for you to fit even more roms onto your CF card. So far the SuperCard and the EZ-Flash 3 are the only GBA flashcarts to offer rom compression and both perform relatively similar. There have been some reports that certain roms would work on the SuperCard when using the GBA and not work when using the DS. I haven’t come across this yet. Every rom I’ve tried that either works or doesn’t work performs the same on both platforms. Out of the 10 random roms 2 wouldn’t work. F-Zero Climax technically works but the slowdowns are so severe that it becomes unplayable and Mario Party Advance actually stops working once you get into the game. The SuperCard seems to be plagued with more non-working games then any of the other current generation of flashcarts; this is the most significant problem with the SuperCard. However it is important to note that the software is gradually being updated to accommodate for these non-working roms. With continued software updates the rom compatibility is increasing. I have no problems with the Movie Converter or Movie Converter outside that fact that for the GBA they seem more like a gimmick than an important feature, the Music converter more so. While the music quality is very nice for GBA standards it simply doesn’t do for constant music application. If you were thinking of getting a SuperCard for the music feature in the hope of not having to buy an mp3 player, think again. Your much better off just buying a cheap flash based mp3 player. If you are going to play music with the SuperCard however I recommend using the DS’s speakers, it’s good for a short time but there is too much distortion for this feature to become anything more than a gimmick. As for the Movie converter, it is much more useful. The program breaks up the source video file into smaller .gbm files. Creating a series, so that when using FilmPlay you select the first part to the video and once that is done it seamlessly carries onto the next video. This is how the SuperCard manages to play large full length movies when the GBA can only support up to 256mbit sized roms. There is no loading time for the next file, all the files play automatically. My test CF card is only 32MB in size so I wasn’t able to try out a full film but I did manage to watch some rather amusing Saturday Night Live Celebrity Jeopardy videos. Just picture me and a few friends waiting for someone else, huddled around my DS watching some short comedy shows. The DS is the best set up for movie viewing; the brighter screen and stereo speakers work wonders. I found the medium settings for video quality to be good enough for casual watching. If you are interested in watching full length films on the GBA/DS (good luck straining your eyes for that long) then you will most likely need something like a 256/512MB CF card. The save files seem to handle well on the SuperCard, just make sure you remember to use the key combination to save your save file onto the CF card before turning the game off. The save file will automatically load when you start the game again the next time. As I stated earlier I found the Real Time Save feature particularly good, it worked well for each rom I tried. Conclusion: The SuperCard has many useful features outside of playing GBA roms; most of these features work well and help to create an all round GBA flashcart. Some slowdowns and non-working roms distract from the overall performance, however the cheap and affordable price makes up for this. You are free to buy more CF cards for use with the SuperCard so ultimately you can buy more rom space for your Flashcart. If you bought a few 512MB CF cards you could literally take every GBA rom ever released with you, this is not something to be taken lightly. With the SuperCard you do not have to sit around waiting for your roms to flash onto a flashcart, simply drag and drop the files onto your CF card. All in all the SuperCard is affordable, simple to use and loaded with features. It is only brought down slightly by the rom compatibility. I would recommend it to anyone not wanting to pay hundreds of dollars for an expensive flashcart or to anyone who already has a Compact Flash Card. Pros: -affordable -plays movies and music -supports rom compression -expandable capacity (just buy another CF card) -real time save -simple to use -no write times Cons: -Non-working roms -slowdowns with some roms -with CF inserted adds extra length to GBA/DS -Do you really want to play distorted music on your gba?
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| Last Updated ( Monday, 15 December 2008 06:27 ) |
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