Review of the G6 Real

1: What is it

The G6 Real is the newest slot 1 DS mod cart made by the team whole also brought us the M3 line of mod carts. The G6 Real has internal flash memory and comes in two sizes, a 1gig version and a 2gig version. The unit uses a usb 2.0 adapter to transfer files on and off the G6 Real. Like most slot 1 Ds mod carts, the unit takes clean unpatched NDS roms and does not support GBA roms. What sets this cart apart from the other's is the claimed ability to be able to have download play between two units that works. This is the feature list that the G6 team has released for the G6 Real:

Quote* Boot clean dump images without the need for any patching .
* Same size as an ordinary DS flash cart .
* Extreme simple to use: just drag and drop files to the G6 Cart .
* Exclusive super " Cheat Code" function .
* Software reset function .
* No drivers & any software required .
* Work as U disk with USB 2.0 ultra fast burning speed .Standard FAT
   system support .
* Built-in 8G bit(1GB) or 16G bit(2GB) Nand Flash memory .No need to
   use the SD card &  worry about the ejection problem of SD card slot.
* Perfect preformance. (Runs games without any lag or slow down .
   You don't need to worry about the compatibility & speed of SD card.)
* Auto detect the save type and automatically generate save file .
  No need to operate manual by yourself .
* Upgradeable Firmware (OS/Bios/Kernel)
* Includes a fully touch screen & button control operating system
  /GUI Menu .
* Perfect download Play compatibilty. (Single card multiplayer works)
* Compatible with DS Rumble Pak , RAM Pack , DS browser .
* Compatibile with Wi-Fi Connection .
* NDS-GBA Linkage works fine .
* Built in PassMe (NO need for any boot cart/passcard etc.)
* Homebrew support .
* Robust & skinnable GUI .
* Ability to boot slot 2 flash carts for GBA/NDS support, with the
  G6 cart as a passme in slot 1 .
* Built in Multi-media player.(MP3 ,OGG music & DPG /DSM / GBM
   movies ). Boots MP3¡¯s and video files via of our media player or
   Moonshell .
* Super E-book function , support Word/ Txt file directly .
* Super picture viewer function , support *.BMP¡¢*.JPG¡¢*.GIF¡¢*.PNG
   directly .
* Built in PDA (Worldwide Time ,Memo , Note ,Phone book ,Calculator ..)
* Supports DS sleep mode .
* Brightness adjustment within GUI .

2: What you get

G6 Real Cart
Blue rubber case for the G6 Cart
wrist strap for the rubber case
mini cd with G6 Real Software
USB 2.0 adapter
USB extension cable

3: Hardware

The mod cart itself is very well built, with a nice hard plastic shell you would expect from all newer mod carts. The usb 2.0 reader has a nice blue led on the top that lights up once the unit is connected to your pc so that you know it has a firm connection. The usb reader itself is well built though a bit bulky. The bulkiness of the usb reader is not a problem as the G6 team has been kind enough to also include a usb extension cable with the unit which is VERY handy. The mini-cd will come with all the files needed to get the G6 Real up and running. The G6 Real also has a nice hard blue carrying case to keep it protected when not in the DS as well as coming with a wrist strap though im not sure if anyone would really need the wrist strap.

4: Software & Performance

The G6 Real's OS looks very similar to the older G6 slot 2 OS and it uses the DS's bottom screen so that you can use your stylus to poke your way trough the menus which is nice. I did notice on the games menu there is a slider on the right of the screen that you can hold down your stylus and slide the menu up and down to scroll through your list of games though it did not seem very responsive and I found my self just using the D pad to move up and down. There is also an option in the menu to boot a slot 2 mod cart.

There is a boot.ini file that you can edit so that when you turn on the DS, the G6 Real will automatically boot any game or app which is a very nice feature. On the bottom screen the OS gui displays the time as well as a button to adjust the screens brightness.

NDS games all worked as expected with no slowdowns in game play or intro movies such as Metroid Prime Hunters. There is a very nice cheat function built in as well. Once you select a game to play, a menu will come up with options for which buttons you want to use for in game reset, as well as which cheats you would like to turn on for that game (if any at all).Now the real question is how well does the download play work? Well the answer is not very well at the moment. So far this is how my download play test have gone (using a DS with the G6 Real and a DS with no mod cart what so ever, and reset and cheats off):

Working:

Tetris
Quick Spot
New Super Mario Bros
Mario Kart

Not Working:

Metroid Prime Hunters
Mario Hoops

The Opera Browser did work with a Supercard Lite as the ram pack.

