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G6 Lite Review
written by TheSpade

So, you want a flash card? You want simple, easy use? You don't want to fiddle with removable media cards of different sizes with many factors? Well, you're in luck. G6 Lite 4Gbit (512 Mbytes) is the simplest DS-compatible flash card that you could ever ask for to use with your DS or DS Lite.

What's in the box? Inside, you'll discover an embroidered tin which contains the following:

G6 Lite Board
DS Lite white casing
DS Lite ice blue casing
DS Lite navy casing
GBA (original DS) white casing
UDisk Burner
Installation mini-CD
*PassCard 3 shown is not included

NOTE: G6 Lite has been tested to work with EZPASS3, Max Media Launcher, MK4-Mini, PassCard 3 and Superkey. It is not compatible with PassCard 2.





The G6 Lite Board is preinstalled within the DS Lite white casing. The G6 Lite will ship with all utilities preinstalled, including G6-Edition Moonshell, Emulation Root File, DS and GBA PDA Software (DS PDA is in Chinese; English due out soon) and both DS and GBA sample skins. Each of the DS Lite casings are shaped near perfect to the GBA Cover that DS Lites standardly include. Though they lack the transparent enamel that the official cover bears, they are not off in color at all to the untrained eye. Sadly, I do have trained eyes, so I could see the difference, though minor. They are slightly transparent themselves for some reason. They are still rugid and fit within the DS Slot 2 with ease. Each casing has a Phillips screw, and I can assure you that it's easy to strip, so if you must change to another casing, be smart and use the proper size screwdriver carefully. You shouldn't worry about having to take it in and out so often and ruining your DS Lite.


Now that we can see it is cosmetically flush as advertised, let's look at the G6 Lite's meat: What can it do? It shines the brightest for DS playability. Unlike its sister product, M3, it does not have skinable menus initially (you can use M3 skins for the media player modes). Instead, it uses the icons written into the games and displays them in a scrolling list on the bottom with the top screen displaying a legend along with your DS internal clock and the version of the loader installed. Furthermore, the main menu utilizes the touch screen. Not even M3 or Supercard does this (yet). You can even go straight to the PDA or Moonshell with the sole use of your stylus. Sadly, the touch screen functionality stops there. When you go to the media player modes, it becomes like M3 (because it nearly is): No more touching. If all you plan on doing is playing ROMs, then this is a non-issue. By the way, as I'm sure some veteran card owners will ask, the Castlevania test (checking for skips in the intro FMV) rates a 5 out of 5.


Another unique feature to the G6 Lite is the ability to transfer saves between ROMs and real game cards. Let's take my copy of New Super Mario Bros. to demonstrate. Once you reach the game menu, simply select the ROM, press Select to bring up the save options and now you can transfer saves in either direction. Though the homebrew utility, Rein, does this for most other flash cards, this ability is so much easier and faster. Sadly, there is no current means to dump your game cards onto the G6 Lite at this present time. By the way, that battery meter that you are seeing in the picture displays how much power the G6's internal battery has remaining.

Writing ROMs to the G6 is simple. Using the included software, U-Disk, all you do is pick your ROM, choose your settings and write. It's that easy. Don't forget that Windows likes to have you to click that little icon in the System Tray before you pull it off the UDisk Burner. That can corrupt your G6 Lite and force you to reformat it (see the FAQ for a guide on this). The writing speed is not super fast, unless you're using a USB 2.0 connection and not trimming your ROMs. Otherwise, it takes roughly 30-60 seconds to write each DS ROM. You shouldn't be in such a hurry to write games no matter the product. Continuing on with G6 Lite's uniqueness, it offers 3 save games per DS and GBA game automatically when written onto the flash card. This make it simpler for households with only one DS and 2 or 3 players. In addition, using U-Disk, you can load EZ-Flash IV, M3 and Supercard saves onto yours in case you're changing brands.



While I am quite happy about the DS side of the G6 Lite, the GBA side isn't as perfect cosmetically. Like the DS Menu, GBA games are given icons in the form of their title screens. Herein lies the problem. The screens are not available for every single game. In addition, when you read the game's name upon the list, it has been changed from whatever you labeled it to very broken English. You cannot custom select your icons nor rename the games in the list. Let's not forget the fact that everything in the GBA Menu is controlled by a mouse pointer that you control with your control pad, which is very cumbersome. It is apparent that this area of the G6 has been neglected for refinement. Hopefully, this will be rectified in a future update.

Mind you, GBA playability is exactly the same as DS, down to the multiple saves, though minus transfering your real GBA saves back and forth with the G6 Lite. You can also write games to include real-time saving, as you will get a total of 6 save games (3 for normal saving, 3 more for real-time). While I have issues with the presentation, I have none whatsoever about playing GBA games, as they are indeed excellent with nearly flawless compatibility.

I would like to offer my views on the PDA software, but until the English version is release, I will not do so at this time. Once available, I will amend this portion of the review.

Homebrew is excellent on G6 Lite. Though it does indeed run all well-known emulators and homebrew for GBA, it's the DS side that peaked my curiosity. So many times, I have read about M3 SD and Supercard SD owners with compatibility issues (forget EZ-Flash IV). I didn't run every single application out there, but I will share with all of you as to what I ran:

NESDS WIP1
NitroTracker v0.2
No Place To Hide (30072006)
ScummVM v.0.61a
snezziDS v.024b-sound
Wolf3D Demo (061906)

Every single one of these ran as good as the programs could do in their present form. It seems that it can run practically any homebrew with a ds.gba format loader. Running .nds format loaders will begin to run and then the screen will freeze about a second afterwards. That puts G6 Lite at the top of all the Lite models thus far, as homebrew applications were solely strong on the Compact Flash models of M3 and Supercard. Please note that homebrew is not 100% as of yet. At the time of this review, DSDOOM and DSOrganize will not work. As with any flash card, the authors must write support for various flash cards into their programs in order to instill wider use. With the popularity of G6 Lite, it is safe to assume to witness improvements in compatibility across the board.


As of G6 Loader v.4.2, G6/M3 Team has decided to carry over the Extend feature, which is a simple, smaller, somewhat limited version of Moonshell currently on M3, to G6 Lite. You can use Extend or the G6 Edition Moonshell. It's up to you, as they seemingly perform close to one another. Please take note that you will be watching movies at about 10-15 frames per second. My main issue with movies in Moonshell is that the audio will unsync with the video the further along you watch. This can be somewhat avoided by partitioning the movies you convert into shorter segments as a DVD does into chapters. Remember, this is a homebrew program and not an official product of M3/G6 Team. It is free to use, and though it is a nice bonus, I wouldn't use it to watch movies on the go.

Overall, I'm quite satisfied with the G6 Lite. It has more unique features than any other flash card currently on the market today. It's nice to be able to use the touch screen instead of being dependant solely on the directional pad and buttons. The save system is plentiful and not difficult to use. Homebrew support is a nice plus as well. Don't let its size of memory through you off, or you will be passing up on a great card.

Pros:
+ Fits flush in DS Lite
+ Great looking DS Menu
+ Touch screen works for the front menu
+ Built-in ability to swap saves between real games and ROMs
+ Automatic multiple save files
+ Real-time save for GBA
+ Near perfect DS and GBA playback
+ Superb homebrew support

Cons:
- Not so great GBA Menu
- Touch screen doesn't work everywhere
- Memory size may turn off some users
- Inability to dump game cards

I grade it: A-