R4 3ds Gold Pro Firmware

[Agalia Valcin]

Asbefore, I have created a new CFW for the new AtGames Atari Flashback 50th Anniversary Edition. With an OTG cable and USB storage device this allows you to dump the /rom partition to USB and customize it with new roms and boxart as you like or possibly run a package like Nexus.

It works the same was as before. The presence of "mount_sd.ini" file in the root of your USB storage device will trigger the dump and remapping of /rom to USB. The /emulator has been modified to use all-games.ini file located in /rom as before.

FULL DISCLOSURE: This CFW is for the GOLD 50th Anniversary Edition. I do not have a non-Gold unit to dump firmware or test with. If you have a non-Gold unit then this CFW will probably just turn it into a Gold edition without the included paddles. However, as always, USE AT YOUR OWN RISK. I tested this briefly on my own AFB50 Gold, flashing the firmware and adding Pac-Man to the UI, and everything worked fine. But I have not tested any more than that as I still prefer my AFB9.

The attachment includes the custom firmware image, the mount_sd.ini flag file, and a sample custom startup script that dumps the /emulator partition to USB and executes from there. There are a couple of curious new binaries in /emulator, which may have to do with APL support, but nothing to really worry about.

Flashing process is the same as with the prior Flashback X (which this device is almost identical to). Place the "atari_update.img" file in the root of attached USB storage device and power on the unit to flash it, then delete the firmware file. Please refer to the earlier thread:

NOTE: Like before, depending on the read/write speed of your USB device you may have to be patient on the initial dump, or delete any broken files and try again if you have issues. Smaller storage devices of only a few GB are preferable, as the unit may not be able to read very large thumb drives.

Yes, if you apply your custom firmware to the Atari Flashback Gold 50th Anniversary, you can then boot with a thumb-drive with the Nexus build applied and play much more content. For example, I just played Atari 8-bit Shamus on my Flashback 50th Anniversary Gold.

Hi folks, thanx so much for your work! I'm a newbe and own a Atari Flashback Gold 50th. Also i've updated it with the new FW created by Brad. Can someone explain how i can play with an "Nexus build" and how can i find a nexus build ? And how do i know which Nexus build can i use to play? Sorry for all the questions and my bad english. I would be very happy if someone can explain me in easy steps how i can install the Nexus thing, where i can download it and so one...

thanks rocketman...ok, so - a few more questions: Whats the difference between "Nexus pure 25 sep 2022" and "Nexus 1.5.1 slim" ? Do i only need to copy one of both on a sd-card and start booting the system? Many thanks in advance.

@hpo Nexus pure is strictly limited to Atari content. "Pure Atari". Nexus 1.5.1 Slim has the Atari content plus more - mainly 8 and 16 bit era content, but mostly (maybe 95%) are games that can be played reasonably with a single action button. It is called "Slim" because there was an earlier build with a bunch of non-game media on it that made the upload too huge to manage. Examples: The slim build has a port of the excellent platform game VVVVVV on it in the Ports section. Cheril Perils Classic by the Mojon Twins (Mario-like game) is in the SG-1000 section. However, if you are an Atari purist, or just have a much better way to play non-Atari games, you might consider the pure version.

After you have applied the custom firmware update, yes it is as simple as booting with the thumb drive plugged in the splitter cable. I HIGHLY recommend a good quality brand thumb drive like Sandisk or similar.

Curiously their paper instructions now mention downloading and using DriverAssistant_v4.8.zip and AndroidTool_Release_v2.69.zip along with the "Game" directory and .a26 files on the USB drive with Y-Cable

My answer: It's not totally simple to back-up and re-flash the firmware, since AFAIK you need a firmware package to flash - not an individual partition backup. The firmware package has to be built to update one or more partitions. Brad's custom package will only update what is needed, not all of the partitions. I have not used the Windows tools in a long time, so not sure how to approach a firmware backup with them. I use something called rkflashkit in Linux. There is a write-up of using that in the link below if you have an Ubuntu system handy.

