Nintendo DS and R4 help!

edited October 2007 in Chit chat
I now have a Nintendo DS but have yet to buy a R4. I'm a bit confused you see. Here's what I don't get:

1) Is the R4 the cartridge that plugs into the DS slot (not the GBA one)?

2) If the R4 IS the type that plugs into the DS slot, would I still be able to put GBA games on it and play them?

3) If I bought the R4, would I need to buy anything else to go with it like cables etc... or does it have EVERYTHING I will need to get games off my PC on the DS and play?

4) Can you buy the R4 in different sizes? As in meg size.

5) Does anyone know of any reputable places to buy them online that will have everything I need so I can just plug in to the PC, put the game in the cart and then plug into the DS a play?

If possible could you link directly to the product so I don't get confused while looking for it as I have looked at a few websites and all I saw was shed loads of different stuff and had no idea which one I really needed to look at!

6) I heard some (older?) carts are slow and can cause slowdown in-game. Is this true of the R4?

Thanks all for your help. I'm a bit of a noob at this sort of thing and don''t want to end up with the wrong kit or not enough kit. I had been following the DS thread in 'Emulators' but I had specific questions to ask as I'm buying 2. One for me and one for my sissus.
Post edited by HonoredShadow on

Comments

  • edited October 2007
    I now have a Nintendo DS but have yet to buy a R4. I'm a bit confused you see. Here's what I don't get:

    1) Is the R4 the cartridge that plugs into the DS slot (not the GBA one)?

    2) If the R4 IS the type that plugs into the DS slot, would I still be able to put GBA games on it and play them?

    3) If I bought the R4, would I need to buy anything else to go with it like cables etc... or does it have EVERYTHING I will need to get games off my PC on the DS and play?

    4) Can you buy the R4 in different sizes? As in meg size.

    5) Does anyone know of any reputable places to buy them online that will have everything I need so I can just plug in to the PC, put the game in the cart and then plug into the DS a play?

    If possible could you link directly to the product so I don't get confused while looking for it as I have looked at a few websites and all I saw was shed loads of different stuff and had no idea which one I really needed to look at!

    6) I heard some (older?) carts are slow and can cause slowdown in-game. Is this true of the R4?

    Thanks all for your help. I'm a bit of a noob at this sort of thing and don''t want to end up with the wrong kit or not enough kit. I had been following the DS thread in 'Emulators' but I had specific questions to ask as I'm buying 2. One for me and one for my sissus.

    1) Yes, the R4 uses the NDS slot, not the GBA one.

    2) Sorry, can't say - I don't have any GBA games.

    3) The R4 card houses a Micro-SD card within it, so you'll need someway to get your content onto that card, but aside from that, no, no cables or similar are needed.

    4) See (3) - The R4 card has no memory, it uses a Micro-SD card instead. You can certainly get these cards up to 2GB in size.

    5) You can buy them through Amazon marketplace.

    6) Not that I've noticed.


    Aside from all that, once you get an R4 card, ZXDS is a very fine speccy emulator to put on it.
  • edited October 2007
    Thanks for the reply.

    So I would need to buy an R4 and a Micro-SD card.

    I don't know anything about these. Are they all pretty much the same apart from size?
  • edited October 2007
    So I would need to buy an R4 and a Micro-SD card.I don't know anything about these. Are they all pretty much the same apart from size?

    There is the card "read speed". "Slow" cards can produce "slowdown" in game or intros.
  • edited October 2007
    Yes. That bundle appears to supply you with a USB device which you put the Micro-SD card into, and then plug into your PC to use. You can also get an adapter SD-card into which you put the Micro-SD card, so it can then be read by any SD-card reader.
  • edited October 2007
    I bought a GBA card from ConsolePlus and I'm happy

    although there out of R4's at the mo
  • edited October 2007
    bobs wrote: »
    Yes. That bundle appears to supply you with a USB device which you put the Micro-SD card into, and then plug into your PC to use. You can also get an adapter SD-card into which you put the Micro-SD card, so it can then be read by any SD-card reader.

