I'm a dumbass w/ a flash cart on a mac

[dcescott]

I'm more on the graphic design end of the spectrum, please forgive me for being a mac user and I am not too smart with this flash cart stuff, still. I was looking into an R4 but got sidetracked with freelance work, then yesterday while shopping for important things, this happened.

I was looking at new titles at Wal mart , wasting time of all places, and saw a Games and Music flash cart by Datal for 20 bucks. It came with 25 homebrews, maybe a handful are decent and a USB/micro SD reader to pop in other homebrews. Needless to say, I can't get most of the homebrews I found ont he internet to work or certain useful homemade apps. So I am begging for help. I am running a 1.25 G4 mac mini 10.4.10 and a 2.33 MBP running 10.5.2. My intel laptop does not read the micro SD reader, but my mac mini running 10.4 does, go figure. Cool thing was I have a 1GB micro SD card already. So I am dumping homebrews on that one right now.

I bought this on an impulse and wanted to stretch my dollar on a few homemade games or many good ones that don't require a licensed name and fun to play. What am I doing wrong? (drag and drop my ass:))

[norkusa]

You're problem doesn't have anything to do with being on a Mac. The Datel cart doesn't have auto-DLDI patching, which means you have to patch the homebrew on your Mac first before installing them in order to get them to work. There is a DLDI patcher for OSX though (can't recall the name...haven't used it in ages), so that shouldn't be any problem for you.

If the patching is too much of a hassle, you can just buy a R4,M3,EZ Flash since they all have auto-DLDI patching now.

[dcescott]

I don't mind learning how to patch it. And, it's been a while, you changed your avator!
What does that acronym mean?

[zektor]

This cart will not load up homebrews larger than 2MB or something like that. I can't remember the exact limitation, but there indeed IS a limitation on the cart, which is probably why you would have problems loading many things. The only way to overcome it is if the manufacturer would update its firmware. The limitation is put in place on purpose of course, so that isn't going to happen :)

Save yourself a whole lot of trouble and get yourself an M3 Simply or R4DS (same cart, different name).

[dcescott]

well dangit! So close yet so far.

[dcescott]

I found the patch, easy droplet script, too easy. Some homebrews work, some don't. I'm thinking I'll keep going with this until I feel the need to expand, I need to learn about this first to understand what I am digging into. Found some cool games and apps though!

[Flack]

Quick plug here ... our own Gapporin is in the middle of posting a really informative four part series of articles about DS flashcarts. If you're looking for a list of must have homebrew games and apps, this is a great series to read.

Part I (http://www.robohara.com/tech/?p=31)
Part II (http://www.robohara.com/tech/?p=32)

I'll be putting up Part III later today.

[dcescott]

Thanks my southern brother! (in DFW) I would love to utilize my DS and my daughter's pink one too! I know I should get the R4 but I really need to get familiar with this side of the DS. I couldn't pass up a $20 flash cart, even though it ain't the best on the market. I'll do some good reading while working today!
I've been meaning to get into this homebrew stuff for a while but got sidetracked as usual.

[dcescott]

As mentioned on this thread about the size of the games allowed to run on this Flash Cart, there's no way around it is there? I noticed a couple homebrews won't run even after the DLDI patch fix. Lemmings is one, Wolfenstein is another. I did find Every Extend ExtraDS, sweet.

[Gapporin]

Quick plug here ... our own Gapporin is in the middle of posting a really informative four part series of articles about DS flashcarts. If you're looking for a list of must have homebrew games and apps, this is a great series to read.

Aww, shucks. :embarrassed:


I did find Every Extend ExtraDS, sweet.

Whoa, that sounds interesting. Where did you grab that?

[dcescott]

http://gbatemp.net/index.php?dlcategory=7

It took me a while to re navigate since I did the searching at work. I love the fact I'm on a computer all the time and get paid:)

I would look around the site, I'll probably sign up tonight. There was a few others you will see worth checking out. The game works after I patched it, sweet. I played it on a psp, that one and gunpey were fun to play.