Just came across this :

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.10323

Seems to do everything the R4 does, plus it's compatible with SDHC microSD cards (so you can use 4GB cards), plus you get a rumble-pack for the GBA slot, plus it's cheaper than the R4.

Soz if it's been mentioned before, I haven't been here on a daily basis recently.

I've already got an R4 which I'm quite happy with, but I've been trying to order one for a mate the past week and everywhere's out of stock.

Is this a good alternative ? Seems better AND cheaper as far as I can tell.

Am I missing something ? Is there some drawback I don't know about ?

Ta !

I've already recommended it to a mate who ordered an R4 and will probably never receive it. Seems like there's nothing wrong with it - the GBAtemp review linked to in that review seems pretty positive.

In any case - at that price, it's not going to kill anyone to find out.

I've ordered one of these, so will give it an official WoS analysis when it arrives.

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Just what I was waiting for as an upgrade to my ageing MaxMedia+M3 combo.

I've ordered 2 (one for a prezzie). Don't know if I'll get it for Christmas though.

Now on the hunt for the cheapest/fastest 4GB SDHD.

So can you run GBA games off this too without another card? The review just confused me...

If you get one of the bundles that includes a GBA expansion then yes you can, but at present DX only sell the TopToy either on its own or with a rumble pack. However the rumble and GBA packs are apparently rebadged Ewin products, which means the GBA cart is presumably the Ewin Expansion Pak which can be bought from http://www.psxboy.com for £7 via standard airmail or £8.50 via registered airmail.

Fantastic, have been trying to get an R4 for a couple of weeks now and everywhere's been sold out or asking silly prices for 'em.

What's with the R4 suddenly becoming so huge nowadays? It seemed like such a little underdog back in the day and I'm happy for the cheap deal DX did.


I blame The Times and that article of theirs.

Everyone keeps asking if I have an R4 in stock. Some people have been buying them at car boot sales for about £100 with all the DS games so far on some DVDs.

Do you?

Just bought one of these from DealExtreme. Amusingly, because I bought an R4 from them a month or so ago that got lost in the postal system somewhere, they're going to be sending me an R4 as well.

No I don't stock things like R4s. I'd probably make a lot of money if I did though.

My DSTT (two of, actually) arrived this morning. Joy!

I haven't yet orderd a microSD for it, so I've commandeered the 2GB one from my Nokia (hopefully it will work again in the Nokia if I just backup and restore the files).

I've given it a quick format to FAT32 and copied the European version of New Super Mario Brothers to it. It fits nice and snugly in the cartridge, which in turn fits nicely into the DS.

Annoyingly, it doesn't work. I get a slightly useless error message stating "Menu?". Hmm. A trip to www.ndstt.com is in order.

Oh dear, as is typical with busy Chinese websites, it is agonisingly slow. I attempted to download the menu software, but 3.3MB at 5, then 4 and then ultimately 0K/s would literally take forever.

A quick Google revealed an alternative: http://www.neoflash.com/download/TTDS_Engl...river_V1.07.rar

Downloaded in less than 2 seconds. Copied to the root folder on the memory card. Away we go!

Ooh, niceness! A rather attractive menu appears, listing an icon for the game. Bonus of bonuses, the menu is touch controllable! Maybe the R4 is the same, but I'm coming from a Datel MaxMedia + M3 Perfect, which is wholly crap when compared to this wonderous thingumajiggit.

Touching the little + symbol next to the game brings up a menu whereby you can turn DMA on or off. On means it loads faster, theoretically. I switch it on. There's also a 'Cheats' option, which I duly explore. Hmm, 99 coins, always Big Mario... excellent. Though I (of course) refuse to activate such shenanigans, it's nice to have the option.

Soft reset is also a selectable option, though this can be globally configured as well.

I have to say, I am quite impressed. It's cheap, comes with a tiny USB transflash reader/writer and, after only a minor amount of faffing, works superbly.

8 out of 10 bananas.

My card arrived yesterday and it is rather lovely. The initial puzzlement of the Menu? screen aside everything seems straightforward for someone like me who's never used any of these types of card before. The little USB flash reader sometimes has problems recognising my SD card but a little wiggling puts things right. Overall for £14 plus the SD card it is a very good deal.

An afternoon of Ouendan 2 beckons.

So what's the best solution for GBA stuff at the moment?

I'd prefer something which can use the Slot 1 SD card and, as per usual with the "scene", information ranges from "It's completely impossible, N00b!!11!1" to "Use this easy to use daunting hack with no instructions, nooooobZ!11111"

I've got an R4 at the moment.

I use an EZFlash V 3-in-1 with my R4. It's fine.

I've got a G6 Lite in the bottom slot for GBA stuff, and it works splendidly. Pity my DS joypad is so shite as to render a lot of GBA stuff almost unplayable.

