Hacking Ok, so I'm getting an R4 and DS

[K2Valor]

I'm going to get an R4, 1GB SD Card ( any suggestions on which brand? ), and a crimson & black DS.
Now, I have a few questions that I would like clarified

- Will the R4 work with Windows 2000?
- Is it really simple to do?
- Are the new kernels necessary? ( What is a kernel anyways? )
- If I wanted the Castlevania game to work, what MicroSD card do I get?
- How exactly do the saves work?
- How does the organizing work?
- What are some essential programs I will need to make my whole experience easier?

Thanks for all the help, and if any more questions arise I will ask them here.

 

[AuthorX]

Well, I'm new to this too, but since I've had a couple weeks to play around with mine, i think I can answer some questions.

1: If your computer can read and write to an SD card (there's also a microSD USB adaptor included with the R4), it will work with the R4
2: With the newer firmware, just drag and drop files onto the flash card.
3: The kernel is just the file you put on the flashcard that acts as firmware. In other words, to get a new kernel, just download it, put it in the right folder instead of the old one, and the firmware will be updated. I'd suggest getting the updates if you don't know which version you have, or just to be on the safe side, but mine already came with 1.11, which works perfectly well (there's only one more recent version, and it barely updates anything).
4: I heard that Kingston Japanese ones are the best for various reasons, and the deal I found included one of those, so that's what I got. There's a full list here.
5: When you start a game (homebrew or... otherwise) for the first time, you're asked if you want it to create a save file. It's just NameofGame.sav, and everything works just the same as saving in the game normally.
6: Just arrange them in folders on the flash card. Same as organizing files on your PC. They'll show up in the same way on the DS.
7: Dunno about that, but some people will swear by DSOrganize. The R4 comes with Moonshell built in, which lets you watch movies and listen to mp3s. You might want to check out the MoonBooks Project, which has classic book and movies already formatted so you can you view them in Moonshell.
This program is also very useful for trimming ROMs of unneeded filesizes, and is much better than the ROM trimmer that comes with the R4.

 

[K2Valor]

Huge help, thanks dude.

 

[DarkAura]

Yah, the R4 is kinda like the 'noob' cart, just cuz it's so easy to use.

And for Moonshell, the videos have to be in .dpg format and you can convert videos with either Batch DPG or dpgenc, which is part of dpgtools131, which is part of Moonshell 1.71. (whew)

Essential programs as in help running the R4 or programs to put on? If the latter, get DSO as mentioned before, cuz it helps you well, organize your files directly from the DS. For computer programs, get Rominator from here: http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=44909 made by hankchill. It's a good ROM organizing app.

You can also get themes from www.ndsthemes.com. Gives your DS a customized look.

Have fun!

Tehe, you guys are consecutive members, number 109,396 and 395.

EDIT: forgot, 1.12 is out, but all it does apparently is fix the games that need the ARM7 fix. And I hear that other games get glitchy and screwy. >_>

 

[El-ahrairah]

Don't forget NDSTokyoTrim. I'll trim off the garbage data on your games and save space on your memory card.

http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=55162 *link to the topic/info*

 

[K2Valor]

How much games will a 2GB flash card hold?

 

[AuthorX]

It depends on the games. I've found that most are 32 or 64 MB, a few (particularly with high-quality music) are 128 MB. However, most can be trimmed to save some space with the tool that I and El-ahrairah linked.

Now, for a working example, I've got almost 20 games, and they don't even fill up my 1G. You could easily fit more than twice that on 2G.

 

[myuusmeow]

It depends on the games. I've found that most are 32 or 64 MB, a few (particularly with high-quality music) are 128 MB. However, most can be trimmed to save some space with the tool that I and El-ahrairah linked.

Now, for a working example, I've got almost 20 games, and they don't even fill up my 1G. You could easily fit more than twice that on 2G.

I'm guessing you have no homebrew then. WADs for Doom, NES roms, SNES roms, Genesis roms, SMS/GG roms, music, it all adds up.

 

[Grimalkin]

The R4DS is a great cart to begin with because it's very simple to use (it was my first as well), although after about... I'd say a month, pirate syndrome will kick in and you'll probably want more than 1 GB. Now I have a CycloDS (loving it btw), although I still use my R4 sometimes. (Mainly to test codes for the R4 Cheat Database)

 

[Nero]

EDIT: forgot, 1.12 is out, but all it does apparently is fix the games that need the ARM7 fix. And I hear that other games get glitchy and screwy. >_>

I can confirm this.

