Be Excellent To Each Other

So, my cousin wants a DS flashcart. What's the best one around? I've got an M3 DS Simply and it's awesome. Is that and the realted R4 still the best balance of features/cheap cost/ease of use (the last one is important).

Also, where is a good, relaible place to get them from?

Thanks guys. Next step is finding a decent place to trial individual games.... I only have a bitgamer account and subscribe to the large collection there - so I have no idea where to get single ones from.

I don't know how tech savvy he really is - I tried explaining torrents to him but I'm not sure he gets it without me actually going and showing him.

Thanks

The cycloDS supports SDHC cards and has real-time save/load, so I'd go for one of those above an R4.
Pretty easy to use, get micro SD card, put in reader and put in PC. Copy files to card. Put card in cycloDS, put in DS and turn on. Choose stuff from menu.

I meant to recommend the AceKard 2 when the Gaywood was asking for recommendations; it's a very capable flashcart and cheap too ($23 at dealextreme.com). It's just as easy to use as the R4 (and as the menu software is open source, various people have been working to create their own menus -- including a clone of the R4 menu).

I personally wouldn't bother with the R4 these days; there are various iffy clones knocking about now, some under a different name like the N5 and MARS carts, some masquerading as an upgrade to the original, like the R4-II (On the Rocks). There have been reports of some of them damaging DSes, and the R4 team have apparently said that future firmware upgrades will be able to identify if they're being run on a clone cart and brick the DS if they are.

Also, FF Crystal Chronicles showed that games can detect if they're being run on an R4 (whereas other carts, including the AK2, had no such problems). While it was very obvious that the protection was triggered in FFCC (and therefore a patched firmware was released pretty soon after), games that use such protection may be more subtle in future.

I love my R4 and it's served me well, but I can't see myself going back to it now I've got an AK2.

Eh?

I don't understand the question.

Edit - What tossrStu said, if that answers your question.

You can save the game at any point (like an emulator snapshot). Pretty nifty feature although I believe it doesn't always work 100%. The only other cart I can think of that also does this is the Supercard One.

Ah ok, save states. Nifty.

Cheers.

To be honest I'm kinda tempted by the thought of buying another DS card. The CycloDS sounds pretty promising now, but I don't know any place that doesn't sell it for bloat-o-moolah at the moment. =\ Amazon have horrible prices, and DealExtreme don't appear to have any in stock (not even a single listing).

I'll look further into the CycloDS, AceKard and Edge.

Thanks.....

WTF has Freeman got to do with anything?

Wow. That's nasty of them.

This was apparantly a mistranslation. They meant it would brick the card, the DS would be unharmed. Which makes more sense; I'd be surprised if a flashcart could harm the DS itself.

It is possible, it would just write over the unprotected part of the DS' firmware.

I'm thinking of selling my R4 and getting a CycloDS or Edge card.

So, what's the best on-line price for a decent make (Kingston, Sandisk etc.) 4GB SDHC card from a reliable UK retailer ?

Thanks in advance.

I got one of these. Came properly packaged and everything.

Are people trading in their R4's for these new Edge/Cyclo cards? What are the benefits of this? My R4 has been fine the year I've had it for, what would I benefit from upgrading?

I traded mine in for higher card capacity and save-states.

Which cards allow brightness change in game?

Wear sunglasses.

The cycloDS does, can't remember whether the R4 did.

£16 gets you a nice Class 6 card from MyMemory.

If you're not familiar with the class system then it's a new thing that's been introduced for SDHC cards which tells you roughly how quick the card is (the higher the number, the better). As I understand it, Class 6 cards should have no problems with games that expect to be able to read data quicker than some microSD cards can handle, eg. that Tony Hawks game and the Castlevanias. A Class 2 or 4 card would be fine for the vast majority of games but personally I'd spend a few extra quid to get a card that won't cause problems with anything.

As for in-game brightness control, neither the R4 nor the Acekard support it natively.

It does.

Personally I've got no need to use anything but the R4, virtually every single card seems to have some gotcha or shit menu system and do you REALLY need mroe than 50-100 games at once?

It was the save-states that swung it for me. The R4 is a perfectly good card and if you do need more than you can fit on a standard microSD card it's not like they're awkward to carry round.

I'm still using my R4 and I've no more than about 15 DS games on it. I've got quite a lot of GBA as well. That's just a 1GB card I've got in.

Fair play, I only ever really play ZooKeeper and Space Invaders Extreme, so I guess my R4 is fine for what I need.

Yeah, I've just got hold of a 3in1 to use GBA stuff properly.

It's a shame that the 3in1 doesn't come with any software or any explanation of how it works. But it's certainly a rather good thing.

Yes, it took some googling.

Just a quick question: I've told a mate to go for this card pack. There's nothing glaringly wrong, is there?

Neat. Any reason to get the Edge myself when I've already got an R3?

No, that's a good deal. For an extra £9 he could've had a 4GB card, however.

You can be in the 'I've got an Edge card so I'm awesome club'. Worth thinking about.

Oooh, I think I'll recommend that one to my cousin, it looks nice and simple. I don't want to tell him about anything too complicated and then have a load of questions asked.

Ta.

Also in terms of actually buying the thing. He really has absolutely no clue

As for finding the ROMs, it may be easier for me to burn him a DVD full of games he already owns from the no-intro set.

Any links to hand?

http://www.ds-scene.net/?s=viewtopic&nid=5264

Youtube has plenty of guides.

Thanks