Hacking Acekard Ready to Ship!

[bajibbles]

English is a really rare skill in China, especially if you move away from the hugest cities. The people there speak literally no English... it is also very hard to make them understand how to make business with people from western countries. Their culture is completely different.



well, they're trying to sell their product internationally so thats another loss for them. Its hard to side either way... i have to agree at the moment that if EVERY feature on the acekard list worked as said its by far the better card... but it hasnt been tested. The issue isnt about china anyway; although i would say alot of things from that region arent exactly built to last. If it works, it works. Nintendo has most of its business in english-speaking countries, so there should definitely be an attempt to get a decent english translation across. The points posted by Costello and others are still very good reasons to cast doubt on a card that isnt even commercially sold yet... and the main competition does seem to fulfil the flaws the acekard has at the moment (it works the otherway somewhat as well, however

) Like i said before, the claims from acekard would easily make it superior in enough areas to warrant it being the best DS card out there.

QUOTESupposedly (I suppose) that will help the game data be read better/faster/accurately or something else super special.

while you did say that its just your opinion, so this isnt a flame, but better/faster/more accurately doesnt seem to be the problem with the competitive carts (at least not ds-x?) those kind of words are more like buzz words (note super special

)... where are you getting that from exactly?

Good point that all cart makers claim 100% compatibility... however, none of them got it so its fair to be skeptical about this one.

cheap price can definitely indicate unprofessionality; dont confuse it with being a negative point on a comparison because it definitely isnt, but if they were a company aware of the competition and they had the best card, that seems really cheap... and when a product that claims to beat all the competition yet undercuts them by alot comes out, there is usually a reason for it (this applies to most products). Although, if the cart just reads an SD card like speculated then the price isn't so unreasonable, with the main cost being the sd cards.

 

[sylver78]

why skeptical? because:
- it looks very unprofessional (pictures, engrish, cheap price)
- it claims to have 100% compatibility but no linker can do that, not even the DSX...
- their file system... I still wonder whats the point of it..? Probably an additional source of problems?
- it's another chinese manufacturer... you know what this means!

I'm not judging the acekard and if I have to review it I'll do it objectively and impartially; but we have been disappointed many times in the past with products that sounded promising.

Wow, if the DSX can't, then nobody can ...

It's the funniest thing I've ever read

 

[shtonkalot]

Supposedly (I suppose) that will help the game data be read better/faster/accurately or something else super special.
while you did say that its just your opinion, so this isnt a flame, but better/faster/more accurately doesnt seem to be the problem with the competitive carts (at least not ds-x?) those kind of words are more like buzz words (note super special

)... where are you getting that from exactly?

Good point that all cart makers claim 100% compatibility... however, none of them got it so its fair to be skeptical about this one.

cheap price can definitely indicate unprofessionality; dont confuse it with being a negative point on a comparison because it definitely isnt, but if they were a company aware of the competition and they had the best card, that seems really cheap... and when a product that claims to beat all the competition yet undercuts them by alot comes out, there is usually a reason for it (this applies to most products). Although, if the cart just reads an SD card like speculated then the price isn't so unreasonable, with the main cost being the sd cards.

I got an idea of the purpose of a different filesystem from another thread, and it is just an idea. I used the buzz words on purpose as I don't have any real proof or explanation as to how it would do something "super special" and I was trying to make that obvious with my language.

Couldn't agree more about being skeptical of a repeated claim that has never been proven true by others in the industry.

I see the main comparison product being the DS-Link at the moment. It costs about the same or less than the projected price for AceKard.
Keeping retail price low whilst making good profits is a very professional thing in my book. Maybe professional isn't the best word to describe what we are getting at with this, perhaps quality is a better term?

 

[other]

I dislike the fact that you still need a program to transfer roms. I would like a flashcart that can be used with any operating system. It also seems like it has to load the menu, screw that! It should boot intantly. I'm also kind of skeptical towards it, but if it turns out as good as it's advertised, good for them. For now, I'm sticking with a slot 2 solution.

* Infinity Capacity!
Wow, the first lie!

