Hacking R4i Gold Upgrade V1.4.1 Revolution buying help, please

[Geniepr]

Please help, I know nothing about R4 and have been searching this section for a while and not sure if all r4i are compatible.

I'm planning on buying these for my nephews, they have dsi version 1.2 and 1.3.

goldenbridge r4i gold

I'm planning on changing the games, but is it compatible? And where do I check to upgrade the firmware before sending them off? I do have experience with the Acekard 2.1 (not i) and Akaio 1.8... can I just use akaio firmware on them?

Also if it works in our ds lites, it should work on their dsi, right?

and what about this one?
r4i 3d upgrade

 

[Rydian]

The site isn't loading for me so I can't check out that product, but you do NOT want R4 clones. Yes, they're clones. The R4 team never made any R4i or R4 SDHC or R4-anything. Just the R4. Anything claiming otherwise is a clone.

No, AKAIO won't run on those carts, carts generally keep their firmware only running on their carts, so they competitors don't just steal their game fixes.

You have three choices for carts that have proper support/updates.
[*]The original R4.
NOT "R4-III Upgrade", NOT "R4-SDHC", NOT "R4i", NOT "R4 Gold", NOT "R4 Red", NOT "R4 King"...
NOT ANYTHING ELSE WITH "R4" IN THE NAME! JUST "R4 Revolution".

• Price: ~$6
• Rank: The cheap card for somebody that just wants to play some games on a DS/Lite.

[*]Acekard 2i

• Price: ~$16
• Rank: Mid-range card for people that want to play lots of games on a DSi/XL with some extra features.

[*]Supercard DSTwo

• Price: ~$35
• Rank: Pretty much the ultimate card right now.

• DS / DS Lite
  The card will work on an original (fat) DS or a DS Lite.
• DSi / DSi XL
  The card will work on a DSi or DSi XL as well.
• Game Updates
  Firmware updates are what let cards play newer games, these are the life-blood of the card.
• SDHC
  SDHC refers to SD cards larger than 2GB (gigabytes). If there's no SDHC support, you can only use SD cards up to 2GB.
• WiFi Update
  The Acekard 2i can update it's cheats (and get minor bug fixes) over WiFi without having to connect to a computer.
• Clean Mode
  The DSTwo has special features to ignore AP in most games, letting you play them without having to wait for a firmware update first.
• RTS
  The Real-Time Save (Save State) function lets you save and reload your game progress at any moment you wish.
• In-Game Guide
  You can pull up text files and images in-game, in order to check a walkthrough or map you downloaded at any time during a game.
• Slow Motion
  The card lets you slow down the game speed as you wish.
• In-Game Cheats
  The card lets you create and modify cheats while the game is running.
• Special Homebrew
  The card has multiple pieces of special homebrew, such as it's own GBA and SNES emulators, as well as text/PDF reader and video player.
• Battery Life
  Unfortunately the DSTwo's extra CPU and RAM (which give it the special features) eat into the battery life a bit.

 

[Geniepr]

Thanks, where can I get the real R4? I need to buy 4 cards in total, 2 dsi (I guess I'm getting the Acekard for those) and 2 for ds lite.

btw- are the clones that bad?

 

[Rydian]

Any one that advertises their R4s will work with Wood works.

Do NOT get one that has "wood" in the name of the product, those are clones just using the Wood name. You should look for phrases like "1:1", or a mention that it can run wood in the description of the product. Check here for an example of what to look for, this is a shop selling an original R4.
http://lightake.com/detail.do/sku.R4_Revol...NDS_Lite_-31322
It's so cheap because it comes without any packaging, and the original R4 is old hardware, pretty basic compared to modern carts.

Yes, clones are bad.

At best you'll get one that can still run the firmware you need, but this is rare, firmwares usually get additiona clone detection in their updates so even if you do get one that runs a firmware it'll likely not run any future ones, which means goodbye to your updates.

At worst you can find clone carts that don't even offer all the options they say they do (skinning is one thing that's commonly broken) because it's just a stolen or copied design and they don't always fix or test everything, but then they just copy-paste the description text since they often don't even speak english so they don't even know they're giving out incorrect descriptions. Of course if they can't even get skinning working on their own cart they don't do firmware updates.

Updates are what let you play recent games, like I said they're the life blood of the cart.

EDIT: And before "I don't think I need the latest games", some firmwares haven't been updated in multiple years.

 

[Geniepr]

wow, thanks! You guys are very nice, I thought I was going to be attack fro being a noob here.

So the R4 that realhotstuff has is "original"? And those originals with the latest firmware should play latest games.. like the Mario vs Donkey? Is that site that you refer me reliable? they have good prices. I'm probably going to buy the micro cards from Amazon as they have 4gb for $7, but I don't think 4gb is compatible, what about the sdhc?

I was planning on getting 2 acekard 2i and 2 original r4 to save a couple bucks because the acekard 2 is a bit expensive to use in ds lite. In that site you link me they are priced very good so I may just get acekard for all and avoid all the R4 drama.

 

[Rydian]

http://realhotstuff.com/r4ds-p-338.html
That one does appear to be a 1:1 R4, yes. Yes, the latest Wood plays almost every recent game (games come out almost every day and the firmware only gets updated every few weeks or so, so there's almost always a few games that came out in the past few days that will be playable soon).

Lightake is a new shop, but I haven't heard any complaints (free shipping from chinese sites can take weeks, just to warn you) and I see others recommending them. Usually if a shop is bad we get floods of reports pretty quickly.

4GB carts and up are SDHC. The original R4 is limited to 2GB and under. Do NOT get your SD cards from an amazon reseller. Do NOT get your SD cards from ebay. Get them from a retail store! Either a retail online shop such as newegg, or an IRL physical store located near you. For the love of god DO NOT BUY YOUR MEMORY SECOND HAND. Fakes are EVERYWHERE, and they're often slow carts, which can cause loading issues with games. You do NOT skimp on your storage, period. You can find people all over these forums that bought cheap memory and find it works like shit, with many games unplayable, and sometimes even save corruption.

EDIT: The Acekard 2i works with SDHC cards up to 16GB (confirmed), 32GB theoretically possible but I don't think I've seen anybody with one actually test it.

 

[Geniepr]

I just bought 4 Acekards from the new site, I know it will be here after Christmas but is ok. The microSd cards I found them at newegg for a good price ($25 for four 4gb) I'm happy! I'm still planning on buying an original R4 later on just to learn about it for future gifts. Thanks a lot for your help.

 

[Rydian]

No problem, have fun.