Hacking Custom Firmware for the R4

[da_head]

wii-ds linkage? i thought that was possible for a few flashkarts :S but don't quote me on this

 

[ninja_07]

I think it is for supercard 1 / EZ Flash V+

 

[Abraxas]

If you could make custom firmware for the r4, what would happen if you screwed up and bricked your ds? that would suck.

ill stay to what is stable

 

[Fat D]

the "firmware" is actually just a piece of loader software. A custom "firmware" is about as dangerous as any other custom homebrew program with file access.

 

[snaai8]

anything that is homebrew coud brick your ds efen games with a virus

 

[Ruud91]

look here is a custom firmware but not now...you have to wait till august
this looks like the psp

http://forum.palib.info/index.php?topic=44...6;topicseen#new

omg i looked this link and took some research about it and it is awesome it is just like the psp menu here I have a youtube movie:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyanE7Tx5fg can't wait for this

it is coming this august he say

 

[Deleted-119707]

cant wait for the release, he says he doesnt want to release a demo because it wont be well known :\, looking at that, it will be one of the best

 

[Sanoblue]

any firmware that acts like ysmenu?? love the auto gba

 

[ninja_07]

What're the attractions of YSMENU for people who dont have a slot 2 card?

 

[Dark^'^Knigh]

Tried it, works great. Thanks for the info. The Cheat works better too.

Glad it worked for you,
imo it's much better than the official R4 firmware, and I can't wait until yasu releasesa proper R4 version of his menu, with dldi support for homebrew

Mmmm... I did just as you wrote, but I got no "r4patch.dat". Is there anything else needed to make this work? Now I'm really curious

Well, I had the following files on my memory card before I ran ttextract.exe:

_DS_MENU.DAT (from r4 firmware)
TTMENU.DAT (from tt firmware)
YSMENU.NDS (from ys menu)
ttextract.exe


then when I ran ttextract.exe, it generated TTPATCH.DAT, TTDLDI.DAT, R4PATCH.DAT

I then encrypted YSMENU.NDS into a _DS_MENU.DAT file using r4crypt, so that the R4 would boot it in place of the R4 menu.


edit:

uploaded the files from my memory card, to make this a bit easier to use. the files in this zip replace your existing _DS_MENU.DAT with YSmenu, so back up your old files first!

http://files.filefront.com/ysmenu+r4zip/;1...;/fileinfo.html

I have just come across this thread, was feeling bored, so I thought I'd play around with my R4 and try this. But all I see is a grey grid appearance showing my list of games on top screen and the bottom screen shows details of the game selected within a panel (DMA, reset?, cheat if available). Is that it? Surely not..........because I'm not seeing any option of selecting multimedia & slot2 like the R4 does.

What I did was - removed all existing files from my microsd (except some roms), d/l the 'ready made' contents from the link above and placed them onto my microsd. Turned on DS.
Have I done anything wrong, or is that it?

 

[coolbho3000]

If you could make custom firmware for the r4, what would happen if you screwed up and bricked your ds? that would suck.

ill stay to what is stable

Don't be silly. Unless you program it specifically to write to the DS firmware (not the R4 firmware) it's pretty much impossible to brick the DS itself. Worst thing it'll do is corrupt the memory card, but that's easily fixable by backups/reformatting.

 

[32011]

Tried it, works great. Thanks for the info. The Cheat works better too.

Glad it worked for you,
imo it's much better than the official R4 firmware, and I can't wait until yasu releasesa proper R4 version of his menu, with dldi support for homebrew

Mmmm... I did just as you wrote, but I got no "r4patch.dat". Is there anything else needed to make this work? Now I'm really curious

Well, I had the following files on my memory card before I ran ttextract.exe:

_DS_MENU.DAT (from r4 firmware)
TTMENU.DAT (from tt firmware)
YSMENU.NDS (from ys menu)
ttextract.exe


then when I ran ttextract.exe, it generated TTPATCH.DAT, TTDLDI.DAT, R4PATCH.DAT

I then encrypted YSMENU.NDS into a _DS_MENU.DAT file using r4crypt, so that the R4 would boot it in place of the R4 menu.


edit:

uploaded the files from my memory card, to make this a bit easier to use. the files in this zip replace your existing _DS_MENU.DAT with YSmenu, so back up your old files first!

http://files.filefront.com/ysmenu+r4zip/;1...;/fileinfo.html

I have just come across this thread, was feeling bored, so I thought I'd play around with my R4 and try this. But all I see is a grey grid appearance showing my list of games on top screen and the bottom screen shows details of the game selected within a panel (DMA, reset?, cheat if available). Is that it? Surely not..........because I'm not seeing any option of selecting multimedia & slot2 like the R4 does.

