Hacking Best flashcard in 2017 for DS roms

[Deleted User]

I want to buy a flashcard through nds-card.com, but I don't know which one to get.
My objective is to play DS games on a O3DSXL with menuhax+luma (will eventually go to b9s). If the card emulates GBA, SNES and other consoles even better, but it isn't really needed and I want something cheap but good.
Forwarding would be nice too, but not necessary.
I was going for the R4i GOLD 3DS RTS, but then I noticed the R4isdhc GOLD Pro 2017 does exactly the same things, but for cheaper. Why do they have different names if they do the same? Is it because of the manufacturer?
So, the ultimate question is, what is the best flashcard to play DS games on 3DS for cheap (but still being good quality)?

 

[Dracari]

the r4i cards that are marked with a year or Dual Core etc usally have a time bomb in thier FW. and sold cheaper as they work it to make teh average user buy each new "Year's card"
cheapest w/ CFW is the AK2i (w/ people flooding those bricked Or waiting for ntrboothax that wont stay cheap for long) best one however for non CFW'd or latest builds of Luma, is as you were going to go for, the R4i Gold RTS (least ones w/ the r4ids.cn label) if you want Added GBA /SNES emulation for the O3DS w/o resorting to VC's and Snes9x, hunt down an DSTWO (but they do have a slightly higher tax on the battery life) but because the older DSTWO and the DSTWO+'s arent widely sold anymore (the old dstwos arent even made anymore) they wont be cheap.

 

[KeoniAzugon]

Like @Dracari mentioned, best bet is the AK2i. the one im using is the r4i dual core 2016 model so i guess im going to have to get rid of it soon if its true what is said unless there is a modified firmware available.

 

[Deleted User]

the r4i cards that are marked with a year or Dual Core etc usally have a time bomb in thier FW. and sold cheaper as they work it to make teh average user buy each new "Year's card"
cheapest w/ CFW is the AK2i (w/ people flooding those bricked Or waiting for ntrboothax that wont stay cheap for long) best one however for non CFW'd or latest builds of Luma, is as you were going to go for, the R4i Gold RTS (least ones w/ the r4ids.cn label) if you want Added GBA /SNES emulation for the O3DS w/o resorting to VC's and Snes9x, hunt down an DSTWO (but they do have a slightly higher tax on the battery life) but because the older DSTWO and the DSTWO+'s arent widely sold anymore (the old dstwos arent even made anymore) they wont be cheap.

I see, so I have to choose between R4i GOLD 3DS RTS and Acekard 2i. Do both of them work in Luma and b9s?
R4i seems to have more features too, but doesn't say if I need to convert games or just drag and drop.
I'm not going for the DSTWO because I might buy a bluetooth gamepad and install a frontend on my phone and PC and sync saves somehow.

 

[StarTrekVoyager]

This is the first time I actually see the AK2i recommended. Are there current or future arguments in favor of the AK2i? Also, how is the compatibility for it?

 

[Dracari]

This is the first time I actually see the AK2i recommended. Are there current or future arguments in favor of the AK2i? Also, how is the compatibility for it?

there hasnt been any incompatibilities w/ the last version of AKAIO for any games. including Romhacks.

@Sharinflan yes, the AK2i Needs atlest 6.3 Luma (the TWL Patches that bypass the Blacklist on DSCarts the R4i Gold, can work even on a completely vanilla System

 

[slaphappygamer]

+1 for r4i gold 3ds rts. TBH, I think any card that supports wood is the card to get.

 

[Mikemk]

Ignoring A2i, that used to be difficult to obtain, did something change?

DS2+ has the 2nd best battery life for idle and nds roms. First is A2i. It understandably has very bad battery life for anything that uses the internal CPU.

 

[raphamotta]

I don't like AK2i because doesn't have RTS

 

[Deleted User]

the R4i Gold, can work even on a completely vanilla System

Guess I'll pick this one up, then. I want to be able to just shove the thing on the 3DS either it has Luma, b9s or no CFW at all.
Just one more thing I forgot to ask (sorry for bothering so much). In terms of DSi enhanced games, like Pokémon Black 2, I've seen you can press A while booting the game to increase clock speed so it doesn't have any slowdowns. Does that also work in any system, as it is a flashcard feature?

I don't like AK2i because doesn't have RTS

What's RTS?

 

[pandavova]

Im using a r4idsn, because of the recommendation of this post:
Which R4 Should I Buy?

 

[Ryccardo]

Ignoring A2i, that used to be difficult to obtain,

It's been on nds-card for the best part of the 2 last years...

 

[Dave_Chad]

Like @Dracari mentioned, best bet is the AK2i. the one im using is the r4i dual core 2016 model so i guess im going to have to get rid of it soon if its true what is said unless there is a modified firmware available.

Test it... Put your system clock forward by a couple of years... The card won't work any more. Put the clock back to normal and it works again.

You can keep using that one but you will need to set your clock backwards a couple of years to keep it working.

 

[raphamotta]

Guess I'll pick this one up, then. I want to be able to just shove the thing on the 3DS either it has Luma, b9s or no CFW at all.
Just one more thing I forgot to ask (sorry for bothering so much). In terms of DSi enhanced games, like Pokémon Black 2, I've seen you can press A while booting the game to increase clock speed so it doesn't have any slowdowns. Does that also work in any system, as it is a flashcard feature?

