Hacking Slot 1 vs Slot 2?

[thesummeryears]

First of all, I'd like to state that I don't have a DS yet at this point. For some weird reason, they're all out of stock here in Vancouver in the local Future Shops (owned by Best Buy), for which I managed to score a gift card.

I've been reading up on games, homebrew, and flash carts. Yay.

Everyone seems to be really excited about the expandable Slot 1 solutions out there:M3 Perfect Simply (R4DS) and Supercard DS One.

What I'm curious about are the benefits of these cards over their Slot 2 variants. It seems to me that the DS doesn't care if you shove it in from the front or the back, it takes it and that's that.

Is it just because the Slot 1 cards are new? From what I can see, the Slot 2 versions, though a little more expensive, can play GBA games, and are fairly mature in terms of compatibility.

Is it a speed, or battery consumption issue? What's the big deal?

Can anyone clear this up? Thanks.

(Heh, accidentally posted this to the GBA forum just now. My bad.)

 

[Mars]

Slot-1 carts can run clean roms and are very cheap. Also, with the R4 (M3 simply) you get near perfect
compatibility. Imo, if you don't want to run GBA games, Slot-1 is the way to go

 

[Veho]

The big deal is that in order to get a Slot2 card working in DS mode, you also have to have a Passme device in Slot1, like the Passcard 3 or Superpass or Max Media Launcher (to name but a few). A passcard costs around $20. Or you can flash your DS's firmware, to enable it to run NDS files from Slot2, but to do that you need... a Passme device.

Slot1 cards can work out of the box, and don't need flashing of the DS or any additional devices (except for the memory card, of course

) to run NDS files.

They also act as a Passme device if you want to use a Slot2 card as well.

The only problem is that they don't support GBA files.

 

[tehcamel]

like marz said if u have no desire to play gba games then a slot-1 solution is the way to go. compatability is very good and they're cheaper considering their simple design (no ram chips for the gba support) and the fact that you don't need a passme device. fifthelement's review of the m3/r4ds at moddz.com has reported that the slot1 devices also use less power, lasting about 15-45 minutes less than an actual slot 1 game cartridge.

 

[adgloride]

The good things about the slot 1 solutions are that you don't need any type of passme device or flashme to run it, It uses clean DS roms which are easy to copy over (No need for patching, Its a lot easy for the n00bs to play DS games.

The slot 1 does not play GBA roms, but having the supercard for years and its slow downs on GBA roms it doesn't bother me. I can see in a few months time supercard and M3 stopping supporting the slot 2 solutions, as most people will have a slot 1 card.

 

[thesummeryears]

Cool. Thanks for all the prompt responses guys!

Sounds like Slot1 = Clean, No-drama solution, except for lack of GBA game support.

For some reason, I thought that I read somewhere that the M3 lite Perfect, and the Supercard Lite could run on the DS without additional Slot 1 cards, but I think what the websites mean is that they -work- on both DS and DS lite (but will need a Slot 1 Passkey or a flash).

Tricky tricky.

Thanks again for the info!

 

[111111111]

DS doesn't care if you shove it in from the front or the back, it takes it and that's that.

Sounds like a girl I used to know...

If you are interested in GBA games I'd get a proper gba flash cart anyway - they are much cheaper than a slot2 cart and have far better compatibility.

 

[Psyfira]

"Proper GBA flashcarts" have better compatability, but are definitely not cheaper. GBA supporting carts come to about £60-70 including all the nessasary extras (memory card + passme), whereas slot 1 solutions work out at about £45-£50 (with memory card).

[Edit] Admittedly it might work out cheaper depending on whether you have a compatible memory card already

 

[Veho]

edited

 

[111111111]

"Proper GBA flashcarts" have better compatability, but are definitely not cheaper. GBA supporting carts come to about £60-70 including all the nessasary extras (memory card + passme), whereas slot 1 solutions work out at about £45-£50 (with memory card).

But slot 1 solutions don't play gba games.

Which is why I suggested getting a proper gba flashcart to play gba games with. I heard a new version of the firelinker is due out soon - 512mb for ~£25.

Couple that with a r4/1gig micro sd for less than £40 delivered and for less than £70 you have the ultimate in nds AND gba support.

 

[Sinkhead]

DS doesn't care if you shove it in from the front or the back, it takes it and that's that.

Sounds like a girl I used to know...

- Sam

 

[phoood]

Some homebrew only work with slot-2 (sram). But with the advent of slot-1 solutions, this might be less of a problem with the _huge_ influx of people, since developers will soon (or never) find a solution.

I'm also having a problem finding DS Lites around my area =D.