Hacking Questions about using a cart

[Seroster]

Hello everyone, I've decided I want a 3ds XL for Christmas and I'm currently trying to decide if I want to invest in a flash cart as well. I'm fully aware it will not play 3DS ROMS, not real concerned about that. What I'm trying to figure out is a few things:

1.) My understanding is that in addition to not playing roms, you cannot use cheat code/hacks with any currently existing carts or the Action Replay. Is this correct?

2.) I've never had a modded console of any kind, anyone got a list of things I need to know to get started? Very computer and technology savvy, just not real familiar with ins and outs of what I need to know to use this type of thing.

3.) In the vein of the 2nd point, do I need to disable and/or remove the cart at certain points? (IE connecting to wi-fi, downloading Nin. Network games, etc?) If not, will it function identically to having a plain SDHC card in that slot for all intents & purposes when doing such things?

4.) I have read in several places not to DL the new firmware for the console until I have updated my flash cart. This leads me to the questions, do you update the flash cart while it's in the console or do you update it while the micro card is connected to your computer? Not real clear on how this business works.

Thanks for any feedback you guys can give me, I MOSTLY want a cart to use hack codes w/, and secondarily to manage games I own into one source so I don't have to hunt down the individual cartridges. As such, I'm not sure what I need to be considering when going after one of these.

 

[FAST6191]

Right now the main choice of flash cart for you is probably the supercard DSTwo as most other teams have vanished (this time last year was a different matter), that is OK as the DSTwo is a nice cart even if it is a bit pricier than some might like.

1) You can use (and if you have a DSTwo then find on hardware even if emulators are a better bet) codes on DS games. Codes on 3ds games would require 3ds homebrew which does not exist at this point.

2) You have asked most of the questions really and modern flash carts make most of the rest painless; you mostly download games and homebrew and copy them to the cart maybe pausing for a few seconds to copy some data for the homebrew to use (video, pictures, ROMs for emulators.....). To that end you can put off learning stuff until you want to try your hand at hacking games (for a somewhat gentle introduction although it suffered a bit in the recent forum move it should be pretty readable- http://gbatemp.net/threads/gbatemp-thoughts-and-links-10-feb-2012.320568/#post-4100173 )

3) There are certain hoops various consoles have to jump through vis a vis updates and such but not really for the 3ds at this point.

4) Varies between carts. The DSTwo supports updating via software update (the suggested method*) which pretty much runs like any other piece of homebrew but it should have also added the ability to soft update by reading from the microSD it holds.
*I would say hence people telling you not to update the 3ds first or have a DS/DSlite handy but the other reason would be Nintendo tends to block flash carts so you are left without a cart if you do.

 

[FAST6191]

accidental double post.

 

[Rydian]

1 - False, all modern flash carts support cheats, and their software often comes with a cheat database even (and you can of course swap it out for a newer one or edit it on the PC).

2 - http://gbatemp.net/topic/278137-dsdsi3ds-hacking-faq/
That should answer all the questions.

3 - No.

4 - http://gbatemp.net/topic/315784-flash-carts-and-dsi3ds-updates/
This is explains why you need to update the cart first. You DO need to update the cart while it's in the DSi/3DS (the update gets applied to the cart itself, not the MicroSD), which is why you should never update the DSi/3DS first. If you do, it'll stop running the cart, which means you can't update the cart.

 

[Seroster]

OK so after I got to thinking about this more, I realized I had another question.

Does a flash cart go in the GAME cartridge slot or the memory/SD card slot? BC when I was reading all this I was thinking it was going to take the place of the SD card (probably a bad assumption, just thought cause it had the SD card that's what that was), but reading further it sounds like it goes in the cartridge slot? Is that right? Thanks.

 

[Rydian]

Flash carts go into the game cart slot, yes. They literally look just like normal game carts, but with a MicroSD slot on them.

There's no current way to use the SD slot with flash carts.

 

[Another World]

flash kits mimic ds carts to a point, allowing them to boot on the system, reply with specific cart commands, etc. they go directly into the slots. all slot-1 kits use msd cards, some older slot-2 kits use CF/miniSD.

read some reviews to get a better idea of what you are getting into. they will help to answer many of your early questions.

-another world

 

[Janthran]

OK so after I got to thinking about this more, I realized I had another question.

Does a flash cart go in the GAME cartridge slot or the memory/SD card slot? BC when I was reading all this I was thinking it was going to take the place of the SD card (probably a bad assumption, just thought cause it had the SD card that's what that was), but reading further it sounds like it goes in the cartridge slot? Is that right? Thanks.

It goes in Slot1. Most flashcarts are the same shape as a DS game cartridge.