1.12 blows lollipops.
First off, I can't soft reset in WW2. (Maybe it's implemented in 1.12?)
Second, Yoshi's Island DS crashes on me when I soft reset. (My DS Locks up)
Third, SNEmulDS locks up on me randomly now. NEVER before in v1.11
Fourth, Contra 4 lags up sometimes when lots of enemies are on screen. (Never happened in v1.11)
Fifth, Get v1.11! It's superior to v1.12, unless you're too lazy to ARM7 patch.

~Nero

 

[Grimalkin]

Hmm... I've never had a problem playing SNEmulDS or Contra 4on v1.12

It seems like I'm the only one who hasn't had any problems...

 

[AuthorX]

Actually, I have several homebrew games, but they're all smaller than the official ROMs. I haven't tried emulating anything else just yet, so I don't have lots of SNES, NES, or etc. ROMs. I also have only one or two songs, and no movies, because (like my pirated GBA games I use my PSP for that. Anyway, since he just asked about games, and that's what most of my card is full of, that's all I included in my answer.

And, if I don't have enough money to spring for a 2G, I doubt I'll spring for a SDHC. Some of us are poor, you know I still haven't even gotten a Slot-2 device. Definitely not enough to buy a second Slot-1. If I need more than the 20 ROMs in my card, I'll delete the ones I'm not playing anymore

 

[Nero]

Hmm... I've never had a problem playing SNEmulDS or Contra 4on v1.12

It seems like I'm the only one who hasn't had any problems...

Lucky..

Well, time to revert back to v1.11...

I think I'll try redownloading v1.12 again.

~Nero

 

[Grimalkin]

Hmm... I've never had a problem playing SNEmulDS or Contra 4on v1.12

It seems like I'm the only one who hasn't had any problems...


Lucky..

Well, time to revert back to v1.11...

I think I'll try redownloading v1.12 again.

~Nero

Have you tried re-formatting your card, then installing your firmware? I always do a fresh install every time there's a new firmware update. (btw: make sure you install firmware first then the games/saves. Cause who would want the firmware to be split up all over the memory?)

 

[Nero]

Hmm... I've never had a problem playing SNEmulDS or Contra 4on v1.12

It seems like I'm the only one who hasn't had any problems...


Lucky..

Well, time to revert back to v1.11...

I think I'll try redownloading v1.12 again.

~Nero

Have you tried re-formatting your card, then installing your firmware? I always do a fresh install every time there's a new firmware update. (btw: make sure you install firmware first then the games/saves. Cause who would want the firmware to be split up all over the memory?)

I just download the new Kernel and replace the files with the new Kernel's files.

So I guess I should reformat and place the new Kernel first then?

~Nero

 

[DarkAura]

Hmm... I've never had a problem playing SNEmulDS or Contra 4on v1.12

It seems like I'm the only one who hasn't had any problems...


Lucky..

Well, time to revert back to v1.11...

I think I'll try redownloading v1.12 again.

~Nero

Psh, that's why I never even bothered to get 1.12. I guess that the R4 team got lazy and didn't really look at every other game. Wonder what the next firmware will have in store for us?

 

[Nero]

Oh great... The day I want a change on my R4 with a new skin, and NDSthemes is down.

What a bad day...

~Nero

 

[myuusmeow]

Hmm... I've never had a problem playing SNEmulDS or Contra 4on v1.12

It seems like I'm the only one who hasn't had any problems...


Lucky..

Well, time to revert back to v1.11...

I think I'll try redownloading v1.12 again.

~Nero

Psh, that's why I never even bothered to get 1.12. I guess that the R4 team got lazy and didn't really look at every other game. Wonder what the next firmware will have in store for us?

I've got $5 on waiting 4 months to just fix 3 games which almost no one wants to play.

 

[Grimalkin]

That's how I usually do it, and it's kept me from having a whole bunch of problems that we usually see in the R4 section. Games freezing, lagging etc.

Even on problem games that "supposedly" cause the games to lag, I never see it. Even comparing it to my CycloDS, I don't see any problems.

 

[Nero]

I keep refreshing NDSthemes.com

I can't reformat unless I get a new skin... I need a new look! My Wii skin is getting too boring.

Could someone check as well? If it's only down for me.. I didn't do anything, I swear!

~Nero