New Review - AceKard

[shaunj66]

New Review - AceKard

Official GBAtemp Review








We've just finished writing our extensive review of the AceKard. If you want to know how it performs, click the link below to go to the review.
The AceKard is a flush fitting slot 1 flash cart that takes micro SD (transflash) memory cards and boasts 100% compatibility.

Please feel free to comment on the review in this topic!

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  AceKard Review

 

[supermecleboss]

thank for this review , I want to this lol .

filesystem and homebrew comtability is so bad .

 

[Dosa]

100% compatibility is nice! but the filesystem is too shit...

 

[Digeman]

Thanks guys i really wanted to see what you had to say first before i made up my mind if i would buy the acekard or ds xtreme. Now it's all clear to me, thanks guys!

 

[Hooya]

Great review. Answered some much needed questions.

One further question that was not addressed at all in the review (and I'm sure you haven't had time to test this).

How is the battery life compared to a genuine cart?

Anyway, if there are speed issues when using a good memory card I don't see the point of using the AKFS... I thought the whole point was that AKFS was closer to a genuine cart and it would be faster/more compatible. Since it's not faster it just appears to be a nuisance.

I'm eagerly awaiting the microninja (or whatever) review now.

 

[kmihalj]

Well, using MicroSD is only plus for AceCard, .... everything else is .... well shitty ....

As for compatibility, ... well not much ROM tested, .... but concurention have only one ROM not working (atleast for DS-X, and that will probably be solved in next firmware upgrade). Homebrew not working at all .... and there is lots great homebrew applications. Also, only Windows software is big minus (since it doesn't work in Wine, I'll test it with VirtualPC for Mac and report here).

I'll skip this one. Also skiping Ninjapass x9 since shity "save system".
Overall DS-Xtreme is still the best, and have only two cons. ... 512 MB *fixed*, nonupgradeable, .... and OS specific Firmware upgrade (well this is situation now for firmware.... maybe they will fix that soon).

 

[lookout]

great! thank

 

[tetsuya]

Thanks for the awesome review. I had high hopes for them, but a major turn down for me is that filesystem.

 

[Deleted User]

You did an awesome job on that review. Thanks!
Seems like the AceKard doesn't live up to the promises they made. Determing the SaveType for yourself with newer games really sucks in my opinion and AKFS is obviously not 'the super duper speed up thing' they advertised it as.

 

[ToGun]

Nice review ;-)

Now im so glad to have a DS-Xtreme...

I don't like this card at all...

 

[nitrolewis]

good review

do u think this is good value for money including fast sd


( cos im considering ds-x )

 

[Sinkhead]

I was really disappointed with this.

I wish the DS-X team would make a DS-X with removable media (please don't flame me, I'm not saying 512 Mb is bad, just that it's not enough for me). The DS-X is one great product, but it really could be PERFECT if it supported removable media.

- Sam

 

[deathspawn999]

great review but with all that hassle you still gave it a 7.5? there is no way i could be bothered with all that shit.

 

[jpxdude]

Thank you for the review! I've been waiting in anticipation for a thorough look at the device for a while, and you've both done a good job writing it fairly and objectively. I am a little disappointed about the intro slowdowns in Castlevania and Rub Rabbits, but personally it looks like a clincher for me

Having experience with the M3, and the SC, I don't mind the tinkering with the sav data too much, plus the active Acekard wiki i've seen about will undoubtably get filled up pretty quick. I'm planning to use this as my slot 1 backup solution and leave the M3Lite to work the homebrew support.

I agree with every portion of your review except the last part of Costello's analysis, and question: Why is speed neccessary?

I can tell you that, the NinjaDS suffers from HORRENDOUS speed issues with quite a few games. Thats testing with a variety of SD's, including a vanilla 512 Sandisk, and 40x, 66x SD's. For the perfect example, try running Ouendan, and see how long it takes to load up each song. I'd say for the first track (school homework level), it takes about 40-60 secs to start. :-/

I can't speak for the DSLink, or the X9, but i'd imagine the microninja would have the same issues (same firmware). I guess maybe some others can shed some light on the issue?

