Some questions for a first time owner :)

4saken · December 08, 2007, 06:54:03 PM

Just ordered my SCDS1 SDHC, and I have a few questions (some have been answered by searching through these forums, but I'd prefer a more straightforward answer.

1. Does the new SupercardDS1 (ordered somewhere last week) use the battery for saves, or does it use a system similar to the R4/M3? I saw a picture of the circuit board on these forums, and you can see the capacitor at the top, though I heard that the SC no longer uses the battery :S

2. Does the SC1 support raw saves? I have a few raw saves (padded to 512k) that I would like to use. Can I just copy these over? If so, if I just trim each save to the minimal size, the SCDS1 will not re-pad the saves to 512k right?

3. I've seen some videos of the SCDS1 (v2 though) in action, and it appears loading the menu and games are tediously slow compared to other cards I've had (and if you've used the M3Real, you'll know what slow is) at around 10 seconds to load a game with "patch" settings and excess of 7 seconds for loading the menu. Are there any ways (tweaks on the global.ini or similar) to improve the speed? I read something about disabling a file check to improve file loading speed.

4. I read something about forcing the speed of the microSD in the global.ini to 30. What will this do (note: I will be using a Kingston 1GB Japan)?

5. There is no way to change the "in game" font right? It's about the ugliest thing I've seen on a DS. Hopefully somebody can tell the SC team to at least allow customizable wrapping settings.

6. For the startup sound, is it possible to play a long audio clip (like a song)? Is it a matter of just reducing the audio properties down to what the original Moonshell startup sound is?

Cheers guys

Hi · December 08, 2007, 10:47:51 PM

1. It depends. If you go to the "options" menu and turn on "enable patch", then the battery won't be used for saves. If you do not turn on enable patch, then the battery will be used for saves.

2. I'm pretty sure you can, not positive, but pretty sure. I THINK I've done so successfully...

3. No idea. But the loading menu isn't that slow for me...

4. Again, I don't know, sorry.

5. I'm sorry, your asking about the actual text inside the game? If you are, then the answer is no. If I am not understanding your question... then well... I'm not understanding your question and therefor don't have an answer.

6. Yeah, it's possible. All you have to do is edit the global.ini file.

So there are some bad answers to some of your questions. Hopefully somebody else can come and do a better job of answering them then me.

4saken · December 08, 2007, 10:50:24 PM

Thanks. It helped a lot

Dudu.exe · December 09, 2007, 05:23:18 PM

4. 30x is the actual speed of the kingston japan 1gb the speed test chose this speed automaticly for it...

h8uthemost · December 09, 2007, 08:47:04 PM

Welcome 4saken.

I have a 2gb Kingston Japan, and my speed setting is at 25. Where my 1gb Kingston(J) is at 30. I've never read about forcing the cart to read at 30. Would that really speed up the microsd?

The loading for the menu isn't that slow. Nowhere near as slow as the G6 Reals menu, but not quite as fast as the N-Card and clones. It's the game loading that could be sped up a bit. But for me, some games load quicker than others. I don't think it's a huge deal.

And yeah, that definitely sucks about the realtime font. Hopefully the Supercard Team gets that fixed soon. I have no idea what they were thinking when they made those menus. I'm definitely glad they're there though. The realtime guide is great to have.

Besides that, you should really like your SCDS. It's easily became my favorite cart. I only wish it had internal memory.

4saken · December 10, 2007, 12:39:23 AM

Thanks for all the replies.

I have another question now. Can somebody tell me how to set the automatic directory? I think I've found the part in the global.ini, but I'd like to get everything ready before I get my card

Still want an answer for question 2. If R4 saves are interchangeable with supercard one saves, then the Supercard uses raw saves padded to a constant 512k. So if I can "trim" the save down to real size, the supercard will not re-pad the saves right (provided I may not keep the database updated for new games).

h8uthemost · December 10, 2007, 01:02:42 AM

What is the automatic directory? I'm not sure what you mean on that.

And yes, the SCDS does use raw saves. I haven't tried it personally, but I've read a few times around here of people trimming down their old saves from another cart to put on the SCDS. So you should be fine.

dantheman · December 10, 2007, 01:23:51 AM

For game speed, I've heard that going into the global.ini file and disabling the option that makes it scan the file for DS Brickers helps speed up game loading a bit. I don't have one so I can't test myself however.

4saken · December 10, 2007, 01:51:28 AM

Quote from: h8uthemost on December 10, 2007, 01:02:42 AM
What is the automatic directory? I'm not sure what you mean on that.

And yes, the SCDS does use raw saves. I haven't tried it personally, but I've read a few times around here of people trimming down their old saves from another cart to put on the SCDS. So you should be fine.

I think there is a way to make a default directory for the file browser.

Thanks for the replies.

Does the SCDS1 have auto-DLDI patching?

h8uthemost · December 10, 2007, 09:57:59 PM

Yeah, it has auto DLDI. I made a Homebrew folder on the root, and just throw all my homebrew in there, and everything has worked perfectly.Most homebrew that I tried, works with soft reset too. Another feature this cart only has. But something like NesDS doesn't work with it. Which sucks, I like using NesDS quite a bit.

And I was paying more attention to the game loading last night, and it's not all that bad. Like I mentioned, other games take a little while longer than other to start. But only by a couple to a few seconds. I was comparing the game loading times to my G6 Real, and they're looking identical. On my cart at least.

It really sucks though. That new DSTT, looks like it loads its games almost instantly. At least from the preview at GBAtemp it looks that way. And if it all games load as fast as the one showed in that YouTube video, then the Supercard Team should really work on this.

EDIT: And thanks for letting us know about that dan. I forgot it scans for brickers. But I'm confident then I'll never get one, so I might as well turn that off. I'll look in the global.ini for the option.

OSW · December 11, 2007, 02:29:32 AM

Quote from: h8uthemost on December 10, 2007, 09:57:59 PM
It really sucks though. That new DSTT, looks like it loads its games almost instantly. At least from the preview at GBAtemp it looks that way. And if it all games load as fast as the one showed in that YouTube video, then the Supercard Team should really work on this.

ha, yeah i heard about this. It looks pretty crazy. i feel sorry for my sc-one.

also 4saken, change the autopatching DLDI to the unofficial one by Barni! It fixes unaligned read or write support.

4saken · December 11, 2007, 03:49:26 AM

Hi OSW

Unfortunately, barni stated that it does not work with SDHC at the moment

I'll keep an eye out for it, thanks for telling me. Most homebrew should be fine right? If anything, I will only be using emulators.

OSW · December 11, 2007, 05:33:55 AM

Heya

sorry i just completely forgot about SDHC, it slips my mind these days (my supercard is v2)

4saken · December 11, 2007, 05:43:44 AM

though i'm not sure if he meant SDHC cards, since I will only be using a 1 gig card