v1.00 updated at 23/01/2007

引用:

本篇评测分中英文双语版，中文版请看二楼。由于我目前在国内，访问国外网站不方便，所以如果你认为这款评测有帮助的话，请帮忙转载吧。转载请注明首发YYJOY。:-)

评测发表后的一切更新和修正都将仅发表于YYJOY.com。原贴地址：http://bbs.yyjoy.com/thread-18330-1-1.html

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*Disclaimer* This review is written by myself without any impacts from any sources. Opinions are made based on my personal experience and facts. Please let me know if any of the facts in the review are wrong, I'll happily correct them upon verification. No offensive comments please. ;-)

Oh, and sorry about the photos they ain't topnotch, pity I don't have an SLR. :/

About the Review

YYJOY.com had a little campaign where visitors sign up for writing reviews and publish them on the website (http://www.yyjoy.com), in return, we get the flash carts for free! So yes, I have signed up and I have been awarded one, therefore it is my responsibility to bring you guys a review. Oh and stop being jealous, I have been assigned for EZ5 only. :-P I bought SCDS for myself a couple of weeks ago and I just bought two R4s for my friends in Australia.

I know it's a little harder for you to get a flash cart if you're not in China (woohoo! I'm on my holiday over here ), but I am sure there are a few resellers here and there.

Market Analysis

Before I get my hands onto the flash carts I would like to talk about the current market state of Nintendo DS flash carts. If you're already familiar with it then please skip this chapter.

It is obvious that Nintendo DS (along with DS Lite) has two cart slots, one on the top of the unit is for DS carts (slot1), the other on the bottom of the unit is for GBA carts (slot2).

When the flash carts just came out, they were all for slot2. Slot2 carts along have two types, the ones compatible with both DS Phat and DS Lite, and the ones compatible with only DS Lite. The difference is that the latter will not stick out if you insert 'em to DS Lite whilst the former will.

So, what about slot1 carts, what are their advantages? The answer is quite clear, slot1 carts are able to emulate original DS carts. That said, if you're going to play dumped ROMs then a slot1 cart will mostly likely give you better game compatibility, not to mention that you're now able to put your DS to sleep mode, something that you couldn't do with a slot2 cart.

However, there're disadvantages to using slot1 carts. The most obvious and critical disadvantage is that you can NOT play GBA games! This state might change but currently all the slot1 carts on the market are unable to play GBA games. Another disadvantage is the homebrew support. There is a certain percentage of homebrew applications that won't run on slot1 carts. Of course, this will be changed soon since slot1 carts are becoming *the* de facto. I can see lots of homebrew authors are scratching their heads to make their apps run on slot1. :-P

'Nough said, let's now begin our journey. First of all let me introduce you the three carts I'm going to review today. They are all slot1 carts by the way.

SCDS EZ5 R4 and Their Gameplay Modes

SCDS (Supercard DS (ONE)) - made by Supercard. It is the first and the only one so far (23rd, Jan, 2007) which supports all three different emulation modes, I'll explain it in detail later.

EZ5 (Ezflash V) - made by Ezflash.

R4 - OEMed by GBAlpha (M3 Adapter). It is practically the same unit as M3 DS Simply, although you can't switch their kernels.

The following table shows the emulation modes these carts support.



CLEAN ROM Hardware Emulation* can be considered as the best modes because as the name suggests, it emulates from the hardware layer, which means it has 100% ROM compatibility.

CLEAN ROM Runtime Patching, if I am not mistaken, this mode was introduced by R4. Instead of patching the ROM prior on your computer, R4 patches the ROM at runtime. This is convinient because we as end users don't need to install any software on our computer and patch them in order to play. We just simply drag n' drop the games like the CLEAN ROM Hareware Emulation mode! The only difference here is that the game compatibility support is dependent on the kernel. So, always download a new kernel from the manufacturer's website if you want to play new games!

Software Patching which is familiar to all of you who have a slot2 cart. This is the same mode used in every slot2 cart. You need to install the software provided by the manufacturer, patch the ROM, then copy them onto your cart to play. The game compatibility is roughly the same as the runtime patching mode, you should always try to download the latest version of the software to keep updated.

