Mon 26th Dec, 2005 - Newbie Guide: Getting a Super Card for your Nintendo DS
1. First you have to get Nintendo DS ($129) but remember get the old one, not the new one with Mario Kart, Nintendo changed the firmware on those and you can’t use a Super Card with that NDS. (Somebody will probably find a workaround soon) You also need an original NDS game, it can be pretty much any game, I bought Castlevania ($54) cause I’m a big fan of the series, especially in 2D.
2. Buy your Super Card Adapter with Super Pass. The Super Card allows you to play homebrew and gameboy/nds software stored on a SD or CF card which is then inserted into the super card. The Super Pass allows you to run nds software, you have to own an original game for this work. I got my supercard and superpass combo from ioffer.com, but be careful with ioffer, there are pretty much no guarantees (you could end up with no money and no card, it’s like the shadier side of ebay), and remember, you get to make an offer. I got mine for about $65 with shipping included. I bought the SD card version of the Super Card.
3. Wait for like 2-3 weeks until your supercard arrives from Hong Kong (or wherever you purchased yours.) In the mean time, remember you need an SD or CF card, you can get those on Ebay for a pretty good price, I recommend getting a 256mb or bigger card. In my case I purchased a 1gb sd ($60) card cause I wanted to have space for some mp3 (yes, you can play mp3’s with this.) You should also take this time to download all that “homebrew nds software and demos” you want.
4. Download the latest Supercard software from the Supercard website. As of this writing you need to get Kernel V1.54 to update your Supercard and SoftwareV2.44 which you install in your XP comp.
5. Once you get your “NDS software demos/hombrew” you need to run them through the Super Card software. Remember to set your Saver patch and Rom Position patch to the SD/CF card position (this is done by double clicking the file on the gamelist screen) so that the file runs and saves to the SD/CF card. Also remember to enable compress in the options. You will end up with two files for NDS: a “file.nds.dsq” and a “file.nds.sav” For gameboy you will end up with 3 files “file.gba” “file.sav” “file.sci” Put these files on the SD/CF card.
6. After your supercard and superpass arrive, fit the superpass with the NDS game on the nds game slot, and fit the SD/CF into the supercard and put that into the gameboy slot of the DS.
7. When you power the system, it should go directly to the Super Card screen shown in the pic, select your file and press A. It should give you a kb count and then run; If the screen goes to white, then you have a problem with the file and you should try to run the file again through the sc software, maybe changing some of the properties, also remember to check if your “files” are compatible with the supercard, here’s a good website to check for that.
8. Well, total price for this project: about $300 including the Nintendo DS price, that’s the price for the ultimate portable!! Next time I’ll be explaining how I hacked the firmware so you don’t have to use the Superpass.
They make a device to hack the Nintendo DS and put Bobba Fett on the cartridge? Are they trying to get screwed both ways?
All in all, this is a very detailed and informative guide. Very detailed. I mean, one of the steps is “wait for like 2-3 weeks until your supercard arrives from Hong Kong”. Then again, it’s not detailed enough to have instructions on how to play porn on it. Come on, its a handheld: You need to put the PRON in it.