Hacking Bought Gateway long time ago, need to know how to proceed.

[MindlessManiac]

Hi All,

I have asked this in the Noob Thread, but didnt' seem to get an response.
I also tried to find a thread I saw earlier where someone was going through the same thing I was,
but couldn't find it.

I hope someone can help.

I have bought an Original Gateway Flashcard (with White and Blue card) way back then without realizing that it didn't work with the New 3DS XL.

So I left it for a while, and went and bought some retail games like Smash Bros. Etc

I figured its been a while now and I do see Gateway now can be used for the N3DS XL,
but I am having trouble trying to wrap my head around everything. It all seems a bit confusing, so let me state what I want to accomplish with my N3DS.

What I want to do with my N3DS:
- Play Retail games that I bought (like Pokemon X Y or upcoming Sun / moon, mario kart. Etc and probably games that would come with an update to the N3DS firmware)
- Play "backup" Games, if you know what I mean
- Optional: Ability to Play Online Multiplayer or access online functions.
- Optional: Cheat in some games, mostly single player

I have a N3DS XL with version 9.2.0-20E,
it keeps telling me to update but I just ignored it.

So here are my following questions:
1.) How do I install Gateway onto the system?
Do I need to buy orcarina or cubic ninja? Is there a safe step to step guide?

b.) Furthermore, how to install emunand?

2.) Would buying a Sky3ds+ be easier to accomplish what I want to do as stated above?

3.) Should I update? I heard not to update and should downgrade instead?

4.) What is the purpose of CFW? If installed, is that mean I can never go back?
Meaning If Nintendo had new features.etc that it cannot be used until the developer of the CFW updates it. I'm assuming its similar to installing a Custom Rom on a Android phone or Rooting/Jailbreak.

Thanks for your help!!!

 

[nechigawara]

I will only answer in CFW part since I never use GW.

4.) What is the purpose of CFW? If installed, is that mean I can never go back?
Meaning If Nintendo had new features.etc that it cannot be used until the developer of the CFW updates it. I'm assuming its similar to installing a Custom Rom on a Android phone or Rooting/Jailbreak.

CFW is using to give 3DS some options such as homebrew cia installing (included installing pirate cia game), region bypass, etc.
Although they call themselves CFW, mostly all of them are application that run over Normal FW to give a console those options, not the true FW.
Most of them need an exploit to run and can freely uninstall if you want.
About Updating, it's depend on an exploit you use to run those CFW. But mostly exploit will get blocked by next update patch.
So you can't update if you want to keep CFW to run. Except A9LH exploit with firm protection, which prevent an exploit from removing by an update.

Right now, most people are using A9LH + CFW with firm protection, because it allow the user to be able to update to lastest firmware without losing the hack.

 

[NightScript]

1.) How do I install Gateway onto the system?
Do I need to buy orcarina or cubic ninja? Is there a safe step to step guide?

You don't.

But it might be: Get A9LH V1 and get the arm9loaderhax.bin file they made.

b.) Furthermore, how to install emunand?

There is a new entrypoint called A9LH. It allowes CFW to boot directly when your 3DS boots up.

2.) Would buying a Sky3ds+ be easier to accomplish what I want to do as stated above?

Sorry. It won't have cheats. But the rest should be doable.

3.) Should I update? I heard not to update and should downgrade instead?

Stay where you are.

4.) What is the purpose of CFW? If installed, is that mean I can never go back?
Meaning If Nintendo had new features.etc that it cannot be used until the developer of the CFW updates it. I'm assuming its similar to installing a Custom Rom on a Android phone or Rooting/Jailbreak.

No. It'll easily support it.

Also, please stop using gateway & MSET and start using A9LH and Luma. Its outdated and horrible.

 

[CreAtor135]

Well I'll tell you what I believe is the best initiative.

Since you're on vanilla 9.2, I'd recommend following this guide.

https://github.com/plailect/guide/wiki

It's really user friendly and safe to go through. Afterward, you should follow this guide to get your Gateway working.

https://gbatemp.net/threads/tutorial-using-luma3ds-with-gateway-on-v2-a9lh.431691/

These will get you setup in no time.

