SuperCard steps up to DS

[cory149]

from: http://www.supercard.cn/eng/

Update(2005.06.09)：SuperPass Key, Make you play NDS games
It's a very hard work, but we succeed make Supercard Play NDS Games on NDS. SuperPass Key like PASSME and can make SuperCard play NDS Games. Players can select GBA or NDS games in the same menu. SuperPass will issued soon.

Looking good, SuperPass may not be the same as PassMe, but we will see soon I hope.

/edit: one of the pics is of the DS SC boot menu and the other is of it playing cool104 (nds rom)

[Cosmo]

That's looking really good, looks like homebrew on the DS is going to become more simple in the not too distant future ...

[Brandogg]

Awesome! This is just the news I've been waiting for - I'm guessing this means the current SuperCard will work with the "Super PassMe". The Super Card is only like $60, so that's great news.

[Social-Zero]

Supercard isnt the best though

[cory149]

well, for 40 or 50USD its pretty darned good *cough kicktrading*, and when your rewriteable nand gates die you dont have to replace the hardware, just the CF or SD card...

Apparently the SuperPass will be identical/interchangeable with the PassMe, as well, the method NDS uses to load info from the roms does not require the SC to have the entire NDS format rom in its rom memory, as with movies it will likely load the nds filesystems right off the CF/SD card - so the only slowdown should be when you normally see a "loading..." message for regular DS carts, unlike GBA stuff off SC which has to be loaded fully into the SC's built in RAM (256mbit limited). Hopefully it will work fully with GBFS and other file access methods without special code, just as the current NDS homebrew compatible GBA flashcarts do.

[McScruff]

look at the date it was last updated....

[andrewober]

Hope its true!

[cory149]

look at the date it was last updated....
:rolleyes: it is the same date as the post below it. Look on the chinese site, you will see the correct date - I dont think they have automatic dates on their english site... the news post on this has just gone up in the past couple days (7-29).

[andrewober]

I'm just wondering:

a. Will they release a new firmware for current customers, or just start selling them with DS functions in the new batches.

b. Instead of PassMe, will it work with FlashMe? I haven't heard that many people talk about going the FlashMe route... was it a bad idea to have done this...?

[Z80]

There's nothing wrong with Flashme. If the Super Card thing has the right game code, or if you hold the button combo, it should act as if you had a PassMe inserted. Is it just me or is that supercard site been down for a few days now?

[gingi]

I'm just wondering:

a. Will they release a new firmware for current customers, or just start selling them with DS functions in the new batches.

b. Instead of PassMe, will it work with FlashMe? I haven't heard that many people talk about going the FlashMe route... was it a bad idea to have done this...?

a. One user on a diffrent forum emailed the supercard team, and they said the firmware will be released next week :)

b. I Really Hope That it will work with flashme, did neoflash work with flashme? I use flashme too, and I don't think it was a bad idea... even if you will never use it's flashcart booting abilities again, you got rid of the health and safety warning :) and if a future game won't support it, you could just flash it back (or just buy a new one, because it'll be cheaper by then)

[monu]

I'm new to this whole flashcard-stuff, so could someone help understand this better? Sorry. :)

a) Could I theoretically buy a SuperCard for GBA now, flash it later on with the new firmware, buy a CF card + CF-USB-reader and that's it? Or do I need some other device to plug into the NDS card slot (passme?)?
b) Does the CF card really need to stick out the bottom of the DS as it is shown in the pictures, or is there some way to hide that? I don't like the idea of having a CF dangling out of my DS all the time, especially since that would not fit into my case anymore.
c) Is there some other company that could produce a similar card (one with external cards - e.g. CF) in the near future?

Thanks in advance. :)

[Cosmo]

I'm new to this whole flashcard-stuff, so could someone help understand this better? Sorry. :)

a) Could I theoretically buy a SuperCard for GBA now, flash it later on with the new firmware, buy a CF card + CF-USB-reader and that's it? Or do I need some other device to plug into the NDS card slot (passme?)?
b) Does the CF card really need to stick out the bottom of the DS as it is shown in the pictures, or is there some way to hide that? I don't like the idea of having a CF dangling out of my DS all the time, especially since that would not fit into my case anymore.
c) Is there some other company that could produce a similar card (one with external cards - e.g. CF) in the near future?

Thanks in advance. :)

If you don't like the idea of having the CF dangling out of your DS, perhaps the upcoming M3 Flash thingy might be nicer, it looks like the largest capacity will be 4bits (512mb), so that's a fair amount of space, although i've no idea about pricing and specifics yet, i believe the URL was discussed in this thread somewhere ...

sorry, i meant the G6 Flash Carts, the M3 being the NDS Movie Player widget ...

