Hacking Is the price worth it for the Acekard RPG?

[jabjab]

The whole reason I brought this up is because of the argument that the mini-usb connector and it's inaccessibility was somehow a maneuver to support piracy and not homebrew. The fact is the two things are unrelated.

I think you misread the initial post.
The argument wasn't:
"the rpg has to be removed from the ds - this aids piracy"
it was:
"lets aid piracy as thats where our money is - we'll just ignore leaving the rpg in"

Edit: answering the initial question, no the rpg isn't worth 3 times the price of an ak2 to me.
nand? whoop - nice, but just a bonus to me.
open source? not many can do better than whats being done atm and whats being done atm can be used on ak2 anyway so moot point.

 

[lurbi]

And AKAIO has a bucket-full of features the Evo doesn't.

hmmm ... sorry ... I do not own a CycloDS (only a SCDS1 and an AceKard2)
but what features does AKAIO have that Cyclo has not??
Aside from neat but not really usefull GUI additions??

No in-game menu, no realtime save, no realtime guide.

I like AKAIO ... but saying that it has more features than the cyclo is a bit hard.

 

[IOwnAndPwnU]

AKRPG is only good for developers because it's easier for them to test their homebrew stuff. If you're not going to use it for developing stuff, it's not recommended.

 

[gratefulbuddy]

And AKAIO has a bucket-full of features the Evo doesn't.

hmmm ... sorry ... I do not own a CycloDS (only a SCDS1 and an AceKard2)
but what features does AKAIO have that Cyclo has not??
Aside from neat but not really usefull GUI additions??

No in-game menu, no realtime save, no realtime guide.

I like AKAIO ... but saying that it has more features than the cyclo is a bit hard.

AIO has:
Copy/paste/delete functions
Ability to trim roms on cart
Ability to add a shortcut
Ability to switch on/off patching functions
Individual rom settings
Multiple save slots for each rom
Not locked into a "three choice" menu (ala old r4 days)

 

[lurbi]

As far as potential, the AKRPG is open source and therefore automatically wins that argument.

Ahhh ... one moment

Open Source in itself is no guarantee for good software.
Look at other open source projects ...
Operating Systems for example.

Open source works great for Linux ... there are many people actively developing the kernel.
Than look at HURD ... _THE_ operating system of the FSF.
Nobody knows it, it is extremely lacking and absolutely not useable in production environment.

And it is promoted by the free software foundation! (the people behing GNU and GCC)

So again ... let us take a look at RPG.

The Acekard team seems to have abandoned it with the argument:
Hey it is open source, you are free to implement whatver you want, no need for us to do the work.

If Normatt and Smiths decide to stop their work, or just do net get enough alcohol to code, than there is nobody developing.

I did not want to go there, but now I write down my 2 cents about the topic:
AKRPG is a AK2 with slightly higher build quality and:
*) 1 GB internal NAND memory (faster than slow SDHC cards ... but not really much faster than a good external SD card)
*) MiniUSB to access the 1 GB Nand ... only possible to access NAND NOT the MicroSD
(would have been possible by implementing a multi USB device ... eg a device which signals that it is an USB hub with a 1 GB NAND and a MicroSD connected to it ... but this was not done)
*) open source software (with the main software being AKAIO which is also available on AK2 and partly for AK+

I personally think that having additonal 1 GB of NAND is a nice gimmick ... but in reality I do not care at all ... the only thing I possibly could think of how to use is to take out the SD, and insert the SD of a friend, to copy something to it ... but than again speed is so slow that propably you would not really care to do it

So for me the question is:
get AK2 for 23.01 dollars including shipping
or get AK RPG for 65.9$ with all features of AK2 + slightly better build quality, 1 GB internal additional NAND + USB support only for the NAND (not the SD card) and open source OS (but the fact that AKAIO is closed source for AK2, but has all the features of RPG AKAIO)

For me the situation was clear.

(I bought the AK2 as AKAIO came out ... it is not my main card ... but getting it for 23 dollars including shipping was to good to pass by.)

 

[lurbi]

Is the RPG the only open source flashcart in the market? If so, why isn't features like an In-game text reader and RTS available? I thought it would have much more features than Cyclo since it's open source.

As far as I know: yes ... the AK RPG is the onyl open source card.

BUT being open source does not guarentee you great software.
It gives you the chance to alter the software.
So you CAN implement features.

But if nobody does so, than it will not evolve.

Don't listen to Urza, but go to the cyclo forum, and take a look at the changelogs.
There you will see that there are MANY features added, and much work done.
[note: I do not own a cyclo ... just went to their forum to look what the Hype was all about]

The reason is, that RPG programmers do it as their hobby.
They implement what they think is useful to them, and what is easy to implement.

Commercial firmwares are written by people who get paid for their work.
(eg. Team Supercard as they implemented realtime save first ... no other cart had this feature, and it was a reason why many people bought supercards)

Again: Open Source is GREAT ... it gives you the chance to implement great usefull features yourself, and others profit from that ... but if only a very small number of people does it, and they do only relatively minor changes, than there will never be revolutionary features implemented.
Naturally it is allways possible with open source that a genius comes, and implements great and complex features.

Also it is to be considered, that Open source is not dependant on a commercial company for support.
If team cyclos abandons the CycloDS, than there will be no bugfixes and new features for the CycloDS ever ... with open source, you can sit down, and try to implement a feature or bugfix yourself.

