The state of NDS flashcarts is needlessly confusing and vague:
nds.flashcarts.net seems to have a comprehensive list of flashcarts. I'll be linking to the pages on that site for each flashcart I tested, to avoid confusion.
I currently have an Old 3DS XL and a New 3DS XL. The cartridge slot in both consoles feel different. The locking mechanism of the cartridge slot on the New 3DS XL doesn't work on some flashcarts, while the Old 3DS XL doesn't have this problem. On New 3DS XL, the cartridge has to be pushed deeper to engage the locking mechanism.
If I buy a DS, DS Lite, DSi, or DSi XL, I'll update this page with relevant info.
This was the first flashcart I bought, in 2018. I soon learnt that it had a timebomb in the kernel, so I replaced it with YSMenu. Due to the timebomb, it was not recommended by most websites online; however, among the flashcarts I've tested, this is actually my favorite, simply because it can run iQue games. Or rather, it's because the Wood kernels used by other popular/recommended flashcarts refuse to run them. More on that later.
After years of use in YSMenu, it finally started to randomly freeze and corrupt saves. This is probably a hardware fault, so I replaced it with an r4iwood.cn flashcart in 2024.
In 2025, after I got frustrated with the other flashcarts, I bought three of these, one of each label: Gold Pro (yellow), RTS Lite (grey), Dual Core (white), and confirmed that they all work identically with the same kernel. I also set up YSMenu dual boot just in case. Despite the instructions on nds.flashcarts.net and sanrax's guide, you should use the "R4i-SDHC YSMenu" folder, not the "DSTTi-Clone YSMenu" folder. The latter would load the file explorer but will not load any games, at least when dualbooted, reporting an "unsupported DLDI name" error. The instructions in the GBATemp post said to use the "R4i-SDHC YSMenu" folder for r4isdhc.com flashcarts.
The timebomb in the stock kernel (R4iMenu) has since been removed with the latest (and probably last) version, even on older flashcarts that predate the removal, suggesting that such timebomb has no hardware component and is entirely in the kernel.
THIS IS BAD. DO NOT BUY.
I bought this one in 2019, shortly after the r4isdhc.com one, for use with my New 3DS XL, because it was recommended on GBATemp back then, and because I wanted to avoid timebombs. However this turned out to be a bad choice in more ways than one.
Firstly, it works poorly with the cartridge slot of the New 3DS XL. Most of the time when I tried it, it refused to lock in the slot, and sometimes even got stuck in the slot (i.e. can't be removed even with another push) without engaging the locking mechanism. Either way, it couldn't be detected by the console. I searched for the problem, and some people recommended pushing it harder. I did that and it still only worked sometimes. After a while I noticed the pins in the slot have slightly bent/deformed, probably because of me using excessive force. Then after a short while the flashcart itself stopped working (i.e. it can't be read by the console), even on my Old 3DS XL where the locking mechanism has no problems with the flashcart; it was purchased later than the r4isdhc.com flashcart, and stopped working years before the r4isdhc.com one did, with way fewer uses.
Secondly, because it uses a Wood kernel, it refuses to load iQue games. It seems that Wood kernels have an internal whitelist of games, and would refuse to load games that are not in this whitelist. The official websites of flashcarts that use Wood kernels mention that they only support clean ROMs, which makes sense if there's a whitelist. Such flashcarts load J/U/E/K games just fine, but would consider iQue games to be "corrupted" and refuse to load them (pressing A does nothing), without even reading the game info from the ROM. I tried with both fully original ROMs, and ROMs with the region byte (0x1D) patched and header checksum recalculated, and both are refused by Wood, while both are accepted by R4iMenu and YSMenu.
Although this is unrelated to the particular flashcart I bought, another reason to not recommend it is, to quote nds.flashcarts.net: "The last batch of the R4i Gold Plus carts had a hardware fault that rendered them unable to load games with Wood R4 1.64. If you have one of these carts the alternative is to use BL2CK OS, although you won’t get the additional features from Wood R4 1.64."
This was the third flashcart I bought, in 2024, to replace the broken r4isdhc.com flashcart. It runs a Wood kernel and therefore refuses to run iQue games. There doesn't seem to be RTS support; it's not advertised on the label, and it's not mentioned in settings.
The card I bought has r4iwood.cn printed on the label. However, when you go to that site it says:
main site: www.r4isdhc.com.cn sub site: www.r4iwood.cnBoth domains indeed point to the same website.
The kernel provided on the website is bugged. Taiko DS3 (B3DJ) has a repeating click sound whenever a music track is played (either system BGM or playable song) while sound effects are not affected. Switching to the kernel provided by Ace3DS X or archive.flashcarts.net fixed the problem, however I ordered an Ace3DS X (the new "coolest kid on the block") before I realized that.
Being used to YSMenu, I don't like that the Wood UI essentially wastes the top screen. In Wood, the only way to show game info (icon and/or title) without pressing Y is to show it in the file listing, which increases the height of entries and therefore decreases the number of entries that can be shown per screen. I use the "filename only" view to maximize the number of entries shown per screen.
It works well enough for most games, except that it refuses to run iQue games (see previous section), which prompted me to seek other alternatives.
Pico Loader, the loader of DSpico, a new open source DS flashcart released in November 2025, can run on this flashcart and EZFlash Parallel, and can run iQue games.
THIS IS BAD. DO NOT BUY.
Sleep mode doesn't work. When the 3DS is closed, a strobing effect occurs, like when you're holding the space key in Windows Media Player (where the space key works as both play and pause). I held on to the card without returning it because the transparent shell looks stylish, hoping that a fix will come, but it never did.
I bought it because I saw Macho Nacho Productions recommending it in a review, which never mentioned the sleep mode bug, which should be easy to spot. Lesson learnt: never trust YouTube reviews.
Another reason I bought it, shortly after I bought the r4iwood.cn one, is that I wanted to find a flashcart that wouldn't refuse to run iQue games. Sadly EZFlash Parallel fails on this too, as it also uses a Wood kernel. Pico Loader supports EZFlash Parallel though, so maybe it would run iQue games this way. I don't even want to test this though due to the sleep mode issue.
So, similar to the r4ids.cn flashcart, there's no reason to buy this at all.
I bought one in 2025 because I thought the clicking sound problem I experienced while using the r4iwood.cn flashcart was a hardware fault. Both are Ace3DS+ clones, and both can use the same Wood kernel, so they're effectively the same flashcart, and both refuses to run iQue games (except when using Pico Loader). A distinguishing feature of the Ace3DS X is that a switch on the flashcart switches between "DS mode" (plays DS games) and "3DS mode" (acts as an ntrboot cartridge).
So now I have basically confirmed that all flashcarts that use Wood don't support iQue games. However, most flashcarts that are still in production use Wood, with the r4isdhc.com one being the only exception. If I want to test more flashcarts I'll have to buy older ones that are out of production, like DSTT, Acekard, and EDGE. I won't buy Supercard ones because they're too expensive. I'm not sure when or if I'll buy these older flashcarts, so I decided to publish this page in its current state.