Hacking Noob needing help. May have R4 clone and having issues.

[cremorecs]

I read through the rules and hopefully I'm not breaking any here.
Understand that I'm basically a noob to the R4 and DS emulation but I'm not a noob to the pc and other areas of technology so please don't treat me like a complete dummy.

I think I unknowingly purchased a R4 clone and need some help with a few things.

Well, first off I received the flash cart, installed a handful of games and had no problems whatsoever running them with the moonshell firmware (it is firmware, correct?) until I tried a certain game.
I played through about a half hour or so with the game Mario and Luigi - Bowser's Inside Story and had saved. Upon coming back to my game, the .sav file wasn't being recognized by the .nds file of the game. It was still on the card but not being recognized. Not being sure if this sort of thing was normal, or would happen again, or would happen with other games, I started doing some serious google searches and came up with mostly links to this site. I found all kind of "fixes" from various locations and discovered that I should install ysmenu and try booting the game through that. No luck, as I was getting 'unsupported dldi name' errors. After searching that I realized that I may have a clone flash cart as well. So, needless to say I have some problems here.

I bought the R4 sdhc from here..
http://r4i-sdhc.com

First off.. do I have a clone? If so, can I circumvent these problems or should I buy a legit R4 or other recommended cart? (I plan on using this for games only)

Second.. Was the .sav file not being recognized just a fluke or something that will occur again and again with this R4? And with other games?

Lastly, if there is hope can someone please help me with preventing this error from occuring again?

Thanks so much to any feedback coming my way, I know this is a doozy of a first post.

 

[s4mid4re]

First off.. do I have a clone? If so, can I circumvent these problems or should I buy a legit R4 or other recommended cart? (I plan on using this for games only)

Second.. Was the .sav file not being recognized just a fluke or something that will occur again and again with this R4? And with other games?

Lastly, if there is hope can someone please help me with preventing this error from occuring again?

1. Yes, you do have a clone.
2. Your firmware might be incompatible with that game; update it or use YSmenu. If that doesn't work, it may be a bad dump (a corrupt ROM that usually causes bugs like that).
3. Updating regularly usually solves compatibility issues on newer games.

The firmware would be the r4iMenu [folder] and r4.dat which allows the flashcart to boot up and load games.
First of all, try updating the kernel to the latest one, if not yet. Here's the download page. Firmware upgrades usually provide fixes for games that are incompatible with the current firmware.

As for the YSmenu, you might be using the 'wrong' one. most of the r4 clones function differently, so you will need the correct YSmenu for that certain cart. RetroGameFan does the updates for YSmenu; here is his thread (the download link for the latest YSmenu is in the bottom of his post). After downloading it, Open it up and it should look something like this:

Spoiler

R4-SDHC_R4i-SDHC TTMenu folder (as highlighted in the image above) is the one that you are supposed to be using for your r4.
Put the contents of R4-SDHC_R4i-SDHC TTMenu onto the root of your micro SD card.

boot up into your r4's original firmware and boot up TTMenu.nds; this should load YSmenu up. As YSmenu is updated regularly and offers high compatibility to games, this should be enough to play the latest games.

 

[cremorecs]

Thanks for the help! I'm following this to the T and hoping for the best.

 

[Buleste]

Not recognising .savs is an occasional problem with the r4i-SDHC. best thing to do is backup everything to your PC and reformat your card using the Panasonic SD formatter. Download the latest kernel from www.r4i-sdhc.com and then add that to your reformatted SD card and then add your game backups (Bowsers Inside Story should be compatible as that card company are usually pretty good at keeping up to date).

 

[cremorecs]

Hmmm.. tried it and the Ysmenu wouldn't load. It was stuck on the loading screen for quite some time.

 

[Buleste]

Hmmm.. tried it and the Ysmenu wouldn't load. It was stuck on the loading screen for quite some time.

Did you follow the instructions on the "How To install.txt" file in the "R4-SDHC_R4i-SDHC TTMenu" folder of the archive as it sounds to me as though you deleted your normal kernel in favour of the RGF kernel which is wrong.

 

[cremorecs]

I didn't delete or overwrite anything and followed the install text file although I have been formatting the card via Windows 7 and not the Panasonic program. I will retry after doing so.

 

[NES SNES V.B. N64 G.C. Wii WiiU]

Sadly, unless after formatting your R4 with the panasonic program works, there is nothing you can do. Use the default menu, its bearable, but far from great, or buy a better card.

 

[cremorecs]

Believe it or not it worked! Thanks guys!
Is there anything else I would need to do to prevent the .sav file from becoming corrupt again even if only playing the game through ysmenu? I don't want to get real far and lose it again. I'm also periodically backing up my .sav to my PC.

I read something about converting the .sav files from 512kb to 1mb like with Pokemon. Is this something I would need to do? Thanks.

 

[Sausage Head]

no, not really
the size depends on the save type used by the game.
i dont think its even possible to change it (from the ROM)

 

[NES SNES V.B. N64 G.C. Wii WiiU]

Nope, nothing else you need to do. Though it is wise to leave a backup of your R4 SD card on your computer for future reference (especially if something goes wrong again!)

 

[cremorecs]

Yea, I have a backup of everything. Did that as soon as I got the card.
I'm going to start backing up my .Sav files to the PC as well periodically.. you know, just in case.