Hacking Gateway 3DS - First 3DS Flashcart

[mysticwaterfall]

Eh, you don't get the point. Sure you can build some sort of a file explorer DS homebrew (which I believe already exist), but it won't help you changing the way the 3DS reads game cards. I don't know how else to explain. At the risk of repeating myself, you need a fucking way to run signed code.

I think the point is that you could use the DS homebrew to set the partition, or file offset, or whatever. The card obviously already "changes how the 3ds reads game code" since it redirects to a microsd. Surely you can redirect it to q different part of the microsd.

Edit Double ninja'd, lol. But the point still is you could do it in DS mode. You could even have 2 cards in the cart if nothing else.

 

[WiiUBricker]

what rydian means is that once in DS mode you can control the settings of the card through a homebrew
so you could move files around on the SD card, or have 3 roms on there but the 3DS mode version the card reads a specific name or symbol so you could rename the rom currently used and put the one that was used elsewhere or rename it

so the 3DS card could be looking for a file with a % sign in front of it, and you can rename the files in DS Mode
so was
%ACNL, LuigiM2
change it to
ANCL, %LuigiM2
and then when booted back into 3DS mode the data retreval would go "Ah thats what im looking for" and grab the correct rom

but unless there was a similar feature for save files you would loose the save when you switched also

It just won't work because for this to work you need to change the way the 3DS reads game carts. The 3DS wasn't build to read multiple games on one card. It reads the whole card as one game. If you want to tell the 3DS to read file X on the micro SD and ignore file Y then you need custom 3DS code, which this gateway cart doesn't have because homebrew was already ruled out by the ones that built this cart.

 

[mysticwaterfall]

It just won't work because for this to work you need to change the way the 3DS reads game carts. The 3DS wasn't build to read multiple games on one card. It reads the whole card as one game. If you want to tell the 3DS to read file X on the micro SD and ignore file Y then you need custom 3DS code, which this gateway cart doesn't have because homebrew was already ruled out by the ones that built this cart.

If the gateway tells it to read file x, it reads file x. That's how it works. All your doing is changing the the file gateway feeds to it. Nothing to do with the 3ds at all, it still only sees one Rom.

 

[Rydian]

It just won't work because for this to work you need to change the way the 3DS reads game carts. The 3DS wasn't build to read multiple games on one card. It reads the whole card as one game. If you want to tell the 3DS to read file X on the micro SD and ignore file Y then you need custom 3DS code, which this gateway cart doesn't have because homebrew was already ruled out by the ones that built this cart.

The Gateway is already doing the translation of 3DS reads to MicroSD reads.

EDIT: And this is not custom 3DS code, this is THE GATEWAY. The flash cart itself. The internal programming on the FPGA. The embedded program. The flash cart itself.

 

[Pong20302000]

It just won't work because for this to work you need to change the way the 3DS reads game carts. The 3DS wasn't build to read multiple games on one card. It reads the whole card as one game. If you want to tell the 3DS to read file X on the micro SD and ignore file Y then you need custom 3DS code, which this gateway cart doesn't have because homebrew was already ruled out by the ones that built this cart.

thats not how it works
the Gateway provides the data the 3DS wants through the FPGA, thats not custom code because its still the official rom data and its in one piece

 

[WiiUBricker]

The Gateway is already doing the translation of 3DS reads to MicroSD reads.

EDIT: And this is not custom 3DS code, this is THE GATEWAY. The flash cart itself. The internal programming on the FPGA. The embedded program. The flash cart itself.

Gateway emulates real cards. Real cards are basically the electronic components around the ROM chip and the ROM chip itself. Micro SD = ROM chip. That's why it works. But it cannot add additonal functions.

 

[Rydian]

Gateway emulates real cards. Real cards are basically the electronic components around the ROM chip and the ROM chip itself. Micro SD = ROM chip. That's why it works. But it cannot add additonal functions.

You've never touched a flash cart, have you?

 

[mysticwaterfall]

Gateway emulates real cards. Real cards are basically the electronic components around the ROM chip and the ROM chip itself. Micro SD = ROM chip. That's why it works. But it cannot add additonal functions.

You have a fundamental misunderstanding of how it works, or any flashcard/loader really. It redirects all the I/o to a file. The 3ds believes that file is the cart, it sees nothing else. It's like the WODE. It redirects everything to an ISO so the Wii believes its a disc. Does the Wii freak out and be like, what are these 100 other files? No, because everything is redirected to that one file.

 

[SifJar]

Gateway emulates real cards. Real cards are basically the electronic components around the ROM chip and the ROM chip itself. Micro SD = ROM chip. That's why it works. But it cannot add additonal functions.

