Epicenter
October 29th, 2006, 09:21
Hello,
My apologies if I am a bit out of the loop on the DS homebrew/emulation scene, as I'm just beginning to get into it (yes, I know I am a bit late to the scene.) I sold my old DS because it hurt my hands too much, but now I intend to grab a DS Lite.
I'm presently living in Japan, and I can locally buy a Japanese DS Lite for a reasonable price (~16500 yen, 130 USD-ish, 74 GBP-ish), but I do not know of any local places to purchase an M3 Adapter, which appears to be the best choice for audio, video playback, image display and running homebrew/emulation/game software on the DS. My prior experiences with GBA flash cartridges led me to chinese sites like SuperUFO/Success-HK who proved reputable in the past, but they don't carry these devices.
Some googling for the units proved a bit confusing. What I would like to get is the model of M3 that takes standard-size SD cards, not MiniSD, and plugs into the GBA slot with a Passcard for the DS slot to allow the card to be seen for operation in "DS Mode". I am told the only models that allow use of regular-size SD card use are for the GBA slot. I've also been told the Passcard uses more battery power to perform the actual ARM7/ARM9 bus switching, but I imagine this use is fairly negligable.
Please correct me if I've made any mixups here or if there's a product better suited to me.
If at all possible, I'd like to order the device out of Japan to minimize shipping costs, but if it won't cost a fortune, any reputable company that'll ship to Japan from say, the US or UK is perfectly alright as well. I'd really love some recommendations since my googling for shops selling them have been baffling, like a page that mentions copying files from a PC to a CF card to run in an SD slot (??!!!?) or photos of a gigantic model that sticks out of the GBA slot by an enormous amount and then a note that says it is the 'new smaller version' with no photo of the size of that unit .. the one I was shown by a friend sat flush with the GBA slot and did not protrude.
In addition (Sorry for the length of this thread!) with the Passcard unit is flashing of my DS' firmware necessary? Or will flashing the firmware make use of the passcard unnecessary? I've heard also of slow access times causing severe lag in some games and software when reading from some SD cards, and was curious if there is one particular model to aim for-- I own a fairly generic Sandisk '1.0GB SD' card, with no other text on it-- no Ultra or II or any other indications of its variety. Is use of a firmware flash faster in any way than the Passcard, and what is needed to perform the flash? Some sort of PC connection cable (USB?) or is it done from another device?
Again sorry for the length of this message, I just want to be sure I'm not going to throw down hard-earned money on any hardware that won't get the job done. Feel free to just answer part of my questions if you like, or none at all- any help is appreicated. Thanks. :)
My apologies if I am a bit out of the loop on the DS homebrew/emulation scene, as I'm just beginning to get into it (yes, I know I am a bit late to the scene.) I sold my old DS because it hurt my hands too much, but now I intend to grab a DS Lite.
I'm presently living in Japan, and I can locally buy a Japanese DS Lite for a reasonable price (~16500 yen, 130 USD-ish, 74 GBP-ish), but I do not know of any local places to purchase an M3 Adapter, which appears to be the best choice for audio, video playback, image display and running homebrew/emulation/game software on the DS. My prior experiences with GBA flash cartridges led me to chinese sites like SuperUFO/Success-HK who proved reputable in the past, but they don't carry these devices.
Some googling for the units proved a bit confusing. What I would like to get is the model of M3 that takes standard-size SD cards, not MiniSD, and plugs into the GBA slot with a Passcard for the DS slot to allow the card to be seen for operation in "DS Mode". I am told the only models that allow use of regular-size SD card use are for the GBA slot. I've also been told the Passcard uses more battery power to perform the actual ARM7/ARM9 bus switching, but I imagine this use is fairly negligable.
Please correct me if I've made any mixups here or if there's a product better suited to me.
If at all possible, I'd like to order the device out of Japan to minimize shipping costs, but if it won't cost a fortune, any reputable company that'll ship to Japan from say, the US or UK is perfectly alright as well. I'd really love some recommendations since my googling for shops selling them have been baffling, like a page that mentions copying files from a PC to a CF card to run in an SD slot (??!!!?) or photos of a gigantic model that sticks out of the GBA slot by an enormous amount and then a note that says it is the 'new smaller version' with no photo of the size of that unit .. the one I was shown by a friend sat flush with the GBA slot and did not protrude.
In addition (Sorry for the length of this thread!) with the Passcard unit is flashing of my DS' firmware necessary? Or will flashing the firmware make use of the passcard unnecessary? I've heard also of slow access times causing severe lag in some games and software when reading from some SD cards, and was curious if there is one particular model to aim for-- I own a fairly generic Sandisk '1.0GB SD' card, with no other text on it-- no Ultra or II or any other indications of its variety. Is use of a firmware flash faster in any way than the Passcard, and what is needed to perform the flash? Some sort of PC connection cable (USB?) or is it done from another device?
Again sorry for the length of this message, I just want to be sure I'm not going to throw down hard-earned money on any hardware that won't get the job done. Feel free to just answer part of my questions if you like, or none at all- any help is appreicated. Thanks. :)