Hacking 3DS Firmware for Gateway

[He4TS3eKeR]

Alright, so I had my firmware on 4.0.0 for the longest time and I've been using acekard to play some classic DS games while I wait for the 3DS carts to develop. I'm thinking about picking up a Gateway fairly soon and there's a couple of things I'm confused about/want to confirm.

My 3DS is on 4.1.0-8E right now cause I accidentally updated it recently. So my first question is when you update does it only go up by 0.1 of a firmware? Since mine was 4.0.0 for the longest time. It's asking me to update again but I still don't know if i should do that as I don't know what happened last time.

Is it safe to stay on 4.1.0 to use flashcarts because almost every time i see anything concerning them 4.5.0 springs to mind and it makes me question it. On a side note I don't want to spend money on buying a game just to manually upgrade to 4.5.0, so I'm looking for alternatives in the questions I provided.

Thanks for your feedback in advance.

 

[petspeed]

Gateway and the clones work on FW 4.1 - 4.5 so I advice you to stay on your current firmware. You must have updated through a cartridge because updating online will always update to the latest version (currently 7.1).
I remember reading about something in Gateway mode not working correctly on 4.1 but it works on 4.2 - 4.5. If you encounter that you can always update to 4.5 using a ROM when you have a Gateway. This way you don't need to buy a game just for the update. You update through a ROM with Gateway's 1.0 FW. Here is instructions how to download Gateway FW 1.0: http://gbatemp.net/threads/gateway-...nd-support-thread.357776/page-51#post-4862348

 

[morvoran]

For the gateway card, your 3ds needs to be on a firmware between 4.1-4.5. It is safe to stay on 4.1, but some people have mentioned that they have issues with the 4.1 firmware while using the gateway card, so you may want to update to 4.2 or higher.

If you want to keep playing ds games with your acekard on that 3ds, you cannot upgrade past 4.3 as 4.4+ blocks the acekard and most of the other ds flashcarts. The blue card that comes with it will also play ds backups and will work up to 3ds firmware 6.1 (so you're good to if you happen to still update past 4.3).

Just note that if you install the ds profile with the blue card, you will need to reinstall it after everytime you play a DS game.

 

[youra6]

Confirming that I was one of those who had issues with 4.1. Gateway mode would launch but it would not recognize any of the ROMs I loaded to my SD card.

 

[RowanDDR]

Youre talking about Acekard2i? Don't update past 4.3 otherwise it will stop working. But then again, if you're getting a Gateway, you can use the bluecard to play DS roms up to 4.5 and bin your Acekard I suppose.

 

[lisreal2401]

You have to get a retail game to update. Then you can use the Gateway without issue.

 

[petspeed]

You have to get a retail game to update. Then you can use the Gateway.

No he doesn't need a retail card. He is on 4.1 so Gateway will work, maybe wish some issues but good enough to use a ROM to update to 4.2 or 4.3. That way no retail card is needed and the Acekard still works. Just make sure the Acekard is fully updated before updating the 3DS firmware.

 

[kyogre123]

As others said and as I can confirm, stay on 4.1 and don't accidentally update again because your 3DS will end up being incompatible with Gateway (will update to 7.1).