Hacking Which card to buy for NDS lite ?

[KtheKing]

I have a gold zelda nintendo ds lite and thought i would finally get it flashed but dont know which card to buy and which one works the best for ds games and is user friendly and which website is the most trustworthy to buy from? thankss

 

[RupeeClock]

Hi, I've got three suggestions for you.

1: The Original R4DS
It's a simple flashcart, it'll work on your DS lite (but not a DSi) and only supports 2gb memory, but when you install Wood R4, it plays pretty much every DS game perfectly, with no frills.
It's only $13 with 2gb memory at Shoptemp.

2: The Acekard 2i
Also a simple flashcart, it'll also work on a DSi and supports SDHC memory (up to 32gb), and has great compatibility, and the nice AKAIO firmware. It's one of GBAtemp's favourites.
It's $15 standalone at Shoptemp.

3: The Supercard DStwo.
This is a premium flashcart, a pricey one but it has an integrated 360mhz processor, that can do things like emulate GBA games, and soon SNES games too. A system development kit is coming out, so people will be able to develop exclusive homebrew for the flashcart. It has an advanced real-time menu where you can have real-time guides, cheats and saves.
It's pricy at $35, over at Shoptemp, but worth it, just bought one and it's great.

All three of these flashcarts are user friendly, you drag and drop the firmware files onto the microSD card, and some DS roms, and there you go. And operating the flashcart on the DS is as easy as playing the games.

Anyhow, I recommend you buy from GBAtemp's affiliate partner Shoptemp, I've bought from there a couple of times now, they have great competitive prices and surprisingly reliable free shipping.

 

[muckers]

Slight thread hijack, but RuppeeClock - how have you found their shipping to the UK? Speedy? Are shipping charges reasonable?

 

[jalaneme]

there are no orignal r4s anymore, they are all clones.

 

[RupeeClock]

Slight thread hijack, but RuppeeClock - how have you found their shipping to the UK? Speedy? Are shipping charges reasonable?
A while ago, I ordered an R4DS during the volcanic ashcloud problem, it took about 5 weeks for that to arrive on free shipping.
But just recently I ordered a DStwo on free shipping, it only took 7 days to deliver once it shipped!
Actually, I started a shipping survey over here, most people only wait around 2 weeks.

QUOTE(jalaneme @ Aug 10 2010, 12:15 PM) there are no orignal r4s anymore, they are all clones.

True, actually the "Original R4DS" that shoptemp and most places sell, are 1:1 clones, built to the exact same specification that the original R4 Team used. They might as well be authentic units because they function exactly the same, and support Wood R4.
Seriously they're 6 bucks for one of them and they're great.

All the other R4 clones though are utter bullshit, the ones that claim SDHC or DSi support are usually badly programmed or clones of other flashcarts, primarily DSTT and Acekard. They lack official support and you end up having to do work-arounds like using Y.S. Menu or cracked versions of AKAIO, which is all pretty sub-par compared to official support, or things like Wood R4 and legit AKAIO.

 

[KtheKing]

Hi, I've got three suggestions for you.

1: The Original R4DS
It's a simple flashcart, it'll work on your DS lite (but not a DSi) and only supports 2gb memory, but when you install Wood R4, it plays pretty much every DS game perfectly, with no frills.
It's only $13 with 2gb memory at Shoptemp.

2: The Acekard 2i
Also a simple flashcart, it'll also work on a DSi and supports SDHC memory (up to 32gb), and has great compatibility, and the nice AKAIO firmware. It's one of GBAtemp's favourites.
It's $15 standalone at Shoptemp.

3: The Supercard DStwo.
This is a premium flashcart, a pricey one but it has an integrated 360mhz processor, that can do things like emulate GBA games, and soon SNES games too. A system development kit is coming out, so people will be able to develop exclusive homebrew for the flashcart. It has an advanced real-time menu where you can have real-time guides, cheats and saves.
It's pricy at $35, over at Shoptemp, but worth it, just bought one and it's great.

All three of these flashcarts are user friendly, you drag and drop the firmware files onto the microSD card, and some DS roms, and there you go. And operating the flashcart on the DS is as easy as playing the games.

