**Navigate quickly through the comparison by clicking the links below**
Introduction - Menu - Cheats - Real Time Save - Real Time Guide - Support - Price - Conclusion

4.  In-game Reader / Real Time Guide
In-game Reader or more commonly known as Real Time Guide (coined by the Supercard Team) is the ability to pull up a text file at any point of the game.  If you are playing an RPG, you can pull up a chart of the perfect build for a character, or perhaps a complete walkthrough, perhaps you want to carry around a list of all the characters and what they like in Harvest Moon, the possibilities for this feature are endless.  Ever since the feature came out, I have found myself using it time and time again, unable to stop.

CycloDS Evolution:
The CycloDS Evolution in game guide is still in its BETA stage, and the major missing component that I see is bookmarking, which is promised to come in the near future.

The CycloDS Evolution accepts raw .txt files which is really nice as most guides are in that format.  You have to rename it the same as the .nds file that it is tied to and placed in the same folder.  Again, this feature is executed with the extend mode (L+R+A+B+X+Y), and under text reader you will be able to access the .txt file almost instantaneously.

Click text reader to activate the real time guide.

The text reader for the CycloDS Evolution shows grey text on a white background.  They do not reformat the text file in anyways, how they show up on the computer is how they show up here, however, the screen can only show 51 characters at any given point.  The good news is that maps, charts and pictures drawn using characters on a text file will show up flawlessly, but moving left to right is a huge hassle.  Clicking L or R moves the screen up 27 lines down or up respectively, and up and down obviously moves the text up and down line by line.

Looks great, but scrolling through the text is really a horrible mess. Having to move left and right, while also moving up and down makes reading through a guide really slow.  

As mentioned before, the text reader is in its BETA stages, and there is no bookmarking.  Suppose you work your way down halfway through the text, upon the next restart, you will be back at the top of the page.  Also the having to scroll left and right is extremely annoying.  Thankfully there is a program called LineBreaker by ParticleMan released on TeamCyclops’ forum.  It formats text files wonderfully, it will make it so that regular text will form into lines of 51 characters or less, while detecting things like maps that should remain full-sized.  I haven’t used it extensively, but for the 4 guides that I used it to convert, it worked absolutely perfectly, and with it, the CycloDS Evolution’s text reader is just amazing.  Side scrolling is only necessary for maps and charts.

With LineBreaker, the CycloDS Evolution's in game guide is by far more versatile than the Supercard DS ONE's.  

Supercard DS ONE:
The Supercard DS ONE is also the first cart to get real time guide working.  Actually Team Cyclops and the Supercard Team are the only ones who have it working so far, it is quite an amazing feat.

One thing is for sure, the font is bigger and more readable.

First off, the Supercard DS ONE does not support raw text files like the CycloDS Evolution does.  It uses .scb files.  Using the software cht2supercardcheat.exe which can be found at http://eng.supercard.cn/download/cht2supercardcheat_v1.02.rar, it will basically rescale your text to 28 characters per line, as well as scramble them up so you won’t ever see the original text again unless it is through a Supercard.  You click make book, and choose the correct text file.

The words are formatted so that they would fit the screen, even so there are words that are broken up.

With your .scb file, you will, like the cheat files, either name it as the release number of the rom, or the name of the file you have in your MicroSD card (in which case both .nds and .scb files have to be in the same folder).  Then you put it in the book folder of scshell folder on your MicroSD.

To use the real time guide, you will need to enable “Enable Guide” in the set patch option in the File Information popup in the Supercard DS ONE menu.  Now when you are in game, you can access the text file at any time by click L+R+Start+Down.

As you can see from my video, lots of elements of the guide such as the underlining, the bars, etc are completely destroyed in the conversion. As well there are lots of awkward line breaks in the middle of words.

Unlike the CycloDS Evolution’s guide, it uses white text on a black background.  It will not bookmark your text file, so after the next reboot, you will be at the start again.  The text size is incredibly big, and the line breaks sometimes happen in the middle of a word.  All of the maps and charts are broken up beyond recognition, so just give up on that now.  I’d highly recommend using ParticleMan’s LineBreaker software before changing the text file to .scb format, choosing Custom and inputting 28, meaning that it will break up the lines to 28 characters a line.  It will make the text a lot more fluid and easier to read.

With the software breaking up the lines ahead of time, there are a lot fewer words that break up in the middle, although it still happens. And nothing can protect charts and diagrams from breaking up.  

I think Team Cyclops’ In-Game Reader is by far the superior text reader.  It doesn’t break up the text oddly, and it works well.  I have to give Supercard Team some props though, they can scroll through pages much faster than the CycloDS Evolution can.  So I feel their engine would be decent for a few charts, a few words, but if you are planning to take a whole walkthrough with you, you have to use the CycloDS Evolution.

Most walkthroughs on the the internet have a barrage of charts inside, you would be missing out if you can't refer to them.

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**Navigate quickly through the comparison by clicking the links below**
Introduction - Menu - Cheats - Real Time Save - Real Time Guide - Support - Price - Conclusion