What I did was - removed all existing files from my microsd (except some roms), d/l the 'ready made' contents from the link above and placed them onto my microsd. Turned on DS.
Have I done anything wrong, or is that it?

just press start

 

[omgmog]

Glad people are enjoying YSMenu on their R4's

*--snip--*

I have just come across this thread, was feeling bored, so I thought I'd play around with my R4 and try this. But all I see is a grey grid appearance showing my list of games on top screen and the bottom screen shows details of the game selected within a panel (DMA, reset?, cheat if available). Is that it? Surely not..........because I'm not seeing any option of selecting multimedia & slot2 like the R4 does.

What I did was - removed all existing files from my microsd (except some roms), d/l the 'ready made' contents from the link above and placed them onto my microsd. Turned on DS.
Have I done anything wrong, or is that it?

Yeah that's pretty much it.. you can get to Slot-2 by pressing the Start button, and selecting it from there. YSMenu is only really useful if you have a 3in1 and an R4, because it integrates auto GBA loading into the file list, alongside NDS games, which is really nice.

 

[deathfisaro]

New R4 firmware doesn't mean it will run all previously released roms.

1.18 still can't run rom #2000. And Daigasso is quite major since a lot of other flashcart got a new firmware/patch just because of that game.

I don't know how many games don't run properly, but now is definitely the time for an update.

 

[omgmog]

YSMenu with ttds loader on R4 will play games that the 1.18 R4 firmware won't play, such as Trauma Center 2. Even plays FFIV fine too!

 

[soliunasm]

YSMenu with ttds loader on R4 will play games that the 1.18 R4 firmware won't play, such as Trauma Center 2. Even plays FFIV fine too!

TC2 works fine on 1.18 o.o

 

[jutendouji]

YSMenu with ttds loader on R4 will play games that the 1.18 R4 firmware won't play, such as Trauma Center 2. Even plays FFIV fine too!

Trauma Center 2 and FFIV are working fine with the 1.18 modded Kernel (the one posted here that supports 8mb save files). Don't know if they work because of that modded Kernel or because 1.18 supports it off the bat.

 

[Spec2K]

This is a review I made for the YSMenu Loader.

I've been messing around with the version of YSMenu that omgmog posted (YSMenu build May 22 2008 00:50:37) and cleaned up some things, removed junk files and learned a little from it and it's features and downsides.

Fixed & Cleaned Up

- moved "gbaframe.bmp" from "_system_" to the "TTMenu".

- deleted "skin" from "TTMenu".

- deleted "TTMenu.rar" from "TTMenu".


Learned a Little

- when in YSMenu loader, on the bottom screen tap on the "Yasu software - YS Menu" bar and it'll reveal the version you have, this one ofcourse is"YSMenu build May 22 2008 00:50:37", but I'm not sure if it's the latest.

- when in YSMenu loader, if you tap on the top left corner of the bottom screen you can still change the brightness, the only thing is that there's no icon showing a sun like the R4, but, it still, works. As for the hard reset I tried it as well as there's not icon on the top right of the bottom screen, but it seems like it doesn't have a hard reset.

-when in YSMenu loader press the start button and a screen with 3 buttons appear similar to the R4 boot up screen but cheasier. The 3 button are, "NDS Pass Me", "Boot GBA" & "DS Menu".

-if you have followed the clean up steps above go into _system_ and see "YSMenu1.bmp" & "YSMenu2.bmp". Those two files are your YSMenu skins. "YSMenu1.bmp" is the top screen, and "YSMenu2.bmp" is the bottom screen.


Features

- It plays .gba games automatically, no more need to load a gba exploader or 3 in 1 loader before loading any .gba game. Also it saves .gba games with no hassle, by creating a .sav like the .nds games.

-It has support for slot 2. So it can load the internet browser without a gba exploader or 3 in 1 loader. Also, when about to load a .nds game it gives the option of "rumble pack" which can be set to "off", "medium" or "high", that is if you own a
slot 2 expansion.

- It automatically plays .nes, .gbc, & .gb (and maybe more) as long as you have the GBA emulator version of one of these devices in the root directory. (eg. goomba.gba or pocknes.gba) There's no more need to load the emulator first, so basically just load the games from the directory and it'll load the proper emulator for the game you chose. (eg. you loaded Ninja Turtles.nes, it'll automatically load the the pocketnes emulator to boot the game.

-Better Compatibility for .nds games. (eg. Carnival games.nds works now unlike with the R4 v1.18 it doesn't, and also I hear from some other later released games that wouldn't work with the R4 1.18 and now works with this YSMenu Loader.)


The Downside

-The only downside I have about this card is that the nds homebrew can't load on this firmware. This reason is because there is no dldi to patch the homebrew so it can be compliant with the YSMenu. Hopefully someday it it will work.



Peace!

-Spec2K c,''

 

[Swip]

Yasu doesn't like people hosting mirrors of his software.

Heres what happened before.

 

[Spec2K]

oh I didn't know that, thx for the info, and I didn't originally post it, and I think the original poster didn't know either or maybe he did and just did it.

Oh well, if my post needs to be deleted.. go ahead.


UPDATE: removed link from my previous post.