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[Altor]

My EZ-V arrived very quickly from Gameyeeeah, taking only about a week and a half despite the cristmas rush and all the days when the postal service isn't working at this time of year.  The cart cost $39.99 and shipping was only $5.50 - getting the EZV from a Canadian retailer I normally order from would've had a higher shipping rate as well as tax!

Coincidentally, my 2 GB Sandisk Ultra-II MicroSD card arrived yesterday as well.  I have only had about 12 hours to play around with it, but I have a good idea of its functioning.

First of all, the most important thing in my opinion: Yes, Supercard saves work.  I've only tested PoR extensively, but I am at the proper place in the game with the proper inventory and stats.  An anomaly I noticed is that SC saves are often of different size compared with EZ-V saves.  I have no idea whether or not this affects functionality in any way, but the games appear to work 100%.  Finally, for some reason, all my Tetris DS records seem to have disappeared.  However, endless mode is still unlocked, so obviously it's reading the save file.

The menu is as you'd expect it.  It looks like moonshell but with different colors and with a giant EZ-V emblazoned on the bottom screen.  It has identical media functionality as Moonshell 1.51, but with the added ability to launch .NDS files.  It can be skinned in all the same ways as Moonshell, however the skins require a little "extender" package that includes graphics for EZV's additional UI elements.  For instance, I am currently using the popular, high-quality "Duotone" (blue version) skin, which can be found at the bottom of this wiki page.

No homebrew requiring access to the file system work.  For instance, anything that saves your preferences, like BEUP (iirc) will fail to work properly.  Everything else that I've tested works fine.  It's important to note that EZV's developers have recently released their I/O library files which will allow homebrew developers to make new versions of their software compatible with the EZV... but don't expect it overnight, of course.  Moonshell 1.6 final has been confirmed to have EZV support already.

The EZV comes in minimal packaging with no extras whatsoever, just the cartridge itself.  No manual, no software disc, not even a little piece of paper that says "Push L+R in menu to access settings" - something that would've come in really handy...

The cartridge fits, locks, and releases perfectly.  Its build quality is very good, and is visually indistinguishable from a real cartridge thanks to the fact that its microSD slot is on the side and is hidden during operation.  This also gives you a little added protection - the microSD card cannot possibly fall out unless your DS is in a shocking state of disrepair.  :razz:  The MicroSD card does not lock into place like it does on a phone or anything like that, but it does fit snug, so there's absolutely not danger of it coming out accidentally.  The only complaint I have about the build quality is that you can clearly feel an area where the plastic is thinner or possibly completely missing (and hidden by the label) on the top, to make room for a microchip of some sort.  The area is 1cm by 1cm.

My test setup is:

Nintendo DS Lite (white), Non-flashed, and no wifi multiplayer has been done yet
EZV in slot 1, obviously
Sandisk Ultra-II MicroSD card running at speed "6".
Dust cover only in slot 2

How do you use the EZV as a passme?  Hold down the right trigger button while it's loading up.  This method can also be used to update its firmware.  To adjust EZV settings, wait until its OS has booted, then push L and R simultaneously.  The top setting is a language choice - you'll want to put this to English as soon as possible.  Below that are speed choice and auto speed select.  I wouldn't bother with this auto mode, since I incorrectly diagnosed several games as nonfunctional until I used the manual mode and a trial-and-error approach to see how fast my card could be run.  It works on some games as fast as 5, but works universally on 6.

Tools you'll want to get:

Any free mass-renamer tool - Use this (with caution) to rename your SAV and trimmed NDS files to remove unnecessary stuff like ".NDS.SAV" or ".NDS.TRIMMED".
NDS Rom Trimmer v0.2 or later - Trimming a rom removes excess data from the end of the rom file.  NDS game dumps (roms) contain the entire contents of the game's original cartridge - even the parts that weren't actually used.  Trimming a rom can reduce its size up to 49%, but you more commonly get between 25% and 10% savings - on 2 gigs, that's still 200 megabytes though - Enough room for another 4 or 5 mid-sized games!

And now, on to the messy part.  When I opened my new MicroSD package the first time, I immediately formatted it with FAT and 64k clusters.  This has been known to help compatibility on some flashcarts/adapters.  It's no longer necessary.  The EZV is compatible with FAT32, and I'd recommend using it with the standard allocation sizes.

I don't know what exactly caused this, but I encountered the dreaded SAV corruption problem a lot of people are running into.  This happened despite me having the very latest firmware and OS.  To fix this, I copied my save files, NDS's, and the SHELL folder off the microSD, then reformatted it.  I then proceeded to copy everything back over, and I haven't had a problem since.  Originally I was running FAT/64K, now I'm running FAT32/Default.

