Hacking opinions of the M3 real from owners

[teH XeRO]

reviews are generally rather the same for most of the cards nowadays as they all seem to have the same features and things...was curious what people who own the M3 Real think of it, with the rts/cheat functions and sdhc support. i have an ez iv lite deluxe for bottom slot so the expansion isn't all that important. i use an R4 now and was most likely going to sell it to a friend who was interested in buying one (have loved it), and figured well if im going to pick up another one why not see if i can go with a slight upgrade. lend your thoughts

thanks

 

[BinarySoup]

we don't have rts (real time save), at least not for nds games. no idea about gba rts.

apart from the treacle emulation / non-responsiveness of the gui and it's habit to corrupt microSD cards (i've experienced 2 cards corrupted, 1 now unusable) it's pretty good. oh and the official sites for the card are either in chinese or several months out of date!

saying all that it seems the m3 team are working on a complete new firmware which we hope will fix many of the current problems with the card and for support i've found nothing better than this website.

so watch this space as it could soon become THE card to have, but as it stands now i think the supercard offering is more promising.

 

[stefanol]

Well, my microSD got corrupted twice with M3Real - no idea whether it was caused by M3Real cartridge itself, or rather crappy card reader, derived with Bundle Pack. I don't use SDHC cards, so i can't tell if it's working good. RTS is available only in GBA games, only one save slot though. The firmware is a bit buggy and slow - but after seeing Sakura beta (a new firmware), I got all excited. Can't wait for the final version. Maybe it will even bring NDS RTS.

 

[teH XeRO]

oh jeez yea i misread the rts feature off the review page..thanks for clarifying that. so far the Real seems a little shaky. i wouldnt mind a buggy but promising firmware, thats expected, but ruining the memory cards? you sure its the M3's firmware that is flat out bricking some of these tf cards? seems a little odd. sdhc compatibility isn't all that important to me, i have no gripes with my 1gb sandisk ultra II, hold more than enough of the games that i want to play at any given time. any word on when a final release of the firmware is expected/future implementations of possible features? thanks for the quick posts

 

[Arno]

I own a G6DS Real (baisically an M3 Real, but it uses internal memory) and it does have a habit of wiping itself out every few months. The cheats work fine, and so does the soft reset. Download play is almost flawless, but you have to boot it in "safe mode" in which you can't cheat, soft reset, or use slow-motion. Some games are prone to crashing, but "safe mode" works fine. If you're getting a card, I'd recommend to not get an M3 Real, but the Acekard 2. It's cheaper, has (almost) the same features (besides the media, although Moonshell works fine), and doesn't wipe out the TF card every so often (I think.)

 

[teH XeRO]

is it known what causes these slot1's to mess with the memory cards (or built in memory in the g6's case) in such a way, either erasing your data and/or corrupting the card/internal memory itself? i've really loved how well my r4ds has worked for over a year now, and i knew the m3 simply was the exact same thing so i figured the newer M3's would also be very reputable...guess there are a lot of issues that need to be worked out still. hmm..unless there are any other very reliable carts like the simply/r4 with more feautres, maybe i'll just pick up another R4 or a simply just for kicks for when i may sell my first r4. again, thanks for the replies

 

[Roman_42]

I'm using it since Christmas now. Basically I'm satisfied because it does what it should do. Never had any compatibility problems with anything beside Lemmings DS (it doesn't start), all other homebrew apps and commercial roms work 100% perfectly without the slightest problem, even the fishy GBA RAM pack get's detected and used by homebrew apps, everything is perfect.

But thats just one side of the medal. The cart is made out of the cheapest plastic, it extremely soft and it seems like it could fall apart any time. It's definitly no joy to take out your cart. It's something you avoid to do.

The Micro SD reader gave up on me on day 2. Luckily I had my own one from my Micro SD card, so this wasn't a problem.

The GBA RAM Expansion has been defect out of the box so I had to send it back and had to wait a month for my replacement.

The GUI is the most shaky and worst programmed software I've ever paid for (yes, I'm on a Windows machine). It's incredible how much it sucks.

- no doublebuffering (you see the screen drawing itself, it's extremely ugly)
- bugs in the touchpad controls (you touch an icon, nothing happens... 3 out of 10 times I'd say)
- y-scroll sidebars don't scroll, you have to click your way down to your 127th ROM (and it isn't possible to move up to get to the last ROM)
- the GUI bootup sequence is very ugly, a black screen, white flash, a black screen.
- the English font is the most ugly font ever used in any computer software

The whole GUI looks and feels like a hackish homebrew app but Sakura will change that, so it's only the badly produced hardware and non existent hardware quality control which could be said against the M3real.

 

[c2ironfist]

recommend not getting one.

My DS died on me one time using an M3 real. I heard that they brick your DS but none of this has been confirmed yet. But my DS was bricked while using an M3 DS Real.

