Thursday, July 29, 2010

how to differentiate between fake and real iEDGE DS Card

Beware Fake iEdge Card

Just recently, as early as February 12th, the existence of a fake iEdge card has come to light. We’ll try to report as many details on it as possible and we assure you that we neither stock nor sell fake cards. Many users have come to expect R4 cards to have bad and unreliable clones, but it’s always been assumed that the Edge brand was clone free, as it was for so long. That’s now changed with the introduction of this new clone. So far it has been confirmed that they are being distributed through www.r4i.co.uk but other sources might crop up in the coming weeks.

Looking at the packaging, it’s difficult to tell that it’s fake, but as soon as you open up the card there are a few giveaways just from the physical clues:

A black iEdge card is likely FAKE
A spring clip micro SD slot on the iEdge is FAKE
Packaging that directs you to http://www.edgei-ds.cn instead of http://www.edge-ds.cn is FAKE

While many production shots of the iEdge, even those on the official site show the iEdge in black, the actual card itself comes only in white. A black one may come out in the future, but is not in distribution currently.

If you are still unsure, then the following should also verify that the card is real or not:

Danny Phantom showing up instead of Sudoku (or the iEdge logo if unflashed) is FAKE

A red Menu? Icon showing up with improper software installed is FAKE

A different GUI then the official Edge software is FAKE

As near as we can tell the fake iEdge displays behavior of a DSTT clone, but there is also speculation that it is an Acekard 2i clone. Needless to say, it is far less refined then a real iEdge card and has no guarantee of its stability or continued support. It is definitely recommended to avoid this pathetic fake. The Edge Team has recognized the fake’s existence and released the following statement…

22 / 3 / 2010

IMPORTANT NOTICE: Fake iEDGE products in the market!

It has come to our attention that a site, namely http://www.edgei-ds.cn, is selling fake products using the EDGE brand name. These fakes are not supported by the EDGE firmware and the product is no way associated with the EDGE team. Consumers should avoid purchase of this product, as the support is poor and the compatibility is low. We will shortly post pictures showing you how to identify the fakes.

Below we have pictures of the REAL iEdge card in action. You can find this card on our page here: iEDGE DSi Card

A REAL iEDGE is polar white (for now).

A REAL iEDGE shows up as Sudoku after proper boostrap flashing (we preflash the card for all of our customers).

A REAL iEDGE has a non spring clip slot for the micro SD.
A REAL iEDGE directs you to the proper manufacturer website http://www.edge-ds.cn .

A REAL iEDGE has the official Edge software GUI.

As further developments occur we will report them as we come across them. If you are interested in an iEdge, rest assured, we carry the real deal. The software on our site comes straight from the manufacturer, and we never hide the manufacturer’s website from our customers, because…well…we have nothing to hide .

Once again, you can pick up an iEdge at the following link: iEDGE -EDGE DS Card for DSi

source from : http://www.dscardworld.com/blog/2010/05/11/fake-iedge/

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

How to distinguish between the real AK2i and Fake Acekard 2i?

Be Care Of Clone Carts ! Here ,we just give you a skill to distinguish between real acekard 2i and Fake Ak 2i .

Fake ak2i

This is the fake ak2i.

They're using the "Actel" chip which we do not use for a very long time. We do not sale this type of ak2i anymore. The clone cart has to open a window at the back of shell to fit the chip. You can even feel them by touching the sticker. So if you buy one Ak2i like this now then it must be fake.

fake ak2i Here is the internal images of clone cart. By the way the PCB is also different from our older type of ak2i, which used "Actel".

Now here is the our real Acekard2i.

Real AK2i

As you can see there's no window in the shell of real AK2i.

real ak2i

Now we're using new chip so that we do not have to open a window in the back of shell.

Here is a easy way to distinguish real one and clone one, using the latest official firmware or AKAIO. The clone one will be blocked.

we offer 6 Month warranty for real Acekard 2i /ak2i and Acekard 2.1. All Real Acekard cards have been 100% tested ,100% work before shipping .and all memroy cards have been installed the lasted firmware. you can contact us for a replacement for any issue of the real Ak2 and AK2i.

Get more information about the real Acekard 2i /AK2i from here .

