Hacking DS-X and Zelda:PH Compatibility

[senseinochookaku]

great. Thans

 

[teonintyfive]

To teonintyfive that was the first thing I tryed mate doesnt work unfortunatly.

Damn.

 

[dib]

I'm not going to defend them, but I'm not going to judge them because they don't have an update out in 24 hours for Zelda. Now if there isn't one in say a week? Well that'd be a way different story.

Every other competing product had a fix available within hours. So far it's been three days and counting and people have yet to even _hear_ from anybody directly associated with development acknowledging it much less vowing to address it.

Anyways here's my post regarding this:
QUOTEGreat, they're aware and DS-X remains the sole product currently not supporting it. You can see where the problem is.

Personally, I've been here before because I own an EZFA. Borden was the same way with his product. It was great on it's own terms, but it was not homebrew friendly because he wanted to keep features like the clock a secret. Any attempts at requesting drivers for it weren't even denied, they were just flat out ignored. That alienates your customer base, creating disatisfaction which then spreads across the internet and prevents future sales. The reality here is that the DS-X is suffering this exact fate right now, apologies or not. Go to any forum, ask about what is a good card to buy, and your reply will be to get an R4.

Borden also wouldn't open source the client so people could port it to Linux or Mac, or make the improvements that he was either unwilling or had no motivation to add. Sound familiar?

So it became an oddball product because nobody used it, there were cheaper alternatives that were better supported, and homebrew devs just couldn't work with it.

I'm not going to join the "DS-X sucks" chrous either, because on it's own merits it's a decent enough product the same way my EZFA was. But I am increasingly among that disatisfied base when incidents like the 1.1.2 fiasco occur or when I see literally every other product out there adapting to changing trends within a matter of hours, yet the DS-X being that lone oddball product where maybe it'll get fixed sooner or later. Will it be days? Months? Who can tell? The only thing that makes sense right now is that I currently own a 512 DS-X, and should that need to be either replaced or upgrade my next purchase is an R4.

The point being that competing products are shaping up positive track records, while the DS-X seems to be racking up the criticisms. Apologies are nice, but not repeating mistakes is even better.

 

[teonintyfive]

As a note, DS-X doesn't support commercial, so you may never get this update. You must look before you buy!

 

[Sinkhead]

I can understand that the DS-X Team won't want ROM links on their forums but not talking about them at all is taking it too far...

- Sam

 

[Nescafe]

ds-xtreme are a bunch of liars, my friend bought one because it said it had a mac version, he had to return it and now months later it still does not have it.

 

[Omaru_SD]

I don't want to jump on their defensive because I think not discussing or supporting the latest games is stupid when that's pretty much the sole reason they've sold so many.

However, I paid £70 for the device months ago because I am not particularly tech savvy, it sounded easy enough, drag and drop the games you want onto the card, simple enough! games here already cost £30 each so I thought it would be a good investment, and to be fair it has been. I've played a bunch of games that I was never certain about and I have easilt found about 9 titles that I love playing, I've made my money back on the device simply because I've played alot more games than it would have cost to play them.

Yes the current situation sucks, but I think they will eventually get around to fixcing it, until then. play transformers

Aand cross your fingers that phoenix wright 3 is another of the currently compatibles.

 

[kazumi213]

As a note, DS-X doesn't support commercial, so you may never get this update. You must look before you buy!

I can understand hypocrisy is required on DS-X forum because DS-X team must cover their asses. However don't come here saying that "you may never get this update, you should investigate before you buy because they don't support commercial apps" because that is a FALSE argument.

Let me tell you a secret dude: there are quite well known differences between "apps" (comercial) and "homebrew" that it would be trivial for the DS-X team to absolutely and selectively prevent the execution of "apps" without "homebrew" prejudice if they really wanted to do so.

Of course I would never expect they to announce such a "feature" (no "apps" support), because 100% of potential customers would prefer a product which supports both "apps" and "homebrew" whatever the final use they give to the product.

So they are voluntarily keeping a feature to stay on the market and are gladly accepting our money for keeping it.

Then the DS-X team has 2 choices: disable support for all "apps", because they really believe all they customers buy the DS-X just for the "homebrew" support. Otherwise they are recognizing they are lying to the "apps" customers when they say "We pride ourselves on providing a ‘future-proof ‘ design, uncompromising user experience and 100% quality guarantee." because they are not supporting those users. Or (option 2) they can start really working "to not compromise those users experience".

