A simple guide to getting started with Nintendo DS Back up games.


Playing backup games along with other homebrew and multimedia (e-books, music and movies) could not be simpler providing you have the correct hardware.

For the purpose of this guide and also the hardware I recommend we shall be discussing the R4DS card.

Essentially this is a DS SLOT-1 Flash card, it looks like a DS Games cartridge, except there is a smaller slot in the back of it into which you insert a Micro-SD card.

All R4 cartridges should come with everything you need namely

The R4 cartridge it self
A CD with firmware/manuals and tools.
A USB Micro-SD adapter
A SD Adapter

Also depending on where you purchased it from you should also have a Micro-SD card, if not you'll need to order one separately. I'd recommend at least a 2 Gig.


Setting up the card.

First thing is to copy the systems files, which can be found on the CD onto your Micro-SD card.

Insert the Micro-SD card into one of the adapters that was provided and simply plug that into your PC via USB or Card reader depending on the hardware you have. Open the contents; it should be pre formatted and ready to go.

Next open the CD contents in a separate window and locate a folder called system (see pic)



It's worth noting at this point that although the system files on the CD will work perfectly fine for most of the time you may not be able to run the very latest games. To that end I suggest downloading the latest firmware (at the time of writing V. 1.12) you can get that here. Download and extract the files then browse to the contents of the extracted folder or the system folder on the CD and you should see something like this. All you have to do is then copy the four files/folders onto the root of the SD card. Drag and drop, or Ctrl C and Ctrl V, whichever you find easiest.



You can then test this out on the DS it will allow you to boot into the new OS although you won't be able to play any games just yet.


Loading games onto card.


Again this could not be simpler all you need to do is to copy the game ROM from you're computer and onto the root of the SD card. But there is a better way which will save space, and allow you to fit more games onto the card. For this you will need the Trim tool which can be found on the CD. Open the folder and run the .exe to start the trim tool. Like this



Use the button on the right to browse to the game ROM you wish to trim, once inserted into the trim tool click start it will take a few seconds depending on the size of the original. When it's done a copy of the game will be created in the source folder with the same name except it will have _trim.NDS at the end. Typically trimmed games can be around 10% smaller than the original roms thus allowing you to save more games onto the card.

Simply drag and drop the games onto the root of the SD card.

A word of warning. Make sure that you leave enough free space on the card for the .sav files which will be created whenever you start a game on the DS. Typically the .sav file is 512 kb so just bear that in mind.

Edit.

The latest firmware is now at 1.15. Updates can be found here
You will need to unrar the files and replace the originals/older updates with the new ones.

Thank you for your work villain

Nice work Villain. I'm thinking of getting a ds so this will be come in handy. Thank you

Cheers Villain...I've asked Santa for a DS this year and this will be very handy indeed

hELLo everyone..

Just a question that bit off topic regarding roms for ds ,is this the same as roms you get for emulators to run on pc ?

Is this something available easily as torrent ?

And how many games can you fit on these cards ?

I saw a card on ebay with 60 games hence why Im curious I got no idea average sized of nds rom.

arrrr

NDS ROMs have a set cartridge size of 4, 8, 16, 32, 64 and 128 MB Because of this, the games have blank space filling up to whatever size cartridge they are on. However, you can get a ROM Trimmer (I recommend the one released on the R4DS web site) That will trim the ROM of all that blank space, making it easier to put more games on. Untrimmed, I've got 45 ROMs on a 2 gig MicroSD card.

Villian this is great news I had no idea this was possible, thanx for the info, peace!

hi
sorry for reviving this old thread,but is there a way of saving the downloaded files to dvd so i can keep them but save hard disk space?
thanks!!

Well you can't d/l to dvd, but once your download has finished you can copy any data to DVD/CD and then delete the files from the pc. That said DS roms aren't that big really.

I have added an edit to my first post to included the most recent kernel BTW. It is best to have the most recent version especially for any newer games.

most game roms you can just download
from rom sites like this (http://www.romsite.net/)
no need to look for torrents. most torrents contain large numbers of games
which is quite good if you don't have any at all.
but if your just looking for one specific game use a romsite.

muchos gracias villian

sorry for the revive, just wanna mention DS Scene is a great site from the lastest scene news

Let me get this straight....

If I purchase a a R4DS card, I can download multiple games onto it ? My sister in-law is a DS fanatic and plays the hell out of it. Her birthday is on May 24th 2008. For the price of a regular DS game, I could get the R4DS cartridge and she wouldn't have to ever buy an other game? If so, here are my questions....

1) How can I tell if her DS is compatible with a R4 card or not (What generation) is there a serial number or model number to look for? etc.