Homebrew on the other hand was not a good at all. I was not able to get any homebrew running using either the G6 or R4/M3 Simple DLDI. I emailed the G6 Team about this and they assured me they would be releasing a FAT Lib for the G6 Real very shortly.

Overall

While the G6 Real is a nice cart with perfect NDS game play, the bottom line is that it is nothing special. With future firmware updates they may be able get download play working completely but for now it only works on a few games, while some key games (Metroid) do not work. I believe they can also improve the seemingly of kiltered touch controls and tighten them up, but for now they seem to not be as calibrated as they could be. The cart is stuck with no homebrew support until a new DLDI patch comes out and hopefully that will be before the cart launches next week. Having been able to use the Supercard DS:One, M3 Simply/R4, DS-Link, and DS-Linker, I would say the G6 Real only ranks as "ok" and nothing special, while it seems the M3 Simply/R4 are still the cart to beat.

Pros:
Perfect NDS game play
Big internal memory (1 and 2gig versions)
Lots of extra stuff like carrying case, usb extension cable,ect
Very well built
Some download play works

Cons:
No homebrew support at the moment
Download play is only about 75/25

Any chance you run that patcher thing through it to see whether it patches on the fly?

Not sure what you mean.

run this proggy through the G6DS Real http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=42742

Clean ROM no-patch play:NO

A few people asked if they could use my review on their site which I don't mind. So for anyone else who wants to use it the only things I ask is to:

1: Don't edit it without asking
2: Give credit

And not mandatory but would be nice to drop a link to scdev.org,lol, and let me know where you used it so I can check out your site too.

dissapointing.  All those download play games could already be done one the slot 2 flash cards with a no pass device........ People yelled at me and I was pretty much right, a DS-linker with a nicer looking usb connector.

I don't think so sonicwind, I still think it works fine, just that no one can do it right yet.

If you don't want your G6 Real, i'll take it. I'll even pay shipping

The download play doesn't bother me, since I don't ever use it. So it was the other features that I was excited about, and still worth buying for me.

You didn't mention anything on the writing speed of the games. Unless I missed that. How is it? Do the games write faster than the speed that the DS-Linker writes them at? Or would you say that the writing speed is close to how quickly the R4/M3 Simply writes?

Thanks for any info. And thank you for the review.

Hey I agree with KingofNoobs, if you ever plan to sell it, I'm right here, gimme a PM.

I never said that it didn't work fine.  Will people stop putting words in my mouth?  I said it was dissapointing because of the download play because alot of my friends don't have flashcarts and I would probably have to do everything for them, this way we could play multiplayer with people who don't have all the games.  But its the same compatiblity that the supercard lite had.  The dissapointing part is that is it nothing new.  All the features seem earily similar to the Ds-linker/N-card/w/e else there is.  I'm not saying it doesn't function but to keep it legal is the fact that flashcarts can use homebrew but this can't even do that  :wink: not saying it won't ever but for now it is just another N-card rip off.  Ofcourse it has a while to work out the kinks, I will wait until it does before I buy a new flashcart again.

Once again, I don't think that it is fair to say that homebrew does not work well...  It has no DLDI driver, yes that is terrible, but keep in mind that this is BEFORE THE RELEASE DATE.  All the M3 and G6 products have DLDI drivers, and I don't see this product causing a problem in the enar future.

Pharaoh, you must also consider the fact that the current G6 DLDI file is completely unofficial, made from scratch by a member of GBAdev named virusb.  From what little I've seen (as I haven't kept up with it too much, so I could be wrong), the G6 team hasn't supplied documentation, sourcecode, or a DLDI file at all.

If the same has to be done for the G6 Real, then it wouldn't really be a good buy.

I do understand however that this is speculation and that it hasn't been released yet.  For all I know, the day it's released they'll add the DLDI file to the DLDI Wiki personally.  I'm just saying that one must be cautious, that's all.

The speed it writes to the G6 real is not as fast as writing to a micro SD, but close. Also if you read it, I said "the cart is stuck with no homebrew support until a new DLDI patch comes out and hopefully that will be before the cart launches next week."