DS flashcart (recommendations)

Divineheresy88 · Oct 27, 2021

Hey all!

Looking for recomendations for DS flashcarts. Looking to get the best one avaliable of if anyone has any recommendations please feel free to let me know

The Catboy · Oct 27, 2021

If you can find a Supercard DSTWO, that's still one of the best carts out there, but I legit don't know any sites where you can buy one.
The R4i Gold (r4ids.cn) is definitely the best cart still widely available on the market these days.
https://nds-card.com/ProShow.asp?ProID=632

Pk11 · Oct 28, 2021

The Catboy said:
If you can find a Supercard DSTWO, that's still one of the best carts out there, but I legit don't know any sites where you can buy one.
The R4i Gold (r4ids.cn) is definitely the best cart still widely available on the market these days.
https://nds-card.com/ProShow.asp?ProID=632

That card on nds-card.com (and most others you can find these days) are defective and can't play DS games, as it says in the title:

nds-card.com said:
Ntrboothax R4i Gold 3DS Plus just flash ntrboot, can not play NDS games

These days really your best bet is just the unlabled ones with a red PCB on eBay and AliExpress and such, they're Ace3DS+ clones so they have a decent version of Wood. They're the same thing as the "208 in 1" and such cards, just usually the unlabled ones are a bit cheaper as they don't bundle an awful microSD that you probably want to replace anyways and a bunch of pirated games.

There's also DSONE clones on AliExpress but their build quality is really iffy so you might need to get a few to get a working one and all of the timebomb r4isdhc.com and similar ones you can do YSMenu on which aren't great but work fine enough.

The Catboy · Oct 28, 2021

Pk11 said:
That card on nds-card.com (and most others you can find these days) are defective and can't play DS games, as it says in the title:

These days really your best bet is just the unlabled ones with a red PCB on eBay and AliExpress and such, they're Ace3DS+ clones so they have a decent version of Wood. They're the same thing as the "208 in 1" and such cards, just usually the unlabled ones are a bit cheaper as they don't bundle an awful microSD that you probably want to replace anyways and a bunch of pirated games.

There's also DSONE clones on AliExpress but their build quality is really iffy so you might need to get a few to get a working one and all of the timebomb r4isdhc.com and similar ones you can do YSMenu on which aren't great but work fine enough.

I didn’t realize they were broke. I think my knowledge of DS flashcarts is starting to become a bit potato these days
I would also recommend a DSTT with Retro’s files as well.

lifehackerhansol · Oct 28, 2021

The Catboy said:
I didn’t realize they were broke. I think my knowledge of DS flashcarts is starting to become a bit potato these days
I would also recommend a DSTT with Retro’s files as well.

I would actually suggest the unlabeled carts over DSTT for the sole reason that the loader is ever so slightly better than YSMenu. It may be a small trade-off, but things like ROM hacks may not work on YSMenu at all because they don't exist in the infolib, while the unlabeled cart will just load whatever it can but it may require AP patching. I would rather be able to launch an incompatible game by AP patching rather than having to learn how to mess with each of the YSmenu DAT files.

Also the DSTT is rather overpriced in some used markets.

The Catboy · Oct 28, 2021

lifehackerhansol said:
I would actually suggest the unlabeled carts over DSTT for the sole reason that the loader is ever so slightly better than YSMenu. It may be a small trade-off, but things like ROM hacks may not work on YSMenu at all because they don't exist in the infolib, while the unlabeled cart will just load whatever it can but it may require AP patching. I would rather be able to launch an incompatible game by AP patching rather than having to learn how to mess with each of the YSmenu DAT files.

Also the DSTT is rather overpriced in some used markets.

The main trade off for the DSTT is that it’s menu is replaceable with homebrew like TWLMenu+, which at least gives it some interesting homebrew opportunities. I am not sure how replaceable most carts are, although they might also be replaceable since most are based on either Ace3DS clone (like the R4 SDHC dual-core,) or a DSTT/R4 clone like the R4iSDHC. I am going to be honest and flat say that maybe maybe anything just going to work these days because you either replace the kernel with YSMenu or it’s going to be running a hacked version of Wood R4

lifehackerhansol · Oct 28, 2021

The Catboy said:
The main trade off for the DSTT is that it’s menu is replaceable with homebrew like TWLMenu+, which at least gives it some interesting homebrew opportunities. I am not sure how replaceable most carts are, although they might also be replaceable since most are based on either Ace3DS clone (like the R4 SDHC dual-core,) or a DSTT/R4 clone like the R4iSDHC. I am going to be honest and flat say that maybe maybe anything just going to work these days because you either replace the kernel with YSMenu or it’s going to be running a hacked version of Wood R4

The unlabeled cart can also run TWiLight Menu++, thanks to yours truly

Got all variants of the Ace3DS+ and clones working. I even have a bootstrap that can replace the main firmware, and then it'll just DLDI patch and launch BOOT.NDS on root no questions asked, to make replacing easy.

I should document this stuff.

The Catboy · Oct 28, 2021

lifehackerhansol said:
The unlabeled cart can also run TWiLight Menu++, thanks to yours truly Got all variants of the Ace3DS+ and clones working. I even have a bootstrap that can replace the main firmware, and then it'll just DLDI patch and launch BOOT.NDS on root no questions asked, to make replacing easy.

I should document this stuff.

Then it looks like honestly any cart will do these days. I am only DS specialist and it looks like it’s time I freshen up on the current era of DS flashcarts

DS flashcart (recommendations)

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