So I bought a DS... now what?

[trevelyn]

no i dont think there is one, theres GB/GBC but not GBA (that i know of) thats good you got the dock, its so worth it.  in fact i rarely use my ipod any more since i bought one!

[mr_doc]

There's a 4gb max media player which you can use instead of the dock. $65 on amazon.

[MattGSX]

The player uses a really, really slow hard-drive that has hardware support to "match" the games 'n' music card. And the seek time is really bad. Most people who use it end up switching to a CF card, so it would have cost me more.

UPDATE: DS can't emulate GBA, I found out. It has to do with the hardware and ram issues. It's the same reason most people who plan on using the web functions of DSLinux end up getting a Supercard or M4 instead of a MMD.

[trevelyn]

yeah i bought a 2GB 80x Sandisk CF card from ebay or something for like $50.  It holds a lot of stuff.  I would get a CF card that seeks at 80x or above to be safe.  Each ROM is about 64~128 MB.  and movies rip (using the software cd that comes with the dock) from avi's or mpg's to d3v files.  Which arent very big themselves.

[mr_doc]

UPDATE: DS can't emulate GBA, I found out. It has to do with the hardware and ram issues. It's the same reason most people who plan on using the web functions of DSLinux end up getting a Supercard or M4 instead of a MMD.

I got the supercard, superkey and a 1gig sd card. Upon converting the nds roms according to the instructions here:
http://eng.supercard.cn/manual/software.htm
they have instructions for loading gba games, so I would guess they work with supercard.

[MattGSX]

Yeah, I forgot about that part. The Supercard CF allows 32 megs of ram to be loaded, which are needed for web browsing, gba playing, etc, etc.

Trev, do you have a working web browser with your MMD?

[MattGSX]

So either my MMD or my CF card fried out on me last night, which sucks, because I got a lot of things running. I have a new CF already on the way (I ordered them cheap), but that may not be the problem. If that ends up being dead, what should I do as a replacement? Since I can't get anything in WI anyway, I'm considering either a Supercard, GBA Flash, or an R4. If my dock is dead, I'd prefer not to buy another one, since they have such limited program support and hog so much memory.
Any suggestions?

[trevelyn]

what?? it "fried"?? does the OS load or not, when you boot the DS?  If it doesnt load your media NDS cart is broken, if it loads and your bottom screen says "no device in slot 2" try to open the dock with a small philips head screw driver and pull the CF card out and put it back in.  make sure its snug.  Also try formatting the card with FAT32 or FAT.  I don't understand your "compatibility" issues, mine is working just fine.   If you really want to just play GBA games i suggest selling the DS and buy a (new back lit LED) GBA and the GBA flash cart from here http://www.gameboy-advance.net/  to save you some money.  I play DS games on the DS, and so far i am up to 180 working ROMs which is roughly $5400 USD i saved because of this thing that would have inevitably spent, bcos im a DS addict. 
and yes the browser in DSorganize is working fine, in fact if you havent checked out DSorganize in the first place i suggest you do.   http://www.dragonminded.com/?loc=ndsdev/DSOrganize

heres some of its features:
  Major Features

        * Multi-protocol chat client
        * Unicode support
        * Multi-server in IRC
        * DCC commands on IRC
        * JavaScript in the web browser
        * RSS Feed Reader
        * Hotspot configuration
        * WMA playback
        * XSPF Playlist support
        * RTF support
        * Implement hex input keyboard

Minor Features

        * Ability to see track names on the streaming client
        * Bullet customization in the Todo list
        * Allowed extension filter in the file browser
        * Undo in scribble
        * Search in text/html editor and viewer
        * Batch files
        * Arbitrary file text editing in file browser
        * /ignore command on irc
        * ability to do /list in irc
        * Increase wav recorder quality
        * Macros for IRC

 

[MattGSX]

So one of the posts I made never got added b/c of a network time-out. That kinda explains things.

I found a MMD compatible build for dsOrganize. If you look, trev, it seems most people have trouble loading it. Maybe they don't know how to patch and re-name the file? I CLEARLY HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT, EVER..

My flash card crapped out on me. When the MMD was shipped, the pins for the cf card were facing slightly downward, which meant that excess pressure was required to set the cf card. Rather than take the dock apart and bend the pins back, I kept applying that pressure. Eventually, the card (thankfully not the dock) quit on me. I can't load it in a standard card-writer, either, so there's no re-formatting. I just lost $20 on that one, but my 2 gig came in today, and it worked, so I'm not too bugged.

dslinux doesn't work. I have the mmd build, as well. my old card would load but not login, new card won't load. I'm going to try making it my default bootme instead of running it within dso, but I don't know if it will work.

