DSTT DSi Edition

Virtually every console and handheld to date has their own respective homebrew communities that all aim to provide greater entertainment value without cost by creating new games to play with. Flash kits are required to bypass the limitations in order for these homebrew titles to work. Even Nintendo DS has a flash kit that can effectively play homebrew games and applications called DSTT. Unlike the other consoles, the Nintendo DS has undergone several transformations with the release of the DS Lite and the more recent Nintendo DSi.

The changes and improvements that were made to the DSi were astonishing and their launch convinced lots of handheld gamers to get a DSi of their own. However, some internal changes were made as well rendering the DSTT incompatible.

DSTT maker TopToy responded by unveiling a revised version dubbed the DSTTi which looks the same as the original and has the same wonderful features that homebrew fans have embraced. This revision adds support to the DSi allowing gamers to finally load up their favorite homebrew titles.

DSTTi Features

If you owned a DSTT in the past you will notice that most of the features are generally the same. Here are the main features that DSTT DSi offers.

Full Compatibility across DS Handhelds

If you didn’t get rid of your old DS or DS Lite, you will be delighted to know that the new DSi DSTT works on all systems so you can set the old version aside. The TTDSi takes the form of an original DS cartridge and uses the SLOT-1 interface for best compatibility.

Support for Homebrew Games and Applications

Any homebrew games that you find around the Internet can be downloaded and saved into any SD card. The SD card is loaded into the cartridge so you can play these games directly without swapping DS cartridges.

Works on all types of SD Cards

No matter what the speed of your SD card is, the games should run perfectly fine without lag. SDHC cards may be used too as long as they are less than 4 TB which should cover just about all SDHC cards. This should be enough space to store hundreds of homebrew games as well as other files.

Support for Backup ROMs

If you backed up any of your old cartridges, you can play them too just as if the actual cartridge is in your DSi. In addition, saved games are stored in the SD card as well so you can easily manage them on your PC or use them on other DS handhelds. Wi-Fi enabled games and the DS Rumble Pak is also supported.

Moonshell Pre-installed

Moonshell is one of the most popular homebrew applications for the Nintendo DS that allows playback of audio files, video files, and image files. The old Play-Yan player makes use of the GBA slot found in the DS and DS Lite, but not found in the DSi so the DSTT DSi successfully restores that lost functionality.

TTDS DSi is basically the only flash kit that you need to play homebrew games on your Nintendo DSi and fully turn it into a powerful digital media device.

How to Play Homebrew Software on Your New Nintendo DSi
Both the Nintendo DS and DS Lite were very successful handhelds with hundreds of high-rated games offered for all ages. It even convinced the homebrew community to make games and applications of their own to push the Nintendo DS beyond limits, but the DS hardware prevented that. To make this possible flash kits were needed to add that functionality without directly modifying any hardware components one of the most successful flash kits is the DSTTi.

With the latest release of the Nintendo DSi, some changes were needed since the GBA slot is no longer present, but the DSi continued to sell very well because of its other enhancements like the dual cameras and multimedia capabilities. Still, the DSi cannot play homebrew games and applications, but now the new DSTT DSi makes it possible.

About DSi DSTTi

The DSi DSTT is the 2nd DSi compatible flash kit released and it can still work on both the original Nintendo DS and the Nintendo DS Lite. To maintain full compatibility, it uses the DS original cartridge size and SLOT-1 interface so you don’t need a separate booting device.

Copying Homebrew Applications and Games for Playing

Obtain your favorite homebrew applications and games from their respective sites first and gather them all up into one folder so you can easily transfer. This step requires an SD card and one of TTDSi greatest features is the support for SDHC cards of up to 4 TB which is over 4,000 GB which should be more than enough space to store all kinds of applications, games, movies, and music. Place the SD card into your SD card slot if your desktop or laptop or use the free SDHC high-speed reader that DSTT DSi comes with. Copying the homebrew software is as easy as dragging and dropping in Windows Explorer. You don’t need any special software to do this.

Playing Homebrew Applications and Games on your DSi

Properly eject the SD card and transfer it to the TTDS DSi cartridge. Do not place the SD card in the new SD card slot on the DSi because the DSTTi cartridge has an SD card slot of its own to make it work. Carefully insert the SD card into the DSTT DSi and then insert the DSi DSTT cartridge like you normally would when playing a game. Once you turn it on, load the DSTTi icon and the GUI should show up.

Immediately, you can see the contents of your SD card with all the games and applications that you copied. If you copied a lot of software, you can use the touchscreen or controls to scroll up and down to select your program. Playing a game or an application is as easy as choosing the one you like and the program should play on top performance. There are a few options that you can set before launching the game so you might want to take a look at those.

Playing homebrew software has gotten easier than ever and is now possible on the DSi. Try collecting all the homebrew that you can find because if you have a big SDHC card, you can have endless homebrew entertainment just by leaving your TTDSi in your DSi.

Things you can do with the DSTT DSi Flash Kit
There are tons of different things that you can do with your trusty Nintendo DS. You can use it to play your favorite Nintendo DS titles, you can browse the Internet with the Nintendo DS browser, and you can play mp3 files thanks to its GBA slot. The new Nintendo DSi expands the functionality even further by allowing you to take pictures with its camera and conveniently storing them in an SD card slot although the GBA slot is gone removing possible mp3 player functionality.

If you want to do even more things on your Nintendo DSi, you will need a flash kit like the newly released TTDS DSi which is an enhanced version of the original DSTTi with DSi compatibility and a few improvements under the hood. Here are some of the neat things you can do with the DSTT DSi.

Play Homebrew Games and Applications

If you are fed up with all the DS games that you have in your collection and don’t want to spend more money, you can try out the many homebrew games that individuals create specifically for the DS. On its own, playing these games are not possible even with DSi’s SD card slot. Instead, DSi DStt has a slot of its own which is found on the DSTTi unit. The TTDSi unit has the same size and shape as a Nintendo DS cartridge so you insert it just like any other game. DSTT DSi comes with an SDHC card reader to allow transferring of homebrew software from the PC directly to the card via USB.

Play Backup Games

If you own the original game and know how to backup these games to individual ROMs, you can now play these ROMs using your TTDS DSi the same way you can play with homebrew ones. This is extremely useful if your old games are worn out and wish to play them again without buying another copy. Even the backup games that utilize the DS Rumble Pak or have Wi-Fi features are supported.

Activate Game Cheats

There is no need to get an external cheating device because DSTTi has support for Action Replay cheats. You need to have the game backup in the SD card in order to use these cheats.

Play Multimedia Files

DSTT DSi fully supports one of the most popular DS homebrew – Moonshell which allows playback of popular multimedia formats like MP3, OGG, JPEG, BMP, PNG, GIF, and a number of video formats like MPEG-4. DLDI auto-patching is also supported.

Manage Saved Games

Rather than having the saved games stored on the onboard chip, saved games are stored in the SD card so you can carry your saved games with you and play on other DS handhelds. You can also download saved games from the Internet and easily load them on to your SD card.

All of these features make the DSi DSTT a wonderful value and breathes new life to your DSi. As long as you get the original DSTTi, you can take advantage of all of these features.