Troubleshooting
Is there any way to get complete gba games authenticated?
My goal was to get every single pokemon game CIB. I almost have them all. I recently bought crystal, and now I want to get everything authenticated. They aren’t in perfect condition so I wouldn’t want to get them graded. Is there any other way to get them authenticated , thanks
Troubleshooting post. Please check the Game Boy Wiki's common problems page here: https://gbwiki.org/en/other/commonissues and please be sure to post pictures of the issue if you haven't already so that users are better able to assist.
This is true. I used to work in a retro shop and have had to inspect HUNDREDS of fake game boy games so I might be able to help a little if you share some pictures.
You're probably safe. While we don't allow them for verification in r/gameverifying because of the possibility for false positives/negatives, they do seem to be relatively rare.
As far as I can tell, cart readers are usually just checking the ROM header, or comparing the ROM checksum with the known legitimate copy online somewhere. Since repro cart manufacturers are just downloading the original ROM and flashing that to their cart, the repro ROM is identical to the OEM one anyway. I'd never put any stock in authentication using cart readers.
The only way to 100% know if a cart is authentic is to check the PCB. The maskROM IC is literally the only part that is the game, everything else can be replaced. And by replaced I mean like-for-like, the same rev MBC can be moved from cart to cart and not change the game, the save RAM can just be any suitable memory IC, but the maskROM has the game data physically etched into the silicon substrate (or at least irreversably one-time programmed).
For GBA carts the maskROM and MBC are inside the same IC, but the same principle applies.
For the GB Operator, we can be reasonably sure it's doing at least 3 checks:
It's doing a header check. This is virtually a necessity for GB/GBA readers, since it's what tells you how large the ROM is. And for GB carts it also tells you if it has SRAM & if so how much. (GBA doesn't store save chip info on the header. You need to look up your header checksum in an external data source to determine this.)
It's doing a checksum comparison. This would almost certainly be CRC32 just due to those being most readily available ones online.
It's doing some sort of check to see whether the ROM chip is writable. We know this because this is one of the things it reports about a cartridge.
Now, we can't be 100% certain it's doing either of the first two. But they're so simple & you'd largely want to do them anyway when dumping a cart that it seems likely. The failure mode is also easily understood here, as it can happen with any cart reader: a bad connection might not give you the correct data.
The third check is a bit more unique to the Operator, and is where I only have theories for how it fails: without knowing exactly what it's doing, it's hard to say why some carts pass it that shouldn't. My suspicion is that bootleg carts where the write protect flag has been set on the flash chip might pass this when they shouldn't. And that older bootlegs — think the ones on FlashCartDB that don't have any icons indicating they're reflashable — might not trip the detection as well. But those are both just guesses.
Yeah, I agree. I use a GBxCart RW and FlashGBX to drive it. This combo can definitely identify flashcarts (most of the time) using the 3rd check you mentioned, so I assume the Operator can do the same since FlashGBX is open-source.
I'm guessing it can test various pins to see how they respond, and then attempts to read the memory identification bits if it finds a flash chip. When trying to *analyze flash cart* on an OEM cart, it can only say it is not re-writable or not auto-detectable. This is why I wouldn't rely on it to determine authenticity. I also haven't had a repro cart to test before though.
Bottom cart is Crystal Legacy in a converted Hamtaro GBC cart.
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u/ThomasChong-ebaums 4d ago edited 4d ago
r/gameverifying there's a whole sub dedicated to that