Automatic batteryless saving patcher for GBA

This program patches a GBA game for batteryless saving (i.e. saving on a bootleg cartridge containing SRAM but no battery).

The game must be SRAM patched before using this program. GBATA or Flash1M_Repro_SRAM_patcher can be used depending on the game. The patch contains two modes, which can be selected during patching.

In auto mode, the save will automatically be flushed a few seconds after saving. Until the save completes, the graphics will be purposefully corrupted.

In keypad trigger mode, the save can be flushed by pressing L+R+Start+Select at any time. This mode requires less patching, so may be compatible with more games.

Usage

Run with ROM as the only argument, a new ROM will be output

Building

No build script, run the following command and hope it doesn't spit out any errors

$DEVKITARM/bin/arm-none-eabi-gcc -mcpu=arm7tdmi -nostartfiles -nodefaultlibs -mthumb -fPIE -Os -fno-toplevel-reorder payload.c -T payload.ld -o payload.elf; $DEVKITARM/bin/arm-none-eabi-objcopy -O binary payload.elf payload.bin; xxd -i payload.bin > payload_bin.c ; gcc -g patcher.c payload_bin.c

Credits

Written by metroid-maniac

Thanks to

• ez-flash for EZ Flash Omega kernel containing examples for hooking the IRQ handler
• Fexean for GBABF
• vrodin for Burn2Slot
• Lesserkuma for FlashGBX and batteryless versions of Goomba Color and PocketNES
• Ausar for helping to port the payload to C.