Anyhow, I recommend you buy from GBAtemp's affiliate partner Shoptemp, I've bought from there a couple of times now, they have great competitive prices and surprisingly reliable free shipping.

Hmm is wood r4 a firmware update ? I was thinking of getting the acekard 2i with the 8 gb plus card reader, wuts the speed on these microsd? Oh and im going to switch the 8gb i get with my 2gb with my psp, wut do you think? Lool thanks for the very informed post

 

[KtheKing]

oh and rupeeclock wut do i put under flashing service when ordering the acekard 2i? wut the difference between none and premium

 

[KtheKing]

and wuts this "AKAIO" ive been hearing of?

 

[Krestent]

and wuts this "AKAIO" ive been hearing of?

The unofficial firmware for the AK2i that makes it as good as it is.

 

[tk_saturn]

Wood R4 is a newly released operating system for the R4, it only runs on the original R4 and 1:1 clones of the R4. Remember the R4 only supports MicroSD cards upto 2Gb in capacity. The R4 has long since been abandoned, it's upto other people to support it. The best of those is Y.W.G who is the author of Wood R4.

AKAIO is an operating system for the Acekard 2, and is based on Acekard's official software for the Acekard. The official software hasn't been updated in quite a while, you need to use AKAIO to play the latest games.

Both Wood and AKAIO look and act the the same because both are based on the Acekard's original operating system, and are very easy to use. If you have a DS Lite, there isn't much difference between a R4 running Wood, and an Acekard running AKAIO.

Have a look through my AKAIO and Wood R4 guides. They should give you a pretty good idea of what to expect, and the differences between them. You should read them anyway, as they will tell you how to use either flashcart.

You only need to select the Premium Update and Flashing Service if you want them to set up AKAIO for you when they ship your Acekard. You can read all about it here

 

[RupeeClock]

Hmm is wood r4 a firmware update ? I was thinking of getting the acekard 2i with the 8 gb plus card reader, wuts the speed on these microsd? Oh and im going to switch the 8gb i get with my 2gb with my psp, wut do you think? Lool thanks for the very informed post
Wood R4 is a new firmware for Original R4s, it's much better than the long dead 1.18 firmware or YSMenu.
Acekard 2i is a good choice, I can't speak for the 8gb cards they have though. They should be just fine, they're regular Kingston microSDs, I think they're class 4 or 2.

oh and rupeeclock wut do i put under flashing service when ordering the acekard 2i? wut the difference between none and premium
Premium Flashing + Updating means they'll preload the microSD you buy with AKAIO firmware and some homebrew, and flash the AK2i itself to work on a DSi 1.4.
Since you have a DS Lite, you can skip that and just do this all yourself.

QUOTE(KtheKing @ Aug 10 2010, 11:41 PM)

and wuts this "AKAIO" ive been hearing of?

AKAIO is "AceKard All In One" firmware, it's the custom firmware that's made Acekard 2 the popular flashcart that it is.
It's much, much better than the official firmware, even Team Acekard recognise this.

Hope that answers your questions.

 

[W hat]

What features does AKAIO have that Wood R4 does not?

 

[tk_saturn]

Updating of Cheats over WiFi
Option to use different cheat databases for different games
Homebrew soft reset.
Autorun
1 Shortcut in root menu (but Wood has the much better Favourites folder)

 

[W hat]

Tell me more about autorun. What use does different cheat databases serve?

 

[Clookster]

I love AKAIO and Pong20302000's DSTT with YSMenu! Both have Autorun!

 

[Parablank]

1. CycloDS
2. R4
3. Acekard 2i
4. Supercard DStwo

That's all, basically.

I personally recommend the Supercard DStwo, because of it's functions.

 

[tk_saturn]

Tell me more about autorun. What use does different cheat databases serve?

Autorun means the cart will automatically run a selected NDS file when it boots up, you can normally hold down (B) to bypass this.

Having multiple cheat databases is useful if you manually create your own cheats. You can for example have a the last TempDB for older games, and a manually created DB for certain games.