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I recently bought a DS lite, and I"m already feeling the urge to go waste hundreds of dollars to buy games, a friend of mine on IRC told me that instead of buying the games for my DS lite, I should flash cart them, I Know what the jist of doing that is, but, can anyone give me some reccomendations on what I should pick for it, or if there is any extra hardware I need?
If you don't plan on using your flash cart for GBA, then there are a number of Slot-1 flash carts(ones that use the DS slot instead of the GBA slot) you can purchase pretty cheap. I guess I could recommend you the M3 Simply (costs around $45 USD).
If you need GBA support, get the old M3 and a Passcard/Passkey.
Alright, I'm going to look into it, it sounds remarkably cheap for the amount of hardware I can port with it.
Thanks much guys.
P.s. Why was this moved? it has nothing to do with emulation.
Actually it has a lot to do with emulation even if it's just emulating DS games on the DS itself without the original game(s).
I've started to look into it myself based on what a friend of mine told me. All you need is a MiniSD card with a USB adapter to upload the games to then I think find blank DS game cartridges to fit the MiniSD card onto then play away.
Though finding the MiniSD and USB adapter is fairly easy I was wondering where to find the blank DS cartridges?
The possibilities to run backups on a NDS are multiple, Supercard, M3, G6, DS-Xtreme, DSLink, EZ Flash, Magic Key, NinjaDS, R4 DS... and more I'm missing.
As Banned said, you'll find various models for each product, some will require to flash the BIOS, or will require to insert a Passkey in the NDS games slot, and some will only use that slot leaving the GBA slot empty (these won't run GBA games).
I bought myself a M3 Micro SD recently, it has the highest compatibiity with NDS and GBA backups, a high versatibility cos you can use up to 2gbs micro sd cards (not sure if a 4 gbs card will work too, mine is 2gbs), it's compatible with both NDS models, the original and the lite fitting in both perfectly but it's not the cheaper solution, the Supercard would be better if you want to save some money.
Do MiniSD cards fit into the main DS game slot or do you need anything else to make it work?
Neither SD or MINISD cards fit directly into the DS. Many flashcards have slots for SD and MINISD cards, so you need one of those.
Snkupo is right, both, Supercard and M3 have MiniSD versions (not sure about the others flashcarts; some of them, like the G6 comes with it's own flash memory inside so they don't need sd/cf cards), so, if you already have a MiniSD card and you want to use it for this purpose, you only need the supercard or the M3 MiniSD version and the Passkey/Passcard and you'll be set.Quote:
Originally Posted by P. Wolvesbane
You insert the minisd in the flashcart, the flascart in the gba slot and the passkey/passcard in the nds slot. The console will read from the gba slot the nds or gba games you copied to your minisd card.
Okay I just found a good deal on the M3 MiniSD adapter and the Passcard 3 so once I receive all pieces to this puzzle i'll be set to Flash carting on my DS in no time. Thanks CM and Snkupo, pleasure as always!
Here's what you'll need:Quote:
Originally Posted by P. Wolvesbane
Passcard 3
M3 MiniSD adapter
MiniSD card(1 gb or smaller, I don't know if larger are supported, you could ask over at http://www.m3-forum.com and find out)
SD card reader
Nintendo DS
I have either just bought all of those or I already own some of them like the NDS. I got a USB 8 in 1 card reader so that covers that part.Quote:
Originally Posted by banned
Also aren't you forgetting the games? :D
you need any sites?Quote:
Originally Posted by P. Wolvesbane
No I got this one http://drn.dl.am/ but for anything else like GBA roms I can just look here at my One Stop Shop for Roms, Emuparadise.
if you ever have trouble downloading your gba from emuparadise, then you can use http://grn.dl.am, and for gbc, http://gbc.dl.am.Quote:
Originally Posted by P. Wolvesbane
For compatibility lists and info on how to patch your NDS/GBA games, check
http://m3wiki.com/index.php?title=Main_Page
For the settings it shows for each game, those are the settings you use in the Game Manager program that comes with your M3 adapter. You should probably update your adapter's firmware and game manager software when it arrives, you can find all updates here:Quote:
Originally Posted by Cookie Monster
http://www.linfoxdomain.com/nintendo/ds/ You want updagcsd.e31b.rar and GM_v31.rar.
