Upgrading from GBA to NDS

fartbox · July 10, 2008, 05:43:47 PM

My sons have GBAs, one with a Supercard CF and one with a Supercard SD. We're off on holiday soon and might buy them new DS's at the airport duty-free shop, but to avoid disappointment it would be great if someone could answer the following (probably newbie) questions:

- Will their old SC-CF and SC-SD cards run OK in a NDS, or do they need firmware changes etc.?

- Will any existing GBA games my kids have on their SC cards work without modification in a NDS?

- Is it possible to put NDS game files as well as GBA game files on the SC cards at the same time? It would be nice to put a few NDS games onto the cards before we go so they can make good use of their shiny new NDSs.

Thanks

bitblt · July 10, 2008, 08:24:31 PM

Existing GBA games on your SCCF or SCSD will run the same on a DS in GBA mode without any changes. To play DS games with SCCF or SCSD you will need the latest Supercard firmware and a superkey or other brand pass device. After you purchase a superkey you then have the option to flash both DSs with FlashMe. Then you will no longer need a superkey to run DS games.

fartbox · July 11, 2008, 02:39:58 AM

Thanks for the answers. I didn't know about the Superkey thing - I'll look into that
.

kkan · July 11, 2008, 03:18:01 AM

The other alternative is to have best of both worlds and buy a couple of cheap slot 1 cards such as TTDS (TOP TOY) with a 1 or 2 gb mem card and load it with both ds roms and GBA roms and use something like GBA ExpLoader to load roms from slot 1 to slot 2 for gba play

maby not the cheapest solution but ..... you do SAVE in the long run

zektor · July 11, 2008, 11:05:53 PM

If you need a Superkey, I have two new ones as well that I have no use for. $10 shipped (if you are in the USA). Let me know

As for the DSTT/expansion combo, I recommend this too. It is an awesome way to play GBA titles (and NDS titles)

dantheman · July 12, 2008, 08:13:28 PM

Quote from: kkan on July 11, 2008, 03:18:01 AM
The other alternative is to have best of both worlds and buy a couple of cheap slot 1 cards such as TTDS (TOP TOY) with a 1 or 2 gb mem card and load it with both ds roms and GBA roms and use something like GBA ExpLoader to load roms from slot 1 to slot 2 for gba play

maby not the cheapest solution but ..... you do SAVE in the long run

Does GBA ExpLoader support the slot-2 Supercards? I was under the impression that it didn't.

Unless you were suggesting the 3in1 expansion pack in addition to the slot-1 cards. In that case, I can see that it would be more convenient than the slot-2 Supercard and Superkey combo since you could use clean roms without patching, but I don't at all understand how this would be cheaper.

kkan · July 13, 2008, 07:34:14 AM

Quote from: dantheman
Does GBA ExpLoader support the slot-2 Supercards? I was under the impression that it didn't.

Unless you were suggesting the 3in1 expansion pack in addition to the slot-1 cards. In that case, I can see that it would be more convenient than the slot-2 Supercard and Superkey combo since you could use clean roms without patching, but I don't at all understand how this would be cheaper.

not sure myself

oops ....naturally assumed it would?

maby theres another program for that same purpose??

zektor · July 13, 2008, 12:00:21 PM

GBA EXPloader does not support the Supercard afaik. But, The slot1/3-in-1 solution is a MUCH better solution than the superkey/supercard for NDS/GBA playback....and the price would not be much different. With the slot1/3-in-1 combo, you don't have to patch either NDS or GBA roms, but an even LARGER plus is that GBA compatibility is at (or near) 100% this way, and there are no slow down issues like with running them on a supercard. If you are serious about GBA playback, this is the only way to go. Used to be the M3 perfect cards, but this method has taken the lead in perfect GBA playback.

dantheman · July 15, 2008, 02:41:54 PM

Price is only a large difference in this case because fartbox already has two slot-2 Supercards with the appropriate memory cards. Thus, a $20 NoPass is all that is needed to get both DS systems capable of playing back DS games on the slot-2 Supercards. This is cheaper than buying two slot-1 devices, two microSD cards, and two 3in1 expansion packs.

For the features, yes a slot-1 and 3in1 combo would be the best idea, and if fartbox didn't have any homebrew equipment to begin with I would highly recommend it as well. However, for the price in this particular instance, just buying a NoPass would be the cheapest and easiest way to accomplish the goal.