Hacking CycloDS vs. Supercard DSONE

[Gman 101]

So... I might get one of these. I'm more inclined to get the Supercard because it's around $40AU less than the Cyclo, but it's been plastered all over gbatemp that the CycloDS is better.

Can anyone run me through the pros and cons of both and the differences and similarities between both cards?

Also, what's the failure rate like of the Supercard. From what I hear from ozmodchips, the new Cyclos are pretty good.

 

[ojsinnerz.]

Both SCDS1 and Cyclo are Excellent cards. I prefer SCDS1, being that I am an owner of one, but also because it does everything the Cyclo does, and even more.
There are two reasons why almost everyone thinks the Cyclo is better.

1. The Support team. SCDS1 has an excellent team, that never stops their support for one product. But the thing is, they never answer a question on the forums. While the Cyclo team is also excellent, and actually answers their questions directly. That's one of the reasons why.

2. The GUI. The SCDS1's GUI is slightly slower, and more outdated (Moonshell).

By the failure rate, you mean the PSRAM error rate, right? Well, nowadays, it's just as low as a Cyclo.

In my opinion, they're both good choices. But Cyclo is a little easier for newcomers, and is actually faster, as a general. However, SCDS1 has a superior hardware, and cheat system.

It also depends on your budget. If you can't afford alot then gow the SCDS1. But just know that both are excellent.

 

[Obbalix]

Hmmm, I been wondering the same thing. I'm leaning towards getting the SCDS1 as I'm not liking what I'm hearing about the cyclo's battery usage and it's cheat system which i checked, 840kb big cheat file for the cyclo against 2.52MB for all other carts because of a restriction with the cyclo ds. Also apart from RTS which the supercard also has I don't actually see what great features the cyclo has at all over pretty much any other cart, afaiamaware all carts have great compatabilty and soft reset.

Why does the cyclo have such poor cheat support against all other carts ? Will their support team fix this if asked and if they will why hasn't anyone asked ?

 

[Minox]

CycloDS just has a nicer GUI, it's not better in any way.

 

[George290506]

SC DS 1:

Supercard exists many years and it is the first company used memory card for file-storage.

 

[sk3tch]

Does anyone here that is picking the SCDS1 actually own both cards? I didn't think so.

Things the CycloDS does better:

- Build quality of the cart (problems existed pre-January '08)
- Support
- GUI

All of those make the CycloDS my favorite cart. If you're on a budget, get an AK2. I have a newer SCDS1 (it has OS on the box) and the quality is not nearly as good as many of my carts.

 

[Chingford]

Does anyone here that is picking the SCDS1 actually own both cards? I didn't think so.

Things the CycloDS does better:

- Build quality of the cart (problems existed pre-January '08)
- Support
- GUI

All of those make the CycloDS my favorite cart. If you're on a budget, get an AK2. I have a newer SCDS1 (it has OS on the box) and the quality is not nearly as good as many of my carts.

Thats weird because I also got an OSDS1 from dx 2 days a go and the quality of it is outstanding, it also looks really nice for a flashcart. Also the only slow-bit of the gui I found was the actual start up of a game rom, where it does sit for 4 or 5 seconds doing nothing before the rom starts, otherwise the gui flips about changing folders ect very swiftly. from the posts I have read I was expecting something terrible with regards to the gui, but i find i really like it now i'm used to it, tons of options.

 

[sk3tch]

Thats weird because I also got an OSDS1 from dx 2 days a go and the quality of it is outstanding, it also looks really nice for a flashcart. Also the only slow-bit of the gui I found was the actual start up of a game rom, where it does sit for 4 or 5 seconds doing nothing before the rom starts, otherwise the gui flips about changing folders ect very swiftly. from the posts I have read I was expecting something terrible with regards to the gui, but i find i really like it now i'm used to it, tons of options.

It's not a bad card by any means. But if you're asking me to choose between the CycloDS and the SCDS1 - there's no way I'd opt for the SCDS1.

But hey, we're all entitled to our opinions and some won't like them.

 

[lookout]

I own both cards... CycloDS and Supercard DSONE (SCHD)

They both are excellent card however it not just about these flash card it all about their Team Support.
Keeping those card up to date & adding new feature = enjoyable

Just do some look/research at 'GBAtemp & Scene News'

and look at their update.

if you notice:

CycloDS - has number game compatibility issue over past - they alway fixed it with a firmware update.
Supercard DSONE - seen to working on improving their OS feature and solving slow down.

