ACEKARD

A couple of weeks ago I learned about a new NDS "flash" cartridge being released in Asia, called Acekard. So I of course had to track one of these carts down and write a small review. Yesterday evening (20 Dec.) the mailman arrived with an EMS package, and here I am with my review of the Acekard. PACKAGING A quick mention of the packaging. It's clear to see that the Acekard isn't meant for the European or UK markets, the box text is completely in chinese (I guess) and so it the Acekard website for that matter. Anyway, included in the box is the Acekard NDS cartridge, a CD with the Manager Software and a small manual, although only written in Chinese. CART DESIGN AND USE OF THE CART The AceKard is a 1 slot product, meaning that it only requires the DS game slot, unlike other products on the market like the M3 or NEO2, which requires both the DS and GBA game slots (2 slot product). Basicly the AceKard is nothing more than an adapter, as no memory is contained in the device, instead a MicroSD Flash Memory is required for... yes memory. A lot of MicroSD carts have already been tested and reported working such as the Kingmax (1G works from version 1.06 of the AK menu), AData, PNY, Kingston, Sandisk, Apacher and Toshiba. If you have a microSD of another brand, like me, then there's an option in the manager to format "other microSD cart". I have bought a 512mb DaneElec microSD which worked flawless when formatted with this option. But it is very sad that the AceKard uses it's own FAT format, which means that the microSD is formatted exclusively for use with the AceKard. So if you want to use it with another NDS flash cart or for your digial camera, it has to be reformatted. Though, please note that the developer has concluded that Kingston 512mb microSD carts will not work with AceKard at the moment. As you can see, the AceKard is the exact size of a normal NDS cartridge, although slightly thicker than a normal cart, you can see a huge chip hidden beind the front sticker on the cartridge. The front sticker will look worn quite fast, because the cart is slightly thicker where the chip is, and the label therefore slides against the edge of the cartridge slot. Another sad thing about the AceKard is the fast that the cart isn't recognized about 3 of 10 times inserted into the NintendoDS and to fix this problem you have to turn off the NDS, remove the AceKard and re-insert it. When you have done this a couple of times and the cart still isn't regognized, you will start to bitch a little. When writing this I had reinserted the AceKard 4 times before it was recognized (Gaaah!). WINDOWS SOFTWARE To be able to format the MicroSD card so it will work with the AceKard, you need to download the AceKard Manager software which curretly only is available for Windows users. Unfortunately the AceKard doesn't use a FAT formatted SD card, as mentioned earlier, it has to be formatted exclusively for the AceKard, meaning you cannot use the same SD card for other things, unless it is re-formatted of course. An english version of the AceKard Manager is said to exist, but almost nothing in the "English" manager has been translated to English, which makes it quite hard to use. Below I've created a small translation of what the menu entires do. Other than that the manager is quite simple to use, but still lacks features such as being to able to extract game roms from zips, a feature which in my oppinion is a must for any manager program. The manager is able to open zip files though, just like your Windows File Explorer, but you can't transfer files from the ZIP file to the microSD. On the plus side can be mentioned that AceKard doesn't require patching of new releases. It's pretty much useless to test the ROM transfer speed as it depends on a lot of things which aren't related to the AceKard, such as the type of microSD card you're using as well as your PC and card reader, but it's no where as tedious as the early days of GBA copiers where it could take up to 2-3 minutes to copy just one ROM image. As said, the manager is simple to use, simply drag and drop the file or use the small blue arrows in the center part of the manager. It basicly works as your Windows File Explorer, it'll copy anything to and from the SD cart, even your zipped ROM images, eventhough ypu probably would like to make them playable from SD cart and not just copy the zip file. Included in the AKManager is a AceKard version of MoonShell, which can be copied to the microSD from the "Tools" droppdown menu in the manager. MoonShell is capable of all sorts of things. Since MoonShell isn't made by the AceKard team, of one person, I will leave it up to you to check it out, it's available for almost every GBA/NDS flash cart out there. THE USER INTERFACE The user interface is still very basic eventhough 6 updates to menu have already been released and currently only version 1.06 of the AKMENU is available in english. English translations seems to be very hard to make for the AceKard author, which wasn't so surprising when I found out that he doesn't speak one word of english himself. Anyway, a lot of glitches has been fixed in the latest release of the AKMENu (1.06) such as a glitch in the graphic presentation of a game, seen below. By pressing various buttons on the DS, you're able boot a game in various ways. If you press the START button when the AKMENU is opened, you'll be able to access a quite nice "quick help" info page telling what each button does in the menu, very nice! However I am still unsure of what the "SD speed up" and "SD speed down" actually is useful for, other than the obvious - speed of the SD, which could have influence on how games run. But I've never seen this feature in any other flash cart and I would think that this sort of option shouldn't be necessary. AceKard is capable of booting other flash carts from the GBA slot, which means it can operate as a PassMe (MK4). Here's a list of carts said to be bootable using the AceKard by the developer of AceKard. SAVE GAMES This is probably the sadest part of AceKard, as save support is very poor. As of AKMENU version 1.06 only 4K flash is recognized, but there's an option in the menu where the user is able to select save types of 4k, 64k, 512k, 2M and 4M themselves. But seriously, who cares enough to search for the type of save their games use?. However to fix this downside of the AceKard, the author releases a new savelist data file every now and then, but I still find this a major downside to the AceKard. to make it worse, half of the games I tested wasn't even recognized by the latest samegame file. GOOD AND BAD + One slot solution + Easy to use Windows software, though it seems a little buggy and lacks features + Supports clean roms, no patching needed + Comes with software and manual included, though only in Chinese - Uses its own filesystem - Lacks software in english - Cart is a little to thick, so the label gets damaged even after light use - Lacks autodetection of save types - Difficult to get the DS to detect the AceKard - Lacks ZIP support There is definately room for improvement concerning the AceKard. Should the author be interested in a worldwide release of the product, I would suggest being more frequent with the English translations of both the AKMENU and AKMANAGER which both are incredibly out of date when it comes to the English translations, which really aren't that english, especially the AKMANAGER. Total score : Average