*Recent discovery suggests that there are no true hardware emulation carts on the market as of yet (source from GBATemp) although it had been approved some time ago that several carts do have hardware emulation. This topic remains debatable.

My Choices

Before I made my purchase, I have analyzed all the slot1 carts on the market by then. To name them, we had AceKard, DS-X, SCDS, EZ5, R4 and N-Card.

Acekard was ruled out of my list because it uses its own file system. I prefer the normal FAT16/FAT32 so that I can use it on any system without installing the software provided by the manufacturer.

DS-X was ruled out because of the ridiculous price although it has great features such as in-built USB.

R4 was ruled out because I don't like its interface, and it has no real CLEAN ROM support (remember we still need to patch the ROMs at runtime?).

N-Card was ruled out because its weird, and at the time of my purchase, N-Card was reported buggy by many users.

So, that ended up with only two possible choices for me, SCDS and EZ5.

Let's take a side by side comparison / review of SCDS, EZ5 and R4.

Hardware and Package

Here're the packages of EZ5 (left) and R4 (right), sorry that I no longer have the SCDS package, but it's shockingly similar to EZ5's.



Alright, the packages are not bad, they all went for simplicity, while the EZ5 and SCDS only contain the cart in their packages, R4 has more. R4 offers a spare cart cell (in black) for you guys who own a black DS Lite, a CD which contains the kernel, a handstrip, a MicroSD card reader which I will show you later in the review, and a cart case which I didn't get due to the shortage or whatever the reseller told me.

Now let's lay out our babies!

From left to right are, EZ5, SCDS and R4.



Personally I like the R4 label more. :-)

Take a closer look at it!



And the SCDS.



And the EZ5.



From left to right are, EZ5, SCDS, R4 and the empty black cell of R4.



The back of SCDS.



The back of EZ5.



The back of R4.



As you can see from the above photos, SCDS and R4 both have the MicroSD card slot at the top whilst EZ5 chooses to place it at the side. It's a debate between convenience and privacy. You call!

I'll rank the hardware as:

R4 > SCDS > EZ5.

Now don't be surprised, although R4 is the cheapest card as well as it offers the most accessories, the build quality is excellent. I place SCDS higher than EZ5 because EZ5 is the only one which doesn't have a spring for its MicroSD card slot. This means you need to push the card it, and drag it out, in contrary to this, R4 and SCDS users can just push it in and push it again to pop it out.

It goes without saying that you'll need a MicroSD card to store your games and homebrew applications. So, here are my MicroSD cards and card readers. :-) On the top right hand corner is the card reader from R4. It looks pretty good, but... the speed is not so impressive.



Take a closer look at the cute R4 card reader.



And... the smallest MicroSD card reader in the world, by PNY!





Let's compare these card readers. Benchmarks done by ATTO Disk Benchmark v2.02 with a 1GB Janpanese made Kingston (I'll further explain this in a second).

The benchmark for the Buffalo PCMCIA card reader (MicroSD + SD adapter):



The benchmark for the Kawau USB 2.0 card reader (MicroSD + SD adapter):



The benchmark for the PNY USB 2.0 card reader:



The benchmark for the R4 USB 2.0 card reader:



As you can see the performance of R4's card reader is significantly lower than PNY's. I recommend you get a better card reader if you're going to buy an R4.

Caution:

It is important that you buy a MicroSD card which is Made in Japan instead of Made in Taiwan for these flash carts! Some games (e.g. Castlevania) *require* a high speed, Japanese made MicroSD card! So how to differenciate a card to see if it's Japanese made or Taiwanese made? It's simple, the Japanese made cards have 'SD-C01G JAPAN' printed on the surface, and a 1GB card is 982MB after format. A Taiwanese made card does not have that print and it is 952MB after format.

Software and Interface

If you ask me what's the most important thing to notice apart from game compatibility (which in this case are pretty much on par) when getting a flash cart, I would say it's the software (or menu or kernel, whichever you prefer) interface. I bought SCDS instead of EZ5 mainly because the former has a better interface! :D

EZ5's interface:



You're allowed to choose between Chinese and English for the interface, what's more, you can also set or let EZ5 to detect your MicroSD card speed.



