Homebrew (question) NDS emulator

HugoAndore

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Got a question, was playing NDs emulator on my ios, and seems like is the same for android. DraStic DS emulator. With all this flash carts and what not..thought an emulator will make life easier than having two flashcarts. I notice that there are for homebrew, GBA emulator, snes, etc, but nobody has ported the DraStic emulator to work on the 3DS.

Works so fine, I'm not tech savvy so if there is a reason a homebrew NDS emulator haven't being ported to 3DS hardware?
 

Vappy

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Works so fine, I'm not tech savvy so if there is a reason a homebrew NDS emulator haven't being ported to 3DS hardware?
Because it'd be a spectacular amount of work to get it running at an even vaguely playable framerate. Drastic runs fine on phones because they're powerful enough, the 3DS is not a hardware powerhouse. And since DS games can already be run natively, perfectly, on the 3DS, why would anyone bother going through all the effort to port an emulator? A more realistic prospect is figuring out how to use the native DS compatibiity to run ROMs, and if Nintendo should ever decide to release DS games on the 3DS eShop, it'd be a relatively easy job.
 
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loco365

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Because there are better alternatives - say, a flashcard? There's no point because it handles the code already and there's a way to run it. Why bother reinvent the wheel?
 

itdaboyz

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Wait, but there is no need to emulate it.
You can already play NDS games on your 3DS if you have the cart.

So like the 3DS's cia, there should be a way in doing it (and I'm very interested in it !).
 

michyprima

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Wait, but there is no need to emulate it.
You can already play NDS games on your 3DS if you have the cart.

So like the 3DS's cia, there should be a way in doing it (and I'm very interested in it !).
When you run a DS game card on the 3DS, the unit reboots and loads an alternative firmware meant for that. This basically turns the 3DS into a real DS.
The firmware in question is not able to run DS games which are not on a game card.
In turn, the 3ds can run DSiWare, but this is a different story. There are severe limitations in place, and since it does not emulate a full DSi, you cannot run roms with it.

Achieving this would basically mean writing a full firmware for the 3ds, which we cannot as of now.
 

itdaboyz

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When you run a DS game card on the 3DS, the unit reboots and loads an alternative firmware meant for that. This basically turns the 3DS into a real DS.
The firmware in question is not able to run DS games which are not on a game card.
In turn, the 3ds can run DSiWare, but this is a different story. There are severe limitations in place, and since it does not emulate a full DSi, you cannot run roms with it.

Achieving this would basically mean writing a full firmware for the 3ds, which we cannot as of now.

The 3DS does the same for GBA games and we can play them with GBA injection.
Can't we inject a custom rom in DSiWare ? Not now but one day maybe ? ...
 

loco365

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The 3DS does the same for GBA games and we can play them with GBA injection.
Can't we inject a custom rom in DSiWare ? Not now but one day maybe ? ...
It's been tried. The reason GBA games work is because whatever we put in will run since the full GBA hardware is properly supported for the most part. That isn't the case for DSiWare because DS roms are not built for NAND access. rather they're made for cartridges with chips on them. To get that to work properly would require a custom firmware, which as mentioned cannot be done as of now. Additionally, the DSi NAND is only 256MB in size, some DS roms easily are larger than that (Pokémon Black/White 2 come to mind). While someday it may work, it will be extremely impractical and you're simply better off using a flashcard.
 

itdaboyz

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Hm I see. Thanks for the explanation !
So the only way for me to play Golden Sun : Dark Dawn with my Sky3DS and PastaCFW is to buy a flashcart or to buy the game. :/
 

loco365

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Hm I see. Thanks for the explanation !
So the only way for me to play Golden Sun : Dark Dawn with my Sky3DS and PastaCFW is to buy a flashcart or to buy the game. :/
Precisely. You can also use Flashcard Time Warp (Since you already have an exploit vector I'd assume because you have Pasta) so that the flashcard will work on your system as well - it essentially resets the DS cartridge whitelist so that updates to the list are reverted as to allow almost all flashcards to run that have 3DS compatibility that were blocked in previous updates. Not to mention you'll also have a library of homebrew that is a bit more compatible and able to run than some 3DS homebrew titles as well, plus if you have the right DS flashcard you can probably also run GBA games better than the GBA Virtual Console as well.
 

itdaboyz

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Precisely. You can also use Flashcard Time Warp (Since you already have an exploit vector I'd assume because you have Pasta) so that the flashcard will work on your system as well - it essentially resets the DS cartridge whitelist so that updates to the list are reverted as to allow almost all flashcards to run that have 3DS compatibility that were blocked in previous updates. Not to mention you'll also have a library of homebrew that is a bit more compatible and able to run than some 3DS homebrew titles as well, plus if you have the right DS flashcard you can probably also run GBA games better than the GBA Virtual Console as well.
Yeah, I saw that thing a while before but I don't feel buying a second flashcart only to play NDS games.
GBA games already run great with VC.

I think I'll wait for a software solution or buy the game.

Thanks anyway !
 

michyprima

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Yeah, I saw that thing a while before but I don't feel buying a second flashcart only to play NDS games.
GBA games already run great with VC.

I think I'll wait for a software solution or buy the game.

Thanks anyway !
I can't see why
I mean, if you want the game, go ahead... but nds flashcards go as cheap as 10 bucks
 

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