Hacking Should I update my 3DS & get rid of Gateway?

[fvdsa]

So here's the story: I have a regular 3DS with ambassador, gateway and a capture card installed. I also have a Japanese New 3DS LL with gateway and a capture card (I also have a 9.0 Australian N3DSLL but no capture card, a 3DSXL <4.5 w/ Gateway, and a couple other 3DS's w/ non-Gateway firmware...). I want to stream/record gameplay footage of online Pokemon battles/trades, and for this reason I'm considering getting rid of Gateway on the regular ambassador 3DS so I can be on the most updated firmware.

I'm kind of a noob at this stuff, but I've heard you don't need to be on the latest firmware to go online and trade as long as you have the cia for the patches? I also don't want to get banned, and that's my main concern. I'm only going to be home for a couple months, so with my limited time I think I might just be better off getting rid of Gateway on one of my capture-card 3DS's for the convenience of using online services without risk of getting banned, especially considering I already have my Japanese N3DS w/ gateway and a capture card installed. So I have nothing to lose, right...? Thoughts?

 

[shinyquagsire23]

If it's an old 3DS you should be able to update to the latest firmware on emuNAND (given the latest launcher.dat from Gateway). Only N3DS is restricted to 9.5.

 

[marksteele]

mmm you seem tech savvy enough so why not install a hardmod on the ambassador and THEN upgrade it. That way if you change your mind it's easy enough to downgrade it again

edit: you should be fine updating it and using cia files to play online

 

[keven3477]

theres also spoofing firmware to acces e-shop on sysnand to download the software update for pokemon which lets you go online

 

[fvdsa]

If it's an old 3DS you should be able to update to the latest firmware on emuNAND (given the latest launcher.dat from Gateway). Only N3DS is restricted to 9.5.

Oh wow, I had no idea I could update to the latest emuNAND, only because when I tried doing it for my N3DS I kept getting the black screen and had to re-format emunand. Alright, I'm going to try updating my old 3DS emunand (to 9.7 i believe?) *crosses fingers*

edit: you should be fine updating it and using cia files to play online

It's funny, I was so certain I'd de-Gateway but I think it might just be better for me to extract the files from my Pokemon cartridges (this is what I presume what you would call "using a private header"?) and using the .cia patches to update my roms in the event that emunand isn't supported. I think as long as I know I won't be getting banned I'll feel more secure about keeping Gateway.

What exactly is "hardmodding"? Never heard about this, but it does seem like something I might be interested in doing, especially if it can allow me to downgrade, something I didn't think was possible.

theres also spoofing firmware to acces e-shop on sysnand to download the software update for pokemon which lets you go online

Forgive me, but could you elaborate or direct me to a thread about spoofing? I keep hearing people talk about spoofing, but this word always confused me

 

[nyder]

I wouldn't get rid of the gateway.

Too soon. (pardon the pun). My reasons for it, you do NOT know what the future holds, and you might need the gateway because Nintendo might change shit up so the Pasta doesn't work with new titles. Maybe they won't, but you never know.

I suggest to wait it out a bit, like I have, which is why I still have my Cubic Ninja, my OOT, and my Gateway. Unless you are okay with the idea that maybe you will never be able to play any new games on it if something changes.

 

[Typhin]

Oh wow, I had no idea I could update to the latest emuNAND, only because when I tried doing it for my N3DS I kept getting the black screen and had to re-format emunand. Alright, I'm going to try updating my old 3DS emunand (to 9.7 i believe?) *crosses fingers*

The New 3DS is still limited to 9.5 in emuNand, but apparently the Old 3DS will have no problems with any future firmware, if I'm reading Gateway's news posts correctly. Might still take a few days or so after a new version comes out for the launcher to be updated, but they made it sound like it wouldn't be a big issue.

It's funny, I was so certain I'd de-Gateway but I think it might just be better for me to extract the files from my Pokemon cartridges (this is what I presume what you would call "using a private header"?) and using the .cia patches to update my roms in the event that emunand isn't supported. I think as long as I know I won't be getting banned I'll feel more secure about keeping Gateway.

Any retail card can be used to obtain a private header. The part you're interested in is the unique Card ID that can then be injected into any .3ds/.3dz file. Since the ID came from a card you own, nobody else will have the same ID, so you won't be banned. And .cia versions of the game updates will keep you covered in case you can't update your emuNand at the time.

What exactly is "hardmodding"? Never heard about this, but it does seem like something I might be interested in doing, especially if it can allow me to downgrade, something I didn't think was possible.

The hardmod in question is a way to access your system's NAND memory. You can restore a backup you've made previously, but that's about it. You cannot install a backup made from another console. But you can restore to a known exploitable version, just in case something does happen in the future. You can make a backup with the Gateway Launcher, if you haven't already. If the system is still able to boot and reach the Launcher, you can also use it to restore a backup. The hardmod is handy if you can't restore it using Gateway (either because it's updated too much, or because something bad happened and bricked the system).

Forgive me, but could you elaborate or direct me to a thread about spoofing? I keep hearing people talk about spoofing, but this word always confused me

https://gbatemp.net/threads/how-to-...eshop-and-more-on-new-3ds-and-old-3ds.386591/ seems to be the main thread on the subject. The term "spoof" means to imitate something, in this case you'd pretend to be on the latest version so the eShop won't kick you out. I haven't looked into this myself (I hardly ever use the eShop anymore, and I've got an Old 3DS, so I can use the latest version of emuNand and access it without spoofing), so I don't have much more information than that, sorry.