Overall EZ5's interface is not bad at all. But if you compare it to the following... ;-)

SCDS's interface:



SCDS only makes use of the lower screen, the navigation drop down menu is touchable. As you can see from the following picture, you may choose the language just like EZ5.



Lots of options there. :-)



File information screen, it's a popup. Probably it will be better if we can have it to display statically on the other screen.



R4's interface:



R4's interface is... well not my cup of tea. It's simple which is good, but my high standards suggest it a little too simple. Besides, you're glued with the language of your kernel. Chinese is the only language I can use in this case.



If you are like me who needs a fancy interface, the answer I reckon is quite clear. :-)

Slot1 carts as I said before, have less support from the homebrew community due to their new arrival. Things will get changed but as for now, homebrew support is limited. For instance the Warcraft Tower Defense game just came out a couple of days ago, can yet to be run on any slot1 carts.

However, many of the homebrew apps already support slot1 carts quite well, including one of the most important apps, Moonshell. In fact, both SCDS and EZ5 have Moonshell built in the kernel! That means you can play MP3s or DPG movies directly from the list.

Game Compatibility

The fact is that, CLEAN ROM Hardware Emulation has 100% game compatibility. So why bother with the other modes then? The answer is, for the addon values. What are they? Well, the most obvious one is the ability to soft reset the unit, meaning you don't need to turn on and off your DS if you decide to play another game. This is something you can't do with hardware emulation. Also, the other two modes have the ability to put your save files directly on your MicroSD card. In hardware emulation mode you're forced to put the files in the NAND flash ROM (for EZ5) or the capacitance (for SCDS)*.

*Note: NAND flash has limitations to its life just like MicroSD cards (it's like 10,000 times or so before it burns out), the good thing about it is its permanent. On the other hand capacitance has no write limits but it can only hold the information for about 10 to 15 days. You're forced to turn on your DS to backup your save files to your MicroSD which is done automatically by the flash cart.

Although R4 does not have the hardware emulation mode, its game compatibility is virtually the same thanks to the hard working dev team who constantly keep the users updated to the latest kernel which contains fixes and updates to game compatibility. SCDS and EZ5 users don't have to update their kernel in order to improve the game compatibility, but it does no harm to upgrade anyway, you usually will get some new and updated features by upgrading. For instance the latest kernel for SCDS added the support for runtime patching (like R4), although it is still in beta and contains lots of bugs.

For game compatibility, I say these three carts are on par! However, in terms of flexibility, my vote goes to SCDS which supports all three modes. I run most of the games in software patching mode because I can trim the ROM, it saves quite a lot of space if you have many games. I put 20 games on my 1GB MicroSD card, which I couldn't with the other two modes.

Now, please allow me to remind you once again, make sure you get a Made in Japan MicroSD card or you will ended up with some blank, black screen or crashes to some games.

Facts You Should Be Aware Of

SCDS has three gameplay modes, EZ5 has two, and R4 has one.

R4 is cheaper than the other two.

R4 has accessories whilst the other two do not.

R4 has both white and black cells whilst the other two are only available in black.

R4 has only one language (depending on your kernel, you either use English or Chinese) whilst the other two both have two (English and Chinese).

EZ5's MicroSD card slot is on the side whilst the other two are both on the top.

Opinions You Should Not Take Seriously

SCDS has better interface.

R4 has better build quality.

EZ5's dev team works harder, they provide updates more often.

R4 does not have an official forum yet.

Conclusion

Whether or not I'm biased is your call, but I tried to be fair to all three carts in the review. Although the fact is that I've only had EZ5 and R4 for one day, but SCDS for weeks.

My recommedation is as followed:

If you're short on cash, or if you regard value-to-money highly, R4 is for you.

If you are aiming at the top notch performance rather than value-to-many, SCDS or EZ5 is for you.

If you want more flexibility on how to play the games in terms of different modes available, SCDS is for you.

If you want more regular software updates, EZ5 or R4 is for you.

Please remember one thing, there is no such thing as *the best*, but *the best for your needs*.

About The Author (that's me :/)

I am not a regular gamer, I play games only occasionally, though I believe this doesn't make any difference to my review.

