Hacking I was deadset on a DS Xtreme, but...

[Lurick]

...after spending a good two hours browsing threads and doing a whole lot of research, you guys really turned me completely around. After going through the most recent "where to buy" thread, I just barely ordered my own R4 from Echostore last night. I also got two 1GB Kingston transflash cards from another place ... hopefully, at least one will be Japanese-made.

The following is going to be long, and I apologize for that. These are just some of my reflections as a complete and utter NEWBIE at this stuff, learning from scratch from all of you:

I guess I really just want to say to those of you in this particular section of the forum: THANK YOU for saving me eighty dollars! I am very much a "n00b" at this whole portable-console homebrew thing, and my first bit of research into the subject led me to GBAtemp very quickly. After a bit of confusion with the basics (old 'passme' stuff, difference between slot-1 and slot-2 generation cards), I was completely sold by that 9.5 DS Xtreme review. I mean, I was literally to the point of me coming within centimeters of ordering it straight up ... my mouse-clicking finger was hovering over the "confirm" button.

In the end, I don't know what stopped me ... a bit of intuitive doubt, maybe. I came back here, and after DEEPLY browsing through the boards, reviews, and archived news of the site, I came to slowly realize a few things:



1) The DS Xtreme review was back in October ... not so long ago, but an eternity when it comes to how fast this stuff moves along.



2) Initially, the thought of having to deal with MicroSD scared me, and the built-in USB feature of the DS Xtreme was very noob-appealing. The comparison that someone made in THIS thread to MACs and PCs quickly convinced me to get over that fear ... it's exactly like people fleeing to the comfort of their MACs because they're terrified at the prospect of maybe having to install a new hard drive one day.

Not that I'm a MAC-hater, but the point stands ... it's that mentality that makes a large part of their user base. If there's some tiny learning curve (VERY tiny, as in popping in and out) with the standard media that the other carts use, it's made up for with the ability to easily upgrade. The 512 KB integrated of the DS Xtreme is easily trumped by the "as-much-as-I-can-friggin' fit" of the transflash carts.



3) The DS Xtreme, feature-wise, is all but identical to the R4, M3 Simply, etc ... in the end, I came to see that the only thing still subconsciously forcing me to lean towards the Xtreme were those mildly-cool, flashy LEDs. The 'fruitier' side of me liked that feature, but it's not a rational reason (from my viewpoint, at least) to opt for the $130 option over the $40.



Don't get me wrong ... I wasn't swayed by fanboy arguments on either side of the aisle, particularly by the sheer "geek rage" I witnessed in the DSX is junk! thread. Once I had read everything I could, however, logic simply had to win out: the DS Xtreme (at its current price) is not the best choice.

After that, it simply came down to choosing between one of the newer cards ... the R4 is what I ended up with, due to their slightly superior update situation. I'm still not sure if I may end up eventually getting a slot-2 device for GBA capability (any recommendations on that, by the way?). For now, though, I feel much happier to have made an informed decision.


Thank you all again. First post, by the way ... woot!

 

[Dorkboy]

Congratulations

I had my heart set on a DS-X at first too but the 512mb card built in sounded a bit weak so after a while I purchased the R4 instead.

But all in all, lets not go all fanboy here, enjoy your R4 and I hope it brings you lots and lots of hours of joy.

 

[.TakaM]

when the DS-X came out, I was going to get it, but I decided I'd wait a few weeks and see what happens

and it seems just about everyone had something bad to say about it, so I went back to waiting, then the R4 came out, bought it right after reading gbatemp's review

 

[Monkey01]

I think the only cool things about DS-Xtreme over R4 are it's Download Play Compatibility (Single Card Multiplayer with MarioKart, New Super Mario Bros and Worms work on DS-X but not on R4) and it's advanced skinnability (Everything is skinnable, R4 only 4 back pictures).
The major downside of DS-X is that they just never (and I do mean never) succesfully create a batch of ds-x's. The first two batches had problems with many casings being to thin so you had to put paper in your DS slot too to make it fit. The third batch got delayed for like 3 months. The fourth one had this small little problem that it couldn't boot shit and corrupted the files. (Until the fix that came 2 months afterwards) And the fifth production has a problem that the DS-X isn't seen as a Mass Media thing, but well something else, making it impossible to place files on it...
I mean, come on they cost like $125, can't they just make a working one for that amount of money.

They promote it to be an easy to use device, but if it doesn't work until an update coming months later, how easy is that?

Also the price is quite high anyway and the limited space is a bit of a downside too, but the download play compat is pretty cool. So if it works it isn't that bad I guess...

 

[coops024]

Sounds like youre happy with your purchase ! thats the main thing !

I bought a DS-X from the first batch and am more than happy with it !

I know loads of friends with a DS so the Single cart DL play was a godsend !

the 512 memory thing didnt bother me because as I have well over 30gigs of "applications" they are never going to fit on my DS-X ... let alone buying 30 + micro SD cards

i can fir bout 10 apps n the DSX and the rest are backed up on the PC. meh it works for me !