 

[sidneyyoung]

It's not a bad card by any means. But if you're asking me to choose between the CycloDS and the SCDS1 - there's no way I'd opt for the SCDS1.

But hey, we're all entitled to our opinions and some won't like them.

You have to admit the cyclo is not a cart for someone who like their cheats, and the build quality is not that great imo, 3 revisions to get it almost right, shame about the mem cards sticking out the top.

It seems to me that too many noobs get wowed by the fact that it can play all the roms, they probbaly don't realise that every other flash cart can also do the same.

Also, quote Obbalix, "Why does the cyclo have such poor cheat support against all other carts ? Will their support team fix this if asked and if they will why hasn't anyone asked ?"

 

[Gman 101]

Oh ok. I sort of care about cheat support (to muck about when things get boring). How is the Cyclo restricted?

Also I don't care about rom compatibility problems, 'cos usually the games which don't work are one of the shittest games anybody could ever play (except Final Fantasy).

Anybody got any videos or pictures of the Cyclo GUI and the SCDS? I remember watching 2 videos and I seemed to prefer the SCDS since it was more like a computer's. But I do care about menu lag (I'm used to the R4).

 

[Dylan]

I would stand by my cyclo to the death and no other shall do. Trust me. You will thank yourself later if you get a cyclo.

 

[sk3tch]

You have to admit the cyclo is not a cart for someone who like their cheats, and the build quality is not that great imo, 3 revisions to get it almost right, shame about the mem cards sticking out the top.

It seems to me that too many noobs get wowed by the fact that it can play all the roms, they probbaly don't realise that every other flash cart can also do the same.

Also, quote Obbalix, "Why does the cyclo have such poor cheat support against all other carts ? Will their support team fix this if asked and if they will why hasn't anyone asked ?"

 

[Urza]

CycloDS:

Much faster and more smooth menus
Wii connectivity
Built-in 3in1 support

Supercard DS One:

Better slow-motion
In-game cheat menu
In-game text viewer
More customizable menu

The SCDS1 is the more feature-ful of the two, the CycloDS has the much faster menus. If its significant to you, the SCDS1 is spring-loaded while the CycloDS isn't.

 

[cutterjohn]

No card I've seen yet comes with a cheat db that the mfg bothers to update very often, OR very carefully. The best cheat support comes from 3rd parties, e.g. Ryder's db AND jmr's cheats for the supercards.

Build quality: my v2 Evolution was just as good as my SCDS1 as far as build quality went, while the latest batch is better, both of which are, apparently, far beyond the build quality of most slot-1 carts...

uSD: sticks out about .5-1mm, which is not a problem, and IMO makes the uSD easier to remove as it would be much more difficult if it sat down further in the shell as the shell would get in the way more. I still prefer the non-springloaded design to the springloaded design at least as far as they go compared between an Evolution and a SCDS1 SDHC.

The v1.4-beta2 fw for the Evolution has added support for direct loading of GBA games to the 3in1 or TC's own slot-2 cart and they have apparently gotten the DS pokemons to mix and match regionally with Wiis, or so I gather from the posts, but it may only be that they fixed the connectivity withing regions (non-US as the US version always worked).

Of course, I see that the AK2 has apparently picked up the direct loading of GBA ROMs to the 3in1 from the custom RPG fws too. All AK has to do now is open source the AK2 fw and that'd make it a great cart as well, but if price is a concern, I'd still look at an AK2 as well as the SCDS1 ow I'd go for an Evolution.

My main problems with the SCDS1 series is that it's compatibility with ROMs isn't so hot, as quite a few you have to play guess the patch settings to allow them to run, OR worse, disable patching for them altogether which removes the ability to directly save to uSD as well as soft-reset and all of the other nifty features. The lack of the ability to save directly to uSD is the worst as unless they get their act together on this, your battery that powers the internal RAM that saves are made to w/o save patching will eventually die -> you can no longer save games for carts that require patching disabled. Also the SCDS1 has problems with some homebrew and is unable to run network apps under dslinux. The SCDS1 shell is also abysmally slow for browsing, as well as loading apps/ROMs, but you can get around most of these problems by running the TTDS shell or YSMENU instead of SC's "OS" although you lose all of the "special" SC features that way.

The AK2 also seems to have some patch related problems with DS ROMs, but I haven't followed it very closely as I'm not in the market for another DS cart yet.

