So What is the Best Way to Get Homebrew on the Nintendo DS

[wraggster]

When a newcomer comes to the Nintendo DS scene he or she sees so many different flash carts but which is the best Flash Cart for the Nintendo DS both in terms of easyness of use and compatability and Price.

Ill be interested to see what is the members choice.

For me its the Supercard/Passkey Combo but whats your choice and why ?

[GinaWrite]

I got a PassKey direct from nastrium42 - Why pay more for distributors and shipping?

I previously used a Flash Linker Xtreme, but I put it up now that I have an SC-SD. It is much more convenient this way. I currently have 3 SD cards: one for homebrew/emulation, one for NDS games, and one for GBA games. I picked the SuperCard based on price and availability from a North American reseller.

[DimensionT]

I would have to agree with the Wraggster. My Supercard/Passme has never failed me (neither has my 1gig 150x speed CF card :D). I've heard all kinds of stories of other cards having touch screen calibration being off, games not booting, save problems etc... But I've personally not had to deal with much of that (once I figured out how to use it :p).

I would go through with the whole Flashme thing, just so my brother can use my Passme. Though I'm still kind of worried I'll mess my DS up. Can anyone confirm how easy/full proof the procedure is?

[wraggster]

Flashme doesnt interest me in the slightest, i get too scared flashing anything

[hicaow]

i have a supercard and passme as well , i love it .. i flashed my DS with flashme 7 and its great, took all of about 5 mins .. i used the flat end of a drill bit to short the points, i would never go back and recommend flashme to everyone , if your brave enough :]

[DimensionT]

Lol, yeah. That's exactly my problem. I don't have any need for a two screen brick, lol. The thought of NOT having a Passme sticking 2-1/2 inches out the top is pretty appealing though.

I heard that someone was going to make a Flashme simulator for people with flashing phobias (a program that doesn't rewrite the firmware, but plays a sound when you've done it right (or something to that extent)). I'm not sure what's going on with it, but I'd be more willing to try the real deal with some practice.

[lumo]

i got a supercard CF and flashme (first had a passme)
flashme was easy to install so now i only have my CF card sticking out but the fact that i can carry all my real games, both gba and DS, and other homebrew and such, and have music and video via moonshell, its a small price to pay. if/when lite makes it to UK with a good price might get it with a supercard sd mini as its the same size as gba cart so that i have very little sticking out of the lite, but until then my supercard CF has been fine on my ds

[tisti]

Jesus... First thing I did when I got my passkey was to install flashme :)

[Mazza]

I'm getting the Datel Max Media Launcher and a M3 mini SD adaptor with 2gb 150x mini sd :D

[Öhr]

Flashme doesnt interest me in the slightest, i get too scared flashing anything
i flashed 6 DS and tomorrow i get the next.

i use a m3 cf. i love it, but i think a sc cf is as good as a m3 cf, but i bought a m3 :D

[alexp2_ad]

SuperCard SD + SuperPass + FlashMe = Awesome (and too many words without spaces).

[EverestX]

Flashing isn't scary. It's pretty hard to brick your ds. But if you're too affraid to flash, I'd recommend datels Max Media launcher, because it's pro, and a SuperCard SD because it's cheep and it works pretty damn well.

[Vegetable]

For me its the Supercard/Passkey Combo

Signed signed and signed. Supercard is great, but the Superpass is made of ass and fail. Broke the spring mechanism in my DS so now I can't load games into it anymore.

[biomechanic]

I bought a G6 to my DS. Mainly because I hated that M3 stod out a bit from the gba-slot (this was before M3 mini). In retrospect that buy probably was a mistake. Not because G6 is complicated or lacks in the DS compability, on the contrary G6 is the simplest card I've owned and has 100% compability with the DS/GBA-games (as far as I've tested). I would seriously recommend G6 for everyone, where it not for one simple thing: Homebrew compability SUCKS!!! Since everyone buys the cheaper M3 model, no homebrew developers even so much as looks in G6's direction. Pisses me off! I've sat here drooling and sobbing, watching all the great homebrew programs not functional on my poor G6...

As for the flashme thingie I did it right away. Since I hate things sticking out of my DS that was my only option at the time but I hear there is some kind of magic key on it's way that has the size of a regular DS game...that would be awesome!

Well, hope this post keeps you from buying a G6, ooooor makes some developers take a look at the G6 =)

[hicaow]

u broke the spring because you yanked it out .. it push's in and out the same way a regular game does , to remove you have to push it in and have it come back out on its own .. i've read that before on the superpass forums but its only because people assume u just pull it out .. it causes no damage to your DS game slot if used correctly ..

[Mazza]

What do I need if I want to use the FlashMe thing on a DS Lite. Also will I keep the brightness settings?

[takieda]

I think for Homebrew it's a matter of contention with the homebrew writers. Because of the nature of Chishm's driver, most homebrew has at least some problem with SD cards, but they tend to work fine earlier on on CF cards, so CF is the way to go if you must have upgradeability. However, a LOT of homebrew developers prefer the speed of traditional "old school" flash carts, so they first develop using GBFS. All in All, given time, the decent, if not, all good apps tend to work their ways to working on all systems, but first come first serve? CF cards - be they Supercard or M3 (this is a 50/50 situation, some prefer the supercard and work with that, some prefer the M3 and work with that, I haven't seen any heavy support on either side on this one though), or using a good flashcart, like the G6 should work very well.

