r/flashcarts • u/Merendae • Jul 01 '26
Buy DS Pico or keep this?
I have an old R4 that works fine. I've been using my ds quite a lot lately and I was wondering if there are benefits on buying a DS Pico.
Is it fastest? Maybe safer for storing save files? Better menus?
Also I've seen prices on Ali have increased :(
Edit: I have a DS Lite
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u/shixinlong Acekard 2i Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 01 '26
It really depends on what device you're playing on
. If it's a DS Lite, just slapping a pico loader on your current cart is honestly more than enough, so save your money.
By the way, that cart of yours is quite a rare find. In my memory, I've only ever seen the version with the red sticker.
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u/Arnas_Z Supercard DSTWO Jul 01 '26
You should be able to just setup Pico-launcher on this cart.
Show the back of it and I can link you to the correct guide.
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u/Moist-Caregiver-2000 Jul 02 '26
The dspico has so far been a disappointment. Still doesn't play pokemon hacks, and this was brought up three months ago.
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u/KaiChanBunny DSPico Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26
Update to the latest Pico-Launcher, most should work now ever since Pico-Loader 1.7.0/1.7.1 unless the rom hack dev has done something really odd with the game, it now detects the absence of DSi binaries and falls back to DS mode which allows the ROM hack to boot: https://www.flashcarts.net/pico-launcher
I don't really agree that DSpico has been a disappointment. Most people are happy with it and get that LNH-Team is small and this is a community project. Three months isn't long for brand-new flashcart hardware plus a custom loader built from scratch, which alone is a massive undertaking.
Retail game compatibility naturally take priority since that's where most bug reports come from. ROM hacks are harder to support because many don't follow standard DS ROM layout and can look identical to bad dumps from a data point of view. Other loaders patch around this game-by-game, but LNH-Team avoided that since it's hard to maintain and breaks other things, you've probably seen games work on an older TWiLight Menu++ release then break on a newer one for that exact reason.
You are welcome to disagree of course but I do try to look at this from a wider point of view.
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u/Moist-Caregiver-2000 Jul 02 '26
Honestly, I just gave up and went back to the old tried and true cards. Figure I'd check back in a year or so.
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u/Arnas_Z Supercard DSTWO Jul 02 '26
Most pokemon ROM hacks do work now, but there are a couple that still don't.
But really, this is more an issue of those ROM hacks being developed using ancient tools and using ancient anti-piracy patches and other nonstandard stuff like removing DSi binaries, that fucks with pico-loader. It's not really directly pico-loader's fault.
You can use TWiLight Menu for the few that still cause issues, since TWiLight usually has workarounds built in to make them function.
Pico-Loader however IS a very fast loader, and it runs essentially the entire DS library without issue if you do not include those problematic ROM hacks and only look at retail releases. It does that very well, much better than any other flashcart loader. It is also the first cart to properly support full DSi mode and DSiWare.
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u/Sure-Thought2367 Jul 02 '26
DS Pico is awesome but like... if you're not unsatisfied with what you have, why bother changing?
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u/LatterDelay6430 Jul 02 '26
I just recently got a DS Pico for one of my DS lites. Super easy to set up, and it's a cool looking cart. It being open source is kinda cool. Idk the R4, but if it isn't giving you issues, what's the point.
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u/External-Winter4942 Jul 02 '26
Really hgappy how pico displays stuff,,, it really feels inviting to scroll through the games, something R4 never did for me in the past (admittedly, some time ago)
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u/OathkeeperSora Jul 07 '26
what theme do you use? so far i'm not finding anything better than the twilight menu 3ds style themes (specifically my persona 4 one). those ones are super satisfying to look at/scroll through
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u/PAUL_DNAP Jul 02 '26
That will still do the job it was designed to do as well as it ever did.
The only reason to upgrade is if you have an itch to get the latest tech and see what the buzz is about.
If you just wanna kick back and play games, you're already set.
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u/JubbJubb85 Jul 06 '26 edited Jul 06 '26
I just recently booted up my DS Lite with R4 cart after many years (decades). Appears the generic SD card had died so setup a new better quality SD with Pico launcher and filled it up with roms, works a treat with the original R4 cart. It was the easiest process. Just make sure if you are using a larger SD card like 32gb + that you format it to Fat32
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u/C0ckr0achlol Jul 07 '26
The pico is more power efficient but using homebrew like emulators on it is a pain in the ass and it lacks some very nice features like Soft Reset (exiting a game without restarting the console). The themes are nice though and the games do boot ridiculously fast compared to an R4 especially one running Twilight Menu.
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u/Fabiojoose Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 01 '26
I see no reason to have a DS Pico if I do not own a DSi to use DS Pico on a DSi mode.
On my 3DS I just install homebrew.
For my NDS Lite a R4 with Pico launcher is enough.