Having said that I recently bought an R4 DS for a friends birthday and was also v. impressed ! tidy little case, comparable app compatability with the DS-x and the choice of white/black case was a bonus !(he has a black one) and the supplied Micro SD card reader (bonus)

I'm happy with my purchase ! yeah it cost more ... but it was the first one out. you could say that i paid the extra money to have 3 months extra slot one solution play time / homebrew dev

 

[jlf278]

I bought an R4 DS and chose to complement it with a G6 lite for slot-2 ( i even got a passcard so my fiance can use the R4 whenever she wants). It's probably the most expensive slot-2 you'd go with, and since you already bought 2 microSD, I would actually recommend the M3 perfect lite. One advantage of that card is you can use it as the ram expansion for Opera along with your R4. The supercard lite can also do this, but I'd get the better built m3 for the few bucks more. One thing...if you find some games run slow on your R4, the G6 lite would solve that problem.

 

[Hypnotoad]

Congrats, you made an extremely wise choice.

 

[Lurick]

Thanks for the responses, guys. To be honest, I'm mostly into this for the Homebrew scene. ROMs do interest me, but only as backups (yes, I really do only intend to own ROMs of carts that I've already bought), and a way to combine it all into one compact space. In fact, my major motivation was the thought of emulators for much older consoles (game boy, NES, etc) working on the DS. One move that Nintendo made that always frustrated me was the decision not to integrate backwards compatibility with the original Game Boy games on the DS.

I understand after some reading, though, that most of the current emulators available would require a slot-2 device to run well/at all. I'm definitely going to have to pick one up.

I bought an R4 DS and chose to complement it with a G6 lite for slot-2 ( i even got a passcard so my fiance can use the R4 whenever she wants). It's probably the most expensive slot-2 you'd go with, and since you already bought 2 microSD, I would actually recommend the M3 perfect lite. One advantage of that card is you can use it as the ram expansion for Opera along with your R4. The supercard lite can also do this, but I'd get the better built m3 for the few bucks more. One thing...if you find some games run slow on your R4, the G6 lite would solve that problem.

I was looking into the M3 perfect lite, actually ... I've got some questions, though.


1) The adapter version is just something to make it "look better" with the DS Lite, correct?

2) The standard price seemed to be $80 to me. Was I just looking at bundled kits, or is that really how much the single unit costs?

3) Yes, I'd probably avoid a G6 lite in favor of a cart that would use the MicroSD I've already bought ... in most peoples' experiences, though, does the G6 Lite have any performance perks over the M3? The reviews for the slot 2 things were a bit more difficult for me to follow ... I'm never sure if I'm buying the cart alone, a cart bundled with a slot-1 passme card (a function which the R4 should fill, I read), or whatever.


Thanks, guys.

 

[-EX-]

If you bought R4 for homebrew only, than you're really an idiot. ANY Slot-2 card would be better. And the best one for homebrew would be Supercard MiniDS/Lite.

 

[MajinGohan]

I think ever since the invention of DLDI, homebrew compatibility has not been such a burden as it was before.

I´m eyeballing one of these R4s as well.

 

[Lurick]

If you bought R4 for homebrew only, than you're really an idiot.

Thanks for the complement.

I never said I bought it for Homebrew ONLY, and I sincerely apologize if my enthusiasm for that particular element of this whole scene gave that impression. I merely said it was a primary motivator for starting research on this topic at all. What's more, as MajinGohan has pointed out, almost every recent review on the site is peppered with glowing cautionaries about the recent arrival of DLDI, and the effects it's going to have on widespread compatibility.

I also checked the most up-to-date R4 Homebrew compatability chart linked to in the FAQ at the top of this forum. Most of what I want is there, in some shape or form ... I was fine with what I saw there, so I made my move. I left no element completely unresearched before I made my purchase, I can assure you of that.

I chose the R4 because I knew for a FACT that even if I were to get a slot-2 cart eventually, I wanted more than a simple PassMe in slot-1; because it has decent-enough Homebrew compatability all on its own; and because the ROM-backup-and-consolidation feature became a lot more appealing to me as I read onward.

In this first purchase of mine, even if I strongly suspected I'd one day be getting a slot-2 companion cart, I was looking to at least begin with an all-in-one solution ... or, at the very least, as close to that as I can get. If I wanted the absolute BEST ROM support, the absolute BEST Homebrew support, the absolute BEST GBA, and the absolute BEST multimedia support (all of which I was interested in), I'd be buying four completely different products. I'm not going to get any one device to be the "best" of everything, and I realized that. I merely picked what seemed to me to be a well-priced, somewhat well-rounded cart which incorporated a great deal of what I was after.

In short, I just wanted to start small and simple, and start SOMEWHERE.



I do appreciate the name-calling out of nowhere, though ... it made me feel very welcome. Thank you for that.

 

[Philosophy]

I think that there are SO many slot 1 solutions that they are all really essentially the same. I do think that the carts that only have a set amount of memory VS upgrade are "silly" though. Why buy a cart that is the cost of your whole DS that can only hold half the apps/backups that another cart w/memory card can do at a lesser price with the same performance? I think that the real divide in the slot one cards will come if they can figure how to run GBA from Slot-1. That to me will be the cart that will make a true difference. Yeah, download play is cool, but if most of your DS play is solo, then compatibility followed by Wifi seems to be the most important.

 

[CatScam]

I think you made a wise choice. Seems like a no brainer to me, for price, compatibility, ease of use & looks, I don’t see anything better.

 

[ron555]

The R4 is world better than the DS Xtreme.

It's the best NDSL backup device out there - hands down

 

[xalphax]

if the support stays so fast and good, there is nothing better