What's RTS?

Real Time Save. You can save state your game at any point and back to the save state wherever you want. It's very useful.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

I want to buy a flashcard through nds-card.com, but I don't know which one to get.
My objective is to play DS games on a O3DSXL with menuhax+luma (will eventually go to b9s). If the card emulates GBA, SNES and other consoles even better, but it isn't really needed and I want something cheap but good.
Forwarding would be nice too, but not necessary.
I was going for the R4i GOLD 3DS RTS, but then I noticed the R4isdhc GOLD Pro 2017 does exactly the same things, but for cheaper. Why do they have different names if they do the same? Is it because of the manufacturer?
So, the ultimate question is, what is the best flashcard to play DS games on 3DS for cheap (but still being good quality)?

The main difference is in the kernel used and support from the creators.
Also, some carts have RTS while most don't.
Wood R4 is generally what you want, and out of all the carts that use Wood R4, only R4iDSN and R4i Gold (r4ids.cn) have official Wood R4 from the creator (Yellow Wood Goblin) the others are just using clone versions.
Lately support hasn't been a big issue since the NDS is dead and Nintendo stopped blocking DS flashcarts.
However there's one more thing to note, a lot of DS flashcarts have a timebomb meaning the cart stops working after a year or two and they need to release a new kernel (which they may never do), otherwise you have to keep setting the time back to keep the cart working which messes with other things, mainly time based events in games, and eventually SSL certificates as they are only valid within certain time periods, which means online on the 3DS-side will likely break once their SSL certificates are renewed. Most if not all of the carts with a year printed on them have a timebomb.

 

[themyst]

So my DSTWO is still safe to use? I have not turned on a DS or 3DS in years

 

[Dimensional]

So my DSTWO is still safe to use? I have not turned on a DS or 3DS in years

Yes. Nintendo stopped trying to block it due a number of things, like it's unique way of bypassing their blocks in each firmware update, but also at that time they stopped production of DS games. It's one of the few DS flash cards that can run on the latest 3DS firmware. All others were blocked. If you have a system that's at the latest firmware and it doesn't have CFW like Luma, you best use DS2. If you do have Luma, you can use AK2i.

 

[Deleted User]

dstwo has lots of features, runs fast, can emulate gba/snes. drains more battery. if you have new3ds I wouldnt recommend it as you can use VC which is an official emulator for old nintendo consoles including GBA and SNES(the SNES VC is only for new3ds/new2ds) so it has no real advantages nowdays.
r4 and clones- there are lots of cheap r4's in the market, they have good compatibility, some of them have RTS which I wouldnt pay more for- I like playing games like they were intended- and some will force you to set time back to work in a few years (AKA timebomb) which isnt a real problem unless the game you are playing has some events that use real life time and date, since the 3ds will soon be dead and no need for online as it wont exist anymore. there are also older r4 that require special software to be installed on your system to boot them as they are blocked since the dsi. again not a problem, I use one right now and recommend it to everybody (TTDS or was it DSTT?)
all of the mentioned have AR cheats and homebrew support.

The main difference is in the kernel used and support from the creators.
Also, some carts have RTS while most don't.
Wood R4 is generally what you want, and out of all the carts that use Wood R4, only R4iDSN and R4i Gold (r4ids.cn) have official Wood R4 from the creator (Yellow Wood Goblin) the others are just using clone versions.
Lately support hasn't been a big issue since the NDS is dead and Nintendo stopped blocking DS flashcarts.
However there's one more thing to note, a lot of DS flashcarts have a timebomb meaning the cart stops working after a year or two and they need to release a new kernel (which they may never do), otherwise you have to keep setting the time back to keep the cart working which messes with other things, mainly time based events in games, and eventually SSL certificates as they are only valid within certain time periods, which means online on the 3DS-side will likely break once their SSL certificates are renewed. Most if not all of the carts with a year printed on them have a timebomb.

I would say YS is what you want... faster and better comp. then wood afaik.

 

[slaphappygamer]

Im using a r4idsn, because of the recommendation of this post:
Which R4 Should I Buy?

More people should read that post. That's what I did.

 

[nechigawara]

If you want to use R4 Wood Kernel, you need to go with R4i GOLD 3DS RTS , @Lilith Valentine recommend it.
But, if you don't want Wood Kernel Features, you can go for a $4 cheaper R4i-SDHC 3DS RTS, which reccomend by @gnmmarechal.
Both of them support real time save and cheats (Not real time cheating like DSTWO).

But, if you want to use ntrboothax, only option now is Acekard 2i. But, this one doesn't have Real Time Save.
Since Acekard 2i FW is the original of R4 Wood Kernel, you will have all R4 Wood Kernel features.

This is what R4 Wood Kernel offer:

Wood R4 is a modified version of the Acekard Kernel to run on R4, M3 Simply, and R4i Gold (r4ids.cn.) It's basically praised for introducing all of the Acekard features so it basically had almost all the same features as akAIO. The only feature it didn't have was individual loader updates. Otherwise it had basically everything else.
I always suggest it because it's extremely light on the battery, the ROM performance is perfect, the RTS is stable and simple, it's easy and highly customizable, homebrew soft-reset, and so many other features. I personally think it's the best kernel next to akAIO and it's also why I always suggest the R4i Gold over other carts.
http://www.nds-card.com/ProShow.asp?ProID=149