New Ds Lite

[jislizard]

A friend has just bought himself a white DS-Lite, I mentioned that you could probably get a flash cart for it like you could on the GBA. As he had never heard of flash carts I said I would look into it for him.

I have been googling and found stuff that was made for the old DS, stuff that is coming out for the new one and stuff that does the lot but some of it is old news and it's hard to see what is the best at the moment.

Do you still have to flash the firmware?
do the carts still stick out of the ds lite?
are GBA games still a bit slow during the fast action segments?

Mostly I want to know people's views on what the best set up is for playing GBA roms, DS Lite roms, emulators and homebrew, with regards to what works best and what looks good.

Is there anything new on the horizon worth waiting for hardware wise? any bugs that still need solving?

I don't want to get too involved in the details as I don't have a DS Lite, I wil stick to the GP2X for my emulation needs but if I can give him an idea of what the current situation is he will give me back my Denki Blocks cart and play some of the emulators instead.

Cheers
MArk

 

[shinneri]

Not out quite yet but: http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?showtopic=30871

 

[Ravnos]

!. Flashing the DS is unnecessary but with most flash carts and similar devices, if you don't flash it you will probably have to have a passme or something similar sticking out of the DS slot to make it read from the GBA slot.

@. If GBA carts stick out of the DS Lite a bit, then it's logical to conclude that flash carts and the like will too. Some stick out more than others, and anything that takes a CF card will be bigger than one that takes an SD card (though apparently the CF-based carts are more compatible, YMMV.)

#. This varies from device to device. I use an M3 CF, and I haven't noticed any slowdown in any GBA games. The Supercard does apparently have a bit of slowdown on GBA games, but some people feel this is offset by the fact that it's so much smaller than an M3. I don't think any of the regular flashcarts have this problem, just the CF and SD based devices, but I don't own anything else so I can't compare them.

If you want "looks good", you should either flash your friend's DS and get a Supercard SD or wait until the device mentioned in the thread shinneri linked to drops. If you want "works best" I'd say go with an M3 and either flash the DS or get a PassKey 2. Looking good and working good seem to be mutually exclusive for DS homebrew solutions right now.

 

[jislizard]

Thanks for the advice guys, I will hold out for the new gizmo, saves me flashing the DS, I had a quick lookat flashing it. Last thing I need is a nervous owner standing over my shoulder asking if I am sure I should be poking a tin foil covered toothpick into the depths of his new toy.

I will look up the Passkey 2 and M3 and see how easy they are to use as well.

Cheers

Mark

 

[Thomas Dequinas]

Oh. Gawd. No.

They have new NoPass devices such as the PassCard, SuperKey, etc. that do not stick out of the DS slot, works on all DS', and allows sleep mode. There are also new cartridges that fit into the Lite with little to no sticking out of the DS Lite's 2nd slot (where GBA carts go in). Known devices include the EZ-Flash 4 Lite, G6 Lite, SuperCard Lite, and the soon to be released M3 Lite.

The Lite versions of the EZ-Flash, SuperCard, and M3 require MicroSD cards while the G6 Lite is basically a GBA cartridge with 512MB of non expandable memory. You could also get a Ninja Pass or a DS-Xtreme flash card if you don't really care about playing GBA ROMs but I see you would like that so I guess they are not for you.

I would have to go with any one of the cartridges where you provide your own memory. R ight now the EZ-Flash 4 Lite and SuperCard Lite are very cheap while the EZ-F 4 Lite may be a little bit cheaper but at the expense that it doesn't look as nice as the SC Lite, which looks like a non glossy version of the DS Lite's dust cover.

I have not read up on it's compatibility but SuperCards are great for DS games while I hear they work fine with most GBA games (there are a few that have slowdown issues or just won't run or run well but I assume the patches are supposed to fix that). I do know that the M3 has the best compatibility between it and the SC but it's probably nearly twice as much expensive so I will go with the SuperCard.