Skip to content

Original R4SDHC

Original R4SDHC

r4sdhc.com, ndslr4.com

SD Limitations

This cart's SD I/O implementation is wonky since its SDHC I/O code is closely based off of the original R4's I/O, meant for SD class cards rather than SDHC ones. This causes the cart to be unstable with SD cards bigger than 4GB. (It will work with larger cards, but they will likely cause issues if you use more than 4GB of the SD space. Consider yourself warned.)

Setup Guide:

  1. Format the SD card you are using by following the formatting tutorial.

  2. Download the R4SDHC YSMenu package.

  3. Next, extract the contents of the downloaded kernel zip to your SD card.

  4. Place any .nds game ROMs you'd like to play into the Games folder.

  5. The files on your SD card should now look like this:

    • R4SDHC

  6. Insert the SD back into the cart, plug the cart into the DS, and see if it boots into the menu.

Post-Setup Enhancements

Emulators

To emulate retro consoles on your DS like GBA, GB/C, NES, and others, you will need to download emulators.

Emulators Tutorial

Themes

Looking to customize your menu? Check out the YSMenu themes repository:

Themes Repository

Info and Credits

This YSMenu package contains quite a few fixes and improvements. In the past, YSMenu needed to be chainloaded via the stock kernel. However thanks to Deletecat at DSi Mode Hacking Discord, a new way to load YSMenu on these carts was found, by hex-editing a flashcard-bootstrap binary into the original kernel's _ds_menu.dat file.

A full list of improvements in this package:

  • R4SDHC Bootstrap to load TTMenu.dat - Deletecat & Lifehackerhansol
  • Fixed r4dldi.dat for homebrew - Lifehackerhansol
  • Fixed ttreset.dat soft-reset - twiztidsinz on GBATemp
  • YSMenu theme - ShaolinAssassin on DeviantArt

Kernel Info

Pico-Launcher is the game menu for the DSpico (an open source DS flashcart by the LNH team) and other supported carts. Combined with Pico-Loader, it can be used as a full kernel, and supports almost all retail DS games. It features a material-inspired user interface, and an extremely fast loader.

Soft-Reset Not Supported

Note that Pico-Launcher/Loader currently does not support soft-resetting to the game menu. If this is important to you, consider using WoodR4.

  1. Format the SD card you are using by following the formatting tutorial.

  2. Download the latest Pico Package for Original R4.

    • Currently updated to Pico-Launcher v1.3.0 and Pico-Loader v1.6.0

  3. Extract the pico_package_R4.zip file with 7-Zip, or your native file manager app.

  4. From within the extracted files, copy the following files/folders to your SD card root:

    • _pico folder

    • _picoboot.nds

  5. Download the R4SDHC Miniboot package.

  6. Extract the R4SDHC_pico_miniboot.zip file, then copy both files (_DS_MENU.DAT and _DS_MENU.INI) into the root of your SD card.

  7. If you'd like to be able to use cheats on your games, download a cheat database.

  8. You will need the usrcheat.dat file from the download link in the post. Copy this file into the _pico folder on your SD card.

  9. Create a Games folder in your SD card root, and place any .nds game ROMs you'd like to play inside.

  10. The files on your SD card should now look like this:

    • R4SDHC

  11. Insert the SD card back into your cart, plug the cart into your DS, and see if it boots into the menu.

Post-Setup Enhancements

Emulators

To emulate retro consoles like GBA, GB/C, NES, and others, you will need to add emulators and configure their file associations for Pico-Launcher to display retro ROMs in the menu.

Emulators Tutorial

Game Covers

Pico-Launcher supports showing game covers in cover flow layout mode, and on the top screen in icons mode. You will need to add cover images to your SD card to use this feature.

PicoCover

Themes

Looking to customize your DSpico interface? Check out the Pico themes repository:

Themes Repository

To create your own custom themes for Pico-Launcher, check out the themes creator:

Themes Creator

Saving SD Space

Since this cart is fairly size-constrained with the 2GB limitation, you may want to consider trimming your NDS roms with NDSTokyoTrim. This will trim off the extra unused data from your NDS ROMs, saving you SD card space at no cost!