DSi incompatible with existing flash carts?

[Law]

You know in the future all games will be sold digitally via a Steam-like service, so that no one will ever pirate again?

Oh well, that probably wont happen till 2012.

You can still pirate games that are on Steam.

Digital Distribution is not an answer to piracy.

 

[nephdj]

You know in the future all games will be sold digitally via a Steam-like service, so that no one will ever pirate again?

Oh well, that probably wont happen till 2012.

You can still pirate games that are on Steam.

Digital Distribution is not an answer to piracy.

Also asian markets were 56k is still more popular then broadband.

 

[cracker]

My 2 cents:
(Note that I didn't have time to read through the complete thread so excuse any redundant comments.)

I doubt that the DSi uses a whitelist with for each and every game before the DSi compatible titles were/are made. I speculate that it uses something more along the lines of making sure there is data that exists in a real cart located at an address where flash carts never have it. For instance the arm9.bin always starts with 3 0xe7ffdeffs in a row. I doubt any flash card has that because it is part of the secure area data on a commercial cart.

Also it probably won't be too long before a way is figured out to fake a DSi cart since it will just use some of the area of the header that has gone unused. Once a DSi game is dumped it won't take long.

 

[kesadisan]

this is just
DSI Nightmare Halloween from Nintendo to World

 

[openchip]

My 2 cents:
(Note that I didn't have time to read through the complete thread so excuse any redundant comments.)

I doubt that the DSi uses a whitelist with for each and every game before the DSi compatible titles were/are made. I speculate that it uses something more along the lines of making sure there is data that exists in a real cart located at an address where flash carts never have it. For instance the arm9.bin always starts with 3 0xe7ffdeffs in a row. I doubt any flash card has that because it is part of the secure area data on a commercial cart.

Also it probably won't be too long before a way is figured out to fake a DSi cart since it will just use some of the area of the header that has gone unused. Once a DSi game is dumped it won't take long.

if N did it little better this time, then
a) dumping a DSi game gives nothing, looks regular but has signature applied to some part(s)
b) dumping the flash memory content from the DSi gives nothing (encrypted)


so it may be rather long to infinite til DSi mode homebrew will come,
again if N did antoher lousy job, it could be next week also

possible attacks: replacing DSi internal off chip RAM with RAM emulator and logger/analyzer
that may also yield to near 0 intel, if the ram access is encrypted itself
or, in worst case all RAM is place into the main asic, so it want be possible to access it at all

actually i wouldnt be suprised if the main ram and possible even flash are inside
the main asic or at least inside the MCP package, if that the case it may take
rather long to even get the plain text firmware being read out

 

[ron555]

Hi guys,

Here's my perspective on the DSi.

Now, I love the DS quite a bit, so this is not a knock against Nintendo as a company, but I (personally) think they blew it with the DSi. Better hang onto your DS lites since it's going to be worth a fortune in the near future!


First, the GBA slot is gone. Sure, most people don't care, but there are some really awesome games like Metroid , Kirby , street fighter, etc etc. Losing this functionality would mean I'd have to have something just as good.

Camera. Um, I think Nintendo really screwed up on this one. Why in the world would I need a camera in my gaming device!? And not only that, 2 cameras! I just don't get it.

Online shop - most mainstream gamers will appreciate this, but I for one have never and (probably) will never buy games from DS online unless they're reasonably priced. Seeing as how the Wii VC games are overpriced, I don't expect this to happen. I will continue to purchase carts like Zelda/Castlevania/Contra and support those companies who produce good games.

Bigger screen - I really do appreciate this. I know I'm being selfish here, but I do wish they would of given us a little extra screen real estate for all the things we would give up DSi. Still, I do like this.

SD card slot - this is great, but for what I'm not really sure at this point. I (think) we already sort of have this feature with the CycloDS having SDHC compatibility. MicroSD is up to 8GB which IMO is worth it.

DSi (apparently) breaks all the Flashcarts, which seals the nail in DSi's coffin IMO. I know it'll probably be hacked, but what Nintendo needs to understand is that not all of us are piraters. I genuinely buy the games that I play and even there was NO POSSIBLE way to pirate them, I would STILL want something like a DS Flashcart for all the extra functionality, including (but not limited to):

1) Holding up to a gazillion carts on a 8gb microsd after being trimmed w/ Skinnyrom (best prog I've found)
2) Playing music/movies via moonshell
3) Able to cheat in game/real time saving with some games
4) Change backlight with control within game.
5) Other - read ebooks, etc ( I dont do this but I wanted to include it)
6) Other things I didn't mention.

Price: Now, I am more than willing to spend a little bit more $ for a superior product, but $180-190 (taxed) for a product that I percieve to offer me less?

This is why I think DSi won't be as big of a hit as the DS lite was.

 

[Searinox]

1. Nintendo already let the devil in their house when they made the DSi SD-capable. One tiny hack and we'll never need flashcarts again.
2. Why would anyone want a DS which doesn't do GBA, can't run Quake2, and doesn't work with addons like the GH strap?

 

[Deleted-119707]

what about the flashcart that nintendo released in japan? would that still work? sorry i cant remember the name of the cart XD

 

[ViRGE]

I'm around maybe I am

some clarifications:
1) not all flash cards have an processor, there i no direct need for one
2) SD cards are FASTER then DS ROMs, not slower
.

