Why does no one make advanced Flashcartds anymore? (Supercard, etc.)

[poddtacker]

Is there a particular reason why teams like Supercard no longer exist and people don't make such high end cartridges anymore? I just got the EZ Flash Parallel and it doesn't even work as nicely as my super old Acekard 2i. No pop out micro sd slot, no proper moonshell running or anything.

And Supercard dstwo was of course the best, and they no longer make them and are at least $100 now on ebay. It was even capable of DSTWO exclusive apps I think, but there wasn't much developed for it and it drained battery easily.

There was also the 4 in 1 which I think simply added on what Gateway 3ds did, which is now unneccesary.

I'm guessing the reason is that most people prefer to have the whole 3ds setuo where they can do almost all the same things through CFW, but personally I still prefer the orginal phat DS model. Personally I ran into a lot of issues and problems trying to run the TWL stuff on my modded 3ds.

Are there any ways to modify the actual ds firmware? I think there are a bit with FlashMe.

It may just be worth buying a DSTWO on ebay for someone like me. I also see some people selling a "minidstwo" or something but I think that might be a scam.

 

[Jayro]

Is there a particular reason why teams like Supercard no longer exist and people don't make such high end cartridges anymore? I just got the EZ Flash Parallel and it doesn't even work as nicely as my super old Acekard 2i. No pop out micro sd slot, no proper moonshell running or anything.

And Supercard dstwo was of course the best, and they no longer make them and are at least $100 now on ebay. It was even capable of DSTWO exclusive apps I think, but there wasn't much developed for it and it drained battery easily.

There was also the 4 in 1 which I think simply added on what Gateway 3ds did, which is now unneccesary.

I'm guessing the reason is that most people prefer to have the whole 3ds setuo where they can do almost all the same things through CFW, but personally I still prefer the original phat DS model. Personally I ran into a lot of issues and problems trying to run the TWL stuff on my modded 3ds.

Are there any ways to modify the actual ds firmware? I think there are a bit with FlashMe.

It may just be worth buying a DSTWO on ebay for someone like me. I also see some people selling a "minidstwo" or something but I think that might be a scam.

Aside from DS flash carts, plenty of people still make them for GBC and GBA:

Alex over at insideGadgets still makes flash carts for GBA and GBC, but they're tailored for single ROMS at a time, and most of them require a flasher to be used, but some have a micro USB port for drag and drop.

BennVenn makes some of the best MBC3-compatible carts with functioning Real-Time Clocks on them for Pokemon games.

HDR has gerber files on his github in case you wanna order some bare boards from PCBway and build them yourself.

Krikzz over in Ukraine still makes the Everdrives for GBC and GBA as well as other main systems, but not DS sadly. I think Chinese sellers on AliExpress and Taobao have the monopoly on DS flash carts right now, and EZ-Flash makes the Omega (and the Definitive Edition) for GBA.

I think an Ace3DS X off AliExpress is probably your best choice for a good all-around NDS card for Slot-1 on DS.

 

[Technicmaster0]

I think that the DS scene was one of the biggest console scenes during the lifespan of a console. Flashcards were very common. There was a giant market where many people wanted to get cheap cards but there also was a decent amount of people that wanted to have more advanced features to warrant the development and manufacturing costs. DS flashcarts were very common until about the middle of the 3DS' life span.
However, at some point free and easy to install mods für the 3DS came along. Why would people pay for a DS flashcart if they can play all 3DS games for free? Why would you use a DS flashcart for emulation of GBA or SNES if the 3DS has superior emulators in every regard (and a more fitting aspect ratio)? This was more or less the time where the Supercard DSTWO died.

I think that slowly the DS gets retro and popular enough to sell more flashcarts, but you also have to take the whole market into account. Making a completely new DS flashcart is a very expensive task that takes many months of development time to be on a better level then what's currently available. The hardware itself is not the big problem but it's the software: menus like wood have a good design, many features and contain patches for hundreds of games. All of these would have to be developed or acquired somewhere else. And after that you have to compete with the price of the good solutions available at the moment.
All of these costs get even bigger with a more advanced flashcart. I doubt that we will ever see something DSTWO like again on a similar scale.
But that are just my guesses. It's also possible that some teams got raided by the police or something like that.
However, there is old stock of EX4i flashcarts which also had extra power for movie playback and gba emulation (but both don't work with the cards that I got). Apart from that the features of the EX4i are very basic and can't be compared to the DSTWO.

Don't get the minidstwo. It's a rebrand of some other card with no extra features. There is the DS CFW flashme but it doesn't really provide anything in the modern day. The DS itself doesn't have much memory. You can't use it to run ROMs without a flashcart.

 

[Nephiel]

I still keep a M3 DS Real + M3 Perfect Lite in working order, with that combo the Real can run native DS titles, and is also able to use the RAM on the Perfect to run GBA titles natively. Even Dual-Slot Mode works. Haven't seen anything come close to that in features ever since.

 

[Violet23]

You're right, the landscape for high-end DS flash cartridges has changed a lot. Supercard DSTWO and Acekard 2i were amazing, especially for their time, but with CFW becoming popular on the 3DS, the demand for these carts dropped. Most users now opt for modded 3DS systems, which allow them to run almost everything without needing extra hardware.

