Hacking Flashcard for NDS Fat

Metro City

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hi, I took the first version of the nds console and everdrive gba x5, which flashcard should I take to also use the nds games? thank you
 

FAST6191

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While any DS flash cart will operate in it (none were ever blocked) those that did not make it until the end of the DSi/3ds phase of blocking DS flash carts usually also saw a drop off in game patches when they got taken out there.

To that end most of what people will recommend for the DSi or 3ds will do here as far as playing all the games, in this case the DSTwo family if you can find one being the best option, failing that something which supports wood or AKAIO would get you everything. I would not suggest an original R4 as they are limited to 2 gigs of storage. I don't know what R4 clone (many flash carts got called R4 something but ran wood and could support more than 2 gigs of memory) we are suggesting these days.
As the DSi/3ds stuff happened fairly late in the day for DS releases you would not be missing much (most mainly look at either pokemon conquest or pokemon black 2 and white 2), and you can manually patch things.

Still DSTwo the best and feature wise not a lot comes even close, you might have a hard time finding a DSTwo so DSTwo plus will be what you probably end up getting if you go this way. Something which supports the Wood firmware if you want something a bit cheaper but will still play all the games and allow you to use cheats on those.
 

kuwanger

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Also avoid all the R4i-sdhc/r4i sdhc dual core 20xx cards. They all have kernel time bombs, meaning you have to either set your date back on the device or keep updating the kernel (presuming they keep offering new kernels). You can use a hacked version of ysmenu instead or use ntrboot with them, but I personally wouldn't do anything to contribute to their shady business practices.

One thing that does always confuse me in these discussions is why so many people suggest the DSTWO. I mean, it's neat to have some sort of GBA/SNES emulation on an NDS, but everything I've seen is that it's grossly inferior to what you'd see on a 3DS or using a flashcart for GBA. I mean, to each his own--and I definitely enjoyed PocketNES for many, many years even with its very questionable visual aspects--, but I wouldn't recommend PocketNES to people today. Goomba? Sure. SMSAdvance for GG? Yea. But not Goomba Color, SMSAdvance for SMS, PCEAdvance, NeoDS, etc.

I mean, my opinion would be radically different if the DSTWO and R4i Gold 3DS RTS/Plus were basically the same price.
 

Ryccardo

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If it wasn't that they are now hard to find (and if the 2 GB limit isn't objectionable), I would go for an original R4 - can't corrupt a firmware that's on hard ROM

else, r4ids.cn (if you want Wood) or TTDS (if you want YSMenu or (why?) TTMenu)
 

Technicmaster0

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Also avoid all the R4i-sdhc/r4i sdhc dual core 20xx cards. They all have kernel time bombs, meaning you have to either set your date back on the device or keep updating the kernel (presuming they keep offering new kernels). You can use a hacked version of ysmenu instead or use ntrboot with them, but I personally wouldn't do anything to contribute to their shady business practices.

One thing that does always confuse me in these discussions is why so many people suggest the DSTWO. I mean, it's neat to have some sort of GBA/SNES emulation on an NDS, but everything I've seen is that it's grossly inferior to what you'd see on a 3DS or using a flashcart for GBA. I mean, to each his own--and I definitely enjoyed PocketNES for many, many years even with its very questionable visual aspects--, but I wouldn't recommend PocketNES to people today. Goomba? Sure. SMSAdvance for GG? Yea. But not Goomba Color, SMSAdvance for SMS, PCEAdvance, NeoDS, etc.

I mean, my opinion would be radically different if the DSTWO and R4i Gold 3DS RTS/Plus were basically the same price.
It's also about the other features of the DSTWO like it's real time capabilities (including the free cheat feature), the movie player etc.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

If it wasn't that they are now hard to find (and if the 2 GB limit isn't objectionable), I would go for an original R4 - can't corrupt a firmware that's on hard ROM

else, r4ids.cn (if you want Wood) or TTDS (if you want YSMenu or (why?) TTMenu)
Why TTDS? It YSMenu looks like crap
 

Ryccardo

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It YSMenu looks like crap
I like it, actually...
Straight to the point, all game settings are 1 touch away, no bullshit*

* that's an obvious reference to the MSET exploit feature of the r4ids.cn which wastes onscreen space and looks disastrous on most akaio themes; as well to the X button which goes to a favorites list, while taking you out of any folder
 

kuwanger

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It's also about the other features of the DSTWO like it's real time capabilities (including the free cheat feature), the movie player etc.

Well, AFAIK most R4/R4i/DSTT cards have an extensive cheat library (good for AP) and questionable RTS save support; is the DSTWO any better in the RTS space? Moonshell offers some audio/movie playback, but the latter of which I imagine is quite limited. Honestly, I can't imagine watching movies on an NDS (or 3DS, GBA, PSP, etc). Perhaps if I commuted daily by bus/train.

As a sort of toy or just to see what an NDS with a co-processor can do, I can understand the interest. And again, if the prices were near comparable I could understand partaking in that interest. But for the price of a DSTWO plus a small bit you can buy an EZ Reform + R4i 3DS Gold which if you have a GBA interest would seem better; or you can buy two R4i 3DS Gold carts for the long term if one goes bad. If you want SNES, perhaps it's good enough for the games you play to choose the DSTWO?

