Greetings.
If you have recently (December 2009 - Current Day) purchased an Acekard 2.1, and are having problems getting it to work (it freezes while saving, it gets stuck while loading) read on. What is written here is mostly things I have learned by reading these boards and by experimenting myself. I don't claim to have come up with or discovered most of this, I am just condensing it into one place. For most regular readers of the board, it will not be anything new, but hopefully it will help someone trying to get their new card to work.
The Cause of the Problem (A theory):
The newest batch of Acekard 2.1s have been made with new hardware, as stated on the Acekard2 homepage, this is a fact. It is suspected that this new hardware may be to blame for the issues we are having. However, to be clear, there is NOTHING WRONG with the hardware of the card itself! Your card is fine, and this can be proven by the fact that when trying to use Official Firmware 4.07, older games (that were supported as of OF 4.07) will work just fine! What this means is, that there is something in the loader for 4.07 which works correctly in the newest batches of Acekards, but that is different in versions 4.08 and onward (this includes all of the latest versions of AKAIO that I have tried.) In short, don't go throw out your card. It is possible that this issue will be fixed entirely. Key word possible, I don't know. It is my hope that AKAIO will release a version that will be 100% compatible in the near future. We'll see I suppose.
A Solution to the Problem:
The easiest temporary fix to this problem is simply to use Official Firmware 4.07 on your new Acekard 2.1. This will have the effect of getting older games to work pretty easily, but it doesn't offer the support that using AKAIO firmware does (support for the EZ Flash 3in1). What I propose is to use the front end of AKAIO's latest version, but use the loader for 4.07 when actually loading games. This way you can still use all the AKAIO features (most of them, I just wanted it for GBA games) and still get your games to load. This will NOT unfortunately get some newer games with different copy protection working! There is currently, to the best of my knowledge, no way of doing this. Some games, will just not work no matter what I (or anyone I have read) has tried. It is also worth noting, however, that I tried version 4.07 and version 4.07a15 and had MUCH more success with version 4.07a15. I do not claim to know the difference between the two, other than that a15 seems to work better for me.
The Walk-Through:
Grab the latest AKAIO firmware, currently 1.6 RC2 = http://normmatt.com/forum/
Grab Official Firmware 4.07a15 = http://filetrip.net/f2445-Acekard-2-Official-4-07a15.html
Take the file akmenu4.nds from Official Firmware 4.07a15 and copy it to the folder /__aio/ak2loader/
Turn on Acekard and Navigate to a Game, Press Y Twice to open Properties
Switch the option "AK2 Loader" from "AKAIO" to "AKMENU4" (You will need to do this for every DS game you play)
Hit Okay (A) and play game
******
And that should take care of it for you for the moment. It's not perfect, but it's better than nothing. If someone who knows more about this than I do is reading this, please feel free to correct me on anything I've said here!
If you have recently (December 2009 - Current Day) purchased an Acekard 2.1, and are having problems getting it to work (it freezes while saving, it gets stuck while loading) read on. What is written here is mostly things I have learned by reading these boards and by experimenting myself. I don't claim to have come up with or discovered most of this, I am just condensing it into one place. For most regular readers of the board, it will not be anything new, but hopefully it will help someone trying to get their new card to work.
The Cause of the Problem (A theory):
The newest batch of Acekard 2.1s have been made with new hardware, as stated on the Acekard2 homepage, this is a fact. It is suspected that this new hardware may be to blame for the issues we are having. However, to be clear, there is NOTHING WRONG with the hardware of the card itself! Your card is fine, and this can be proven by the fact that when trying to use Official Firmware 4.07, older games (that were supported as of OF 4.07) will work just fine! What this means is, that there is something in the loader for 4.07 which works correctly in the newest batches of Acekards, but that is different in versions 4.08 and onward (this includes all of the latest versions of AKAIO that I have tried.) In short, don't go throw out your card. It is possible that this issue will be fixed entirely. Key word possible, I don't know. It is my hope that AKAIO will release a version that will be 100% compatible in the near future. We'll see I suppose.
A Solution to the Problem:
The easiest temporary fix to this problem is simply to use Official Firmware 4.07 on your new Acekard 2.1. This will have the effect of getting older games to work pretty easily, but it doesn't offer the support that using AKAIO firmware does (support for the EZ Flash 3in1). What I propose is to use the front end of AKAIO's latest version, but use the loader for 4.07 when actually loading games. This way you can still use all the AKAIO features (most of them, I just wanted it for GBA games) and still get your games to load. This will NOT unfortunately get some newer games with different copy protection working! There is currently, to the best of my knowledge, no way of doing this. Some games, will just not work no matter what I (or anyone I have read) has tried. It is also worth noting, however, that I tried version 4.07 and version 4.07a15 and had MUCH more success with version 4.07a15. I do not claim to know the difference between the two, other than that a15 seems to work better for me.
The Walk-Through:
Grab the latest AKAIO firmware, currently 1.6 RC2 = http://normmatt.com/forum/
Grab Official Firmware 4.07a15 = http://filetrip.net/f2445-Acekard-2-Official-4-07a15.html
Take the file akmenu4.nds from Official Firmware 4.07a15 and copy it to the folder /__aio/ak2loader/
Turn on Acekard and Navigate to a Game, Press Y Twice to open Properties
Switch the option "AK2 Loader" from "AKAIO" to "AKMENU4" (You will need to do this for every DS game you play)
Hit Okay (A) and play game
******
And that should take care of it for you for the moment. It's not perfect, but it's better than nothing. If someone who knows more about this than I do is reading this, please feel free to correct me on anything I've said here!
