Hacking Why would anyone want a Gateway instead of a Sky3DS or CFW?

[WallK]

I'm guessing you mean the apps on your phone? I was talking about system updates such as new versions of Android or Windows Mobile. Unless your running something like the CyanogenMod nightly builds no phone gets system updates every week.

My system updates every friday. My stock firmware. I even have an official Windows10 from my vendor if I don't want to use Android anymore.

 

[Purge]

I assume most of you are still in school or studying and what you have as a near infinite ressource is time. Some of us are in the unfortunate position of having to work to earn a living and value not having to waste time on CIA conversion and installation. I'd rather spend 60 USD on a Gateway again (if I didn't already own a Gateway since it was a thing) than wasting my time on everything involved with CIA conversion. Mind you, I'm not too lazy for all that, I tried it, know how it works, I love experimenting and I have various CFWs set up on my 3DSs, but I just have no interest in jumping through hoops and wait god knows how long every time I just want to play a new game. 60 USD is a small price to pay for the convenience, in my opinion. Plus I buy the games I like, anyways. When money is not an issue the convenience wins.

I have a full time job and I still had the time to setup emunand, dump my OTP.bin and install a9lh. Twice. Compared to that, installing CIA files is extremely fast and easy.

And I'm also not sure what people are talking about when they say it takes 10+ minutes to install cia. It took me about a minute or less to install project x zone.

 

[Deleted member 373057]

Honestly, I'd choose CFW. I want my piracy free.

 

[crimpshrine]

I was playing around with the newer arm9loader hack this past weekend, and re-did my N3DS XL with arm9loaderhax. I was considering switching my units over to this + still using the gateway. So I can have 100% boot rates on N3DS with gateway, I don't think I will bother after my tests.. Unless Gateway releases an arm9loader plugin, and then I still won't use CIA's generally..

The time difference between getting new content on my units between using native .3ds files + gateway and installing CIA's is not even compariable.

I can copy 10 larger games to a micro sd card in like 8 minutes. - Then that is it - Go ahead and play..

To install those same 10 games from CIA took around an hour. Plus I still had to copy them all over, etc.. So it was well over an hour after that.

If over the lifetime of my 3ds(s) that I have and for my kids. If I can even save 2 hours of my time, its worth the money for the gateway cards.

In all likelihood I am probably saving 100+ hours total between all the copying and configuring if I was using CIA's (I have 2 kids).

Plus scene releases are still .3ds format,

 

[xIce101x]

I was playing around with the newer arm9loader hack this past weekend, and re-did my N3DS XL with arm9loaderhax. I was considering switching my units over to this + still using the gateway. So I can have 100% boot rates on N3DS with gateway, I don't think I will bother after my tests.. Unless Gateway releases an arm9loader plugin, and then I still won't use CIA's generally..

The time difference between getting new content on my units between using native .3ds files + gateway and installing CIA's is not even compariable.

I can copy 10 larger games to a micro sd card in like 8 minutes. - Then that is it - Go ahead and play..

To install those same 10 games from CIA took around an hour. Plus I still had to copy them all over, etc.. So it was well over an hour after that.

If over the lifetime of my 3ds(s) that I have and for my kids. If I can even save 2 hours of my time, its worth the money for the gateway cards.

In all likelihood I am probably saving 100+ hours total between all the copying and configuring if I was using CIA's (I have 2 kids).

Plus scene releases are still .3ds format,

Looks like they're gonna release a A9LH plugin

 

[Pluupy]

It takes me like 10 minutes tops to pull the micro sd card out of my gateway and put it in my computer to copy several new games in .3ds format to give back to my kids to play with.

Fast, and simple. They are sick of all game and want a new set, again simple. Delete all files, copy new ones, insert back in gateway.. Back in business.

CIA is time consuming comparatively to do the same things.

That's why I prefer Gateway over CFW by itself.

CIA is time consuming??

It took me two days to install my CFW for the first time. Maybe longer than usual than the veterans around these forums.

I don't think it's all that hard to plop a CIA file onto my SD and install the CIA using FBI. A 2.5GB game takes around 10-20min.

I feel it's even nicer than the gateway method because the game will appear right on the homescreen, daintily wrapped up giving that extra excitement.

I also feel this method is nicer for kids because they have all of their games accessible right on the homescreen. If a kid doesn't want a game, they go right into system settings and delete it like any other game.

Or maybe i'm just doing it all horribly wrong.

 

[crimpshrine]

Looks like they're gonna release a A9LH plugin

That is great to hear. Thanks! I love the quick boot time.

 

[astronautlevel]

Looks like they're gonna release a A9LH plugin

In other words, it's coming Soon TM

 

[enarky]

I have a full time job and I still had the time to setup emunand, dump my OTP.bin and install a9lh. Twice. Compared to that, installing CIA files is extremely fast and easy.

And I'm also not sure what people are talking about when they say it takes 10+ minutes to install cia. It took me about a minute or less to install project x zone.

So I assume you never installed another game? Installing CIAs takes ages, not to mention having to open your N3DS to copy games to Micro SD every time.

Besides Arm9loaderhax I have everything set up myself and that only because Gateway doesn't support it yet, thank you very much for your assumptions. I love experimenting and I do it a lot and most likely a lot longer than you. I just hate having to jump through hoops when all I want to do is to quickly try a new game. Nothing beats quick copy of a .3DS file to a SD card.

Not to mention that I said most and not all of you.

