R4 Clone Family Tree

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Free-Press-Release.com) March 22, 2010 -- It shouldn’t be breaking news that there are loads of flash cards on the market of varying degrees of quality and “originality”, some with very complex relationships. There are clones of clones, and keeping track of their history is important. For usability the big concern is a proven history of developer reliability. We have created a handy graphic chart on our blog.

http://www.dscardworld.com/blog/2010/03/12/ds-flash-card-family-tree/

While some of the cards we carry at our shop are known clones, they are well supported by professional teams of developers that are dedicated to updating their cards. A clone doesn’t always mean an unreliable card, but be wary. A bad fake can mean instability or infrequent updates, but to date the N5 is the only card known to damage the DS via a blow fuse.
As a disclaimer, sources are forum chatter and hearsay, mostly from www.gbatemp.com. This article is not a measure of card quality, but an explanation of their provenance. The list is not exhaustive, and unpopular and discontinued cards were not included. To get an idea of the breadth of clones produced, check out www.linfoxdomain.com/nintendo/ds/ for a list of all the firmware available.

Initial developers got started as early as the Gameboy Advanced and kept it up with crude slot 2 (bottom GBA slot on the DS and DS Lite) flash cards for the original DS console. Acknowledgement should be given to those teams and discontinued slot 2 cards for laying the groundwork. Some of them are still at work today, including the Supercard team.

More advanced slot-1 cards came into development as Slot-2 cards fell out of disfavor, and the R4 Revolution card quickly rose to the top in popularity. Many manufacturers use the R4 name but have no affiliation to the original R4 team. There are four distinct manufacturers who produce an “R4” card. The original R4 team is gone, then there are the makers of the first R4 SDHC, the people who make the R4i SDHC (red box) started with a clone of the DSTT and they also make the R4i Gold, the R4 Ultra team is less popular but still prevalent, and to add to the confusion, the M3 team developed their own R4i RTS.

Cards from other teams were in development at the time or soon after the R4DS. They are original cards in their own right and not clones of other cards; the DSTT, the EZFlash V, the Acekard, the Supercard DSONE, and the CycloDS Evolution. The Supercard team claims that the CycloDS card is a clone of theirs but this claim has not been substantiated. It is generally considered that the CycloDS is superior to the Supercard DSONE, and proved so valued (if expensive) that it spawned the immensely popular Edge card as a clone.

As ever we strive to help our customers make informed decisions and understand where their cards are coming from. We carry R4 SDHC, DSTT, R4i SDHC, Acekard 2i, EZFlash Vi, M3i Zero, and now the iEdge!

Don’t forget to pick up your own ds flash card from our the link below!
http://www.dscardworld.com

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