Hacking cylo battery life

[tinymonkeyt]

umm no i charge it after it dies
usually when its red, it dies after like 10 mins - 20mins
well you must be one lucky fellow :]

 

[SilverDragon]

All carts use hugely more power when DS is in sleep mode than a retail cart, and will run ds battery flat in less than a day of sleep, due to their chips being still powered, whereas a ds cart in standby will be effectively off.

 

[kikoexe]

well ive been using my cyclods for about 2 weeks now and the battery consumption issue kinda ticks me off.. at first i thought i was just playing a lot with my DS.. so earlier i tried running the DS after a full charge.. the DS was running on the intro of MMSF 2.. i just let it run until the batt indicator turned red and it clocked at 3hrs and 15mins.. i was kinda surprised since it was just at the 2nd brightness level..

so what i did, i used my Acekard 2 on my supposedly low-charged DS with MMSF2 running, i was surprised to see that the batt indicator was green.. 30 mins later it was still green.. i did the same thing on my EDGE cart and the batt indicator was also green.. then i went back to my cyclods and the batt indicator was red..

im just kinda disappointed actually.. yes the cyclods has some nice features, but i also think that it is important for a cart not to consume a lot of battery power since it is one of the DS' asset..

 

[wilddenim]

At first, I noticed my CycloDS do suck up battery life a lot. I was very annoyed at this as I go on 6 hours bus every weekend (3 each way). So battery life is important to me.

After some testing and thumping, I finally gave up and changed the brightness set to 1. I used 3th, but I am now used to 1.

After some reading, sounds seem to suck up your battery life. I tested it, and it seem to have suck up my battery life. With sounds half on - average of 4-6 hours of battery life. When I turned sounds off - it got increased to an average of 7-8 hours.

 

[DeMoN]

I've heard that MicroSDHCs eat up a ton of battery life but I haven't noticed a big difference with my 2GB Kingston (except in Sleep Mode, that's a real battery waster).

 

[Gman 101]

umm no i charge it after it dies
usually when its red, it dies after like 10 mins - 20mins
well you must be one lucky fellow :]

Erm, you shouldn't charge it when the battery dies. It shortens the battery life much more. Did you charge your DS for a full night before using it the first time? It sounds to me that your DS battery's sorta screwed

Personally this thread is sort of an alarm bell because I have a Cyclo and I'm just about to switch from the R4 (I'm stuck with a 512MB card for the Cyclo so I never use the Cyclo at the moment). Does RTS use up more battery if you frequently save? I've noticed that it's the case with my M3 Perfect.

 

[Hyperlisk_]

I've heard that MicroSDHCs eat up a ton of battery life but I haven't noticed a big difference with my 2GB Kingston (except in Sleep Mode, that's a real battery waster).

That's not a MicroSDHC card, that's why

MicroSDHC is 4GB and up.

I have a Phat DS and I still get 7+ hours with my CycloDS, so meh.

 

[Enter260]

The Cyclo seems to be a cheaply made card could be the parts they use effects battery life.

Hardly. The CycloDS simply has more hardware on it.

Check out this thread, which is a comparison of the hardware on the CycloDS to its clone (the EDGE). The CycloDS has recovery flash and firmware flash that the R4 (and most others) do not. That uses more juice, but also allows them to have more features (such as clean loading, hence why Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates worked flawlessly from get-go on CycloDS).

Also, don't forget that microSDHC cards use A LOT more juice than standard microSD cards. Add all of the above up and you have a significant battery disadvantage. That's one reason why I bought an R4 to complement the CycloDS.

actually, it's been shown that the cyclods does not have clean loading. i don't think there are any cards out yet that actually have 100% clean loading.

 

[zergslayer69]

I played FF4 with 2nd to the highest brightness, with sound on (forgot what level, let's just say medium) and it went *just* under 5 hours. Maybe 4 hours 50ish minutes. Not bad if you ask me considering how high my brightness is at.

 

[Jay Boy]

I get about 5 hours give or take with the brightness at 2. But this is only until the indicator turns red; I left it on afterward to see how long it would last and it ended up running for another two hours.

I suppose the problems with people's battery time may not actually be the cart in every case. If someone had two carts they could compare, that would allow them to narrow down the culprit.

 

[JJBro1]

yes omg i know what you mean, i made so many threads on they cyclo site and on here regarding this. I hope the team does something about it.

 

[weebwobb]

Yeh, I love the cyclo's rts and in-game-slowdown but battery life is very disappointing, only around 3hrs. Just ordered an ak2 so when it comes i'll do an apples vs apples comparison using the same exact memory-card and same exact game and put this question to bed once and for all. If the cyclo ends up being the culprit then it will have to go because if I get to choose between battery or rts and slowdown features, I choose battery life.

