Hacking Question about clone

[mediabob]

Hi, a friend of mine brought over his clone R4 card to ask me how to configure the skins on it, but this is a weird clone I have never seen before. The url on the card is

http://www.ndsiLL.net

You can dload the firmware HERE

The card is blue, and there is a chip right under the label you can feel, so it's not flat like most R4's/Clones. When you boot the DS, it does not boot straight to the cards firmware, it boots the the DS's regular screen where you choose slot1/slot2 and the slot 1 card as identified as Star Wars Lethal Alliance from Ubisoft. Tap that, and then it boots to the cards firmware.

Never seen firmware like this either... I see a top and bottom image for the game select screen, but as for the icons and backgrounds used on the main screen, they are nowhere to be found. The website says that it supports skins, but can't find any mention of it, or how to change them.

Can anyone help identifying what kind of firmware this is, how skins might be handled, and any possible firmware alternatives that might run on this card?

I have to admit, the card has excellent compatibility, it runs even the newest games.

some pics... click to view full size.

 

[Depravo]

Look harder.

http://www.ndsill.net/FAQe.asp#8

 

[mediabob]

Actually, I did look at that. Notice I said above the website says it supports skins but if you actually follow that very link you just gave me, there are no skins to download. And downloading the document it refers to does not tell you how to make a skin. If you actually download the firmware and look at it you will see there is nowhere to replace that stuff.

I should also mention that the firmware from the r4i gold site is also identical, just a different skin.

I should also add that hardly any of that FAQ refers to the firmware in question. The firmware the FAQ refers to is more like the common versions you find on R4 clones, this one is not.

 

[Depravo]

Ah. You hadn't mentioned the FAQ information so I assumed you hadn't read it.

 

[Dark^'^Knigh]

Hi, a friend of mine brought over his clone R4 card to ask me how to configure the skins on it, but this is a weird clone I have never seen before.
The card is blue, and there is a chip right under the label you can feel, so it's not flat like most R4's/Clones. When you boot the DS, it does not boot straight to the cards firmware, it boots the the DS's regular screen where you choose slot1/slot2 and the slot 1 card as identified as Star Wars Lethal Alliance from Ubisoft. Tap that, and then it boots to the cards firmware.
Never seen firmware like this either... I see a top and bottom image for the game select screen, but as for the icons and backgrounds used on the main screen, they are nowhere to be found. The website says that it supports skins, but can't find any mention of it, or how to change them.
Can anyone help identifying what kind of firmware this is, how skins might be handled, and any possible firmware alternatives that might run on this card?
I have to admit, the card has excellent compatibility, it runs even the newest games.

I never seen this crap before, but I'll try to offer some assistance/direction (in case you may have missed the info). Have you/your friend actually replaced the carts firmware (always keep backup) with the R4i site's firmware? - presumably his/her cart is older than 3 weeks, therefore the latest firmware to be used is the v1.14b.

Taken from the ndsill.net website FAQ:
8.How to customize or change R4i skin/themes?
Can download customize skin from the official web site "xxxxxxxx" (removed details) - cannot locate any pre-made themes
To create the own customize skins/themes; please refer to the document “ English kernel download instruction” which can be found at the official web site. For the R4i v1.08b onward the kernel will able to support multiple skins, user can install maximum up to 8 skins/themes to the kernel Click on "English kernel download instruction" gives you this info:

Spoiler

Color control£º £¨R4iMenu\skin\color.ini£©

Color setting of the kernal can be control

Color configuration is based on 24 Bit RGB format, each individual color can configure from 0~255
Can use the MSPAINT application in Windows, in case needed to find out the correct RGB value.

1¡£[TOP_SCREEN_ICON_SETTING]
Conntrol the top screen 4 icons color

1¡£¡°IconLabelHighLight¡± Color of the icon label when selected (should be bright)
2¡£¡°IconLabelNoneLight¡± Color of the icon label when not been selected (suggest: should be close to background color)
3¡£¡°IconWindowOutline¡± Icon select box outline color

2¡£[WINDOWS]
Color of the message windows

1¡£¡°TOP_Windows_Title¡± Top screen message windows title color
2¡£¡°TOP_Windows_Text¡± Top screen message windows text color
3¡£¡°BOTTOM_Windows_Title¡± Bottom screen message windows title color
4¡£¡°BOTTOM_Windows_Text¡± Bottom screen message windows text color

3¡£[BOTTOM_SCREEN]
Color control of the bottom screen

1¡£¡°BOTTOM_Title¡± Bottom screen title color
2¡£¡°BOTTOM_NDS_File¡± Bottom screen NDS file color (when the file not selected)
3¡£¡°BOTTOM_NDS_File_Select¡± Bottom screen NDS file color (when the file was selected)
4¡£¡°BOTTOM_NDS_Full_File¡± Bottom screen NDS full path text color
5¡£¡°BOTTOM_NDS_File_SelectBG¡± Bottom screen NDS transparent color mode (when NDS file was selected)
Choose 0~7 when the background color is dark.
Choose 8~15 when the background color is bright.

Taken from the above "R4ixxx" website "Product" tab:
7.Skin change method
Four files are alternative in the R4IMenu/Skin category: they are TScreen.bmp, BottomInit.bmp, TScreen.bmp and BottomScreen.bmp, which are the operation interface of R4, content in the pictures can be changed at random.
TScreen.bmp -- R4 NDSI Top screen interface after starting the machine
BottomInit.bmp -- R4 NDSI Bottom screen interface after starting the machine
TScreen.bmp -- R4 NDSI Top screen interface for the file category
BottomScreen.bmp -- R4 NDSI Bottom screen interface for the file category
Notice: The above files names can not be changed, picture must be in .bmp format with 8 or 24 digits, picture size must be of 256*192 pixel.
Once your favourite picture is ready, copy the complete category TF card R4IMenu/ skin to TF category

 

[Depravo]

Try this lady -

http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=213879

 

[bennyroger]

I happen to own that card, its a DSTTi clone and runs DSTTi software, just rename the TTMENU.DAT to suit the filenames. The software that comes with the card is outdated crap.

 

[mediabob]

@Depravo,I apologize, I should have been clearer about exactly what I had tried

@Dark^'^Knight Trying official R4 firmware was the first thing I did, but no go, just get a white screen. As for all the information about changing themes etc on the site, it's all useless. The files the refer to don't exists and in the whole firmware package there are only two images you could actually replace, the majority of the files in the firmware are dll's and bin files, so I assuming that all the icons and image are packed in one of the bin files.

@bennyroger - THANK YOU!. I tried the Dstti version before, but I must not have formatted because it didn't work... but I figured what the hell someone actually got it working ill give it another go.

So solution... I downloaded the DSTT Unofficial Firmware 1.17a12 (No Fakekiller) and renamed TTMENU.DAT to iLL.iL and it worked great.

Thanks for all your help guys! This is the best solution anyway because the website firmware has stuff that's outdated, and because of how its packed you can't update the individual components.