A free M3Real? wow, that would be far better than, well, anything I have...

I need to get one of these '3 in 1' things, I'm thinking this is the best to get to go along with a cyclo ds? Only problem is that rhs feels the need to charge me $27 to ship a gba cartridge, so does anyone know of another (reliable) retailer I could have a look at?

Also, not quite sure what these tech terms refer to: 512Mbit NOR Flash memory, 128 Mb (16 MB) of PSRAM, 4 Mb (512 KB) of battery backed SRAM for save data. Aren't the games and save states stored on the micro sd inside the cyclo ds?

Where are you they're charging $27 in shipping? I've bought from RHS stuff before and I recall it being pretty reasonable.

Anyway, I think the SRAM is there for when you flash a game onto the 3 in 1 instead of playing it directly off of your Slot 1 device. This would let you launch the game directly from the DS's boot menu, but is also required in some cases (Mother 3 is the only one I know of).

You would be correct, as the Evo has native support for that particular brand of expandy thing.

I haven't had any problems with these guys, although from what I've heard from a few people, "reliable" may be a slight overstatement - DealExtreme: $18.40 EZFlash 3-in-1 Memory Expansion Pack for NDS Lite

NOR Flash is non-volatile, meaning you can play it without a flashcart in the DS (in fact, if you get the GBA-sized version or buy a GBA shell separately, it will play normally as a stand-alone GBA cart). PSRAM is volatile, so it's erased every time you restart your DS, but it's faster than burning a ROM onto the NOR memory, so if you change games often it's a better option. Since it's only 16MB though, you won't be able to use it for larger GBA games such as Kingdom Hearts or Mother 3 IIRC.

It's probably just because I live overseas.

That place seems fine, actually. Can't go wrong with free shipping either. Though it seems the only version of this cartridge they have has only 256 MB of NOR, but I guess that translates to an even 32 MBs (which I believe is the size for the largest GBA games), doesn't it?

Thanks for the help guys. Just one more things. 512 kb for save games doesn't seem like very much since most GBA save files seem to be 64 kb. Sounds like it would be a problem?

Yeah, I haven't seen any GBA ROMs larger than that.

This is only for the game you're currently playing. Like you said, the saves are automatically backed up to and loaded from your microSD card, but if for example you're playing a game you burned onto the NOR flash without a flashcard, the battery-backed memory will keep your save, erm...saved until you use your Evolution again.

Ah, I see, that's fine then since I always have my cyclo ds inserted. What happens when the battery dies though, since it seems to be soldered down, will the saving still function?

Alright, that seems easy enough. Thanks a lot for your help Dhsu, I just ordered one from that DX place.

So I got the thing in the mail today but can't seem to get it to work (I'm using cycloDS ver. 1.55). I put a bunch of .gba files on the microSD card but how exactly do I load them? They don't show up under Games/Homebrew like .nds files.

I would try using GBA ExpLoader (though I was under the impression that the cycloDS would be able to handle GBA games on it's own these days), but the links on the blog don't seem to work...

I think there's somewhere in the Options menu on the Cyclo where you have to turn on GBA games showing up. I think it's because not everyone has one of the 3-in-1 guys, so they don't want it on by default.

Yeah I remember there used to be an option for that on older firmware versions but I'm not seeing it with ver.1.55. In the settings/misc menu there's; cheat codes, save mode, battery saver, lcd brightness, language, skin, rumble and 'boot from slot 2'.

Yeah, in the options there's a 'Load from Slot-2' option. You still need a slot-2 device to run GBA titles, though.

If the Cyclo can run GBA games without one though, I stand corrected. Would be nice, though.

Nope, you will always need to use a slot-2 device to play GBA games. Well at least for now. There doesn't seem to be any indication that will ever change though.

I'm using an EZ Flash 3 in 1. 128 MB version I believe, not the newer 'plus' version.

edit: Right, it seems you had to manually change a value in the CycloDS\config.xml file -.-