I've owned three M3 DS reals and one of them I received was defective.

The GUI sucks and some games lag if your not using a fast enough MicroSDHC.

I've done quit a bit of testing with my M3 DS Real and I say for the price its good but suggest spending a bit more on a better card.

I also own 4 R4 flashcards and I must say I still use my R4 over anything else. It's my flashcard of choice. If I lose it or break it no problem as its cheap. I keep my cycloDS evo at home just in case I lose anything on the go.

 

[11gardir]

It could do with some better firmware, couldn't it. First, an update to the media player and PDA, but it could also do with some optimisation, a nice font, the file lists actually working properly and a file manager. DS RTS would be pretty cool as well.

 

[Xeronage]

I've had a M3 Real since christmas, I had a M3 Lite Perfect before that.

So far, I absolutely love it. I don't care about Cheats(Which it has), Real time saving(Which it hasnt for NDS), Slowmotion(It has, but I never tried it), and all that other crap. All I care about is playing the games 100% like they're supposed to be played. Also, I have had 0! problems with all the games I've played, and Download Play works better than I expected. (You press Y to boot with improved DP Compatibility, instead of the Start button, No Safe Mode whatsoever)

IIRC The GBA Expansion does have a RTC in it, and has shown 100% compatibility for me (Well, except when you use games with built in sensors like acceleration, solar, and so on, because the Expansion wont have those).

The GUI can use some improvement, but I couldn't give a crap honestly, It looks nice and I don't mind if it's slow like other people say (I'm used to it) (It's a DS for crying out loud, not a PSP)

As for the bricking, this can happen with ANY FLASHCART that is not inserted properly(Very rare though!).. I recall my little brother stuffed in my old M3 Lite backwards (No idea HOW he managed to pull that off), which blew a fuse which I had to solder over to fix.

Corrupt SD Cards? Never had that.

 

[tguellich]

BUY ONE!

Too often, you only hear the 5% of the people bitching, what about the other 95% that treat their cards with respect and love what they do, we never hear the good stuff.

I have had 6 M3 DS Reals and they all worked perfectly. I have never ruined an SD card, ever. I did corrupt one once, but that is because I ran the battery completely dead while using it. The card wouldn't boot, I just eresed the card and put all files back on, perfect.

The card is top notch and will only get better with the new firmware updates. Yes, the GUI could us e a little work, but do you plan on hanging out with your GUI all day or are you going to play games, etc. This thing works great in all ways, I use it to do everything it is capable of and I have never been disappointed.

 

[dirty_harry]

I agree completely tguellich. Ive got a M3Real, and i am 100% satisfied with my purchase. I can play GBA's perfectly, I've never had a single compatibility problem, download play all works perfect, no freezes what so ever. Treat all electrical devices and components with care and you'll get far.

I would definitely recommend the purchase, plus the new firmware looks so good i almost came in my pants.

 

[lenselijer]

Is there a way to get this new firmware already? like a beta version?

 

[jaygee]

I've had mine since December and never had any of the issues people are reporting.
I use the card very frequently too.
My card works great, and so does the reader, however i do use the adapter that came with the sd card more often.
Only issue i've had is Mario Party download support never worked, even when i use the y button to start.

 

[harrypotter]

I got mine for a while now, but never have any problem with it. Just can't wait for thefinal release of Sakura firmware.

 

[BinarySoup]

but do you plan on hanging out with your GUI all day or are you going to play games, etc.

that's the problem with the GUI at the moment. as it takes 3 or 4 attempts to successfully touch a button you do end up hanging out with it all day.

i agree with what you say about you normally only hear the 5% with faulty cards making the problems sound much bigger but i noticed a lot of people here getting corrupt microSDs. everyone's attributing this to the microSDs being faulty but maybe, just maybe the m3dsreal could be the cause?

i may just start a poll.

EDIT: Poll started at:

http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=79985

 

[trilidar]

If I had it to do over again, I'd definately NOT buy one.

Unless you have a very good memory and can remember everything you loaded based on icons, you'll have to rename everything because this card CANNOT read header info in ROMs (something every other flash card on the market has somehow managed to figure out). Absolutely ridiculous.

tril

 

[Xeronage]

Dude, please shut up, it can read stuff like Yggdra Union.gba and Professor Layton.nds just FINE.. Not EVERYONE relies on headers, There's a thing called a FILENAME.

I have an M3DSReal, and I'm happy with it, ignore above fanboy.

 

[11gardir]

Btw, if homebrew doesn't work it probably will from DSOrganize anyway.

 

[Kiljaeden]

I had a M3 Real when they were first released. I found the GUI to be very buggy in regards to touch response and it was slow for initial boot times so I got rid of it and kept my M3 Simply.
I've been looking at the Sakura firmware and it looks to have fixed the buggy GUI. I really like the look of it and once it's officially released, I'll probably get another M3 Real and try it out again.