Hacking Recommend Me A Solution

[iXneonXi]

My friend wants to use homebrew and play backups on his DS. He would prefer to have GBA support as well. He has an old v1 Nintendo DS flashed to FlashMe v8a.
He doesn't want to spend much money, and if need be, will sacrifice some features for price.
What solutions would yall recommend?
PS by solutions I mean what carts or methods to run Homebrew/backups on his DS.

 

[fischju]

A second hand M3 SD Slim would be super cheap and do all of that.

 

[iXneonXi]

A second hand M3 SD Slim would be super cheap and do all of that.

Have any other ideas?
Where would you recommend I get a secondhand M3 SD Slim?

 

[cutterjohn]

Any halfway decent slot-1 cart, e.g. DSTT, Edge DS, SCDS1 SDHC, etc. and a GBA sized EZ-Flash V 3-in-1 would do it. If you ordered from dealextreme.com you could do it for c. $45 - 55 USD. (Get it in 3w or so, unless you pay extra for shipping.)

Alternatively you could go with a more expensive cart, e.g. Cyclo DS Evolution plus 3in1 from realhotstuff -> $53 for Evo + $24 for GBA sized 3in1 + c. $7 USPS shipping (get it in 2d). (They also carry the SCDS1 for $42 IIRC but they're out of stock ATM, so are the Evolutions BTW.)

Oh yes, forgot to mention for the 3in1, he'd want to use Rudolph's GBA Exp Loader 0.51 (IIRC) is the latest version and can be found in the file section here. The slot-1 carts that I mentioned ALL auto-DLDI patch homebrew so as long as the homebrew were DLDI compatible it'd simply be a mtter of dragging and dropping them onto the uSD, same with DS ROMs then launching them from whatever the cart uses as a shell when it boots the DS. Some(most?) GBA homebrew can be loaded onto the 3in1 via Rudolph's app and will work. I've never bothered with nay myself so I have no direct experience yet other than reading various posts here and there.

 

[iXneonXi]

I myself am happy with my R4DS+EZ-Flash 3in1. I bought them a while ago and it ended up costing a great deal. Now I see prices have come down, and it looks like he's going to get lucky.
My question is SLOT-1 really necessary when he has a flashed DS? If he got a decent (but dated) SLOT-2 shouldn't that cover everything?

Those are two new stores I haven't visited. Thank you for telling me about them. I'm sure somewhere on the forums is a list of good sellers. Could someone please link me? I previously bought from Gameyeeeah and they got me the product FAST, but they seem to have stocking issues right now... and prices are rather high - especially DHL shipping. DealExtreme seems to have great prices.

PS RedHotStuff seems to be out of stock of everything.

 

[cutterjohn]

Yes, you'll need a slot-1 for DS stuff as the 3in1 can only run GBA homebrew and ROMs and it WILL need some sort of loader application to get stuff onto it.

If you want an all-in-one solution, then you'll have to go with one of the slot-2 M3s, EZ-Flash IVs, or maybe a Supercard slot-2 but the GBA ability of the Supercards isn't all that great as many games will exhibit slowdowns on the Supercard.

You'll have to make sure that the slot 2 is GBA size, or compatible with the original DS. It'll be fairly safe to assume any slot-2 cart with lite in it's name is only compatible with the DS Lite (because of size). As to DS compatibility no slot-2 cart was ever 100% compatible with DS ROMs, and likely won't ever be, and any DS ROMs WILL need to be run through the manufacturers provided software before it will run from the slot-2 cart.

Since the DS is flashme'd I don't believe that it would need a nopass or passme slot-1 cart to work, but you'll have to check on that yourself as I'm not positive.

Download play won't be too hot on slot-2 carts either, although since the DS is flashmed it MAY help a little.

Really, the best solution IS some sort of 100% drag and drop compatible slot-1 cart plus some sort of slot-2 cart for GBA specific stuff. This is basically what I have. You can see what carts I have in my signature, both of the slot-1s are good although the SCDS1 cannot run links/retawq (WWW clients) under dslinux. I have the GBA sized 3in1 and use Rudolph's app. They work great for me.

Vendors: well if you absolutely can't wait, you could check for other vendors in the stickied post at the top of the forum(below the sub-forum listings), but above these generic posts. Prices HAVE been going UP recently, e.g. I paid c. $22(Nov 2007) for my 3in1 from RHS, now I see that the same cart is $24. I also noticed that some of those super cheap slot-1 carts that I mentioned have gone up a little in price recently as well... (since February 08)

Really, it's hard to miss, but here's a link for you anyways
http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=33039

 

[martin88]

Why not just get a EZ-Flash 4 miniSD? I have a Phat DS and it works great on it, looks nice too.

 

[iXneonXi]

EZ-Flash IV looks alright.
Lemme ask this. I'm hearing that patched DS software runs better than some GBA when using some Slot-II devices. Why would GBA slowdown when it's in a GBA slot? Would this be remedied by using a GBA? My friend also has a GBA - if he get's a GBA sized Slot-II and can swap between the two that would be nice. He's trying to get the best compatibility for price and hopes to not wait for items to come in stock, but doesn't want to pay $20 shipping as I did.

 

[cutterjohn]

If you're talking about the slowdowns for GBA w/Supercard (and clones), the speculation that underspecced/slow RAM was used in the cart resulting in slowdowns in some games. I've also seen other claims where people think it's the patcher software, but I find that to be unlikely.

Going slot-2 only, all I can say is dunno how long alot of these guys are going to continue support DS uses their slot-2 products. GBA use won't matter as they're all pretty much 100% excepting for ROMs that had special hardware, but in many cases those can be patched around as well. i.e. he may end up being disappointed with DS ROMs as time goes if he goes for the pure slot-2 solution. Of course, he could always pick up a slot-1 at some later point if it ever became important to him...

If you go the slot-2 only solution, just make sure that the cart is GBA sized AND that it supports GBA ROMs/apps as not all slot-2 carts do.