I have read through all of these threads and am wondering if the M3 simply is a sound investment. Sounds like with M3 you can forget wifi and mp3's plus components might start melting? I do not have the money to go through "20" flashdrives. is anyone having a reliable experience with the M3? I would be getting this for my kid and he will -not- understand if it works the first day but then melts.
where did you read all that? if you just want to play NDS software, get an M3SS/R4, which is a lot more reliable and easy to use than the slot 2 devices, but it wont run any GBA games.
As I tried to say I read all that right here in this forum. do you have an M3ss? if so what is your experience with .dpg movies, .nds roms, .mp3's? How about action replay codes? Any trouble with the M3ss or the flash drives overheating or melting? How long have you had yours and how would you describe its reliability? I am considering getting one for my son(who owns a DS). I am highly technical and will do all the set up for him. The trouble is there is almost nothing positive written about it so I am skeptical about the wisdom of making such a purchase.
i'm not sure about the "nothing positive written about it" but maybe you can consider that people will generally post here only if they have problems. I own an R4, which is 99% same as m3 simply. same hardware, different branding and slightly different software. I have been an active participant in the R4 forums while they were still online and I have seen no complaints of the sd card melting or anything as extreme as that. I know you asked about the flash drive, and it is true that the flash drives issued with the first few batches of R4/M3SS (blue/translucent) were of poor quality. The flash drive I received (Gray with black trim) has worked just fine and I have used it almost every day. As far as going through 20 flash drives, I dont see how the R4 could cause that. It has to be the PC, or perhaps (but not likely) the microsd. The R4 is never directly connected to the flash drive. Sure, some people got a bum R4, which happens. most of them also reported receiving replacements. The most common point of failure is teh spring that locks the microsd card in place on the R4. This tends to happen more with people who press it too much -- more than necessary, i'd guess. I have had mine for over 3 months, and with almost daily taking out and putting back in i have yet to face this problem. I must opint out that even before i knew about the spring problem i handled it delicately, pushing it only as much as necessary. Some people worked around this issue by opening the R4 (a simple task with a mini philips head) and removing the spring altogether. This means you will have to push and pull the card to insert and remove, and also be careful to align it properly or the contacts wont connect properly. The built in moonshell gui provides some multimedia capabilities. The encoder requires some trial and error to get it working right with your source media. A 700mb avi of a full lenght movie (borat) encoded to 300mb dpg. The playback is smooth, but it shows only on one screen, and headphones are definitely required to be able to hear it outdoors. It also plays mp3 and if i'm not mistaken allows jpeg viewing. The R4 plays all nds software with no issues at all. there is no loader software, no patching, no settings to fiddle with. The last ROM released with new save format was zelda, and the R4 team had a kernel update to support the new save format within hours. The M3 users hacked the update to use it on the M3, and an official m3 update was issued within the next 2 days (i dont recall the specifics). Be sure to buy a japanese kingston 1gb or higher capacity microsd. This is available on most R4 selling sites like dealextreme. Cards of other makes may have trouble supporting some software like castlevania, resulting in jerks and freezes during gameplay. hope this clarifies things, and if I missed anything please ask again.
Dear Spathi, Thank you for your thoughtful reply. People do indeed come here for help so their messages focus on whatever problems they are having. Thank you also for your recommendations. I will certainly get a kingston. Well, based on your positive experience I am going to go ahead purchase either an M3 or an R4. I'm sure that will come back to report my own positive review. Cheers,
be sure to buy the japanese kingston, for all kingstons are made equal but the japanese kingstons are more equal than the others. there are a few other cards that run fast enough for the problematic software (there are only few titles that require the speed), but I do not know which ones. you can refer to the list here: http://wiki.scorpei.com/index.php/R4_compatibility_list#microSD.2FTransFlash_Compatibility the page also contains a compatibility list, where you can review the notes to see if any roms that you intend to use have problems with the R4. the M3 Simply page is here: http://wiki.scorpei.com/index.php/M3_DS_Simply_compatibility_list#microSD.2FTransFlash_Cards although the hardware and the firmware and software is mostly identical between the R4 and M3SS, you should only read the page for the card that you are going to buy, and not count on things working because its reported working for the other card. while it may be true in most cases, there is no guarantee that it will always be the same for both cards. you can also see compatibility charts for other slot 1 hardware to see why the R4/M3SS while being one of the cheapest even when including cost of the microsd, is still better than other slot 1 devices available today. also teach your child early to not press X in the file browser, because thats the delete function. and if he does press X, to press B to cancel the delete operation, because pressing A will delete the selected file. many people have asked for the delete function to be made optional, or at least less accessible, but the R4 team has different priorities. make backups of saved games often as a final note i urge you to monitor your child to see which games are played, and to buy the original cart for the games that are being played most often. i do this, and its beneficial for both the consumer (us), because we are able to evaluate whether we like the game based on actual experience and not just marketing and demos. it also benefits nintendo and the developers because we do buy software that we really use, and encourage development of the types of games we like most. I just buy them and store them away, and use the R4 for what it was meant to be - a homebrew and backup device.
As I live in the USA I used the echostore to order an M3ss and a kingston1gb. They delivered in 2 days. The package(s) was in good condition and a bill of sale was included. The M3ss was easy to set up, Roms working already with no hassles. Moonsheel not yet working due to technical difficulties but I have a few days to work on it. I will report back!
We took the DS + M3ss on vacation. Both performed well. My son was able to play all the games without difficulty. He was also able to watch shows and movies in the .dpg format. Wifi service works as well and since we came back he has been trading pokemon online etc. .mp3 files would not work despite my efforts. Also I was not able to change the 'theme' of the startup screen. Although I spent only a few minutes on this. I highly reccommend the M3.
Good to hear! OK, this is the best way to resolve the mp3 issue. I know for a fact that the standard moonshell included with 1.11 does support mp3 playback. the only way it wont work for you is if moonshell was not copied correctly or some files were not copied from the 1.11 release. The easiest way to do this is to take the 1.11 release zip or rar file, and unpack it to a new location on your local disk now, so long as you see just one folder, keep navigating into that folder. eventually you will see a bunch of files including _DS_MSHL.nds. WHen you reach this level, select ALL files AND folders that are alongside _DS_MSHL.nds, and copy them over to the main (root) directory of the microsd. Overwrite files as necessary This is guaranteed to work if you follow it exactly. Cheers
