Hardware Anybody ever heard of N-Cards?

[FR0ZN]

All the DS flashcarts emulate some portion of the slot-1 protocol like the blowfish encryption and such. However most modern flashcarts use MicroSD cards these days so they have to patch games to handle the extra steps required to handle MicroSD access.

However N-Card is unique in that it doesn't patch the games at all and instead replicates the rom reads on the hardware level. It can get away with this because it's a nand based flashcart and nand is fast enough and simple enough to handle things without breaking important timings, etc.

Since it works the way it does, does it also mean that games with AP protection work without patching?

 

[Apache Thunder]

Since it works the way it does, does it also mean that games with AP protection work without patching?

No it seems games with AP still detect it. Not entirely sure how the AP measures in games work. N-Card predated most games that had it so not surprising it fails the AP checks.

 

[Dionicio3]

Is it possible to write your own SRL to one and just use it as a standalone cart with only one homebrew title (without any DLDI stuff or anything)

 

[SylverReZ]

Is it possible to write your own SRL to one and just use it as a standalone cart with only one homebrew title (without any DLDI stuff or anything)

Apache Thunder did this with XuluMenu, by overwriting the cart's firmware using a modified updater.

 

[Dionicio3]

Apache Thunder did this with XuluMenu, by overwriting the cart's firmware using a modified updater.

I was thinking about the ability to change the banner on the NDS menu as well, not sure if that's possible

 

[SylverReZ]

I was thinking about the ability to change the banner on the NDS menu as well, not sure if that's possible

As of writing, its not currently possible. Not without figuring out how to write directly to the header using the writing commands used by the updater.

 

[Dionicio3]

As of writing, its not currently possible. Not without figuring out how to write directly to the header using the writing commands used by the updater.

Ah that's unfortunate, guess I'll wait then

 

[Apache Thunder]

Well this is convenient! I was just looking at N-Card posts cause I'm trying to find out if it has any way of running GBA games (it seems it doesn't, maybe one of you can confirm?) and I may as well post all the dumps of my 1GB N-Card.

View attachment 404112
View attachment 404113 View attachment 404114

At the beginning of this year the card was dead, meaning I had to revive it using v2.55 firmware so unfortunately it's nothing new on that front. Same for the uDisk version, it's 1.45, but hopefully the dumps (Google Drive) can be useful for archival of the 1GB version.

I recently got this exact model N-Card (but with a DS Lite USB cart instead of the DS Phat one most have):

Anyways. I dumped stage2 SRL and compared it to the archive of your card and noticed a single byte is corrupted on your copy of it. Did you have any issues booting this cart? If so that might be why. No idea how a single byte got corrupted there. Maybe a cosmic ray or something.

I have some ideas on how to revive your cart but I'd only risk that if it's already bricked as there's a good chance it won't work on that cart. (it would involve redirecting first block table to Udisk section instead of stage2 section and so far only confirmed that this works on my ExpressCards. I tested this on my bricked DS Linker and confirmed it doesn't work on that one despite being identical nand capacity)

 

[Disturbo]

Huh, that's interesting! The card is currently working, I can load games and play them fine, although as I mentioned I did have to do some fiddling with it. Weird that it works then.

 

[Apache Thunder]

Interesting. I would have to guess the flipped bit impacts a code path that will never run on your card. Perhaps it would have impacted the card if it was a different capacity nand chip but you got lucky.

By the way does your card boot properly from DSi System Menu? (it has to be soft modded with Unlaunch/HiyaCFW of coarse)

The Stage2 SRL for your cart has normal sized arm7 binary that is not loaded to the same place the normal stage2 SRLs the other N-Card clones use.

As such it actually manages to boot from DSi System Menu...partially. It fails to launch uDisk for some reason as that's what the one I recently got does and it appears to have identical stage2 binary that yours has minus the odd flipped bit.

You'll know if your card is doing the same thing as mine if you boot from DSi System Menu while doing the safe block mode key combo.

