Nintendo ds flashcart on the 3ds?

[Wolf_]

So it turns out that if you try to load nds roms off a sd card directly inserted into a 3ds it is all done via emulation because it isn't able to access the nds portion of the 3ds through the sd card slot so basically the only way to run nds games on the nds hardware of the 3ds is to use a flashcart.
My 3ds is the xl "new" model and running firmware v11.12 and it is also hacked using gm9 and luma3ds so I was wondering what would be a good flashcart to buy to run nds rom backups?

[fernan1234]

An R4i+ RTS should cover all your needs, and is cheap.

[Wolf_]

An R4i+ RTS should cover all your needs, and is cheap.

Is there a specific model you suggest? I heard there are many versions of this and some of them suicide at specific dates which have all passed.

[Taiyaki]

Do you no longer have your original DS? My main concern in running them on 3DS would be the aspect ratio difference since 3DS has a 16:9 display.

[fernan1234]

Is there a specific model you suggest? I heard there are many versions of this and some of them suicide at specific dates which have all passed.

That is a specific model. And none of the R4i cards suicided as far as I know, you may be thinking instead of the Gateway cards. The only thing you can miss out on using these cards is DSi enhanced game features, since the cards operate as regular DS carts.

Do you no longer have your original DS? My main concern in running them on 3DS would be the aspect ratio difference since 3DS has a 16:9 display.

DS games can be displayed in their native AR with black borders on the larger/higher-res 3DS screen.

[Link83]

I seem to recall that the R4i Gold with a label showing the manufacturer website www.r4ids.cn was often recommended since it supports Wood firmware. It needs to look like one of these pictures:-
http://www.r4ids.cn/r4ids-e.htm#pic

[Lawfer]

Do you no longer have your original DS? My main concern in running them on 3DS would be the aspect ratio difference since 3DS has a 16:9 display.

No, the 3DS does not have a 16:9 aspect ratio, it has a 15:9 (5:3) screen with a native resolution of 400x240 for the top and a 4:3 screen with a native resolution of 320x240 for the bottom, for the top screen all games on 3DS are outputted in 400x240 59.83Hz no matter if they are 3DS or DS games, so DS games will have a 4:3 picture pillarboxed in a 15:9 output for the top screen, while the bottom screen won't have any pillarboxing since it's 4:3 like it was on the DS, however the DS resolution was 256x192, while the 3DS bottom screen resolution is 320x240. However apperently there is a way to play DS games unscaled on the 3DS, meaning they will be unscaled but windowboxed (think of how the PSP does it, it has a 480x272 unscaled picture in a 720x480 output), you do this by holding start and select on boot up, but it seems like it still doesn't look as good as what you would get on an actual DS console.

There are two ways to play roms on the 3DS, one is to use flashcarts, the other is to install custom firmware and run all roms from an SD/microSD card.

[Wolf_]

Hurray, looks like I went with the right model:
https://flashcarda.com/home/5-r4i-gold-3ds-plus.html

Also I have the firmware downloaded and ready for when it arrives:
http://www.r4ids.cn/r4i-download-e.htm
Is it really compatible with every ds game? I don't need to patch anything and can just use regular ds roms?

Btw I found a list of 3ds flash carts that suicide in case anyone is interested and it includes all but 2 r4i models including one of the gold models:
https://3ds.hacks.guide/ntrboot

[fernan1234]

Also I have the firmware downloaded and ready for when it arrives:
http://www.r4ids.cn/r4i-download-e.htm
Is it really compatible with every ds game? I don't need to patch anything and can just use regular ds roms?

You should only need the Wood firmware files if you're just using this as an NDS flashcart. That shouldn't have any suicide issues either. Is your 3DS running on CFW already? You only need the 3DS mode and ntrboot stuff if you want to install CFW on it.

[Wolf_]

Also I have the firmware downloaded and ready for when it arrives:
http://www.r4ids.cn/r4i-download-e.htm
Is it really compatible with every ds game? I don't need to patch anything and can just use regular ds roms?

You should only need the Wood firmware files if you're just using this as an NDS flashcart. That shouldn't have any suicide issues either. Is your 3DS running on CFW already? You only need the 3DS mode and ntrboot stuff if you want to install CFW on it.

Yup already hacked it with gm9 and luma.

[Wolf_]

I put the latest wood firmware and some ds backups on my sd card and it displays the games but they all crash shortly after the logo shows. I've tested the roms in emulators and they all work. I'm stumped as to what is going on. Wish we had a quality ds flashcart out there.

[Wolf_]

I fixed it! Turns out in addition to only reading up to 32gb fat32 formatted cards with the latest wood firmware on them it also only reads specific BRANDS of sd cards. Even if the specs are exactly the same on my Sandisk card the games crash after being launched 100% of the time but on my Kingston card everything works perfectly.

So buy a Kingston 32gb card if you want to have it work with an r4i gold card plus (and make sure it is that model so it doesn't timebomb suicide like the latest 2019 r4i gold card and most of the other r4i cards)
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B079GTYCW4