Don't mistake save file corruption with SAV folder corruption.  SAV folder corruption refers to bizarre behaviour by the EZV which causes the contents of your SAV folder to become filled with garbage data, claiming to be files ranging anywhere from 0 kb to 50 gb.


This is what a corrupt SAV folder looks like.  Woohoo!  Save files from the future!  I wonder how I'll do on Castlevania 16?

Luckily, even though the folder is corrupt and you're almost completely prevented from modifying anything inside it, you can still copy the SAV files out of it.  They remain in perfect condition.  You can also try using scandisk (chkdsk) to fix the file system corruption, but this may have undesired results if it decides to take a brute force approach to correcting your file system woes.

You'll want to update your EZV before you do anything else with it.  Here are the CURRENT versions, and bear in mind that this review was written on January 9, 2007.  Install them in this order:
Patching utility - You unzip this somewhere and use it to patch your games when necessary or desired.
Latest OS - This goes on your MicroSD card.  Do not modify any filenames.
Latest Save Data - This goes in your /Shell folder from the above OS download.  Overwrite.
Latest Firmware - This goes on your MicroSD card.  Once all of the above files are in place, turn on your DS and start the EZV.  As soon as the DS menu's screen starts to fade, hold down the R trigger button.  The EZV menu will pop up and ask you whether you want to use it as a passme or if you want to update the kernel.  Release R and then push it again to update the kernel.  The process will take a few seconds.  After it's done, you should remove this kernel update file from the card for safety reasons.  After you've done that, you're ready to start playing games!

The process of using SC saves on an EZV:

1) Play games on your EZV, either clean or hybrid, doesn't matter.  I'm not sure if you need to actually make it to a save point in the game, or whether just letting the EZV "initialize" the save state when the game first starts up is adequate.  I played all my games to a save point but realized a little while ago that this probably wasn't even necessary.  The EZV creates the save file immediately before the game is first run.  You can't toy with your newly-created saves immediately though, you need to perform step 2 first.

2) Play a game on your EZV that you've never played before, for instance, do the unthinkable and actually play King Kong: The Movie.  You can delete it and take a bath later.

3) Rename your SC saves so they match the saves on your EZV.

4) Copy your SC saves them to your EZV.  Done!

The reason for this process... meh, I'm too lazy.  Someone else will explain it.  It's necessary as far as I know, so you don't really need to know all the technonsense.

Initial game load time varies between near-instant (4k saves, for instance, Bomberman, MechAssault) to requiring up to 10 seconds (2m saves, for instance Brain Age, Animal Crossing).  The vast majority of saves appear to be 64k, which loads in less than a second, I'd estimate.  Unfortunately, the next-most-popular seems to be 2m.

Yes, clean roms run as they should, however there are exceptions to the rule.  There are certain cases where you'll need to patch the game to get it running at 100%.  On the other hand, there are also games that will work in Clean mode, but not Hybrid mode - for instance, Animal Crossing will not run if it's been patched, unfortunately.

So far, these are the games I've tried.  I don't play any non-(U) games besides Phoenix Wright 2, however, so take that with a grain of salt if you understand Japanese and like to play lots of (J) games.

Because of the colossal storage space at my disposal (), I have just about every single high-profile game on my card and many other less-famous games (47 in total, a list to follow), and still have about 250 MB left over. However I have trimmed all my roms with either the EZV utility (in the case of Hybrid), or a 3rd party rom trimming utility (for all clean roms) to reduce the filesize.  Trimming should not affect my testing in any way.

Code Select Expand

All games are (U) versions, except for Phoenix Wright 2, which is (J).

Name                                         Working?

Advance Wars - Dual Strike.nds               100%, Clean
Age of Empires - The Age of Kings.nds        100%, Clean
Animal Crossing - Wild World.nds              95%, Note 1
Asphalt Urban GT 2.nds                       100%, HYBRID ONLY, Note 2
Big Brain Academy.nds                        100%
Bomberman.nds                                100%
Brain Age.nds                                100%
Break Em All                                 100%
Bubble Bobble Revolution.nds                 100%
Bust-a-Move DS.nds                           100%

Castlevania Dawn of Sorrow.nds               100%, Note 3
Castlevania Portrait of Ruin.nds             100%, HYBRID ONLY, Note 7
Club House Games.nds                         100%
Contact.nds                                  100%
Dragon Quest Heroes.nds                      100%
Elite Beat Agents.nds                        100%
Final Fantasy III.nds                        100%, HYBRID ONLY
Kirby Canvas Curse.nds                       100%
Kirby Squeak Squad.nds                       100%, Note 4
Lost in Blue.nds                             100%

