Help with running old R4 card on dsi

[x65943]

Hey, I recently put twilight menu and unlaunch on my dsi - with the hope of getting some life out of my old r4 card

I put wood fw on my sd card, as well as ysmenu

I try to launch the cart using the slot-1 launcher in unlaunch but nothing happens - top screen is white, bottom black

Any help? I am not sure what step is failing here (my dstwo works fine)

Best

X

 

[RocketRobz]

Hey, I recently put twilight menu and unlaunch on my dsi - with the hope of getting some life out of my old r4 card

I put wood fw on my sd card, as well as ysmenu

I try to launch the cart using the slot-1 launcher in unlaunch but nothing happens - top screen is white, bottom black

Any help? I am not sure what step is failing here (my dstwo works fine)

Best

X

View attachment 459737

Sounds more like you're launching the flashcard using TWLMenu++, not Unlaunch.
To use Unlaunch to launch your flashcard, change the "Slot-1 Launch Method" setting to "Unlaunch" in TWLMenu++ Settings.

 

[x65943]

Sounds more like you're launching the flashcard using TWLMenu++, not Unlaunch.
To use Unlaunch to launch your flashcard, change the "Slot-1 Launch Method" setting to "Unlaunch" in TWLMenu++ Settings.

I changed the setting from direct to unlaunch but still no dice

 

[x65943]

Having same issue with my m3i-zero

I wonder if the firmware files I'm finding are incorrect but I've tried several for each card :\

 

[Apache Thunder]

Looks like a revision 2 original R4. First off make sure you are using a 2GB or smaller MicroSD card (or at least a 1:1 hardware clone of it. Hard to tell without a photo of PCB. They are functionally identical however aside from maybe worse quality shells). OG R4 does not have SDHC support so anything past 2GB won't work.

Second it may be having contact issues with the slot and requires the "paper trick" Try inserted a slip or two of paper between the label side of the card and PCB. A quick test if this is the issue would be to put those papers inbetween the top of the card and the card slot while inserting it. If it then works, disassemble and cut the papers to fit inside the cart shell inbetween label side and PCB.

You can also try NTR Launcher...but OG R4 should work with both Unlaunch and TWiLight's slot1launcher so odd it's just white screening.

 

[4d1xlaan]

does it work if you run official launcher? unlaunch should allow launcher to recognize old flashcard, and the autoboot thing should be working as long as the cartridge is recognized

unlaunch and twilightmenu dont necessarily run cartridges exactly the same way official launcher does, so it's possible it could work when you use the launcher even if it doesn't work through unlaunch and twilightmenu. a lot of flashcarts dont work when you try to load them in unlaunch or in twilightmenu even though they work fine if you use the launcher

and if it doesnt work through launcher then I wouldnt expect the others to do any better. does the card work on regular ds/lite, or on 3ds with ntr launcher?

one thing is that since the og r4 doesnt technically have a banner, I'm not sure if the launcher will be able to recognize it and read the autoboot bit to run it. it's possible that because it lacks a banner, the launcher will ignore it, and if it ignores it then it's not going to be doing the autoboot from the cartridge header. I dont have one to check if it's supposed to work (and I dont know how the launcher works either)

 

[Apache Thunder]

Original R4's currently do not appear in DSi System Menu. Even when soft modded with Unlaunch. So some homebrew method is requires to boot them like Unlaunch's cart loader, TWiLight Menu, or NTR Launcher.

There's a few other old flashcarts/custom carts that are like this on DSi. The MaxMediaDock Slot-1 cards also do not appear in DSi System Menu.

It might be they don't have correct ntr secure areas or something.

Would be cool if someone could find out what Launcher is checking that causes those cards to be rejected. Might be something simple like a secure area check routine that the older flashcarts are failing.

Note though this is not the case with 3DS. Og R4s show up as a white icon on 3DS. But because of the arm7 load/entry address R4 uses, you still have to use custom cart loader to boot it on that console too, TWL_FIRM will refuse to boot it. TWL_FIRM doesn't like DSiWare/Carts with headers setup to have arm7 directly in IWRAM. Not sure why. (might have just been a simple method of weeding out some ancient flashcarts) Would be cool if Luma patches that out eventually....

By the way the lack of a proper banner won't prevent a flashcart from being recognized on DSi. I've borked the banner by accident before when flashing a custom rom to some of my ntr boot capable flashcarts and DSi will display and boot carts with bad banners just fine provided it's softmodded with Unlaunch of coarse. Similar to 3DS, DSi System menu displays bad banner as blank icon with no text. Not quite as white of a background that 3DS uses. I think it shows up as a white icon on 3DS simply because home menu uses white as a background for the icon container and invalid icon is shown as an empty icon with all pixels being transparent so the background behind the icon is shown instead. This occurs on og DS/DS Lite firmware too. No icon is shown and background behind the icon displays instead.