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

[Rydian]

Well, if I may, could I suggest RAM virtualization? Since most retail roms easily hit 64 MB,GBA ROMS only go up to 32MB.

QUOTE(Team Fail @ Mar 10 2011, 11:02 AM) and this DS image is not even 800KB, why not ramp up the DS image size to allow for virtual RAM

DS has no MMU, cannot virtualize memory.

 

[loco365]

Well, if I may, could I suggest RAM virtualization? Since most retail roms easily hit 64 MB,GBA ROMS only go up to 32MB.

QUOTE(Team Fail @ Mar 10 2011, 11:02 AM) and this DS image is not even 800KB, why not ramp up the DS image size to allow for virtual RAM

DS has no MMU, cannot virtualize memory.

I meant the DS image. But, if RAM virtualization cannot be done, not even extra room in the DS image would work, from what I see here.

 

[spinal_cord]

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

Nobody (with any brains) said it was impossible, just useless, as it will NEVER run at full speed with sound, the DS does not have enough RAM to hold a commercial GBA game, so the GBA hardware in the DS/lite can not be used directly (GBA hardware will most likely crash if it can't read the game fast enough, which it can't do from flash, so the whole system has to be emulated, which is always going to be VERY slow.

 

[.Chris]

I just thought of a similar idea to this a while ago...

Why not make a GBA Emulator that uses a small portion of your SD memory when you play a GBA ROM, instead of built-in RAM?

 

[indask8]

I just thought of a similar idea to this a while ago...

Why not make a GBA Emulator that uses a small portion of your SD memory when you play a GBA ROM, instead of built-in RAM?

SD card is not fast enough, GBA roms needs random/instant (or near random/instant) access to the whole cartridge memory.

 

[Officer Delibird]

Ahaha Sheaperd I remember a conversation between me and you
Me: Is there a gba emulator?
Sheaperd:NO its not possible
Me: awww

 

[Nujui]

Ahaha Sheaperd I remember a conversation between me and you
Me: Is there a gba emulator?
Sheaperd:NO its not possible
Me: awww

It's still wouldn't be that great. Even if you emulated gba games on a ds, it wouldn't run that great. And when did I say you couldn't play gba games?

Ever heard of the supercard 2?

 

[Schicksalsheld]

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

Nobody (with any brains) said it was impossible, just useless, as it will NEVER run at full speed with sound, the DS does not have enough RAM to hold a commercial GBA game, so the GBA hardware in the DS/lite can not be used directly (GBA hardware will most likely crash if it can't read the game fast enough, which it can't do from flash, so the whole system has to be emulated, which is always going to be VERY slow.

Nobody with a brain sad that this is possible, the Acekard hasn't an inbuilt CPU, only an FPGA and an Memory from SST. But yes i know what you mean spinal, Emulation on the DS without an external CPU isn't usefull.

Hmmm i think this Project is more proof of concept...

 

[trumpet-205]

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

Nobody (with any brains) said it was impossible, just useless, as it will NEVER run at full speed with sound, the DS does not have enough RAM to hold a commercial GBA game, so the GBA hardware in the DS/lite can not be used directly (GBA hardware will most likely crash if it can't read the game fast enough, which it can't do from flash, so the whole system has to be emulated, which is always going to be VERY slow.

But for games like Megaman Zero Collection, isn't it just an emulator on top of GBA roms?

 

[spinal_cord]

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

Nobody (with any brains) said it was impossible, just useless, as it will NEVER run at full speed with sound, the DS does not have enough RAM to hold a commercial GBA game, so the GBA hardware in the DS/lite can not be used directly (GBA hardware will most likely crash if it can't read the game fast enough, which it can't do from flash, so the whole system has to be emulated, which is always going to be VERY slow.

But for games like Megaman Zero Collection, isn't it just an emulator on top of GBA roms?

Very probably not. As the DS is pretty much just a 'better' GBA, and Nintendo quite obviously has all of the source code for those games, I would imagin they just re-compiled (and tweaked) them using the DS dev kit rather than the GBA one.

 

[Rydian]

The collections are ported.

The companies can port games because THEY have the source code to modify and recompile.

We do not, therefore we do not port.

 

[spinal_cord]

The collections are ported.

The companies can port games because THEY have the source code to modify and recompile.

We do not, therefore we do not port.

