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[onekelly]

I am recommending a slot 1 cart to a friend and am wondering which brand to go with. I am leaning towards SCDSone, (as i have one and can help him out with any issues). I am looking for your opinions, backed up with facts on what to get. I do not want to hear get this or that with no reasoning behind it.  Thanks for all your help.

[kkan]

I am recommending a slot 1 cart to a friend and am wondering which brand to go with. I am leaning towards SCDSone, (as i have one and can help him out with any issues). I am looking for your opinions, backed up with facts on what to get. I do not want to hear get this or that with no reasoning behind it.  Thanks for all your help.

Personally from experience and for a beginner card I can recommend the R4 ....

Ease of use VERY EASY to use ....just copy the kernel to it and put the games on it and away you go

Updates are quite regular/easy to do....  Its a great card anyway with great compatability and 100% download play ...


I've had loads of them for mates etc ... and they are all very satisfied with them
They are pretty much trouble free and now come with moonshell 1.71  in the latest kernel build (1.14)

Theres already a MASSIVE selection of skins out there and loads of websites with them ... being the same as M3 simplys you can also use the M3 skins  .....

the other big plus point for the R4 its a fairly CHEAP SLOT 1 solution compared to others


(remember this is my opinion and my experience)
additional:

Yes I know theres loads of extra options with the SCDSone but I would consider getting the SCDSone for a more experienced user whos owned at least one flash card before.... (otherwise you have to spend a long time explaining the extra options to them doh!)

[jmr]

i would not advice anyone to get a scdsone V3 as IMHO i think there utter SHITE my V1 was great thought
my M3 ds simply was good until it destroyed two memory cards in two weeks (both cards wont read in my pc anymore)

i have got a number of friends, relatives & work colleges R4s & all of them have been pleased I have had no complaints

ive got a DSTT ordered & from reading reviews they seem ok but i havnt got it yet so i cant recommend it yet

[kkan]

ive got a DSTT ordered & from reading reviews they seem ok but i havnt got it yet so i cant recommend it yet

yeah also heard about the good results with DSTT ... altho waiting on a few more reviews on this card they are DARN cheap ...just hope they have good support and updates for it 

[sonicwind]

i agree with kkan it will be the easiest card for him to use and there won't be any trouble shooting needed.  You just drag stuff onto the card and your done, it is almost foolproof.

[onekelly]

Thanks for the input. My only thought of going with a SCDS1, is that i have one and would be a seamless issue with it. I will reccommend the R4 if it does a couple of things. First off the saves are automatic and does the auto size sav work always, or does the .dat file (for example only) need to be updated like the sc does?

[kkan]

Thanks for the input. My only thought of going with a SCDS1, is that i have one and would be a seamless issue with it. I will reccommend the R4 if it does a couple of things. First off the saves are automatic and does the auto size sav work always, or does the .dat file (for example only) need to be updated like the sc does?

save sizes are created on FIRST LAUNCH of the game and they are ALL default size of 512kb theres no dat file to be updated just the KERNEL every once in a while but 98% of the time the games just work every time with little or no hassle

there was the odd glitch game such as worms 2 but all cards struggled to a point to begin with on that game but as with other cards that issue has since been resolved with KERNEL updates 

best way to update the kernel is keep overwriting the last 

heres the latest fully updated kernel 1.14 here with my USRCHEAT file added to the kernel


they come with 12 default themes to begin with but I always end up just deleting all of them and just adding my own or whatever someone wants the theme to be

themes are switched by a quick press of the select button when it first boots up

just unrar the kernel ive shared and put the entire contents from within the rar onto the memory card make a folder called ROMS in the root directory and put all clean unpatched games into this ROMS folder 


when you load a game it creates the save file on that first launch and from then on you just play the game by just loading

any more questions just ask 

[onekelly]

It sounds like i will go with that, i am buying it for him and load it up, then he will give it to his 7 yr old daughter. He is OK with pc's but i just want to make sure he doesn't have to do much to keep it going. The themes and or skins do not matter to him as it will be for playing ds games mostly. It looks like i will order from RHS and get it on its way tomorrow.

Unless others disagree.

Oh yeah, the r4 is compatible with playing download play with an SCDS1 and/or SCSD  and a flashed ds correct?

[PharaohsVizier]

I think if its for a 7 year old daughter, you might want to look into the Top Toy DS.  It is prettier on the eyes and easier to use in my opinion.

The R4 is great and all, and it would definitely work fine, it has full download play capabilities as well, and will work with your Supercard DS ONE and your Supercard SD.  But I find that the kernel is a little more complicated than it needs to be because it has too many features that it assumes people will use.  Upon first boot, you get the three icons, and seeing as it is mostly for games, the 3 icon menu is somewhat of a waste of a few seconds of your time.  In the game menu, you get a list of files, and it just isn't very nice on your eyes, and if they plan on having more than a few games, it gets kind of annoying to me.  One of the major advantages of the R4 over the Top Toy DS is the fact that it has a lot of skins, so for a 7 year old daughter, it might be nice to make it look nice and such.

