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R4 DS Review
R4DS Flash card adapter for NDS roms / DS Lite
The R4DS is basically another slot 1 flash kit for homebrew and game backups (aka NDS ROMs).
It is a new product made by a previously unknown team. Maybe they have been operating under other name previously but not to my knowledge.
What is good about the R4 DS – you can run homebrew and ROMs, listen to music, watch videos etc. without any additional software. Just drag and drop whatever you want onto your MicroSD card, place it in the R4DS and here you go.
Packaging and R4 cart
R4DS is delivered in a white cardboard box wrapped in another box. First impression of package is not so good as today the flash kits are sold in tin or wooden boxes, such as CycloDS. But the contents of the package will definitely please you, because the package includes R4 DS cart, replacement shell, small size CD-ROM (with installation instructions available in English and Chinese + five firmwares with different skins), Micro SD USB card reader, Dual DS card case. This all makes a quite a nice package with free accessories. Some of the freebies are sort of non-essential, however nice to receive.
The cart is made of good quality plastic and fits perfectly into the console. The cart is not bumped by any chips sticking out under the label or anything – the quality is noticeable and cover is smooth and it looks like a genuine Nintendo flash card, you really wouldn’t tell from first glance. The Micro SD slot can be spring loaded which is a good thing. There is also a small groove that allows you to remove only the Micro SD instead of removing the R4DS from the console which is convenient.
R4 DS Installation
Installation is very easy. Everything you need is in the manual CD, however I would suggest visiting their website first because the manual on CD is not their best product.
Connect the USB reader to computer, format the SD card to FAT, choose the firmware skin and drag the folder onto your SD card. Once everything is formatted, you can drag and drop clean ROMs. As easy as it sounds. Plus the R4DS has the Moonshell which means you can watch movies, listen to MP3 files, view pictures and more. Also there is no need to update the Rom list as R4DS detects the save type automatically.
R4DS GUI
GUI automatically starts when you switch on the console. You will see a pop up of the loading screen and then the main menu. Next you will see 3 basic icons:
• Game
• Multimedia
• Boot Slot-2
Game:
Game basically is all files on your SD card. Select the .NDS file you want to play and press “select”. Unfortunately you cannot use the touch screen when going through the file directory, which is a bit annoying. On the bottom screen you will always see a ROM with the title and its developer. Go ahead and load the ROM and you will be presented with a save-game option. ROMs will load within the seconds. Have fun!
Multimedia
Multimedia offers you the Moonshell. It has already been described so many times I will not go into detail. If you still do not know Moonshell, google it. Moonshell will allow you to watch videos, listen to music etc. There are also additional options, such as Reset.mse, change back light, L/R lock and other.
Boot Slot 2
Boot Slot 2 provides an option to boot slot 2 cards from the R4DS interface. This PassMe option was tested with several slot 2 flash kits and it worked perfectly.
Testing
Most of ROMs tested worked perfectly.
Most of the homebrew worked just as fine. Some potential problems might arise ………..
R4 DS Negatives:
• Battery life
• Average homebrew compatibility
• No download play support
• No extra features
R4 DS Positives:
• Price
• User friendliness – easy setup and use
• 100% ROMs compatibility
• Homebrew support
• Expandable MicroSD memory
• MicroSD card USB reader + other freebies
• Savegame conversion tool
• Generally good game performance without slow downs
• Good design
R4 SD Card Reader
The R4 package came with a small USB MicroSD card reader. The card reader works on Windows XP without the need of any drivers and allows easy access to the MicroSD card.
Some basic performance benchmarks were done on the R4 MicroSD card reader. I also ran the same tests on a Dell monitor’s card reader and a USB 2.0 SD/MMC card reader included with the Ninjapass X9 package.
R4 X9 Dell monitor
Random Access 1.7ms 1.9ms 2.3ms
Average read 2.8 MB/s 4.3 MB/s 8.3 MB/s
Average Write 3.3MB/s 3.3 MB/s 3.3 MB/s
It appears that my MicroSD card has a maximum write speed of 3.3 MB/s and all devices manage to reach that speed. What’s interesting between the card readers are the large difference between their read speeds. The Dell monitor is at least twice as fast as the X9 card reader and nearly three times faster than the R4 one. Even though the usb card readers have a very slow read speed, in normal use you will only ever write to your MicroSD card. Occasionally you may wish to backup some files such as saves and ROMs, but it won’t be a regular occurrence.