    I got that bundle, but can't remember where from at the mo. Got a 2Gb Micro-SD with it for about ?40. Was worth every penny.
  • edited October 2007
    At the risk of repeating what others have already said:
    1) Is the R4 the cartridge that plugs into the DS slot (not the GBA one)?
    Yup, it's a Slot-1 solution.
    2) If the R4 IS the type that plugs into the DS slot, would I still be able to put GBA games on it and play them?
    No. You need a Slot-2 solution for that (Supercard et al).
    3) If I bought the R4, would I need to buy anything else to go with it like cables etc... or does it have EVERYTHING I will need to get games off my PC on the DS and play?
    Everything except the microSD card - the R4 comes with a USB uSD reader.
    4) Can you buy the R4 in different sizes? As in meg size.

    Doesn't really apply. Current uSD cards are limited to 2GB, but there's a rumour that the latest R4 kernel update will implement SHDC with cards up to 32GB (although these aren't commecially available yet).
    5) Does anyone know of any reputable places to buy them online that will have everything I need so I can just plug in to the PC, put the game in the cart and then plug into the DS a play?

    I bought mine from clickshop.com, but they were very slow in delivering. They do have a package that ships with a 2GB card:

    http://www.clickshop.com/productinfo.php?pid=623
    6) I heard some (older?) carts are slow and can cause slowdown in-game. Is this true of the R4?
    Not especially is the vaguest answer that I can give.

    I used a Supercard DS Lite for about a year (Slot-2) and was happy. For various reasons I upgraded to an R4 and now run both simultaneously. I *love* my DS...
  • edited October 2007
    stefrobb wrote: »
    I bought mine from clickshop.com, but they were very slow in delivering. They do have a package that ships with a 2GB card:

    http://www.clickshop.com/productinfo.php?pid=623

    As I understand it, everybody's slow at delivering since the manufacturer's having problems keeping up with demand. (Mine took almost a month, and they've still got queues going now.)
  • edited October 2007
    I bought mine from the Amazon Marketplace seller "playgamez"; at the time of purchase they were the cheapest UK-based retailer (~?22.50) and they were sent the next day by Recorded Delivery (although I may have received a shipping upgrade due to the fact that I ordered 3 at once). You can get one for around ?16 if you buy from http://www.dealextreme.com but they're based in Hong Kong and I've heard that they don't always send items straight away so you could be waiting a couple of weeks.

    As for the memory card, I bought mine from http://www.mymemory.co.uk -- it's a 2GB Toshiba card and at present they're going for ?14 all-in (?10 for a 1GB card). Toshiba cards are supposed to be very good indeed (the highly-rated Kingston cards that are made in Japan are simply rebranded Toshibas) so you should have no problems with one.

    Finally, the cheapest way to run GBA games is to buy either an EZ Flash 3-in-1 cartridge or an Ewin Expansion Pak. These both plug into the GBA slot and have enough flash memory to hold one GBA game. You then put a program on your microSD card and copy some GBA games over (the 3-in-1 requires you to use a program on your PC to patch them, the Ewin Expansion Pak doesn't). Finally, load the program onto your DS and select the GBA game you want -- it will then be copied to the 3-in-1/Expansion Pak's RAM and after a short delay you can play the game. The EZ Flash can be had for around a tenner at http://www.dealextreme.com and the Ewin Pak is ~?7 at http://www.psxboy.com. One thing to note is that the Ewin Pak will only fit in a DS Lite whereas it's possible to buy a 3-in-1 that can fit into the original DS (?15 at [url]http://www.totalgba.com)[/url].
  • edited October 2007
    Thanks all for the replies! All my questions are answered now.

    Much appreciated. Gonna order something now. Probably from Amazon sellers.
  • edited October 2007
    Just noticed, but the R4 shell has a "Boot Slot-2" option - maybe that allows you to boot a GBA game directly? Can't confirm as I don't have a GBA cart, but of course the other option is just to take the R4 card out.
  • edited October 2007
    If you scroll down to the bottom of this web page http://wiki.scorpei.com/index.php/R4_compatibility_list

    it will tell you what problems you may get with certain micro sd cards
  • edited October 2007
    bobs wrote: »
    Just noticed, but the R4 shell has a "Boot Slot-2" option - maybe that allows you to boot a GBA game directly? Can't confirm as I don't have a GBA cart, but of course the other option is just to take the R4 card out.
    Indeed, with the "boot slot 2" option on the R4 you can play GBA games from slot 2. I bought myself an R4 / M3 Perfect Lite combo some time ago, both with a 1 GB micro SD card. It means I have 2 GB in total for storing DS and GBA games.
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