Hacking most compatible card?

[UltraMagnus]

HI, i am trying to decide what flash cart to get for my DS, really the most important thing for me is for it to have good compatibility with NDS and GBA roms (with, one of those 3 in 1 things for GBA, obviously) and homebrew. It would also be preferable if the card had removable storage, although this seems pretty much standard. i am not that much interested in cheats, etc, although real time save would be interesting.

the other thing is, that i must be able to get it from a UK store in time for xmas!

I was thinking perhaps the Cyclo DS evolution or the Acekard RPG? am i on the right track here? or should i look at a different card

thanks in advance!

edit: i forgot, it has to also be able to be used under linux, although i suppose that shouldn't be a problem with a removable memory card

 

[DanTheManMS]

The Supercard DS is the only one to support real time saves at the moment. As long as your device uses microSD cards, it'll work fine under Linux. Keep in mind however that with your 3in1 you'll need to patch many GBA games so they save to SRAM rather than EEPROM or Flash. While there are probably Linux-side patchers to do this, I can't guarantee that you'll be able to do it, as I'm completely clueless about it. You can test GBATA to see if it works correctly in WINE if you'd like to test beforehand.

 

[DarkAura]

If you want real-time save:
SuperCard DS One

If you want a good cart, but no real time:
Cyclo DS Evoltion + EZFlash 3-in-1 Expansion Pack
You can play GBA games on the EZF 3-in-1

 

[UltraMagnus]

I think i will go for the CycloDS EVO then, i dont really need real time save.

is the any way to play unpatched GBA ROMs on the DS?

thanks in advance!

 

[cutterjohn]

Cyclops is SUPPOSEDLY releasing a beta firmware "soon" that will support realtime saves on the Evolution. Supposedly they've had it working for alot of games for a while now, but didn't want to release quite yet, but the Supercard OS 3.0 seems to have prodded them into a release. It still has NOT appeared yet, and it's been almost a week since the announcement.

If you DO buy an Evo, buy from a European store and make sure that they will swap a defective Evo from their stock, ow. you'll be waiting for what looks to be about a month for a replacement directly from Cyclops. Mine came DOA, the vendor won't swap, so I'm going to have to send mine back to Cyclops for a replacement but I'm going to wait until after the holidays to send it in, so I expect to not have a replacement until February at the earliest. I'm looking at some cheap backup slot-1s ATM to use while I'm awaiting replacement...

(Found good prices for US based vendors on SC DS1 v2 and EZF V, or maybe an M3 DS Real rumble from realhotstuff. I've already got a 3in1 so that's covered well enough for now...)

 

[DanTheManMS]

is the any way to play unpatched GBA ROMs on the DS?

The M3 Perfect has RAM that's fast enough to play unpatched games, but I believe (someone correct me if I'm wrong) that you lose the ability to save if you do so. You have to patch it to save and use other advanced features of the cart.

Of course, you could also get an old NOR-based device like a Flash2Advance Ultra, but that would require a special linker cable and special software to flash files to it, so it's not much better than patching.

 

[.::5pYd3r::.]

I think i will go for the CycloDS EVO then, i dont really need real time save.

is the any way to play unpatched GBA ROMs on the DS?

thanks in advance!

If you get an EZ Flash 3 in 1 all you have to do is SRAM patch and both GBATA and the EZ4 Client work perfectly under wine.