[EN] CycloDS iEvolution Review

A while back I ordered the CycloDS iEvolution from Shop01Media.com. After the Videoreview it is now time for a written Review. Thanks again to Shop01Media.com, who gave me a discount for this card.

Index:
1. Overview
2. Packaging
3. Installation and Usage
4. Features
5. DSi-Mode and compatibility
6. Conclusion

1. Overview

The Cyclo DSiEvolution was announced in the end of 2010. The first cards were available in spring 2011, matching the Nintendo 3DS almost perfectly. The price was 50€ then, comparable with the price of a DSTWO back then. As of July 2018, it is sold out everywhere except for Shop01Media. It costed rather high 102€ incl. taxes + shipping when this review was written. Without the discount I would've paid 63€ incl. taxes in March 2018. Keep in mind though that this card is out-of-production, which makes it a rare collectors flashcard. You won't find it anywhere new once the last ones in stock are sold. And right now, the only shop that has the card in stock is Shop01Media. The special thing about this card is the DSi-Mode of the card. As of July 2018, no other flashcard realized a DSi-Mode compatibility. Unfortunately Team Cyclo disappeard completely in May 2011,which led to the end of production and end of support. The website in its original shape is only viewable in the WayBackMachine. BEcause of the missing updates/support for the card, it is hard to make it run on recent DS-Consoles/Firmwares. More about that later.

2. Packaging

The CycloDS iEvolution is delivered in a metal-alloy box.

Normally you'd expect Plastic-Cheapness when buying a flashcard, but Team Cyclo drops a suprise here. The quality of the boxing wasn't surpassed by any other flashcard.

The Back lists the official specs plus a link to the now dead domain and some logos; one is the iEvo Logo in Black-White and the others are some ambience.protection labels.

Interestingly enough the main feature of the card, the DSi-Mode isn't mentioned on the back. You can only find features you'd normally expect from a modern flashcard. If you open the box, you'll see a half-see-through textured thingy, under which the included stuff is visible.

...You can see the typical R4-microSD Cardreader, the Flash-Dongle and the Flashcard itself.

The card itself is made out of a solid white shell. You can see the ASIC through it, but the card is tinner than a DSTWO.  It fits perfectly in the slot of the New3DS, while the DSTWO sometimes stucks. On the Back you can see the non-springed microSD-Slot. The contacts are seperated like original DS-Games and long for Flashcards. This can prevent contact problems. My iEvo has a small slit that can't be pressed down. However this doesn't affect the user experience.

 3. Installation and usage

Another special thing about the iEvo: You have to flash it before you can use it. To make the card itself legal, the card is shipped blank. If you put it into a DS System, nothing will happen or you'll get an empty icon. To install it, you need a few ROMs, from which the Bootstrap is made with the offical tool.
A german video tutorial of the procedure (with ENG Subs) from Flashcardsinfo is available viewable here
You need the following files for an EU-Region-Installation:
-The ROM from the Scene-Release "Mon Coach Personnel - Mes Recettes Plaisir et Ligne (DSi Enhanced) (FR)"
-The ROM from the Scene-Release "MechAssault - Phantom War (U)"
-latest Firmware-Generator EUR (Mirror by Tcm0)
-Mirror Firmware-Generator EUR (filetrip.net)

And for an US-Region-Installation:
-The ROM from the Scene-Release "My Healthy Cooking Coach (DSi Enhanced) (US)" (je nach Region) und
-The ROM from the Scene-Release "MechAssault - Phantom War (U)"
-latest Firmware-Generator USA (Mirror by Tcm0)
-Mirror Firmware-Generator USA (filetrip.net)

After extracting the Firmware-Pack for your region, you open "iEVOBootTool.exe", choose the ievo-bootstrap-1.1-[Region].bin file under Source Firmware, The MechAssault ROM under "DS Lite ROM" and the roms of Mon Coach Personnel for an EU-Region-Installation or the  Cooking Coach US one for an US-Region-Installation. After you press "Process" you should get a Success pop-up after a few seconds. The tool has now sucessfully generated a "BOOTUPDT.EVO" in the folder of the Firmware-Generator. You now copy this files on a FAT-32 formatted microSD Card that you don't put in the Flashcard yet. Now you plug the iEvo in the Update Dongle and the Update Dongle into an USB-Port of a PC. After a few seconds, a red LED will glow under the shell of the iEvo. Now you can put your microSD Card in. The LED will go out, which indicates the begin of the flashing progress. 

This takes several minutes, do not panic. Took 4 minutes for me although I had a Class 10 card.If the process was successful the LED will start glowing red again.

The card is now almost useable. Delete the "BOOTUPDT.EVO" from the microsd and extract and copy the boot.ievo from the latest Kernel archive (Mirror by Tcm0) to the microSD card. It will now work without any further operations on the latest supported firmwares (DSi: 1.4.2 for the DSL-Mode, 1.4.3 for the DSi-Mode | 3DS: 2.0.0 für both modes). These firmwares however are very old and therefore userless on any newer 3DS bought after 2011. The 3DS however allows to make the card useable again in both modes with relatively low efforts. After you install the LumaCFW (Guide in many languages here, always up to the date) the card will run without any other steps from the Home Menu.The DSi is a bit more complicated. You need the HiyaCFW. A german videotutorial can be found here.

4. Features
it's not a bug, it's a feature

After you start the card, you'll land in the main menu. Here you can find three submenus; Games, moonshell and the settings.
 
In the settings you can find the option to switch to the DSi-Mode (more on that later). You can also find many customization options there, for example for changing the skins and to define shortcuts. You can find every single setting in my video review.

Moonshell is nothing special for the card, that's why I won't further investigate this here.

The important parts starts in the Game-Tab. You can find a File-Manager, inspired by Wood R4. Besides the ROM-Launching function you can also do simple file operations here (Copy/Move/Delete/Paste). When you switch to a ROM and choose the Menu, you'll get even more options. 

Important is the RTS Slot under "Settings", because you have to create one manually before launching the game for the first time. Otherwise you can't use RTS. Multi-Save is also a possibility.



The Das Real-Time Menu is accessable with the Keycombo set in the setting. 
Here you can:
-Go back to the game
-Show text or pictures, useful for guides.
-Set slow-motion speeds; possible are 50%, 33% and 25%
-Set the screen brightness on DS-Lite System.
-Choose cheats when you activated them before game launch.
-Create and load Real-Time States.Unfortunately only 1 Slot is allowed here per game (the DSTWO allows 4)
-Go back to the Cyclo DS iEvolution Menu.



5. DSi-Mode and compatibility

In the settings section of the iEvo, you can set the card to DSi-Mode.

You have to restart the system for that. The icon of the card will switch with this. Cyclo realises the DSi-Mode with Exploits in the game "My Cooking Coach" in EU and US varients, to load the launcher code. Team Twiizers found the bug and Cyclo exploited it. After the loading screen the Exploit will trigger and you'll land in the already known Main Menu. The only difference here is that you can now run DSi-Enhanced games with the DSi Features and DSi-Only games. You also get advantages of the DSi-Hardware. Theoretically these are: Internet over WPA, Camera, more RAM and a higher clocked CPU. Unfortunately the Internet Access doesn't work because of a bug in the Firmware of the iEvo and it will probably be never fixed due to the obvious reasons. A other limit is that some DSi-Enhanced games aren't dumped correctly and won't work because of missing DSi parts in the ROM. The scenegroup PUSSYCAT did a good job here to proper all faulty roms over the last few years. Their releases are flawless.You can find all the Release-Names of their dumped games in the NoIntroDatabase.

Here are some tested Games/Homebrew Applications and their compatibility:

DSL-Mode:
-Another Super Mario 3D (SM64DS Romhack): Freezing with 2 white screens right after the start
-Fire Emblem Shadow Age: flawless
-GTA Chinatown Wars: flawless
-Kingdom Hearts Re:coded: buggy sound in slow-mo mode, but otherwise fine
-Mario Kart DS: flawless
-New Super Mario Bros. DS: flawless
-Pokemon B/W 1: flawless
-Pokemon B/W 2: XP-Bug due to the AP-Checks from Nintendo. Flawless after manual patching.
-Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Explorers of Sky: flawless
-Super Mario 64 DS: flawless
-Trackmania Turbo: flawless

DSi-Mode with DSi-Enhanced games:
-Art Academy: Non-functional Real-Time-Menu
-Chronicles of Mystery The Secret Tree of Life: Non-functional Real-Time-Menu
-Classic Word Games: Non-functional Real-Time-Menu
-Club Penguin: Real-Time-Menu reachable, RTS unavailable
-Art of Murder:  Non-functional Real-Time-Menu
-Lost Identities:  Non-functional Real-Time-Menu
-Mario vs. Donkey Kong Mini-Land Mayhem!: Blackscreen after Save-Init
-Pokemon Schwarze/Weiße Edition 1: Non-functional Real-Time-Menu, DSi Functions tested and working except for WiFi
-Sonic Classic Collection: Non-functional Real-Time-Menu
-Spongebob's Boating Bash: Non-functional Real-Time-Menu
-The Biggest Looser: Freezes with 2 black screens after starting
-Tron Evolution: Non-functional Real-Time-Menu

Difference between DSL Mode und DSi Mode in Pokemon Black Edition. In DSi Mode on the right side the Battery icon next to the GEAR Icon is showing 3 instead of 2 parts of the remaining battery.These exact Battery Levels are only reachable in DSi-Mode; the game is indeed running in the DSi-Mode

DSi-Mode with DSL Games (Games running with DSi Specs although they weren't made for it):
 
-Trackmania Turbo: error free, faster loading times
-Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Erkundungsteam Himmel: sometimes ssund bugs.

Note: If you really want your DS-Games to run with DSi-Specs, you should test them first. If everything works fine, you can enjoy shorter loading times and less frame drops/lags (can happen, but it's not guaranteed).

Homebrew (DSi Mode/Homebrew):
- DSi Homebrew Channel: flawless
- Project Legends DS-DSi: flawless
- Project Ring DSi: flawless


Note: Most of the DSi-Mode-Homebrew available was written for the iEvo, so no big problems there.

Homebrew(DSL Mode):
-DSCraft(FAT): Softreset doesn't work
-The :D-Game (Not Made by Tcm0): Softreset doesn't work
-DSOrganize: flawless
-Gameyob: Softreset doesn't work
-iFile: flawless

Note: The iEvo is one of the few card that allows soft reset in Homebrew. It works in some titles, but doesn't in others.

6. Conclusion

Let's conclude here. Is the iEvo worth buying? Because of the missing support, the imperfect compatibility and the now astronomical price: Not really. It is only worth for people who already own a DSTWO (like me) and want to have another high end card, or for collectors (Greets to Flashi). But besides the cons, it's an interesting piece of tech and Flashcard history that is unique.Also keep in mind that the rareness makes it a special item itself. The card itself will never ever come back to production. You'll buy a card that some people are willing to spend way more than the current price.

Pros:
-High-Quality Box
-Excellent finish and quality
-DSi Mode
-Good UI

Cons:
-Very high price
-Team disappeared -> no updates
-Not working on recent DSi/3DS Firmwareswithout tricks
-DSi Mode compatibility improvable (Games)
-Bugs in the DSi Mode





Thanks to: 
-Shop01Media for the support
-Flashcardsinfo for inspiration

Used cameras:
-LG G5
-LG V30