Using clean roms only, no patching
Mine arrived this morning from //www.supercardstore.com

The card
It comes on a red PCB, but comparing it to the Ninjapass X9 the TF slot is slightly cheaper on the DS1. The chip that sticks through the casing is identical on both cards. (I'm told they both come from the same factory)



Getting Started
The box just containst the DS1, there is no software provided and you will need to download and install the operating system for the DS1 (from here http://eng.supercard.cn/soft_scdsone.htm ) and put it onto a microSD flash card (microSD and USB 2 card reader not included)

The GUI is a modified version of Moonshell 1.41 and looks very smart, it also starts up without you having to touch the health and safety screen. But on the downside a couple of "info" screens pop up to annoy you.



The icons are taken from within the roms on your TF card and displayed by the OS. Selecting the games can be done with the stylus or the navigation cross and "A". The DS1 has a hidden list of the games and their .sav types which you can add and alter using the "Options", "File Info" window and using "Change" and "Save" on that window. The games name and number is listed in the GUI by using the lookup table, so you get the full "scene release" name whatever you call the actual file on the microSD card.



Castlevania PoR (U) just happens to have the .sav type listed (4k) which is wrong, here I am on my way to correcting the entry (512k) using that screen.  

If you leave the DS alone for a while, up pops the clock screensaver.



Does it work
It's pretty much the same as the Ninjapass X9 for playing games, same problems (same games problematic), same microSD card problems (select the wrong speed and it hangs on loading, get a slow flash card and it has slowdowns) but most of the games seem to work. It does create it's own game save files, so no save management needed by the user. Here are just a few of the games I picked out to test with it.

"My Animal Centre in Africa" was released after the DS 1 software, so it can't be saved and crashes at the save point untill you add/change the .sav type.
"Metroid Prime Pinball" everything including download play works
"Metroid Prime Hunters" crashes at the load on default 3x speed, loads at 2x speed.
"42 All Time Classics" the game works but download play doesn't
"Brain Training" everything including download play works
"Zoo Keeper" everything including download play works
"Point Blank" everything including download play works
"CastleVania POR" the game works but you get the same random crashes (press select or start repeatedly to hurry a crash)
"Mario Kart 64" game works but download play doesn't

Music and picture player
MP3s play without any problems, no special bitrates or conversion needed, the tracks play using left shoulder to pause and right shoulder for next track. X and Y control the volume.




Photos load up as well and look pretty good.



Memory cards to use
Sandisk 1 gig TF card ............. transitions between screens a bit slow
Kingston Japan 512 MB card (Toshiba) ......... speed fine

There are small but different problems with each card, Animal Crossing won't work on the Kingston, FF3 has problems on the Sandisk. I suspect it is really a problem with matching the card speed to the speed setting. A shame you can't store the speed setting for each game.

Conclusions
Nice GUI!
I didn't like the "INFO" screens popping up at the start so a slight change to the global.ini file (hiddenInfoWindow=1) removed that. You can change the look and skin on the DS1 fairly easily. Having a homebrew frontend is nice as it is so easy to customise. It is also much more suitable for younger children to use at the moment.

By next month there probably won't be much to choose between this and the X9 (the X9 loader has been updated to cure it's original save problems, and a new GUI promised for January). So do you want a nice GUI immediately or do you want a USB reader and spare shell because that's the only difference between them at the moment (IMHO)

UPDATE 29.12.06
DS1 has just had loader v1.1 released
http://ultrashare.net/hosting/fl/3529bee967/

Auto detect microSD card speed 30x with Kingston Japan 512MB (avoid Kingston Taiwan)
Castlevania POR seems to work perfectly, no slowdown, no crashes
Metroid Prime Hunters loads up no problems
Metroid Prime Pinball no longer has music stutters

Auto detect microSD card speed 5x with Sandisk 1 GB
CastleVania POR still crashes and slowdowns
Metroid Prime Pinball still has music stutters

Performance is card dependent!

VERY nice review, thank you Sarah. The screen saver sounds interesting.

Looks cool. I'm sure I'll get one within the next months.

BTW, just a little error: CastleVania PoR is US, not EUR

So, if i find my favorite game online...i can just play it on my card and it will play?  Or do i have to patch or modify it in anyway?

No need to patch the roms, but when a rom doesn't work you will still be relying on Supercard to release firmware updates for the card. One less thing to worry about, but still not 100% compatibility guaranteed.

Quote from: "DeVS"No need to patch the roms, but when a rom doesn't work you will still be relying on Supercard to release firmware updates for the card. One less thing to worry about, but still not 100% compatibility guaranteed.

That's exactly why I think I'm going with the M3 again (got an M3 Lite). They just seem to generally have better and faster support.

Why is it all the m3 guys come over here and bad mouth the sc?   You never see sc people on their boards saying what over priced pieces of crap the m3 stuff is.

Quote from: "sWampy"You never see sc people on their boards saying what over priced pieces of crap the m3 stuff is.

Because that wouldn't be true,lol. I don't think he was bad mouthing anyone, he was telling the truth. M3 comes out with firmware upgrades FASTER and more often then the Supercard, plain and simple.

Can you test out Mario Kart DS on the SCDS?

This guy said he got 2 white screens...
http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=40952

does it do download play?

Quote from: "sWampy"Why is it all the m3 guys come over here and bad mouth the sc?   You never see sc people on their boards saying what over priced pieces of crap the m3 stuff is.

I'm not bad mouthing the SC. I love the SC. My first two flashcarts were the SC CF and SC MiniSD. I've even donated money to this site.

I just switched to M3 when the Lite carts came out because I wanted a nicer GUI and it is a fact that M3 comes out with more frequent updates.

I was just stating that if with these slot-1 carts you have to rely on the company to release updates all the time (and the SC DS seems very reliant on this with it's save settings), then I'll probably go with the M3 again because they have more frequent updates.

white screens means wrong SD card speed selected.
Mario Kart works perfectly but download play fails

Quote from: "DeVS"

Quote from: "sWampy"You never see sc people on their boards saying what over priced pieces of crap the m3 stuff is.

Because that wouldn't be true,lol. I don't think he was bad mouthing anyone, he was telling the truth. M3 comes out with firmware upgrades FASTER and more often then the Supercard, plain and simple.

Well Microsoft comes out with more updates more often than apple, not because microsoft is better, but because microsoft has more bugs to fix.  

I still don't see why all the m3 guys come over everytime something new comes out and says basically screw this, i'm buying a m3.   They just remind me of the ps1/ps2/ps3 fan boys coming into n64/dc/xbox/gc/360/wii groups shouting they are better.    It's as stupid as it would be if lexus owners came on kia boards laughing that their cars are better.   Of course they are, they paid 3 times as much for them.   I sure hope $100+ m3's got more updates than sub $50 sc cards do.

Oh, sWampy, come on, man... Nobody's putting SC down. It's a fact that the M3 staff comes with patches faster than Romman and his people. Don't start a flame war for nothing... Besides, telling everyone that M3 is a Lexus and the SC is a Kia you're not doing any good to what you're trying to defend ¬¬'

not only that, but Madrigal is not part of the "m3 guys".   I have an m3lite and an m3 miniSD.  i will readily admit that in many ways they are better than my sclite.  does that make me an "m3 guy"?  no.. in fact, I would consider myself more of a supercard guy despite my comments.  maybe not so much a supercard guy, but an "scdev" guy.    besides, that's what this site is about.. we are a community of scdev people, not necessarily supercard fanboys.  

that's why I love this forum!