[woo]

What I'm wondering is if us current Supercard owners will be able to use the new firmware on our existing hardware, with something like flashme (flashed firmware) instead of buying yet more hardware.

[sherbet012]

as a supercard owner, i don't care if the CF card sticks out a bit.. if it bothers me too much, i'll buy the SD version..

but my MAIN CONCERN IS THE SPEED.
IT RUNS GBA ROMS TOO SLOW!

well, it could be the supercard's program fault, but i can't stop thinking about the slowdowns in Mario Kart.. :(


anyways, i'm planning to buy it as soon as i own at least 15 DS games.. i might be too poor to buy all the great games out there, but i'll do my best to support them at my own level..

[phoenixnr1]

does anybody know if i need anything more than this supercard sd cardridge?

[cory149]

phoenixnr1: yes:

[ Anon:roman ] 2005-8-1 0:28:25
If you have a passme or neoflash magickey, you can try the new firmware. SuperPass is the same as Passme or neoflash magickey, but more cheaper.you will need compatible save size ds game to save and likely to load anything:

[ Anon:roman ] 2005-8-1 0:25:37
now, we can just save on the resource NDS game card, but we will try to let player save it on the CF or SDsome other interesting tidbits from the forum over at http://www.supercard.cn/eng/:

[ Anon:roman ] 2005-8-1 0:26:48
M3 ram is the same as Supercard. 256Mb

[ Anon:roman ] 2005-8-1 0:26:16
So sorry to tell you, SuperPass is the same size as PASSME.

[ Anon:roman ] 2005-7-29 23:06:48
NDS Games will not work slow. Because of NDS system is different between GBA systemand my personal favorite, given to someone who was having problems getting anything to work with his supercard:
[ Anon:roman ] 2004-11-15 11:11:12
I think, your SC is wicked, you should change a new one.for those who dont know, roman is Romman, the guy who started the supercard thing in the first place...

[Z80]

Actually the M3Adapter will be better than the SuperCard+SuperPass as far as GBA goes as it's RAM chips are faster and GBA games are said to not have any issues with slowdown. They also say the ROMs don't have to be patched to run.

I'm definitely waiting to see how the M3 does before buying that or a SuperCard. SuperCard costs way too much in my opinion. For the price you pay you could get a much better 512mbit GBA Flash ROM cartridge.

[gingi]

The ds update is out! Please, someone with a supercard & passme, test it out and post results!

[Cosmo]

The ds update is out! Please, someone with a supercard & passme, test it out and post results!

a link would help ;)

[white wizard]

Sd computer software (http://www.supercard.cn/download/setupsdV240en.exe)

Sd update (http://www.supercard.cn/download/mysd_for_NDS_PassMe.rar)

Cf computer software (http://www.supercard.cn/download/setupnewV240en.exe)

Cf update (http://www.supercard.cn/download/mycf_new_for_NDS_PassMe.rar)

And if you dont dare do use my links, everything is here:

http://www.supercard.cn/eng/download.htm

[Cosmo]

i eagerly await results ;) (i don't actually have a Supercard or PassMe as of yet, i've ordered a WiFi Card to use FlashMe however ...)

[gingi]

Yeah me too, if this works i want to buy a supercard as soon as possible, as i have a strange feeling that kicktrading.ca and the other supercard retailers will double its price...

[Cosmo]

As far as i can tell from posts on other forums, it doesn't work properly ...

[darkliquid]

Ok tried it out.

Flashing the new firmware went fine. I dont have flashme or passme, so I used Wifime. Wifime-ing with the new firmware on apparently worked. The bottom screen displays the supercardlogo, while the topscreen lists the .nds files. However, when I load up a .nds file, both screens turn white, and the DS doesnt respond any more (didnt try homebrew yet). It appears everyone has this problem.

[andrewober]

I too am having the same problem. Flashing went okay, but no .nds files are working. Loading it using Flashme Method (Although I have to hold ABXY to start)

I downloaded a couple sets of files from the supercard site: one has a bunch of demos, and one is a game, in a .dsi format (?) The demos run, the game still white screens....

[gingi]

the patched roms work for some guys on irc, check that you have an original nds game inserted when you are trying this, like the metroid demo or something

[andrewober]

I had Kirby Canvas Curse in when I tried the Robots file from the website, and it didn't work. It looks like putting in the Metroid Prime Demo worked.

