NDS Share your experience with NDS flashcards

[longestseason]

I bought my first flashcard for my DSi yesterday, since the SD card slot is faulty and doesn't read my card anymore. Rip DSi mode.

People at the DSi Mode Hacking discord server recommend the Ace3DS X flashcard, which is the one I bought. I'm really excited to get my hands on it!

What's your experience with flashcards? I'm curious to read any anecdotes you guys might have :)

 

[nobitakun]

When DS flashcarts started they were expensive. But at some point, a new "unexpensive" flashcart appeared, the Simply DS. I bought it and I was very happy with it. It's working even now, but nowadays any chinese crappy cart can do the job without issues, and they cost like 4€.

I usually don't support "western made" stuff like this, because they are expensive and "elitist". It happened with DS, and also happened with Dreamcast ODE, Saroo and even accessories such as VM2. And it's always the same modus operandi, a person or a small team develop something and because they don't have the tools to mass produce the price of what they are doing skyrockets but it's sold out anyways. Many people complain, can't get one and they wait for chinese to copy them for 1/4 of the price and accept the flaws. When the product has some time, internet is full of people who spent the original price (the original one created by the small team) pestering about how bad is the chinese bootleg while other people say it is more than enough for doing the task.

I am from the latter team, that's why I would recommend you any super cheap DS flashcart that has a decent amount of good reviews, and stop thinking about famous brands.

 

[Not_Red]

There was a time about 8-10 years ago that any new flashcard would come as a timebomb, essentially making them useless after a specific time had passed to encourage people to get a newer version.

Don't think it ever happened to me as I still have an old R4 with the 2016 sticker still visible. Maybe at some point I will get a more recent one as for some reason it doesn't seem to be able to load anything from an SD card that has more than 4 GB of space.

 

[longestseason]

I would recommend you any super cheap DS flashcart that has a decent amount of good reviews, and stop thinking about famous brands.

Thank you for the advice. I actually just want to make a one time purchase and never bother with flashcards ever again (mainly because shipping can be a bit expensive, also I don't really trust Aliexpress sellers), so that's why I'm going with the one that's been recommended to me.
If I ever make another purchase, it would be when the DSpico flashcard comes out, if and only if the price is acceptable for what it offers.

 

[nobitakun]

There was a time about 8-10 years ago that any new flashcard would come as a timebomb, essentially making them useless after a specific time had passed to encourage people to get a newer version.

Don't think it ever happened to me as I still have an old R4 with the 2016 sticker still visible. Maybe at some point I will get a more recent one as for some reason it doesn't seem to be able to load anything from an SD card that has more than 4 GB of space.

Actually that happened to my Simply DS, but a cfw was created to give original R4 and other "non bootleg" flashcarts a second life. The firmware was called Wood and it was (and still is) wonderful. It didn't work with chinese R4, something similar to what is happening to Chinese ODE's, which are not firmware upgradeable.

But just 3 or 4 years ago, I bought a couple of DS flashcarts that work flawlessly, one is R4 Gold (whatever bootleg name it is) and the other is an older model Acecard. Both of them look very very chinese, but they work surprisingly good, and even the R4 Gold is compatible with the Wood firmware for some reason, that's why I believe chinese flashcarts have evolved to something "realiable" nowadays.

But I have to admit Simply DS will always be my favourite, because it was the first one :)

 

[Esidemoken]

I bought this new one from 2015 (that's why the image is damaged lol) and it still works just as well, it has the time bomb problem but changing the date of the DS is enough to keep it working.

 

[LaserMoose]

This was the flashcart I had purchased a number of years ago. I have had nothing but good experiences using the R4i+ Gold - the cart runs homebrew, hacks and vanilla roms very well. I've also made use of its cheat functionality on more than one occasion. The kernel (Wood R4 1.64) is very user-friendly.

That said, I can't recommend this cart nowadays given the more recent reviews I've heard. It has been discontinued for some time now by the sounds of it, and the last manufactured batch was reported to have a number of defects, unfortunately.

I also owned a DSTT a very long time ago, which was my introduction to flash carts as a whole. It served me well, although there are likely far better, more up-to-date options available nowadays.

 

[longestseason]

Actually that happened to my Simply DS, but a cfw was created to give original R4 and other "non bootleg" flashcarts a second life. The firmware was called Wood and it was (and still is) wonderful. It didn't work with chinese R4, something similar to what is happening to Chinese ODE's, which are not firmware upgradeable.

