The DSTwo flash cart includes an additional onboard CPU and RAM module that greatly increase the quality of game emulation. Supercard DSTwo ($38): The DSTwo costs nearly twice as much as the more economical flash carts such as the Acekard, but it packs more than enough extras in to make it worth paying the extra $16. While this is not the flash cart will be using for the tutorial, we have several years of experience with the Acekard brand and highly recommend the model for budget-conscious modders. It doesn’t sport a lot of bells and whistles but it gets the job done. We’ve been using ModChipCentral out of Canada for all our console modding needs over the last five years and have been quite pleased with the service, product quality, and speedy shipping.Īcekard2i ($22): If you’re looking for a rock solid flash cart produced by developers with a good history of updates and support, the Acekard2i is tough to beat. In order to help you avoid getting burned we highly suggest you purchase one of the following two flash carts from a a reputable retailer. You’ll most likely need to order from a foreign electronics supply house and you’ll need to be careful to avoid getting burned by fly-by-night web sites and counterfeit/dud flash carts. Without a flash cart to sneak us past the authorization module in the DS, there’s no way we’ll be able to launch the homebrew software required to play homebrew and emulated games.īecause the whole market that supports homebrew/jailbreaking/modding of game consoles is frowned upon by the console industry, you can’t just walk into Game Stop and buy an adapter. It is, if you will, a storage adapter masquerading as a legitimate Nintendo cartridge.

A flash cart is simply a custom USB adapter that has been designed to allow you to interface a common microSD storage card with your Nintendo DS.

Using a flash cart is the foundation of today’s tutorial. What’s a Flash Cart and Why Do I Need One? As such we cannot directly link to ROM sources here and suggest you turn to your favorite search engine for guidance. Let’s take a look at flash carts to help you pick the best one.Ī note on ROMs: Availability and legality of ROMs is subject to local laws and regulations.

NDS-compatible Emulators (free we’ll review them individually later in the tutorial)Īssuming you already have a Nintendo DS, your cash outlay for the whole project will be $25-50 or so depending on the flash cart you pick to build your project on.

1 MicroSD Card (We recommend a cheap 16GB to provide room for growth).

1 Flash Cart ($15-40 we’ll take a detailed look at flash carts in a moment).

1 Nintendo DS (works with the DS Lite, DSi, DSiXL, and 3DS units).As much as we love free-as-in-beer projects, this project will require a small cash outlay to get things rolling.

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