 

[Saylient_Dreams]

I'm just throwing this out there, I'm not 100% sure about what I am going to say, but doesn't CycloDS have better compatibility vs SCDSOne? As in new releases, and firmware updates. Sometimes new releases on SCDSOne don't work off the bat, and you have to wait for their support team to fix it, where as the only time I saw this happen on CycloDS is when it first came out to fix download play, but since then there have been virtually no firmware updates to fix games I think. It would be nice to see a changelog between the firmwares of both carts to see what goes on. Also, isn't the SCDSOne a little more picky with what MicroSD you are using in terms of slow or fast? I guess since they're both SDHC getting that ADATA Class 6 wouldn't matter in then.
Edit: Nevermind that compatibility arguement, lol I just went and checked. Each has their own share of compatibility problems. Heh.

 

[cutterjohn]

It has MUCH better compatibility that the SCDS1, but in reality we're talking about maybe 10 games here, so if you don't care about them (likely for a fair number of them) OR are willing to run a different "OS" there really isn't much of a problem. Also the Evolution has pretty much worked with most new games with it's current fw, while the SC cards had to go through some updates for some of them, but IIRC most of the problems had to do with using slower uSDs as most of the recent "problem" games were reported to run fine on 1GB MiJ uSDs, and in many cases, as I alluded to above, it just comes down to playing with all of the patch settings or disabling them, but see above.

The SCDS1 if ordered from DX, for example, costs about the same (or within a few dollars) of most of the budget cards, and I think that it's build quality is pretty decent although I absolutely hate the springloaded uSD slot(another thing to possibly break, and more likely as it's mechanical, especially after reading about the original M3 SImply/R4DS spring related problems).

 

[yoog33]

Well just to chip in I recently got an scds1 and have yet to find a rom that doesn't work, please let me know which ones I should be worried about ?

I also use the 3 OS setup, and when adding the 'big cheat' xml file, hosted by the excelent members here, for the dstt/yasu menu's I too noticed that the Cyclo version is way way smaller than the standard one, I read somewhere that this is because of a size restriction on cheats for each individual game, so i guess games which have lots of cheat options are cut back for the cyclo.

I have a friend with a cyclo which he let me play with it, and to be honest i wasn't impressed that much, seems like any other ordinary cart, a bit boring and featureless, plus it looked well ugly with the mem card sticking out, what is that about ?

 

[sidneyyoung]

OMG, the cyclo fan boys are ambushing this thread with the usual array of cyclo worship mongering.

Be honest, the cyclo sux for cheats comparatively with almost ALL other carts... just look!!!

http://gbatemp.net/index.php?download=2375 (thanks to Narin) the cyclo cheat file is pathetic.

Please stop glossing over the fact cyclo sux for cheats, misleading and not volunteering faults and problems is akin to robbing people. Mem cards sticking out of the top is NOT great build quality FFS

Plus the usual finger pointing at the.. quote "slow,laggy,miserably" horrible scds1 menu you always hear from the cyclo fan club, but notice how they gloss over the fact you can have 3 OS's on the scds1 at once and choose from any of them at will, for their continued mis-information argument to stand up they need to start slagging off all 3 menus not just the one with their usual crap and misinformation.

cyclo fans grow up, and yes please point out the roms that can't be played on scds-1, i bet if you think hard and long enough before you post you can come up with more misleading info to further enhance the advancement of cyclo worship mongering.. of course it will be bullshit

edit, I'm looking at you especailly cutter(bullshit)john, please name these 10 roms asap... if you don't it's in clear readable text what a fanboy and liar you are

 

[johnchan]

I also use the 3 OS setup, and when adding the 'big cheat' xml file, hosted by the excelent members here, for the dstt/yasu menu's I too noticed that the Cyclo version is way way smaller than the standard one, I read somewhere that this is because of a size restriction on cheats for each individual game, so i guess games which have lots of cheat options are cut back for the cyclo.

The CycloDS cheat file is much smaller because its using good compression, which most of the other formats don't use. It contains the same number of cheats - there are no limitations there.

EDIT: To the original poster, don't listen to sidneyyoung, this person trolls the forum flaming in any CycloDS comparison thread available. The fact is that the CycloDS is not crippled with its cheat codes, and actually the GUI for cheats is MUCH nicer than the GUI for enabling cheats on supercard. I'd like to see you try NDS Wii pokemon link on supercard - it won't work! sidneyyoung, chill out eh?