 

[Siouxsie]

Yeah, I'm with Omaru_SD, I got the DS-X when it was pretty much the only slot-1 solution available, and it worked fine. I've played through more than enough games to make it worth the money. And even though I'm thinking of getting an R4 now, the R4 wasn't out for months when I got my DS-X. Also, the previous games which didn't work (like Pokémon D/P) got fixes from the DS-X team, so even if they're not as fast as other teams, I have no doubt Zelda will be playable in time. Does anybody remember how long it took them to fix Pokémon? Might be a hint.

 

[kaocrat]

"me too", etc.

 

[Aid]

"me too", etc.

 

[dib]

It's just the forum and chat that forbids the word of rom, no matter how it's used. The support tracker has numerous tickets regarding commercial games and what doesn't work. Of course they support commercial games because they would never compete with any other device, and when it was released one of their selling points was that it was compatible with nearly everything out there (Animal Crossing being one known exception)

 

[Deleted User]

AC had since been fixed. I trust that Sim City & Zelda will be fixed with the next subsequent fw release. I hope that does not take too long, but I can wait as I don't have time to play these games as it is.

Still I want to know that they work, and there are tons of other DSX users who DO have time to play and want to do so NOW.

We'll see how long they take. If it's too long then you'll start seeing a lot f DSXs become available in buying/selling forums.

 

[SectionX]

their forum is ridicilous. I just said that they're behind their competition and they deleted my post.

 

[Jawas]

They probably don't want any 'bad' comments that could hurt sales. But I sure feel bad for anyone else who goes ahead and buys one, especially with the cyclo, or r4 out, and cheaper.

edit: the really sad part for me is that they refuse to give any insight as to what there working on, or any dates. The one time they did give a date it was released WAY after, so probably have bad experience there. Either means no one is working on it, or there is a serious problem with it. (not only with this problem, but ALL.) Concerning.

 

[teonintyfive]

But they can't have a sure date.

Also, you people disgust me. You thank god I didn't spam.

 

[dib]

The reason it's not getting done is because nobody is holding their feet to the fire. Go to the board and post in the "2MB save type not supported" thread and voice your complaint. This is the issue that is preventing ZeldaH and Sim City from working with the DS-X, and any future games with equivalent functionality.

Just don't make your post something that will be deleted. Make your complaint about their lack of support and non existent presence known, or whatever you believe. It's sad, but when dealing with people like this the squeaky wheel gets the grease.

 

[kazumi213]

The reason it's not getting done is because nobody is holding their feet to the fire. Go to the board and post in the "2MB save type not supported" thread and voice your complaint. This is the issue that is preventing ZeldaH and Sim City from working with the DS-X, and any future games with equivalent functionality.

Just don't make your post something that will be deleted. Make your complaint about their lack of support and non existent presence known, or whatever you believe. It's sad, but when dealing with people like this the squeaky wheel gets the grease.

AGAIN: The DS-X SUPPORTS 2 megabits (2 Mb, and NO 2 MB, that would be 2 megabytes) saves (Mario Kart, Metroid PH, many others). The problem is NOT ONLY the size, but some kind of CHECK by Zelda and SimCity which detects something unusual on the DS-X way of EEPROM access and prevents the game to go further.

An interesting note is that Pokemon Ranger is reported (not by me, I'm still using an old FW) as NOT working under latest FW 1.1.2. It was working (with save problems due to the DS-X save compression feature) under FW 1.0.2 and 1.1.0. It is interesting because Pokemon Ranger also uses a 2 Mbit save.

So it is possible the latest DS-X EEPROM expansion to allow for 4 Mbit (512 kilobytes) saves is causing the problem. All competitors allow for 4 Mbit saves without screwing other games but DS-X proves again their fixes AREN'T tested at all. I think Zelda and SimCity (and probably Pokemon Ranger if someone can confirm it) "detects" that the DS-X EEPROM allows up to 4 Mbit saves, which would not happen on the original card, hence prevents its execution.

EDIT: Removed an useless comment about teonintyfive.

 

[Auyx]

But surly then the games would work on older versions of the firmware? It still suprises me that nobody has atempted to reverse enginer the unit this long after its release. Maybe one day someone could get a sorse code for it and then the comunity could knock up fixs for any problems super fast.

 

[Auyx]

The newest USA relese 1181 - Hoshigami - Running Blue Earth Remix (U) is also suffering the save fault and is unplayable. Yet another reason to worry that this is a problem now and going into the future.