1.Original carte size, simple plug and play, no passme or flashed NDS needed
2.Support DSi, DSL, IDSL, DS and IDS
3.Never lost save data
4.Perfect compatibility
5.Support Homebrew programs/games
6.Support SDHC MicroSD card
7.Support any brand of MicroSD card
8.Support Action Reply cheats. Build-in editor
9.Built in "Trimming" Function
10.Fully touch screen operation
11.Build-in file operation
12.Can be used as a Passme to boot from slot-2 flash carts. Run GBA games by using expand cart
13.Support Multi-language
14.Support Skin and Dynamic skin change
15.Perfect UI
16.Support soft-reset, Download play and WIFI playing
17.Directly read TXT files and play MP3 files

 

Including:
1x Acekard 2i slot-1 cart

1x USB reader

 

 

The Acekard 2i, like most other modern slot-1 flash kits is a piece of cake to get up and running. As long as you have access to an internet enabled computer, micro SD or SDHC card and card reader you're good to go.

Part One: Initial Connection & Firmware

As the instructions will tell you, you need to head on over to the Acekard website and download the latest loader files. These are basically the carts operating system. Without them the cart will not work.

Download the latest version and extract the files to the root of the micro SD card. You'll now have the following on the root of your micro SD card:

• akmenu4.nds (file)
• __ak2 (folder)

Part Two: Copying Content Across

Now you can begin copying your homebrew, ROMs and images/movies/etc. to your card. Feel free to set these up in folders to keep things tidy, as the Acekard 2i reads and displays directories fine within its OS.

If we explore the __ak2 folder a little bit more, you'll find a few directories containing files that you can play around with and add to.

The 'cheats' folder contains the files that contain the cheat codes for games. These are in both .dat and .xml format. If you download new cheat packs of the net, you'll have to replace one of these files. More on cheats later in the review.

The 'ui' folder contains the skin files - More on that later in the review also.

The globalsettings.ini contains system settings that can be adjusted to suit your preferences. But unless you're an advanced user, you may want to leave these as they are and adjust any settings from within the Acekard 2i GUI.

If you've upgraded to a Nintendo DSi and have purchased an Acekard 2i, and would like to carry across your previous gave game files from another flash cart, I recommend you use the following web-based application created by GBAtemp's very own Shuny. Just choose the RAW Format (auto-detection) output setting.

Save game files sit alongside the ROM file with the same filename, and a '.sav' extension.

Online Savegames Converter

Part Three: GUI

Stick your Acekard 2i and micro SD together and insert the cart into your DSi,.. or, if you like; insert it whilst the DSi is turned on! The DSi allows cart hot-swapping. What an age we live in, eh?

In the sexy new Wii-esque menu you'll see the Acekard logo appear on screen as a DS game pak. Hit 'A' or tap the icon to boot the cart. Your DSi is now a lean-mean homebrew playing machine!



After approximately 2 seconds the screens should flash and the main Acekard menu should appear, if it doesn't, and you're alerted with an error of any kind, try ejecting the AK2i and re-inserting the micro SD card. Also, make sure you copied across the loader files properly, as explained in this review.

The Acekard 2i uses the same menu as the Acekard RPG and Acekard 2. If you haven't seen it before, take a look at the images below.



The top screen displays the time, date and mini-calendar. The bottom screen gives you two options - micro SD card and GBA slot. ...Wait, what? GBA Slot? Apparently the team have not yet realised that there is no GBA slot on the DSi. Hopefully in future the team will be able to give us the option to remove this from the menu, or perform some sort of hardware detection and remove the option automatically. But it's no big deal.



Tap the Micro SD card option to view the contents of your card. Folders are listed first, and after that, the ROMs within the root/parent folder. To move back one directory, press 'B' or tap the arrow in the top right corner.

ROMs are shown with their internal icon by their side. By default .NDS files are listed by filename which I'm not a fan of. It means you must give all your ROMs a sensible name so you know what they are. You can change this option in the settings so that the internal name is shown, which I find much nicer. You can also hit select to go to a text-only listing where the icons are hidden; this shows many more files on screen meaning you have to scroll around less.



The entire OS can be controlled by either the touch-screen or the buttons. The touch screen sensitivity is just right and perfectly accurate.

Speed-wise, the loader is fairly impressive. It boots up in good time, and navigating around is simple and quick. The loader reads the contents of your SD card as you navigate. Eg. When you navigate, the loader will read the contents of each folder you enter individually. It does not keep the file structure resident in memory. So, if you have a large number of files on your SD card, then the loader may slow down when trawling through your folders. This can be frustrating when there is a slight pause when loading a directory, as you may think you have mis-tapped and decide to tap the screen again, all the while the loader lists the folder as normal, and you accidentally tap on a ROM which launches it, forcing you to reboot the Acekard loader.



There is a Start button in the bottom right that gives you access to further options, such as file management, system settings, patch options and more. We'll take a look at some of these advanced features in more detail later on in this review.

The 'Patches' settings menu allows you to configure the following options:

- DS Download play = Enable/Disable
- Soft-Reset = Enable/Disable
- Autorun = Enable/Disable
- Cheat/Action Replay = = Enable/Disable/Auto-Menu
- Cheats DB File = cheat.dat/cheats.xml/usrcheat.dat

The 'DS Download Play' option forces the loader to patch the ROM on the fly when loading to improve compatibility with download play options.

The 'Autorun' option allows you to configure the cart to always run the last played ROM when booting. You can override this by holding down 'B' while booting the Acekard 2i, to get back into the menu.

The rest of the options within the 'Patches' menu should be fairly straight forward.



The 'System Options' screen lets you configure some of the important settings that allow you to customise your Acekard 2i how you like it. From here you can change the system theme (more on that later); OS language; which file extensions are shown and/or hidden; and the ability to trim (remove excess dummy data) from ROMs while copying/pasting from within the OS.

The 'Brightness' setting does not work on the DSi. Nor does the light bulb icon in the top right of the main screen. This feature is still intended for the original DS or DS Lite, and has not been updated to work on the Nintendo DSi. Hopefully this is something the team will address in future versions of the loader (or an AK2i specific loader), along with the other options we have found that still remain from the AK2/RPG.

The 'Advanced' button within 'System Options' let's you configure a few more remaining settings. From here you can choose to show/hide files when browsing the file structure that you have marked as 'hidden' on the SD card. You can also configure the Acekard 2i to show ROMs using their internal name rather than the filename, and also adjust the screen scrolling speed when using the stylus to navigate.

The one remaining option is 'Properties' which is a handy little feature. It pops up a small window on screen that shows information on the currently selected item. For example, if you have a ROM highlighted, and hit 'Properties'; it will show you the full (3 line) internal name, modification date and file size, along with the ROM icon. You can also configure individual settings per ROM from here, such as cheat/download play/soft-reset support, configure the save slot (6 available slots), and set a shortcut to the ROM on the main loader screen.



There are also many keyboard shortcuts in the Acekard loader. Take a look at the Help section within the OS for more info.