May buy a Nintendo ds, need to have anything in mind?

yo there, (first of all, sorry if this is in the wrong part of the forum)

i might buy a nintendo ds lite for my little brother's birthday. now, for a good ds, do i need to have any certain thing in mind? for example do i need to buy a certain firmware version etc? because im also a psp owner and need to know if the ds's update capabilities are the same as it.

secondly, im thinking of buying one of these carts, im not sure which brand, neoflash, m3 which one is the best?

i was thinking of buying the new mk4 mini, now will this card, insterted into my ds, be able to run nds roms (dont worry, i will legally back-up first)? if so, ill just buy this card, some starter games and this mk4 mini. is this a good starters kit?

anyway, thanks for your help dudes!

re4ryu

Yeh Always Post, Great Place To Put It In Here. With The DS, There Is No FW...Just The DS So Ya Don't Need To Worry Bout That. If Ya Keep Looking Around The Site, I'm Sure Ya Can Do Your Research On Google Or Whatever. Myself, Have The G6L *soon lol* And Flashme v7. I Find Because I Have A DSL, I Wanted The Sleek And Small Design Of The G6L, Also Didn't Want To Use A Flashme Everytime I Wanted To Boot The G6, So Hence The Flash. So It's Your Call, Most Flashcarts Play Back-Up NDS Roms *backup, that's funny * But The Most Compatible Is The G6 OR The M3, Pending Version i.e SD/MiniSD/CF. So Ya, Check It Out, Lots Of Sites, I'm New To It Too, But Give It Like A Week And You'll Be Seeing A LOT Of Stuff Ya Can Do With A Flashcart And A Passme Device. Hope This Helps

Hey there,

Actually, the DS is not like the PSP. So you can get your brother pretty much any DS that you would like. Of course I would recommend getting the DS Lite.

As for the cards, depending on what you want to do, I would recommend the G6 Lite and the Passcard3 combination. This allows you 4Gb or 512MB worth of data. If this is only for games, then there is more then enough space. If this is for movies as well, you'll begin squeezing in on the space.

However, I must say that the PSP screen is way better then the NDS Lite screen. There is no real comparison there, so I wouldn't recommend watching movies on the DS anyway.

If you want more then 512MB, I would recommend the Supercard Lite and the Passcard 3 combo. The Supercard 3 uses a micro sd cards which will allow for any size that you would like. There are 4 downsides though. 1) Slower load times 2) Weird way to save files 3) slightly lower compatibility on NDS (nothing major though, all the good games play) 4) much lower GBA compatibility then the G6 Lite.

If you are going to buy any of these cards, I would recommend ordering from www.realhotstuff.com. In the Flashcard section I wrote a quick review on them. They have really great support, so they are worth checking out.

I hope this all helps. BTW, the Passcard is used so that you don't have to flash your DS. It will lower the amount of time between charges, but it works great. If you were to flash your ds you would need to buy a game and a Pass through device anyway, which will equal about the same price as the passcard 3. So it is highly recommendable to get a Passcard 3.

actually i might get a ds lite. and i was wondering what a flashcart does, and what that pass thingie is. I know that ds has some homebrew capabilities, like my psp , but idk what i need to start running some stuff. Im getting one maybe in christmas, so if there are newer models of some items, ill check em out too. I just wanna make sure i buy the right stuff, because i didtn look up the stuff for the psp and i ended up updating, and screwing my homebrew and stuff.

Originally Posted by Alucard77

Hey there,

Actually, the DS is not like the PSP. So you can get your brother pretty much any DS that you would like. Of course I would recommend getting the DS Lite.

As for the cards, depending on what you want to do, I would recommend the G6 Lite and the Passcard3 combination. This allows you 4Gb or 512MB worth of data. If this is only for games, then there is more then enough space. If this is for movies as well, you'll begin squeezing in on the space.

However, I must say that the PSP screen is way better then the NDS Lite screen. There is no real comparison there, so I wouldn't recommend watching movies on the DS anyway.

If you want more then 512MB, I would recommend the Supercard Lite and the Passcard 3 combo. The Supercard 3 uses a micro sd cards which will allow for any size that you would like. There are 4 downsides though. 1) Slower load times 2) Weird way to save files 3) slightly lower compatibility on NDS (nothing major though, all the good games play) 4) much lower GBA compatibility then the G6 Lite.

If you are going to buy any of these cards, I would recommend ordering from www.realhotstuff.com. In the Flashcard section I wrote a quick review on them. They have really great support, so they are worth checking out.

I hope this all helps. BTW, the Passcard is used so that you don't have to flash your DS. It will lower the amount of time between charges, but it works great. If you were to flash your ds you would need to buy a game and a Pass through device anyway, which will equal about the same price as the passcard 3. So it is highly recommendable to get a Passcard 3.

yo there,

thanks for your great help dude! its much appreciated. so the supercard and passcard combination is what i need. i know about the ds lite, the original is a bit bulky, so ill buy the lite.

just to clear up, what do you mean by flashing the ds? and also just so i know, what does the mk4 mini do?

anyway, thanks for all your help everyone!

re4ryu

Sure, no problem, more then happy to help.