Being utterly shit with cards and what is fast, reliable, etc... which card do I want for this thing, then? Would like to store a few decent DS games, plus speccy emu with archive and perhaps a little homebrew on one card. Link to bargains, please.... my DSTT is on its way.

Both http://www.scan.co.uk and http://www.svp.co.uk are doing good prices on microSD cards. I'm unsure whether the DSTT supports anything more than 4GB though. It says not on the packaging, but I wonder if the packaging was finalised before 8GB microSD cards became available.

I was using a 1GB miniSD previously, and it provided plenty of space. 2GB gives a ridiculous amount of space (the biggest DS games are only 128MB). 4GB should last a lifetime.

**EDIT** the ndstt.com website states that the DSTT supports the maximum size of SDHC microSD, theoretically 4TB.

You must have different packaging to me then VinylPusher. Mine says on the box that it supports SDHC cards up to 4096GB.

No, you're right, I misread it!

**EDIT**

What homebrew is worth a look? Has there already been a thread about it/

*cough*

Cheers to the folk who received and posted thier review-type-things of the DSTT.

I've just ordered two of them (without the rumble pack) from Deal Extreme for friends.

Having read up a bit more about this cart though, it does sound like the software interface is currently a bit poor compared to the R4, and there's been some moaning about it on various forums (the word "retarded" was mentioned once, as was the phrase "have they edited the 'stupid' out of the OS yet ?").

Firstly, I believe it can only show about 4 games/items on the screen at a time and scrolling through the list can be laggy (especially if your're using the touch controls).
This could be a bit annoying if you've got tonnes of stuff on there.

Secondly, games are added to the list in the order you put them on apparently (it doesn't sort them alphabetically), plus absolutely everything has to go on the root of the cart which could make things a bit messy if you've got loads of different files on there (with the R4 and every other flash-cart you do have to put most homebrew on the root, but for commercial games and other files you are usually able to set up different folders to store things how you want them).

No big deal though and to anyone getting this as thier first flash cart, I'm sure they'll be more than happy, especially given the price (plus the interface will no doubt be improved in later software versions - it's still on the first version at the moment).

As someone who already has an R4 though and doesn't need more than 2GB of space, I won't personally be switching.

Just mentioning this for the fussy types !

Oh, in addition to the DS homebrew thread that's already been posted, this page is worth a look :

http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=70463

Doesn't include emulators (just hombrew apps and games) and I've no idea if these really are the best DS homebrew titles, but it has plenty of useful screenshots, videos and download links.

The interface could be better, but it's hardly unusable. Yes, it's slightly laggy (tip, press left and right on the d-pad to scroll through the list a page at a time) but it's not so bad that I want to throw it out of a window.

As for the list being in when-game-was-added order, I noticed this too. I thought about changing the 'data modified' on the files to see if that fixed it, or perhaps theres a little data file somewhere with the games listed, which can be edited.

I've only got about 15 games on there, so I'm not really that bothered.

Some homebrew emulators do this for ROM listing, which annoys the piss out of me. You can manually edit the date-stamp prior to uploading to the cart (if all dates are the same, it lists alphabetically), but this means doing that for all relevant files every time a new item is added to the list.

I've found that you often have to put certain files on the root (notably BIOS files), but not always the executable—at least for emulators.

If the listing on the DSTT is anything like the listing on the old SuperCards, changing the datestamp of the files will have no effect. The SuperCards used information stored in the FAT instead of the actual datestamps on the files, which meant that the only way to get things sorted properly was to use a program like FATSort.

Incidentally, for anyone looking for a good datestamp-editing program, this is my preference.

Apologies for the necrobump, but I have a question pertaining to this lovely wee toy.

I got one of these today, along with a 2gb Kingston MicroSD card, and a few hours after installing the English menu kernel I found that I was being taken to an 'ERROR' screen instead of my games upon starting up the DS. I popped the MicroSD into my USB drive to check it, and it needed formatting. Is it likely that the DSTT caused a corruption, or do I just have a dicky MicroSD card?

Cheers, folks.

Edit: Just happened again. It's as though just turning the DS off risks ballsing up the SD.

This happened to me with a Kingston card, nothing to do with using it in a DSTT though. It would just randomly fuck up when using it. It would appear to format OK, though I remember that it would fail if I attempted a full format (not sure on this though, was a while ago).

I sent it back to SVP and bought a SanDisk from Amazon instead. I've got 4 SanDisk products (2GB microSD, 1GB microSD and a 1GB SD and 8GB SDHC) and they have performed admirably over the course of ... I guess more than 18 months now.

Bummer! Thanks very much for the info, mate; I'll try out a SanDisk one.

no problems with my kingston until now

Just in case anybody's having the same problem, I'm highly suspecting that the corruption could be caused by games that are incompatible with your cartridge (possibly because they aren't patched properly, etc). The Chrono Trigger file I have works beautifully with my little brother's R4, but just shows a blank, white screen with my DSTT, and I keep seeing the error screen after restarting the DS from there. Never seems to happen when my last game was anything else.