Homebrew gbaemu4ds: GBA emulator for DS(i) (DSi Entry)

[XXLANCEXX]

Why do i get an error opening image gba.gba?

Did you DLDI Patch the emulator?

how do i do that??
I have an iSmart Premium

 

[loco365]

Why do i get an error opening image gba.gba?

Did you DLDI Patch the emulator?

how do i do that??
I have an iSmart Premium

Odd. I'd ask ichichfly about the problem. It seems it does it for games automatically.

 

[spinal_cord]

It would help if you told us what the error was!

 

[Vigilante]

Has anyone tried it on a ds flashcart?

 

[ichichfly]

Why do i get an error opening image gba.gba?

Have you placed the gba homebrew as gba.gba on your card?

 

[spinal_cord]

Has anyone tried it on a ds flashcart?

Yes, it runs on real hardware, but only about 1fps without sound. Even in DSi mode it isn't much use, there are plenty of good gba homebrew out there, however running it a 1 or 2fps without sound really isn't fun.


I am going to voice a concern right now, please don't take it as a troll attempt.

Spoiler

Looking at the hardware this is running on, I doubt it will get much better. Although this is a great proof of concept, it is in no way a usable emulator. I imagine people are bursting at the seams ready to vote this for 1st place, remember, it is going to be impossible to get this up to full speed at a decent frame rate + sound. I'm not saying it isn't good, but I don't like big prizes going to unfinished or impossible homebrew just because the idea is cool. Please remember that when voting time comes. If it does show significant improvement before the deadline, I would have no problem voting for it myself, but if that does not happen, I don't expect said improvement to occur after the deadline.

 

[Mbmax]

To be honest, i doubt it's the way to go for a gba emulator in DSi mode.
I'm more to think of a way to emulate the DS bios (slot 2 mode) in DSi mode than a pure GBA emulator.

 

[loco365]

Has anyone tried it on a ds flashcart?

I got it working on my Acekard 2i. AKAIO 1.8.6 too. But, it's still slow. I thought of something, but I'd be contradicting myself if I said so.

 

[bigpaws]

why not avoid emulation and force the cpu to underclock and work like a slot2 ds gba game

 

[loco365]

why not avoid emulation and force the cpu to underclock and work like a slot2 ds gba game

Because the Slot-1 cannot be accessed in GBA mode.

 

[bigpaws]

yes but im talking about dsi mode
if we implement some sort of gba fw into it to have access to the sd card for sudohax or what ever then the only emulation needed is to make the fw think the rom on sd card is the cart. the menu would have the user select a rom and it would boot the rom with the moddified fw and run the dsi in some sort of underclocked way. im just not smart enough to do this in programing terms

 

[Rydian]

The GBA didn't have an SD slot, if the GBA system was rewritten the games would have to be re-written to, individually, and at that point you might as well just make a homebrew version of the game.

 

[bigpaws]

i said EMULATE THE SLOT 2
meaning that the fw would think that the sdcard slot rom was the cart in SLOT 2
the cpou would run the regular ds firmware version in ds like mode with access to the sdcard
aka this would need access to dsi mode and underclock the cpu to run the gba rom in the ds lite firmware

 

[jurassicplayer]

o.0 I'm pointlessly lost at what you are attempting to say.
You mean, use DSi mode to access the SD slot, magically shift to DS mode which can't use the SD slot at all, and then play a GBA game that has to somehow work because the DS mode that can't access the SD slot says so, AND have the GBA get redirected from random SD stuff to random Slot2 stuff almost like what SNEEK/UNEEK do for the Wii...meaning it would require something of what Rydian already said...yeah...so...I like pie.

-btw-
Mbmax's idea sounds more plausible...though where the actual data would be held...I have no clue.

 

[Rydian]

What you're talking about is virtualization.

Not happening until the 3DS firmware is cracked, and even then it could take years for somebody to make an accurate VM for it. Hell, an emulator will come out before that.

EDIT: And by "cracked" I don't mean just removing protections to play homebrew and backups, I'm talking understood like to where the PSP is where people can code plugins and shit that run in the main OS, and even by that point an emulator will be a lot less work than virtualization.

 

[loco365]

Well, if I may, could I suggest RAM virtualization? Since most retail roms easily hit 64 MB, and this DS image is not even 800KB, why not ramp up the DS image size to allow for virtual RAM to increase the speed of the emulator, and just have it pump sound and images to the speakers and screen? The reason I didn't want to suggest this is because it would use the DS's RAM and it might not work.

 

[Jamstruth]

To be honest, i doubt it's the way to go for a gba emulator in DSi mode.
I'm more to think of a way to emulate the DS bios (slot 2 mode) in DSi mode than a pure GBA emulator.

Impossible. There is no GBA hardware in the DSi so basically there's nowehere for the BIOS to run without an emulator for the processor and so we wind up back at square one again. BIOS helps for compatibility but you need an emu to run well first.

This is a pretty cool proof of concept. It'll probs never get anywhere near fullspeed without sound though. Possibly with a SLot 2 cart you could get retail games loaded and transferring to and from DS RAM fast enough (unless you've got a crappy cart like my Supercard which doesn't overclock the RAM) to be viable but then processor speed comes in and puts a blocker on the efforts. Look forward to seeing how far this can get though

 

[AlanJohn]

FINALLY ITS CREATED... Now I want to punch everyone who said that GBA emulation is impossible on the Acekard...

 

[ichichfly]

update

Changelog:

r4
fixed key detection
hwspeedup: fixed BG mode 3,4,5 but not good yet
hwspeedup: little speedup
hwspeedup: speedup by dmaCopy
hwspeedup: size decrease the nds is about 80KB smaller
hwspeedup: little menü for changing the fps that are generated not good yet

 

[Mbmax]

To be honest, i doubt it's the way to go for a gba emulator in DSi mode.
I'm more to think of a way to emulate the DS bios (slot 2 mode) in DSi mode than a pure GBA emulator.
Impossible. There is no GBA hardware in the DSi so basically there's nowehere for the BIOS to run without an emulator for the processor and so we wind up back at square one again. BIOS helps for compatibility but you need an emu to run well first.
So, tell me. What are the specifications of the GBA and which components in the dslite are used to run in GBA mode ?
QUOTE(ichichfly @ Mar 10 2011, 06:15 PM)

update

Changelog:

r4
fixed key detection
hwspeedup: fixed BG mode 3,4,5 but not good yet
hwspeedup: little speedup
hwspeedup: speedup by dmaCopy
hwspeedup: size decrease the nds is about 80KB smaller
hwspeedup: little menü for changing the fps that are generated not good yet

Thanks ichichfly for this update.