Although the MicroSD card reader provided by the R4 has the slowest read speed, it doesn’t require a MicroSD to SD card adapter. This saves the hassle of having to find an adapter every time you need to transfer files over to the MicroSD card and still works if you lose your adapter.
R4 Battery Life
A simple test was performed on the original DS and a DS lite to measure the battery life impact with the R4 constantly running. Each test simply measured the time for a fully charged DS to turn off with minimum backlight brightness. In order to get constant read requests to the cartridge, I used Jump Superstars for the tests and simply allowed the intro movie to be run continuously. The results from the test were:
DS Lite R4 Jump Superstars ROM
13h4m
DS Phat R4 Jump Superstars ROM
N/A (R4 does not support backlight off)
In order to get some comparisons between the R4, I ran some additional tests. First I did a control test which just had the DS on in the main menu until the battery ran out. Then I redid the same tests as the R4 on a Ninjapass X9 and an original cartridge to compare the differences between the carts.
The results I obtained were:
Control Real Cartridge X9 ROM R4 ROM
DS Lite 16h39m 15h52m 14h29m 13h4m
DS Phat 15h30m 11h24m 10h35m N/A
*The R4 does not support switching the backlight off on original DS consoles
From these results we can see that the real cartridge use the least amount of power. However, what’s interesting to see from the results is that the DS phat’s battery life decreases dramatically when using any cartridge device.
The R4 reduces the battery life of the DS lite by more than 2.8 hours compared to an original cart. However the Ninjapass X9 only affected the battery life of the DS lite by a mere 1.4 hours.
I reran the same test on the DS lite with a Toshiba MicroSD card on the R4 and the battery life was 12h59m, only 5 minutes worse. This seems to support the fact that MicroSD cards have very little affect on the power consumption of slot 1 devices.
R4 Compatibility
Commercial ROM backups
The R4 managed to work perfectly with every game I tried. Saves worked properly, and all games ran at full speed. Also Wi-Fi worked on all the games without any issues. Download play, and multi-cart play all worked on flashed and non-flashed DS’s and I could also log on to Nintendo Wi-Fi connection with the R4.
I tested the following games without any problems:
Bomberman
Bombermand Land touch
Final Fantasy 3
Gyakuten Saiban 2
Jump super stars
Metroid prime hunters
Phoneix Wright Ace attorney
Point Blank DS
Trauma Center – Under the Knife
For an updated compatibility list of games and homebrew for the R4, check http://wiki.scorpei….patibility_list
Homebrew
Homebrew works without any need of patching. However, any homebrew that requires FAT access on the microSD card will need to be patched in order to work. Unfortunately, some homebrew that’s been patched with the R4 DLDI still may not work. Still, the R4 is relatively new and hopefully this problem will be rectified soon.
I tested the following homebrew programs with mixed success:
SNEmulDS – yes, but requires patching
moonshell – yes
disorganize 2.4 – beta works, but patching is required
scummvm – no
warcraft tower defense 0.2b – no
Conclusion
The R4 is a solid slot 1 package for the DS. The developers are constantly releasing updates for problems and appear to be cooperating with the homebrew community to get the libfat drivers working. Also by providing a save converter tool with the installation CD, the R4 is well suited for anyone looking to upgrade from their slot 2 or slot 1.
The whole package was easy to set up and use, and games ran without any patching required. The R4 is vastly superior to the X9 in terms of support and ease of use. Unlike the Ninjapass X9, there is no need to create an account on the developer’s forum to download updates such as a ROM save list and popular games such as Metroid Prime work.
The only minor problems with the R4 was that the developer’s website is extremely slow and the battery life on the R4 is poor. The developer’s need to get a better web host, as it appears to be currently hosted on a 56k connection (really it is!). Downloading the latest OS required three attempts before it would finally complete. The other problem of course is the poor power efficiency of the device. Battery life is reduced by about 18% compared to an original cart when using a DS lite on minimum brightness. If these two problems don’t concern you, then I would highly recommend the R4 as the slot 1 device of choice.
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source from:
http://blog.cool2deal.com/?p=45