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Do I need the slot 2 cartridge to run GBA games on my M3/R4?

Discussion in 'Nintendo DS' started by ToxicFish, Dec 15, 2007.

  1. ToxicFish

    ToxicFish Regular member

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    I am doing some general research on modding the Nintendo DS and I've come across so many options, I don't know where to start... One of the main questions I have is why is there a slot 2 cart nessassary to play GBA games? Can you run GBA games without it?

    I've seen products that make me wonder what the slot 2 is nessassary for...

    There is this combo that is offered by M3 and also an all in one type. They both say that the have like 256mbit of memory or something. So, am I limited to that for my game roms or is that space reserved for apps and my games are saved in a different location?
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    The slot 2 cart says "movie player." so there is not a movie player with a normal slot 1 M3/R4 mod aswell?
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    It's just weird... I'm comeing from the ps2/psp mod world. I'm familiar with boot disks and I figured that the M3/R4 mods where simple boot devices. It looks a little more complicated that what I had thought.
     
  2. pryme_H

    pryme_H Regular member

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    ToxicFish,
    Welcome to the NDS scene!
    I think you're a bit confused as shown on your thread title. M3/R4 are slot-1 devices mainly for NDS ROMs. Now, I don't know much about the boundaries of M3. Nonetheless, the R4 has also full support for NES games and very meager tolerance for SNES. Both flash carts were built by the same developer. Howerver, firmware updates for the R4 come out first.
    There is no work-around, as of yet. To play GBA ROMs, you absolutely need a slot-2 device. Flash carts mentioned above can utilize micro SD cards up to 2GB in size. The same card is used to hold game saves.
     
  3. ToxicFish

    ToxicFish Regular member

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    Thank you pryme_H for your welcome and your quick reply

    By "very meager tolerance for SNES" support, I assume you mean that there are very few snes games that do work right? That kind of sucks, but oh well... What about the slot 2 movie player? Do I really need to buy one of those too if I want to play my own video?

    So M3/R4 are basically the same thing huh... I've read before that the R4 does get more updates than the M3 but that some people still prefer the M3 over the R4. Do you have a preferance between the two? Ease of use or range of compatibility/adaptability being examples of deciding factors.

    Also just want to make sure on this,.. The GBA expansion packs out there do use flash cards right? If not, I think it would be kind of difficult to transfer the files onto the device. Sorry I'm so green on the topic... Some of these answers are just so hard to find.

    Thanks
     
  4. dragnandy

    dragnandy Regular member

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    well the SNES emulators are sub par. they are great for the games that work, but some snes roms dont work with some emulators. i guess because the emulators are still in progress.i fine it fun though, with main games working well like mario and such.

    no you do not need a slot 2 cartridge for movies, the m3 simply/R4 can handle it well with moonshell (a multimedia application that is built in, allowing you to play music, movies, pictures, and read text files). but i must tell you now that the moonshell app is not great for movies because it is only compatible with dgp. file videos.

    there have been quiet a few threads about this but the m3 simply and R4 are exactly the same thing. the only difference is (1) the sticker on the cartridge is different and (2) on the main menu it'll say M3 rather than R4. the i dont think the update dates for m3 simply and r4 are that far apart.

    sorry if this is a little long but i would also like to add, how much space are you looking for? games run around 32mb, 64mb, and 126mb (bytes). r4 and m3 simply max are 2gb. if your looking for something more, the m3 real is another alternative, which supports micro-sd SDHC, which is sd high capacity, starting 4gb and higher. theres a sticky about m3 real if you want more info.

     
  5. ToxicFish

    ToxicFish Regular member

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    I think 2GB should be enough for what I wanted. I pretty much want this thing to be like my PSP (music, videos and all my games) I probably won't be able to put too too much on there, but a few episodes of bleach or metalocalypse would keep me happy.

    Sometime back I had seen a media player for the DS that made it look like an ipod. I'd like to look more into that too.
     
  6. Biomenece

    Biomenece Member

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    Im getting M3 real cause it auto patches homebrew apps. The thing about GBA slot 2 device is that you have the roms on slot 1 cart and when you run the rom the m3 loads the rom to the gba slot 2 device so the DS can play it natively (like its playing a retail gba cart)

    im not sure if R4 can play gbas without a slot 2 device.
     
  7. pryme_H

    pryme_H Regular member

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    Indeed, you still need a slot-2 device to run GBA ROMs. R4 alone will not suffice.
     
  8. shummyr

    shummyr Regular member

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    Yes You Need A Slot 2 CARD/ADAPTOR
     
  9. hypp0crit

    hypp0crit Member

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    Are there any recommendations for what slot-2 cartridge will play GBA roms using an R4? I'm not very familiar with the hardware for slot-2.

    Also, how big do the movie files run once they're converted to .dgp? Like...if I were to convert a 20-ish minute episode of a tv show.
     
    Last edited: Feb 5, 2008
  10. silk42

    silk42 Regular member

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    It's called Lick's Media Player and you can find it here.
     
  11. OmegaGnat

    OmegaGnat Member

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    The reason you need a slot 2 cart is the GBA games need to be loaded to the ram, Slot 1 carts do not have ram. A slot 2 will also allow the use of the opera web browser.

    Do you need to put the GBA backups on the slot 1? I was hoping to keep all the GBA games/movies on the slot 2 cart so i could easily drop it in a alternate DS if i wanted.

    As of now no slot 1 card can play GBA games without a slot 2 cart.
     

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