If you start research online about the download and usage of this Nintendo DS software, you will be surprised to know that there are a huge variety of downloads and equipment needed before you actually start using this software. This software is very easy to install and can be deleted also without any extra effort. You just need to check in for the right site where you can avail all information about how to use the software, where to download unlimited DS roms and Nintendo games.

For running the homebrew perfectly, you need to shell out some cash for the hardware part i.e. the flash card. There are innumerable Slot-2 and Slot-1 solutions available today. Slot-2 uses the Gameboy Advance Cartridge slot as well as the DS cartridge slot. Slot-1 has only a DS cartridge slot. It does not use a separate booting tool. Slot-2 sometimes come with extra RAM that can be utilized by homebrew or for the rumble, Nintendo games. SLOT-2 device include GBA flash cartridges, the GBA movie player and M3 Perfect, the Max Media Dock and the Supercard.

SLOT-1 devices include DSTT, R4DS, M3 DS Simply, and their clones like N-Card, MK5, EDGE, iTouch DS, SuperCard DS One, CycloDS Evolution, the AceKard, the DS Link, the DS-Xtreme, the NinjaPass X9, the Datel Games n’ Music, M3DS,

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The homebrew software uses some of the best applications like MoonShell DS which is a multimedia application. The audio/video has a lot of features. There is an option to open the file as text which is very handy if you want to read it. The colors are absolutely fantastic and are pressure sensitive to the stylus when pressed against the screen. Another amazing application is the DSOrganizer which is PDA type software for your DS. The calculator feature is awesome and the configuration options are quite simple to use.

Things You’ll Need

* A Nintendo DS or Nintendo DS Lite. (The Nintendo DSi does not support the R4DS.)
* An R4DS to microSD adapter
* A Micro SD Memory Card
* A PC with a USB port or an SD card slot
* A microSD to USB adapter or a microSD to SD adapter
* XnView, a free, open-source image manipulation tool or one offering similar functionality
* R4 Theme Creator Alice, a free tool to build R4 themes
* Microsoft Paint, or a program which will let you write on pictures (optional)

Step 1 Choose your images

You will need one for each month/theme to be displayed on the top screen of your DS. A theme also includes a background for the bottom screen, three icons for the bottom screen, a background for the file manager’s top screen, and a background for the file manager’s bottom screen. It helps to use the same three icons and wallpapers for the other three screens, but if you want to have four unique images for each theme, that’s 48 pictures to find.

Step 2 Resize R4DS background images.
1. Prepare a folder to work with. Henceforth this folder will be referred to as TEMP.
2. Find your images. You want at least 15 pictures. Keep in mind that they are going to be resized to 256×192, so if you have a huge image, a lot of detail is going to be lost. Save each image to TEMP and name each file for the month it’s going to represent.
3. Open January in XnView. By default it will go into View mode and fill your screen; press F11 to edit the image.
4. Draw a selection box anywhere. It does not matter where.
5. Right-click anywhere on the image and choose Set selection ratio, then 4.3 (1.33). Play with the selection box and ensure it’s horizontal (like your monitor). If it’s vertical (like a cell phone), hit the Tab key to make it horizontal.
6. Use the selection box to define your image. Make it as large or as small as you like, but bear in mind the more detail you select, the less will be visible.
7. Right click and choose Crop.
8. Go to the Image menu and choose Resize, or simply hold Shift and strike S.
9. Where it says Screen size, enter 256 for the first number. XnView should fill in 192 for the second number. We want this.
10. Press OK to continue.
11. Click the disk icon to save the project with another name. Where it says Save as type choose BMP – Windows Bitmap at the very top. Save it in TEMP. The original name is fine, or append 256 to the end if you like.
12. Repeat the above steps for each month. Henceforth these small bitmaps will be referred to as the 256 month images. In fact, at this point you may delete the original images, as you no longer need them for this project.

Step 3 Choose and resize icons (details follow).
1. Find three images you will need for the three buttons on the main menu. These can differ from theme to theme, in which case you’ll want 12 of each; or they can be the same three icons.
2. Find an icon that represents a Nintendo DS or a file manager. The first icon will load the R4’s file manager, from which you can run Nintendo DS code.
3. Find an icon that represents multimedia. The second icon will load Moonshell, a secondary file manager which can play music, video, and display text files. A music note, video reel, or portable media player all work good.
4. Find an icon that represents the Game Boy Advance. The third icon will load whatever is in the GBA slot, if anything is there at all.
5. Resize each to a square (size does not matter) and save them as DS, Media, and GBA. These should be Bitmaps as well.

Step 4 Build a theme .
1. Open R4TC Alice. Across the top there are five icons or tabs; we’ll be starting with the first one and continuing left to right to make one theme at a time.
2. Create folders now. Inside TEMP make folders called theme01 to theme12.
3. The first tab is called Logo Screen. This tab controls the wallpaper on the top screen when you first turn on your DS. Find January256.bmp and drop it on the big box in the upper-left corner.
4. Where it says Quick Resize, choose the option that fits your wallpaper the best. Alternately, use the zoom slider above the image to get it just right.
5. Below, note the Text Color tool. Consult the diagram to the right – you can’t stop it from saying “R4DS English Version” in the lower-right corner, but you can choose the text color. This will change dynamically, so you can work with it to get the best look. The Mask option will let you put a haze/tint over it if you like.
6. The next tab is Icon Screen. The background is chosen the same way as before, but now you can add the three icons. Alice calls them Game, Media, and Slot2. Use the Browse button to find TEMP and choose DS, Media, and GBA, respectively.
7. Third tab is the File screen. Choose the background for the file manager, and be sure to set the text and highlight colors accordingly to get the best look. The details on this and the next tab make quite the case for using the same settings on each theme.
8. Fourth tab is Info Screen. Again, follow the same steps as before and be sure the text is readable.
9. On the fifth tab, you can choose an image to serve as your GBA frame. Game Boy Advance games are widescreen, and rather than just have a black border to crop the screen, you can decorate this as well. Follow the instructions as before, just be aware most of your image will be covered up, all but the edges.
10. The last tab is where you finish up. Choose a title and enter your name. Neither shows up on the DS. Look at the export options on the left, set them accordingly, and choose Export. Browse to the month you’re making, and save it there.
11. Repeat for each month.