Unfortunately, you seem not to understand how it actually works. You understand a simplified version of it. The Gateway card will contain an FPGA chip which takes all the read requests sent by the 3DS and responds to them with the expected response. It gets the data for those responses from a file on the SD card. It's not a direct redirection where the 3DS "sees" the micro SD card as the ROM chip, the FPGA chip "goes between" the two and pulls data off the SD card to give to the 3DS. That FPGA chip can therefore be programmed to pull data from a specific file name on the micro SD card ("boot.3ds" or whatever) and ignore all other files. The 3DS doesn't directly see the micro SD card, it only receives the data the FPGA chip feeds to it, so as far as it is concerned, it's just seeing an official cart, nothing more, nothing less.

And that FPGA chip can run code without running any custom code on the 3DS itself. Meaning when it receives power (i.e. 3DS is powered on), it could check for some file, and if it's not found, load a DS mode bootloader, or if it is found, load the bootloader from a ROM etc.

 

[Rydian]

FPGAs giving variable code to the unit is how flash carts update for DSi/3DS firmware updates even, and as far as a more extreme example there's the DSTwo.

 

[WiiUBricker]

You've never touched a flash cart, have you?

The gateway is not your typical flash card. I thought it was clear the moment the features of this card were revealed. It seems your expectations will be crushed once this card is released.

It redirects all the I/o to a file. The 3ds believes that file is the cart, it sees nothing else. It's like the WODE. It redirects everything to an ISO so the Wii believes its a disc. Does the Wii freak out and be like, what are these 100 other files? No, because everything is redirected to that one file.

Exactly my point. That's why I said the gateway emulates a real game card.

Unfortunately, you seem not to understand how it actually works. You understand a simplified version of it. The Gateway card will contain an FPGA chip which takes all the read requests sent by the 3DS and responds to them with the expected response. It gets the data for those responses from a file on the SD card. It's not a direct redirection where the 3DS "sees" the micro SD card as the ROM chip, the FPGA chip "goes between" the two and pulls data off the SD card to give to the 3DS. That FPGA chip can therefore be programmed to pull data from a specific file name on the micro SD card ("boot.3ds" or whatever) and ignore all other files. The 3DS doesn't directly see the micro SD card, it only receives the data the FPGA chip feeds to it, so as far as it is concerned, it's just seeing an official cart, nothing more, nothing less.

And that FPGA chip can run code without running any custom code on the 3DS itself. Meaning when it receives power (i.e. 3DS is powered on), it could check for some file, and if it's not found, load a DS mode bootloader, or if it is found, load the bootloader from a ROM etc.

Granted it surprises me a bit that a self-proclaimed non-pirate like yourself shows that much interest in a warez device where he claims how that thing actually works.

 

[Rydian]

You said it's not possible without custom 3DS code, but it is. We know this because it's how flash carts work. Hell, the first DS ROM loaders were from Slot-2 using GBA code to do the management without custom DS code.

 

[FrostyWolf]

The gateway is not your typical flash card. I thought it was clear the moment the features of this card were revealed. It seems your expectations will be crushed once this card is released.


Exactly my point. That's why I said the gateway emulates a real game card.


Granted it surprises me a bit that a self-proclaimed non-pirate like yourself shows that much interest in a warez device where he claims how that thing actually works.

Unless the gateway is going to require you to format the SD card in whatever format the file system typically is on the ROM chip, then dump a .3ds rom files on to it instead of moving the .3ds file itself, what your saying doesn't even make sense.

The Gateway is already reading a .3ds file on a fat32 file system. If it reads the one called game.3ds, there is no reason that you could put 5 other .3ds files on the same card, then use a DS flash cart to rename which one is called game.3ds at any given time.

 

[SifJar]

Granted it surprises me a bit that a self-proclaimed non-pirate like yourself shows that much interest in a warez device where he claims how that thing actually works.

I don't care about the warez card. I care about misinformation

 

[WiiUBricker]

I don't care about the warez card. I care about misinformation

Right, we all do

Further speculation, opinions and opinions that are presented as facts are pointless now. Just wait until the card is released. If I was wrong I will eat my words of course, but if not, I will just do that

Spoiler

 

[Pedeadstrian]

I suddenly have Tom Jones stuck in my head...

 

[MacDonalds]

I agree

 

[granville]

Hoping Supercard is one of these "competitors" Pong was teasing. I've generally been very happy with them and their continued support for older cards. I'd probably trust them more than any other flashcard team out there.

 

[Jean Karlo]

I'm just hoping this doesn't becomes the next generation of clones flashcarts, We already had enough of it. I'm just going to wait a couple months to decide which flashcart (If more than one is released in the next 2 months) buy.

 

[SifJar]

Right, we all do

Further speculation, opinions and opinions that are presented as facts are pointless now. Just wait until the card is released. If I was wrong I will eat my words of course, but if not, I will just do that

Spoiler

When it does get released, and doesn't have these features, that proves nothing. The point was never that it would have them, it was that it could in theory. So you'll have no reason to celebrate anyway.