[darkliquid]

Do unpatched roms work with Metroid in?

[Social-Zero]

the romman ( developer ) guy says that some people are complaining that it doesn't work and that those guys are only a really small amount but it looks like u all have problems ! lol

I think it's the roms , are u guys using GST roms? Cause u gotta try clean dumps.

[darkliquid]

I think it's the roms , are u guys using GST roms? Cause u gotta try clean dumps.

Currently only Romman's dumps work (Robots, Polarium and some card game)
clean dumps also fail to boot

[cory149]

SC SD :confirmed- the 3 roms that romman patched all work with my metroid demo in the DS slot while using flashme to boot (can't confirm if they are saving properly though) and every homebrew I have tossed on there so far has worked besides the heretic (but its likely I built the rom wrong) - even a 17MB snesDS with 8 roms in it works (as far as it normally works at any rate) ;)

HB I have tried and works:

GridLockDS1.2.nds
SMB.nds (needed to add loader - dsbuild from devkitarm used)
breakout.nds
drugwars.nds
sample1.nds
snesDS.nds
snesDSns.nds
---------------from SuperCard's torrent below here
battleship.nds
cassebrique.nds
drops.nds
duckhunt.nds
flashme.nds (this is a 2 month old version from the official site)
mines.nds
tetris1.1.nds
From local copies of some of these files, I can verifiy the homebrew is unpatched, and the flashme from the supercard demo download is simply a couple versions old (about 2 months ago).

Also, these MUST be nds.gba files renamed to simply .nds instead, straight .nds ones without the homebrew loader prepended will not work...

[andrewober]

Thats pretty much what I've gathered. I don't know about you passme/wifime guys, but I've had success with my DS with flashme.

I didn't understand why my 'regular' .nds files wouldn't work, and the demos on the supercard website did work. I'm under the impression that the demos on the site are really 'ds.gba' files named as .nds files (I guess the only diff is the 512b header?)

So I just renamed my ds.gba files to .nds, and my homebrew worked fine. So basically, just rename your *.ds.gba files to *.nds, or convert your .nds files by downloading ndsloader.bin and at the command prompt doing this:

copy /b ndsloader.bin + whatever.nds whatever1.nds

and you can pretty much run anything :D

Now... lets see if we'll be able to run other commercial roms in the near future. This is good stuff :)

[cory149]

Just so you all know, the tool that makes it simpler to do the nds to nds.gba conversion is called dsbuild and is found in devkitARM... that being said, here it is along with a txt file explanation and a sample bat file that runs on the SMB.nds (appears to be super mario from NES days) found on the snesDS site... (rom/.nds from there is not included)

edit:/ likely this will not be seen (as threads dont get bumped with an edit?) but it looks like supercard has added a couple more roms to some torents for those people who were whining for them - see the forum over on the supercard.cn site for more info... hopefully those 3 or so arent the only things they have done and the patcher soft they planned is farther along than that.

[SSJToo]

I was just wondering which supercard to buy? Is there any difference in speed or quality of gameplay or slow downs / hang ups between the two.?? Also is there any other type of Flash that someone would recemmend. I noticed the X-ROM - 512Mb (easybuy) is only $20 more is that any good?

It will be used with a GBA SP at the moment, but with the possibility of use with the NDS.

[cory149]

I was just wondering which supercard to buy? Is there any difference in speed or quality of gameplay or slow downs / hang ups between the two.?? Also is there any other type of Flash that someone would recemmend. I noticed the X-ROM - 512Mb (easybuy) is only $20 more is that any good?

It will be used with a GBA SP at the moment, but with the possibility of use with the NDS.
If you are looking for a good flashcart that will have future DS support take a gander at the EZ II series (NOT the EZF-advanced, and not the EZ III) - these are very versatile software wise (since they actually get regular updates to the clients).

As to CF/SD - I have the SD version - it is smaller and sticks out less than the CF version with a CF card in it (and the SD card is contained inside the cart, making me not worry about it breaking off). The difference being that the SD version was made more recently, and has a different PCB layout - which hopefully is better than the origional CF verions layout. I have heard the SD tranfers a tiny bit slower (~1 sec longer for 256mbit roms) and although I have not seen it with my SD cards, it can be picky as to brand / quality of the SD.

Hope that helps a tiny bit - I like flash cards because they load fast and often have built in SRAM/Battery and no need of patching the roms, but the memory is a set amount and as with any gates can burn out after multiple rewrites, but with the SC the gate (sd/cf) memory is unlimited (need more? get more cards for it) and can be replaced if it does burn out, BUT you are pretty much forced to use the button combos to save the SRAM manually (for the games that it actually works for) or lose it when you turn the console off.

