This time it's called the GBA supercard. What a wondrous idea. It takes data stored on SD cards (also comes in CF) and quickly loads it into it's 256mbit ram for playing. The obvious benefit is being able to carry around up to 2gigabytes (16gigabits) of GBA entertainment for less than $60 shipped--far less than a standard flash cart with a much smaller capacity. Still, this is an item with severe drawbacks.
(pic stolen from the site)
getting down to business:
Storage: This is why the supercard is simply the most amazing product I've ever had in my GBA. I'm actually having difficulty filling my 1gig card. Simply put, by itself, this device could satisfy my video game cravings for upwards of a month. It's a far cry from my previous setup of a 16mbyte (128mbit) card and a portable SMC flasher.
Saving: This is where it starts getting dodgy. The supercard supports only Sram saving. EEPROM games need patching. Generally games also need patched to be able to back up the fake "sram" to sd while in game. more complaining about patching later... There are still two up sides: almost unlimited save space, and a real time saver.
Software: The software installed on your computer is competent in its patching abilities, easy to use, and works, at least mostly, well. The firmware inside the device is designed fairly well with built in NES emulation. (I'd still prefer it to point to emus/plugins on the card so it was more upgradeable--like pogoshell). One possible down side is that some of the features boasted about (movie/music/ebook) are actually done with software stolen from the GBA movie player, and are not actually built in, as the NES support is.
Compatibility: This is nearly crippling. First off, the ram inside the card is slower than GBA rom. Most games don't care, but some will run slowly, and some won't run at all. Additionally the interrupts hacked into the games (for exit/cheat/save) slow some *other* games down when too much other stuff is going on action wise. Total game compatibility is probably just under 75%, but there are workarounds for quite a few situations.
other tidbits: Will do NDS homebrew games--looks like it needs a software upgrade and (maybe) a minor piece of extra hardware to pass down there. (I don't currently own an NDS)
Links:
Official site: http://www.supercard.cn/eng/
Far better site: http://supercard.mine.nu/
Compatability list: http://supercard.mine.nu/forums/viewtopic.php?t=34
Similar (better) product: http://m3adapter.com/
