Hacking Which Flash Cart Should I Get?

[d.d.d.]

Thank you so much for the guide. Made an account just to say that.

Going to get a DStwo if I can just find a place with quick shipping.

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[Mr.Cool.]

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Just ordered my card from there, I'm in Canada so could take 2 weeks to get it, sadly.

I do trust I'll get it, thanks to it being the sites #1 sponsor. Helped a lot with my choice of buying it from there.

 

[1111]

Hey, guys! Long time no see.

I'm aware of two solid options for 3DS: R4i Gold and DS TWO.
I don't care that DS TWO costs $40, it's really cheap compared to what I spent on Fire Emblem and Pokemon already but what I HATE about ds two is how it will totally kill my battery and that's worse than paying premium for it.
So I figured out even if one of the next updates will render obsolete R4i Gold, that's fine, at least I have much more playing time on each charge (any good battery grip for 3ds xl yet?)

If my deductions are correct and you would recommend R4i Gold to me based on my long battery life requirement please explain which version I should actually get. It's pretty messy.
For example there are R4i GOLD 3DS RTS for Nintendo 3DS and R4i GOLD 3DS Revolution for Nintendo 3DS
What's the difference? And seems like I get everything like rts and cheats, leaving only emulation available on ds two, which I don't need because I have PSP.


If I'm wrong, please, do tell me. Thank you in advance!

 

[Rydian]

They changed the sticker.

Some shops still have the old sticker-type in stock, so made a separate entry since it's technically a different stock for each.

 

[1111]

Tnx, one riddle less. Rydian, I read about a dozen topics on battery raping by dstwo. What I'm losing by choosing r4igold over dstwo? Is it only emulation and update support?
How long time r4igold team support this exact card? I mean, how long people who bought r4igold receiving their updates compared to 2years plus of dstwo users. Or r4igold is one of those cards with many revisions and people buy new revisions every few months?

 

[Rydian]

Tnx, one riddle less. Rydian, I read about a dozen topics on battery raping by dstwo.

A lot of it is people new to flash carts and DS stuff to begin with who don't know that the DS doesn't have a sleep mode, so if a DS-mode cart is in any DS model and you close the lid, it just shuts the screens off and tells the game to pause. It still powers everything but the screens, including the cart. I've closed my DSi with my Pokemon SoulSilver cart in it, fallen asleep, woke up, opened it to find it in the red. Since the DSTwo drains a bit more battery than normal carts, it's much more noticeable in "sleep" mode, though flash carts in general have varying power drains.

http://gbatemp.net/threads/the-ultimate-ds-battery-test-thread-in-the-world.289020/
The DSTwo's battery drain is not noticeably larger than other flash carts in normal use.

Now if you're talking about actually using the DSTwo's extra CPU in emulation, yes THAT is a big battery drain for obvious reasons.

What I'm losing by choosing r4igold over dstwo? Is it only emulation and update support?

The emulation, the ability to update itself even on a DSi/3DS that's already blocked it (you need a second DS to get past that for all the other carts), real-time cheat modification and text reading in-game, and yes upgradability in general. The DSTwo is the ONLY cart to have NEVER needed a new model to bypass an update.

How long time r4igold team support this exact card? I mean, how long people who bought r4igold receiving their updates compared to 2years plus of dstwo users. Or r4igold is one of those cards with many revisions and people buy new revisions every few months?

Lots of teams purposely put out carts with limited space or refuse to put out updates, and yeah you saw they put out new models every few months. The r4ids.cn team doesn't do that on purpose and their models are usually supported for like a year, but since they use the basic style of updates like everybody else (except the DSTwo), their models do eventually stop. Like the review sample they sent me stopped updating at 4.4.x.

 

[1111]

The DSTwo's battery drain is not noticeably larger than other flash carts in normal use.

For price of one DSTwo one could buy almost 3 r4igolds after each one gets blocked but it's a hassle. I wonder if one could open DSTwo and rip out extra CPU
I'm all for long playing hours, no less than 6 hours if possible. Turning off console or taking out flashcart will drive me crazy. I never took out EDGE or M3simply on my dslites and they died in sleeping mode but it would happen if I left them overnight.
Decisions, decisions. I want really DStwo and tests in your link show great results but I dunno.

Thank you for taking your time to answer my questions, you always do so much work to help people out.

 

[Rydian]

As far as the 3DS goes, Nintendo's going to continue to support and update it for a while, which is why looking to the future is so heavily is pushed here. You could always get an R4i Gold, not update your 3DS, and be fine with DS stuff forever... but new 3DS games include updates that they require you to accept before the game plays, so you might as well be using a DSi or DS Lite at that point.

And heh, thanks.

 

[1111]

No, really... You are awesome. No homo. I will get DStwo and if it will kill my battery in DS mode faster than in 4 hours I will take a hammer to it and upload video of such a barbaric but deeply satisfying bloody act on youtube.
Sorry for my horrible English, I'm Russian and I'm still living in that cold bear infested vodka drown monolinguistic country.