Isn't it obvious what they mean? There's no limit to how much storage you can have, since you can carry as many microSD cards as you want with you.

QUOTE* Use high speed TF card.Put more games as you will.
So my "slow" card won't work?

It probably means it can take advantage of faster microSD cards, not that it only works with them.

 

[tjas]

why skeptical? because:
- it looks very unprofessional (pictures, engrish, cheap price)
- it claims to have 100% compatibility but no linker can do that, not even the DSX...
- their file system... I still wonder whats the point of it..? Probably an additional source of problems?
- it's another chinese manufacturer... you know what this means!

I'm not judging the acekard and if I have to review it I'll do it objectively and impartially; but we have been disappointed many times in the past with products that sounded promising.

Wow, if the DSX can't, then nobody can ...

It's the funniest thing I've ever read

Indeed

 

[bajibbles]

@shtonkalot

all speculative

hopefully acekard works fine and if it has all those features im definitely getting it... the sd card thing is really smart. I guess when you think only low-price cards, its competition is the ds-link... but just look at the votes on the main page. While they were made before acekard came before out, the top two are still ds-x and acekard... and voted from the people who buy the product. i personally still think whatever i buy i will save more money than getting games (even ds-x will only cost me the price of about four normal games) so im looking for quality too :>. Um... professionality... technically businesses want to get the most profit possible, but if it has more of the features than a ds-x and is cheaper then they will make a lot of money, agreed. lets just see how roms run on it, and how the kind of support is for it. Even if it all works now, crap support and newer incoming games could mean that its compatability drops. If it doesnt, im more than happy

.

p.s., we are both from the same aust timezone so i wont keep you up any longer because it is bloody late, looking forward to discussing it more tomorrow (although there isnt much to go off... just a translated chinese article for now)

@tjas well, the ds-x does have the most compatability than any other flash cart, correct me if im wrong

. Therefore it would be the basis of comparison for a new cart.

 

[neojei]

I'm bummed at it using its own proprietary format. I'm sure others are too. I have a cell phone that uses micro sd, and an mp3 player with an sd slot in it. I was hoping I could just use one card for everything. I guess I'll have to wait fewm ore months for another one to come out. This woulda been great for me.

 

[bollocks]

Well, they all are from China and manufactured in China.
Thank god no they aren't all from China

two quick examples: the NinjaDS and the DS-Xtreme.

What have you got against China? The DS-X is the only worthwhile flash card to have been designed anywhere else (and you can bet it was manufactured in China), at least since Bung went tits-up.

 

[trebus]

I can't believe I'm helping to dispel the criticisms but here it goes.

* Compatible all DS games.
This one I don't believe.

From YYjoy, he has gotten a review copy of the AceKard and testing about a few hundred roms he has not even encountered a problem yet except for Tony Hawk Downhill Jam. The system which has not been updated since september allowed them to play any Nintendo DS game unless Nintendo changes the format to something different. Also, the games that has problems which is only Tonyhawk Downhill Jam was fixed in a few days after it was discovered it cannot work.

* Support link slot2.
Does this mean opera? or just:
* Flashcard in slot2 can be started directly by AceKard.

It means that you can support stuff like opera and since it acts like a passme you can use it to get to an M3 or whatever flashcart you have.

* Infinity Capacity!
Wow, the first lie!

Infinite as in how much space your SD card has.

QUOTE* Use high speed TF card.Put more games as you will.
So my "slow" card won't work?

It will work as whatever card you put in, AceKard would ask you what brand is it and forces even low speed cards like kingston to read better and ensure it has a smooth experience. If you use something like Sandisk then you can set the setting higher and also force the SD card you have to be read at the maximum rate.

QUOTE

why skeptical? because:
- it looks very unprofessional (pictures, engrish, cheap price)
- it claims to have 100% compatibility but no linker can do that, not even the DSX...
- their file system... I still wonder whats the point of it..? Probably an additional source of problems?
- it's another chinese manufacturer... you know what this means!

-The box looks like something what the Supercard group would make and it looks as professional as the M3. If you find the price too cheap and by all means don't buy it. Not everyone can afford a DS-Xtreme with it's huge Markup no matter how good a card is.