The MK4 is the same thing as a Passcard 3 but by two different companies. It is needed to actually play games throught the flash card. This is the card that will go into the NDS slots. The flashcard goes into the GBA slot. What these cards do is trick the NDS Lite into looking to the GBA slot vs. looking at the NDS slot for a game. Currently there is no technology that will allow you to play NDS Roms directly through the NDS slots. Therefore you need something like a Passcard3 or a MK4. The reason I said Passcard 3 vs. MK4 is because I know a lot more aout Passcard 3 then MK4. The team that makes the Passcard is very respected, and I like to stick with companies that are respected.

Now, as for flashing your DS Lite. Basically, this will mean that you will put a specific NDS firmware onto the DS. This firmware will make the use of the Passcard 3 useless. In theory this is ok. However, there are some things to consider:

1) In order to run the Flashme program, you will need a PASSME device such as the Passcard 3. This is because the code needs to run through the GBA slot. So the Passcard needs to trick the NDS so it can be flashed.

2) You physical need to short out an area on the NDS Lite. Some people have reported problems shorting this out. In some cases, they touched more then they were supposed to and burnt out their NDS Lite. I haven't tried it myself, but I know that there is a pretty high success rate, with some failures here and there. Same theory as bricking a PSP. I personally don't feel confortable shorting out a part on my DS, but to each their own.

3) If you do decide to flash your DS, you will never need a Passcard again. This is a one time deal, and therefore you won't need to put the passcard in to run games in the future. When you don't have a Passcard in, you will save on power consumption. I think it is a total savings of 3 hours per charge. But keep in mind the NDS is good for 11 hours or so. So 8 hours vs. 11 hours is not that big of a deal considering the PSP get between 4-5 hours per charge.

If you want to learn more about flashing the DS, look in the Flashme section of this forum. It has a tutorial and everything I believe. My personal opinion is that there is no need to use flashme. First off, you are already paying for the passcard, so why use it only once. Second, there is a chance you may brick your DS if you do it wrong. So why take the risk?

Ohh yeah, also wanted to throw a curve ball your way. I don't know when you are planning on making this purchase, however, if you prefer the Supercard Lite I would recommend you wait for the M3 Lite.

The Passcard 3, the G6 Lite, and the M3 Lite are all made by the same company. As I mentioned they have constant updates to their programs, and the compatibility is extremely high. The M3 Lite is the same thing as a Supercard Lite. It uses Micro SD cards as well. So I would recommend going with them if they are out at the same time you make your purchase. Currently the M3 Lite is not available. No clue when it will come out, but I am sure it is soon.

Hope this helps.

hi there!

thanks so much for your help alucard77! its letting me see the ds more clearly now!

so id rather take your suggestion and go with just using the passcard option. ill leave flashing the ds, the shorting etc, i might get it bricked!

oh and about these new cards, thing is, im not getting the ds for a while yet, my little brother's birthday is next month, so theres still a bit of time yet. i just asked to get a general feeling of the ds. i previously owned a GBA, along with the EZ flash cart gizmo. i doubt any of the stuff will work with that right?, if so, ill just get the nds slot card, but i think its old right? would it work? its 512MB in size. EDIT: Oh wait, i just looked on the forums, there is stuff on eZflash! ok then will the NDS cards work with my ezflash? its the original one (EZflash 1, i think). anyway, really thanks for all your help alucard! its much much appreciated!

thanks again dude!

re4ryu

That is tricky... I know the new ones worked. I had an old one and it didn't work for me. Thats why I bought a new one. So I guess, you could try it. If it works, then its for the best.

Since I don't know much about the EZFlash and what flashing software it uses to write roms I can't say much in terms of compatibility even if it did work.

alucard, im gettin a ds lite for christmas, would u reccommend the g6 lite or the m3 lite? im sure the m3 will be out by then and im new to this stuff so..

It's really up to you. Christmas is pretty far away. Something new may come out between now and then that will allow you to play games straight from the DS slot. In this way you won't need a passcard and flashcard.

Also the M3 lite and G6 lite all comes down to preference. Do you like internal set memory, or external memory. With the internal you have quicker load times. But I think thats about it. With the external you need to get a micro sd card as well which adds to your cost, however, with a micro sd card your not limited to the 512mb you get on the g6lite. The load times are slower as could be expected with external. So it's your choice really. Everything else between the two cards is pretty equal in my opinion.

i like the sound of external. is that the m3? or the g6? that uses the external set. Yes christmas is a long way away, but i might get this in october-november, because im taking the ds with me on an international flight, so it will take time to get used to.

i guess ill get the m3. hope fully sd cards arent too much

edit- just wondering, if the m3 has the advantage of updateable storage, why do ppl like the g6l so much?