Wednesday, October 13, 2010
The best flashcard to use with dsi firmware v1.4.1
R4i SDHC
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Free Shipping! Acekard 2i Only $13 Lowest in USA! No Clone!!!! CycloDS $41, Acekard2 $11, R4 DS$5, R4i $9, Memory$7
Free Shipping! Acekard 2i Only $13 Lowest in USA! No Clone!!!! CycloDS $41, Acekard2 $11, R4 DS$5, R4i $9, Memory$7
Thursday, September 9, 2010
What is a R4 nintendo DS chip?
It is safe to say that the R4 DS has been the most successful DS flash card on the market, now after 18-months of it’s release it has out sold any other flash card hands down, even though there are newer cards out and about now with some new features like MicroSDHC support, that has not stoped the sales of this great little card, the skins collection for the R4 DS is also huge, there is over 5000 skins available online from various skins sites. This is kind of neat if you want to make your R4 look just like your favourite movie or game, it’s safe to say there are more skins for the R4 DS card then any other card on the market. Some of the skins they have on the NDSThemes website look amazing, if you go ahead and buy an R4 DS make sure to check out their skin site as you won’t be disappointed. The R4 DS GUI is newbie-friendly yet functional, which is something the competitors forgot to ensure, there will be no getting lost in menus or system settings with this card, they kept it simple yet functional like we said above, because these devices are being used mostly by children, making sure there is not a whole bunch of settings that can be unnecessary played with can be a good thing, all you see if what you need to see to play your homebrew or movies without any fuss.
With the R4 DS they ditched their in-house media players for finally caving to the superior Moonshell and tied it into the OS, Moonshell has been known since the beginning to be the best media player for DS, it works on all cards and truly is the best option over some in-house half done media player, note that you will need to convert you AVI or MPG files to DPG format to use them in Moonshell, just do a search in Google for AVI to DPG and you will find a bunch of software that will do the converting for you. The best movies to convert to use with the R4 DS would have to be Ipod movies, they are just the right resolution to be using and will convert much quicker then movies made to watch on PC’s or TV. You will retire your Passcards or Superkeys, as the R4 DS Revolution can boot any popular slot-2 Nintendo DS flash card. Skinning adds beauty to functionality. The best part is that the R4 DS retails for around $50 - $60AUD, which in the end is a great price compared to other cards on the market, such as DSXtreme the only high-rated slot 1 Nintendo DS flash card to date which retails for 3 times the cost of the R4 DS. If you choose to buy R4 DS, you are choosing a definite winner in the Nintendo DS flash card arena.
Hardware wise, the build quality of the R4 DS revolution is top notch, the fact you can remove the micro SD from the R4 DS without removing the whole card from the NDS slot is great. After selling thousands of these great little cards, we would be lucky to have more then a handful that became faulty, of the few we did get faulty most were DOA and very few have ever been returned after being used. They even bundled the R4 DS with a couple of nice extras, the key ring card carry case and the USB micro SD card reader which are great little freebies with the R4DS that help further justify the price tag which is already very affordable, unlike some of the carry cases that do come with other flash cards, the R4 is made of very strong plastic and is really a protective casing instead of just a cheap plastic case that really has no purpose. if you're looking for a great slot 1 Nintendo DS flash card with unlimited storage capacity using Micro SD cards, 100% ROM compatibility, complete "drag 'n' drop" & ease-of-use, huge skin collection,
http://www.gameplayfun.com/category-s/1.htm works out about £6 pound but you will need the mmc card found here http://www.gameplayfun.com/category-s/1.htm
works out about $6 for a 2gb card
i use the dstt one better than a R4 http://www.gameplayfun.com/category-s/1.htm works out about $8 with the 2gb card and you get free p&p
hope that helps
CycloDS Evolution Review
for playing NDS roms on Nintendo DS / NDS Lite.
Introduction - Team Cyclops known as makers of the “CycloWiz for the Wii” – the first mods ever produced for Wii have now developed a new slot-1 flash for the Nintendo DS. This flashcard is promising a great variety of features.
CycloDS Evolution is superb due to several reasons – mainly because you can boot it easily within seconds from the DS cartridge. Also you don’t need any extra hardware. As simple as that once booted it offers a variety of possibilities: slow motion gameplay, playing backups, listening to music, DLDI patching, watching videos, Action Replay compatible cheats, reading e-books, not to mention the feature of SDHC support that enables you to expand capacity up to 32 GB on a MicroSD card (I found only 8GB max), as well as full download play support.
Here is the official feature list:
• Completely plug & play - no FlashMe, PassMe or PC software required
• 100% game compatibility, supports clean ROM's - works on any OS
• Full NDS download play support, including problem games such as Mario Kart DS
• Action Replay compatible cheat code engine, comes bundled with cheat codes for over 300 games!
