R4 for Nintendo DS & DSi

A quick post to introduce people who don’t know already what the R4DS does. It is an all in one piece of hardware that add new applications such as photo viewers and video and mp3 players. Playing homebrew games through the R4DS means you don’t need to worry about swapping game carts all the time. You simply pick which game you want to play from the menu.

These homebrew applications can be downloaded to play on the DS via the R4 Revolution. By downloading a couple of these, you can be listening to mp3s, watching videos and showing off your photo collection on your Nintendo DS.

So now you know what they are, you’re ready to buy one, just make sure you check the R4DS customer satisfaction feedback we’ve collected before you buy one. If you’re interested in why this is so important, have a read of What is a Genuine R4 DS Card?

The R4DS is the same shape and size as a DS game cartridge.

Although no R4 DSi is 100% genuine there are ways to avoid the worst imitations of the original design. If you stumble across a DSi R4DS, be sure to take a good look at them first because although fakes look pretty much like the original at a glance, you can sometimes (not always) spot differences if you look hard enough at a clone and an original R4 for DSi.

The box of the R4 DSi alone can give it away. If you see any other codes like “R4DSi” “Version 3″ or “V3″ avoid them because they are surely fake. Look around the main site to see what the exact box looks like. Other false codes may include “Advance”, “N5″, “III”, “R6″, and “E7″.

Fake ones may perform similarly to the real ones, but it isn’t worth compromising on performance to save a £5, not after spending what you did on the console. Stick with the genuine version of the DSi R4 Revolution and enjoy the best of your console.
Fake R4 DS boxes usually look very similar to the genuine box, but if you look closely, you may notice the box including one of the following giveaways (if your box has any of these, it is a fake):
• Version 3
• V3
• Advance
• III
• N5
• R6
• E7

The R4 DS Revolution gives DS users a great array of applications they can install onto their system. These range from office applications to media centres. It can be a lot of fun to turn your R4 DS Revolution into a portable video or music player. It can be useful to have a calculator, text editor, contact list and weather report on your DS. You can even socialise using MSN, Aim and Yahoo Messenger. I took some pdf files to read on the train with an ebook reader by using the R4 DS Revolution. Below are just a few of the most popular releases so far, keep in mind the R4 DS has only been on sale since late 2007. Many more exciting titles are sure to be in the works and released over the coming months. For a more in depth look at some top R4 DS software, see 10 Essential Downloads for R4 Nintendo DS .

Here’s a list of applications every R4 DS Revolution should at least consider downloading:

DSOrganize – file browser, web browser, text editor, image editor, calculator, calendar, contact list
Moonshell – mp3 player and mpeg/jpeg player viewer
Beup – MSN Messenger Client
Yahoo! Messenger
Aim Messenger
DSBobro – Web browser
DSVNC – PC remote control
Dslibris – Ebook reader
Tuna Vids – Music and video player
NitroTracker – Music production tool
DS Weather Report
DSLinux – Linux for the DS
rPaint – Image editor
DSmaps – Google Maps Viewer

Windows Live Messenger on your DS.

The best thing about owning an R4 for Nintendo DS is the ability to play homebrew games and use homebrew applications. But you won’t be enjoying these features if you don’t know where to look for these games. Here are 10 great titles to pick from.

Essential Games

1. Puzzle Maniak

If you love puzzles, you’ll definitely get a real kick out of Puzzle Maniak because it manages to squeeze over 20 games in a 3 MB file. These games include simple games like solitaire and samegame as well as other nice puzzle games of various names. This game can also play back any mp3 files in your R4′s mp3 directory so you can set the mood of the gameplay.

2. DS Doom

Doom is one of the oldest and best first-person shooters of all time and although it came out on GBA, the Nintendo DS never got a piece of it until the R4 homebrew community came along. Perhaps the best thing about this version of Doom is the ability to play multiplayer over Wi-Fi.

3. WordUp!

Any word game executed correctly can be really addictive when you start playing and WordUp! happens to be one of them because it combines block-falling gameplay with word elements. It features nice colourful graphics that will really get you hooked.

4. Tyrian

Vertical scrolling shooters are not very common with the Nintendo DS, but now with Tyrian being ported to the DS by the R4 homebrew community, now you can enjoy one of the best arcade shooters in history. It uses both screens so you can experience gameplay without distractions and it has lots of levels to keep you busy.

5. Lemmings DS

Another game that was popular older consoles that failed to be ported in the latest Nintendo handheld is Lemmings. Now with Lemmings DS, not only you get the same fun levels from the old ports, but additional levels that were included in the original Amiga Lemmings. That’s 220 levels total for this fun puzzle strategy game where you need to lead Lemmings to the exit by assigning them various jobs.

Essential Applications

1 DSOrganize

While the DS does have some useful applications built-in, their organizer is pretty basic. This is why the DSOrganizer can make your life much easier because it comes with so many mini applications that make this one of the best homebrew applications for the Nintendo DS. It is capable of storing memos, to-do lists, addresses, and stylus drawings. A calculator and file browser is also included where the file browser has support for viewing images and playing back different audio formats and text formats as well. It even comes with an IRC client for communication. As long as you have a flash card solution, you can really put this application to work.

2. NitroTracker

If you want to create your own music, you need to get yourself an instrument or special software because most portable devices do not come with a feature-rich music creation tool. But now with NitroTracker, you can create very good music in the popular XM file format easily using the stylus and touch screen. Even the Nintendo DS microphone can be utilized to make samples. This is truly a R4 application that has commercial quality.

3. PointyRemote

Now you can see a scaled version of any PC desktop that you are remotely controlling through VNC and use the second screen as a zooming tool. PointyRemote is an ingenious VNC application that actually utilizes both screens the best way possible. With the stylus, controlling your computer couldn’t be any easier.

4. Colors

Because the Nintendo DS uses a stylus, painting applications would work very well and so Colors was developed and since November 2008, over 250,000 downloads were made. It features powerful painting tools that basically turn your DS into a drawing tablet. It can be used for simple doodling, basic painting, or advanced sketching. Colors is one of the must have applications on your DS if you want a good sketchbook.

5. SavSender

The problem that people face with their game saves is that they cannot be backed up. SavSender is a very simple backup that provides this function. It can restore these saves to the cartridge any time so you basically have unlimited saves. It also gives you an easy way to transfer save game files between DS consoles.

The M3 DS Real is a good alternative the R4DS if you can’t find any in stock. With an M3 DS Real you can do all the same things you can do with the R4 and the price is around the same. There isn’t much to separate the two so you might want to go for either of them. You can hunt around for reviews but in my experience there is very little difference between the two products. It is even rumoured that the two are made by the same company and they just have difference labels and designs. They are usually found on sale at the same places as the R4DS, so you can use the R4DS seller comparison table to help you decide where you want to buy one.

An M3 Real lets you play homebrew games stored on your SD card. It means you can simply select what game you want to play from a list when you turn the consoles on. It is unlikely the M3 DS Real will work with Nintendo DSi consoles but will be fine on a DS Lite or original DS.

Homebrew games have been designed by individuals or small groups to be distributed freely on the Internet. Along with the games you can also install homebrew applications. These allow you to use your DS in many different ways that you never imagined before. For example you can use the Nintendo console as a mobile telephone by installing Skype on it and connecting to the Internet. This is just one of many ways the M3 DS Real can be used.

M3 DS Real in all its glory.

Below is a list of links to places where you can download all the DS homebrew software which was entered into the 2009 best DS homebrew contest.
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