If you boot it while holding L+R+A+B+DPAD-UP you should see a USB Safe Mode D12 text on bottom screen with a build date at top of bottom screen. (that is also an notable difference between the other clones since all my other carts don't display a build date)

The boot issue with DSi System Menu can be resolved with ExpressCards as I was able to make the udisk updator NDS alter the first block table instead of the second one and this causes the main rom to boot the udisk section directly instead of the stage2 section.

I tested that with my bricked DS Linker though and it partially corrupted that section instead. I am not sure if it would work properly on the 8g N-Card you have (the label is also anotehr oddity in that it shows 1GB but unlike all the other clones it doesn't = 1Gigabit but the label indicates it as 1 Gigabyte)

My Dora bootleg cart I transformed back to a normal N-Card was another N-Card I could boot from DSi System Menu because it lacks a stage2 section entirely and as such the 1st block section is setup to point to 0x400000 region (where the second block section normally exists). A modified udisk updator/USB updator can put a rom there and in most cases would be bootable without having to mess with the block table.

 

[Disturbo]

Sorry for taking so long to reach back, didn't have a lot of time this week. I'm curious though, what is the difference in the bytes? Just one bit? if it's more than one bit it could be some weird ID system :o

As for compatibility with the DSI, I went ahead and did some tests. The results are:
- From the DSi System Menu it indeed fails. if I hold the button combination you suggest, the message is shows.
- From TwilightMenu++, it seems ndsbootstrap is able to run the card without any issues

Another thing that I found interesting and wanted to share so we can compare is the name shown in the System Menu. I've not seen any other card show a correct name, not sure if your N-Card does.

 

[Apache Thunder]

Currently NTR Launcher can also boot these cards as well so that would be your fastest option for DSi anyways if you are using Twilight as your main UI. Appearently there are varients that use the goomba icon and have DS Fireline as it's banner text. Mine isn't one of those and has the N Card text like yours. The Goomba ones might be clones that just use the same name on the packaging or for what ever reason the newer ones were like this instead. Not sure which is which really. The N-Card clone market is a dark forest of mysteries.

I checked my new 1GB N-Card and yeah has same banner that the one in your photos show:

 

[Disturbo]

Hm, I'm curious as to how they got the card to display this name and image. Do all old cards do this? Are newer cards forced to use different ones dutle to antipiracy methods? I have two r4 cards and those use a game name and image instead of the card name.

 

[Apache Thunder]

The banner is stored at a specific offset on nand. It can be changed provided you use the correct write commands. (that part hasn't been reverse engineered yet). The original USB dongles the very first N-Cards came with used software that could update the icon on the card to the game you flash to it. There was a software package released after that can update the early cards to use the new system the modern cards used. That also changed the banner to match the "brand" of the card being flashed. This is likely how all the clone makers made the banner match the name they chose for their "clone" of the card.

Don't think it had anything to do with AP. It's just a branding thing and mostly just clone makers who used different banners for the N-Cards they made.

I've posted the software below. Ausar gave it to me at one point. Forgot where it came from but currently it's not archived anywhere.

The safe.exe program is what was used to add a stage2 section to the card and is able to change the banner along with that.

The thing is this software was meant to be used with the older dongle. It doesn't work with the slot2 USB interface setup the newer cards used so you can't do much with it right now. Sadly the older USB dongles are unobtanium. There's a chance that dongle NeoFlash made (The SMS2/SMS4) might be compatible with N-Card's software but I haven't got the money yet to go buy one of those to find out.

Also the sys.ini files in this package don't have a setup for 16g carts. It goes up to 8g and that's it. Would be nice to see values added for 16g carts but I don't know what values are intended to be used there.

If we managed to find any of those USB dongles the older N-Cards sold with, then we could pretty much roll our own clones with it if we wanted to.

 

[Disturbo]

Oh wow I had no idea about this. Got any card names? I want to keep an eye out on case there's a second hand local posting. Thanks for sharing the software!