2) Is there a chance of rendering any damage to her DS through game downloads or casual use of the R4 Card

This is great news. As, she would be blown away by the technology set before her ( She isn't too tech savvy and doesn't even own a pc ) If anyone can lend some advice my way, I would be grateful! Would order one tonight!

1. Shouldn't make any difference.

2. No damage whatsoever. All it does is give you the opportunity to bypass the DS opereating sytem and load that held on the card. No changes are made to the DS. Real games can still run once the cartridge is removed or you can still boot into older style games using the alternate slot with/without the R4 installed.

Villain,

Thanks for the quick reply. Sounds good. Going to get her one!

Thanks!

thx

i couldn't have said it better myself. As for me i found the R4 pretty easy to use but i use the DSTT (very similar to the R4) i just drag and drop. The action replay feature on the other hand can be a pain (uses the same method as the R4)

Hi, i'm going nuts here! I have bought a r4ds card from klickstore.com. It didn't come with a cd manual, so i have downloaded the latest software from the r4ds site. eng 1.18. I dragged the files over to the micro sd card, created a folder called games and dragged and dropped some games there.
When i put the r4ds card into my ds and swith it on it it boots as normal but then i get a black screen saying "loading" and thats as far as it goes
Any ideas please as i have now spent 12hrs solid trying to rectify this problem. Last idea i had is that its a faulty card. Please help.

Hi guys, i managed to get sorted. It was a software problem, I wiped my micro sd card and put the files on it from the official web page and it worked fine. (Use Kernel 1.23) http://www.r4dsl.eu/ (here's the link i hope)
Open the folder and drag and drop the 5 items into the root of your micro sd card. Dont forget though to create another file called "Games" in which you drop your nds file games in there. Put micro sd card into r4ds card, then put r4ds card into your ds, BINGO!!!!
Obviously download the version suited to your country...... Hope this helps someone!!!

Thanks you have answered all my questions, ta

Hey guys, Sorry for reviving this thread, But i have brought my kids a ds for christmas and only just found this thread. I understand eerything that is said so far but I have one question.

Say you load 5 games onto your rom, When you switch the DS unit on with the cartridge in will it come up with a menu screen to choose the game to play????? if not how do you select the game to play on the unit???

I ask this because I saw a R4DS with 8GIG memory card for sale the other day and thought that I would buy a couple for the kids

thanks in advance

Hi Tht yes thats how it works, however be careful about using an 8Gb card, some Flashcarts dont support such a large size you might want to check the manufacturers website first to make sure it is supported, and actually do you need that much. My kids have 2Gb cards with an average of 30-40 games on each one, more than enough to keep them happy, and cheaper too

not 5 games 5 files from the firmware. system, moonshell, ds menu(cd video) ds menu (configuration settings),and _ds_mshl.nds.
Also don't forget to create a new folder and call it Games. You will use this folder to drag and drop your d/loaded .nds files(the part of the game download your ds uses.
when you power your ds on it will load as normal, but should go black and say "loading" just briefly then you should get 3 icons on the bottom screen of the ds. select the icon that looks like a pacman and a menu will appear on the top ds screen. Select Games (this is the folder you created earlier). when this opens you will see all ur games you have /loaded. select one. it will say you haven't created a saved file, create one now? Select yes this is to save your progress while playing games. Enjoy playing!!!
www.romsite.net is where i d/load my games from but you have to subscribe to it.
www.mininova.org is free and has plenty of games, but i'm sure fellow darksiders will let you know of others. I use a r4ds card with a 2gb micro sd card. This works well and as others have said you have to be careful as not all cards support more than 2gb.
Hope this helps.
Good luck. Rodeo 123

You might also want to cehck out some sort of Rom Manager software as your collection grows, i use Rominator, just Google it

thanks for the help guys, i thought that the 8 gig may be a bit excessive but the store that I found was offering either the empty r4ds by itself or with the 8 gig card as a pack. I will buy a smaller sd card.

I should point out that R4's are now becoming useless. I recommend the "CycloDS Evo"

Hi everyone I just thought that I would let you all no that there is another update to the kernel firmware for your R4DS Cards. It is up to 1.25 and can be found here R4DS Download

Sweet !!! cant wait to try it out ..i can back up all my kids games to 1 card ..Cuz god knows im sick of finding them all over the house or looking for them cuz they miss placed them.

Im not 100% but i think the original R4 is now dead. The R4sdhc that is now out there is some sort of clone of the original but i have got hold of a few for friends and they work fine. My son has one with an 8gig card and got about 100 or so games on it. The last one i got i had big trouble getting the games on, it would say it had 120 games on the sd card but would only show about 30 when the consol started.