Thanks again

 

[Xenocide]

Interesting discussion on fragmentation, however, sequential reads are primarily faster on disks because of seek times. The heads take time to move from reading the inside to the outside of a disk, and it takes time to spin the disk to the correct location. Solid state media like flash doesn't have this mechanical limitation. The likely reasons the filesystem doesn't support fragmentation is a) it takes more effort to write the software to handle fragmentation and b) it takes a lot more effort to design the DS interface to handle fragmentation.

GBA game carts used sequential access to speed up the address requests. Random access required one communication to the cart to get the address, and another one to return the data. Seqential mode then returns the values from the next address on the next read, skipping the communication between reads to set the address, potentially cutting access time close to half of random. But I don't think the DS cart operates in such a manner, although the homebrew docs I've seen don't appear to have any interesting details on it for me.

What's far more interesting is the use of an altera max II rather than ASIC.

 

[stinkingbob]

Thanks for the great review Shaun. I know you and Costello put in a lot of time and effort into this one.
One thing though: Costello mentioned that the DS battery life while using the AceKard was crappy. Can you elaborate more on that? How is the battery life>

I think that now, people finally see that the best slot 1 solution is the DS-X hands down. Other companies purport to all these nice features and compatibility of their own carts, but when the review unit is shipped and tested by the GBA staff, the cards almost never live up to what the manufacturer says it will do.
So, I really hope people aren't waiting for the ninja to be reviewed before they finally realize that the ds-x is THE one to get. So far, there have been no legitimate complaints against it after frimware 1.0.2 was released. What are you waiting for? But it!

Honestly, I believe a rating of 7.5 is too high for the AceKard. A 5 would have been better.
By it running games pretty well, thats an automatic 5. The other points should be for ease of use, extra features and does the software work. In this case a 0.

 

[adgloride]

Great review. When someone made the file system just supported by the software they mush have been drunk. I prefer using a memory card reader to write data to the card. Not sure if I missed this in the review, but have you any pictures of the AceKard connected up to the PC so I can see how its all connected up?

 

[bug]

Good review, but I also think the final rating is too high considering what you have written. In my opinion the problems with the software, save types and file system make the Acekard unusable on a daily basis. You would spend more time adjusting things than playing games.

Then again, even if there was no problem with software and save types, I still think it's absolutely pointless to have a slot 1 solution that uses a proprietary file system. The biggest benefit to a slot 1 card in my opinion is the ability to simply copy & paste clean roms.

 

[Costello]

jpxdude: I have personnally never had a problem with my NinjaDS (might be because I got fast SD cards? or because I haven't tested every single release?), and there are 3 different speed settings that you can select if you have trouble with your card.
Anyway, the DSLink and the X9 still stand, there is no particular slowdown with the DSLink as far as I know.

My personal opinion on the Acekard: it looks just similar to a DSLink that wouldn't require a flashed DS, and that would have 100% DS compatibility. They both require PC software, use microSD, are chinese, white case, ...
However the DSLink detects the save types, it doesn't use a proprietary file system, etc... The comparison is easy.

Now I think they can add automatic save type detection in a new version of the firmware, but if they're going to keep the "100% clean roms" moto, they won't be able to enable download play. I hope I'm wrong, but I don't think you can fix download play only by changing the way a rom is booted.

Interesting discussion on fragmentation, however, sequential reads are primarily faster on disks because of seek times. The heads take time to move from reading the inside to the outside of a disk, and it takes time to spin the disk to the correct location. Solid state media like flash doesn't have this mechanical limitation. The likely reasons the filesystem doesn't support fragmentation is a) it takes more effort to write the software to handle fragmentation and b) it takes a lot more effort to design the DS interface to handle fragmentation.

you're most likely right about seeking in flash memory (which I didn't know), but if there's no speed issues with fragmented files, why would they even bother using a file system whose only purpose is to disallow file fragmentation? I mean, none of the other slot-1 solutions use a proprietary file system..

 

[shaunj66]

How is the battery life?
We're running battery life tests now. We should have some figures for you guys some time tomorrow.

have you any pictures of the AceKard connected up to the PC so I can see how its all connected up?

You remove the micro SD card from the AceKard and plug it into your PC's SD card reader.