{"id":7,"date":"2008-03-19T23:10:48","date_gmt":"2008-03-19T23:10:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dsdatabase.org\/blog\/?p=7"},"modified":"2008-12-23T16:54:36","modified_gmt":"2008-12-24T00:54:36","slug":"acekard-2-first-impressions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/dsdatabase.org\/blog\/2008\/03\/acekard-2-first-impressions\/","title":{"rendered":"AceKard 2 First Impressions"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href='http:\/\/i142.photobucket.com\/albums\/r98\/PharaohsVizier\/AK2WM.jpg'><a href='http:\/\/dsdatabase.org\/blog\/wp-content\/imagescaler\/901d928c3ef8ecf73fa0ad08aa36720c.jpg'><a href='http:\/\/dsdatabase.org\/blog\/wp-content\/imagescaler\/901d928c3ef8ecf73fa0ad08aa36720c.jpg'><a href='http:\/\/dsdatabase.org\/blog\/wp-content\/imagescaler\/901d928c3ef8ecf73fa0ad08aa36720c.jpg'><a href='http:\/\/dsdatabase.org\/blog\/wp-content\/imagescaler\/901d928c3ef8ecf73fa0ad08aa36720c.jpg'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/dsdatabase.org\/blog\/wp-content\/imagescaler\/901d928c3ef8ecf73fa0ad08aa36720c.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"370\" height=\"174\" imagescaler=\"http:\/\/dsdatabase.org\/blog\/wp-content\/imagescaler\/d25c6e3800062916ae7b9b493c1bab05.jpg\" \/><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I would just like to start off by thanking the AceKard team for providing me with the AceKard 2, as well as their support for DSDatabase in the past.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>There are 2 videos at the end, but for those of you who want to just watch it now instead of reading this long post:<br \/>\n<object width=\"425\" height=\"350\"><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/yljvuVqoPBo\"><\/param><embed src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/yljvuVqoPBo\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" width=\"425\" height=\"350\"><\/embed><\/object><br \/>\n<object width=\"425\" height=\"350\"><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/pVShUzOHF9Q\"><\/param><embed src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/pVShUzOHF9Q\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" width=\"425\" height=\"350\"><\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n<p>I got ahold of my package sometime early this morning, surprisingly, the AceKard team has packaged in a huge array of protective bags, boxes, wraps, etc.\u00a0 I am happy to say that my AceKard 2 is in perfect condition, even the box is in perfect condition.\u00a0 It would make my job a lot easier if all the teams took a bit of effort in protecting their products, even if this was a bit excessive.<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/i142.photobucket.com\/albums\/r98\/PharaohsVizier\/IMG_1678.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The package includes a MicroSD reader that works great with SDHC cards, as well as the actual AceKard 2.\u00a0 The MicroSD reader is quite small, but fully functional, and pretty good for a freebie.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/i142.photobucket.com\/albums\/r98\/PharaohsVizier\/IMG_1682.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The AceKard 2 seems to share the little clips design as with the AceKard RPG:<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/i142.photobucket.com\/albums\/r98\/PharaohsVizier\/IMG_1684.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The actual AceKard 2 has a chip sticking out, by quite a bit actually, but it seems to slide in and out quite well.\u00a0 The sticker seems thin enough to make up for the chip&#8217;s thickness.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/i142.photobucket.com\/albums\/r98\/PharaohsVizier\/IMG_1683.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The idea behind\u00a0the AceKard 2 is to provide an alternative to the high end AceKard RPG.\u00a0 The AceKard RPG offers many features that made it somewhat of a success, but it was in short supply, and the pricetag was a bit too steep for many users ($75), it quickly became a cart that everyone wanted, but no one really went to buy.\u00a0 The AceKard 2 is the remedy to this problem.\u00a0 By cutting down on the internal memory, but keeping the functionality of the AceKard RPG, it seemed like a good idea.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/i142.photobucket.com\/albums\/r98\/PharaohsVizier\/IMG_1681.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The AceKard 2 is also spring loaded.\u00a0 It seems a bit tight, but it has a nice bit of force behind it, and I&#8217;ve clipped in MicroSD cards perhaps 40 times today, it doesn&#8217;t seem to get any looser, or show any signs of snapping, but usually it takes a bit longer than that.\u00a0 For now it seems alright, definitely a bit tighter than I would like, but not a serious issue at all.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/i142.photobucket.com\/albums\/r98\/PharaohsVizier\/IMG_1685.