 

[Deleted member 702243]

it could be argued that dstwo was the best in its time, but these days it's not useful anymore. especially if you dont even need the emulators anymore because of gbarunner/snes emulator if on 3ds, you still have way higher battery drain that holds it back when a r4 clone for a few dollars plays the same games without the battery drain

so regardless of the $100 price tag secondhand it's not worth seeking out, unless you really wanted one for collection purpose (or the nostalgia of using dstwo emulators or something)

though I guess the memory editing on-console is pretty cool, it could be argued that this functionality makes it the best even today. I don't think any other ds flashcarts can do it? but that of course still comes with the drawback of battery drain, when not everyone would want to use that feature. I don't think it can be objectively be considered the best if only some users benefits while the rest suffer. to be the best it would need to be the best for everyone, not just for a niche. so I guess "situationally the best"?

 

[SylverReZ]

Don't get the minidstwo. It's a rebrand of some other card with no extra features.

The others that you can still buy today are clones of clones and vice versa. They all do the same operation -- playing Nintendo DS games and homebrew, but the differences between them is no tomorrow. You don't know what flashcart you're getting, and finding the kernel for the specific cart may be tricky to the novice user without doing research beforehand, as the sellers of these carts like to change the circuit boards around with every revision. I doubt that the companies advertising their carts even manufactured the boards themselves, but rather they get them from a factory in China somewhere.

And before anybody asks, no, there will never be a DSTWO clone unless some deep reverse engineering makes this possible. I have heard of some being the iSmart DS, but this is even more rare in comparison.

 

[Technicmaster0]

The others that you can still buy today are clones of clones and vice versa. They all do the same operation -- playing Nintendo DS games and homebrew, but the differences between them is no tomorrow. You don't know what flashcart you're getting, and finding the kernel for the specific cart may be tricky to the novice user without doing research beforehand, as the sellers of these carts like to change the circuit boards around with every revision. I doubt that the companies advertising their carts even manufactured the boards themselves, but rather they get them from a factory in China somewhere.

And before anybody asks, no, there will never be a DSTWO clone unless some deep reverse engineering makes this possible. I have heard of some being the iSmart DS, but this is even more rare in comparison.

But it makes more sense to get a card that tells you what it is. That reduces problems down the line.
Ex4i cards reappeared. They are no dstwo but they have their own gba emulator and movie player. But they use the wood r4 menu and lack things like rts

 

[Janni9009]

though I guess the memory editing on-console is pretty cool, it could be argued that this functionality makes it the best even today. I don't think any other ds flashcarts can do it?

Actually, raw mem editing is a thing nds-bootstrap/b4ds can just do. And there was the AR Trainer Toolkit (which memdumps blazing fast for a Slot-2 device without even freezing the game). But almost every emu can also do this much more conveniently.

Ex4i cards reappeared. They are no dstwo but they have their own gba emulator and movie player.

Hardly functional. GBA emu runs so bad FZeroMV can't even draw the map consistently.
Movie player stutters with seriously low quality divx/xvid (which are also the only format I could make it successfully play)

But they use the wood r4 menu and lack things like rts

That's a good thing. Actually they're just weird R4iLS carts with the boot file using the OGR4 enc key (then EX4OS, which is also the source of AOS, launches R4iLS enc'd apps), so they run AceWood like any other Ace3DS+/R4iLS clone, so pretty much all they need are AP patches for Pokemon B/W2 (especially now that NAND games are fixed).
RTS also never worked particularly well on flashcarts, DSONE/DSTWO is probably the most stable implementation tho.

 

[Technicmaster0]

That's a good thing

Not in comparison to the DSTWO if you take stuff like RTS into account.

 

[SylverReZ]

But it makes more sense to get a card that tells you what it is. That reduces problems down the line.
Ex4i cards reappeared. They are no dstwo but they have their own gba emulator and movie player. But they use the wood r4 menu and lack things like rts

That's the closest to what we can get, still pretty expensive though.

 

[lauty29]

I still have my acekard 2i & EZ flash 3in1, pretty good combo in my opinion.
Cheap R4 are just good enough for the majority of people.

 

[SylverReZ]

Cheap R4 are just good enough for the majority of people.

Ace3DS X and R4i-SDHC DEMON carts are the only affordable and best cheaper options if you want to only play DS games.

 

[Shadow_The_Hedgehog82]

I think that the DS scene was one of the biggest console scenes during the lifespan of a console. Flashcards were very common. There was a giant market where many people wanted to get cheap cards but there also was a decent amount of people that wanted to have more advanced features to warrant the development and manufacturing costs. DS flashcarts were very common until about the middle of the 3DS' life span.
However, at some point free and easy to install mods für the 3DS came along. Why would people pay for a DS flashcart if they can play all 3DS games for free? Why would you use a DS flashcart for emulation of GBA or SNES if the 3DS has superior emulators in every regard (and a more fitting aspect ratio)? This was more or less the time where the Supercard DSTWO died.

