Quick guide about playing NDS ROM

My friend was very interest in getting Nintendo DS with SuperCard, which allows you to play Nintendo DS games by downloading ROMs from mainland China web sites. Here some info that can help you making the decision.

The "Doctor card" I used is called SuperCard. The best thing about SuperCard is that it uses regular SD and CF (Compact Flash) card to store games (ROMs). If you have digital camera, you should already have this kind of flash card at home.

Here's the web site of SuperCard. They upgrade their firmware frequently:
http://www.supercard.cn/chn/index.htm
Cost: about HK$300

There are two kinds of SuperCard, one for SD and one for CF. I prefer CF card version simply because the firmware for CF version is slightly better written (based on the programmer's blog).

Besides SuperCard and a flash memory card, you also need a card that bypass the NDS slot projection. It's called PassMe2. The PassMe1 only works with certain old model of NDS, and I only have PassMe1 because my console is older model. The PassMe2 card should support ANY NDS model regardless of version.
Cost: about HK$120

Finally you need the NDS console itself. There's one from the original dealer and one from some gray market dealer. Price difference is just $40. So I recommend the original dealer version.
Cost: about HK$950.


Assuming that you want a 1Gb card to store ROM (from 8M to 128M), you cost of getting your gear will be:

Nintendo DS : $960
PassMe2: $120
SuperCard: $300
1Gb CF flashcard $480

Total: $1860

I suggest you to read more about the NDS Rom scene from these web site:
- http://tvgame.yesky.com/flash/ : Tons of photo guided tutorial about how to play ROM on NDS.
http://www.ndsbbs.com/thread.php?fid=6 : Great discussion forum. But ... it's not accesssable today.... I wonder how...
http://www.gbgba.com/down/index.html : Download NDS ROM
http://www.chinagba.com/down/ : More NDS Rom download