[cracki]

Hi Guys

I have a SC CF, and managed to use wifime to update the DS firmware with Flashme, i can now press A+B+X+Y, and go to the supercard DS screen. Homebrew demos work but not rommans games from the torrent, i have tried with metroid, and wario in the slot still getting 2 white screens. not sure what else i need to do, any help would be appreciated.

[Social-Zero]

You are doing everything fine, it's just the supercard

[cracki]

Are there problems with some supercards then?

[darkliquid]

Not really. Do you have a DS card in the DS before you turn it on?

[cracki]

Tried with metroid and warioware

[darkliquid]

Everything so far should work with the metroid demo. Dunno why it doesn't for you.

[andrewober]

Anybody know whats up with the Supercard.cn website...?

[gingi]

SuperCard Software V2.41 has been posted to the supercard download page today, i think this is the version with the ds clean dump rom patcher, so please someone with a supercard check it out :)

[darkliquid]

Yes it patches NDS roms too. Most of them work. Patching software returns a 0kb file on Splintercell and Canvas Curse though.

Another Code, Nanostray, Need for Speed, Bomberman, Zoo Keeper, Rayman and Starwars are the ones Ive tried that work so far. The Nintendogs games work too, but those hang at saving, since they uses some weird savetype.
Meteos, Canvas Curse, Warioware and Splintercell are the ones Ive tried that don't work.

[Cosmo]

Yes it patches NDS roms too. Most of them work. Patching software returns a 0kb file on Splintercell and Canvas Curse though.

Another Code, Nanostray, Need for Speed, Bomberman, Rayman and Starwars are the ones Ive tried that work so far.
Meteos, Canvas Curse and Splintercell are the ones Ive tried that don't work

Is that anything to do with the fact that Kirby, Meteos (not sure about Splinter Cell) are 512mbit games ?

[darkliquid]

Yes the supercard can't handle games bigger then 256 mbit I think. However since Meteos and Canvas Curse are such good games, I tried anyway. And yes, Splintercell is 512 mbit too.
Warioware is the only one so far that didn't work for me without being 512 mbit.

[Mithos]

darkliquid

How do you boot, FlashME, PassME, and with what game in ds-slot?

[darkliquid]

darkliquid

How do you boot, FlashME, PassME, and with what game in ds-slot?

Flashed my firmware using my supercard. So Flashme, and I have Project Rub in the ds-slot. (it's called Feel The Magic XX/XY in the USA)

And by the way, I used another version of Warioware (EU one) and that did work fine, so I guess it not working at first was my own fault.
Electroplankton works too.

Now for a new version that allows saving the game to the GBA card, and supports 512 mbit (if thats possible)

[Mithos]

Flashed my firmware using my supercard. So Flashme, and I have Project Rub in the ds-slot. (it's called Feel The Magic XX/XY in the USA)

And by the way, I used another version of Warioware (EU one) and that did work fine, so I guess it not working at first was my own fault.
Electroplankton works too.


Great. then I know FlashME is working. now I need to get myself some DS games from shop (and a supercard).

[Cosmo]

All they need to do now is sort out support for roms larger than 256mbit (which i believe they're doing, juding from posts and responses) and sort out saving and i'm sold.

[darkliquid]

A program was released on the official supercard forum. It reads out the eeprom on the NDS card (whatever game was saved last) and puts it in GBA SRAM, then you QPC to gba mode, and save the SRAM to a .sav. You can then later restore the .sav to GBA SRAM, then the GBA SRAM to NDS eeprom. You will need a different gba rom for each savegame, so it's recommended you use a small rom like Ninja Five O, or as suggested Puznic (however I haven't been able to find it yet).

Full instructions and program on the www.supercard.cn forum.


Also 512 mbit games like Yu-Gi-Oh! and the japanese Castlevania work on my SC. (altough yugioh doesnt display text, and castlevania hangs if you don't skip the intro movie)

[jojomuniandy]

Does anyone know what happens if you insert a supercard without any SD card inserted into a DS? It shows no game pack inserted on the DS menu.

Its just that I havent received my SD card yet but I just want to make sure the supercard works... is it supposed to do anything at this point?

Cheers,
Jojo

[darkliquid]

I got the CF version and I accidently booted into DS mode with flashme without a CF in it. It just said something like "please turn off and insert a flashcard". So it does boot up, it doesnt screw up your DS.