Hacking Is it worth upgrading my card?

[gam3guy]

I currently have a M3 slot 2, and i don't know whether it is worth buying a new card.

What are the main reasons to upgrade?

If yes, which card is best? I am looking for best action replay, download play, and ability to run most games, and anything else that is cool

so out of these:
M3 Real
R4 DS
TTDS

 

[Bob Evil]

CycloDS or AceKard R.P.G.

 

[sk3tch]

CycloDS or AceKard R.P.G.

This. Although the AceKard R.P.G. is a bit spendy. From your post, I'd say the AceKard 2 would be more in your pricerange.

 

[gam3guy]

CycloDS or AceKard R.P.G.

This. Although the AceKard R.P.G. is a bit spendy. From your post, I'd say the AceKard 2 would be more in your pricerange.

but is it worth the upgrade from what i already have?

 

[Normmatt]

Seeing as you have a slot2 card it means you have to manually patch roms, with a slot1 cart it patches them automatically which means less work for you, slot1 carts also usually have better interfaces and it means you can run homebrew which requires ram aswell.

 

[Swip]

I would recommend a SCDS1, its about the same price as the cards you stated and it have a lot of features such as RTS(Real time save), multi-save support, in game guide and the supercard team has been making flashcarts for while so I don't think the team would drop support for the SCDS1 for a while.

Atm, the SCDS1 is only second to the CycloDS

 

[Ferrariman]

If you can't afford CycloDS Evo, SCDS1 or Acekard R.P.G. get an EDGE, Acekard 2 or DSTT.

 

[Panic101]

DSTT has quite a large defective rate as of late..M3 Real GUI is kinda ugh, that might change soon though...EDGE hard to find instock not alot of support, Acekard 2 uses whatever firmware the AckardRPG has for cheap...I think you know what to choose..

 

[ChampionTWH]

Get an SCDS1, it's second to none.

Most features, most guis, best support.

 

[TheNeck]

I recommend either the R4 or CycloDS.

 

[ojsinnerz.]

I'd rather not recommend R4, nowadays, seeing it really isn't worth getting anymore, and I'll explain why, along with recommendations.

Negative:
R4: It used to be the most popular cart when it came out, and it still has some popularity with the consumers. But it's outdated, and all it can do is play games and homebrew, nothing else. It has no SDHC support (Which means micro sds' that are over 2 gigs), and no features. It's not so cheap, compared to the other budget Slot-1s nowadays. You can buy other carts that do more than the R4, at a cheaper price.

M3 real: Not really a good choice. It's incredibly slow, and suffers alot of speed problems. The cart feels like it's made of cheap material, and seems like it'll break under any sort of pressure. The only good side of this, is the upcoming Firmware, the sakura firmware. If you can wait for a long time, since the firmware isn't complete yet, I'll guess it won't be such a bad choice.

Recommendation:

Acekard 2: It's new, but it's a solid cart. It's the degraded version of the Acekard R.P.G, but it's still attractive with it's fast menu, and a great looking GUI. The Acekard team does updates fairly reasonably, and it's a good cart overall.

EDGE: This is also a new card, but it does everything the R4 does, and a little more stuff, at a much cheaper price. It's a little hard to find, but if you can find it, it's worth it.

Supercard DS1 SDHC: The best in features, for it's relatively low price. It has SDHC support, great features like slow-mo, Realtime save, Realtime guide, in-game menu (Same with the Cyclo), and a good team support. It can even make it function to a DSTT.

DSTT: It's cheap, and does the job. It does have a messy menu, because it's not organized at all, but it has the fastest loading time of all. It can load a game around 1-2 seconds. Very fast cart, and seems to have a reasonable amount of updates.

Cyclo: It's the king of the carts, with the best support, that answers your questions directly on the forums, or email, and they're still active to this day. They take the consumer advices, and even tells people what they're going to update next. It also has SDHC support, and has features like Realtime save, and slow-mo. It's highly recommended if you can afford one.

My top recommendation is the Cyclo, but if you can't afford it, then Supercard DS1 SDHC, EDGE, DSTT, or Acekard 2.

All of those are good choices.

 

[cutterjohn]

Depending upon your price requirements, I'd suggest:
Evolution (a little pricey, but good support) -> SCDS1 SDHC(similar features to Evolution plus some extras, some bad batches recently) -> Acekard 2(review cites poor build quality and problems with some demanding DS ROMs), DSTT, maybe Edge DS(not sure how good support for the Edge will be in the future)

An RPG just isn't worth it for what it costs and what features it has v. pretty much ANY other slot-1 cart unless the firmware being open source is worth $30+ ($50+ if you compare to the cheap carts) to you...

[EDIT]
I'd pass up on the non-SDHC carts as they cost just as much as the budget end of the SDHC carts and really offer nothing more than they do, and less when you consider they have no SDHC support and NEVER will be able to have SDHC support. And, at the way uSD card prices are dropping, I'd expect to start seeing regular uSD cards go away, except for a few places that will have excess inventory at incredibly inflated prices...
[/EDIT]

 

[terminator99]

TTDS Rules

 

[4playgaming]

If you have a Slot-2 system right now, I highly recommend you to switch over to a Slot-1 card. Many Slot-1 cards have automatic trimming, drag and drop play, cheat support, etc. Cards such as the Supercard DS One even takes it a step further and allows for in-game walkthrough guide viewing, real-time saving, multi-save support, etc.

For the mild investment of $30-40, you can't go wrong with that! Sell your old Slot-2 M3 and you'll be paying barely anything for a significant upgrade.

There are also tons of save games converter that can convert your old save files to be compatible with your new cart, so the upgrade path is all set for you.

 

[Rawrl]

No love for the M3 Real?

 

[Ferrariman]

No love for the M3 Real?

Nope.

 

[Rawrl]

No love for the M3 Real?

Nope.

 

[ojsinnerz.]

No love for the M3 Real?

Nope.

Currently it sucks...

 

[Rawrl]

Currently it sucks...

Well, shit. And after I finally managed to order one, too. Oh well, guess I'll just have to make do.

 

[ojsinnerz.]

Currently it sucks...

Well, shit. And after I finally managed to order one, too. Oh well, guess I'll just have to make do.

Well, here's some good news. There's this thing called the Sakura firmware for the M3 Real, and it looks fantastic. But currently, it's under construction, and there's a lot of work to be done. But in the Current state, it's terrible.