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>I have been fiddling with it for a good 5 hours, and have a pretty good feel about what the AceKard 2 is like.\u00a0 Along with my experience with the AceKard RPG, I got into it quite quickly.\u00a0 It might be that the menu is eerily similar to the AceKard RPG that makes me feel right at home, or perhaps just because the menu is so great.<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/i142.photobucket.com\/albums\/r98\/PharaohsVizier\/IMG_1688.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/> <\/p>\n<p>The menu is completely skinnable, objects can be moved around, and 3 great skins are shipped with the AceKard 2, and there are plenty more because skins designed for the popular AceKard RPG can be used on the AceKard 2 with no need to port or convert anything.\u00a0 The menu can be controlled completely via buttons or the touch screen, both are very intuitive and easy to use.\u00a0 The Start button has all of the options that the AceKard 2 offers (Pretty self-explanatory if you watch the video that is also in this post):<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/i142.photobucket.com\/albums\/r98\/PharaohsVizier\/IMG_1690.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/i142.photobucket.com\/albums\/r98\/PharaohsVizier\/IMG_1692.jpg\" alt=\"null\" \/><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/i142.photobucket.com\/albums\/r98\/PharaohsVizier\/IMG_1691.jpg\" alt=\"null\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Booting up a game takes the same amount of speed as the AceKard RPG, however, upon start up, the AceKard 2 no longer needs to write the save onto the cart, which frees up quite a bit of time, making the AceKard 2 seem a lot faster than the AceKard RPG, in fact, it is now comparable to many of its competitors.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/i142.photobucket.com\/albums\/r98\/PharaohsVizier\/IMG_1687.jpg\" alt=\"null\" \/><\/p>\n<p>I was using a brand new, just opened, Made in Japan 2GB Kingston MicroSD card that was freshly formatted to FAT32 for a quick lag test, and was shocked to see that Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow&#8217;s intro did not run smooth.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/i142.photobucket.com\/albums\/r98\/PharaohsVizier\/IMG_1686.jpg\" alt=\"null\" \/><\/p>\n<p>It is acceptable, but at this point in time, pretty much all flash carts can play this video without lag, it is odd that the AceKard 2 cannot accomplish this, instead it shows minor stutters.<\/p>\n<p><object width=\"425\" height=\"350\"><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/yljvuVqoPBo\"><\/param><embed src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/yljvuVqoPBo\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" width=\"425\" height=\"350\"><\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve tested about 50 games in one of my test memory cards, and all of them seem to perform fine, they can all soft reset perfectly fine, the cheats worked out quite well, as it is able to take an R4 cheat database and convert it to its own format (.cc) inside the menu or with an external program, I have yet to test download play.\u00a0 I figure a nice video would answer a lot more questions than text, so here is my usual memory card running with the AceKard 2:<\/p>\n<p><object width=\"425\" height=\"350\"><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/pVShUzOHF9Q\"><\/param><embed src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/pVShUzOHF9Q\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" width=\"425\" height=\"350\"><\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n<p>And there&#8217;s my first impressions.\u00a0 If you have any questions, feel free to comment on my blog, or email me at <a href=\"mailto:PharaohsVizier@gmail.com\">PharaohsVizier@gmail.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>And remember to keep your eyes out for the full DSDatabase.org review of the AceKard 2.<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/i142.photobucket.com\/albums\/r98\/PharaohsVizier\/IMG_1677.jpg\" alt=\"null\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I would just like to start off by thanking the AceKard team for providing me with the AceKard 2, as well as their support for DSDatabase in the past.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/dsdatabase.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/dsdatabase.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/dsdatabase.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dsdatabase.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dsdatabase.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/dsdatabase.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60,"href":"http:\/\/dsdatabase.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7\/revisions\/60"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/dsdatabase.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dsdatabase.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dsdatabase.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}