Hacking Just getting started...

[jb518]

I have my first Acekard 2 and 8gb Kingston MicroSD card arriving any day now. And I wanted to get kind of a list of what someone new to Acekard should do first.

Here is what I've gathered thus far:
1. Load AKAIO as the firmware (do I have to do anything special, or just put it on my microSD card? Also, will this work with an 8gb card? I've read conflicting posts on this.)
2. What's the best way to organize roms? (I was thinking three folders - DS, NES, SNES) (then within each folder will be subcategories, such as A-E, F-J...)
3. The roms I have either end in .zip or .7z. Do I have to decompress these before using them? Also, what about renaming them, lots have the rom number infront of the file? In terms of organization, what do most people do?
4. Load emulators for NES & SNES - which I gathered the best are nesDS & SNEmulDSv06a

Am I missing anything? Please help enlighten the noob.
Thanks!

By the way, is there any chance the Acekard 2 will ever offer support for Save states? When I've used emulators on my PC, I found these came in handy. I didn't realize the Acekard didn't have this feature till after I ordered it.

 

[ENDscape]

1) Just put the folders in the root of your microsd card and youre good to go. And it supports sdhcs.
2) Organize it any way you want. Your way works.
3) You need to unzip them. Use either winrar for rar files and zip files. You can name them anything as long as it ends with .nds. I organize my roms in folders. NDS for nds, Videos for vids, etc.

Other things worth mentioning is to play around with your acekard and get use to it. Other than these, i hope you enjoy your acekard.

 

[Bri]

Grab Rominator and install it on your PC. It will keep track of your ROMs and allow you to auto-rename them, trim them, do a checksum on them, etc.

To clarify, you need to unpack the archive your ROMs come in and you can throw everything away except for the .nds file that is in the archive. Then you rename the .nds file to whatever you want (or let Rominator do it for you based on the internal name of the game).

-Bri

 

[jb518]

Thanks for the info. I guess I have some work ahead of me - extracting all the roms and then I'll have to find Rominator and work on renaming all of them.

If you can pass along any other information someone just getting into this should know, I would appreciate it.

 

[o RedSheLL x]

Just to answer ur save state question, it does not. It doesn't matter how to organize ur ROMS, I just have a folder called DS Games and I put all my ROMs in there, no sub folders or anything.

 

[jb518]

Speaking of organizing roms, I know people say it doesn't matter how to organize them. But I've heard if you have alot in a single folder it causes a bit of a lag. Hence, the reason for the subdivision. Also, I've heard people say when formatting the SD card initially to go either Fat16 or Fat32. I believe for an 8gb card, you have to use the Fat32. Is this correct? If you don't, is there one reason to use one format over another?

I know the Acekard 2 doesn't have save states. But what I was wondering is, since the firmware appears to be updated fairly frequently, is this something that may be a feature in the future or does the card simply not have the capability to do this, no matter what firmware updates may come out?

 

[o RedSheLL x]

That is true, now I have an ACEKARD RPG, but the firmware is the same in all, but the card is different, and I'm pretty sure u use FAT32 with an 8GB card, also, ur right about the subfolders, when I load my DS rom folder on my rpg, it takes like a second to load. And I think the Acekard team do not have intentions of adding save states, but becuz of custom firmware, it can be added.

 

[ROM Troll]

In response to the topic question, read the threads at this Acekard RPG forum back from June 1, 2008 and up through the current threads. Any additional questions, post.

 

[jb518]

Rom troll, I appreciate your advice about searching the previous posts. I've definitely spent alot of time going through all the previous posts on this forum. They are actually what helped me make up my mind in purchasing the Acekard 2. However, there wasn't a beginner FAQ, which I feel would be helpful. I'm sure all these questions have been asked before, but it's nice to have a post that has all the answers in one place for someone who just got an Acekard.