 

[dib]

Which is fair, but many of us don't see the point in quibbling over a one time investment. You pay the $65 or whatever, you get the card, that's all there is to it. That's what, a few more hours of work, a couple less DVDs that you'll buy on a whim? Most of us don't really need to lay awake at night concerning ourselves over whether $40 makes a difference.

What does it buy? For some of us, just the fact that we don't have to dink around with SD cards at all. You won't see topics here by RPG users complaining that they bought the wrong memory card from the wrong country, that's an experience reserved exclusively for AK2 customers.

And yeah, open source. Although on another note, an oft overlooked fact is that AK2 isn't open source today, but it could be made open source any time they feel like it. Of course, judging from the past I wouldn't bet on this, my EZFA for the GBA certainly wasn't made public domain even after Borden abandoned it without announcement. To this day GBA homebrew can't make use of its nifty features like the real time clock. In fact, I can't think of any devices that ever were released to the public prior to discontinuation.

In the meantime, anybody would be foolish to believe that open source necessitates superior software. But what you are getting is the guarantee that should Acekard disappear tomorrow-as is always the possibility with these outfits--that there exists the _potential_ for progress so long as somebody is willing to take up the project. At this very moment, should the aforementioned occur, AK2 users would be stuck with a defunct product. So they don't even have that possibility, same as any other products around right now.

Speaking of which--I owned a DS-X, so yeah that is easily worth the $40 for me to not repeat those mistakes of the past. Those guys ripped everybody off with promises they were never prepared to keep, jerked around their own customer base for a couple years, then up and vanished. Right now, I own an Acekard RPG and the guys that I can discuss features with are right here on this board working on the AIO. And if they don't feel like doing that anymore, I suppose I could always get off my lazy arse and start sifting through the source code to see what's up.

 

[Link5084]

What I'm trying to figure out is that since the AKRPG is open source, it should have the same features as Cyclo, correct? Are developers just lazy to put these features in?

 

[IOwnAndPwnU]

I would say: Lazy

 

[VatoLoco]

While RPG is open source, CycloDS is not.

So it's not just as easy as cut and paste to add RTS and such.

The AIO developers work very hard in their spare time to develop the OS,

so be thankful they've added the features the have

 

[IOwnAndPwnU]

If only the CycloDS was open-source ... that would the day.

 

[Diablo1123]

If only the CycloDS was open-source ... that would the day.

Then you'd see people taking the RTS code and implementing it on other flashcarts

 

[IOwnAndPwnU]

That's what I meant.

Wow small mistakes within my post. But they're small.

 

[dib]

If only the CycloDS was open-source ... that would the day.

Then you'd see people taking the RTS code and implementing it on other flashcarts

Well that's a great argument to never have anything open source, ever. Yet the philosophy is still widespread anyway. And fact is that it's absurd because this happens anyway. Already the Cyclo has instituted wifi cheat updating, yet AIO isn't open source.

Half of it is innovating the idea. The other half is having somebody competent enough to code it. Ripping off somebody else's work isn't even necessary if you can meet these two criteria. For all we know, Acekard has one guy that knows a little bit about coding and that's why little gets done by contrast to the Cyclo.

Save states aren't exactly complex anyway, it's a memory dump. The trick is how would the Acekard dump the runtime memory from the DS without some kind of overhead process? By my understanding, the Cyclo has a menu that is omnipresent even after loading+executing a rom. I believe the Acekard just handles stuff like cheats with patching. I haven't sat down with the source code before to see what's going on.

 

[Urza]

So for me the question is:
So for me the question is:
get AK2 for 23.01 dollars including shipping
or get AK RPG for 65.9$ with all features of AK2 + slightly better build quality, 1 GB internal additional NAND + USB support only for the NAND (not the SD card) and open source OS (but the fact that AKAIO is closed source for AK2, but has all the features of RPG AKAIO)

For me the situation was clear.

Since you apparently don't actually take the time to read the threads you reply to, you'll see I aside the exact same thing on the last page.

 

[Urza]

Don't listen to Urza, but go to the cyclo forum, and take a look at the changelogs.
There you will see that there are MANY features added, and much work done.
[note: I do not own a cyclo ... just went to their forum to look what the Hype was all about]

And you think I haven't?

Take a look at the AKBBS/AIO changelogs and you'll see several times more additional features and bug fixes on a monthly basis.

 

[lurbi]

Take a look at the AKBBS/AIO changelogs and you'll see several times more additional features and bug fixes on a monthly basis.

There is no sense in continuing this thread.
Everybody can take a look at the public AKAIO changelog, and the public Cyclo changelog.
And as I said, I do not have a cyclo ... so I see only the AK2 AKAIO side directly.

Anyways ... I challenge you to come back in 3 months, and compare what has been done in those 3 months ... and I believe I know already who will be in front ...

But we will see ... end of thread.

 

[Urza]

Anyways ... I challenge you to come back in 3 months, and compare what has been done in those 3 months ... and I believe I know already who will be in front ...

Or instead of arguing on hypotheticals, we could compare what's been done in the last three months and come to a more apt conclusion.

 

[Swip]

Urza what features does AKAIO have that make it better than the Cyclo?

 

[lurbi]

Anyways ... I challenge you to come back in 3 months, and compare what has been done in those 3 months ... and I believe I know already who will be in front ...

Or instead of arguing on hypotheticals, we could compare what's been done in the last three months and come to a more apt conclusion.

Is AKAIO already 3 months old ... time is flying.

Sure ... please come back with your findings ...

but don't forget that cyclo does not have so many low hanging fruits left. (eg. many easy features have already been implemented, and many hard ones as well)