guys, i have very sad news to report

I have no idea why the Shrek/Shark Tale double pack GBA Video cart isn't working/ripping properly here. This is very sad.

Maybe I need a real BIOS to boot it? But I think mGBA gives a warning when that's true...

Guess I should check these ROM checksums against no-intro to see if everything there works properly

Ah, see? There are three ROMs here without matching checksums (note that this folder doesn't have Shrek 2 in it)

From the top, this folder has Cars (game), Metal Slug Advance (game), and Shrek/Shark Tale (video)

Cars works perfectly...
...or does it?

The game runs perfectly, but some of these textures are definitely corrupted in some way...

Alright, so tonight is gonna be fun. I’m gonna rip all four of these non-working game carts three times each, compare their checksums, and see where that leads me. I want to see if it’s a cartridge problem, a ripper problem, or just random read error shit.

Metal Slug Advance gives me the same results every time. At this point, I believe there's no problem with the cartridge and that this dump just isn't on no-intro for some reason. See, the serial for it is AGB-BMAE-USA but it doesn't give any results.

Is it possible that I own a currently undumped copy of this game? Certainly. Am I going to send it into no-intro? I dunno, but I know I probably should. Just gotta find out what region, revision, etc. this is or whatever.

you know getting a good dump of Cars is gonna be great when you boot up the cart on your DS Lite to test it and the first thing you hear is CCHCHCHHCHCHCHCHHCHCHCCHCGCHHCGCHHC

this is the exact noise it made, expertly crafted into text form

trying to touch the cart as little as possible and hoping this actually goes well

Back to Metal Slug Advance: the label on the cart says the serial is AGB-BMAE-USA, but this tool called GBATA lists it as AGB-BSME-USA. That's weird, though I guess the serial listed inside the rom should take precedence over the serial listed on the sticker.

So, I mean, I dunno. At this point, I may just leave it be. It's probably fine. If someone from no-intro or whatever wants to contact me about it, that's cool, but I'm not gonna go out of my way to reach them about it because I am the exact opposite of a "verified dumper".

Back to Cars, it ran without those artifacts last time I ran the cart on this DS Lite so hopefully I'll get a good dump this time. After that, all I'll have to worry about are the GBA Video dumps, which will be fun because I'm not even sure if this program supports them

Suddenly realized something: I think I lost my copy of Mario Golf: Advance Tour. Which is probably good, because that's one of the GBA games I bought off of the Wii U eShop. At least that wasn't a waste of money like I thought it might be...

I don't think I'm even gonna try those GBA Video carts again. Look at this size difference.

The no-intro dumps are double the size of my dump. It seems like this is because of the undocumented(?) mappers on these specific movie carts. There's a DS homebrew called diplo that lets you rip these, but that's obviously not supported through DLP.

Ah, but that's likely beyond the scope of the project, as it uses code from gba-link-cable-dumper by FIX94. Since I don't have a link cable to try dumping game with, I'd feel bad pushing an issue without full confirmation that it doesn't work.

Hmmm, maybe I'll push an issue anyway, just so it's up there.

But not until I test the thing I mentioned in the issue I already pushed.

Alright, my Cars dump is finished. Let's see how it went...

The checksums are different. That's a good sign.

But the ROM still doesn't match.

At least the dump works and seems to work well. No more corrupted textures- on the first level, at least. I'm gonna call this a win for now, and pack this thread up for the night.

Maybe I'll start another dump in the background, but this is the best dump I have so far so I doubt I'll get one with a perfect checksum at this point. Good night.

Ah, so that’s probably why Cars is dumping bad

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

guys, I know I said I was ending this thread earlier, but we've got a PLOT TWIST:

I mentioned earlier that the Metal Slug Advance dump wasn’t necessarily a bad dump, as it was giving me the same results every time, but didn’t match the no-intro rom. I also mentioned that it used a serial code that I couldn’t find info about online.

Here are photos of the cartridge. Yeah, you know where this is going.

I have multiple reasons to believe that *this is a fake cartridge*

-No imprint on the label
-Label doesn't match pictures of labels online
-Label looks weirdly offset on the front
-Serial code not visible on PCB by looking in through bottom
-The Nintendo logo on the back literally says Nlntondo, come on

Seriously, Nlntondo? Really?

Soooooooo yeah, that's fun.

Alright, that's it for the plot twist. Goodnight probably maybe.

Yeah, I'm gonna see if I can clean the contacts on this Cars cart in the morning and end off this mini-project there for now.

Tried my best to clean it. Ripping it now, it seems to be making an 8MB rom instead of a 32MB rom. Interesting...

That’s actually a good thing, as the no-intro roms are also 8 MB. Not sure why I didn’t catch that before...

There we go! Matching checksums!

My job is done here until gbaxxdumper gets support for those video carts, so this is my GBA collection for now.

this is Androw signing off this thread update with a hefty “operating a legal ROM collection is hell, don’t be like me”