The Top Toy DS however is much easier to use if you plan on only using it for games.  Upon the first boot, you get a list of games, including their icons, etc.  It makes a lot more sense to me to skip the other two menus on the R4 if you don't plan to use them.  Moonshell must be run as another application on the list, there is no Multimedia button.  All of the other features offered on the cart are somewhat shoved aside into a little settings button at the corner, from there you can use it as a passme card, etc.  I found that the Top Toy DS is faster than the R4, and basically navigating through the menu for games is far easier.  Unfortunately, if you plan to use things like cheats, passme modes, etc, they are offered, but are in remote locations of the menu and they are just annoying to boot up.

So what I'm trying to say is that, I highly doubt that your friend's daughter will use all the extra features offered by the R4 and the Top Toy DS and will probably use it mostly for games.  Therefore the Top Toy DS makes a lot more sense to get, navigating through games is far easier, and the features are still available, just placed in places where they won't get in the way.

[onekelly]

It sounds like you have tried the Top toy DS. I was reading the review on gbatemp, and did not necessarily like that it was not alphabatized, have you used fatsort with it successfully? TBH, i never thought the SCDS1 was difficult, but it is a pain in the ass with the info.dat update always needed (thankfully there is sccheats site!). I just want to recommend something that is relatively painless and most of all easy to use. whether it be SC or R4 or ttDS.

[PharaohsVizier]

Yes I am in the process of reviewing the Top Toy DS at the moment, and I like it a lot.  I completely forgot that it wasn't alphabetized because I don't really have a problem with that.  I just tried out FATsort on it, and it works fine, so does the drag and drop method.

The SCDS1 wasn't really difficult or hard, I just felt that it was a little slow.  At least that's my opinion.

[kkan]

I the 3 icon menu is somewhat of a waste of a few seconds of your time.  In the game menu, you get a list of files, and it just isn't very nice on your eyes, and if they plan on having more than a few games, it gets kind of annoying to me. 

VALID POINTS yes ... you review cards etc but ....

first off whats an extra second to wait when your GETTING THEM FOR FREE?

second ...my mates 6 year old girl can use R4 no bother at all .. CHEATS/RESETS even dragging new games onto and deleting them off the mem card using the computer ....its not rocket science to do it .... kids are pretty good at these kinda things once you show them how to do it correctly

thirdly who spends minutes reading the list of games on the top screen all the time? ... when you can see the game icon and game name in bigger writing on the touch screen

will add something obvious here .....TOP TOY is a VERY NEW CARD! with VERY LITTLE SUPPORT! at the minute and hasnt been soak tested for all roms and all variations of gameplay,wifi play, download play and homebrew etc and no lists of whats working whats not etc etc ...whereas R4 has had a HUGE MASSIVE FOLLOWING for at least a year or more now with the M3 Simply being a pretty much idential card also has a MASSIVE USER/SUPPORT BASE

and fixes and updates come out fairly regular too for the R4!

I would be reluctant to go for a card which is less than a couple of months out on the market only to find out its flawed or cant get any help on it if I got problems/issues after purchase

[PharaohsVizier]

I the 3 icon menu is somewhat of a waste of a few seconds of your time.  In the game menu, you get a list of files, and it just isn't very nice on your eyes, and if they plan on having more than a few games, it gets kind of annoying to me. 

VALID POINTS yes ... you review cards etc but ....

first off whats an extra second to wait when your GETTING THEM FOR FREE?

second ...my mates 6 year old girl can use R4 no bother at all .. CHEATS/RESETS even dragging new games onto and deleting them off the mem card using the computer ....its not rocket science to do it .... kids are pretty good at these kinda things once you show them how to do it correctly

thirdly who spends minutes reading the list of games on the top screen all the time? ... when you can see the game icon and game name in bigger writing on the touch screen

will add something obvious here .....TOP TOY is a VERY NEW CARD! with VERY LITTLE SUPPORT! at the minute and hasnt been soak tested for all roms and all variations of gameplay,wifi play, download play and homebrew etc and no lists of whats working whats not etc etc ...whereas R4 has had a HUGE MASSIVE FOLLOWING for at least a year or more now with the M3 Simply being a pretty much idential card also has a MASSIVE USER/SUPPORT BASE

and fixes and updates come out fairly regular too for the R4!

I would be reluctant to go for a card which is less than a couple of months out on the market only to find out its flawed or cant get any help on it if I got problems/issues after purchase

He makes some very good points, Top Toy DS is made by NDSGBA and Neoflash, both notorious teams.  The good news is that you can use the R4's cheat database... 

[onekelly]

I just do not want to screw a friend out of 100 dollars and not have him happy with it. I will most likely stay away from TTDS, only for that fact alone. I am waiting for a reply from him so in a day or so i will order something. ATM, it looks like an R4.

All comments are still welcome! I appreciate them all good or bad.

[Zorlin]

Well, I'd say the Supercard DSOne personally...

With 3.0 released with RealTime Save, RealTime Cheat etc etc etc, its looking sweeter and sweeter, and it has a fairly nice price tag.
Skinning is a touch hard but meh...
R4 is a good option in terms of speed from boot -> game though.

Remember to apply my ZEP mod too. Badly translated English menus and dialogues probably wouldn't add to usability.