I’m No Electrician | Tech Gadgets & Gizmos

The R4 chip (also known as the R4DS) is a controversial cartridge for the Nintendo DS Lite. The cartridge is the exact size of a DS game cartridge and fits in SLOT1 of the handheld console. The R4 has a MicroSD card slot in which any size MicroSD card can be added. By copying some operating system files on to the Micro SD card the owner has create a space to copy DS Roms and other multimedia files to the card and having access to play them through the Nintendo DS.

The R4 chip has raised concerns over the piracy of Nintendo DS games and has been blamed for the decline in DS Software sales worldwide. The minimal expense of getting one of these cards, from £20 ($40) and the simplicity of actually using the card only adds to debate as to whether they should be available. Many stores have reported high levels of sales but will not say what the R4 is used for over fears of legal action. The issue of backing up Roms is slightly different from one of sites having illegal downloads of games but both raise different concerns. A great use for me would be to have all my games backed up one one R4 chip to save the hassle of carrying multiple games around with me. This raises the issue of whether you are legally allowed to create a back up ROM of games you have purchased legally. Many users of the chip state that if the DS games were sold at the same price worldwide then many would not go to illegal measure of obtaining illegally downloaded ROMs. The prices of games can range from as low as $10(£5) in India to $50-60(£25-30) in the UK.

Legal Uses
With all the bad press the R4 chip has been getting the totally legal uses of the chip have been overlooked, these range from begin able to play:

• Music (inc. mp3’s)
• Video
• View pictures
• and play homebrew games and software.

What are your views on the R4 chip or other chipping methods that extend the functionality of gaming devices?

As promised in my last post, this guide is courtesy of Lex of Lex224 forums.

This is a quick guide to getting yourself playing games online. It’s a very general guide, not covering any game in specific but a basic walkthrough to playing online.

Internet

Obviously, to play games online, you need an internet connection. Online games depend heavily on the type of internet connection you have. More recent games with better graphics and detailed game-play will require broadband of some sort. As long as it’s 1mb or faster, I think you’ll be alright.

Of course even with dial-up you can play some online games. This does restrict the type of games you can play like online casino games and other small ones. I’ll not go into these types of games with this guide so I’m assuming you’ve got broadband or some other semi-fast internet.

Game

The number of online games increases each day. The majority of games released these days have some kind of online mode where you can play with people from all over the world, together, against each other or both. Some games have different types of online modes. You’ll need to try each of these modes to see which one you like best.

Joining an online game

Well, you’ve got a game with internet capabilities and an internet connection. What more could you want? To actually play! To play with people online, it is much easier to join a server than to make one. This is for a variety of reason such as internet issues and difficulty of the game to actually make one to your specifications.

So, you’ll join a game which already exists. When you start up the game, you’ll be confronted with a main menu. This is where you can select what to play, whether you want to play online, where you can change the games settings and other tabs which show you the games features. What you want to do is join a game in the internet. I don’t know exactly what you will have to click but it could be anything from ‘Multiplayer’, ‘Join Game’, ‘Internet’, ‘Servers’ etc.

When you find your way to the internet part of the game, you will be faced with a list of servers, or separate instances of the game, ran by other people on the internet in order for people to join. Here will also be other information. Click here to continue reading the guide at Lex224 Forums

By gaming I mean playing games on the PC and not gambling, just thought I’d clear that up with my past Poker and PC posts.

I have never, up until very recently played a game online against people around the globe. The idea has always sounded great to me and its not through a lack of wanting but more of a lack of understanding how it all works. Anyway, I recently joined Lex224 Forums I heard about the forum from another forum I visit semi regularly and it is basically about computer games and all things computers. Being interested I joined and got speaking to the admin who suggested we try playing Counter Strike Source one evening. I sort of agree to a day and time and left it at that and forgot about it til the day.

Forgot was truly the word to use as at 9pm last Saturday I realised I should have been online half an hour ago, so jumped on the PC and headed to the forum to see posts about Vent Servers, Steam, IP Addresses, host names, passwords etc etc. Luckily the admin, Lex, had left his MSN details on the bottom of a post and I got hold of him on MSN.

He was kind and patient enough to talk me through the steps and I had eventually got the Vent server up and active, little did I know that this was only for audio comm’s through a headset/mic (which I didn’t have). But anyway it was good to hear the voices of the other guys I’d be playing against, a few teething problems later and we were playing, its a great experience playing with people you sort of only know online and although I totally sucked at the game, I think it was awesome and have already scheduled in another session with the guys.

It was this experience which lead me to ask Lex to write a brief intro to online gaming which he has agreed to do, so keep checking back and I will get it up as soon as possible.

Oh and if you are interested in a game of Counter Strike one evening, pop across to Lex224 forums (link in the blogroll) for the details etc.