New Flash Kit: Acekard R.P.G. announced! *Update*

[4saken]

Software theft would be a problem if AceKard were to open source their stuff. In any case, this will be an interesting product. If you want the storage of an SDHC card, you can run low latency-requiring games (eg. Castlevania, Tony Hawk: DJ) from the NAND, and other stuff from any SDHC.

EDIT: word mixed up :S

 

[TaMs]

sounds really good.

 

[quartercast]

Hey yo,

Check out the review sample I got!

Damn I need a shave

EDIT: 3rd time lucky

 

[Sweater Fish Del]

But that's exactly what the open source firmware will allow on this card. I guarantee that among the very first things released based on this source will be plugins for Moonshell and DSOrganize that allow loading commercial ROMs with those apps, but only on this card and it won't happen for other cards unless they release their sources, too.

As for whether many developers get involved with the Acekard source, time will tell (time and whether it's truly 100% open or only parts of it). There has been plenty of work done on past cards like the R4, Supercard and GBAMP, though, so I don't think the argument that no one will mess with the Acekard source just because their work would only be usable by other Acekard users flies.

Time will tell, but it is a big step and it's sure to get them a lot of attention, both from coders and non-coders, so it already fulfills its purpose.


...word is bondage...

 

[johnchan]

a)Â i. On the contrary, I don't see Acekard making this cart much more expensive. The Acekard+ was very reasonably priced at the time (50 AUD), and 8Gb NAND flash carts are quite low in price (8Gb MK5: 45 AUD ex shipping). Flash carts are very well priced these days. Think about it, how much does a real game cost, 60 AUD? Are you saying most people can't afford to buy 2 DS games? Come on.. get real! Given this took 10 months to manufacture, and that it's being manufactured by an asian company, I reckon it'll be priced around 100 AUD. I remember when the groundbreaking slot-2 lite solutions came out, they were around that price.

  ii. You obviously haven't played many games on a flashcart. All slot-1 microSD solutions are hampered by the latency of the reader/microSD card, which cause some (popular!) games to freeze. Most NAND-flash ram based carts to date are plagued by slow write speeds, and all are hampered by unexpandable memory. This appears to be a best-of-both-worlds solution!


b) So, what excites you then? As far as most of the GBAtemp community are concerned, this is the cart they've been waiting for - for a long, long time! Human beings are naturally creative, this will allow them to be. Why do people spend so much time making custom firmware for all sorts of devices? Because the device didn't support a feature which they wanted, or they just wanted to get it to do some funky things that weren't intended originally!

Anyways.. happy moaning to youÂ

EDIT: cleanupÂ

You need to consider the cost of all the components here. They will have a NAND flash chip, some USB chipset, a large FPGA to drive all the components and hold their "NDS cart emulation logic", plus other misc stuff like SD slot and USB connector. That alone means it'll cost quite a lot to manufacture. These people are going to want to make a profit as well. This means its going to cost considerably more than R4, CycloDS, EZV etc - there is no denying this. I really think your estimate of AUD100 is a bit too optimistic - it will probably be at least AUD120 and then you still need to fork out for a MicroSD card if you want that too.

And yes, I'm well aware of the various problems associated with both MicroSD and NAND based solutions. Dont try to tell me that I havent played enough games

In my experience, using MicroSD based carts has been fine with the exception of Castlevania and Tony Hawks. Castlevania is the only game which I am aware suffers from freezing issues. Tony Hawks has a few graphical glitches. So, thats two games I'm aware of - and two games which I dont play. I'm not prepared to pay a premium just to ensure I can play these games. Granted, some people WILL be prepared to pay extra - but I'm quite confident that the majority wont be. Why do you think R4 is so popular, even though there are superior solutions out there? Because its cheap

About the homebrew stuff, you're entitled to your opinion as I am entitled to mine. Lets just wait and see what happens after a few months, then we'll see who was right

I'm not trying to moan here, but rather tell things as I see them.

