Years ago, I had an r4, the old original models that didn't support SDCards over 2GB and had many MANY games not work due to even the earliest and simplest form of antipiracy patches or all sorts of other issues. (IIRC using the teleport-stones in Portrait of Ruin used to crash MANY people's games unless you had a MicroSD card that had a very very fast internal Random Read speed, something not even normally advertised). On top of all this, it hadn't been updated in forever.
I thought enough was enough and looked for the most feature-packed and compatible flashcart for the DS at the time.... and that was the CycloDS. I got it and I was happy. It worked perfectly with all my games, supported SDXC cards, it would get updates, all was well.
.... that was then. And while they continued to improve such as by creating the CycloDSi, the only flashcart that could actually run homebrew and itself in DSi mode instead of just tricking the DSi's whitelist and making it run in DS mode like every other cart even today does..... they stopped. No more updates for years, their site went down, and newer anti-piracy methods were popping up that didn't work with the cart anymore. R4 also start getting community updates long after the original support died, but I don't believe they were compatible with my massively outdated model.
I still have that CycloDS cart, but I am tired of putting up with it. With the recent NTR feature that many carts support I figured it was time to get a new DS flashcart. I don't NEED the NTR feature for now... but it's a nice extra to have anyway on top of being able run DS software with it. Thing is, the main issue I have with my CycloDS.... the main reason I want to replace it, is for updated firmware that I assumed got past any anti-piracy features of any DS game, since the last DS game was released long ago... but now I am finding out that even the latest R4s, such as the R4i Gold 3DS Plus don't get past the anti-piracy features of many DS games still..... and they also still fake a whitelisted DS game to work in a DSi instead of run in DSi mode.... despite the Cyclo team having figured out how to practically a decade ago.
So if this is all true, and even the latest R4 cards that have an NTR switch still don't support running anti-piracy enabled games or DSi mode or anything else like that.... is there any actual reason for me to get a CycloDS over what I already have anyway? I was thinking it would be nice that I would be able to use it on a 3DS, but a 3DS running CFW can do that with blacklisted flahcarts anyway, and I will likely just play on my DS to avoid the screen-crunch. Is there any reason for me to get a modern R4 over a CycloDS to play on my DS?
I thought enough was enough and looked for the most feature-packed and compatible flashcart for the DS at the time.... and that was the CycloDS. I got it and I was happy. It worked perfectly with all my games, supported SDXC cards, it would get updates, all was well.
.... that was then. And while they continued to improve such as by creating the CycloDSi, the only flashcart that could actually run homebrew and itself in DSi mode instead of just tricking the DSi's whitelist and making it run in DS mode like every other cart even today does..... they stopped. No more updates for years, their site went down, and newer anti-piracy methods were popping up that didn't work with the cart anymore. R4 also start getting community updates long after the original support died, but I don't believe they were compatible with my massively outdated model.
I still have that CycloDS cart, but I am tired of putting up with it. With the recent NTR feature that many carts support I figured it was time to get a new DS flashcart. I don't NEED the NTR feature for now... but it's a nice extra to have anyway on top of being able run DS software with it. Thing is, the main issue I have with my CycloDS.... the main reason I want to replace it, is for updated firmware that I assumed got past any anti-piracy features of any DS game, since the last DS game was released long ago... but now I am finding out that even the latest R4s, such as the R4i Gold 3DS Plus don't get past the anti-piracy features of many DS games still..... and they also still fake a whitelisted DS game to work in a DSi instead of run in DSi mode.... despite the Cyclo team having figured out how to practically a decade ago.
So if this is all true, and even the latest R4 cards that have an NTR switch still don't support running anti-piracy enabled games or DSi mode or anything else like that.... is there any actual reason for me to get a CycloDS over what I already have anyway? I was thinking it would be nice that I would be able to use it on a 3DS, but a 3DS running CFW can do that with blacklisted flahcarts anyway, and I will likely just play on my DS to avoid the screen-crunch. Is there any reason for me to get a modern R4 over a CycloDS to play on my DS?