Step 5 Build the rest of the themes.

Step 6 Install themes.
1. Put your microSD card in your PC via USB or SD adapter.
2. Browse to your memory card.
3. In the _system_ directory, make a folder called themes if one does not exist. (If one does, erase all of its contents.)
4. Move all of the themeXX folders into themes.
5. Put the microSD card into the R4, and the R4 into the Nintendo DS.
6. Turn on the Nintendo DS.
7. The theme that loads depends on the month. If it’s April, theme04 will load.
8. Press Select to change the theme, then A to accept. Cycle through all months to make sure each theme works.

Step 7 Enjoy your personalized DS!

Ok,R4 DS is suspended.Due to the original factory divided into three parts,only one still producing Original r4ds,obviously,they lack the ability to update the software,the kernel update stopped at V1.17.Is it dead?Nope,recently,there are few sites to support R4 DS come up with the new update R4 v1.20 kernel ,then with montly update V1.21,V1.22,V1.23.Whether the kernel is good,you can try to google it and use it.

We are here to recommend the most commonplace unofficial R4 DS kernel—-Ysmenu.More information will posted in next entry.

For sure,now you know R4DS is a the magic for the Nintendo DS gaming machine. Due to the development of the R4DS technology, the Nintendo DS has become a portable media center. The invention of the R4DS is really a revolution for the Nintendo DS. You can play games in the Nintendo DS using wi-fi technology, as well as you can watch movies on it, play the music of your choice, and see the photos. All the things can be done in a single device and is cheaper than other options such as Digital camera, PDA, Mobile Phone, etc. This is probably reason for the increasing popularity of the R4DS system.

In this post,we will show you how the R4DS card can be setup and run on the Nintendo DS console. It is a just five step process to make your R4DS system running on the Nintendo DS console.

Step1: Downloading the software:
You can download the latest version of the firmware for the R4DS from the R4DS.cn website. Save the software in your computer somewhere.
Now it is the time to format the SD card that comes with the R4DS kit. The SD card is a storage device which you can use to store the games of your choice and movies, videos and photos. You need to insert the SD card in the card reader than simply format it using the FAT32 file system.

Step2: Transferring the Data
The next step is to store the files that came from the download of the firmware software. You need to just drag and drop the files from your computer folder to the SD card folder. This will copy all the necessary files to your card and then make your card available to run on the Nintendo DS game console.

Stpe3: Running the card on the Nintendo DS
After the second step, your card is ready to run on the Nintendo DS. To insert the card into the Nintendo DS, you need to first insert the card in the R4DS cartridge and insert the cartridge to the slot 1 of the Nintendo DS game console.

Step 4: Play on the Nintendo DS
After inserting the R4DS cartridge in the slot1, turn the Nintendo DS on, for the first time, it will show a ‘loading’ message on the screen. After that, you can play the game of your choice in the Nintendo DS.

Step5: Check for the proper installation
If there is not a ‘loading’ message on the screen, or the ‘loading’ message takes a long time to be disappeared, the situation is not good. You need to check the card for the proper file transfer in the step2. If all the files are there and still there is no operation in the Nintendo DS, you must seek a help from some one who have experience in gaming with Nintendo using the R4 DS technology.

Basically,this 5 steps can be used on all flashcard,so,why not choose the one you like and start this magic journey.

To simply put it, this is a must have peripheral for any regular DS/DS lite owner. It is like having your consoles modified without the chip!”It is the key to thousands of free games.

Then how does it works?Just copy an Gameboy, Gameboy colour, Gameboy Advance, NES, SNES, Sega Master System, Sega Megadrive, Neo-Geo Pocket, Neo-Geo (arcade) or DS games to the memory card from your computer. Insert it in the R4 cartridge and place in the DS and you are ready to go! Too simple right?

But is that all?Of course not,the 3 main function of R4 DS is:

• Obtain Files – Supports roms, Multimedia files, or Homebrew games of any size.
• Copy Files – Directly Drags and drops all files into the MicroSD(TF) card from Computer.
• Run Games/Movies  – Plugs and plays in SLOT-1 without any passcard and supports all version of DS.

Sounds good?We will show you more about it.

Here is the basic features of R4 DS:

Product features:

• 2nd generation storage device (no booting tool required)
• Flush fitting slot 1 card
• Uses MicroSD card, FAT16 or 32
• Supports any MicroSD card speed with no lag in game
• Supports Clean ROM, drag and drop. Works on any OS
• Built in NoPass
• Automatically detect save type
• Save directly to MicroSD card, not to onboard chip
• Supports Moonshell and other homebrew. Open I/O interface
• User friendly skinnable interface. Touchscreen or button operation
• Supports rumble pak and memory pak
• Supports the WiFi game, DS Rumble Pak, DS Browser
• Supports changes of the background of Operation Interface
• Support Skin DIY by setting background and font colors on Main Menu and Game
• Menu manually and automatically
• Supports 4-scale-lightness adjustment ( DS Lite only )
• Supports the Soft Reset.
• Supports Action Replay cheat
• moonshell 1.6 support Software Reset function( Press START key back to the R4 menu)

Inside package:

• l X R4 Adapter
• l X USB 2.0 Thumb size Micro-SD card reader
• l X Blue color case for the adapter
• l X Hand Strap