Nintendo DS Card Buying Guide

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Digital Era stocks a wide range of Nintendo DSi & DS/DS Lite Flash Cards. These flash cards allow you to play MP3′s, read TXT books, and run your homebrew applications with ease as well as playback of game backups. One of the best product currently available for the Nintendo DS. They have “Drag and Drop” functionality for adding ROMS to the card – no need for patching!
Our range of DS flash cards has changed over the years but has included Acekard, Acekard2i, Cyclo DS Evolution, DSTT, DSTTi, EDGE, EZVi,DS, M3I Zero, M3 Real plus Rumble Pak, N5 Revolution, R4 Revolution, Supercard DS One and Supercard DS Onei DSi, R4i Red and Gold Editions, IPlayer : DS Hardware Decoder Video Player – Over the years we have changed the line up to only bring you the best options.

If you have been looking to purchase a Nintendo DS flash card, you have probably noticed that you have a lot of choice and it can be a little daunting,
We created a simple table below to help in the choice as well as some web links to websites that are worth reading. For the full spec and pricing info please look at each product page.

What Is A Nintendo DSi/DS/DS Lite Card All About?

Nintendo DSi/DS/DS Lite Lite Cards are the newest and most exciting gadgets for anyone with a Nintendo DSi (DSi) Nintendo DS (NDS) or Nintendo DS Lite (NDSL) wishing to enhance the functionality of their handheld games console.

DS Flash Cards are just like regular DSi/NDS/NDSL cartridges, except they have either re-writable memory in them, or are capable of storing information on an external memory card like the ones used in mobile phones, digital cameras etc. Using a PC, you can transfer information to the memory card (you may alo need a memory card reader) and then run them on your console.

Previously you could only use the NDS/NDSL to play games, you can now use it to listen to MP3′s, view images, read e-books and enjoy the vast collection of homebrew applications available for the NDS system.

The DS flash cards may also provide powerful, unique features during game play, fully customisable user interfaces, multi language options plus many more features depending on the card. 

One of the most popular applications is Moonshell, Moonshell is a multimedia player for the Nintendo DS The player supports DPG video files, MP3 / OGG / MOD / SPC / MDX (no PCM) / GBS / HES / NSF / XM / MIDI / low bit rate AAC audio / non-progressive JPEG / BMP / GIF / PNG images, and text files. MoonShell is included as the default multimedia player on some of the Adapter/Flash cards we sell.

In order to put NDS files on to your console, you need a memory card that will store the files. Original Nintendo DS game cards are Read-Only-Memory (ROM) meaning that you can only read from them, but can not erase or rewrite their memory. What you need is a rewritable media, and that is where NDS Flash Cards come in. By adding flash to the DS card you make it possible to copy files to the console the same as you copy songs to a mp3 player.

The devices are simple to use. The majority of Nintendo DS cards come without storage, so a memory card should be purchased with the device. While plugged in, this acts as storage space (in a similar manner to the way memory cards are used in mobile phones and digital cameras). The process of putting files on the memory is also the same,  you connect the memory card to your computer either through a built-in card slot or a USB card reader and then drag and drop files onto the memory as you would for a digital camera.

The software for the DS card devices are usually updated on a regular basis by the companies that manufacture them. As such, if software is not available on a CD ROM with your new device (to keep costs down), then it will most certainly be downloadable and available on the internet, also it is well worth updating to a newer version should they be available.

Every DS card requires you to place software onto the memory card, without the software the DS card will not operate, again software is available from the manufacturers site.

Remember not all cards come bundled with a memory card you and can purchase these separately, click here to see our selection.

Please note, not all Adapters/Flash Cards accept SDHC cards (Higher capacity cards) please read the production descriptions for more information, but dont worry the majority do these days.

We made the choice to only keep stock of DSi cards as most are backwards compatabile, any DS/DSL cards available are limited stock as we slowly phase them out and they have been replaced by newer models.

During the summer of 2009 Nintendo released the 1.4 firmware update for the DSi. Anyone using a DSi card should not update the firmware until they make sure there is an update for the DSi card they have purchased. The update stoped DSi cards from working but the good news is the various teams behind the cards are hard at work to release new firmware to get around 1.4 and the majority of cards now work with 1.4 firmware.

Remember you can grab the latest DS card firmware from here.

Don’t want to read all the information on the web and just want to know what’s best?

Going from our own experience, user comments and looking at our returns/RMA reports we would suggest the following:

For all DSi/DSL/DS owners you cannot go wrong with the SuperCard DS Onei For DSi or the M3I Zero both cards are well built and can be easily upgraded making them the most future proof of the DSi cards we sell.

For those on a tight budget then we recommend the Acekard 2i – It’s cheap and cheerful but misses a lot of the features the SuperCard and M3I Zero offer.
Please note the important information at the start of this page before making a purchase.

Whatever you go for please understand you need the following to make it all work:

1. A DS Console
2. A DS Flash card from our store
3. A Micro SD card (available from our store)
4. A USB Micro SD card reader adapter to transfer any files to the Micro SD card (available frm our store)

So once you have purchased the DS card follow our instructions to get up and running.
Going into detail about every aspect of the DS Flash card world would just be repeating what is readily available from many other websites dedicated to this subject, we suggest you have a good read of the following links and if you have any questions just email us at support@digitalera.co.uk.

Recommended Reading:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_DS_storage_devices
http://gbatemp.net/
http://www.gameboy-advance.net/ds-lite/flash-cards.htm
http://wiki.pocketheaven.com/Category:DS_Flash_Cards

Remember we hold most items in stock for next day delivery and unlike certain other UK websites our stock is held in the UK and ships from our Swindon warehouse you can have a look at us here.