Buying an R4?

[Jay]

Mods, I'm assuming I'm allowed to ask this here and if not I apologise and will delete immediately.

I want to give DS homebrew a bash as the PSP is annoying me for several reasons. Seems there are a lot of R4 rip-offs about, so my question is, where can I safely buy a 'real' R4?

Thanks.

[squishyfishy]

Don't BOTHER with an r4.

It's cheap, awful, knockoff chinese rubbish.

The cyclods is unrivalled for homebrew, and the supercard ds one is also a good bet.
Buy from dealextreme.

[Mr Ono]

Really? I've got 3 R4s and they all do their job. Nothing cheap about them I can see.

[MJ]

I recently got a genuine R4 Version 2 with a 2GB Kingston MicroSD card and adapter for less than £19 delivered from Amazon's Marketplace. It was for a friend. I already had one, which I also got from Amazon's Marketplace months ago.

[kryss]

It's cheap, awful, knockoff chinese rubbish.

isn't all R4-like hardware?

[squishyfishy]

Sorry. I'm a flashcart snob. I've been in the handheld scene for years now. Making my contributions here and there.

Basically, yes. If you want to pirate games, then go for an R4. It'll work fine, will have top notch cheat support and some great interface skins available.

However, the team behind it rarely ever update, have no new features planned and it does not support SDHC. So you're limited to 2gb.

Teams like the supercard team, who are also chinese I may add, are constantly pushing new features and excellent products. They also have alot of history in the scene and are known to be trusted. However, tons of new names have suddenly just appeared. They release cheap knockoff carts based off better ones, and they end up broken, useless and worthless. TTDS has alot of freezeups whilst playing games and homebrew. Acekard 2 was nightmarish as well for new owners, as many broke after weeks of use. Lost saves, poor customisation and lack of features and function are popular arguments against getting anything other than a supercard, cyclods or ezflash v.

I'm not trying to ram fanboy rubbish down your throats guys just trying to help.

The R4 WAS the best on the scene when slot1 cards first came out. It was simply a clone of the M3 simply however, and the supercard one took it over fast. Now there's alot more of them out there.

What does the cyclods do that none other can?

well. you can slow down your game speed, it has realtime saves, it does not need to patch roms on the fly (whereas most other carts patch themselves as you load them), it stores its firmware inside the cart, not on the memory card, and it has true gba support when you add the ezflash V ram pack (first cart I've owned that runs unpatched gba roms). It's my personal favourite. Also, the development team are all from different parts of europe. Some from the UK. They're a friendly, communicative lot. Check their forums.

(I own supercard, ezflash V, ttds, the cyclods as well as older gba based carts)

the supercard comes a close second. It also has realtime save support, but it also has ingame guides. So you can call up gamefaqs walkthroughs whilst playing.

I can assure you, no other carts have these features

I'll try not to poopoo without explanation next time. Sorry.

[Jay]

Thanks for the advice, folks. The cyclods looks to cost about 70 quid which is way out of my price range. What's worth getting that's nearer, say, the 30 quid mark?

[kryss]

Just posted this in the headlines.

http://kotaku.com/5030319/nintendo-and-54-companies-battle-evil-r4-in-court?cpage=3#viewcomments

[J0e Musashi]

TTDS>other Slot 1's (provided you only want to play DS games of course)

[MikeF]

I have a TTDS, not had a problem with any of the issues that squishy mentioned

[tom-nook]

I have a TTDS, not had a problem with any of the issues that squishy mentioned

Yep same here.

The only real downsides are that the cart feels a bit cheap & nasty (low quality plastic) and the supplied usb adapter is awful (very difficult to get the memory card back out). Otherwise it works fine & has played all the homebrew I've chucked at it.

I've also got an R4 and that's pretty decent too. The build quality of the kit seems better than the TTDS but a couple of games do hang. The only other downsides are that homebrew stuff needs patching & the lack of support for cards > 2gb....but it's easy enough to juggle a couple cards.

There are a lot of fake R4's out there so go with a reliable source if you opt for one of them.

On the fly patching of roms is not a huge issue with either card....unless you are so impatient that you can't wait 1-2 seconds for a game to load!

Cyclo DS is obviously a quality piece of kit but it's a hell of a lot of cash. I think my TTDS cost something like £25 delivered from Deal Extreme including a 2gb Kingston card (although I'm not sure the memory card is legit) by comparison.

The TTDS would be a good cheap option if you want to dip your toes into DS Homebrew. It'll do most of the things you want and you could always consider an upgrade to a Cyclo DS at a later date if you get into it in a big way.

[Pavey]

Hopefully this won't get pulled....

I travel a lot, and at the moment carry two Game wallets full of carts.

What would be the best cart if i want to download the games i own to put on a flash cart, meaning less wallets to carry?

[tom-nook]

I'd personally go for a TTDS & a nice big card.

As I mentioned there are is the odd freezing prob with the R4 cart but most games work fine on that too (I'm sure there is a definitive list on Wiki).

I haven't tried any of the others.

[MikeF]

My TTDS has a 2gb card with it and easily fulfills my needs (no need to take all the games with me anymore) plus I can watch movies on the go with it

[squishyfishy]

cyclods costs about £30 from certain UK stores. For cheapness, use dealextreme, and go for a supercard ds one. Should cost about £13 shipped.

I really feel bad about poopooing all the other carts, but like I said, I know their capabilities, their qualities and how well they perform with newer games.

What I will say though, is definately a TTDS over an R4.