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Friday, November 27, 2020

Potential fix method for the 3DS GBA Virtual Console screen wrap issue. (128GB SD Card Issue - Fix by Formatting to 64kb FAT32 Clusters)

Let me just start by saying that I did not discover this fix on my own and there is a possibility it simply won't work. I'm posting this because I don't see much talk of the issue here and so people can try the method to fix the problem on a permanent basis.

The issue in question is a widely know issue with 128gb microSD cards and the GBA Virtual Console. When attempting to load GBA games from a 128gb microSD card, there is a high chance the screen image will be improperly wrapped and a few lines of pixels that are supposed to be the top of the image, will be displayed at the bottom. I was having the issue with most all of my injected GBA games on pretty much every startup. I have been trying to find a permanent solution for a bit but had been coming up short. Most places I read said that the issue was unavoidable with 128gb cards and you best bet was to repeatedly spam the home button to get the screen to slowly wrap back around to the proper place. I finally came across someone who said they fixed their issue.

How I fixed the issue: Thanks to a helpful post from KJack on GBAtemp, I was also able to permanently fix the issue.

  • Back-up the contents of your SD card to your PC. (The next step will wipe the card, so this is necessary.)

  • Using a program such as guiformat, or any other formatting tool, fully format the SD card with 64kb clusters as opposed to 32kb. The card must also be FAT32 format, which it already should be if you've been using it on your 3DS.

  • You can use guiformat or MiniTool Partition Wizard to format your drive in Windows

  • Copy all of your files back to your SD card and load up some GBA titles.

Oddly, everywhere else I raid said that clusters above 32k would cause the issue, but this immediately fixed the issue for me on a 128gb card.

Disclaimer - I have not tried this method with any microSD card size other than 128gb. The issue seems to be mostly related to 128gb cards, so that's what I fixed it on. There are reports than 64kb cluster sizes will actually cause the issue on 64gb and lower cards but, for whatever reason, it appears to fix it with 128gb. My sample size of two 3DSs and 2 128gb cards is very small, so I can't guarantee it will work for everyone, but it worked for me and KJack, so hopefully it will help anyone else who is having the issue.


via https://www.reddit.com/r/3dshacks/comments/7t6pb1/potential_fix_method_for_the_gba_virtual_console/

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