I live in Australia but am having a holiday here in China. It is so lucky that many slot1 carts come out during this time period and YYJOY.com was holding the campaign which eventually offered me an EZ5 as well as a rumble pack from Ewin.

As a web developer and designer, I go through lots of designs in a daily basis, hence the strong opinion on the interface of the various flash carts.

That's it, thank you for your reading! Hope you enjoyed it and get yourself a cart suits you the best.

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*免责申明* 本篇评测全由本人一人完成，未受到任何其他因素的影响。所有涉及到的观点和看法都为本人自身的经验，错误在所难免。如果您觉得任何地方有瑕疵的话请联系或回复在贴内，我将确凿后更新本贴。请平心讨论切勿无端争执。谢谢哟！^_^

啊，另外抱歉图片的质量不高，我是用卡片机拍的，今天上海的天气也不好，所以采光也…… T_T

关于本评测

感谢YYJOY提供这次机会，让大家能够通过写评测来获得“免费的午餐”。我很荣欣得到了EZ5的评测资格，由于自己本身拥有SCDS和帮朋友买的R4，所以便想来做个比较。这也是为何本篇评测首发YYJOY的原因。

市场分析

评测开始前请恕我阐述一下目前DS烧录卡的市场情形，如果你已经了如指掌的话请跳过此段吧。

众所周知DS有两个卡槽，位于机身上方的slot1卡槽（也就是DS卡槽）以及机身下方的slot2卡槽（也就是GBA卡槽）。

当烧录卡刚开始崭露头角的时候，市面上是清一色的slot2卡。而slot2卡又分两种：DS用的和DSL用的。很明显，DSL专用的slot2卡具有不突出的特点，但是无法用在普通DS上。

那么slot1卡到底有些什么好处呢？最明显的便是可以以更纯粹的方式来模拟游戏，比如slot1卡可以待机。从宏观的角度而言，slot1卡普遍较slot2卡的游戏兼容性更高。

尽管如此slot1卡也有不可忽视的缺点，最大的缺点就是：目前为止所有的slot1卡均不能玩GBA游戏！也许以后会有改变但至少目前为止，还没有哪家厂商透露过会有支持GBA游戏的slot1卡上市。另一缺点是由于slot1卡比较新出，所以有很多自制软件无法运行，当然了，这个是完全可以通过时间来慢慢赶上的。

好了简单的介绍了一下市场后，让我们开始评测吧。本次评测的主角是SCDS、EZ5和R4。

SCDS EZ5 R4 及其游戏模拟模式

SCDS (Supercard DS (ONE)) - Supercard制造. 截至目前为止（2007年1月23日）市面上唯一支持全部三种模拟模式的烧录卡。具体我稍候会谈到。

EZ5 (Ezflash V) - Ezflash制造.

R4 - GBAlpha OEM. 几乎和M3 DS Simply相同，但两者的内核无法通用。

以下表格展示了这些烧录卡支持的模拟模式。



CLEAN ROM硬件模拟*可以被认为是目前兼容度最高的模拟方式了，理论上达到100%的模拟度。

CLEAN ROM动态补丁，如果我没记错的话这个模式是由R4带启的。和传统的软件转换模式不同，动态补丁不用用户介入，而是由内核在运行游戏时自动打补丁。这样的话操作方面便与硬件模拟无异了，唯一需要注意的是要经常更新内核——如果你要玩新游戏的话。

软件转换补丁便是和slot2卡一样的“传统方案”。你需要在电脑上安装厂商提供的软件，对ROM进行转换，然后才可以用。这种方式几乎没法达到100%模拟度，但是可以通过经常更新软件（不断的bug修复和更新）来保持。

*GBATemp上的网友日前发表了“目前市场上没有一款烧录卡是真正100%硬件模拟的”的申明，具体可以去GBATemp上找找原贴。对于“100%硬件模拟”这个定义目前貌似还是有争议的，大家见仁见智吧。

我的选择

购买烧录卡前，我对当时市面上的slot1卡做了些研究，包括AceKard、DS-X、SCDS、EZ5、R4和N-Card。

Acekard被排除，因为AK使用自己的文件系统。当然这不能说是坏事儿，但我也许会需要在卡上放些其他东西，这样的话难道要我每用一台电脑就装AK的软件吗？所以AK不适合我。- -!

