I am no expert, But hopefully I can save new people some time and frustration. (updated june 23rd 07)
--- Contents
- Vocabulary.
- What is the R4?
- Initial Setup
- Where to Download
- Flash Cards
- Trimming
- Homebrew
- Emulators
- Media
- DLDI Patching
- Skins
- NDS Browser
- Tricks
----Very Simply, Vocabulary.
I apologize if this insults your intelligence, I want to take no chances.
- R4 = A DS game sized cartridge that allows you to run .NDS files off of a microSD card.
- MicroSD = A tiny peice of flash memory, like a regular SD card, or a flash drive, Only this is micro (the size of your pinky finger's nail)
- .NDS = the file format of a program written for a Nintendo DS (Can be Games or Homebrew)
- .SAV = The file format of a Nintendo DS Save game
- Homebrew = Homemade programs. Games, Applications, & Programs, not made by Nintendo or any other game company, for use solely with flash cards like the R4 and it's brethren.
- Roms, Rips, Copies, Backups, etc = Illegal copies of real DS games,
- Firmware = Its what makes the R4 tick, you can download the most recent R4 Firmware off of the official website, just drag it onto your flash card and overwrite the existing files.
- M3 = The R4's sister flashcard, Apparently its manufactured the same, its just slightly different, Odds are if something applies to the M3, it also applies to the R4
- Supercard, etc, etc = Other flash cards, people might report "works with supercard" this doesn't apply to you
- DLDI Patching = A complex thing, it patches homebrew to (Hopefully) work (specifically) with your R4's hardware, Unessesary after the v1.10 kernel
- Flashme, Flashing, PassMe = A method of cracking the DS, Something you don't have to do or worry about with the R4
- Moonshell = DS Media player Homebrew
----What the R4 Does
When the R4 boots it will load a couple of system files (firmware with the extension .nds) It loads them from the root (the first folder) of the flashcard, and that will be your "Operating System" It's main function is to load other .NDS files which can come in the form of either copies of games or homebrew.
Once booted, you have three options,
Games: Used to launch any NDS files, from copies of games, to homebrew.
Multimedia: A shortcut to Moonshell, this great piece of homebrew lets you watch movies, listen to music, and read Ebooks.
Boot Slot-2: This link makes the device work as a passme, allowing you to run .nds files off of another flashcard you have in the GBA slot.
----Initial Setup
Download the latest kernel and moonshell from the official r4ds download page
Personally, My card is organized as such, The one you download there will be organized differently.
Root:
The R4 Firmware files
/Ebooks/
(Any .TXT Files I have)
/Music/
(My MP3 Files)
/Videos/
(Any .FILETYPE I have)
/Homebrew/
(Any homebrew I have tried (I further sort the homebrew folder into folders for each piece of software)
/Emulators/
All my emulators and roms (I sort them by system inside this folder)
/Moonshell/
(Ignore this, its all the software to run moonshell)
/! Roms/
(Official .NDS Games, The exclamation point puts this folder on top)
This directory structure is only for my own convenience and organization, other than the /Moonshell/ Folder, none of these folders are needed by the R4 Feel free to organize your own card however you wish.
----Downloading Roms (AKA: WHER DO I FIND TEH GAMEZ!!!one!?)
Google, Nintendo DS Roms
Congratulations.
Note: All "You can keep it for 24 hours if you delete it" and such crap is all made up, its just plain copyright infringement. (Depending on your country of origin)
----MicroSD cards
These tiny flash storage devices plug into the R4DS, this is where you store all your games, music, software, books, file system, everything. The R4 has no storage of it's own.
Where to buy: I found great deals at Newegg, and I my Kingston 1 Gig was purchased for 12 dollars. It works for me. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820134215
The R4 can't plug into the computer by itself, but it came with a USB to Micro SD reader, so you can slide that tiny card in there and plug it into the USB port on your computer, where you can setup your system and upload your roms. (Most MicroSD cards also come with their own MicroSD to Regular SD converter, so if thats more convenient it works too. (I find it to be somewhat faster, but I have no science behind my claim)
Note: There IS a difference between Micro and Mini SD. Do not confuse the two! You want Micro.
---- Save Files
.SAV files are just files named the exact same thing as their game counterpart, only with a .SAV instead of a .NDS (They need to be named the exact same thing in order to work) ( IE “game.NDS” = “game.SAV” )
You can backup your .SAV files to your computer for safe keeping.
There are also programs that turn your Real NDS games into .SAV Files on your flashcard, I don't know much about these, I think most of them need a second flashcard in the GBA slot 2 to write to.