 

[trappedmouse]

well usually i play on the lowest backlight for the ds
and id say it went more than 10 hours a time (the manual says about 15-18 hours)
but with the cyclo, (the review says its about 4 hours) i can only play for like 2-3
bites down on my battery a lot :/

WHAT? You're playing on the lowest setting and you're only getting 2-3 hours?
Your battery has been through too many recharge cycles. You need to buy a new battery.

You can buy one at store.nintendo.com

 

[JJBro1]

Yeh, I love the cyclo's rts and in-game-slowdown but battery life is very disappointing, only around 3hrs. Just ordered an ak2 so when it comes i'll do an apples vs apples comparison using the same exact memory-card and same exact game and put this question to bed once and for all. If the cyclo ends up being the culprit then it will have to go because if I get to choose between battery or rts and slowdown features, I choose battery life.

ok this battery life is really bugging the piss out of me. So did you do the apples to apples comparison yet?

 

[touchmyichi]

interesting...

Yeah, I was thinking of buying a cyclods today since I'll be giving my gf my TTDS, but this has me seriously reconsidering. I'm still trying to find out the severity of this problem, but so far it does look like a common problem which seems far more noted than other flashcarts. Here's a thread which has some comments and tests on this problem- team cyclops thread. Look at the 4th page for some benchmarks and whatnot.

Anyways, I'm still considering getting one but I too need to find out just how much of a problem this will be. If it is, I might as well skip on some features and go for a cheaper card.

 

[DeMoN]

interesting...

Yeah, I was thinking of buying a cyclods today since I'll be giving my gf my TTDS, but this has me seriously reconsidering. I'm still trying to find out the severity of this problem, but so far it does look like a common problem which seems far more noted than other flashcarts. Here's a thread which has some comments and tests on this problem- team cyclops thread. Look at the 4th page for some benchmarks and whatnot.

Anyways, I'm still considering getting one but I too need to find out just how much of a problem this will be. If it is, I might as well skip on some features and go for a cheaper card.
It's a problem blown out of proportion by reckless exaggerations. For example, do you really think the Cyclo can use up enough battery life so that a lowest brightness DS Lite only get 2-3 hours of play? That's impossible; a max brightness DS lite can get more. Like I said, reckless exaggerations. Most people do not have the patience to do professional tests on this matter, so they just say crap like that. Luckily for you, there are some people who do tests on these matters. Our admin shaunj66 was one of these people. Read the official GBAtemp review of the Cyclo.

QUOTEBattery Life Results:

Test condition:

* Fully charged European Black Nintendo DS Lite
* CycloDS Evolution 1.12, Japanese 1GB PNY micro SD card (FAT32)
* New Super Mario Bros. Running Main Menu and movie looping continuously
* Screens at max. brightness (level 4)
* Sound at 100%

Results:

Backup ROM of New Super Mario Bros. on CycloDS Evolution = 4 hours 27 minutes
Retail New Super Mario Bros cart = 4 hours 55 minutes

Taken from:
http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=53450

No one is going to tell you that the Cyclo does not use up more battery life than a read DS game. The results clearly show that it does. If you think that's a big difference, you are free to buy another card.

 

[touchmyichi]

DeMon- Yup, that's pretty much my thought process here. I'm trying to find out just how much this is going to affect me and if it's worth it. I'm also taking some caution in doing this because people tend to blow these things out of proportion. BUT, if this decrease is sizeable enough, it might be a problem for when I want a certain amount of playing time out of a charge.

Hopefully some more well executed tests will come up

 

[kikoexe]

with all due respect to mr. demon sir, i may not be as "professional" as shaun but the "test" that i did convinced me well enough that the cyclo uses up more battery power than my Acekard 2 and EDGE cart.. my previous post in this thread hopefully "explained" that..

i love my cyclo because it can do a soft reset when im running a homebrew emulator.. that sort of thing is pretty much convenient if you ask me.. but still, im disappointed that the cyclo cuts my playing time way more while using the same DS settings as with other flashcarts.. yeah i know that the cyclo does a lot more than the other carts.. but it's like this, remember the time when most people "hated" the PSP? yeah the PSP has superior graphics and can do a lot of things than the DS, but many people complained about one thing--battery life.. Sony kinda "fixed" it, now most of us loves it..

hope i made some sense..

 

[DeMoN]

As for the "test" you did, my guess is that your DS was set to a lower brightness setting, so the EDGE/AK2 showed green battery life, while your Cyclo itself was set to a higher brightness setting, thus showing a red battery life. If you don't understand, just play on Brightness 3 until the battery is red, then open up Cyclo's In-Game menu and change the brightness to 0. Voila! Back to green light.

 

[kikoexe]

nope.. these were the settings that i used in my test:
1) EDGE & Acekard 2 Brightness Level - 2 (since it was a scale of 1-4), Cyclo DS Brightness Level - 1 (since it was a scale of 0-3).. so i guess i used the same brightness level right?
2) Volume - Max
3) Game running - Megaman Starforce 2 (i just let the intro run)

i never touch/change the brightness setting whenever i change the carts because doing that will make the test pointless as the brightness level were not equal..