But just 3 or 4 years ago, I bought a couple of DS flashcarts that work flawlessly, one is R4 Gold (whatever bootleg name it is) and the other is an older model Acecard. Both of them look very very chinese, but they work surprisingly good, and even the R4 Gold is compatible with the Wood firmware for some reason, that's why I believe chinese flashcarts have evolved to something "realiable" nowadays.

But I have to admit Simply DS will always be my favourite, because it was the first one :)

The one I mentioned might be a Chinese clone as well, it's definitely being sold by a Chinese reseller, that's for sure. I'm ok with clones actually, I don't have a preference, as long as it does its job. I heard the flashcard I bought had some compatibility issues (the thing that scares me the most), but hey nothing's truly perfect am I right?

 

[nobitakun]

View attachment 70252
This was the flashcart I had purchased a number of years ago. I have had nothing but good experiences using the R4i+ Gold - the cart runs homebrew, hacks and vanilla roms very well. I've also made use of its cheat functionality on more than one occasion. The kernel (Wood R4 1.64) is very user-friendly.

That said, I can't recommend this cart nowadays given the more recent reviews I've heard. It has been discontinued for some time now by the sounds of it, and the last manufactured batch was reported to have a number of defects, unfortunately.

I also owned a DSTT a very long time ago, which was my introduction to flash carts as a whole. It served me well, although there are likely far better, more up-to-date options available nowadays.

This one! this is the one I bought, the R4 gold. It is amazing that even chinese ones could be compatible with Wood as well :D

The one I mentioned might be a Chinese clone as well, it's definitely being sold by a Chinese reseller, that's for sure. I'm ok with clones actually, I don't have a preference, as long as it does its job. I heard the flashcard I bought had some compatibility issues (the thing that scares me the most), but hey nothing's truly perfect am I right?

If you get one compatible with Wood, that's the best. Look at this, less than 3€, not even branded but it supports Wood firmware:

It is clearly a very happy time for NDS users.

 

[514lorn]

Back in the day I had one called "CycloDS" which was a more "high end" R4 card. I don't remember exactly its advantage but I really credit it with getting me back into gaming around 2007/8 when I was really beginning to stop caring about PC/console games that were total shit at the time generally. Thank god for the DS and those flashcarts making the cooler obscure bits of the library accessible to people in countries where those games generally didn't release.

 

[longestseason]

Back in the day I had one called "CycloDS" which was a more "high end" R4 card. I don't remember exactly its advantage but I really credit it with getting me back into gaming around 2007/8 when I was really beginning to stop caring about PC/console games that were total shit at the time generally. Thank god for the DS and those flashcarts making the cooler obscure bits of the library accessible to people in countries where those games generally didn't release.

I would argue that some great games released around that time on PC and consoles, but I get your point. The DS offered something different and unique, and I'm glad you had a good experience with it. I never heard about that CycloDS flashcard though.

 

[Theriise]

Oh man this brings me back big time,
used to go to heaps of computer markets in nearby areas when I was super young.
People would be selling r4s and cd discs loaded up with roms that you could copy and paste onto the r4. I thought this was amazing because the only way I got roms for things used to be trading them via usb with my friends in computer club. My old PC would stutter big time running anything to do with nds emulation so the fact that I could just load a rom up on my original nds and play was incredible.

 

[longestseason]

Oh man this brings me back big time,
used to go to heaps of computer markets in nearby areas when I was super young.
People would be selling r4s and cd discs loaded up with roms that you could copy and paste onto the r4. I thought this was amazing because the only way I got roms for things used to be trading them via usb with my friends in computer club. My old PC would stutter big time running anything to do with nds emulation so the fact that I could just load a rom up on my original nds and play was incredible.

Trading roms sounds fun as hell, imagine finding a hidden gem and thinking "yep, that was a good trade".

 

[Theriise]

Trading roms sounds fun as hell, imagine finding a hidden gem and thinking "yep, that was a good trade".

It was heaps fun! We would trade techniques (Like save scumming on megaman battle network to get anubis) and because the roms worked off the emulators on the usb, we didn't have to worry about installing anything on school computers. The first time my friend was like "Where's your usb, here's a whole bunch of games and an emulator." It was magic.