Although I agree with what you say, I did see a little while ago that someone decompiled the NES game Super Mario Bros. and (with a little tweaking) managed to reassemble it to work on the megadrive/genesis. It worked very well too, although the sound was a little off.

 

[Jamstruth]

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

Nobody (with any brains) said it was impossible, just useless, as it will NEVER run at full speed with sound, the DS does not have enough RAM to hold a commercial GBA game, so the GBA hardware in the DS/lite can not be used directly (GBA hardware will most likely crash if it can't read the game fast enough, which it can't do from flash, so the whole system has to be emulated, which is always going to be VERY slow.

This is gonna sound very stupid I'm sure. BUT...
We can have Slot-2 RAM, correct? The Slot-2 RAM in most GBA Flashcarts is designed to run the games 1:1 and therefore designed to be fast enough for GBA, correct? Therefore could we not use the slot-2 RAM (clocked to the highest possible for the cart) to hold the data until it is needed then move it into the DS RAM? I understand the CPU would still be slow but it seems logical to me that we could load full ROMs this way.

 

[Porobu]

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

Nobody (with any brains) said it was impossible, just useless, as it will NEVER run at full speed with sound, the DS does not have enough RAM to hold a commercial GBA game, so the GBA hardware in the DS/lite can not be used directly (GBA hardware will most likely crash if it can't read the game fast enough, which it can't do from flash, so the whole system has to be emulated, which is always going to be VERY slow.

This is gonna sound very stupid I'm sure. BUT...
We can have Slot-2 RAM, correct? The Slot-2 RAM in most GBA Flashcarts is designed to run the games 1:1 and therefore designed to be fast enough for GBA, correct? Therefore could we not use the slot-2 RAM (clocked to the highest possible for the cart) to hold the data until it is needed then move it into the DS RAM? I understand the CPU would still be slow but it seems logical to me that we could load full ROMs this way.

But if we have the slot 2 ram we copy the rom and use native gba hardware on the ds

 

[Jamstruth]

True, it does kind of entirely defeat the purpose BUT would be good for proof of concept. And for people like me who have broken, fake Supercards from DealExtreme...yyyeeeahh....

 

[Rydian]

Although I agree with what you say, I did see a little while ago that someone decompiled the NES game Super Mario Bros. and (with a little tweaking) managed to reassemble it to work on the megadrive/genesis. It worked very well too, although the sound was a little off.

The thing there is the genesis is much more powerful than the NES (whereas the DS is not that much more powerful than the GBA), and the NES has no demands that outstrip what the Genesis can provide, wheras the storage speed needed for the GBA is above what the DS cart slot can do.

 

[twiztidsinz]

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

Nobody (with any brains) said it was impossible, just useless, as it will NEVER run at full speed with sound, the DS does not have enough RAM to hold a commercial GBA game, so the GBA hardware in the DS/lite can not be used directly (GBA hardware will most likely crash if it can't read the game fast enough, which it can't do from flash, so the whole system has to be emulated, which is always going to be VERY slow.

This is gonna sound very stupid I'm sure. BUT...
We can have Slot-2 RAM, correct? The Slot-2 RAM in most GBA Flashcarts is designed to run the games 1:1 and therefore designed to be fast enough for GBA, correct? Therefore could we not use the slot-2 RAM (clocked to the highest possible for the cart) to hold the data until it is needed then move it into the DS RAM? I understand the CPU would still be slow but it seems logical to me that we could load full ROMs this way.

But if we have the slot 2 ram we copy the rom and use native gba hardware on the ds

Slot2 RAM =/= GBA Flashcart.
If it were, then you could just use the Opera Browser RAM Pack to play games... which you can't.

 

[WiiUBricker]

I think we should just wait and see what ichfly got. He wouldnt do this if he is not sure to someday, somehow achive decent speeds. I mean, he already made an exploit

 

[ichichfly]

However i have some idea for later speed improves but befor i can do that i have to use the real hw and stop emulating hw. Emulating hw realy slow down and eat ram. however i have no idear how i can surrport roms that are bigger than 2MB ext ram is a good idear but i don`t have one use dsi is also good but i don`t have the possibility to test the code. Use hw works but may only free 300KB not realy much.

May i make a version for DSi or ext ram only and let someone test it.

and start gba rom in DS mode won`t work the hw is different (u32*)0x04000000 and the Vram have the most changes and Bios calls have changest and so on

 

[Ace]

I could send you a DS Phat in like 2 weeks