 

[quartercast]

And yes, I'm well aware of the various problems associated with both MicroSD and NAND based solutions. Dont try to tell me that I havent played enough games

In my experience, using MicroSD based carts has been fine with the exception of Castlevania and Tony Hawks. Castlevania is the only game which I am aware suffers from freezing issues. Tony Hawks has a few graphical glitches. So, thats two games I'm aware of - and two games which I dont play. I'm not prepared to pay a premium just to ensure I can play these games. Granted, some people WILL be prepared to pay extra - but I'm quite confident that the majority wont be. Why do you think R4 is so popular, even though there are superior solutions out there? Because its cheap

You haven't played enough games! Play more games! Nyaaaaaaaaaaaaar!

Sorry, that was a bit uncalled for

Don't forget about slowdowns as well, like w/ FF3, Animal Crossing etc.. but yeah, most of your points make sense now.

 

[shaunj66]

Yes they fixed the typo on their website. It's 8Gbit (1GB) not 8GB...

Main post updated.

 

[4saken]

Have any of the GBAtemp staff tried to secure samples yet?

 

[Raisingod]

This looks good

Though new DLDI drivers will be needed since there are two partitions to access

Plus open source will make this cart a favorite among devs

 

[Mehdi]

LMAO @ update. There I thought this card was the next best thing.

 

[shaunj66]

Have any of the GBAtemp staff tried to secure samples yet?

We'll get one in under 2 weeks, hopefully

 

[tjas]

xD thats marketing! 8gb and then ow sorry... typo it's 8Gbit

 

[sasuke_kun12]

hello quartercast! anywaiz getting back on topic, the acekard r.p.g in my opinion would cost about 120AUD. How much is a g6 real 8gbs? and how much is an r4? reckon about 60 bucks each?

 

[xalphax]

8Gbits is still plenty of space for those games which need fast memory

and a pricetag of 50$ seems in the right range again.

if it realy was 8 Gigabytes of NAND the price would be far over 100$ more like 150$

 

[Raisingod]

I really don't think they will charge 120 AUD for it

 

[Maikel Steneker]

This looks great! And it may become perfect thanks to the open source support.

I think it will be much to expensive though... Unless the R4 and CycloDS Evolution.

I'll wait until some good sites review it first

 

[Monkey01]

If it claims that it runs clean roms without modifying it (which it does) it also means that it claims that ill work Wii/DS.

EDIT:Â Food for thought, what would happen if GBATemp's newest feature is that they are actually bringing the GBATemper card to life with the Open source and everything, wouldn't this cart kick its butt?

They also claimed clean rom with their previous card, and I'm still having the same download play compat. as R4 before their update. Haven't tested wii connectivity though, don't have pokémon for wii.

hello quartercast! anywaiz getting back on topic, the acekard r.p.g in my opinion would cost about 120AUD. How much is a g6 real 8gbs? and how much is an r4? reckon about 60 bucks each?

The G6 8Gb is $57. The R4 is $42.
But if it's two things in one, most of the time it's cheaper then buying the stuff seperated... Might be different with smaller devices though.

But G6 and R4 aren't the cheapest anyway, you could also see it as an EZ5 of

 

[felix123]

AceKard's clean rom support is really good. They didn't have to rush out new kernels for new games, unlike most of the other cards.

 

[OSW]

I really don't think they will charge 120 AUD for it

yep $100 AUD max i reckon. I don't think Acekard will charge the same premium G6 team does, but this cart has more hardware features.

so like $60-65 USD?

 

[4saken]

I really don't think they will charge 120 AUD for it

yep $100 AUD max i reckon. I don't think Acekard will charge the same premium G6 team does, but this cart has more hardware features.

so like $60-65 USD?

Probably not that low. But anyway, there was something on yyjoy a while ago which discussed the price of the AK2, it was either 200 chinese yuan, 600 chinese yuan or 800 chinese yuan (I think, or I might have forgotten the number completely). But at this time is was probably just speculation