I'll also have a look at why R4 cards use game names (i.e. Star Wars Lethal Alliance) instead of "R4" and report back.

Edit: I just saw a somewhat local listing for a 2GB N-Card, got it for 15 bucks. Will also report back once it arrives.

 

[Ryccardo]

I'll also have a look at why R4 cards use game names (i.e. Star Wars Lethal Alliance) instead of "R4" and report back.

To pass the 23DSi whitelist, which covers the header and executables (therefore, relatively few games were used, as an "exploit" in them is needed to get it to run the actual loader and kernel afterwards!)
(exploit in quotes because it's not necessarily something like Ninjhax, in the first versions of the DSi launcher overlays or something like that weren't verified so there's a rather easier approacher, etc)

Classic article for this being https://hackmii.com/2010/02/lawsuit-coming-in-3-2-1/ , don't have a good reference for the later catchup efforts, was it 1.4.4 that added save type verification and beat (until 2018) most every low end DSi flashcard available at the time?

On the DS/Lite it is theoretically possible to have "anything" in the banner/icon, but few flashcards bothered with it (mainly Acekard RPG), the genuine R4 is autobooting anyway (as are most DS/Lite only flashcards) so no need to put effort into something most people wouldn't see (it does have an original name in the GBA-style title you can see in Unlaunch though), didn't stop Datel from creating a menu banner for the original Action Replay DS though

 

[Disturbo]

Oh so they would have to bother to reverser engineer the hash function to even attempt to find a second preimage to any of the listed game hashes, for SURE not worth it. Also, 1.4.4, I remember kid me being confused why my R4i SDHC Happybox v2 stopped working lol.

Cool to see N-Card also cared about this!

 

[Apache Thunder]

Oh wow I had no idea about this. Got any card names? I want to keep an eye out on case there's a second hand local posting. Thanks for sharing the software!

I'll also have a look at why R4 cards use game names (i.e. Star Wars Lethal Alliance) instead of "R4" and report back.

Edit: I just saw a somewhat local listing for a 2GB N-Card, got it for 15 bucks. Will also report back once it arrives.

The really old N-Cards that came with the prehistoric USB dongle went by a few names. DSFlash2 and clone that used one was Ultra FlashPass EX. It seems only the pre 16gb carts used the direct to PC dongle. Here's a JP block that shows photos of the Ultra FlashPass with the dongle (this dongle would work on all N-Cards so if you managed to find one with it you can use it on all form of N-Card. )

https://ayasuke.exblog.jp/5940580/


DSFlash2 with it's dongle:

Lucky you finding a local N-Card for $15 bucks. Cheapest ones I've found were the ExpressCards which I paid $37 for but the eBay seller seems to have finally sold out of those. I had to pay $55 for the 1GB card that came with the DS lite style USB cart. Now that I have DS lites I want one that fits flush with the console.

Plus I'm about 80% sure the 1GB cart I had picked up is identical to the one I used to own back in 2008.

 

[Disturbo]

I see I see, I didn't find anything by those names in the second hand app I use (Wallapop), will give other sites a look.

Also yeah, it was quite a find as I had looked before and there were no N-Cards at all. It's quite interesting as it says it's a "TF/MicroSD Version" but then has the exact same setup as my 1GB one lol. Would have been awesome if it came with the DS lite card but it's another GBA cart. Good to have the board comparison with my other one though.

I've also found a whole bunch of other cards that I intend to slowly purchase. Most are SD card based but I have already gotten two flash based ones:
- A DS Fire Card 16Gb with what seems to be the original box for 15€, good for comparison with @SylverReZ 's
- A G6 Real with the USB dongle (and a broken DS lite lol) for 25€

Another cool find is a SuperPass2, planning on getting this one soon.

 

[Apache Thunder]

Oh a G6 Real...After some looking up that appears to be a nand based cart. Wonder how similar it is to N-Cards and if that USB dongle it has would work with their software. You should test that out when you get it.