Homebrew DS(i) Mode hacking progress thread

carls · Nov 19, 2016

already tested ComicBookDS and Nitrohax, both running smoothly

but I can run miniVMac DS, always stuck loading file from vmac folder (placed on nds folder neither root SDMC not working)

EDIT:
also LoneWolf DS, stuck after character creation screen, setting equipment, music running but screen stuck

metroid maniac · Nov 19, 2016

Much has been said about about the complexities of patching DS software to load from the SD card rather than slot-1. But, a similar situation has occurred in the past. Slot-2 GBA cards such as the EZ Flash IV were capable of playing DS games.

I know from my experience with the EZ Flash IV that DS roms needed to be patched using the EZ Flash client software before they would run. So, I guess that this patching is what enables them to load assets from GBA ROM regions and save data to GBA SRAM regions rather than using the standard slot 1 cartridge interface.

I'm just speculating if this is relevant to patching SD support into retail DS roms. Has this technology been investigated, and if so did it yield any useful information? Perhaps someone with more technical knowledge such as @ahezard would be able to provide insight here.

One thing in particular that stood out to me was the fact that the GBA ROM and RAM regions were only mapped to a single CPU at a time (GBATEK) - which reminded me of the fact that only ARM7 can use the SD card interface.

fodder · Nov 20, 2016

metroid maniac said:
Much has been said about about the complexities of patching DS software to load from the SD card rather than slot-1. But, a similar situation has occurred in the past. Slot-2 GBA cards such as the EZ Flash IV were capable of playing DS games.

I know from my experience with the EZ Flash IV that DS roms needed to be patched using the EZ Flash client software before they would run. So, I guess that this patching is what enables them to load assets from GBA ROM regions and save data to GBA SRAM regions rather than using the standard slot 1 cartridge interface.

I'm just speculating if this is relevant to patching SD support into retail DS roms. Has this technology been investigated, and if so did it yield any useful information? Perhaps someone with more technical knowledge such as @ahezard would be able to provide insight here.

One thing in particular that stood out to me was the fact that the GBA ROM and RAM regions were only mapped to a single CPU at a time (GBATEK) - which reminded me of the fact that only ARM7 can use the SD card interface.

Interesting read, didn't EZ Flash IV need something like a passthrough cart or FlashMe to make it do the DS stuff?

metroid maniac · Nov 20, 2016

fodder said:
Interesting read, didn't EZ Flash IV need something like a passthrough cart or FlashMe to make it do the DS stuff?

That's right. But a passme doesn't do very much exciting work, its only job is to boot the slot-2 flashcard without going into the GBA backwards compatibility mode.
Once it hands over control to the flashcard, you can remove it or hide it away somewhere. The passme doesn't assist in loading ROMs or anything.

YugamiSekai · Nov 25, 2016

Any updates on this?

Bedel · Nov 25, 2016

carls said:
already tested ComicBookDS and Nitrohax, both running smoothly

but I can run miniVMac DS, always stuck loading file from vmac folder (placed on nds folder neither root SDMC not working)

EDIT:
also LoneWolf DS, stuck after character creation screen, setting equipment, music running but screen stuck

This are rally good news! Gotta test ComicBookDS, I really used to love it.

TDTHD · Nov 26, 2016

The bad thing that few people will use it in the 3ds, being the mode ds. Although it comes very well, in case it spoils the slot-1 and thus is the only way to play the games of ds.

nl255 · Dec 2, 2016

metroid maniac said:
Much has been said about about the complexities of patching DS software to load from the SD card rather than slot-1. But, a similar situation has occurred in the past. Slot-2 GBA cards such as the EZ Flash IV were capable of playing DS games.

I know from my experience with the EZ Flash IV that DS roms needed to be patched using the EZ Flash client software before they would run. So, I guess that this patching is what enables them to load assets from GBA ROM regions and save data to GBA SRAM regions rather than using the standard slot 1 cartridge interface.

I'm just speculating if this is relevant to patching SD support into retail DS roms. Has this technology been investigated, and if so did it yield any useful information? Perhaps someone with more technical knowledge such as @ahezard would be able to provide insight here.

One thing in particular that stood out to me was the fact that the GBA ROM and RAM regions were only mapped to a single CPU at a time (GBATEK) - which reminded me of the fact that only ARM7 can use the SD card interface.

Well @_catcatcat did do quite a bit of reverse engineering on Max Overload which did exactly that with a homebrew only GBA slot device. Hopefully @ahezard is already aware of that work as while some versions required PC side patching, the last one did it all on the DS and "used libnds with its own filesystem driver".

metroid maniac · Dec 2, 2016

nl255 said:
Well @_catcatcat did do quite a bit of reverse engineering on Max Overload which did exactly that with a homebrew only GBA slot device. Hopefully @ahezard is already aware of that work as while some versions required PC side patching, the last one did it all on the DS and "used libnds with its own filesystem driver".

Do you have links to the results of the reverse engineering effort?

nl255 · Dec 2, 2016

metroid maniac said:
Do you have links to the results of the reverse engineering effort?

Yes but I don't think I can give them here since it most likely contains at least a partial disassembly which would still be copyrighted by whoever wrote Max Overload. I will say this though, catcatcat does have github.

metroid maniac · Dec 2, 2016

nl255 said:
Yes but I don't think I can give them here since it most likely contains at least a partial disassembly which would still be copyrighted by whoever wrote Max Overload. I will say this though, catcatcat does have github.

While it might not be useful to me with my limited programming expertise, I'm sure that this github has useful contents.

I'm starting to want to learn a language that's good for Homebrew like C now.

nl255 · Dec 2, 2016

metroid maniac said:
While it might not be useful to me with my limited programming expertise, I'm sure that this github has useful contents.

I'm starting to want to learn a language that's good for Homebrew like C now.

You would need to know ARM assembly for it to be of any use to you. However hopefully it will be of use to @ahezard .

metroid maniac · Dec 2, 2016

nl255 said:
You would need to know ARM assembly for it to be of any use to you. However hopefully it will be of use to @ahezard .

I know a little of ARM actually but like I said I'm a novice.

fodder · Dec 6, 2016

Prolly a stupid thing to add but for the compatibility chart the DSTT firmware (I think, TTDS.nds, 128kb as opposed to typical 300+ YSMenu SD Card file) dumped with Decrypt9, gets up to the white screen with the SD card with the face and doesn't go any farther

TinchoX · Dec 14, 2016

Hmm this is looking promising, keep at it guys!

Link_of_Hyrule · Dec 16, 2016

TinchoX said:
Hmm this is looking promising, keep at it guys!

Yeah commits have been piling up on the card tree for the past couple weeks. "Pass the address to the card_struct" sounds like there could be major progress soon. I guess we'll see.

shutterbug2000 · Dec 18, 2016

Coming to a 3DS system near you...

Do I hear jingles in the distance? Bells maybe? Better go check...

CeeDee · Dec 18, 2016

shutterbug2000 said:
Coming to a 3DS system near you...

Do I hear jingles in the distance? Bells maybe? Better go check...

I'm confused as to what this is, but nevertheless, it looks very promising.

Slattz · Dec 18, 2016

CeeDee said:
I'm confused as to what this is, but nevertheless, it looks very promising.

Iirc, twilight princess ds was an E3 Demo, more importantly it was a cart, and the NDS file seems to be running from SD in this video!

hacksn5s4 · Dec 18, 2016

he did not show iff theirs no game in the slot so i idk if its a ds romloader yet

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