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Supercard DS ONEi Review

Intro

Supercard has a long history of providing flash cartridges to the GBA and DS, being one of the first to provide stable support. Now, they’ve released the SuperCard DS ONEi – a cartridge very similar to the SuperCard DS ONE that was originally released as a slot-1 flash cart for the DS and DS lite. Right now, the current choices for a flash cart for the DSi are far slimmer than for the DSlite, so the release of the SuperCard DS ONEi was highly anticipated.

Physical Properties

The SuperCard DS ONEi comes bundled with a usb “flasher” and a microSD reader. The microSD’s reader is decent…I prefer not using it because it makes a slight grating noise as I put my microSD in. I don’t see any scratches or anything, but it still freaks me out. I’ve used it at least 10 times though, and it still works fine.

The USB flasher that is included is meant to flash the firmware of your Supercard DS ONEi should Nintendo release a firmware update that blocks the use of your Supercard. If Nintendo does, you’d be left with a SuperCard that can’t be updated (because you can’t access it on your DSi). This is where the USB flasher comes in. All you would need to do is copy some new firmware files onto your microSD, plug the microSD into the supercard, and then plug the supercard into the usb flasher. When the usb flasher is plugged into a usb port, it will read the files on your supercard and begin patching immediately. Essentially, the usb flasher helps update your card should your card ever become blocked.

The SuperCard DS ONEi itself is a little bulkier than the other DSi flash carts that I’ve tested. It feels like I’m stuffing the cartridge slot a bit when I put it in, but I guess that’s good to make sure it makes full contact with the metal contacts on the DSi. It is always detected by the DSi and has no problems in that department.

Booting/Interface

The Supercard DSONEi is VERY slow at loading and booting. I noticed that in a folder with multiple games (anywhere over 8), the ONEi would even lag when scrolling downwards. I don’t mean a slight pause either – I mean a good 1-2 second lag to scroll a SINGLE game down. This was VERY irritating, and it takes me nearly 20 seconds to reach a game that’s near the end of my folder (of 10 games).

Like the EzFlash V and Vi, the supercard is based off of moonshell. This means you have video, music, and text support, right from the firmware – no homebrew needed. One thing to note though, is that the developer of moonshell has requested that supercard (and all flash carts in general) not to copy his code for moonshell 2.0, which is faster and less buggy. Some flash cart companies have ignored this plea, making him quite angry. Supercard, however, has abided by his wishes (so far) and are using moonshell 1.5. However, the downside is that moonshell 2.0 is much faster with better video rendering and smoother operating. Hopefully the creator of moonshell will agree to let supercard run moonshell 2.0 sometime.

Roms
The ONEi seems to have support for even the newest roms, such as GTA: Chinatown (which many cartridges needed to be patched for). However, a huge downside to the ONEi is it’s rom loading time. I didn’t record the exact times, but even loading a small game like tetris felt like it took nearly twice as long (if not longer) to load. This is definitely a huge minus in my book – the faster a rom can load the better. To make up for the slow speed however, the supercard offers many awesome features that we’re used to having in the best ds lite carts, mentioned below.

Advanced features

By pressing X while looking at a rom file in the file browser, you can access and enable a bunch of features, such as realtime save, realtime guide, and realtime cheats. While it carries an impressive range of advanced features (or as the supercard website calls them, “powerful features” lol), the supercard team didn’t give a good job explaining how to use them. All you need to do to enable these features is tap on the box next to the feature. However, the supercard team failed to mention that enabling certain combinations simply cancels all the other features out. For example, when I turned on some combinations of advanced features the rom would no longer boot, or it would boot without ANY of the features.

1) Realtime save
The realtime save for the supercard seems to work great. It definitely doesn’t look nearly as pretty as the old CycloDS advanced menu, but it gets down and dirty with realtime save and works great on multiple games I’ve tested.

2) RealTime Guide

The ONEi is the first DSi flash cart to offer RealTime Guide. Many people have never experienced or seen this function, since many of the last generation flash carts for the DS lite/DS didn’t have it. This awesome feature allows you to view a text file while playing a game. You simply hit a key combination (for the supercard ONEi, it’s L+R+START+DOWN) and your game will pause, and a text viewer will pop up. However, the realtime guide could use a lot of work. Currently, it only displays guides on one screen, with a gigantic font. Most guides are considerably large, so it takes forever to scroll to where you need to read. The screen usually only holds two sentences or so at a time. Also, you must change your file format from a txt to .scd, which is specifically made for the supercard.

