AceKard 2i Review
September 25th 2009 – Adam Bauman

 

Gameboy flash carts have evolved tremendously since the days of the very first units that made use of the standard GBA port. Now that the Gameboy Advance has become a fossil we have seen a shift to the use of SLOT-1 cards that forego the need to rewrite the Nintendo DS’s firmware or use a bulky Passme device to execute DS games from the GBA slot. There are a number of carts available from a variety of manufacturers which include the EZ Flash Vi, M3i Zero, R4i and Cyclo Evolution. Picking a card can be a little confusing at first, most of the cards are similar in price and features but vary greatly in how often their respective manufacturers release updated software and card firmware and how quickly they keep up with modern DS technology. We’re going to take a look at a card I just received, the AceKard 2i.

 

I considered a number of cards before settling on the AceKard 2i, my biggest requirements were DSi 1.4U compatibility, inclusion of a MicroSD slot and evidence of a solid history of manufacturer updates. The AceKard 2i fit perfectly within my specifications and was chosen over others with similar features because its MicroSD slot was easily accessible and spring loaded and it had some pretty slick looking launch software from both the company and 3rd parties developing open source alternatives. I ordered my AceKard 2i from NDShub for about $25 shipped and received it very quickly, I have to give NDShub mad props because I was very impressed with their post-order communication, their quick shipping and the condition the unit arrived in.

 

Within the AceKard 2i package you’ll find the card itself and a small MicroSD USB reader, the card feels very solid and its fit and finish is on par with a commercial DS game. One small issue I had was that the sticker on the rear of the item (a round, silver thing) caused the card to bind up a bit in the DSi’s slot (the AceKard sticker on the front of the cart didn’t cause any issues,) removing the sticker resolved this issue and didn’t affect the card itself.

On its own the card is pretty useless without a MicroSD card, NDShub offers some package deals that include a card or you can use just about any MicroSD card you might have laying around or purchased elsewhere, I’m using a SanDisk 4gb MicroSDHC card with mine. To get your card functioning you’ll need to head over the AceKard website and download the OSMenu software for the AK2i (version 4.18 at the time of this review,) then you’ll need to format your MicroSD card and drag-and-drop the contents of the OSMenu archive on the card. Once the OSMenu is loaded onto the card you can begin dropping your NDS files onto the device, you can leave them on the root of the card or place them in folders if you wish to keep them organized. There is no need to pre-patch your NDS files (the OSMenu takes care of this when they are executed) and all of the homebrew applications I tried worked perfectly without any tinkering.

At this point you can remove your MicroSD card from the reader, insert it into the AceKard 2i and boot the system up. Here’s where things get a little odd, the card I received from NDShub had already been flashed with the DSi 1.4U fix which changes the card’s identification information to curb Nintendo’s attempts to disable it. Post-fix the card will appear as “Danny Phantom Urban Jungle THQ”, there is nothing abnormal about this and the card worked perfectly on my 1.4U DSi. If you happen to have a 1.4U DSi and the card hasn’t been flashed with the fixed firmware you will need to head over to the akds-forums, download the 1.4U fix, copy it to the card and find a friend with a pre-1.4U DSi, DSlite or DS so you can execute the card’s firmware update from the OSMenu.

 

Initial setup aside, operation of the card is very straight forward, AceKard’s OSMenu is very quick and simple to use, manages to pack in automatic ROM patching, advanced save file management and support for Action Replay cheat code patching. The UI itself is customizable by the use of skin files which can be downloaded from the acekard website or created by the user by modifying a few image files. I didn’t have any issues with the NDS ROMs I attempted to execute and all of the games ran perfectly, the only odd pause I encountered was on the initial execute of Castlevania Order of Ecclesia. When the game went to create its first save file I encountered a 15-20 second freeze but it has run flawlessly since then, from what I’ve read in the OSMenu release notes and the akds-forums it looks like this is normal behavior when games using larger than normal saves create their initial file.

 

Overall I am very pleased with this card. It’s simple operation, excellent build quality and a history of great software support make this the card of choice in my book. The only negative item I have to mention is the questionable quality of the MicroSD USB reader the card includes. It functions perfectly once the card is inserted but the retention mechanism is too tight, the first couple of times I used it I really had to muscle the card out of the reader and actually killed one of my smaller MicroSD cards during removal. I fixed this issue by using a small flat bladed screw driver to push the contact pins down a bit but still have to be careful that I only insert the card enough to be read, otherwise it’s still very difficult to remove.

 

AceKard 2i DSi Menu	AceKard 2i Game Selection	AceKard 2i Game Execution	AceKard 2i System Menu
AceKard 2i Patch Options	AceKard 2i System Options	AceKard 2i Rom Information	AceKard 2i Help Menu