Hi guys, I'm a complete noob to this but get the general idea of what these flash cards do. I am going to buy a Nintendo DS and I want to use it as a portable media device, personal stereo, for movies when I'm travelling, maybe viewing documents and anything else that I find it maybe useful for. Oh and a few games I want to play of course. I have a few questions though: 1) Which one would you guys reccommend? 2) Can any of these devices take high capacity, ie, 32GB micro SD cards? Bare in mind I would be taking this with me when I go backpacking so would like to put movies on it for long road trips, alot of music, and games as well as probably storing my photo's so I would want alot of storage space. 3) How good is the movie quality on the DS? (Audio + Video) Does it differ from movie to movie? 4) Can you run GBA ROM's from a card if it is inserted into the SD cartridge slot? (this is not really that important but thought I might as well ask). And finally would I be better getting a PSP for all this? The reason I was thinking about DS was because I prefer the games available for it, plus backwards compatibility with GBA. Thanks in advance for your time.
1. cycloDS 2) Yes 3) It's a 3" screen. What do you expect? A 6" DVD player would be cheaper and provide better audio/video. Getting it charged may be a problem but so will charging the DS. 4) No. You need a slot 2 cartridge as well. No comment on DS vs. PSP since I have no experience with the PSP and no desire to won one.
See how I can help... 1. Well theres a lot of good ones, just search this forum and you should find dozens of comparisons on them. Use something like cyclods, M3 real, Acekard, you name it, just search this forum. However I'd strongly recommend not getting the R4 because there are 14 "clones" and the original R4 team is done with no more updates. Future game support for these is unknown, and half the clones work horribly to not at all, while some work all right. 2. I'm not really sure about 32gb, but I think M3 supports SDHC, so in theory it should, although my phone only supports 4gb sdhc. I couldn't help you with any other carts, I don't have dirrect experience with them. Search the forum or use google. 3. The qualities "iffy", like it's all right, but the sounds fine. I think you need to use .dpg format, and theres a converter for that, and I think that lowers the quality of the video to make it smaller too. The quality might even have to be lower because the DS won't support higher, I dunno. Music on it is awesome, supports mp3 for sure. Anyways, search more on that. 4. Sorry you have to buy a slot 2 pack and load the rom on that, if it doesn't bother you then don't bother with it. 5. Uh, I don't really like PSPs, nor the games, only benefit is larger screen... Get a car adapter for the DS as well and you are good to go, and an extra battery from Blockbuster or something wouldn't be to bad either. It comes witha screw driver so you can take the cover off the battery too. Note: if you are getting a DS Lite you can get any flashcart, but if you get the new DSI, make sure you get a like some with I on the end, like "acekardi" or something... not sure what flashcarts have been made for it, so you will have to do some searching. I personally have a DS Lite. So yah you can use it as a portable media player, and I like the music on the speakers instead of the headset. Make sure the speakers aren't crackling when you play loud, because that ruins the speaker. Seriously, crackling = BAD! Do not play to loud for long, or you will regret it lol. Hope I have helped! P.S. Once you have your flashcart go to the first link in my signature for the most up to date firmware for it. No problem helping you out, your welcome.
Thanks for your help guys. I'm gonna borrow my brothers PSP this weekend so I'll muck about with that and see if I like it. I will probably still go with the DS though because apart from Crisis Core I can't think of one other game I want to play on the PSP. Anyways.... Daliun, I checked the CyloDS and they have 3 products on their site. What is the difference between the CycloDS evolution and the CycloDS microSD? From all I can tell one goes in slot1 of the DS and the other goes in slot2 and says it will run GBA games as well as NDS Rom's. Regarding movie quality, I know it is only a small screen but what I wanted to know was are movies watchable on the DS? Does it require a lot of hassle to convert the files and is it worth doing so? MaryD7, That Dingoo looks good but reviews say the SNES emulation is a bit dodgey. I love my SNES games and probably would have been sold there haha. On another note, what is emulation like on the DS, specifically SNES, Mega Drive and arcade?
From my understanding the CycloDS evolution has memory built into it, and is not expandable, and the microsd version requires a microsd card, althogh I am unsure what sizes it is compatible with. The movies are watchable, yes, I watched Transformers on mine. To convert it I am going to be using Super, as I have used that many times to convert files for viewing videos to 3gp and audio to 3g2. I'm not sure what aspect ratio, bitrate, quality and stuff I should use yet, but am looking into it and will post back once I find out. I will be posting a new thread right away if I can't find anything. Emulation is spectacular, with most games being compatible. just a few games that wouldn't work for me with SNES were super mario rpg (which has some special chip making unlikely to be compatible anytime soon), super mario kart, and one more I can't remember. I use SNEmulDS for SNES emulation, NESDS for NES emulation, and I had one for the sega master system and genesis, but found the games boring. Therefor I forget the names lol. I'll check back on this topic in a few hours or so to help again. Hopefully by then I know some more about converting movies for the DS. Edit: you can click on the highlited super video encoder link and it will take you to the glossary for a definition on it.
