Hello,
I've had a Gateway card since they first came out a while ago, and I've had no problem playing nearly all the games I've tried on my 3DS with firmware 4.5(U). But I'm having trouble playing the Fire Emblem Fates Special Edition rom.
Since I don't care for going online on my 3DS, and since I've read about people accidentally updating their sysNAND or bricking their consoles when trying to use emuNAND, I've never bothered using emuNAND on my system. I've always just followed the directions on the single-page pdf "Quick-guide" that comes with all versions of GW downloads. Basically, this guide just says to load several files onto the blue card, and put the GW launcher onto the 3DS SD card. Then install GW software onto the 3DS using the blue card, boot gateway mode using the NDS profile in system settings, and then load roms which are on my red card by pressing "select" on the home screen.
This simple method has worked for me for all games up to now, so as I stated before, I have never bothered using emuNAND. However, I am unable to play Fire Emblem Fates Special Edition using the above method. I can get as far as loading the rom successfully on the home screen so that the Fire Emblem Fates logo is shown on the top screen with the spinning sword, but when I try to start it, I get stuck at the black screen which says "Nintendo 3DS" on the top screen with some moving red bars in the background (basically it gets stuck when I try to actually run the game), and it won't go past that point even after waiting for several minutes. Essentially, my 3DS is unresponsive at that point and I have to power it off to regain functionality.
I have tried using Gateways versions 1.2, Omega 2.1, and now Ultra 3.4.1 (ultra asked me to update the gateway card, which I successfully did), but none seem to work for Fire Emblem Fates. Of note, other games which do not work for me include Super Smash Bros and Puzzles and Dragons, both of which get stuck at the exact same point as Fire Emblem Fates. I never bothered pursuing a solution for those other two games since I don't really care to play them. But I would really like to play Fire Emblem Fates. I have not tried GW version 3.7 yet since it is in Beta still, but I'm guessing that will not make a difference since version 3.4 came out long after Smash Bros, so if 3.4 is not working for me, then 3.7 will likely not change that.
If it helps to know, other games which have worked for me with no problems include many Mario games (Kart, Tennis, New Mario Bros 2, Golf, 3D land, Mario and Luigi Dream Team), Etrian Odyssey games (Untold 1 & 2, Mystery Dungeon), Fire Emblem Awakening, Bravely Default, Professor Layton, Donkey Kong Returns, Zelda (OoT and ALBW), Persona Q, SMTIV, Pokemon X, FF Theaterhythm, Street Fighter 4.
I'm wondering if the following could be the cause of my problems:
1. Is emuNAND required in order to run the newer 3DS games? Is there some new anti-piracy protection on the three games I tried that prevent me from playing them without emuNAND? I'd prefer to stick to the safer offline non-emuNAND method of playing games which I detailed above if possible.
2. Could it simply be that I have bad roms for these games? This seems less likely since I've tried downloading the roms several times and from multiple sources, and I've also tried re-transferring them to my red card multiple times, and the games all successfully load on my home screen but freeze up at the same point when I try to play them.
Sorry for the lengthy post--I tried to provide as much info about my situation/setup as possible, but if I left out anything important, please let me know. If anyone could provide help, I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks in advance!