 

[Purge]

So I assume you never installed another game? Installing CIAs takes ages, not to mention having to open your N3DS to copy games to Micro SD every time.

Besides Arm9loaderhax I have everything set up myself and that only because Gateway doesn't support it yet, thank you very much for your assumptions. I love experimenting and I do it a lot and most likely a lot longer than you. I just hate having to jump through hoops when all I want to do is to quickly try a new game. Nothing beats quick copy of a .3DS file to a SD card.

Not to mention that I said most and not all of you.

What assumptions are you talking about? If anything, you're the one who's making the assumptions, considering you don't know anything about me. Why do you seem so offended?

 

[enarky]

What assumptions are you talking about? If anything, you're the one who's making the assumptions, considering you don't know anything about me. Why do you seem so offended?

You're right, could've worded that a bit less confrontational. Sorry about that.

 

[Pikm]

it take a shitload of time to install a cia, it take 5min to modify your header ith one of your games's and copy it to the µSD card...

Only if you're pirating huge games. Literally a 1.5 GB cia takes <10 minutes to install.

 

[Hayleia]

Only if you're pirating huge games. Literally a 1.5 GB cia takes <10 minutes to install.

Depends. If the micro SD card isn't formatted the right way, it can take several hours. But then yeah, it's the user's fault.

 

[kirbymaster101]

its easier to install a cia installer if you're having problems injecting H&S for some strange reason.

 

[Deleted User]

Cheating with Gateway is a LOT simpler than using NTR. Gateway's cheat system is nearly identical to the GameShark/ActionReplay system that most people are familiar with. Cheating with NTR requires the knowledge and tools for creating ram dumps and comparing them manually, as well as creating the cheat.plg file.

Creating a new cheat with Gateway:

1.) Boot Gateway and load the game.
2.) Create a new search for a value.
3.) Do something in game to alter the value.
4.) Search for the updated value.
5.) Repeat steps 3 & 4 to narrow down the possible addresses.
6.) Edit the value at an address to test.
7.) If the address is good, add it to a [titleid].txt file and place the file in a folder called "cheats" on the gateway micro sd card.
8.) Continue playing.

Creating a new cheat with NTR:

1.) Boot NTR and load the game.
2.) Launch the debugger on your pc.
3.) Locate the game's process id.
4.) Dump fcram at a common offset.
5.) Change the value in the game.
6.) Dump fcram again and compare to the old dump to locate changes that match.
7.) Repeat steps 5 & 6 to narrow down possible addresses.
8.) Use the debugger to write a new value to an address you want to change.
9.) if the address is good, write it down.
10.) Download a program to create cheat.plg files.
11.) Use the program to create a cheat.plg file for your game using the new address write you located.
12.) Quit game and access a tool to copy data to the sd card from your pc.
13.) Copy the cheat.plg file to the proper folder.
14.) Reboot the 3ds.
15.) Boot NTR and load the game.
16.) Activate the cheat and continue playing.

This is why people would want a Gateway cart. Until such time as someone creates a homebrew solution to enable real time editing of fcram (looking at you Smealum), I will continue to use my Gateway cart to handle cheats and will continue to recommend it over NTR for cheating.

The gateway method is more like cheat engine than action replay/gameshark

 

[Jarmenti]

Sky3ds is the way to go. Since you'll probably end up needing cubic ninja or oot at some point! Cubic ninja is the easiest entrypoint (no gamesave loader required) being able to boot that game alone makes the sky3ds worth it! CFW renders gateway useless (esp with a9lh and updated sysnand)! As of now a legit cubic ninja cart is in excess of $70, at least with the sky3ds you have options to boot any other games as well!

 

[funnystory]

What do the Gateway flashcarts do that CFW and Sky3DS flashcart users don't have access to or an alternative of?

People buy junk and then they cope by giving it meaningless uses. Kinda how people were hating on Sony/M$ for selling upgraded ps4.5s/new xbox1 even though the n3ds is less of an upgrade. People waste money and most have a hard time admitting it to themselves so they chose to cope.

 

[4gionz]

The gateway method is more like cheat engine than action replay/gameshark

What are you talking about? You can put the "gateshark" codes on microsd and then press whatever button combo you choose to make the cheat menu pop up and activate the cheats you want whenever you want during the game.. Just like action replay exept you can ALSO use the ram editor built in to find cheats on the go. It really is nice but I was willing to ditch it for a9lh.

Also everyone acting like gateway has nothing cfw has, everyone has been busting balls in the cfw threads begging for region free built in...which gateway has done for a long time, along with their cheat engine and 3ds support I'd not say they're COMPLETELY obsolete yet, not until they prove they won't release a9lh compatible payload and gba support. Also if they're 10.3 support includes an exploit to run directly on 10.3(which would mean arm9 support) then we can install cfw up to 10.3.

 

[ihaveahax]

Also if they're 10.3 support includes an exploit to run directly on 10.3(which would mean arm9 support) then we can install cfw up to 10.3.

they mentioned that they're coming up with their own method to downgrade to 9.2, so I don't think you will be able to run it on top of 10.3, especially given the not-that-stable memchunkhax2 and ntrcardhax that requires extra hardware.

 

[4gionz]

they mentioned that they're coming up with their own method to downgrade to 9.2, so I don't think you will be able to run it on top of 10.3, especially given the not-that-stable memchunkhax2 and ntrcardhax that requires extra hardware.

Yeah I agree I also think they're only going to release a downgrader, but you never know. Those lazy bastards have surprised us in the past lol