Homebrew Card choice

[Matt_JD]

Hi,
I'm looking at getting a slot-1 card for my DS in the next few days. (original model DS, actually I got it a month before release direct from nintendo as a pre-release offer)
I've read through your reviews and also on recommendation from a friend of mine was looking at Supercard One DS V3 (I think that's its name) but another friend has bought a much cheaper R4 card and says all is good. Reading your reviews on here I see that the R4 didn't work as well, but that was a while ago and my friend has tested some of the non-working parts of the R4 review and they work.

My question really is what is the card to get today? The reviews were a snapshot in time but does Supercard have any real advantages over R4? Is it worth the extra money? Has R4 improved since the reviews or is Supercard still superior?

My intended uses:
I have something like 30+ DS carts and loads more GBA carts collected over the years and would like to not carry them around all the time, plus I work with linux and snes stuff so anything that will allow SNES, Linux and reliable game emulation would be great

 

[naglaro00]

Get either an M3, Acekard, or anything without R4 in its name.

 

[zuron7]

The cyclo ds has a lot of feature.The EDGE is a simplified version.
Since you want to play gba games go for the M3 bundle.

 

[Matt_JD]

Thanks, tbh I'd say that DS games would be more important. I wouldn't want to sacrifice my DS games for GBA ones. Also, my main use for GBA games is SNES remakes so if a SNES emulator can work well on the card I get then I'd be happy.

I read up on AceKard 2i earlier, does that work fine on standard DS and is it any good? The review says some common features are missing but not sure what they are or if they really matter. It seemed that games, homebrew and cheats worked well from the review.

Also, noone has mentioned Supercard so is it not very good?

 

[koji2009]

Yes, the Acekardi (and all other i branded cards) will work fine on a regular DS as well. If you use the AKAIO firmware, you get pretty much all features of any card. The only thing it doesn't support is DS to Wii communication.

The reason you shouldn't get an R4 is that it's no longer being made. Nintendo sued the company into non-existence and that's why the firmware hasn't been updated in well over a year. There are some unofficial little updates and hacks people use to get certain games working, but it's a lot of hassle for a peice of hardware that isn't supported by anyone.

Plus, any R4 brand card you could buy at this point wouldn't even be a REAL R4. Everything released now are just cheap clones that profit off the name (since R4 was the only company named when nintendo filed it's lawsuits, so that actually generated a lot of interest in it)

 

[Another World]

you have a normal nds? acekard 2.1!!!

12$ price take on Dealextreme. 1 yr warranty on the kit, if it fails in anyway acekard will replace it if your retailer won't. awesome 3rd party firmware with fast and accurate support (akaio -- check the wiki link in my sig). it does what a flash linker should do, it plays games and plays them well. i've yet to find a homebrew that won't run on akaio. if you want features like real time save, in game guide, then get a cyclo. but with those few features comes a $60 price tag, a price which is not justified. norm has been first for many fixes, he has beat team cyclo more than once. something for the fan boys to keep in mind =P.

no matter what you get, research, research, and reaseach more! but most of the slot1 kits will do you right. take the advice here and stay away from anything with "R4" in the name.

-another world

 

[cturtle]

Here's another vote for Acekard. I used to be a defender of the R4 because I had one that worked, but that was one I bought a couple years ago. If you buy an R4 now like I did, it WILL be a fake. I was not too happy to find out that my saved games were randomly being corrupted or deleted every time I turned my DS off.

So if the ability to save is not important to you, or you never plan on turning your DS off, go with the R4. Otherwise, the Acekard is what you want.

 

[DanTheManMS]

If you want to use DSLinux at all, you'll want slot-2 RAM. Since I doubt it supports the newer 3in1+ devices, you'd probably want an older 3in1 that DSLinux can recognize. Either that or a slot-2 Supercard or other supported slot-2 device. You would use this in conjunction with your primary slot-1 device for running most things, with the slot-2 RAM simply aiding in running DSLinux, SNEmulDS (the main SNES emulator for the DS), and the DS web browser.