• Uses MicroSD card, both FAT16 and FAT32 supported
• Supports the MicroSDHC specification, allowing for high capacity memory cards
• Save type is automatically detected, no need for a save type database
• Save directly to MicroSD rather than onboard flash
• User friendly, easily skinnable interface. Both touch screen and button operation supported
• Multi-lingual user interface
• "Enhanced Mode" which provides powerful, unique features during game play. Enhanced features are activated through an in-game menu. Enhanced mode features include:
• Adjust LCD brightness during game play (NDSLite only)
• SlowMotion mode which can be used to slow down game play to make fast paced action sequences easier to master
• Return to CycloDS Evolution Menu (aka soft reset)
• More features to come!
• Excellent homebrew compatibility thanks to the DLDI auto-patcher
• 2 megabytes of onboard flash memory which contains theCycloDS Evolution OS and will be utilised in the future to add exciting new features. A recovery mode is also included.
• Autoboot mode which when activated will directly boot into the last ROM or homebrew application executed
• Moonshell included to provide media playing functionality
• PassMe function (boot from slot 2)
• Supports rumble and memory expansions
Packaging and cart
CycloDS Evolution is delivered in an appealing small metal box similar to DSLink wrapped in a plastic cover. The cartridge itself is placed in a protective foam layer. The inside packaging includes also an instruction manual and a USB MicroSD memory card reader. The tin metal packaging features CycloDS Evolution trademark on the front and a printout of features included on the reverse. The cartridge looks like an average flashcard made of thin plastic.
The CycloDS Evolution is provided in white casing, however more colours will be available. The cartridge looks like an average DS cartridge – same shape and size. The cart perfectly fits in when inserted into console.
The cart surface is slightly raised and you can feel the chip underneath it, however it is just appearance failure and does not influence the operation of the cart. The cart does not look state-of-the-art (there certainly are many smooth surface and cool design carts on the market), but don’t worry about it because cart’s superb features make up for this. A slight potential drawback is the lack of spring function – you have to manually drag it out which is a bit of nuisance. However knowing that spring loading breaks if used often, maybe it is for the best.
Installation
To start using the CycloDS you will need 3 things:
• CycloDS Evolution
• micro SD or micro SDHC card
• memory card reader/writer
The good thing about CycloDS Evolution is that it boots up within seconds from the DS cartridge. You simply have to insert it in the Nintendo DS or Lite and switch it on. Then you will see 3 menus: settings menu, media menu, games/homebrew menu.
The settings menu allows you to enable cheat codes and to enable the enhanced mode, adjust screen brightness, to select language (for example, English, French, Spanish, German, Korean, 9 languages in total). You can also change CycloDS Evolution skin to your choosing – there are hundreds available for download on their official website. Another great feature is that from the settings menu you can boot slot 2 which means that you can use DS Evolution as a PassMe.
The media menu enables you to read e-books, play audio, watch video files and images. In order to do that you have to download a version of MoonShell. You will be able to read multimedia files such as jpg, text, video, mp3 and other once you have installed the Moonshell. In order to watch a movie you have to convert it into a DPG format. This is done by choosing a movie file (e.g. DivX) and the DPG application will convert it into DPG file. This process takes few minutes and you will experience some file quality lost, however the overall file performance is rather good. When you have converted the files you can drag them to the memory card and then go to Media menu, then to Moonshell and then select the movie you want. Enjoy !
The game/homebrew menu shows you the directory of the cart, as well as shows name and icon of NDS games. Simply go to the Game menu and you will be presented with the contents of the SD card. The screen operates as usual – you have to hold down or move up the stylus, tap the folder you need, tap NDS file to start it etc. If you are using buttons you can also skip pages by help of L and R buttons.
If you want to play ROMs simply copy the ROMs to the MicroSD, insert it and select the ROM you want to boot. Loading process is few seconds, depending on the size of ROM. You don’t need to pre-patch the ROMs because CycloDS Evolution has the automatic DLDI patcher which provides 100% compatibility for homebrews or commercial ROMs. Also explore the previous ROM boot option which allows you to boot the last ROM used without going through all the menus. Press L+R when starting CycloDS Evolution. Great isn’t it?
Testing
I tested the CycloDS with few homebrews as well as some ROMs.
Worked perfectly with Doom, NesDS, …………………..
Battery life is approximately 4,5 hours.
Extra features
Slow motion – one of the most interesting features. Works flawlessly and is very useful when you have a fast game. It slows down the game and allows you to perform stunts and figure out difficulties. However the slow motion works unevenly – sometimes it will slow down when there is no real action on the screen or vice versa – becomes faster during a real game situation.
Soft reset – a possibility to return to main menu during the game with no need to turn the DS off.
Auto DLDI patch – no need to pre-patch ROMs.
Cheats - cheat support has cheats for 300 games. This function is not a default one and you have to enable it on the settings screen. When you load the game the cheats database will be automatically checked and if there are cheats found you will be presented with choice to enable them or not. Also you won’t have to re-enable cheats again as cart will remember.
Positives:
• Micro SDHC Support
• Automatic DLDI patch for 100% homerbrew / commercial ROMs compatibility
• Full download play support
• Regular firmware updates
• Enhanced mode with soft reset, slow motion and cheats
• User friendly interface
• Save game support
Negatives:
• Price – a bit too high
• There is no spring load
• Cart’s design and bumps in surface