So, is that all I need to do to get it working properly? I already checked that the games I want to try first work perfectly with it.Quote:
Originally Posted by banned
When I get the M3 MiniSD adapter and the passcard 3 do I unzip the files you told me to get onto the MiniSD card so it's read by the adapter?
Updating the M3 firmware and patching the ROMs according to the settings given in the m3 wiki is all you have to do.
Also you'll have to create some folders in your minisd card. This is what I have:
- GAMESAVE (gba saves)
- GBA (gba games)
- GBASAVE (gba rts saves)
- MEDIA (for videos, pics..)
- NDS (nds games)
- NDSSAVE (nds saves)
What is the difference between your GAMESAVE and GBASAVE folders?
The M3 is one of the flashcarts that can handle gba games with the real time save feature (Pokemons etc) and I read in a tutorial that the saves for those games need to go in a folder labeled like that, but to be honest I still haven't tried any of those games.
What about DS games that are like that like then? For example Pokemon Diamond when it comes out.
I'm not sure, I guess they will update the game manager to patch the game properly so it can run, that if they can make the game run at all, I can only speculate, time will tell :/
I'd link you to that tutorial I mentioned but it's in spanish.
Lol, just looking on the applications compatibility list and it lists MSN messenger on there, imagine talking to my friends on messenger using my DS.
Yeah this is possible. Of course you need to use a homebrew application, not the official MSN messenger.Quote:
Originally Posted by P. Wolvesbane
So can you tell me what I need to use the M3 Game Manager for and how do you use it?
The Game Manager is used for putting your games onto your card. You open it up, locate your card in the left hand column, and select either GBA or NDS and locate your roms and patch them using the appropriate settings (for GBA, you don't need to check any boxes, for NDS, see the M3wiki for the correct settings for each game).Quote:
Originally Posted by P. Wolvesbane
If you wish to play NES roms, don't use the built in emulator as it completely sucks.
Instead, use nesDS WIP 1(by emu_kidid)
http://forums.maxconsole.net/showthread.php?t=25181 (just drag and drop the nesDS.ds.gba file onto your card(no need to patch homebrew) along with some NES roms in .nes format and rename the nesDS.ds.gba file to nesDS.nds. Start it with the A button and once you locate your rom folder, you should see a list of your roms to choose from)
For SNES, I recommend using SNEmulDS v0.3 (works the same way as nesDS WIP 1)
http://forums.maxconsole.net/showthread.php?t=44820
Sega Megadrive/genesis emulation isn't that good yet, for regular Game Boy games, you can just patch them through the game manager by selecting "write GBA", for GBC though, you'll need Goomba Color to patch the roms.
Is it necessary to update the Passcard with updagcsd.e31b everytime I turn it on?
it's really only updating the adapter's firmware, once you've done this, it's safe to take it off of the card, you only need to update once.Quote:
Originally Posted by P. Wolvesbane
Okay sounds good, just need to get home from work and then i'll try it out properly this time as I tried to play Children of Mana without any settings added (by manually copying it to the NDS folder) instead of using M3 Game Manager, it did not work as it brought up the load bar and froze once it was done while turning the top screen on.
Edit: Got the games to work, all I had to do was bring them onto the SD card without placing the games into any folders.
I got a Supercard SD and superpass DS. And I have an old Nintendo DS and it works ok, my question is if I upgraded to a DS Lite is the Supercard DS and Superpass DS going to work on the lite to or will I need to update my flashcarts to a newer one?
They should work fine, the only reason that I know of to get a Lite version of the flash cart is so that it doesn't stick out of the gba slot like a full size gba cartridge would.Quote:
Originally Posted by mamedude99