Lostmagic.nds                                100%
Magical Starsign.nds                         100%
Magnetica.nds                                100%
Mario and Luigi.nds                          100%
Mario Kart DS.nds                            100%
Mario Vs Donkey Kong 2.nds                   100%
Mech Assault Phantom War.nds                 100%
Megaman ZX.nds                               100%
Meteos.nds                                   100%
Metroid Prime Hunters.nds                    100%, HYBRID ONLY, Note 5

Metroid Prime Pinball.nds                    100%, HYBRID ONLY, Note 5
Nanostray.nds                                100%
New Super Mario Bros.nds                     100%, Including minigames
Phoenix Wright 2.nds                         100%
Polarium.nds                                 100%
Scurge Hive.nds                              100%, HYBRID ONLY, Note 6
Sonic Rush.nds                               100%
Star Wars Episode III.nds                    100%, HYBRID ONLY, Note 5
Star Trek Tactical Assault.nds               100%
Starfox Command.nds                          100%, HYBRID ONLY

Super Mario 64 DS.nds                        100%, Including minigames
Tetris DS.nds                                100%
Touch Detective.nds                          100%
Trace Memory.nds                             100%
Trauma Center.nds                            100%
Ultimate Spider-Man.nds                      100%
WarioWare Touched!.nds                       100%
Yoshi's Island DS.nds                        100%

Note 1: AC:WW is not at full speed in the main menu, but it is still
perfectly usable.  Exiting buildings takes a little longer than it
probably should, but I've never played this on an original cart and
it's been too long since I've played it on a SC for me to make a
performance comparison.

Note 2: As far as I know, this game has menu slowdowns even on the
original cart.  If not, then there's some moderate to severe slowdown
in the menus, the same as with SC Lite.

Note 3: Works fine in standard mode, except for the intro movie. Intro
movie works perfect in Hybrid mode though.

Note 4: This game works almost perfectly in clean mode, but with minor
slowdowns or brief pauses that can barely be noticed during regular
play.  These disappear once the game is patched to Hybrid.

Note 5: This game WILL run in clean mode, but may require that you
reduce your speed setting and even then the game will have various
slowdowns - I highly recommend patching to Hybrid.

Note 6: This game's save type has been incorrectly set by the EZ-Flash
team.  Once you set it to 4K (L+X), it works fine.  Also, it does not
NEED to be patched, however it will perform better when it has been.

Note 7: This game will run in clean mode, but does not perform as well
as it does after it's been patched.  When running this as a clean rom,
it will likely suffer from frequent lock-ups.

For the life of me, I can't figure out a way to make Scurge: Hive work.  It loads fine but I can't get it to create a new profile due to some save issue.  I hope somebody brings this to the EZV team's attention. - Fixed!  The save type needs to be changed as described in Note 6 above.

Battery Life test:
Sorry, but I'm not willing to run any tests involving flashme at this time.  All tests were performed with brightness at maximum and sound turned down all the way.
Mario Kart DS original cart - test running now
Mario Kart DS EZV backup - 4:38
Mario Kart DS SCL backup with Passme - next test

Opera: Thanks to SCDev.org forum member moviecouple, I've learned that the EZV can use the Opera browser while using the SC Lite as a ram card.  If it can use the SC Lite, it should also be able to use any model of SC or M3 which is compatible with GBA games.  The only problem with Opera is that the EZV doesn't know what save size to use with it - you must set it to 2M.  Do this by pushing L+X until "2M Flash" appears on the bottom screen as the save type.  For information about how to patch a clean Opera rom to be compatible with SC/M3 slot 2 devices (as ram) while run on a slot 1 device, please view this forum topic.

Good: Very possibly 100% compatibility, though patching is required in certain cases in order to achieve this.  Good build quality.  Stealthy, you can't tell this from a legit cartridge while it's in your DS.  Functions as passme in my testing.  Works with clean roms.  No slowdowns except in rare cases, and these can be solved through patching.  Uses expandable storage.  Works with trimmed but unpatched roms.  Uses Moonshell as UI.  Doesn't require flashme.  Extremely simple and easy to use patching software.  Download play works perfectly as long as you don't use flashme on the "host" DS - and with slot 1 cards available, why would you?  Opera browser compatible (use 2M save).  CHEAP.

Bad: Initial startup time just to get into the EZ-Flash OS is about 5 seconds, not including health warning.  Load times for certain roms can go as high as 10 seconds in extreme cases.  No way to tell for certain that a game will require clean/hybrid unless you test it yourself or check a working/unworking list.  Patching software can only do one file at a time, rather than in a batch process like the SC patcher.

