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The Nintendo DS emulator developed by Arisotura has been updated to version 0.9.5.
This update also marks the landmark of the emulator's 6th anniversary, and with it comes a whole slew of improvements and fixes.

Some of the most notable changes in this update are:

• Improved local multiplayer:
  Arisotura's main goal since the last update (0.9.4) back in March of 2022 was to improve upon the local multiplayer of the emulator.
  The previous versions had local multiplayer, but as Arisotura says it, it was "finicky", with one example being Mario Kart DS staying connected for only a few seconds, while with the new update, the connection remains stable, as well as for other games.
• DSi camera support.
  The DSi camera can now be outsourced to the physical cameras of the computer you're using or from an image.
• Revamped OpenGL context handling
  The OpenGL context that's was being used for Duckstation has been ported over to melonDS, courtesy of Generic.
• DSi DSP support
• CLI (command line interface) improvements

The full changelog in detail can be read on melonDS's GitHub release page:

• remove incorrect color profile from PNG icons (Nadia)
• DLDI fixes for the Smash demo (Arisotura)
• fix gaps in I/O handling (Arisotura)
• fix invalid savemem commands, fixes Dementium (Arisotura)
• FreeBIOS: add VRAM-compatible LZ77 decompress function, fixes Yoshi's Island (Arisotura)
• default firmware: in DSi mode, emulate DWM-W015 wifi board instead of DWM-W024 (Arisotura)
• default firmware: save WFC settings to separate file (Arisotura)
• disable firmware overrides UI when firmware override isn't checked (Nadia)
• 2D: more accurate fade/blending (Arisotura)
• DSi: add support for GXFIFO NDMA (Arisotura)
• DSi: add mainRAM mirror at 0x0C000000 (Arisotura)
• add 3DS 5:3 aspect ratio, refactor aspect ratio code (Nadia)
• OpenGL: fix 16x resolution on macOS (Nadia)
• fix triggers being recognized as negative analog stick values during mapping (Nadia)
• fix joystick mapping buttons on macOS (Nadia)
• DSi: preliminary implementation of SNDEXCNT (Generic)
• DSi: fix SD inserted/removed IRQ bits (Generic)
• DSi: implement 8/16bit access to AES registers (Generic)
• DSi: fix SCFG_MC cart-inserted bit (Generic)
• JIT: invalidate blocks in ARM7 VRAM/WRAM when it is remapped (Generic)
• fix ROM banner reading when the ROM has no banner (Rayyan, Arisotura)
• fix UTF16 ROM title handling in the ROM info dialog (Rayyan)
• wifi: improvements to wifi emulation (Arisotura)
• wifi: shared-memory based sync/comm mechanism for local wifi (Arisotura)
• proper support for multiple melonDS instances for multiplayer (Arisotura)
• DSi: actual, proper camera support (Arisotura)
• DSi: fix DSP enough that it will actually work (Arisotura)
• fix OpenGL context handling (Stenzek, Generic, Nadia)
• force-align all memory accesses (instead of just CPU memory accesses) (Arisotura)
• better CLI parameter handling (patataofcourse)
• fix bugs in DSi direct boot (Arisotura)

Source
GitHub

 

[Sonic Angel Knight]

Always nice to have a melonDS update
Does it make the « 2D » DragonQuest games play better tho ? Because the graphics are .... bugged to say the least. I was waiting for an update to improve on that to play them because I'm not willing to play those on Desmume

EDIT : Looks like it doesn't, maybe next time

Can you explain this a bit more? I have played a bit of Dragon quest V using MelonDS, but I don't think I noticed any problems. (Though I have not played it on a actual DS Console before)

 

[Thejax]

Has anyone figured out a way to emulate a right stick on games that have touch screen camera controls?

My examples work very differently for Kingdom Hearts Days, and Metroid Prime?

 

[Zense]

Works great, especially with upscaled HD visuals. Hope you enjoy. Might be crazy to run a bunch of the emulators to get a four player party co-op.

Nice, thanks for sharing that info @Sonic Angel Knight! Looking back my post was unclear, but I am indeed talking about getting local multiplayer up and running and with some more HD visuals added. Square Enix isn't releasing the remaster they should so MelonDS is doing an amazing job.

Not sure, but if I remember, there was some mods for widescreen modes?

Yep that's what I figured too - to support the widescreen patches made for the 3ds widescreen mode.

 

[Sonic Angel Knight]

Nice, thanks for sharing that info @Sonic Angel Knight! Looking back my post was unclear, but I am indeed talking about getting local multiplayer up and running and with some more HD visuals added.

The best HD Can do is just to increase internal resolution. But this feature only works for 3D games, AKA anything rendered using polygons. It has no effect on any 2D assets. The textures on 3D polygons get upscaled to look cleaner. That simple and can be done in the video options.

