Hacking AK2 slow down

[dark42]

I have a little problem with my Acekard 2.
It slows down in some games, even though I have good microSD cards (Kingston 1GB Japan and Kingston 4GB Class 4 Japan SDHC). These cards have no problem in the same games in my Cyclo. (for example, Trauma Center 2 slows down in some of the zoom scenes, and the Pokemon games slow to a crawl during saving.)
I want to know if this is normal behavior of if I have one of the bad ones.
Otherwise I have not experienced the other problems reported with bad AK2s.
I was running AKAIO, but I experienced the same problems when I tried the official and Bliss loaders.
The AK2 was ordered from Dealextreme.
People with AK2s please try this out.
Thanks!

 

[IOwnAndPwnU]

I have an AK2 and I've never experienced a slowdown (except for the 1st time the game loads, but that's normal). Try some other games like Mario Kart DS. If that slows down, then there is a problem for sure.

 

[Bri]

Some games like the Castlevania intro can slow down, but they do on other carts as well. The 4.08 beta firmware fixes the problems for many games. If it's not in the download area of this site, get it from the Acekard forum.

If you use AIO, you have multiple loaders (rename the "akmenu4.nds" file from different firmware versions to whatever you want and put it into the "ak2loader" folder), and then define which loader runs on a per-game basis from the AIO menu. So you can tell it to always use the beta when running certain games like Castlevania.

-Bri

 

[IOwnAndPwnU]

Are there any slowdowns for Pokemon Pearl/Diamond? Because I was going to start my profile soon.

 

[dark42]

The only slowdowns I experienced in the pokemon games was when saving a game (this was weird because it didn't happen on my old R4, nor does it happen on my Cyclo). Otherwise the game played fine. Since I just won an iTouchDS from the quiz, which is another budget card, I'll try the pokemon games on that and see if I get the same problem (well, whenever I get it).
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, the SD cards were formatted with the Panasonic tool.
And Bri, tried Castlevania POR on the 4 gig sdhc card with AKAIO 1.1r2 and 4.08 beta loader, it worked fine actually! The intro movie played fine, and there were no problems in the first few minutes of gameplay. Tried Pokemon Diamond (U), the game still slowed down considerably during a save, including the music.
Also, AKAIO didn't like my 1Gig Japanese Kingston. Had to use the SDHC card. Does anyone know if that is a bug in AKAIO or is my card faulty?

 

[Bri]

Apparently, AIO is having trouble with certain microSD/HC cards causing AIO to think you have an RPG instead of an AK2. I think the problem is that the detection routine thinks certain microSD/HC cards are NAND memory. My 2GB Japanese Kingston works just fine, but some have indicated that the problem might have to do with the use of the Panasonic formatter rather than the microSD/HC card (some have indicated that reformatting with the Windows format function fixes the problem). Either way, Normmatt is working on the detection routine, so hopefully that will no longer be an issue in the next release. I've also suggested that they add a flag to the globalsettings.ini file to force it to one or the other just in case the detection routine doesn't successfully identify the cart.

Some games don't work with the 4.08 beta, but I assume they'll fix those before releasing the final version of 4.08. Animal Crossing works with the beta and saves letters in the post office (4.07 doesn't allow you to save letters, and clears out any letters that were saved). So, my advice is if something doesn't work with 4.07, try it with the 4.08 beta and if that works go ahead and set the loader in AIO to use the 4.08 beta loader for those games.

And as always, make backups of all save files regardless!

-Bri

 

[Smiths]

Remember in multi-loader mode when using the latest beta you have to hold down the A button as it's loading to use the new beta loader.
(You'll know if you didn't, as the "Loading..." text will go from blue to pink)

 

[Searinox]

It's not the PoR intro that lags. It's DoS.

 

[Bri]

Remember in multi-loader mode when using the latest beta you have to hold down the A button as it's loading to use the new beta loader.
(You'll know if you didn't, as the "Loading..." text will go from blue to pink)

Isn't it the opposite with the latest beta? I thought you had to press "A" in order for it to NOT use the beta. Somehow Animal Crossing works with the newest beta without pressing "A" (it does change to pink).

-Bri

 

[Smiths]

oh, okay, then it's opposite.
fuck if i know. I drink too much.

i've sent out test requests for the latest AK2/RPG detection code norm put in to 3 people.. waiting on replies there.
all I'm working on is just simple internal TXT viewing and the Update thing having its own little window to set options and do the update. So far the only option is the "show what's new: yes/no".

 

[VatoLoco]

Oooo, internal text, eh.

In game? for walkthoughs and such?

Thaaat is very kewl if I'm assuming correct.


Question: will the cheat DB work w/the official Nintendo wifi dongle, or does it need to be soft-app wifi (homebrew styley)?

 

[Smiths]

nah not in-game just in browser.
nothing major... basically took the whatsnew.txt displaying thing and made it to work for standard TXT files.

in-game shit is all crap you should be harassing the offical AK people for
you know
the people who get money for this.
and should be including this shit.


re: the wifi dongle.
I think it just needs a connection to the internet. if the wifi dongle supplies that, it'll work. just needs ability to connect to the net.

 

[VatoLoco]

*thread hijack

Doh, I got over zealous on my text assumption.

You guys are doing an amazing job on the AIO.

Do you think the ability for multiple launchers on RPG will be added, like the AK2?

 

[Smiths]

RPG only has the official loaders.

And with the open source and the fact only gelu is modifying it and we're always implementing whatever he releases... there's no loaders for it that matter.

AK2 loaders handle the saving and writing and all that... stuff that is not specific to the RPG.

 

[VatoLoco]

Kewl.

thanks for the reply

I thought maybe there was a difference between how the different RPG loader releases work(official, AIO, gelu, bliss).


As for the official AK team implementing kewlness, htey dont even have something as rudimentary as hidden files option on there latest ver. loader.

Anywho, party on, Wayne

 

[dark42]

Tried DoS, MAJOR lags in the intro movie. This is with a fast SDHC card!

 

[Normmatt]

On my 2gb kingston i only get semi major lagging so you card must be very SLOW if your getting MAJOR lags.

 

[Bri]

Did you try the beta? It's supposed to fix the lags in the intro.

-Bri

 

[IOwnAndPwnU]

Can someone please tell me what AIO is? So confused ..

 

[sfunk]

AIO = Acekard All In One Custom Firmware

It's developed by Smiths and Normatt, two people who lead the open source AcekardBBS project before they renamed it to AIO. It works on both RPGs and AK2s. Read more here:

http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=97372