ROM Hack Indie developer looking for help

[Fatbot]

Hi,

I am producer/deisgner for a small game company located in North America. We have been making mobile games for about 4 years and we finally have a team big enough to tackle NDS development. Well we are basically a 10 person company and we also will need to prototype our games without having much moneyor getting official SDKs.

This is a request to get some honest opinions on which are the better and more stable ways to load homebrew on the NDS. I have looked on the website and found some wonderful documentation but i still am quite confused on how some of this works. Questions i have right now are:

- Do all homebrew/rom loaders require another memory media to actually store games/apps?

-Are there any homebrew solutions that don't require flashing the bios or providing an official NDS card?

- What are some of the better values for loaders as far as stability and cost are concerned?

-What shoudl i expect to spend per loader kit?

I am sorry if these questions seem basic or if there are clear answers for them on the site but my day doesn't allow me to research items like this often. I hope to become a more active part of this community as our company starts developing for the NDS and learn from what is already a rich and established community.

Thanks,

Fatbot.

 

[HugeCock]

- Do all homebrew/rom loaders require another memory media to actually store games/apps?
As of right now you need a passme and a GBA flash cart however NinjaDS will soon be out which boots off the DS slot as well as allows you to store media/roms directly on the dev kit.

-Are there any homebrew solutions that don't require flashing the bios or providing an official NDS card?
No Dev kit requires you to flash your DS....its just a prefrence

QUOTE

-What shoudl i expect to spend per loader kit?

30-50 if you supply your own memory or 80-100 with internal memory. The Ninjapass is only 50 with interneal memory of 512Mbits however if your a developer that should be plenty.

 

[Fatbot]

Thanks for the info!

Where would i look for the Ninja Pass?

What exactly is involved with using the Ninja Pass?

Thanks again for the help!

 

[Deleted User]

you can preorder the ninjapass at winsunx -> winsunx.com/list.php?mod=Brand_Ninja

however there's another (ds sized) flash card called 'ultra flash pass' (also 512Mbit internal storage), which is actually available at minionlinestore (GBP 35) -> http://minionlinestore.com/
the support and forum website is hosted at ndsgba -> ndsgba.net
according to eric sing (their company leader) they shipped all preorders on 07-18, so mine should be here sometime next week.

i -of course- don't know which one of them is actually better since the ninjapass hasn't been released yet.

edit: typo and price of ufp

 

[Fatbot]

Wow, this has been more than helpful. Thanks again. Finally i have a few more questions, hopefully some of the hardcore gamers can answer.

-Are there any commercial DS games that are larger than 512Mbit? I want to make sure our homemade dev kits are competitive?

-With the Ninja Pass and Ultra Flash Pass is anything needed othere than a writer, ultra flash pass card, and PC?

- Are there any dealers selling the the Ultra Flash Pass in North America? I don't mind importing but i like to try and keep shipping costs down if i can. I'll be ordering at least 6 of these things.

Thanks again for the help!

 

[OG LOCC NESS]

Yes, there are games that are larger than 512 Mbit (they go up to 1Gbit).

 

[Lily]

I wouldn't necessarily jump on the Ninjapass DS Flash OR the Ultra FlashPass.

I don't understand why people continually recommend totally unproven (and as of yet, no-one has either in hand) technology. For all we know, both units will stink. Neither is from a known team in the GBA/DS flash community, and neither has any word on a dedicated website with software updates, or what sort of support/compatibility they have now and into the future.

I would not recommend either at this point, especially after the way the owner of the site behind the Ultra FlashPass has jerked people around. It exists it doesn't exist, it's shipped it hasn't been shipped - no way. At least pre-ordering the Ninjapass DS Flash through WinSunX I can be assured that if the product doesn't materialize I will get my money back.

If you are a serious developer, I'd recommend one of the more established and compatible kits on the market. An M3 CF is an amazing Dev Kit for example, as is the G6 3rd Generation series (the regular one, and the G6 Lite is definitely proving itself even with the region locking fiasco).

 

[Deleted User]

sadly no, there are no us based stores that sell the ultra flash pass - actually nobody else sells them at the moment -, but they are looking for resellers as far as i know so maybe they will appear somewhere else in the near future.

mmh... i don't know for sure but i think nothing else is needed for homebrew to run on a ufp/ninjapass devkit - and since you won't need anything else for commercial games to run, i would doubt it.

 

[HugeCock]

@Qrayzie I never recomended the Ninjapass but rather just answered his question.

- Do all homebrew/rom loaders require another memory media to actually store games/apps

I took the question as he was looking for only one device, not a passme and a GBA flash kit. I was merly providing information. If I was to reccomend anything it would be the G6 (or G6 lite) as the cart kicks the most ass.

 

[Fatbot]

Ok,

Well stability is an issue with us and so is flexibility so as long we don't have to solder or endanger our waranty on our store bought lite units i don't mind a more convoluted process.

So from what i'm hearding the G6 Lite cart would be the best bet. The questions i have on it are:

- Can i buy a regular SD card to use in it?

-What would be a cheap PASSME card to use to bypass encryption without having to flash the system?

-Where can i buy the G6 Lite card that has English support? From a North American dealer perhaps?

Any estimate on what each flash kit would run me?

Thanks again. We hope to have a few demos up and running by October and hopefully if can get permission i would like to upload them to the site for opinion.

 

[Bitbyte]

Ok,

Well stability is an issue with us and so is flexibility so as long we don't have to solder or endanger our waranty on our store bought lite units i don't mind a more convoluted process.

So from what i'm hearding the G6 Lite cart would be the best bet. The questions i have on it are:

- Can i buy a regular SD card to use in it?

