Hacking I just bought all my DS gear, I'm excited

[nemt]

I just ordered a Cyclo DS Evolution from wootdeals and a Transcend 8GB microSD card ($17 on amazon - a few years ago when I bought a 2GB SD card for my GP2X it was 3x as much), and later today I'm going to head over to Best Buy and pick up a DS Lite. I know I need to install the latest firmware for the CycloDS, and format the SD card FAT32, is there anything else I need to do before I get started?

 

[Satangel]

Start downloading your roms then

No, nothing else you need to know.

 

[nemt]

I've been on that assignment all morning, haha.

What's the deal with rom talk here? I know download links and instructions on how to get them are no good, but it's totally fine to openly talk about downloading and playing roms?



EDIT: Also In Bruges was an excellent movie.

 

[Satangel]

It's allowed to talk about downloading and playing roms, just don't ever mention any romssites, warez sites, just anything that is considered illegal.
But you can say that you have downloaded DS games and that you are playing them, no problem.

Thanks, I guess

 

[nemt]

Good to know.

So what's the directory structure like with the CycloDS? Can I just put stuff in whatever folder, or does it make a folder on the card I'll need to use for it to recognize my roms/videos/music/etc?

Also what steps do I need to take to get videos working on it?

 

[Satangel]

You can put stuff in whatever folder you want.
To play music, videos and other multimedia on your DS, you'll need Moonshell, which you can get here.
Just extract that .rar file and then put the 'moonshl' folder in the root (so not in another folder) of your microSD.

 

[nemt]

Do I need to convert my stuff to any special format to get it to work in moonshell? I heard something about .DPG files?

 

[nemt]

Sorry for the double post, a couple rom questions:

1. Do regions matter? Will I be able to play Japanese or European roms just fine on my North American DS Lite?

2. Do I put the archive on the card, or the extracted .NDS file? (I assume it's the NDS file, but it took me years to realize SNES emulators could run zipped roms so now I like to double check).

 

[Satangel]

Do I need to convert my stuff to any special format to get it to work in moonshell? I heard something about .DPG files?

Yeah, if you want to play movies on your DS, you'll need to convert them to the .dpg format.
You can find more information here.

 

[xDlmaoxD]

Don't buy the DS Lite, the DSi is coming out SOON.
Like two weeks from now.

 

[nemt]

I have GBA games I want to play also, so DSi is no good.

I might wait if the DSi release means a DS Lite price drop though, will that happen?


also can the .nfo and .diz files included with some roms be discarded?

 

[morphius]

the .nfo and .diz files are simply text files that tell the downloader about the file

Posts merged

Sorry for the double post, a couple rom questions:

1. Do regions matter? Will I be able to play Japanese or European roms just fine on my North American DS Lite?

2. Do I put the archive on the card, or the extracted .NDS file? (I assume it's the NDS file, but it took me years to realize SNES emulators could run zipped roms so now I like to double check).

1.) no regions dont matter, the DS is region free

2.)put just the .nds file on the card.

 

[nemt]

Thanks a lot. How do most people organize their roms here? Put each game in its own folder? Just dump them all in one "roms" directory?

Are a lot of extra files made during gameplay (save states, srm, etc.)?