What is dstt card?

Answer 1

DSTT and R4 are now the cheapest DS Slot1 flash carts on the market. Despite of the low price, their function is nearly perfect. All support soft reset, cheats and plug & play (no FlashMe, no PassMe and no ROM Conversion). For most of the game players, both R4 and DSTT can meet their gaming needs quite well. Apart from gaming, R4 and DSTT can also turn Nintendo DS into a multimedia player. The performance of two devices is similar, so for buyers there is a big question - which one to buy? R4 or DSTT? To help buyers make their own choice between R4 and DSTT, we compared various aspects of two carts and listed all similarities and differences in easy-to-ready tables.

Build Quality:

Build qualities of R4 and DSTT are all very good. They all have the same size as the original DS cartridge, as well as the cart thickness. TF card slot is designed at the top of the cart so there is no need to take out the cart to get memory card out.

DSTT uses an enhanced spring mechanism for memory card slot. According to the manufacturer, the new spring mechanism is different from the R4 V1's design. When asked why not just use the same design as R4 V2, the manufacturer said they have considered this option but finally they go with this new spring design.

Operating Interface:

The operating interface is where the differences are most easily to be found between R4 and DSTT. R4 interface is rather simple. After R4 finishes loading, you will see three icons for game, multimedia and GBA game. You can use stylus to click on the icon and of course you can use DS buttons as well. The multimedia part is in fact a moonshell multimedia player application. It has been integrated into R4 kernel software.

After game is selected, R4 will display a file list on upper screen which only contains file name and size. The detailed information is shown in the touch screen, such as game manufacturer, name, icon and so on. If there are cheats for a game, a "Cheats" button will be displayed. Click the button for further setting.

After DSTT boots up, the interface looks quite similar to R4's game interface. At the first glance, you may feel it is more complicated than R4, but after you get familiar with it you would find it actually very easy to use. If you want to run multimedia files, you have to copy moonshell into the memory card by yourself, and then run moonshell like loading other games. For DSTT you can only boot GBA slot2 devices through "system" menu located at top left corner of the touch screen.

Compare to R4, the biggest difference for DSTT is that the file list is displayed in the touch screen (R4 displays file list in upper screen), so for DSTT you can use stylus to select game and do other operations. It is actually very convenient and easy to use. In addtion to the game name, size and the icon, DSTT also uses some other icons to indicate whether soft reset and cheats are switched on or off for particular games. The displayed information is comprehensive and looks quite professional.

When a game is started on R4, if the .SAV file is not found R4 will ask to create or ignore it. On DSTT the .SAV file is automatically created when a game started.

Brightness Adjustment:

On R4 the DSL brightness can only be adjust in game mode. You can press L button or click the little sun icon at the top-left corner of the touch screen. For DSTT you have to enter "System" page to click "Brightness" button to adjust brightness.

Skin DIY

R4 only allows to change the background pictures for main interface and game mode interface. DSTT allows all skin elements to be customized that includes background pictures, all small icons, buttons, scrollbars and dialogs. The colour scheme can be configured on R4 and DSTT through .ini file.

Soft Reset

Soft Reset is one of the most useful funstions in DS flash carts. R4 and DSTT all support soft reset. R4 uses a small icon to indicate the current status of soft reset. It is displayed at the top right corner on the touch screen in game mode. You can press R button or click the icon to switch soft reset on or off. This setting for R4 is globally effective which means you can't set soft reset status for individual games. DSTT allows Soft Reset to be set globally or for individual games. When soft reset is enabled for the game, there will be a small icon displayed under the game name.

Cheats:

R4 and DSTT all support cheats in the game. In game mode R4 displays a button on touch screen if the cheats are available for the selected game. DSTT displays a small icon under the game name in the file list if the cheats are available in the kernel.

GBA Compatibility:

Many GBA slot2 devices have their software optimized specifically for R4. It is not the case for DSTT at moment.

Game Performance:

Most games can be quickly loaded by DSTT and run as smooth as on R4. But for some new games if DMA mode is not switched on, the loading is relatively slow. DMA mode can be set in "System" page.

SDHC Compatibility:

SDHC is a new standard for SD memory card. Although SDHC standard was proposed in 2006, only recently it becomes popular on the market. Compare to DSTT, R4 is an "old" product in DS flash carts. It is built based on the old SD standard so it doesn't support SDHC memory cards. DSTT supports SDHC cards, and the normal SD cards are also supported.

Conclusion:

R4 is on the market for a while. It has a very good reputation as a DS flash cart. The market share is relatively high. Therefore on internet you can find lots of R4 related resources, such as tutorials, skins, software specifically optimized for R4. DSTT is a new flash cart, but the perfomance is comparable to R4. At moment the price of DSTT is very competitive and much lower than the R4's. With the time going, it is believed there will be more and more resources for DSTT available on internet. In short these two carts are very good DS flash carts. You can choose any of them according to your own circumstances. As a replacement for R4, it is absolutely worth to buy one DSTT for your Nintendo DS.