DS R4 cart

[Pavey]

What is it?

Seen a few for sale 'over there', and one mentioned here.

Is it some sort of blank cart for being one of these with?

[J0e Musashi]

I'd like to know this too please. I heard something about it not needing a pass through, whatever that is.

[tom-nook]

Yep ideal for use by one of these

Review here and 'official' site

[NekoFever]

Also lets you use ScummVM on a DS, which with the touch screen is the greatest portable thing ever. Someone needs to bring out those games officially.

[smouty]

If you travel a lot you can also put all your carts onto a 1 or 2Gb microSD card and not have to risk losing them all in your baggage.
There is also an M3 which is identical to the R4 but with a different firmware but does much the same.

[randombs]

i've got one and it's really nice. as it's a ds cart, you don't need a gba cart thingumi, nor do you need to flash the ds or anything like that.

the cart housing can be unscrewed and replaced to match your ds (it comes with black and white housings) but they stopped that recently i think, and it's just white now, as mentioned in that review tom-nook linked to, which said to get the M3 simply if you have a black ds and an R4 if you have a white one, as the two devices are nigh-on identical (even their front-ends are similar).

micro sd's are apparently very dodgy though, and don't take well to being ejected/reinserted often.

the bit in the review about low homebrew compatibility is because these devices have some things called DLDI files which you use to patch whatever homebrew you want to use so that it works with the card. by 'works', i mean it is able to access the file system of your microSD. any homebrew that doesn't need access (for loading roms, etc) doesn't need to be patched.

J0E - the pass through is a ds cart you use when you have one of those gba carts that take SD cards, etc. the pass through carts get the ds to boot from the gba cart slot, which it wouldn't do otherwise unless you flashed it first.

if you have one anyway that may use a different memory card, the R4 (and M3 simply) will act as a pass through cart for it so it'll still work on an unflashed ds.

[Nu-Eclipse]

I've been deliberating over buying one of these for a while now.

The person who recommended it to be swears by it in terms of using it to access roms of DS Games, which is great from that POV.

But I want to know about what the R4 can do in terms of using it for emulating 8 & 16-bit games (SMS, NES, SNES/SFC, MD, PCE, etc. - the usual suspects).

Any info on this would be much appreciated.

[wakka]

Read the review.

[randombs]

but bear in mind it was written in december. i downloaded the DLDI thingy for it yesterday, although i haven't tried any homebrew that needs it (my homebrew list is limited to programs to test my repaired ds lites - touchscreen, mic, wifi)...

# DS Doom- FAIL Cannot find doom.wad
# Snezzi DS- FAIL
# SNEmulDS- FAIL
# NDS Mail- FAIL
# Picodrive DS- FAIL
# Stella DS- FAIL
# ScummVM- FAIL
# snesDS- FAIL
# DS Organize- FAIL

LOLOLOL i can see why it'd look teh **** from that review

however:

The easiest supported card to use is probably the R4DS or M3 Simply. These cards sits in your DS slot. All that's required to be up and running on this card is to put ScummVM DS and your games on the Micro SD card, stick the card reader into your DS, and turn on. Nothing else is required. ScummVM DS can be selected from a menu, and everything runs great. So if you're worried about how hard it is to get this going, these are the ones to get.

[Nu-Eclipse]

Read the review.

I probably should have made myself a bit clearer.

I meant hands-on information, perhaps from anybody who actually owned one themselves. I've already seen the aforementioned interview.

[randombs]

i'll give it a go with some homebrew if you want. lmk what you're specifically interested in and i'll sort it out. i'd imagine if one works they all will, provided they follow this DLDI business (almost all seem to, though)

[Nu-Eclipse]

Thanks.

I just really want to know how well the R4 performs with the emulators that are out there, like the SNES or PC Engine emulators.

[Big N Veiny]

I've got one,
I've used Scummvn ds (works perfect), Quake ds (works perfect and very impressive) and numerous homebrew games such as Wordup, Everlasting Love, Tetris attack DS.
It's very easy to use, DLDI patch if necessary, then drag and drop.

What systems do you want to emulate?
I know emulation on the DS isn't anywhere near as advanced as PSPs, but I haven't really looked into it.
SNES isn't fully compatible for example (GBAtemp has a wiki with this kind of info I think)
But I'm sure if it's made for the DS it will work on the R4. It seems to be the most popular cart right now.

It's also easy to do the pirate thing if you are so inclined. Drag and drop.

Very impressive bit of kit.

I got mine here http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.1459~r.98628230

[vanpeebles]

ive got a speccy emulator working on mine and it works champion. just had to use the DLDI patcher thing

[Shinebi]

Was interested in one of these devices for quite some time now, especially to see wether it'd play NGPC. Alas, there is one emu, but it seems to be in infant stages for now...

Pirate-wise, how would it be possible to rip a DS game via the R4? I think it cannot be done, unless there is an extra cartridge in the GBA slot?

Thinking of buying an R4 or similar,as it only uses the DS slot. Then expand with a Datel Media HDD (4G). It then would be possible to carry 8G around. I've seen a similar device as the R4 (cannot recall its name atm), one of the two also acts as a pass-me device, so, I'll first have to check out which one.

EDIT: OK, checked the review, seems VERY impressive (but still no word about how to backup your own games)