Overall, I would recommend keeping the Gateway, as long as you can still use it. As CFWs like Pasta continue to be developed, the importance of a Gateway may decrease, but currently it provides a lot of useful features.

 

[keven3477]

Forgive me, but could you elaborate or direct me to a thread about spoofing? I keep hearing people talk about spoofing, but this word always confused me

http://gbatemp.net/threads/how-to-s...eshop-and-more-on-new-3ds-and-old-3ds.386591/

however it only works on 9.0 - 9.2 systems and N3ds requires cubic ninja (or at least ntr cfw acces)

spoofing by the way is when a software like the e-shop chanell believes youre 3ds is on a certain firmware like the latest update version letting you continue accesing the software when it originaly asks you to update

 

[fvdsa]

Hm.. well I just updated emuNAND on my old 3DS and i'm getting the same black screen I got when I updated my N3DS emuNAND. So, I guess emuNAND 9.7 is not supported yet? I'm going to have to re-format emuNAND now... The more stuff like this happens, the more inclined I am to just say screw it and update lol, especially considering I already have Gateway on other devices. I guess at the end of the day, I have to ask myself how much do I value a 3DS w/ ambassador and gateway together over the convenience of just having a regular updated 3DS w/ ambassador. I also don't want to lose any of my ambassador/downloaded stuff from my 3DS if i re-format. So, if this gets too complicated for me, then I think I might cave and update sysNAND

 

[VerseHell]

Did you update your launcher.dat to 3.2.1?

 

[fvdsa]

Haha, thanks! Totally went over my head that I wasn't using the most recent Gateway. Just got 3.2.1 working, about to update emuNAND again *crosses fingers*. Then I gotta start looking into this private header business. Is there any difference between using a private header and doing the "Creating Game Backups" section of the Gateway User Manual? I was just going to backup my cartridge, and then play it lol. But based on what i'm hearing about private headers it seems i need to use this Gateway ROM Patcher and put some "code" file in my SD card?

 

[Typhin]

Haha, thanks! Totally went over my head that I wasn't using the most recent Gateway. Just got 3.2.1 working, about to update emuNAND again *crosses fingers*. Then I gotta start looking into this private header business. Is there any difference between using a private header and doing the "Creating Game Backups" section of the Gateway User Manual? I was just going to backup my cartridge, and then play it lol. But based on what i'm hearing about private headers it seems i need to use this Gateway ROM Patcher and put some "code" file in my SD card?

If you're creating a backup of your own retail card, then it already has a unique Card ID, and you're good to go. You can extract that header to use in other ROMs if you like, ones that don't have a unique Card ID in them. Since it came from your private collection, it's called a private header, and since only you have access to it, that ID will only be online with one system at a time (unless you have two Gateways and use the same ID on games running on both at the same time... Don't do that.) and you won't be risking a ban.

 

[fvdsa]

If you're creating a backup of your own retail card, then it already has a unique Card ID, and you're good to go. You can extract that header to use in other ROMs if you like, ones that don't have a unique Card ID in them. Since it came from your private collection, it's called a private header, and since only you have access to it, that ID will only be online with one system at a time (unless you have two Gateways and use the same ID on games running on both at the same time... Don't do that.) and you won't be risking a ban.

Ohh okay, thank you!! I guess the last thing I really want to know is whether I should change the .3ds extension from my private extracted ROMs to a .3dz, because I've heard you need to do that in order to play online? But then Sky3DS users I've heard want the .3ds extension, so that leaves me kind of confused.

 

[nccom]

Don't sell gateway, atm is much better than cfw stuff. And if nintendo will try to block pirates in future firmwares - I would bet my money on gateway and not on random guys using random patches from random pastebins

 

[Typhin]

Ohh okay, thank you!! I guess the last thing I really want to know is whether I should change the .3ds extension from my private extracted ROMs to a .3dz, because I've heard you need to do that in order to play online? But then Sky3DS users I've heard want the .3ds extension, so that leaves me kind of confused.

I believe that, as a safety precaution, the Gateway will block attempts to go online if the file ends in .3ds, and only allow it if the extension is .3dz. If that's the case, it's to keep you from getting accidentally banned, by forcing you to manually enable online capabilities. The rom patcher includes an option to change the extension for you, as well.

 

[fvdsa]

Okay cool. It turns out all I really had to do was change the s to a z in the file extension itself and I could still play the roms just fine (wasn't sure if I had to use the gateway rom patcher to do this, turns out I dont). No idea if there's a benefit to doing that to all my roms, but I did it anyway seeing as there's no apparent harm to changing all .3ds files to .3dz. I've been able to update all my games via eshop patches and access the eshop, but I have yet to test out going online on one of my games. Will probably try doing it tonight or tomorrow *crosses fingers once again* if everything works out, I likely won't be getting rid of Gateway after all.

Btw I didnt know Majora's mask has a software update, does that mean there's online play or is online functionality unrelated to software patches? I was pretty sure someone on here said MM doesn't have any online capabilities (the guy said that to make the point that you can't get banned by playing MM). I haven't played the game yet, but I guess I'll find out.