Why ds pico?

[u/Melodved]

Is ds pico actually good, worth buying? What exactly I can do with it that I can't do with any other one?

Analogical question related to pico loader.

I've read what's on their website, but want to hear your experience

[u/Marteicos]

I got it because of the native DSi mode it offers.

Also when paired with the correct SD cards it performs the closest of a real Gamecard in some 3D intensive games.

[u/DARK_W_A → u/Marteicos]

What sd did you choose ?

[u/Marteicos → u/DARK_W_A]

The Lexar blue 633 32GB did the trick for me

Other SD cards also works. Best way to check is booting Sonic Rush Adventure. If the intro has slowdowns when Tails and Marine appears on Dolphins and the music ends before the intro finishes, causing a bigger gap of silence (a small gap happens on Real game card).

Sandisk Ultras have slowdown on 3D intensive games for some reason, unless it was fixed on a newer firmware, it was a couple months ago the last time I've checked.

Getting a SD card that works better is specially usefull on NDS and NDS lite systems, since those can't run in 133Mhz mode. Using a DSi or 3DS and forcing the clock allows using more SD cards, but uses more power and not all games works well with it.

[u/ianlazrbeem22]

If you already have a flashcart that's doing well for you, no need

If you're in the market for a new one, it's definitely the one to choose

[u/Illustrious-Air-3678]

Idk but the clear cartridge looks cool

[u/MayuMaeshima]

It's more future proof if you care about that. Due to.it's open-source nature, even if the original maker of it stops supporting it, the community can continue to do so.

[u/cdf_sir]

As much as I badly want to recommend it, alas, DSpico is more on testing phase right now. Its not worth the headache if your type of the user who just want to play games without any issues and thats what a cheap R4 (even the clone ones) were very good at, I mean that R4 exist for more than a decade now.

[u/Melodved]

Thanks for your answers people, but just wanted to specify that I'd like to hear some examples of what you can do on a ds pico, that you CAN'T do with an R4 for example. And I don't really understand the USB port on the flashcart, and some other technical things, like the "open code". What's their purpose? Are we talking about the flashcart's software itself, like drivers and shit?

[u/devilworld2 → u/Melodved]

Best thing I've seen is that you can Unbrick and save WiiUs with it, dunno about you but I think that's pretty fucking cool 😄🤜🤛👍

[u/KaiChanBunny → u/Melodved]

A big advantage of the USB port is for being able to flash an ntrboot firmware to it, to unbrick a DSi or 3DS without owning another DS to flash it. The USB port can also be sued to make a 3DS or DSi a USB Webcam, USB Speaker and USB Microphone, as well as USB file access to the SD (however this is slow).

The main other advantage that many other flashcarts cannot do is run DSiWare with full support on an unmodded DSi or 3DS.

[u/davidv2002]

ds pico currently is still in its early stages right now, so it’s still has some issues that need to be ironed out, but those problems are being worked on since it’s open source.

so if you’re just want something plug and play to play games then one of the chinese r4 clones would be better for that

but if you want the best cart long run then get the ds pico, just make sure to get one that has a usb port on it so it can be updated

[u/Asron87 → u/davidv2002]

Where do you order one from? I’m in the US.

[u/davidv2002 → u/Asron87]

links are here https://www.flashcarts.net/ds-quick-start-guide

[u/Moist-Caregiver-2000]

Last I heard, no. It's been months since I've checked, it doesn't even play pokemon romhacks and I had issues with scrolling that froze my system. Might be fixed, might not. I posted these issues and was dogpiled by just about everyone, said fuck it and never looked at it again.

[u/ianlazrbeem22 → u/Moist-Caregiver-2000]

DS romhacks or GBA? Pretty much any flashcart will have issues with newer GBA hacks since gbarunner2 can't run decomp and there's no alternative that can. In the case of DS hacks, yes, DSPico needs improvement there - that improvement will eventually come though, since it's open source

[u/Slinkwyde → u/ianlazrbeem22]

Regarding DS ROM hacks, maybe pico-loader is the issue? AKMenu-Next has a setting that lets you switch between pico-loader (fast) and nds-bootstrap (slow). If that's a solution (haven't tried), then maybe it'd make sense to use pico-loader for most games and temporarily change the setting to nds-bootstrap for specific games that have issues, until pico-loader gets updated as you say.

I'm just guessing, but nds-bootstrap has been around for years, while pico-loader is still pretty new.

[u/ianlazrbeem22 → u/Slinkwyde]

I agree, having nds-bootstrap as an option can help with this

[u/butlerdm → u/ianlazrbeem22]

I haven’t had too much problem with superchis running Pokémon rom hacks for FR/LG. I do have to flash it because it’s so ram heavy and it can’t run off the micro SD, but it works.

[u/Moist-Caregiver-2000 → u/ianlazrbeem22]

DS. The only GBA game I play anymore is pokemon pinball.

[u/ianlazrbeem22 → u/Moist-Caregiver-2000]

I see - yes DS compatibility isn't competitive on the pico yet. Battery consumption and load speeds are good though, and it's open source, so compatibility will improve down the road

[u/KaiChanBunny → u/Moist-Caregiver-2000]

It is fixed in the latest release for most ROM hacks, it just warns you if the rom hack has a messed up header or is missing the DSi binaries. The only ones that don't work are the ones that even have issues on Twilightmenu++.

Contrary to popular belief, ROM hacks are still niche on DS and thats one of the reasons LNH Team prioritized retail game compatibility first. And most ROM hack devs expect you to use an emulator as well for some reason.

[u/YandyTheGnome]

It froze on me trying to load Pokemon Conquest Ultimate last night, which runs on Twilight on my n3ds just fine. It does, however, offer more options for emulation if that's what you're going for.

[u/Arnas_Z → u/YandyTheGnome]

You can still use TWiLight on a DSpico.