Best DS model for ZXDS?
I'm toying with the idea of selling bits of my retro collection... which, despite being trimmed down a few years back to just Spectrum and Vectrex stuff, has ballooned again due to some donations... in order to fund a DS purchase, homebrew, for the use of. I had a brick DS a few years back, but had to sell it so my kids could have new shoes (happily, things are going rather better now).
I can see from Patrik's ZXDS page that it works with all models including the 3DS. I'd like to hear from the community which model is the best? Does one screen show it off better than another?
Will probably purchase a second-hand unit, and as I say I have stuff I could part exchange (there's a Saturn with a few famous titles...) so I'm interested in the user experience more than the cost. Don't want to cough up for a 3DS only to find that the screen is 73 pixels wider and buggers the graphics, or similar :)
I can see from Patrik's ZXDS page that it works with all models including the 3DS. I'd like to hear from the community which model is the best? Does one screen show it off better than another?
Will probably purchase a second-hand unit, and as I say I have stuff I could part exchange (there's a Saturn with a few famous titles...) so I'm interested in the user experience more than the cost. Don't want to cough up for a 3DS only to find that the screen is 73 pixels wider and buggers the graphics, or similar :)
Post edited by Danforth on
Comments
The lite has much better battery life and a better case.
About the only other model worth considering would be the DSi XL on account of its physically larger screen, which would make the virtual keyboard that much more usable; still, that's not really much of an issue for most action games where you can map the controls to the buttons and d-pad.
Also, I'd give the 3DS a miss if your main interest is in homebrew. It's got some excellent native games, but Nintendo are still actively updating the firmware and tend to disable exploits on a regular basis. Also, the screen resolution is different and you've either got to live with fuzzy scaling or a large black border when running DS software - including homebrew - on it.
The DSi Lite is a great little machine and in black does look the part. The screen is quite small but as it matches the Spectrum resolution (256x192) it looks very clear. Personally, I went for a DSi XL which I think is the ideal machine as the screen is that much bigger (same resolution).
As for getting a DS compatible card, I would suggest you give the following folks a try:
http://www.discoazul.co.uk/search/_dstwo
I ordered mine from them and it turned up in a few days with no problems.
Hope this helps.
Paddy
P.S. You will not be disappointed with ZXDS on a DSi XL! :D
jebus that's dear, only pay around ?10 for R4's
Quite possibly but it is a seller's market...
Paddy
1. Use a DSLite or DSiXL, the 3DS and 2DS versions are a lot more expensive but more importantly, their screen sizes are not 256x192 so you will get lots more of artifacts.
2. Buy a card that works on your machine, or buy a machine that works with the card. Some earlier cards doesn't work on the XL or the 3DS/2DS machines. Also make sure the card is easy to use, the earlier cards required much work to get things on the card itself.
3. The choice between the Lite or XL is that, one screen is larger than the other. I love my DSLite because it fits everywhere, but it's more of a personal taste.
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Well those are out of stock (guess I left it too late) are any of the other systems they sell compatible with ZXDS and the DSi XL?
http://www.discoazul.co.uk/ds-flash-card/
Personally I would choose this one from the remaining ones:
http://www.discoazul.co.uk/r4i-gold-sdhc-upgrade-for-ds-ds-lite-dsi.html
Assuming you already have an SD/SDHC card around or plan to get it elsewhere. Or you can choose the same thing with one of the various sizes of SD cards available included.
Patrik
Thanks for the advice. Fingers crossed that this time it turns up.
The DSTWO is better for things like GBA and SNES emulation though. I'm not sure if the R4 can play GBA roms at all, actually...
No, it can't; nor can most flash cards. The DSTwo has an extra CPU built in to allow for emulation of more powerful machines, which is partly why it costs so much more.
Glad I got the R4 then, I'm only interested in using DS as a portable Speccy. I still have a GBA SP.
Best
Paddy
Isn't it just a marketing gimmick? Everything else put aside, how efficiently can the "extra CPU" communicate over the card interface with the rest of the DS hardware to be of any real use? (I mean, it sounds about as useful as an external FPU which you plug into Spectrum's EAR socket.) :)
Patrik
Also, I'm sure I read somewhere that the DSTwo emulates the second, GBA cart slot, whereas the R4 doesn't?
No, it's definitely a bit more than a gimmick. I've not developed anything for it myself, but from what I can gather there's some extra RAM on the card as well as the CPU and you run your computationally intensive programs - such as GBA emulators - on that, while communicating with a small host program on the DS itself that receives and displays a video stream and sends back the state of the controls.
It's all a bit of an inelegant hack, but if you want to play your GBA games on a model that doesn't have a Slot-2, it's your only option really.
I have a proggy on the R4 that lets me flash the GBA cart from ROMs on the R4 SD card, so I get the benefit of its large storage space.
These cards are too expensive in the UK, a similar've got for two pounds and has been working for two years with no errors.
Also I have one of these, which costs less than a pound and also works great almost three years.
http://img407.imageshack.us/img407/3782/r4blister1.png
With wood firmware and moonshell2 as a media player, everything work like a charm, same as ten times expensive cards.
If you want uk seller, maybe you should try Acekard 2i, its a great and reliable card and cost same as this R4i, you ordered:
http://www.ebuycard.co.uk/quick-navigation/acekard-2i-memorycards/acekard-2i-card-r4uk136.html
http://zx-pk.ru/
It's good for video playing and emulators.
The dos emulator works on DSTWO and emulates a lot quicker and more opcodes.
D.
My neighbor offered me a new console, purchased as a gift for his son, who didnt like it and dont use it at all, because it has xbox360.
I paid 35 pounds for a console with charger, carrying bag, and two original games.
Since my little daughter more interested in my dsi, it's good that I got a backup in time. ;)
I immediately installed latest zxds and try it.
Everything works great, except that old problem with WPA encryption.
I dont like to reduce the level of protection, every time when I use the wifi in the emulator.
Is there any way to solve this somehow?
DSi (XL) has the ability to use WPA/WPA2 but it seems that there still isnt much in use.
Almost all games and flash cards support only WEP encryption for online play, its only possible to use the built-in Opera browser with WPA support, together with few games .
http://zx-pk.ru/
If you have a mobile phone which can provide personal hotspot over WEP (which excludes iPhones, though), it's quite easy to set it up and then enable it only when you need to. The DSi connects to your phone and it can then connect to the internet by any means it knows of, including WiFi using your WPA router. You don't have to worry about WEP being used then, as the emulator traffic itself is not likely worth encrypting anyway (unless you are ashame of things you download :)), and your mobile phone would let you know immediately if someone else tried to connect to it, too.
Other than that, you need either dedicated router for WEP (MAC filtering helps, too), or switch your main router to WEP temporarily/permanently as you see fit.
Patrik
http://zx-pk.ru/
I agree. The DS XL was created for ZXDS!