 

[Rydian]

If you're careful about updates though, the R4i Gold will last a while... it's just shown already at least one or twice that, like other carts, the older update style it uses is not foolproof and will stop eventually.

 

[1111]

Whaaatt. I almost made up my mind, cruel Fox! To cope with stress I ordered Ocarina of Time
New thought: if dstwo has rts, maybe I can save game progress, turn off the console, turn it on again and load save real fast or just get out of ds mode real fast?
This drives me crazy...

 

[Rydian]

Heh, not a fox, more generic canine.

Also the R4i Gold has RTS now (wood, the OS, added it a few versions ago though it's still in testing), but it works from within the flash cart itself (like most flash cart features except the DSTwo's updating), meaning you need to start up the flash cart in order to get to the point where you can load a game, which means you'd need to not have that flash cart blocked in the first place.

The DSTwo's updatability is the only thing that actually works without the cart being booted first, which is partially why it's been able to bypass all the blocks. This is why the CPU is required, the DSTwo has it's own CPU and RAM so that it can function without relying on the 3DS to start it up. None of the other flash carts that still get support do this, which is why there's a big price difference (and why there's a battery drain when the DSTwo actually has to clock up and use those features for stuff like SNES emulation).

You could always order the R4i Gold from some place like zhuzhuchina.com that sells it right out of China without the box for $10.25.
www.zhuzhuchina.com/store/promo_dsi_r4i_gold_slot-1__www_r4ids_cn__3ds_4_5_compatible_wood_rev_c_rts_max_1_piece.html
Shipping from China is ass-slow, but it's so cheap you could get this, and then if it does get blocked later decide yourself if it's worth the update to the DSTwo or not depending on how much time it takes Nintendo this time.

 

[Young London]

Dumb question here (I'm new to all of this), but if I have a phat DS, an original R4 would be all I'd need to run DS games without any hitches or problems, right?
I used to have this piece of junk DS Linker that'd freeze all of the time (especially with newer titles), and I'd like something that'd actually work perfectly with all games (both older and newer).

 

[Rydian]

Dumb question here (I'm new to all of this), but if I have a phat DS, an original R4 would be all I'd need to run DS games without any hitches or problems, right?
I used to have this piece of junk DS Linker that'd freeze all of the time (especially with newer titles), and I'd like something that'd actually work perfectly with all games (both older and newer).

Yes, though as you can see from the chart you'd be limited to 2GB of space.

 

[Young London]

Rats, 2gb won't be enough (my shoddy DS Linker had 2gb in it, was hoping to get more with this one).
So, I guess I'm looking at either the R4 Gold or Acekard 2.1.

Ok, last (hopefully) dumb question. Looking at the sites you've got linked in the OP for both of those carts, they've got a ton of sites listed under resellers. With how common knockoffs seem to be, are there any sites I should avoid outright? Or is it a crapshoot regardless of where I order from?

 

[Rydian]

Sites rarely send you clones. Instead most people just don't pay any attention and end up ordering a clone directly. Like they see "R4i Gold Pro EU" and assume it's the same thing, when it's a clone. That's why looking at the site on the box/sticker is most important when ordering.

 

[Young London]

Oh, ok, that makes sense. I was figuring the knockoffs would be mislabeled as the official/actual product.

Thanks for the very quick and helpful answers!

 

[Young London]

Ok, I've got another dumb question. I've been browsing through sites, and I came across this: http://www.realhotstuff.hk/R4i-SDHC-v145_p_22.html
I know it isn't on the chart in the OP, but if I'm only planning on using it on the phat ds and not a 3DS. What I mean is, isn't that the appeal of the ones the OP; that they're still being updated for 3DS/DSi? Unless I'm misunderstanding, older/nonupdated carts would still work fine for the phat ds, right, just not for on the newer (3DS/DSi) models, or is there something I'm missing?

 

[Rydian]

Ok, I've got another dumb question. I've been browsing through sites, and I came across this: http://www.realhotstuff.hk/R4i-SDHC-v145_p_22.html
I know it isn't on the chart in the OP, but if I'm only planning on using it on the phat ds and not a 3DS. What I mean is, isn't that the appeal of the ones the OP; that they're still being updated for 3DS/DSi? Unless I'm misunderstanding, older/nonupdated carts would still work fine for the phat ds, right, just not for on the newer (3DS/DSi) models, or is there something I'm missing?

Updates are for game compatibility too.

Read lower in the first post for exactly why we do not suggest "R4 SDHC" and the like carts.

 

[Young London]

I saw this bit where you mentioned it, the

Any "R4i", "R4 SDHC", or anything else like that was not made by them (and a large majority of them are badly-supported carts). These carts will often give two or three updates, then drop off the face of the planet.

, but you also have a R4i cart mentioned on the chart (the Gold/DSN). Is that one somehow different from other R4i's?