As an answer to your questions:

-In order to use emuNAND, backup your SD Card contents and select the "Format EMUNAND" option in the Gateway menu.
-Playing retail games in CFW (Luma3DS is probably what you'll have after following the guide.), simply requires you to pop the cart in and you'll be able to play it. For Gateway, you just need to press SELECT, then UP to change to classic mode, and you'll be good to go with playing your retail carts.
-With Gateway you have the ability to drag and drop 3DS ROMs onto your microSD through your computer. This isn't a requirement, though. As an alternative, you can install freeshop and download your backups directly from your N3DS.
-Playing online with Gateway (3DS ROMs) requires you to patch your ROMs first, which shouldn't be hard because you have retail carts.
In order to do this, you'll have to dump your game with Gateway's menu, and extract its header. You'll have to inject this header into any games that you'd like online functionality with.

On another note, games you download with freeshop, or CIAs you install, will require no extra patching.
-Gateway has its own built-in cheat engine that's pretty good. There are plenty of cheats available at www.fort42.com

2.) Buying a sky3ds+ will get you a simple way to play 3DS games, but it lacks a lot of what you're trying to achieve.
3.) The firmware you're at right now is golden, stay there.
4.) CFW isn't really an actual custom firmware. It's more like a series of patches that enable lots of new features to be achieved. If Nintendo were to release an update with new features, CFW would most likely support it, but in the off chance it doesn't, it'll be updated soon.

What I've provided is a pretty general explanation of what you can do to get started. If you need any help going through it all, don't be hesitant to ask!

 

[ihaveahax]

-In order to use emuNAND, backup your SD Card contents and select the "Format EMUNAND" option in the Gateway menu.

please do not use Gateway to format the SD card, it is most likely not good for the card's performance and lifespan. I would really suggest not using EmuNAND at all with arm9loaderhax, but if you really want to, use EmuNAND9 for formatting instead.

 

[CreAtor135]

please do not use Gateway to format the SD card, it is most likely not good for the card's performance and lifespan. I would really suggest not using EmuNAND at all with arm9loaderhax, but if you really want to, use EmuNAND9 for formatting instead.

Really? Where are you basing this from?

I'm pretty sure Gateway emuNAND is universal, no? Besides redNAND it's all the same thing, right?

 

[ihaveahax]

Really? Where are you basing this from?

there are "official recommendations" on how to format an SD card. Gateway doesn't follow these, EmuNAND9 does (it's even listed as a feature in the readme). it's also why you shouldn't use something like Windows/File Explorer to format an SD card, and instead the official "SD Formatter", so the SD card lasts longer (I know, it's still going to be a long ways before a card actually dies, but better to have a longer life still) and performs better.

also, Gateway always formats the EmuNAND size to be ~1.8GB on New 3DS, regardless of the actual NAND size (even if it's 1.2GB). EmuNAND9 would be able to just use 1.2GB for a 1.2GB NAND, and 1.8GB for a 1.8GB NAND.

generally I would not use Gateway's tools for anything except booting Gateway mode (to use the red card, cheats, etc). tools like Decrypt9 and EmuNAND9 do everything better and safer.

 

[CreAtor135]

there are "official recommendations" on how to format an SD card. Gateway doesn't follow these, EmuNAND9 does (it's even listed as a feature in the readme). it's also why you shouldn't use something like Windows/File Explorer to format an SD card, and instead the official "SD Formatter", so the SD card lasts longer (I know, it's still going to be a long ways before a card actually dies, but better to have a longer life still) and performs better.

also, Gateway always formats the EmuNAND size to be ~1.8GB on New 3DS, regardless of the actual NAND size (even if it's 1.2GB). EmuNAND9 would be able to just use 1.2GB for a 1.2GB NAND, and 1.8GB for a 1.8GB NAND.

generally I would not use Gateway's tools for anything except booting Gateway mode (to use the red card, cheats, etc). tools like Decrypt9 and EmuNAND9 do everything better and safer.

Thanks for the information! I'll remember this when explaining emuNAND to others. (If they're even bent on using it)

What about NAND Backups and Restores? As well as cart dumping? Are there any flaws in those features as well?

 

[ihaveahax]

Thanks for the information! I'll remember this when explaining emuNAND to others. (If they're even bent on using it)

What about NAND Backups and Restores? As well as cart dumping? Are there any flaws in those features as well?

doing NAND backups with any of d0k3's tools generates a .sha file for verification. this prevents restoring a corrupted dump on accident (bad writes do happen, and I've seen someone brick because of it!).

Gateway dumps cards with the private header, for some reason. the other tools don't do that. "clean dumps"/"scene releases"/whatever don't include the header, so dumping with Gateway doesn't make it a clean dump. dumping ".3ds" files are pretty useless nowadays except for collection, as Decrypt9WIP and Hourglass9 can dump directly to CIA.