-The team figured the with FAT they are not able to get 100% compatibility at all, so that is why they devised the new AKFS system which allows SD cards to be read faster and also compatibility with just about every game. AKFS is still being worked out and it is exactly like a FAT type system as you can still drop mp3s and movies into it. The problem is that homebrew cannot run on it due to it being a AKFS file system rather than FAT type and ACEkard is releasing their FATlib soon along with trying to make current Homebrew run without changing anything like what they did to make MoonShell run when it was not able to work 2 weeks ago. Sooner or later I think you can see a good homebrew compatibility.

-Yes, a chinese manufacturer that produces shoddy products like Supercard and M3 which everyone uses because they are not able to afford the more wonderful and extremely better western DS-xtreme. To be serious, they have not mentioned marketing to westerners yet and their product is cheap because they are catering to the Chinese market where having high prices like the DS-xtreme is completely unfeasable due to exchange rates.

So, that's it for now.

 

[TheStump]

^so im assuming you are part of the acekard co?

 

[tjas]

Well I am

 

[other]

AKFS is still being worked out and it is exactly like a FAT type system as you can still drop mp3s and movies into it.

What do you mean by this? Unless they release drivers for the file system, how can any operating system recognize it? You mean like drag and drop through the program?

 

[trebus]

so im assuming you are part of the acekard co?

Nope, I just read the chinese review. I also cannot stand that most of you guys just blast it without reading the chinese reviews posted by YYjoy and so I'm just telling what it can do from it.

QUOTEWhat do you mean by this? Unless they release drivers for the file system, how can any operating system recognize it? You mean like drag and drop through the program?

Sorry, I have no idea. From the newest post by YYjoy he said that he was able to run moonshell and put on Mp3s and Movies on it.

 

[Xenocide]

If this means Linux support is out, I know where my money is going. FAT isn't slow on solid state devices, which is why its used universally in CF, MMC etc. I too was hoping for a expandable slot1 device, but really, 4Gbit is quite a lot for my purposes (although the save RAM seems a bit short of the possible max).

 

[other]

Sorry, I have no idea. From the newest post by YYjoy he said that he was able to run moonshell and put on Mp3s and Movies on it.

Okay. Unfortunately, that sounds like you still need to use their program. I'm hoping for a flash device that can be used without Windows.

 

[martin88]

Thanks for the good news.

Will get this and not DS-X.

 

[nbcz]

same here. The acekard sounds pretty good so far.
I like the pictures of the acekard though. makes way for ultimate customization. I mean you can draw just about anything onto the card.

 

[Costello]

trebus thanks for bringing up new information although you don't even own an acekard yourself.

all I said is that until we have an official review on GBAtemp my opinion is rather negative (although what you say is starting to change my mind a little bit)
That's just my opinion. That's not GBAtemp's opinion. I'm not going to post it on the front page to influence people!

 

[lookout]

i was about post this just soo lazy these day. but thank for head-up

 

[cory1492]

If this means Linux support is out, I know where my money is going. FAT isn't slow on solid state devices, which is why its used universally in CF, MMC etc. I too was hoping for a expandable slot1 device, but really, 4Gbit is quite a lot for my purposes (although the save RAM seems a bit short of the possible max).

Linux support is possible, it is up to the Linux devs to make it work though (and FAT is by far not the best FS to run Linux with).

FAT is old, there is indeed a reason why NT and Linux use entirely different file systems (though most MM cards still cling to the outdated, slack filled, fragmentation affected FAT). DS carts don't use FAT file systems themselves (meaning slowdowns and alignment / patching issues just to get native DS file systems to run from a FAT or other solid state devices on the GBA bus) - in the case of DS-X they were probably able to use faster memory (raising the end user's cost) to make up for the speed lost to FAT.

IMHO DS-X and ACE are going to the be the closest thing to having an original DS cart with flashable memory - in AK's case the memory won't be limited to what you initially buy (though the PC will need a custom driver/program to format and access the non-standard file system).