Recently, sellers have started offering pre-built, open-source GBA flash cartridges such as ChisFlash. These “bootleg” cartridges can be used to flash and play your own games on real GBA hardware, and are great for homebrew and ROM hacks.
Many cheap bootlegs use low-quality components — often recycled from older electronics — that have limited write cycles and can stop working unexpectedly. The cheapest boards sell for about $5–$10, while higher-quality options like ChisFlash are closer to $20.
Here is a comparison showcasing differences in build quality. The left one is the ChisFlash board, which uses a S29GL256S10TFI010 NOR flash chip. The right one is a generic old bootleg I have from way back in the day.
Flashing options
In order to flash your own games, you need some way to write to the flash chip. One option is to use a hardware programmer such as the GBxCart RW together with FlashGBX, but that requires extra hardware in addition to your cartridge.
Another option is to use a Nintendo DS Lite with an R4 cart running GBABF. This lets you flash cartridges directly from the DS without additional programming hardware. If you have a DS Lite and an R4 cart laying around, you don’t need to buy any extra hardware to flash your ChisFlash cartridge.
Compatibility & Download
There is one problem: the latest pre-built release of GBABF (as distributed on GitLab) does not support S29GL256S10TFI010, the NOR flash chip used by the ChisFlash cartridges. However, the latest source (the commit from April 30, 2024) adds support for this flash chip.
I built the latest commit from April 30, 2024, with added support. This enables you to flash your ChisFlash cartridge.
Here, you can download the pre-built GBABF NDS (committed April 30, 2024):
Instructions
- Copy the
.ndsfile and your ROM of choice to your R4 microSD card - Insert the R4 into a Nintendo DS Lite top slot
- Insert the ChisFlash cartridge in the GBA slot
- Run GBABF on the DS, and follow the on‑screen instructions to flash your GBA cartridge.