Anyway, if you can make a backup of the partitions on your standard unit, then it would be easier to understand the differences between a standard and gold unit. Maybe there are no real differences at all except the roms included. If you made backups and provided them somehow, then the risk (or lack) could probably be known.

On the firmware bit, there is no official firmware flash update from AtGames, and quite possibly never will be. I had to create a firmware image from scratch by extracting the partitions I was interested in changing. It's not quite rocket science, but a little bit involved when it comes to repacking and reassembling into a firmware image, and certain details you just have to know or know what to substitute.

But to maybe just back up your full original firmware partitions you'd just have to use right tools. I think I used rkDumper to extract partitions, a privileged command-line tool which required a DriverAssistant downgrade to work properly, and then you can flash the partitions back without going the custom firmware route by using the Windows AndroidTool/RkDevTool. .... Theoretically. I've never done it this way. Do this at your own risk, etc. But the only partitions of interest and involved in the custom firmware are /emulator and /rom. Actually if you could just dump and send those to me from a standard unit I could probably make a non-Gold firmware.

I would guess that the Gold and non-Gold units are exactly the same except for rom libraries and however they serialize these in software (if they even do, I can't recall now). But... we won't really know until somebody sacrifices their standard unit to apply this firmware, lol. I guess if I saw one real cheap somewhere I might try it myself, but not a priority for me. Although the hardware is very similar, there are a couple of years difference in the production runs and I would not try a 50th firmware on an AFB X or vice-versa.

This converted it to the Gold Edition as suspected - with the extra 20 games (tested Barnstorming as an example) - total 130 games as below. Serial still has the 3070xxxx convention (so no checking there if it is 3080xxxx - which is the Gold from screenshots I've seen on YT reviews etc.)

Curiously, the Space Invaders "new" (not the original 2600 one) menu item is blank and unplayable when the USB thumb drive is attached (using an older 4GB Toshiba) with the OTG cable, but once the drive is removed is appears and plays OK...

Have tested with original Paddles with Kaboom (bit jumpy - will try and clean pots to see if helps), Driving (Indy 500) Keyboard controllers (Basic Programming and Kids "Sesame Street" ones), Star Raiders keypads etc - though from reading elsewhere may not be achievable.

This included installing Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL2) with Ubuntu, etc but then fell over trying to get GNOME going, dependencies with Python3, systemd dependencies breaking WSL2 etc. Got too hard at this stage for me.

The thread suggested downloading the version of DriverAssitant [sic], had to revert from v5.0 to v4.3, then it read and then dumped successfully. Folks mentioned v4.8 supposedly has issues as well.

@chicane71 Thanks for the detailed information. Glad it worked as Brad had predicted. If you have a way to post the dump files to a google drive or similar, Maybe PM me a link I would like to store them off if ever needed. If not, no worries- since we know the custom firmware is working it's not a big deal either way.

I would be interested in getting an "md5 checksum" on your resource partition from your standard unit if you can generate that - like 7-zip adds that to your Windows context menu IIRC. Just want to double-double check it is same as the Gold unit.

what do i need to do to get rom_iv (intellivision) to work from the roms menu instead of the lfb folder? would rather have intellivision on the main page instead of in the legends folder I'm pretty sure it's a path problem but not positive

Have tried the Nexus 1.5.1 Slim but seems to be a bit unstable (am a newb with it admittedly) in terms of lag when selecting games / menus and some freezing etc. (used a 4GB USB 2 Stick) needed a power shutdown.

Any suggestions? Not necessarily after all the 3rd party consoles etc as could use a RPi4 for that - but something with the 2600 library etc with 3Dbox art, descriptions with all-games.ini etc. (7800 maybe a bonus).

What appears is determined by the all-games.ini file in each folder, which is just a text file. The ".goto" entries are a "fake" file type that triggers the reload at a different folder. So, edit the file in the lfb folder with your favorite text editor and look for the roms_iv entry, copy that and place it in the "main" all-games.ini contained in /rom. Then you also want to grab the artwork files for that entry (rom_iv.goto.png, rom_iv.goto.s.png) and copy them from the rom_lfb folder to the /rom folder. That should do it.

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