DS-X被排除，因为价格实在是太夸张了，尽管硬件方面是挺有特色的，比如集成USB接口。

R4被排除，因为我不喜欢它的软件界面，另外动态补丁模式也意味着需要频繁的更新内核来获得游戏兼容性。

N-Card被排除，因为这玩意儿太怪异了。并且当时有很多用户都反映有bug（比如I/O错误之类的）。

如此，最终只有两款烧录卡符合我的要求——SCDS和EZ5。

那么就让我来比较一下SCDS、EZ5和R4吧。

硬件与包装

下面是EZ5（左侧）和R4（右侧）的包装盒，可惜SCDS因为买了有些日子了所以包装盒已经扔了。- -! 不过SCDS的包装盒与EZ5的惊人的相似！



包装盒都很简约，我很中意。SCDS和EZ5的包装盒内就一张卡而已，R4的话虽然价格便宜却附赠了许多配件哦！有一副黑色的外壳（给黑色主机的玩家使用）、一张上有内核的光盘、一条handstrip、一个TF卡读卡器（评测后面有这款读卡器的速度测试）以及一个卡盒（我没有，JS说缺货还是什么的- -）。

一字儿摆开——

从左到右分别是EZ5、SCDS和R4。



我个人是最喜欢R4的标签。:D

来个特写~



SCDS~



EZ5~



从左到右分别是EZ5、SCDS、R4以及R4的黑色外壳。



SCDS背面：



EZ5背面：



R4背面：



如照片中所示的，SCDS和R4均为上放插卡，而EZ5则是侧边插卡。至于哪种更好也是见仁见智了，个人认为上面比较方便，而侧面的话比较隐蔽。

硬件方面我觉得 R4 > SCDS > EZ5。

虽然R4最便宜，但做工的确是非常好的，再加上送黑色的外壳，不拿第一说不过去啊。而为什么我认为SCDS > EZ5是因为我手上的两张卡质量上面都差不多，略逊于R4。但是，SCDS和R4的TF卡都是弹出式的设计，唯独EZ5是手动式的——取出TF卡时要手动拔出来，SCDS和R4则是按一下自动弹出来。

这些slot1卡都是要用MicroSD (TF)卡的，所以下面就让我们来看看读卡器的速度吧。我用了原本买的川宇和大水牛读卡器，另外还有PNY的碟中谍，以及R4送的读卡器。从评测结果来看R4的读卡器属于比较慢的。



R4的读卡器特写，外观很可爱。



PNY碟中谍，世界上最小的TF读卡器。





评测工具为ATTO Disk Benchmark v2.02，TF卡为日产Kingston。

大水牛PCMCIA读卡器（通过SD转接卡）：



川宇USB 2.0读卡器（通过SD转接卡）：



PNY碟中谍USB 2.0读卡器：



R4 USB 2.0读卡器：



R4读卡器的速度还是偏慢，不过再怎么说也是送的，况且R4的价格已经挺厚道了，不能要求太多。如果需要高速传输速度的话建议另购一个读卡器。

注意：

千万要记得，为了获得100%的游戏体验，请一定要认准日产的TF卡购买！很多游戏非日产卡不能玩（比如恶魔城）。区分日产台产的方法是：日产卡的卡面印有“SD-C01G JAPAN”字样，并且格式化后容量为982MB。而台产的则无这字样，格式化后容量为952MB。

软件与界面

如果你问我买烧录卡除了游戏兼容性外，最重要的是什么，我会说是软件界面。而正是因为这个，所以我当时才下决定买SCDS了。

EZ5的界面：



界面可选择中文或英文，也可以设置或检测TF卡的速度。



总的来说EZ5的软件界面算不错的，但如果和下面的来比较的话…… 嘿嘿……

SCDS的界面：



SCDS没有像EZ5那样用双屏来显示，而是聚集在下屏幕。下拉菜单可以点击，如图所示SCDS也能选择中文或英文。



好多选项哦！



文件信息显示，是个弹出式的窗口。个人认为如果做成像EZ5那样的显示在另一屏幕会更好点。



R4的界面：



个人不太喜欢R4的界面，虽然很简洁，但对于本身作为半个美工的我而言，这界面太简陋了些。另外，中英文的内核都对应一种语言，不能选择（比如我给朋友买的这两块都是中文版的，无法使用英文界面）。



