Hacking The REAL benefits to using ROM's as CIA's

[prototech]

I have been trying to figure out why converting a 3DS ROM to a CIA would be beneficial, and I just cant figure it out. Someone mentioned that you wouldn't need to carry around the Gateway card since they are all installed to the main SD, but that doesn't seem to be an issue for me since I don't plan on carrying any retail cards so the Gateway will probably stay in my 3DS. Also, you need to Gateway card to get into emuNAND, so if the 3DS ever shut off or died and you didn't have the Gateway with you, you could not play those games. Then there's installing the CIA onto sysNAND which STILL doesn't make sense to me. Not only is that far more risky, but installing game patches would be more cumbersome with little gain. Finally, from what I hear, not all games will work online as a CIA, so you may still end up having some games on the Gateway. Am I missing something here?

 

[shinyquagsire23]

You can install it as a separate channel and have the 3DS handle all the saving stuff. That's it.

 

[prototech]

I like the ability to easily back up my save...This all just seems like much more work than it's worth.

 

[guitarheroknight]

"WHY CIA?

There are a FEW good reasons why to use CIA games on your EmuNAND.

-You can put your favorite games directly on the system without having to fumble through a multi-rom menu. This is ESPECIALLY beneficial if you have a big microSD card(i.e. 32GB and higher).
-You can double your rom space using the cards you already have. For example, I have a 64GB microSD card in my Gateway and a 64GB EmuNAND for the games I play the most.
-You can go online WITHOUT having to worry about renaming the 3DS rom file, injecting headers, and fumbling around. Just install and go.
-You can organize games into different folders. I have the 3DSWare in one folder and Full Games in another. Easier to find which you want to play."

EDIT: You can also use a GW card on multiple 3DS systems if youre using emunand.

Also, you dont have to exit the game for it to save properly - just press save and youre done.

 

[DeadPixelMan]

I have been trying to figure out why converting a 3DS ROM to a CIA would be beneficial, and I just cant figure it out. Someone mentioned that you wouldn't need to carry around the Gateway card since they are all installed to the main SD, but that doesn't seem to be an issue for me since I don't plan on carrying any retail cards so the Gateway will probably stay in my 3DS. Also, you need to Gateway card to get into emuNAND, so if the 3DS ever shut off or died and you didn't have the Gateway with you, you could not play those games. Then there's installing the CIA onto sysNAND which STILL doesn't make sense to me. Not only is that far more risky, but installing game patches would be more cumbersome with little gain. Finally, from what I hear, not all games will work online as a CIA, so you may still end up having some games on the Gateway. Am I missing something here?

You are missing everything! ..... Why do people use there new $200 system to play nes games ect....because they can. It's as simple as that some people want to install them as cia's because it's possible. You don't want to do it then don't do it.

 

[Presentum]

I have 2 3DS and to play local with my friends i use a console with cia and the other with the gateway, that way we can play both of us

 

[satel]

you should really put a question mark on the title.. ?

 

[Celebrimbor360]

You are missing everything! ..... Why do people use there new $200 system to play nes games ect....because they can. It's as simple as that some people want to install them as cia's because it's possible. You don't want to do it then don't do it.

This is not really a good argument... CIA and 3DS are both possible, people choose one over another for a reason. It's possible to take pictures on 3DS but no one does because pic quality is crap comparing to any phone.

 

[prototech]

"WHY CIA?

There are a FEW good reasons why to use CIA games on your EmuNAND.

-You can put your favorite games directly on the system without having to fumble through a multi-rom menu. This is ESPECIALLY beneficial if you have a big microSD card(i.e. 32GB and higher).
-You can double your rom space using the cards you already have. For example, I have a 64GB microSD card in my Gateway and a 64GB EmuNAND for the games I play the most.
-You can go online WITHOUT having to worry about renaming the 3DS rom file, injecting headers, and fumbling around. Just install and go.
-You can organize games into different folders. I have the 3DSWare in one folder and Full Games in another. Easier to find which you want to play."

EDIT: You can also use a GW card on multiple 3DS systems if youre using emunand.

Also, you dont have to exit the game for it to save properly - just press save and youre done.

This was helpful. I have about 11 games on the Gateway right now so navigating the menu is not a hassle, but I do see how it would get cumbersome with a lot of games. I rip most of my games so the online headers are not an issue, and I successfully injected a couple headers from my retail carts, but otherwise I see your point.

You are missing everything! ..... Why do people use there new $200 system to play nes games ect....because they can. It's as simple as that some people want to install them as cia's because it's possible. You don't want to do it then don't do it.

This, however, was not helpful. There are obvious reasons to this so putting "because they can" is pretty pointless unless that's TRULY the reason, which it's not.

you should really put a question mark on the title.. ?

I tried to edit the title but it doesn't look like I can. =/

I still can't decide if I want to fumble around with this. I guess my biggest fear is that I'll be messing around with this and lose my game saves through all this. I put 15 hours into Alpha Sapphire and lost it when I ripped it to my Gateway, and I don't feel like going through that again. I'll probably mess around with converting a couple ROM's sooner than later so I can decide on what I want to do. I currently have a 32GB SD for my 3DS, Gateway, and R4 card so storage isn't much of an issue, though I will feel a little silly if I don't use ANY of that space on the Gateway. Having a few games as a CIA and then a few on the Gateway also seems silly, but maybe that's just my OCD kicking in.

