Hacking N5DS

[pipja]

That's what I was told when I went out and buy a R4DS at my local gaming shop... and guess what, the N5 runs exactly same stuff as the R4, with some minor changes in terms of versioning and such. It works great though so I kinda not complain. Just a heads up for those still looking for R4, because the trademark has been killed by Nintendo I believe.

 

[JPH]

It's an R4 clone...except crappier build quality.

I think good ol' Sinkhead is suppose to be reviewing it

 

[Sinkhead]

Yep, I started half an hour ago, I would have started it over Spring Break but nobody was kind enough to do my history coursework for me

 

[arsehat]

Yep, I started half an hour ago, I would have started it over Spring Break but nobody was kind enough to do my history coursework for me

I've got a few questions I wouldn't mind seeing addressed in there, if you're not finished yet.

First up - and I'm sure you'll do this - is the matter of battery life. I haven't seen anything objective or repeatable, just people making unsubstantiated complaints.

Secondly - build quality. People have been complaining about it, but not saying an awful lot more than "shell comes apart easily" or just making unsubstantiated assertions that it's bad. I've seen a few batches of R4s with variable build quality, mostly to do with the shell and the little pins that hold it together around the edges. Is it *consistently* worse than the R4 has been, or about on a par - but this could be difficult to assess from a sample-size of one. If you've got a first-generation R4 handy, it could be interesting and informative to see whether the case parts are interchangeable between the two - you won't be able to use the R4's label-side cover on the n5 because of the cut-out for the extra chip, but it could be interesting to know whether they clearly had the mouldings done from scratch or they "borrowed/were given" the tooling and specs for the case. (Why? Well, while it's probably some third-party manufacturer out for a quick buck, it might also be R4 trying to do an end-run around the persecution they've received for being so visible while still profiting from their own tech... yeah, I have a tinfoil beanie too

)

Thirdly - there have been assertions that it won't run some roms - although there have been few details regarding which ones. If it's 'Puppy Palace" and its alternate title, then the R4 doesn't run that either - yet. At this time, the n5/"fake R6"/e7/"R4DS - Upgrade II" all use a decrypted and *very* lightly modified R4 kernel (just two bytes different) so it would be very interesting if it didn't run all the same software that the R4 does.

Fourthly, I'd like to see the SDHC issue put to bed for good. Some have asserted that SDHC doesn't work at all (probably based on their only available SDHC card), some have asserted that it's buggy or works partially wihtout elaborating, some have claimed that it worked with a specific 4-gig SDHC card (which might, in fact, actually turn out to be a falsely labelled one of the elusive 4 gig non-HC SD cards). Personally, I wouldn't be surprised if it didn't support SDHC at all - it'd hardly be the first thing the manufacturers and marketers lied about - but it would be nice to see the matter investigated systematically.

Some people have been asserting that they've been getting lock-ups too, but that could be consistent with the kind of contact problems that some people have taken to shimming other cartridges for.

I'm not personally likely to buy any of these any time soon - the whole fakes-posing-as-another-brand thing that at least two of the n4's siblings are doing (claiming to be R4 and R6, with convincing labels) is part of it, as is uncertainty about how well they've managed to clone the h/w and whether R4 might find some way to stop future kernels working on it - but good information is always useful.

 

[teH XeRO]

someone likes the word assertion (and any other tense of the word lol)

 

[bazzi_h]

Yep, I started half an hour ago, I would have started it over Spring Break but nobody was kind enough to do my history coursework for me

Off-topic: You should of asked me lol. I just recently got an A* for my American-Russian cold War Coursework.

 

[SavageWaffle]

N5=Crappy R4,