-What would be a cheap PASSME card to use to bypass encryption without having to flash the system?

-Where can i buy the G6 Lite card that has English support? From a North American dealer perhaps?

-Any estimate on what each flash kit would run me?

Thanks again. We hope to have a few demos up and running by October and hopefully if can get permission i would like to upload them to the site for opinion.

- You don't have to buy a SD card for the G6 Lite, it uses its intern space.

- Passkey 3 I'd suppose.

- www.kicktrading.ca is based in canada and has gotten great feedback in the past

- G6 Lite is able to perfectly run both DS and GBA (iirc) roms.

Good luck with your company

.

 

[HugeCock]

The G6 Lite uses internal memory so you don't need SD memory or any removable memory. Basically a passcard3 and a G6 Lite and your good to go. Unfortunatly they are hard to get right now. Estimated price I believe is 80 dollars for 4GigaBITS of space. If you want to use SD then I'd reccoment the M3. Let me break down what I have for you and the pros and cons.

G6
Pros:
Excellent time frame on software updates
Excellent menu which offers icons and long file name support
Excellent compatability
No Slowdowns
Cons
4GigaBIT is too small for some (not for me though)

M3 and M3 Mini
Pros:
Excellent time frame on software updates
Menu is pretty neat with long file name support and a lot of user made skins
Excellent compatability
Uses SD memory so you can have *unlimited storage
Cons
Card can be picky with some types of SD memory, I encounter the OCASSIONAL slowdown on Tony Hawk

Ez-Flash II
(Okay I am just putting this one here to brag)
Pros:
Made for the GBA yet offers great GBA and DS support.
80% compatability is not bad for a cart that I bougt 2 years before the DS even came out
Cons:
Compatability is not 100%
Takes forever to get updates
Main site has been down forever.

EZ-Flash III
This cart just sucks and never works right for me, I have nothing good to say about it.

MK3
Last time I booted this cart I was using .6 or something and it still sucked....no reason to go on when the G6 and M3 are so much better.

NeoFlash
It just sucks, stay away

SuperCard
Pros:
It's cheap
It has long file name support on the menu
Good compatability
Cons
Some slowdowns which could be due to type of memory

That's about it, I have some other carts like the eWin, EFA, EZFA, ect .... I guess I am telling you all this so you know I have a lot of toys and so when I reccomend the G6 lite it's not cause I only bought that one product and want to think I made the right choice, out of all my kits the only two that aren't collecting dust is the G6 Lite in my DS and the EZ-Flash II in my GBA SP

 

[Fatbot]

Thanks again. I will probably get the G6 Lite but the Kicktrading company does not seem to carry it. Can anyone else recommend a site to purchase this?

 

[Wanque]

The gbadev forums are where you need to go if you're really developing homebrew.
The hardware you load it onto isn't that important.

Here's a nice link straight to the DS Development page.

 

[nintendofreak]

i would acctually recommend getting something with removable media. Its much easier to transfer the games to it, and quicker!

Off note:
How about you let us test the game(s) out while its in development?

 

[Mangofett]

And Fatbot, just as a warning, games made with the homebrew dev kits will not run on official carts as is. You would have to port them over to libnitro(official) which can be quite a pain in the... foot, if you have developed a lot.

 

[Fatbot]

You guys have been more than helpful.

I do hope to send some prototypes to the site for opinion as we get some of the games off the ground.

 

[sparky930]

I would highly recomend ordering from realhotstuff.com They are in the US and provide extremely fast shipping and fair prices. It will end up being cheaper ordering from there rather than getting stuff from overseas. I would highly recommend the supercard sd and superkey bundle realhotstuff.com has for $67. The supercard SD will stick out of the DS Lite about a half an inch, but it really doesn't affect anything. You can't get into the DS development scene any cheaper and the only other thing you need is an SD card and some sort of SD card reader (for the PC) if you don't already have one, which you can order from newegg.com (based in the US also) for dirt cheap.

http://www.realhotstuff.com/supercard-supe...undle-p-79.html *link to the supercard sd and superkey bundle

 

[serious_sean]

hey Fatbot, I'm exactly the same as you! An indie mobile developer (although we've only been around for 2 years instead of 4) trying to branch into handhelds! Welcome.

Another thing, it may be easier to break into GBA. Now that most GBAs have been handed down to the little brother / sister, there is a still a market, but not so much risk involved.

on top of that, GBA is more documented and esaier to develop for. And, a lot of the GBA stuff also applies to DS, so it is easy to make the switch later on.

 

[daRealist]

Just wanted to say welcome to gbatemp. We look forward to pirating your software.

Hi,

I am producer/deisgner for a small game company located in North America. We have been making mobile games for about 4 years and we finally have a team big enough to tackle NDS development. Well we are basically a 10 person company and we also will need to prototype our games without having much moneyor getting official SDKs.

This is a request to get some honest opinions on which are the better and more stable ways to load homebrew on the NDS. I have looked on the website and found some wonderful documentation but i still am quite confused on how some of this works. Questions i have right now are:

- Do all homebrew/rom loaders require another memory media to actually store games/apps?

-Are there any homebrew solutions that don't require flashing the bios or providing an official NDS card?

- What are some of the better values for loaders as far as stability and cost are concerned?

-What shoudl i expect to spend per loader kit?

I am sorry if these questions seem basic or if there are clear answers for them on the site but my day doesn't allow me to research items like this often. I hope to become a more active part of this community as our company starts developing for the NDS and learn from what is already a rich and established community.

Thanks,

Fatbot.