First Impressions
First of all let's take a brief look at the build quality. The black semi-transparent plastic feels quite strong and professional. The mini-USB socket is lowered into the casing slightly and is not flush with the top of the casing, the USB port is held into place via 4 large solder points on the PCB. The micro SD slot IS spring loaded and seems to work fine, the SD card fits flush in the card. The casing is held together by 5 clips which seem quite delicate. Use a pair of thin tweezers or screwdriver to lift them up, the clips on my card have already turned slightly white where I bent them too much. But they still seem quite strong and the cart still clips together tightly. The build quality of the PCB is very nice and the USB port and Micro SD slot both sit level.
My review sample came with zero accessories (except a spare shell and labels which I expect aren't intended for non-review samples). I'd expect the retail box to come with some kind of manual and a mini USB cable (fortunately I already own more than enough of these).
Let's move on to software. The Acekard menu software (which works in the form of a loader similar to R4 and not firmware which you must flash to the device) must be placed on the built in NAND flash and not the micro SD. (The loader consists of a akmenu4.nds and '__rpg' folder on the root of the flash). The Acekard R.P.G. requires no drivers and shows up as a removable flash drive with 968MB of space (FAT or FAT32).
You can, cut, copy and paste files to and from the NAND flash/micro SD within the OS. You can even choose the OS to auto-trim ROMs during this process. Unfortunately this seems to corrupt DS ROM files at the moment and I haven't successfully copied a ROM yet. See the video for this process. It is extremely buggy and often says that a file with the same name as the file you're trying to move already exists in the folder when it doesn't.
The loader is nice and works just as you saw in the early press photos. The touch screen responsiveness seems a little iffy and when entering a directory (which you do so by tapping its icon and not its name) if you move the stylus down slightly when tapping it, it will scroll slightly and not enter the directory, so a steady hand is needed. The scrolling is done by dragging the stylus up and down like the CycloDS but seems extremely fast and its sometimes confusing as the screen moves so rapidly. Fortunately everything in the OS can be controlled by buttons which makes it easier.
The Acekard R.P.G. supports micro SDHC and works fine with my class 2 Sandisk 4GB SDHC. The internal flash memory seems much faster than the SD card for example, when entering a folder full of ROMs on the micro SD there is a slight delay when entering, but this delay is MUCH shorter when the same thing is done on the flash memory. The OS has support for 8 different languages but currently only English and Chinese are translated. The entire OS is extremely skinnable with .INI file with tons of clear settings (such as text placement, colour, size etc..) and loads of .BMP files containing customisable fonts.
There is no extra features within the OS besides the calendar and settings screen, there is absolutely zero multimedia support, no in-game menu, no soft-reset no cheat support etc... Whether this will come in time, or if the team just plan to ride in the support of open-source (yes the cart will be entirely open source when launched for retail) is unknown.
ROM compatibility seems 100% so far. Something which the original Acekard also boasted. There was never a known ROM with an issue, even games that require the ARM7 fix.
DLDI homebrew is automatically patched and the OS can determine from where it is being launched and patches it on the fly with the correct DLDI driver (NAND/SD).
Unfortunately download play does NOT seem to have been addressed for the R.P.G.. I Tested Yoshi's Touch & Go and it froze at the Nintendo logo on the receiving un-flashed DS.
Overall, the cart feels like a step backwards in some areas. No additional features; no real download play support; not even soft-reset and a slightly slow loader are a let down.
The selling potential for the R.P.G. I believe lie in its open-source promise, dual flash and micro SD(/HC) support and more than excellent ROM compatibility.
Feel free to ask any question you like and I will try my best to answer. Look out for the official GBAtemp.net Review of the Acekard R.P.G. in the coming days/weeks.
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