3) Realtime Cheats

This is a nice feature which allows you to activate/deactivate your cheats while playing. Sometimes, we just want the cheats to be available without having to save and reboot. However, you don’t want them to be on unless you need them. This is when it’s very convenient to have cheats that can be enabled while playing a game, so that they are only activated if you really need them.

4) Multiple Save Slots

One of my favorite features on the ONEi is its easy-to-use multiple-save interface. Some flash carts have this function, but it’s a bit difficult to keep track and activate the saves. With the Supercard DS one, you only have to enter the saves menu and click “add” to add a new save. You can make as many saves as you want, and to choose the one you want to play you just need to select one and make it the “default”. Each rom can have multiple save files.

Pros and Cons

Pros	Cons
RealTime Guide	Needs special text format/long patching
RealTimeSave	Poor Advanced Feature Menu
RealTimeCheats	Incredibly slow to load roms
USB Flasher

Conclusion:
The Supercard DS ONEi has many of the features that I would like to see in an ideal flash cart for the DSi. However, it’s SERIOUS problem with lag makes the cartridge a huge turnoff. It can take 2-3 minutes for me to load up a game. Also, the many flaws in the design of it’s RealTimeGuide make the guide practically unusable. I would personally rarely use it because of its incredibly slow loading and the errors I run into when applying advanced features.

Overall Grade: B+

Update!
The supercard team has just released their newest firmware, which increases the speed that cart works at. Also, I wanted to mention (due to popular demand) that by changing the view to list view (or anything without the picture icon), I can greatly increase the rom-list speed. However, I personally feel that if other carts can load the rom images and info immediately, so should the supercard. Reflecting on my scoring, I might have been a little harsh. It offers more features than any other DSi flash cart, and has no physical flaws. Therefor, I am bumping up it’s Score from B- to B+. I still prefer my other cartridges over this one. It probably just isn’t as bad as I made it out to be.

Source from : http://www.goodtechtips.com/supercard-ds-onei-video-review/

Thursday, July 22, 2010

EZ Flash 3 in 1 Review

Introduction:
The EZ Flash 3in1 expansion pack is a very useful tool, if you want to play Gameboy Advance games, add some rumble to those games that support it, and have DS Browser functionality. Of course, with the last two, you need to patch it. When I first got my EZ Flash, I was very excited because it was my first time being able to play Gameboy Advance games with my M3. When I got home to unpack it, I was surprised.

Packaging:

The packaging of the EZ Flash 3in1 was very basic. I liked it.

When I read reviews off the site I ordered it from, ModChipCentral, people said it came with an old GBA cartridge, which I would have been happy with because I could use it with my Nintendo DS Phat. To my disappointment there was none, just the Nintendo DS Lite cartidge, and nothing more.

Hardware:

The hardware consists of the board, one of those rumble motors, and a battery.

I was quite impressed with the toughness and durability of the EZ Flash 3in1, but the fact that the screw was on the top left of the cartridge, making it easy to slide on the ride side and break something.

The EZ Flash now has 512 Mb of NOR Flash memory, in the older version it has 256 Mb of NOR Flash memory, for copying of GBA roms, allowing the EZ Flash 3in1 act like a real GBA cartridge, 128 Mb of PSRAM, when PSRAM is used, and when the Nintendo DS powers down, the data does not save. Thirdly, it has a 4 Mb of SRAM data, which has a battery, so the any saves will not corrupt when the DS powers down. The PSRAM is used for expansion memory for the NDS Browser. Lastly, the EZ Flash 3in1 has a rumble feature, this enables you to play games like "Mario and Luigi: Partners in Time.

Performance:

The EZ Flash 3in1 Expansion pack has lasted me the longest time, it's case hasn't broken in any way yet, which is good. The only problem I've had with the EZ flash is the rumble. The rumble pack in the EZ Flash 3in1 is really loud, and I mean really loud, not like the M3 Rumble pack, which is pretty quiet, not too terribly loud, and gives the perfect amount of rumble to the game you are playing.

Overall:

Okay, now let's look at the pros and cons of this Gameboy Advance expansion/rumble cart.

