***M3 USERS: Guide to using homebrew and ROMs on the Nintendo DS and Lite***

At the start of my guide I am updating the M3 firmware.

 

one more question. Hows the battery life when using one of these. Can I still just close the ds when done or should I take out the cart n passcard when done? Thanks

 

There is a noticeable decrease in the DS's battery life when using a flash cart, however it only takes off about an hour or two (which is not that much considering the huge battery life of the DS)

The battery life of the M3's battery (for SRAM) is about 2-3 years and is reasonably easy to replace, though the device can work without it's battery.

The Passcard makes little difference to the DS battery.

Closing the lid of the DS with the M3 and passcard plugged should not make any difference compared with closing it with a DS game plugged in, however some people say that the M3 still drains the battery, i never really use sleep mode for more than half an hour so can't say if this is true.

 

There are so many different types of M3 linker card. M3, M3 lite, M3 lite Pro, M3 lite perfect. Seems like the M3 lite Pro is the least expensive one. But what does it mean NDS games require patching? Seems like the more expensive one like M3 lite doesn't require that. What does patching mean? Does it mean I can't drag and drop the zip nds file into the flash? Does M3 lite Pro play most of the NDS and GBA games w/o slow down and blank screen? Where can I find the cheapest price for Pass3 card, M3 Lite, 1G Flash card bundle? I can find one for $99 + shipping, but that one is M3 Pro. Pls help.

 

The M3CF/M3SD/M3SD Slim/M3miniSD/M3 Lite all do the same thing, but just use different types of memory card, and are therefore different sizes, they all need games to be patched (like all Slot-2 devices) but this is done behind the scenes when you copy your game over using the gamemanager software.

The M3 Pro range despite the name is actually the crapper range as it has no GBA support, the NDS features are exactly the same as the normal M3 line, this inclues the need to copy the games over using the gamemanager software.

 

Does modchipstore.com selling the real M3? I heard there's a lot of fake ones which will break after 2-3 months or so. They have the bundle for this which seems to be a bargain:

http://www.modchipstore.com/NDS-Nin...d-passcard-3-combo-GBA-mini-SD-1GB-16396.html

It said the M3 PRO will support GBA, but the official M3 site it supports NDS only. Pls advise.

Thanks!

 

That will most likly be a real model, as for them mentioning GBA support assume its their mistake, as I have seen that description almost everywhere for the normal M3s (i.e. copy-paste job)

 

I finally got my M3. But when I try to run the M3 Manager SW to write the NDS game. I got Runtime Error. Does anybody know why? I have unstall and reinstall, but it's still the same. :-(

 

Could be a problem with the install, try donwloading it again, or from a different site - I don't recommend downloading it from the M3 site as it is slow and fails alot.

Try downloading from www.dualscene.net

 

Just want to say thanks for the guide. I'm a new user to the M3 (had an XROM2/Superpass before) and this has come in handy in getting me started.

I just received my M3/Passcard/1GB miniSD/SD Card Reader from modchipstore.com. I think you should add them to the recommended sellers. I saw you mentioned them earlier but hadn't gotten recommendations about them. Well I ordered the kit ($106 after shipping) on Sunday and it arrived two days later on Tuesday! (Shipped from them in Texas to me in California). That was for the cheapest shipping option too, it was very fast.

 

I usually don't add other retailers till i've used them myself, but I have heard this being recommended through the forums alot, so will add it now.

Other updates:
- changed M3 firmware revision from E28 to V29
- added some (irrelevant) info at bottom of guide as I added some parts of this to an essay, and needed to prove it's my work.

 

I've tried the latest M3 game manager from dualscene.net, but I still got the runtime error when I try to write the nds rom to the SD thru the usb reader. But when I try to write it to my hard drive, it's ok, can I just copy the patched rom from the hard drive and directly copy to the SD w/o using the M3 game manager?

 

you can but you need to also copy over the save it makes when it patches the game.

 

Make sure you copy the save file to the NDSSAVE folder or it will not work, you can out the NDS game anywhere on the SD card.

Other than that, yes patching the game to the hdd then copying it over to the SD card will work fine.

 

There isn't any save file when I write the NDS ROM to the Hard Drive. It's just another .nds file with different file size. :-(

 

Look for a folder in the root of your drive called NDSSAVE. For example, if you just have one hard drive, check for a folder called C:\NDSSAVE\ and the saves will probably be in there.

Whenever I write the roms and save to my hard drive instead of the SD card, they always default to that folder no matter where I specify the program to write them.

 

Thanks Mr_Hanky and Krystover for the help!
I am able to copy games over from HDD to the SD and
play. But if I copy more than 4 to 5 games into SD,
the M3 won't load any of them, it just hang there.
And if I just copy 4 or 5 games, the bigger ROM (>32MB)
sometimes have blank screen when loaded. And I can
add more ROM to the SD anymore on the 2nd time. I need
to format it in order to make it work again. Is it
the M3 problem or the SD problem? I have the Kingston
2GB SD from Buy.com. Is it good compatible with the M3?
Thanks again!

 

How do you find out which version I have and update the firmware on the M3? Thanks

 

Turn on your M3 in DS mode, go to settings then press select, yo will have three options, one of these wll show you what firmware you currently have installed on your M3, i can't check what option shows this as my DS is 48 miles away ¬_¬

Check my guide at the beginning of the thread, it says near the top how to update the M3 firmware.

 

UPDATE:
Have changed the latest firmware revision from V29 to V30