Working rom collection is up to 15 for me. will get MUCH higher when I find a faster-reading card. Formatted to FAT by default.

Moonshell works. The newest build solved the setup issues I was having.

dsaim works, as does the dso browser. I didn't realize I had to set up the wfc in a ds game to be recognized.

nitrotracker works... sort of.

I don't care that much about gba games. I said that only bc it would have been cool to get a few gba carts working, but if I'm not buying any ds games, I can afford some gba carts used.

[MattGSX]

UPDATE: dsLinux works as well. I set it as the default bootme file, and that solved the issues. I was trying to open it from dsOrganize, which was quitting bc it was trying to auto-patch the nds file before opening it, causing an error (linux.nds doesn't have a dldi section).

I'm going to start playing with that now, as a matter of fact.

whoo-pa

[trevelyn]

good good good good to hear! i remember i had to do something funky when i booted into DSOrganize the first few times, like set the system clock back to 0:00am, er something.  but it worked great.   Ds-Scene is a great place to get stuff, but you can google more, theres so much out there for this thing, and think about in the future how much shit we will be able to do with this bad ass handheld.. xD  A few people are working with the libs of free VoIP clients for the DS, so thats something to look forward to.  Also i just bought a 4GB Sandisk 133x CF card from Best-Buy, (called extreme III i think).  I formatted it to FAT32, and its fast, and fits like 40 ROMs on it.  Or every episode of PLA radio X) Did you check out the free MP3's from the DSOrganize link i left? they're pretty good too.  The paint application is fun, Mooshell is kind boring, and i <3 the Apple Tone played when DSO boots up My own mediocre attempt at humor has been highly amusing to myself...
Oh, the WiFi settings were always in the DS. You just have to boot a ROM or use a real game to set the ESSID/WEP KEY/etc..  i remember the first game to have it was Mario Kart DS i think. heh. DS r0x.  Oh, and mostly ALL of the Homebrew games are worth playing, I CLEARLY HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT, EVER. which ones you tried yet, but most of them are little puzzes or tetris clones.  but some are very unique, and quite cool. like "touch me, im famous" or "everlasting love (I-III), the Kirby game, Smash Bros.,  etc.

have you tried Super Mario War DS??  - trev.

[trevelyn]

damn DSOrganize rocks, i just dl'd it again, very cool.   

[MattGSX]

Yeah, I think I like dso much more than dsLinux. As much as I love the idea of linux on my handheld, without the ability to run multiple virtual terminals, it's sort of annoying. Moonshell is groovy as an energy-efficient media player, but I like Licks quite a bit, as well.

The NeoFlash comp build of DSO is compatible with the MMD by default by DLDI patching and then running all applications through Chism's bootloader, which WOULD rock except for the fact it tries to auto-patch all apps, which can cause un-patchable apps to freeze out. The new Arkcard does that, too, which ended my urge to pick it up. I have to find SOMETHING that can do a ram workaround, though, because you know the next set of killer homebrew apps are going to start utilizing it (seeing as almost all non-Datel cards now support at least 32 and max 64 mb ram). Supercard is going to fade out in the US pretty soon, I think, since it's so pirate-friendly. Possibly the same thing for GBAMP-style setups, like the M3, but who knows?

I can't get Warioware Touched! to work, possibly bc my card reads too slow. I tried patching disable turbo load, unpacking the rom and replacing the arm7 bin before patching, everything. It doesn't get past the "Nintendo" splash. weak.

[trevelyn]

I can't get Warioware Touched! to work, possibly bc my card reads too slow. I tried patching disable turbo load, unpacking the rom and replacing the arm7 bin before patching, everything. It doesn't get past the "Nintendo" splash. weak.

we are pirates of teh internetz.  if j00 want i can send j00 mine copy that worked good.
i could get past the whole annoying movie in the beginning of the game.  im so glad Mariio vs. DK finally works, that game is addictive!!

[MattGSX]

I would love it if j00 sent me a backup

What emulator would j00 recommends I use if I want to try something other than MO? Are there other stable emulators for the MMD, or that at least patch well enough to run on it?