Really, I guess it all comes down to a value judgement of relative worth. What little value the DSTWO provides over a regular NDS flash card just doesn't seem worth it to me. Perhaps I'd change my mind if I owned a DSTWO. I definitely understand the excitement when it was first announced and for those who have bought one in its early days to use. I still have a soft spot in my heart for PocketNES for the same reason and used it well past the time that it made much sense.

So, sorry if it comes across as arguing against the DSTWO exactly. I tend to have the same feeling when it comes to most old technology: usually it's not worth it to me to buy the top end retro even if today it is (inflation adjusted) much cheaper if a few notches down you get virtually the same performance for 1/10th the price. For DSTWO, it's not nearly as much of a bad ratio, so I can understand people throwing in the money to pursue it. If what you're after is a general NDS flash cart, though, most of the extras may not be worth it.
 

Technicmaster0

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I like it, actually...
Straight to the point, all game settings are 1 touch away, no bullshit*

* that's an obvious reference to the MSET exploit feature of the r4ids.cn which wastes onscreen space and looks disastrous on most akaio themes; as well to the X button which goes to a favorites list, while taking you out of any folder
But the settings are just the Y press away.

Well, AFAIK most R4/R4i/DSTT cards have an extensive cheat library (good for AP) and questionable RTS save support; is the DSTWO any better in the RTS space? Moonshell offers some audio/movie playback, but the latter of which I imagine is quite limited. Honestly, I can't imagine watching movies on an NDS (or 3DS, GBA, PSP, etc). Perhaps if I commuted daily by bus/train.

As a sort of toy or just to see what an NDS with a co-processor can do, I can understand the interest. And again, if the prices were near comparable I could understand partaking in that interest. But for the price of a DSTWO plus a small bit you can buy an EZ Reform + R4i 3DS Gold which if you have a GBA interest would seem better; or you can buy two R4i 3DS Gold carts for the long term if one goes bad. If you want SNES, perhaps it's good enough for the games you play to choose the DSTWO?

Really, I guess it all comes down to a value judgement of relative worth. What little value the DSTWO provides over a regular NDS flash card just doesn't seem worth it to me. Perhaps I'd change my mind if I owned a DSTWO. I definitely understand the excitement when it was first announced and for those who have bought one in its early days to use. I still have a soft spot in my heart for PocketNES for the same reason and used it well past the time that it made much sense.

So, sorry if it comes across as arguing against the DSTWO exactly. I tend to have the same feeling when it comes to most old technology: usually it's not worth it to me to buy the top end retro even if today it is (inflation adjusted) much cheaper if a few notches down you get virtually the same performance for 1/10th the price. For DSTWO, it's not nearly as much of a bad ratio, so I can understand people throwing in the money to pursue it. If what you're after is a general NDS flash cart, though, most of the extras may not be worth it.

The DSTWO uses the normal usrcheat.dat format but that's not what I ment. It actually has a gateway/xecuter-like RAM search option that allows you to find your own cheats. The RTS functionality of the DSTWO is probably the best out there. In addition to that it has a few other real time features like real time guide and a slow down option.
The DSTWO is actually one of the most recent flashcart designs. It's from 2011 or something similar.
 

Metro City

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Thanks for the advice, but I already have a dsi, a new 3ds with r4, but I recently got a nintendo ds first version, but my niece lost my passcard? _? I saw on eBay but have crazy prices, I was looking for something like that.
 

FAST6191

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The passcard/nopass thing is a device to trick the DS to boot in DS mode from the GBA slot for those devices that support it. GBA slot cards usually stopped being updated in about 2009, if not before, and nobody is going to make patches to allow newer stuff to run from the GBA slot. Other than ROM dumpers (which if you have a modded 3ds it will do a bit better for such things) you will not gain any notable homebrew perks, and probably lose a fair bit as well.
Beyond that the everdrive will have sharply limited DS abilities, if it has any at all.

If you somehow had a GBA slot cart which did something worth doing then I would probably just tell you to take your R4 from whatever you have it for, put it in the DS slot, run flashme from that, use flashme to mod the firmware (it is really easy on an original model DS) and go from there.

You are going to need a DS slot flash cart. The conversation above giving you the main options here as things stand at this point in time.
 
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DeadSkullzJr

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The thing with the DSTWO is yes, it's a wonderful flashcart, however it has a buggy cheat code handler (not every cheat will work or work as intended because of it), not only that but you can't even view cheat descriptions so you know how to get the code working if needed and any precautions to look for when using such codes (some codes can actually ruin story mode for some games, maybe even make the game crash). Also a lot of people complain about the flashcart draining battery life of the consoles a little quicker than usual, which yes is true, it's not really bad but you know how it is with people.....I personally don't mind it.....Another thing to note is indeed the DSTWO's emulation support, the thing with that though is it was never finished, the SNES emulator wasn't finished being optimized, the GBA emulator wasn't finished being optimized and literally has broken cheat support, other emulators are severely outdated as the plugin feature sort of piggybacked on most of them (like GameYob for example), I attempted to finish it but coding is a whole different terrain for me, I am learning as I go however. Anyways, if all you want is DS games and superb cheat support, then an R4i Gold 3DS Plus is the one you want. If you want NES, GB, and GBC, and GBA then get an EZ-Flash Omega flashcart for your GBA or DS/DS Lite.
 
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