----Trimming (AKA, Shrinking, Reducing, Clipping, Making your games smaller)
Pirated DS games are exact 1:1 Copies of their cartridge counterparts, and it seems these cartridges come in fixed sizes, game developers pick the size just larger than what they need, but it usually doesn't use all the space of the cartridge. The game rips also copy that blank data, But we can remove it to save a little space and fit a few more games. Generally reductions seem to be between 5-20MB
A lot of programs trim, but its a pain in the neck to do it one at a time, So I found this great program, it trims the games in a batch, (IE does them all at once) It can also take off the "0123 -" header to the proper game name (if you want your games sorted alphabetically instead of by scene release date) http://www.saveriorusso.com/public/ds/DS_RomTool.rar Thanks to SiRioKD on the R4 Forums.
Note: - Potential trimming problems:
Overtrimming: A game accidentally trims more than it should, cutting out some of your gamey goodness, If a game doesn't work after trimming, just use the original
0KB files, Really Overtrimming: There is a technical explanation for why a game could do this, but all you need to know is, look out for any game that becomes way too small after trimming. Again, just use the original.
----Homebrew
The easiest way to get into NDS homebrew is by following this easy guide http://forums.r4ds.net/showthread.php?t=2451
By installing DS organize, and copying the "HBDB" to your card, you can load the HBDB from the browser option, and download homebrew straight to your DS.
This isnt always the most up to date, so once you try stuff out with this, I recommend checking for the homebrew's homepage to see if a more recent copy has been released.
Checkout Beup and NDS Mail for some good software, and Descent for a great homebrew game.
----Emulation
Genesis: The best option seems to be Picodrive (homepage), It runs quite well but without sound http://www.cryptosystem.org/projects/nds/picodriveds-0.1.7/picodriveds.nds this needs to be DLDI Patched (See: DLDI Patching)
Super Nintendo: The best option I have found seems to be SNEmulDS, Games run slowly and with many errors.
Nintendo: The best option I have found is http://www.cs.utah.edu/~tew/nesDS/ This program has been updated and runs excellently, I am playing mario, galaga, 1943, battletoads with no slowdown, with only minor errors. A must download.
Note: Why do my emulated games either look crappy or clip off a good portion of the screen?
This is because the Nintendo DS is not the same size and ratio as a television, so either it has to squish the image (losing and distorting pixels) or it has to remove a good portion of the edges of the screen to display it 1:1.
----Media
Playing media on the DS is simple, Media is played using Moonshell. So when you boot up your R4, go to "Multimedia" to start moonshell
(I organize my media into folders by type, but it really doesn't matter, this is just for your convenience and organization, Moonshell will boot any compatible media from any folder.)
Music: Moonshell plays MP3s just fine, no encoding nessesary, just drop them onto your card and go.
Encoding video: Use this, and for help using it check out this guide here, or this one here (neither guide was written with the R4 in mind, so just skip to the relevant bits about encoding) it will format and process the video into something the DS can play. It is not the highest quality, but it works.
Ebooks: The R4 only reads .txt files, not PDFs, So here is a PDF to TXT converter http://www.pdfpdf.com/pdfconverter.html
Note: I am looking for a better one, If you know of a good free PDF, Word, etc, to TXT converter, please send it my way.
----DLDI Patching
DLDI patching makes some DS homebrew capable of running on the R4, Mainly it seems to allow programs read/write access to your flash card. DLDI Patching is now done by default with the new 1.10 kernel. so if you are running 1.10 or above ignore all this.
(Old Guide) To patch a file with windows...
Download the R4 DS DLDI file from here http://chishm.drunkencoders.com/DLDI/downloads/r4tf.dldi
Download the http://chishm.drunkencoders.com/DLDI/downloads/dlditool-win32-gui.zip for windows, when you run that file first you need to point to the DLDI file you downloaded, then you need to point to the NDS file you want to patch.
More information and tools for alternative operating systems can be found here http://chishm.drunkencoders.com/DLDI/index.html
Click below for a step by step guide of the process.
----Skins
You can easily download new skins here
Just upload them to the "_system_" folder on the root of the card.
Or you can make your own with this guide.
----DS Browser
The Nintendo DS browser uses an extra memory card plugged into slot 2 (The GBA slot) Without this the DS Browser will not run. The official opera browser is reported to be a dud, taking a very long time to load pages, If you want to surf the web, I recommend using DS Organize's built in browser, It works so-so, but its free and doesn't need an additional card.
----Tricks
You can rename any .nds file you want "_DS_MSHL.NDS" and it will launch with the middle button (This of course stops moonshell from launching with that button)
I am told that if you do this you will NOT be prompted for sav file creation, which may sway your decision to do this or not. (Thanks to LostRacer)