I think that slowly the DS gets retro and popular enough to sell more flashcarts, but you also have to take the whole market into account. Making a completely new DS flashcart is a very expensive task that takes many months of development time to be on a better level then what's currently available. The hardware itself is not the big problem but it's the software: menus like wood have a good design, many features and contain patches for hundreds of games. All of these would have to be developed or acquired somewhere else. And after that you have to compete with the price of the good solutions available at the moment.
All of these costs get even bigger with a more advanced flashcart. I doubt that we will ever see something DSTWO like again on a similar scale.
But that are just my guesses. It's also possible that some teams got raided by the police or something like that.
However, there is old stock of EX4i flashcarts which also had extra power for movie playback and gba emulation (but both don't work with the cards that I got). Apart from that the features of the EX4i are very basic and can't be compared to the DSTWO.

Don't get the minidstwo. It's a rebrand of some other card with no extra features. There is the DS CFW flashme but it doesn't really provide anything in the modern day. The DS itself doesn't have much memory. You can't use it to run ROMs without a flashcart.

hi you said
>, there is old stock of EX4i flashcarts
do you have a link to these?

 

[SylverReZ]

hi you said
>, there is old stock of EX4i flashcarts
do you have a link to these?

Doing a search on AliExpress will show up a few results.

 

[jalaneme]

Doing a search on AliExpress will show up a few results.

i brought some bulk flashcarts from ali express a while back for cheap, GB/GBC, GBA (EZ omega DE) and i have my eye on the EZ flash DS cart i want to get it for the team before DS flashcarts run dry completely, i know it's much easier to run these games with emulators these days but i still don't mind using my OG hardware for the novelty once in a while too especially when there are situations where there is no internet

 

[retrospect]

Ikr.

In part I think the high-end flashcart market has been poisoned by a few things. First, there were the sketchy tactics by some companies, bricking your Nintendo hardware if you used a clone card, or paywalling use of the cart. Sketchy af.

Then there's the homebrewers. A lot of people here won't want to hear what they already know, but many enthusiasts act as activists in telling novices not to use flashcarts and to only use free community firmware. It's the old Linux-toxicity come to consoles. To this date custom firmware is held back by an ideologic boycott of flashcarts that could facilitate brilliant new features.

Lastly there's the risk of your console being banned. The old systems didn't have the online focus that new ones have, and stayign offline prevetns access to eShop-only games and deals.

I'd like to see an aftermarket upgrade for the 3DS series of consoles that assists with retro 3D emulation, similar to how the old Supercard helped with SNES emulation. I don't know if it's viable, but I'm guessing it... might be?

 

[Janni9009]

i brought some bulk flashcarts from ali express a while back for cheap, GB/GBC, GBA (EZ omega DE) and i have my eye on the EZ flash DS cart

Beware, the Parallel is hot garbage.

In part I think the high-end flashcart market has been poisoned by a few things. First, there were the sketchy tactics by some companies, bricking your Nintendo hardware if you used a clone card, or paywalling use of the cart. Sketchy af.

Brickwait (Gateway) was a 3DS thing. Never occurred in DS carts.

but many enthusiasts act as activists in telling novices not to use flashcarts and to only use free community firmware.

Never once seen that argument used in that way, only as a "DSi/3DS CFW is free, just use that", and flashcarts are literally the only option for Phat/Lite.

Lastly there's the risk of your console being banned. The old systems didn't have the online focus that new ones have, and stayign offline prevetns access to eShop-only games and deals.

Yeah, for new systems, but that wasn't the topic. And even then full cart emulation is required since 3DS due to encryption anyway, which is theoretically undetectable. (well other than CFW based carts, but that's once again Brickwait)

I'd like to see an aftermarket upgrade for the 3DS series of consoles that assists with retro 3D emulation, similar to how the old Supercard helped with SNES emulation. I don't know if it's viable, but I'm guessing it... might be?

Not viable. You'd need to cram a CPU capable of running these into a cart, just to abuse your console as a sub-optimal display and input handler with piss-poor battery life, thermal problems and probably protrusion from the slot. (all besides the last point summing up the DSTWO)

 

[SylverReZ]

i brought some bulk flashcarts from ali express a while back for cheap, GB/GBC, GBA (EZ omega DE) and i have my eye on the EZ flash DS cart i want to get it for the team before DS flashcarts run dry completely, i know it's much easier to run these games with emulators these days but i still don't mind using my OG hardware for the novelty once in a while too especially when there are situations where there is no internet

Do not buy the Parallel, it's terrible.

 

[mrgone]

just my comment about the type of flashcarts and the costs of producing them:
1. modern flashcarts with micro sd cards (everdrive, ez-flash, various n/3ds carts) all based on the same mechnism AFAIK:
load rom from sdcard (slow, but cheap) and write to RAM (fast,cheap).
2. classic multirom flashcarts and modern single-rom flashcarts (gbx/bung, nds 3-in-1, insidegadgets, bennvenn, more...) had high quality and speed NOR flash. but that is/was very expensive and writing a rom takes significant time depending on the rom size



i also bought a spare nds flashcart recently on ali, and it only takes non-hc microsd which i do not have anmore