Ds Flashcard Related Faqs

Thanks for your attentions that we have received a loy of commons and suggestions about the video guide of Nintendo flashcard user's guide. There're so many friends and our customers showing their practical feelings and also leaving their questions on the message board. So please allow us to list a FAQ about Nintendo flashcard, mainly on R4 and its related card kits (while the most of cards work in the same way). Wish this blog article can help you to solve the problem.

Q: What's R4 and those ones called Nintendo flashcard?
A: Here is the official intro about it. In more simple words, it allows you to run game and homebrew on your Nintendo handhold console DS.
The R4/R4DS Cartridge is the current top-of-the-line in DS SLOT-1 flash carts. It is just an amazing little device like original DS cart size, it is a complete solution with no need to purchase any additional components or deal with any messy software and truly the easiest media enhancer you have ever done; To simply put it, this is a must have peripheral for any regular DS/DS lite owner.

Q: Where can I get those cards?
A: We suggest you buy them from Online shops, Ishopvideogame is a good place to go.

Q: Well, I have one, then?
A: First you should get a Micro SD card as "the container of data". Then please go to the official site of your flashcard kit to download the latest kernel(the core file which activates the card). Connect Micro SD card to PC with the card reader, unzip the kernel package and copy all folders and files to the root directory of Micro SD card. Plug the Micro SD card into flashcard and turn on the DS, you will see the GUI.

Q: Hey wait, you list too many cards so which one is the best? Any suggestion?
A: Every card has its own distinguishing features to make the shopper slow their steps. That is to say, please be definite about the important feature you want to get before ordering the card. There is no the best but the most suitable. We recommend five cards among them: R4(and its clones), Ak2, EZ-flash, M3 real and DSTT. You can find the review at our blog here and here.

Q: My card gets stuck on the Loading Screen, what's the matter?
A: There're a variety of reasons causing it happens, resulting in display "system flie error", "Loading?", "SD/TF card error", "Couldn't find the card", "hardware incompatible", black or white screen, unknown complicated code, etc. Here are something you can do to deal with them:
1. Leave a room in your SD card(about 50MB), because some of cards generate a system file when first-time booting.
2. Poor contact. Please check if plug-in TF card successfully, or re-plug TF card. Sometime need clean up the copper pin of SD card.
3. Too many disk defragments in SD card or bad system flies occur. Format the SD card.
4. Make sure that the kernel is compatible with the flashcard. For example, here is a English verion R4, so please download the English version kernel not French or Chinese one.
5. If you follow these four guides above and still nothing happens. Ask shop for replacement.

Q: Finally I enter the GUI, but I can't run my favourite game!
A: There're some issued games which fails to pass on the certain card. First check the game while some of them are bad dump. Then some of them can be solved by adding patches, please keep an eye on those well-known NDS related forum such as GBAtemp. The third point, if you got freezed during the gameplay. That mainly because the game you play requires high data transfer speed, so please use a better SD card in good quality such as Kingston and Sandisk(you can find at our site).

Q: I'm a nostalgic man so what about running GBA games on DS?
A: Certainly most of DS flashcard support GBA Rumble Pak and GBA Browser. However there is no GBA Slot on the newest version of Nintendo DS: DSi, so you can only enjoy those GBA masterpieces on original DS or DS Lite.

Q: So the flashcard is a thorough game running cartridge?
A: Not at all. You can watch movie, listen to the music, read E-books and comics, etc. The only thing you can do is to use the media player on DS like Moonshell, Sakura Player or else. We mean, the expanded function of multimedia on Nintendo DS is pretty comprehensive and well done.

Q: Hi I heard that the latest cards support SDHC, that is to say I can use the Micro SD card up to 32GB?
A: Some official flashcard site announced that. From our test on the best sold cards, there will be some barriers for DS to run such a huge SDHC card due to the construction and capability of its hardware. On the other hand, the maxium size of DS game is 256MB, so it's unnenecessary to get such a huge SD card for DS. We reconmend 8GB SD card, that's perfectly enough.
Btw, the original R4 can only support up to 2GB SD card at max. Please go our video channel to watch the review.

Q: Why SDHC unstable sometimes?
A: Because the default unit is 4K while the SD card is formatted under Windows OS. We can alter it by keying in the command in DOS:
4GB card?format X:/fs:fat32 /a:32K enter (change to 32K)
8GB card?format X:/fs:fat32 /a:64K enter (change to 64K)
"X:" stands for the label of SD card.

Q: What's homebrew? Can I eat it?
A: You get us crazy guys? Homebrew is a term frequently applied to video games produced by consumers to target proprietary hardware platforms not typically user-programmable or that use proprietary storage methods(intro from Wiki). So they're various tools and games developed by the player themselves, most of which is helpful and of functionality.

Q: Well, where can I post my question which is not mentioned in this FAQ?
A: Thanks for your support. Please leave your comment on our Video Channel, homepage and our blog. We will reply you ASAP while recieving it. The typical question will be added to this FAQ. We express heartfelt thanks to your participation.

Q: That's it. Btw, who the hell are you?
A: ???? kidding? Welcome back to home, it is Ishopvideogame, the best game accessories online shop in China.