Note: this is a based on a LOT of reading I've done, but no real world experience beyond my own M3 SD. I've gotten most homebrew to work fine on my system, but I'm desperately waiting for DSOrganize to come out with something that doesn't screw up SD cards. I really like the app, great functionality, but not very functional if it trashes the SD's data.

[QazzaQY2K]

i'd say .. NDS Lite SCSD 4Gb SD .. and Flashme v7 lite

[takieda]

QazzaQY2K: how'd you get the SCSD to work with a 4GB card? As far as I know, the Supercard doesn't support Fat32, and fat32 is what's required for above 2GB's.

[superdinoyoshi]

Cheapest solution, a Max Media Launcher, a GBAMP, and a 512 MB SD / CF card (depending on version of GBAMP). You could get all that for 70-80 bucks.

[Mazza]

Cheapest solution, a Max Media Launcher, a GBAMP, and a 512 MB SD / CF card (depending on version of GBAMP). You could get all that for 70-80 bucks.

I think I'mn gonna get the Max Media Launcher with the M3 Mini SD Adaptor because I've read good reviews about the M3

[HtheB]

Jesus... First thing I did when I got my passkey was to install flashme :)
Yeah me to :D
When my M3 was arrived... the first thing i did was install flashme :D
its only 20 sec work.. not more! :)

[Payk]

I was affraidof doing it...but cant hold may self longer then 10 mins...then i installed flashme v5 and it was right thing. BUT MY DS HAS CALIBRATION PROBLEM and my sister's too. No joke... Each button i have to touch a bit downer and righter and metroid prime is a pain to get scanvisior pushed. But just practise thing..i have learned to work with it and also code and test apps which use touchscreen as well... When i try to recalibrate in bios that squares move on each touch but they do so oft i touch them. they never get enough and i only can abort recalibration...

[scorpei]

A GBAMP with wifime --> FlasheMe, and maybe a GBAflash cart (for very specific homebrew, DSheretic).

[jangosolo]

What do I need if I want to use the FlashMe thing on a DS Lite. Also will I keep the brightness settings?
Get flashme v7 works a treat on my Lite - keeps brightness settings too

[hicaow]

go here for instructions for flashme .. http://www.dspassme.com/FlashMe.shtml

i used the flat end of a drill bit to short the point, way easier than a bent paperclip :]

its really easy to do , i mean u can take the metal off of the short while its going and it will just wait till u put it back on before carrying on .. plug your ds in tho , don't let the battery die half way through, that might not be good .. once its done it also has a fail safe mode where if the firmware gets wrecked some how some way you can revcover .. not to mention after its done u can update to new firmware without shorting the point ..

[The Pierced Weirdo]

I purchased the "media player with 4gb hard drive for ds". I have no problems running single file .nds homebrew. What I am having issues with is the emulators and the backups that I downloaded via here (http://www.nintendo-ds-roms.com/). I'm usually pretty tech savy. But for once in my life I'll admit to being a n00b and ask for help. This may not be the right thread. I'm still searching. If someone could direct me in the right way it would be much appreciated.

Datel said to come here. So I did.

[Little DJ]

is halo 3 coming on 360 and the xbox?
:confused:

[Little DJ]

is halo more action that halo 2?

[superbeef]

I purchased the "media player with 4gb hard drive for ds". I have no problems running single file .nds homebrew. What I am having issues with is the emulators and the backups that I downloaded via here (http://www.nintendo-ds-roms.com/). I'm usually pretty tech savy. But for once in my life I'll admit to being a n00b and ask for help. This may not be the right thread. I'm still searching. If someone could direct me in the right way it would be much appreciated.

Datel said to come here. So I did.

First off, don't get roms from there. They make you get emule and it's really gay. Keep googling and you can find some that offer regular downloads for backups. As for emulators, from my knowledge, there still aren't any good DS emulators.


I would go through with the whole Flashme thing, just so my brother can use my Passme. Though I'm still kind of worried I'll mess my DS up. Can anyone confirm how easy/full proof the procedure is?

Yeah, I was able to perform flashme on my red ds with no experience with anything of this sort. It was extremely easy, especially with the many step-by-step tutorials out there. I've performed flashme on 4 ds's now, and it's really easy to do.

[The Pierced Weirdo]

First off, don't get roms from there. They make you get emule and it's really gay. Keep googling and you can find some that offer regular downloads for backups. As for emulators, from my knowledge, there still aren't any good DS emulators.


The emulators I was speaking of were for other systems like sega genesis and snes. As in the picodrive(?) or the many other snes emulators.

I'm actually a fan of emule. It's a pain to learn. But once you have it down you can run downloads through ed2k kad and use the irc clien und download through #rizon. I also use Azureus for torrents. I'll get the torrents from emule and load them into azureus becuse it's java based and you don't need to be signed into the tracker. Or atleast this is my understanding.

I've started using Maximum Overload v1.0 (http://www.ftp.nu/files/4071/) to load my DS backups. But now I'm onto the quest of loading my GBA, GB and GBC backups. I have many carts and now that I have a 4gig drive I don't want to carry them around.

[mitford]

I have brought a max media launcher, super card an a cf. Ihave updated the software and firmware. When i put my SAV and DSQ files onto the cf card put it into the ds it starts to load then the screen goes blank. PLEASE HELP:confused: