Nintendo DS Lite ?

[sportswizdan]

Hi...
I just bought my daughter a Nintendo DS Lite for X-Mas. I am very new to ANY of its emulation and other options that are available. We want to be able to play DS games as well as GameBoy Advance games on it through emulation. She might also want to play some MP3 songs on it as well. So what would be the best device or devices out there to accomplish this through compatibilaty of DS and Advance games, and please keep in mind being somewhat easy to use and set up? Also, what is the difference between slot 1 and slot 2 devices for it? Thanks to all in advance...

Dan

[ften]

You'll want a slot 1 M3  or a SuperCard solution. You will also need a SuperKey or a Passcard 3 which allows the DS to play unassigned code. Most online stores sell these bundled with the cards

M3;
http://www.m3adapter.com/

SuperCard;
http://eng.supercard.cn/

Slot 1 is the normal DS cart, and Slot 2 refers to the GBA cart. Because you want to play GBA games the Slot 1 solution won't work for you, as there are no GBA emulators (and probably won't ever be) for the DS. Both the M3 and SuperCard have built in MP3 capabilities. Both are fairly simple to use as they use CF or SD cards. Although the downside of Slot 2 solutions is that most backup games placed on them will need to be patched before they are playable. This is a fairly easy, few click process. So a recently released game may not work for a week or two until a new patcher is released. Both companies update their software quite frequently, so this isn't that much of a worry. From what I have read (I personally own an M3 cart) the Supercart has some slowdowns on GBA games, but the DS game support is equivalent to the M3.
There are quite a lot of threads that talk about the M3 and SuperCard in more detail.

If you were to decide that you only wanted to play DS games, I'd hold off till M3 and SuperCard came out with there Slot 1 products as they will probably wind up being the best cards out.

I'd also look into a program called Moonshell for playing media no matter what card you get, as it does a much better job then the out of the box implementations from ether company.

Hmm this may be my longest post every, lol
-FTen

Edit: I forgot M3 makes Pro series and SuperCard makes the Rumble series now. You will want to stay away from these as they don't really support GBA games.

[sportswizdan]

 Hey ften...

Thanks for the great response! Would it be easier to set up if I only wanted to run the DS games through slot 1? It looks like the newer Super Card DS or the M3 DS Simply are pretty easy to use through just drag & drop features. If I went just the DS game route, would either of those be the best choice to use? Thanks again to everyone...

Dan

[ften]

It would be easier, because then the whole copying process would work just like moving files to a usb drive.
The only thing keeping me from getting a slot 1 is I love the old Mario and Final Fantasy games a little too much to not have GBA computability.
I don't really know if one is better then the other right now as they are brand new. I haven't seen anything official reviews on GBAtemp.net or Maxconsole.net yet.  GBAtemp.net is a great site for all things GBA/DS, same with Dualscene.net.

-FTen

[SirPoonga]

You will wanta  slot 1 (GBA) solution.  From what I have researched supercard is the best overall.  Each solution has it's strengths and weaknesses.  The EZ4 is suppose to have awesome gba support but kinda crappy for everything else.   M3 and G6 are suppose to have good DS support with ok GBA support.  Supercard seems to be the middle ground.

Do not get CF.  Get an SD/MiniSD/MictoSD/Transflash device.  Then make sure you get either Kingston or Sandisk high speed memory cards.

If you can afford it a combination of a slot 1 and slot 2 device would be ideal.  Dedicate the slot 2 for GBA and slot 1 for DS and you will get the best compatibility.

To add to ften's you can watch scdev.org forums for supercard news.

dualscreenradio.com and monroeworld.com are great DS resources also.

[Zathras]

I got the M3 DS Simply from modchipstore.com in a couple of days ago and it works GREAT.  Just drag and drop files to it and it works.  It even skips the annoying "touch to start" screen. 

[sportswizdan]

Hey Zathras

I ordered the M3 DS Simply a couple of days ago but I ordered mine from Divineo and have not recieved it yet. What brand name SD Micro card did you get for it?

Dan

[exibar]

the G6 solution along with a Passkey is awesome at playing GBA and DS games, I haven't found a game that won't play yet.  It also plays MP3's, movies, etc

  G6lite 4gigabit solution will give you 512megabytes of space, more than enough for dozens of GBA games, and 6 - 12 (depending the type and size) DS games, very easy interface to place stuff on it, converters for your video, and super easy to put MP3s on it too.
  I'm happy with the G6lite 4g, and my 7 year old son "wants me to get my own NDS!"  his words :-)

 Mike B

[stonefry]

the G6 solution along with a Passkey is awesome at playing GBA and DS games, I haven't found a game that won't play yet.  It also plays MP3's, movies, etc

I second this opinion. I have the same setup of G6 + passkey. Sir Poonga said that it has weak GBA support, but I have not found this to be the case. The only hitch is that it takes a bit for them to load. I don't have the device in front of me, but I would say it takes maybe 15 seconds to load a GBA game. Not a big deal to me. I don't understand why it takes so long to load GBA games, but it doesn't bother me at all. DS games load in a couple of seconds.

2 problems with the setup.

1. Sometimes a brand new game won't work, but there will be a patch to the software in a week or two that will fix it, but just about every card has this problem.
2. Homebrew support is very low for this card and any newer card that you buy. But it doesn't sound like that is important to you.

-stonefry