It would be VERY surprising if DS titles would have any access to the DSi hardware.
More likely that titles starting in DS mode will lockdown the DSi to DS mode very
much the same as GBA titles on DS lockout DS hardware. And DSi titles as signed.
So the chance is real that the SD/Camera/Wifi will never be accessed by any homebrew.

Of course it is possible that N wasted many man years of development
and made another easy hack target device.Aha, it's good to see you're alive.

Has something changed since you wrote your slot-1 cart tester last year? At that time you wrote:

QUOTEThere is nothing Slot-1 makers can do, the Slot-1 protocol requires valid data be present on random reads within 4 microseconds. Only NOR flash or ROM is that fast, NAND flash response time is also too long (about 12 microseconds)

This certainly invalidates point #2, and I always thought that the patching needed an on-board processor, hence #1.

 

[arctic_flame]

2) SD cards are FASTER then DS ROMs, not slower

Define faster.
Last time I checked, a DS card had a random access time in the microseconds range, whereas an SD card has random access times in the milliseconds range.

Edit: I've been ninja'd :|

 

[ShadowXP]

The future of DS piracy/homebrew will either be a workaround enabling flashcards to work on the DSi, whether this is a hardware of firmware change, or a way of using the SD slot/flash memory to produce custom firmware and/or booting ROMs from an SD card. Personally, I can't wait to see what happens.

 

[DjoeN]

I say!

Back to old school Flashcards

You know those GBC/GBA flashcards, flash a singel game on it and the card acted like a real gamecard

Wel No flashcard for DS does that (not even those so called boot to game flashcards)

ok, that is in the thinking way of "IF it would be possible to do that)

 

[openchip]

I'm around maybe I am

some clarifications:
1) not all flash cards have an processor, there i no direct need for one
2) SD cards are FASTER then DS ROMs, not slower
.

It would be VERY surprising if DS titles would have any access to the DSi hardware.
More likely that titles starting in DS mode will lockdown the DSi to DS mode very
much the same as GBA titles on DS lockout DS hardware. And DSi titles as signed.
So the chance is real that the SD/Camera/Wifi will never be accessed by any homebrew.

Of course it is possible that N wasted many man years of development
and made another easy hack target device.Aha, it's good to see you're alive.

Has something changed since you wrote your slot-1 cart tester last year? At that time you wrote:

QUOTEThere is nothing Slot-1 makers can do, the Slot-1 protocol requires valid data be present on random reads within 4 microseconds. Only NOR flash or ROM is that fast, NAND flash response time is also too long (about 12 microseconds)

This certainly invalidates point #2, and I always thought that the patching needed an on-board processor, hence #1.

be very careful to argue with me on technical grounds. be very careful. not that i havent been wrong ever.

there is response time requirement; here SD cards and NAND flash also are slower then _min_ latency DS rom reads
(SD cards are however fast enough usually to deliver data within DS rom _max_ latency window,
so SD card file can be mapped to DS rom directly, all DS reads will fetch from SD without the interface ever
having timeouts)

now, the DS rom vs SD speed is very easy to understand, DS rom interface is limited to about 7MByte/sec
reads, this is plain DATA TRANSFER overhead (bus clock * number of bits per clock)

SD cards can have DATA TRANSFER speeds up to 25MByte/sec (fastest speed 4bit * 50MHz)
and sustained read speeds over 10MByte/sec what is faster then DS rom data transfer overhead alone

so as of technical max speeds SD cards are faster under BEST conditions, fastest SD card, max
bus clock, and multi-sector read commands.

as of the processor, well all pathcing is done by "infected" roms, that is the loader patches
the roms during or after loading them to ram and before executing them. The processor
that executes the patches is either arm7 or arm9 on the DS itself.

if someone cares to compare my comments about those techno-details, then well all my
points have been and still are valid ASFAIK

 

[kazuki_pl]

looking at the "not supported" xD flash cards list i must say one thing...

GG Nintendo... you got us

 

[agentgamma]

what about the flashcart that nintendo released in japan? would that still work? sorry i cant remember the name of the cart XD

Oh yeah!
Someone, test the DSVision =P
If possible, hack it! XD

 

[ViRGE]

*stuff*

Ahh, I see. That's exactly what I was interested in knowing. Thanks Openchip.

 

[kazuki_pl]

what about the flashcart that nintendo released in japan? would that still work? sorry i cant remember the name of the cart XD

Oh yeah!
Someone, test the DSVision =P
If possible, hack it! XD

that may be possible actually @_@ if it boots at DSi it got something that can help flashcard producers make new ones working on DSi @@__@@

 

[cutterjohn]

So noone's cracked this open to check the hardware changes yet? Like which ARM9 are they using now? Clocks? etc.

 

[openchip]

So noone's cracked this open to check the hardware changes yet? Like which ARM9 are they using now? Clocks? etc.

have you opened a DS or DSL ?

there is no arm9 or arm7 to be seen there, only 2 big IC's
1) N ASIC
2) RAM

there are some smaller support ic, but the digital core is only 2 IC
and it is possible that the RAM in DSi is also inside the ASIC (as MCP maybe)
so it could be 1 big IC less to see

the clock can also not derived from looking the PCB as it is derived
from some crystal using PLL

PS I have an broken DSL so I know whats inside
(it doesnt turn on any more a led blinks and then silence)

 

[Montspy]

Does they tested the game'n'music ?