What is a flash cartridge?

[Vortexx1988]

I've heard the term "flash cart"on the internet, and can't really get a grasp of what exactly it does. Tried searching, but couldn't really find an easy to understand answer, since I'm not a computer or electronics expert. Can anyone tell me what flash carts do?

[Warrior]

It lets you run roms or homebrew/emulators on the actual game console hardware, Ones for old consoles are pretty pricy but ones for GBA and NDS are pretty low, Supercard is by far the best Flash cart/cards you can get. (Proud owner of 4 of them).

[Vortexx1988]

That's awesome! So you mean you can download a rom from your computer onto the cart, put it in your console, and it will run like an authentic cartridge?

[Warrior]

That's awesome! So you mean you can download a rom from your computer onto the cart, put it in your console, and it will run like an authentic cartridge?

Yes, but there is a menu where you choose the rom then the game starts.

Translations and Hacks work too.

[Vortexx1988]

It lets you run roms or homebrew/emulators on the actual game console hardware, Ones for old consoles are pretty pricy but ones for GBA and NDS are pretty low, Supercard is by far the best Flash cart/cards you can get. (Proud owner of 4 of them).

Can you store multiple roms on a flash cart? Are they rewriteable? In otherwords, let's say I downloaded the Castlevania NES rom onto one. I play it, and beat it. When I'm done with that game, could I remove Castlevania and replace it with Mega Man? Or is that cartridge now permanently Castlevania?

[Warrior]

Can you store multiple roms on a flash cart? Are they rewriteable? In otherwords, let's say I downloaded the Castlevania NES rom onto one. I play it, and beat it. When I'm done with that game, could I remove Castlevania and replace it with Mega Man? Or is that cartridge now permanently Castlevania?

Flash carts/cards require a SD card , you put the roms on there and insert it into the flash card,save data and all that is saved onto the SD Card too.

[Vortexx1988]

Mind: blown. This almost eliminates the need for emulators. Especially for handheld systems, now I could play them with authentic controls and screen size.

[Warrior]

Mind: blown. This almost eliminates the need for emulators. Especially for handheld systems, now I could play them with authentic controls and screen size.

Its really a matter of preference , I prefer emulators and their enhancement qualities for most systems but I still prefer using my PS2 and DS for game playing.

[Ragnar]

Mind: blown. This almost eliminates the need for emulators. Especially for handheld systems, now I could play them with authentic controls and screen size.

Almost. But keep in mind that a handful of games out there may not run. Some games have custom parts that are required to run, some translations were only made to run on emulators and won't play at all on real hardware, some games may have weird anti-piracy stuff coded into them preventing them from running. Not that there's many of those problems, but just be aware that there's a slim minority of games that might not run. Regardless, flash carts are worth every cent you'll pay for em, I haven't even touched an emulator in years.

[Warrior]

Almost. But keep in mind that a handful of games out there may not run. Some games have custom parts that are required to run, some translations were only made to run on emulators and won't play at all on real hardware, some games may have weird anti-piracy stuff coded into them preventing them from running. Not that there's many of those problems, but just be aware that there's a slim minority of games that might not run. Regardless, flash carts are worth every cent you'll pay for em, I haven't even touched an emulator in years.

Totally agree except just make sure you dont buy a crappy junk cart/card just because its cheap, Iv learned this lesson from all the DS flash cards i owned through the years, Best Quality hands down is Supercard brand, just need a GBA Supercard now........

[Ragnar]

No dude, buying a GBA Supercard now will result in you getting a clone. The clones are supposed to be identical to the real deal, just their solder is crap. I bought one on a whim because they're cheap enough, and it stopped working after a week. Supposedly you can fix them by reflowing their solder, but that's pointless. Because even when working it's inferior to the EZ Flash Advance IV (aside from maybe GBC functionality, which the Supercard supported out of the box, but I never got a chance to test...).

[Warrior]

No dude, buying a GBA Supercard now will result in you getting a clone. The clones are supposed to be identical to the real deal, just their solder is crap. I bought one on a whim because they're cheap enough, and it stopped working after a week. Supposedly you can fix them by reflowing their solder, but that's pointless. Because even when working it's inferior to the EZ Flash Advance IV (aside from maybe GBC functionality, which the Supercard supported out of the box, but I never got a chance to test...).

Really now? Jeez that sucks, Guess I gotta stick to VBA M then

[Ragnar]

Well you can get a EZ Flash Advance IV. They aren't cheap, but they're great cards Keep in mind you want a IV though, the V which is common was just made to fit the DS Lite, and uses limited internal memory, which is a pain (probably, I hated my X-Rom cause of that).

[Jazzmarazz]

Flash carts/cards require a SD card , you put the roms on there and insert it into the flash card,save data and all that is saved onto the SD Card too.

You speak to generally. Not all flash carts support SD technology. You're talking about GBA only and the OP was talking about NES. I don't actually own any flash carts that support SD, mine all flash to a single-rom eeprom which can be erased and reprogrammed.

[Zorlon]

Flash kits come in all sorts of designs

Floppy kits designed to dump and replay (both types of floppy)
Flash memory kits designed to dump and replay (some only support one rom at a time)
I was sure there was a CD kit also (for none CD consoles, do not quote me there)
Memory card kits for dumping and playing (lots of types mem cards used most common now are Micro SD's)

All the above will use flash memory even the Floppy CD and memcard ones will use Flash Memory that is read by the console

Not all kits have dumping features, some can only be used to play roms, not dump them.

If you do go for a kit for a system do a bit of digging first find out what the features are and how to use them.

Also note that older kits used PC serial ports to copy data to the flash kits, later replaced with USB, memcard flash kits may also need a data cable for flashing the kit itself with updates or there may be other special instructions for updates, this is all worth reading into depending what you are looking for

Jazzmarazz among others has made there own flash carts and have shared there designs so other can make there own flashable carts, these tend to only support a single game at a time, though via homebrew there may possibly be a way to incorporate a menu system to something like that, or even create a multi game rom, but doing things like that can have bad side effects sometimes.