DS-XTREME, THE REAL NDS FLASH CART?

Oh boy! It is finally here after months of waiting. News of the DS-X, or DS-Xtreme, appeared back in August, followed up by frequent updates by the team responsible, so they would be sure the hype wouldn't stop. Today I was finally able to get my hands on a DS-X, and here is my views on the product. PACKAGING The DS-X arrived in a sweet little cardboard, with only the most needed stuff to start using, which is the DS-X cartridge and a USB-Mini cable. No manual, or Software CD is nowhere to be found, but then again, there might be a reason for that? :-) CART DESIGN AND USE OF THE CART This sweet little flash cart is the actual size of a DS cart, my dream come true, hehe. Instead of using a "Linker" to connect the flash cart to a PC, a small mini-USB port is incorporated in the design of the cartridge. On each side of the mini-USB plug is a little LED (light-emitting diode), and each of the two LEDs contains 3 colors, red, green and blue. Wat you get is a 4gigabit (512megabyte cart) which means you can store at least 8 of the largest NDS roms at the same time. When connected to a USB cable, the LEDs will light up and here comes the cool part and why no software CD is included.... well no software is needed to install the DS-Xtreme, atleast on the Windows XP I used to teste it :-) The DS-X auto-installs and acts as if it was a USB memory stick, and will automaticly add an extra "removable media" drive on your PC, when connected. In my case it created drive "N:\" called DSX. The root of the DSX drive looks like this The APPS directory is used to store emulators, SNES, NES, GB and such, games and demos... okay okay any DS application. The MUSIC directory kinda explains itself, place your MP3s here. The third directory is called SKIN and I guess it explains itself pretty well too. Finally there's a file called "DS-X Settings.xml". This is a file which can be opened with your favourite text editor and changed, it holds the settings made in the DS-X settings menu, such as LED brightness, the infamous "dancing leds" and finally "instant boot". I'll get back to all of that later on. Within a matter of seconds a 64mb file is copied to the DS-X and you're ready to go, no patching of ROMS is need. THE USER INTERFACE The GUI (Graphical User Interface) or OS as some would like to call it, is one of the coolest and most userfriendly I've seen for a long time. You can either use use the D-pad, or best of all the stylus, to navigate around in the menus. Let's take a quick tour round the OS interface.... The DS-X is nicely presented in the NDS user interface. If "instant boot" is selected in the DS-X settings, and a game has been played, then this game will automaticly be started again when booting the DS-X. To prevent this from happening though, hold the button pressed when the DS-X boots, until the "loading" screen appears and you'll enter the OS menu instead. The upper screen of the DS isn't used in the current version (1.01) of the DS-X OS... so it just displays the DS-X logo.... Main menu of the DS-X OS.. use either D-pad or stylus navigate around. Apps (game) menu, very nicely displayed. Built-in MP3 player... how cool is that? :-) Settings menu, here you can choose "instand boot" which means that the latest game played will automaticly boot, unless you press and hold the A button when the DS-X boots. Dancing LEDs is used with the MP3 player and "dances" while the music plays, your very own light show (damn they're sharp those LEDs). Useless but fun :-) In the settings menu you can also change the strength of the LED colors - red, blue and green. The final menu item is the "about screen" were the OS version is displayed. SAVE GAMES Save games are handled by the DS-X automaticly, the current save game is saved to the APPS directory when a different game is loaded. There's not really much more to say other than it works like a charm. GOOD AND BAD I was very surprised about the DS-X, maybe because I more or less was expecting something I had already seen manufactured by serveral others. Thank god I was wrong though. Here we have a REAL NDS flash cart of very good quality, not to mention very easy to use. I am not so sure it was such a great idea to include the USB port directly on the cart. The whole cart seems a little wobbly, the plastic casing is quite thin and feels like it'll break any minute, though it probably won't. I love the OS, the MP3 player eventhough I'll never use it. I did laught a bit when testing the "dancing LEDs" but did find the feature a bit useless, but maybe that's just me getting old :-) Of a good handful of games I tested, all worked flawlessly. PROS: · NDS cart size flash cart · No "PassMe" needed (built-in) · No software needed to install · Great user interface · No need to convert ROMS CONS: · Cart housing seems a little wobbly · No user instruction included This has to be the best NDS flash cart news of the year and definately a must get for everyone who cares about playing DS homebrews ;-)