#66427 - eld - Tue Jan 10, 2006 6:12 pm
Currently I have a standard flashcart and a flashed ds, and I'm looking for something with a more dynamic storage to develop on, and since I'm new to the whole memorycard storage on flashcart aspect, I'm out of clues.
So a memorycard based flashcart is what I want, but I'm just not which one to get..
Which one works the best, is the most widely supported, supports the most cards etc..
should it be CF or SD?..
Most of my homebrew ideas has to do with writing and saving files on the memorycard rather than just being limited by the SRAM on the cart.
thanks in advance.
#66428 - tetsujin - Tue Jan 10, 2006 6:39 pm
From what I've seen here so far it seems like probably CF is the way to go right now if you just want something that works.
GBAMP FAT driver homepage - This is the driver most of the homebrew stuff uses to access the CF/SD cards in these adaptors as a filesystem rather than as mapped memory. It looks like Supercard SD isn't supported yet - I'm not sure about M3 SD, as it's neither specifically mentioned or excluded in the driver info I could find - but this article on the DSWiki only mentions the CF version as working with the driver, and specifically excludes the GBAMP SD (which, I think, is a predecessor of the M3 SD).
I'm not entirely sure, but I think at this point, for DS stuff, there's not too much advantage to getting an M3 or Supercard as opposed to simply a GBA Movie Player. The GBAMP is certainly cheaper, the main difference being that the GBAMP doesn't provide RAM to load things from the CF card and have them be memory-mapped like a game cartridge - it can only load things from the CF card into the GBA or DS RAM, so for programs that don't use the FAT driver that means only things that can be loaded completely into RAM will work.
As for compatibility with flash cards, I really have no clue. I've heard it's sometimes a problem with the SD adaptors but I don't know the extent to which it's not with the other adaptors.
_________________
---GEC
I think that all the work that's been done by the homebrew community so far to support people who want to program for the GBA or DS is amazing.
Thank you, everyone, I look forward to taking advantage of your work.
#66441 - eld - Tue Jan 10, 2006 9:12 pm
the m3, even though a bit more expensive, seems more interesting, and the ram seems to be a good thing, since I assume that reading from the cf card is quite a bit slower than reading from the ram.
#66445 - tetsujin - Tue Jan 10, 2006 9:40 pm
| eld wrote: |
| the m3, even though a bit more expensive, seems more interesting, and the ram seems to be a good thing, since I assume that reading from the cf card is quite a bit slower than reading from the ram. |
For sure.
I was simply pointing out that right now, as far as I know, nobody (homebrew, at least) is using that RAM. There's interest in doing so, for sure, and that may come about in the not-too-distant future. But I think the current drivers just use the filesystem. I could be wrong, though, it's possible that some programs do things like load themselves into that RAM and execute from there (by way of the launcher, presumably).
I bought my GBAMP on a whim before I had any idea it would be useful for DS software or that people were developing drivers to access the filesystem... So it was quite a pleasant surprise that the $20 device turned out to be so useful. Add a hefty CF card and I'll be able to play Lucasarts games with full sound - before I knew about the FAT driver I didn't think that was going to be something I'd get to do on the DS. I think the main thing I want improved is the form factor - a Supercard would be nice in that regard (though I wish they could make the whole thing, including flash card, fit inside the DS... The new generation of flashcards like mini-SD and xD are small enough for that...), but it apparently has some issue regarding startup in DS mode that requires a workaround in the DS code. <shrug>
_________________
---GEC
I think that all the work that's been done by the homebrew community so far to support people who want to program for the GBA or DS is amazing.
Thank you, everyone, I look forward to taking advantage of your work.
#66449 - eld - Tue Jan 10, 2006 10:10 pm
but if I, lets say, wrote a quite dataheavy application, (I'm an artist mainly, I'm bound to do that ;) ) then I would in many cases end up with quite alot of data that I need to swap between, when the ram on the ds is not quite enough for all of it..
reading all of the data from the CF and putting it on the ram should be faster than reading from the CF each time I need to swap some data, am I right?
#66453 - tetsujin - Tue Jan 10, 2006 10:46 pm
| eld wrote: |
but if I, lets say, wrote a quite dataheavy application, (I'm an artist mainly, I'm bound to do that ;) ) then I would in many cases end up with quite alot of data that I need to swap between, when the ram on the ds is not quite enough for all of it..
reading all of the data from the CF and putting it on the ram should be faster than reading from the CF each time I need to swap some data, am I right? |
Sure, but do you know how to load data into the RAM on an M3? Are you prepared to figure out how? (I don't think anyone's solved this problem for you yet - though I could be wrong.) If not, then you won't be able to do that just yet. You'll be limited to loading the data off of CF and into the DS's main memory.
But, yeah, once you have that capability, having the RAM of the M3 would be a great boon. Even if you couldn't write to that RAM quickly, you'd be able to read the data you cache there as quickly as you'd be able to read data off a GBA cart. It'd be the next best thing to a RAM expansion. (I don't know why they gave the DS only 4MB of RAM... It's hard to imagine 8MB or 16MB being significantly more costly or battery-draining...)
_________________
---GEC
I think that all the work that's been done by the homebrew community so far to support people who want to program for the GBA or DS is amazing.
Thank you, everyone, I look forward to taking advantage of your work.
#66462 - eld - Tue Jan 10, 2006 11:44 pm
ah, so that's how it is... but it's good to be secured for the future, since a ram extension is quite much needed imo.
I think I'll go for the m3..
#66473 - tepples - Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:00 am
| tetsujin wrote: |
| at this point, for DS stuff, there's not too much advantage to getting an M3 or Supercard as opposed to simply a GBA Movie Player. |
Other than that you can use a SuperCard to flash someone else's v4 firmware DS back to v3 with FlashMe 6 just in case you want to develop multiplayer games once the Wi-Fi drivers become more stable?
_________________
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-- Who?
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#66529 - tetsujin - Wed Jan 11, 2006 5:24 pm
| tepples wrote: |
| tetsujin wrote: | | at this point, for DS stuff, there's not too much advantage to getting an M3 or Supercard as opposed to simply a GBA Movie Player. |
Other than that you can use a SuperCard to flash someone else's v4 firmware DS back to v3 with FlashMe 6 just in case you want to develop multiplayer games once the Wi-Fi drivers become more stable? |
See, that's good. I don't know these things.
You'd need a v2 Passme on hand for that as well, I suppose? I have thought about scenarios like this (speculating that if I developed a multiplayer game and wanted to play it with someone who trusted me not to brick their DS, that I could have the gear to run Flashme on hand, or at least a Passme-type thing and a way to WMB broadcast WiFiMe or something...
I thought I'd heard that Flashme could be installed from a GBAMP, though... <shrug> It's hard to sort out all the information sometimes. But the whole Flashme program loads into RAM, right? So wouldn't it just be a matter of being able to boot up the GBAMP in NDS mode to access the launcher? (Which is a prerequisite for running any NDS code from the GBAMP...)
(EDIT): I guess not. Seems you need to load code into the SRAM of a GBA cart in order to use Passme2, so while a GBAMP could be used for Passme1, it can't be used for Passme2. Good to know.
_________________
---GEC
I think that all the work that's been done by the homebrew community so far to support people who want to program for the GBA or DS is amazing.
Thank you, everyone, I look forward to taking advantage of your work.