Memory Compatibility



The only thing that can be tested for the extra memory is the Nintendo DS Browser. I dragged the clean rom to my microSD and fired up the EZV. The browser ran flawlessly with the EZV Expansion pack with no noticable slowdown or crashes. So far so good. I also tested the expansion pack with another 2 slot 1 devices (R4DS and DS-X) using the clean browser rom, unsirprisingly neither of these worked. There is an unofficial patch in development for this so keep an eye out for that but for the meantime, only EZV users can benefit from this which is fair enough really.

Hopefully DS Linux will add support to use the extra RAM aswell so homebrew users can get the best out of the Links browser and maybe more homebrew can be made to utilise this space aswell, only time will tell. UPDATE DSlinux has now added support for the 3-in-1 expansion pack, check out more information here.


Rumble Compatibility



The rumble feature is activated by changing a setting in the save.lst file which is quite easily updateable. You can set the rumble strength in the options menu by pressing both the triggers at once. When you click on a rumble enabled game to load it, the card gives out a rumble so you know it's working. There's not much more I can compare this to as I don't own an official rumble pack but I tested all the rumble games that are available to see how it performs and they all worked with the feature:

42 All-Time-Classics
Custom Robo Arena
Diddy Kong Racing
Elite Beat Agents
Hotel Dusk: Room 215
Magnetica
Mario and Luigi - Partners in Time
Metroid Prime Hunters
Metroid Prime Pinball
Picross DS
Starfox Command
Star Trek Tactical Assault
Super Princess Peach
The Legend of Spyro  A New Beginning


I'm not going to comment on the way that the individual games use the rumble pack as that is not really of concern here. I will mention that the rumble can be felt and in some games is actually a nice addition (Mario & Luigi comes to mind). The rumble is actually quite noisy sometimes though and I found it best to keep it set on the lowest setting, again different games seemed to effect the rumble pack differently though with some causing a more pleasing effect than others.

This is one of the main features people may be looking to buy this expansion pack for and the feature works as well as can be expected.


GBA Compatibility



To load GBA roms is what the main aim of this device is in my opinion. So how exactly does this work?



The expansion pack is actually a Flash Card which stores the GBA Rom on it like the older EZ Flash devices of yesteryear (anything before EZ Flash IV). What is different here is that you store your selection of GBA games on your microSD card then from the menu you choose your gba rom and it is then flashed to the expansion pack and launched. The flashing process is actually quite tedious with larger roms and I don't think you will be switching games very often. There is a hint that they may add multi-game support!



You need to transfer GBA roms to your microSD card using the EZ Flash IV client software. This is pretty basic requiring you to select the rom, choose your output directory and hit transfer.



Once your game is written to the expansion pack, it is treated like a normal GBA game and can be loaded without the need of the EZ Flash V. You can of course launch the GBA game from within the menu aswell by navigating back to the root where you can explore the expansion pack which also hints at future multi-boot support.

First I tried a selection of commercial GBA games to see how the unit performed. I would have thought even though RTC is not supported, they may have added this into the patching process for clock fixes but unfortunately you can't even play a couple of games at the moment.

Here are the games I tested:

Astro-Boy Omega Factor
Boktai - the sun is in your hand - Does not save
Castlevania - Circle of the moon
DOOM II
Final Fight One
Fire Emblem - The Sacred Stones
Hudson Collection 6
Kururin Paradise
Mario Golf Advance Tour
Mario Kart Advance
Mario Pinball Land
Pinball of the Dead
Pokémon Sapphire - Does not save
R-Type 3
Rythm Tengoku
Riviera - The Promised land
Summon Night - Swordcraft Story 2


The GBA compatibility is pretty awesome even with it's lack of RTC support. Everything works but there a few saving problems which cause save files to be created without .sav at the end which means you cannot load your save file, you can of course just rename it on your pc then use the manual backup for your saves instead which makes this nothing more than a minor annoyance for the meantime (Mbmax actually found a fix for this which you can read about here). The other downfall is the amount of time it takes to load the game onto the expansion pack but when you think your DS is doing all this for you, it is quite an impressive feature.

I also wanted to try out some of the popular GBA homebrew that is available. There are still a few applications that are not available on the DS yet so it would be great to have this as an extra option. I could not get Goomba color (The GBC emulator for GBA) to save properly with which was unfortunate but Dipstar and PocketNES worked well.