Hacking Help with M3 Lite and M3 DS Real

[SDDS]

Hi there everyone! I have 2 problems...

Yesterday my brother received his M3DS Real. He immediately upgraded his firmwate to the latest version which is V2.7b. After upgrading he wanted to try out his new Kingston 1GB made in Japan microsd card and so he ran Castevania DOS. The intro was stuttering a lot near the end. He asked me for help.

I checked the memory card with HD Tach and got the following results:

Random access: 0,6 ms
Average read: 10,5 MB/s

Everything seems fine here. Next I tested the memory card with my CycloDS. The intro plays flawlessly. So obviously the memory card is fine. I've also read in different forum threads that teh M3DS Real is supposed to play games smoothly even with slower cards. So my question is what could be causing the stuttering? Is it the 2.7b firmware, is the M3DS Real cart defective or is it the microsd card somehow? I've tried formatting the memory card with FAT and FAT32. I don't know what else to do so I came here for help.


Also I received my M3 Lite with passcard at the same time.

I installed the v35 manager on my pc and upgraded the firmware to the latest version (v35) by copying the files to the root directory of my microsd card. After the upgrading process which was successful I copied Castlevania POR and a few gba games (FF I & II, Golden Sun and Tetris Advance) to the microsd card.

I used software reset for Castlevania POR and for the gba games I used Real Time Save and Hardware Support 1. All the files are shown in the root of my microsd card. I put the microsd card in the M3 Lite and put the passcard in the slot-1. After a passcard logo I get the M3 Lite menu. I choose game and select Castlevenia POR. The game starts fine and plays without any problem. It even plays C POR flawlessly on the microsd card that the M3DS Real had problems with.

After this I softreset and get back to the menu after which I turn off the DS. I remove the passcard to enter gba mode. When turning on my DS I get the default DS menu and I see that a gba card is loaded in slot-2. I boot from slot-2 and get the gameboy advance logo. But after this nothing happens. I just get 2 black screens.

I turn the DS back on with the passcard and get back in NDS mode. From here I try to access GBA mode by pressing start. Again I see the gameboy advance logo after which I get 2 black screens.

I bought the M3 Lite to play gba games but at the moment I just can't seem to get it working. I've tried consulting the gbatemp tutorial but without success so far. I'm definitely doing something wrong but I don't know what.

I'm new at this so detailed information is appreciated.

 

[SDDS]

Sorry for the double post! If I just edited the previous post it would have been 1 long post...

Here is an update:

About my first problem. I tried my A-data 4GB microsd card and no stuttering problems whatsoever (used the newly released 2.7c system files). I have tested the M3DS Real with 2 Kingstong 1GB, a Kingston 2GB and an A-data 4GB microsd cards. So far only the A-data managed to play both Castlevania intros flawlessly. The 2GB Kingston unit performed the worst and was just bad.

I tested all cards using HD Tach (no write times at the moment). Here are the results:

A-data 4GB:

Random access: 0.7 ms
Average read: 19,5 MB/s

Kinston 1GB made in Japan from local retailer (2 units which both had completely the same results):

Random access: 0.6 ms
Average read: 10,5 MB/s

Is the average read time of this module normal?

Kinston 2GB made in Japan from DealExtreme:

Random access: 1 ms
Average read: 19,5 MB/s

So even though the Kingston 1GB microsd card had a better random access time it performed worse than the A-data unit. Are average read and/or write times also very important?

Can anyone with the same card and microsd cards post their own experiences with the M3SD Real cart? It seems to me that the M3 DS needs a high performance memory card to perform good even though I've read in different threads and reviews that the M3DS Real is supposed to be fine with "slower" microsd cards. I also have a CycloDS and the cart is able to play both Castlevania intros flawlessly on all microsd cards mentioned above. From my own experiences the CycloDS seems to be better with "slower" memory cards.

Later I'll try getting my M3 Lite playing some gba games. Can it be that the M3 Lite is defictive even though I'm able to play NDS games? I'll keep you updated!

Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[4saken]

Yep. The higher capacity cards are the ones with the faster read speed, but at the cost of access time.

 

[SDDS]

Yep. The higher capacity cards are the ones with the faster read speed, but at the cost of access time.

My M3DS Real seems fine with the 4GB A-data and has problems with the so called reference Kingston 1GB and 2GB cards. Is this normal or am I missing something.

Also to upgrade my M3DS Real all I have to do is extract the system folder on the microsd card right?

And thanks for your reply 4saken!

Can you please tell me where I can find a good tutorial for the M3 Lite. I desperately need to find out how to play gba games on it.

 

[4saken]

I can give you a quick tutorial here I guess:

All you need to do is to copy games over to your micro SD using the GameManager program, and choose the appropriate settings. It should patch and make saves for you. After that it is as simple as running the game.

 

[SDDS]

I can give you a quick tutorial here I guess:

All you need to do is to copy games over to your micro SD using the GameManager program, and choose the appropriate settings. It should patch and make saves for you. After that it is as simple as running the game.

I've tried this yesterday without any success. How do I know what the appropriate settings are. I can play NDS games fine, but when I try to play a gba game I always get a black screen.

Should I keep the passcard in slot-1 when playing gba games? When I remove it I can select the M3 Lite in slot-2 but after the gameboy advance logo I'm always greeted with a black screen.

EDIT!!!

Okay I tried again and this time I didn't check the option Real Time Save and what do you know everything seems to be working fine. So in order to play games whith the RTS option I need to patch them? How do I patch a game?

4saken thanks for your help and I'm sorry I'm such a noob...