Slot1卡暂时对自制程序的支持度没有slot2的好，比如前几天刚出的War3 TD游戏便没法在这些slot1卡上运行。

不过，我相信这个情形很快就会有所改观的，而且类似Moonshell这些“必备”软件都对slot1卡支持的很好。SCDS和EZ5的内核甚至都是基于Moonshell开发的，在菜单里直接就能播放MP3和视频。

游戏兼容度

事实证明CLEAN ROM硬件模拟是唯一完全提供100%兼容度的游戏模式。既然如此的话为何我们还需要其他模式呢？因为硬件模拟模式无法完成一些附加的功能——比如软复位。另外硬件模拟的时候，SCDS和EZ5分别将存档储存于电容和NAND闪存，而其他模式则可以直接储存在TF卡上。*

*注意：NAND闪存的好处是永久储存不掉档，坏处是有使用寿命限制（大概是擦写1万次左右？）。而电容的好处是没有使用寿命限制，但是资料只能保存10到15天。所以必须时常开机让烧录卡自动将存档备份到TF卡上。

尽管R4不是硬件模拟，但由于R4开发团队的努力和内核的快速更新，使得R4在游戏兼容性方面丝毫不逊色于SCDS和EZ5。SCDS和EZ5不需要通过更新内核来增加游戏的支持度，但是保持用最新的内核总是好事儿。比如SCDS前几天才刚发布了新内核，支持了和R4一样的动态补丁模式，尽管SCDS的动态补丁模式还处于beta阶段，很多bug。

对于游戏兼容性，我认为三款烧录卡是打平手！不过，如果你想要有更多的选择的话，自然是SCDS比较优势了。就说我自己吧，我在1GB的TF卡上存放了20个游戏，如果用CLEAN ROM的话是放不下的，一定要转换并trim ROM。

再次提醒大家，请一定要购买日产的TF卡，否则许多游戏将无法运行或死机。

你必须知道的事实

SCDS拥有三种模拟模式，EZ5两种，R4一种。

R4比其他两款便宜。

R4附送许多配件，其它两款没有。

R4同时有白色和黑色的外壳，其它两款只有黑色。

R4只提供一种语言（取决于内核，中文对应中文，英文对应英文），其它两款均提供中英文双语。

EZ5的TF卡槽位于侧面，其它两款位于上方。

你可以随便看看的个人观点

SCDS的界面更优秀。

R4的做工更优秀。

EZ5的软件更新比较快。

R4暂时还没提供官方论坛。

总结

我的观点是否偏心这个是看官您说了算，但我尽量让客观的数据保持公正。尽管如此，不得不承认我拥有SCDS已经数个星期了，而R4和EZ5才拿到手一天而已。

我的推荐如下：

如果你看中性价比的，我推荐R4。

如果你无视价格，只注重性能的，我推荐SCDS或EZ5。

如果你希望多点模式选择，我推荐SCDS。

如果你要求软件更新的快，我推荐EZ5或R4。

请注意，世界上没有最好的东西，只有最适合你的东西。

关于作者（就是我啦！）

咳，我不常玩游戏，基本上也就偶尔玩玩DS而已。但这个应该是无关痛痒的，评测还是评测。

我住澳大利亚，这次回国运气很好，正当slot1卡的缤纷上市，又恰巧YYJOY这时候办全民公测的活动。免费的EZ5和Ewin震动卡，哦哈哈~ ^_^

作为一个网站开发工程师和美工，我常常接触软件和网站的界面设计，所以对软件界面比较挑剔。

评测终了，感谢您的阅读！希望这篇评测可以对您有帮助。

图片是freep.cn的，不是YYJOY的，freep.cn今天貌似有些不稳定，多刷新几次吧:D

我住墨尔本。

另外我在YYJOY的原贴做更新了，关于内核更新速度和软复位，需要的朋友可以去原贴看。

taobao上有很多哦，我就是taobao上买的，20块钱左右。：）