Pros:

Durable
Does everything it says
Good quality

Cons:

Rumble is way to loud
You have to patch games to work with rumble
You have to patch the NDS Browser rom
GBAExploader does not work with M3 unless patched
Battery is sometimes dead before you receive it
Tough to open because it has adhesive inside after you unscrew it

Packaging: 10/10 the packaging was neat and the EZ Flash 3in1 had no chance of sliding around in its package because it is packed firmly in the centre of plastic.

Hardware: 8/10 because it did not come with an original Gameboy Advance cartridge and the thing was difficult to open, when you have no finger nails to grip the middle of the EZ Flash 3in1 to pry it apart.

Performance:7/10 because it did do everything it said, but it took awhile for everything to work properly

Overall: 8/10 After hard work for making everything to work, it was well worth the purchase. Thank you for reading this review.

source from :http://www.dsdatabase.org/content.php/56-EZ-Flash-3in1-Review

SuperCard DS Two Testing /review!

Well, i just got my Supercard DS Two from SC Team, so as i did before with EOS, i'm starting a review of the new card and the new functions of it's new OS.
I have taken a bunch of photos of it and plan to add descriptions for all the sections, but it might take some time since i'm don't have as much free time as before.

First, a photo of the contents:

You probably have seen this before, the card is black, comes with a Micro SD card reader, a small instruction manual in Chinese/English and mine also came with a black strap with the Supercard logo engraved in it. In other photos appear different color straps, so i'm not sure if they will also come in those colors, but the black one looks pretty nice.

The front and back of the card:

As mentioned, the card is black, the sticker is kind of shiny and has a squared protuberance in it. On the back we can see that it has teeth, i'm mentioning this since there were many users asking about it before. Sorry if the quality of the pictures is not the best, but i'm doing this in a rush.

The DS Two compared with the DS One SDHC:

It can't be seen in this image, but the DS Two it's a bit thicker than the DS One, so it's a bit harder to make it go in (but not by a lot). But it doesn't cause any kind of problem.
The memory card slot is spring loaded, just like the other Supercards, the spring seems a bit stronger than the one in the DS One SDHC.

Another photo of both cards, this time also showing the strap that came with mine:

Now going into the card functions, the first screen after setting the card in the slot 1 of my DS (I'm using it with a DS Phat):

As seen in the photo, it appears in the DS with the Fish Tycoon game info, i assume this was made to bypass the block that was introduced with DSi 1.4 firmware.

The selection screen:

After pressing the Fish Tycoon logo, this screen appears almost inmediatly (the loading time is pretty low). The available options are DS_Game, GBA Emulator, Moonshell, Slot 2 GBA and Slot 2 NDS.
Slot 2 options are to be used when a slot 2 card is inserted in the DS (for DS Phat/DS Lite), in my case they booted my Supercard Mini SD card. I can't test if it works with other slot 2 cards, it would be useful if someone can test them.
DS_Game allows to load NDS games using the DS Two, Moonshell and GBA Emulator are self explanatory. Each option has a different icon.

The gba emulator intro screen and the emu options:

I plan to add more screenshots of the options and the functionality, but i will do that later since right now i don't have a lot of time.
To load a game you need to use the New option and look for it in the card.

Loading a game:

The video/audio section:

Game fast forward allows to run the gba game at a faster speed (no audio in this mode), frame skip type allows to set the frame skip level at auto or manual, this helps to run a game a bit faster by not loading some of the frames (setting it too high might make the game look choppy), and i think that sound switch allows to enable/disable sound, tough i haven't tested.

The save state section:

It allows to save/load the game at any time, with multiple slots.

The cheat section:

Allows to use cheats in the gba games, i haven't checked details about the format atm, so i can't really tell a lot about it.

The tools section:

From here you can take a snapshot of the game running and change the mapping of the buttons, not really sure about the other two options (i guess the sands of time is a compatibility fix).

The others section:

I think that cpu frequency allows to make the cpu run slower or faster, the other ones are pretty much self explanatory.

The DS_game section:

Here are screenshots of the DS_game section (runing DS games using the DS Two), on the highlights, the DS Two remembers the last game played, and also if you press start, the menu shown is displayed, allowing access to the customization options of the card (File operation, Skin, Language, System Settings and Help). It came with two different skins, named Silver and Pink, the one shown here is Silver, and in the next photos i'll be using the Pink skin so you can check both of them.
The available options when showing the roms are list w/icons and icons, it's possible to switch between them pressing Select.

The available languages (using pink skin):