 

[weeandykidd]

Installing CIAs isnt risky, I have a ton of them installed (most are legit). No issues http://m.imgur.com/a/wOe8N

 

[prototech]

Installing CIAs isnt risky, I have a ton of them installed (most are legit). No issues http://m.imgur.com/a/wOe8N

Are those on your sysNAND or emuNAND?

 

[weeandykidd]

Are those on your sysNAND or emuNAND?

Sysnand, I dont use emunand

Edit:
I like CIAs cos they blend in with my legit eshop games, I don't need to worry about save issues & I don't need a second SD Card for my Gateway. The only real downside is how long they take to install but that's a one time thing.

 

[guitarheroknight]

Personally I wouldnt suggest installing .cia files on their sysnand. The best way to install them is on emunand. If anything goes wrong you just format your emunand partition and youre good to go. Its much more of a hassle if you screw something up on sysnand than on emunand. The only people who should install .cia files on their sysnands are the ones who got a HW mod.

 

[prototech]

Personally I wouldnt suggest installing .cia files on their sysnand. The best way to install them is on emunand. If anything goes wrong you just format your emunand partition and youre good to go. Its much more of a hassle if you screw something up on sysnand than on emunand. The only people who should install .cia files on their sysnands are the ones who got a HW mod.

This is what I've heard, and it's what I'm sticking with. I love the security net of the emuNAND. I've had my fair share of risky console hacks (oh, how I miss the PSP), and these days I'd much rather be on the safe side.

 

[Phantom_User]

"WHY CIA?

There are a FEW good reasons why to use CIA games on your EmuNAND.

-You can put your favorite games directly on the system without having to fumble through a multi-rom menu. This is ESPECIALLY beneficial if you have a big microSD card(i.e. 32GB and higher).
-You can double your rom space using the cards you already have. For example, I have a 64GB microSD card in my Gateway and a 64GB EmuNAND for the games I play the most.
-You can go online WITHOUT having to worry about renaming the 3DS rom file, injecting headers, and fumbling around. Just install and go.
-You can organize games into different folders. I have the 3DSWare in one folder and Full Games in another. Easier to find which you want to play."

EDIT: You can also use a GW card on multiple 3DS systems if youre using emunand.

Also, you dont have to exit the game for it to save properly - just press save and youre done.

Don't forget an extended battery life. GW soaks a lot of juice, even by just being slotted in! It's amazing lol. Worth it anyways. But yeah, CIAs are VERY convenient. Love' em

 

[prototech]

Don't forget an extended battery life. GW soaks a lot of juice, even by just being slotted in! It's amazing lol. Worth it anyways. But yeah, CIAs are VERY convenient. Love' em

Really? I did not know about the battery life. Hm. So if I convert to CIA's and use those but leave my Gateway in my console (in case I need to rerun the exploit) will it still drain battery? Or not since I'm not reading from the card?

 

[gamesquest1]

well really it depends on the person....i cba messing about converting to cia, and really i like to be able to switch games about while its in use (although im testing rom hacks so that wouldnt really be an issue for most people),
advantages of cia
1) you can decrypt your saves and potentially use save editors, or hack them yourself(not may editors about, and the main one for pokemon works with .3ds roms anyway
2) you dont have to set up header (again hardly a big advantage....like 30 seconds the first time you use a game and the its done)
3) it looks "pretty" (if your into that kind of thing)
4) can be quicker selecting games as they can be sorted into folders etc
5) true real time saving, (i.e if you pulled the battery out after saving in game it will of saved with cia installed games, where as you always have to make sure you either power down properly or close the game for .3ds saves to be saved properly, while this isn't an issue 99% of the time, if the console crashes and you haven't exited out of the game for a good while with a .3ds rom, save loss may be pretty bad)
Advantages of .3ds/.3dz
1) they are much easier to get
2) they are playing as intended and show up to the system as a cart(lets just say theoretically the ban hammer ever does get swung....playing cia files of games never released on eshop would be pretty obvious)
3) you dont have to worry about data managment ever going all terminator on your entire setup
4) there is no need to install every game you want to play.....the installation is pretty slow, so the time spent setting up a header for online games is lost in installing them as cia anyway)
5) as easy as copying a bunch of files to backup all your saves....no need for running SDF....which means you can switch between saves etc much quicker, and its easier to get hold of shared saves as 99% of them are in .sav format rather than extracted for SDF
6) you can share the gateway card between consoles without having to install games onto each console you use
7) using a .3ds file is as easy as copying it and playing, whereas if you cant find a .cia file of a game, you would need to spend a bunch of time dumping xorpads, extracting the game and repacking

basically it all depends on how important you rate all those features in their level of importance to you

 

[Tomorrow's Joe]

Also, you dont have to exit the game for it to save properly - just press save and youre done.

Wasn't that bug fixed after 2.0b1? I often turn off after saving and my games save fine.

 

[gamesquest1]

Wasn't that bug fixed after 2.0b1? I often turn off after saving and my games save fine.

its sort of fixed.....powering off, exiting the game and afaik battery going flat all transfer the save.....but its still not saved when you save in game for .3ds roms, if you where to pull the battery out, or pop the card out, it won't transfer the latest save to the SD card and it will revert back to the save you had exited out on last

 

[Phantom_User]

Really? I did not know about the battery life. Hm. So if I convert to CIA's and use those but leave my Gateway in my console (in case I need to rerun the exploit) will it still drain battery? Or not since I'm not reading from the card?

Still drain battery if you leave it in.