Overall: I highly recommend this flashcart.  Highly.  I mean, VERY HIGHLY.  But it loses some of its appeal when you need to convert the saves because that gets tedious.  I'm being too picky.  The load times are massively outweighed by its good points - namely, high compatibility and extremely good price.  Unfortunately, new games will require either you knowing what save size they use or else downloading a new save list, which may or may not always be up-to-date.  Note that you can figure out the save size very easily through trial and error, just takes about 5 minutes to go through all the types and see if the game works.  That means FUTUREPROOF.

Final Score: 95/100 - My original score was 90/100 as a result of Scurge: Hive not working properly.  Since then, I have figured out how to fix this (read above), as well as personally verified that the Opera browser works.  This means.... *drumroll*.... The first device with true 100% compatibility.  Loses 5 points for the minor bother of figuring out whether a game works better in hybrid or clean sometimes.

[moviecouple]

I would give it about the same. It doesn't get higher marks because I cannot get the NDS Browser to work no matter what I do. For me that is a big deal.

I think out of the gate that the EZ-Flash V is better so far than the Supercard DS One. Time will tell though which one will rule. Of all the new cards... I still like my DSLink and the new R4/M3 Simply for the ease of use.

[Altor]

Just started battery life test.  Mario Kart DS vs Mario Kart DS backup, maximum brightness, sound off (because that's too much racket in my computer room).

[PharaohsVizier]

Ooo, really nice review.  Would you recommend it over R4?

[moviecouple]

I would recommend it over the SCDS1, but not sure if I would put it over the R4/M3S.

If it were me, I would probably have both the EZ-Flash V and and R4/M3S.

I'm just not convinced yet on the future of having a flashcard that doesn't have the option of Patching in some way or fashion. Unsure of the whole clean rom dump so far.

[zektor]

I'm just not convinced yet on the future of having a flashcard that doesn't have the option of Patching in some way or fashion. Unsure of the whole clean rom dump so far.

I am thinking the same thing. Ok and fine if the card is capable of reading clean dumps, but the device should also provide a patching method for sure...

[Altor]

Updated with a few new minor details.

Ooo, really nice review.  Would you recommend it over R4?

Sorry, I don't have an R4 to compare it with and I don't have any intention of buying one any time soon.  I am absolutely satisfied with the EZV, however.  I have no reason to buy anything else.

Oh, if anyone wants me to test any other games, just post their titles and I'll try to at least make sure they work up to the first save point or whatever.  If a game works that far, it's probably fine the rest of the way.

Before anyone asks, yes, I'm already in the process of trying to figure out how to get Opera working on here with a SC as ram.  If anyone has information that might help me, please post it.  I know I saw a thread around here somewhere, but I'm having trouble finding it.

[moviecouple]

Figured out how to get the Opera Browser to work. I would now give the EZ-Flash V a 95% now.

[PharaohsVizier]

Download play works perfectly as long as you don't use flashme on the "host" DS - and with slot 1 cards available, why would you?  CHEAP.

Is that true?  Is this how all cards work?  As long as you don't have flashme on the host, it is fine?  So what if I use a passme for slot 2 cards, does that work?

[Altor]

No idea.  I've heard that all slot-1's can be used that way, but I don't know if that applies to first-generation ones like the link or xtreme.

edit: Trying different save sizes for Scurge.  It's possible they just set the wrong one, considering that besides this, the game appears to work fine.  My first run of the authentic Mario Kart DS test is done, now I'm going to run it again and average the results.

edit 2: Fixed Scurge!  It was just given the wrong save type by the EZ team.  Simply set it to 4K and the problem is solved.

[M3LV1N]

Is the interface completely like moonshell? Or is it like the R4 and you click onto one of the three sections which brings you into a moonshell-like interface.

[Altor]

Completely identical to moonshell.

Edit: Revised the information about PoR.  It seems that it has stability problems on EZV similar to as on Supercard, but only in certain areas or when using certain items.  However, the problem is cleared up completely by patching.  100% stable.

[sneef]

yeah.  over all, i just patch all my games.  They work so well after patching.    Got my M3 DS Simply today, but haven't had a chance to test it out.

[Altor]

yeah.  over all, i just patch all my games.  They work so well after patching.    Got my M3 DS Simply today, but haven't had a chance to test it out.

Any luck patching AC:WW?

[moviecouple]

I am glad I have the EZ-Flash V along with the R4/M3S. The EZFV works great with clean roms and if need be, games can be patched for those troublesome roms... while the R4/M3S is great for simplicity though.

I have the best of both worlds now. Patched or unpatched.