For multiplayer, you just have to run two instances of melonDS. The game does support nintendo wifi connection which allowed people to connect to the internet and access special store in the game at the hotel. That can be done by setting up connections to the fan servers replacing the official nintendo wifi connection server. Neither feature allows for playing online multiplayer with this game. So unless you have someone sitting next to you to control the second game, might not be what you're expecting.

 

[Zense]

For multiplayer, you just have to run two instances of melonDS. The game does support nintendo wifi connection which allowed people to connect to the internet and access special store in the game at the hotel. That can be done by setting up connections to the fan servers replacing the official nintendo wifi connection server. Neither feature allows for playing online multiplayer with this game. So unless you have someone sitting next to you to control the second game, might not be what you're expecting.

I appreciate you warnings, man! I've already finished this game on real HW with two buds so I'm well aware of all those restrictions. The thought of higher internal res and cleaner textures is what tempts me to do a second playthrough.

I think you can even get those bonuses with some cheats because what you do online is just activate content already on the ROM.

 

[Sonic Angel Knight]

I think you can even get those bonuses with some cheats because what you do online is just activate content already on the ROM.

I suppose that is true. But it is just worth mentioning, that the fan servers replacing nintendo wifi connection are available and work with this game just fine. People been playing mario kart DS and even pokemon heartgold with it. The extra items seem more like bragging rights than actual useful tools. MelonDS can connect to such fan servers and access the extra content. (As well as a actual DS system)

 

[Desconocido90]

I'm happy for the OpenGL changes. They fixed a flickering bug with >60hz monitors.

I hope soon they'll also fix the HD rendering in dual-screen 3D games and games with post-processing.
In those games, the emulator alternate low-res and high-res frames.

 

[LightBeam]

Can you explain this a bit more? I have played a bit of Dragon quest V using MelonDS, but I don't think I noticed any problems. (Though I have not played it on a actual DS Console before)

There are actually 2 different issues on those games.
Textures aren't aligned properly which means that sprites looks strange (especially when you rotate, you can see a bit of that in this thread https://melonds.kuribo64.net/board/thread.php?pid=3903#3903)
But also 3D do not scale up and still gets pixelated and that's because MelonDS lacks HD display capture (for now, hence why I'm waiting for it's implementation)


I can't find videos of the game running on MelonDS but if you compare with the game running by yourself you'll probably see what I'm talking about. The game runs as it should on Desmume and you can see how textures aren't misaligned and the 3D is rendered perfectly even when you scale up the resolution.

 

[Sonic Angel Knight]

I can't find videos of the game running on MelonDS but if you compare with the game running by yourself you'll probably see what I'm talking about. The game runs as it should on Desmume and you can see how textures aren't misaligned and the 3D is rendered perfectly even when you scale up the resolution.

Hmm, well if there is already a thread of it on the website, perhaps the fix is just a matter of time

Software render should fix the issues but can't use HD upscale without opengl. So that's just a temporary compromise.

 

[LightBeam]

Hmm, well if there is already a thread of it on the website, perhaps the fix is just a matter of time

Software render should fix the issues but can't use HD upscale without opengl. So that's just a temporary compromise.

I've tested the software render, it doesn't fix the misaligned textures, so I'm just waiting for a fix for now

 

[asboy]

Neat but I'll never enjoy DS/3DS emulation due to the dual screen set up. It just looks really cruddy to me to have a vertical portrait or them side by side of 2 screens on a PC monitor.

 

[sandwichwater]

Has anyone figured out a way to emulate a right stick on games that have touch screen camera controls?

My examples work very differently for Kingdom Hearts Days, and Metroid Prime?

i personally use a third party program to assign the mouse to work like a traditional joystick (resets in the centre when released) , only problem is i cant find any program to lock the mouse to a certain part of the screen , namely where the touchscreen is . i mainly use melonds to play the two kh games and having a proper working camera would make the game feel so good

 

[Thejax]

i personally use a third party program to assign the mouse to work like a traditional joystick (resets in the centre when released) , only problem is i cant find any program to lock the mouse to a certain part of the screen , namely where the touchscreen is . i mainly use melonds to play the two kh games and having a proper working camera would make the game feel so good

That could work and had something like that set up before, problem is I’m actually playing the same on my real hardware, but playing multiplayer with some friends on melon now.

 

[sandwichwater]

That could work and had something like that set up before, problem is I’m actually playing the same on my real hardware, but playing multiplayer with some friends on melon now.

ah gotcha , yea , im stuck with real hardware too due to a graphics bug making the whole screen go blue during the dual screen segments , for example when sora pops up on the bottom screen or when the multiplayer results show with every player on the round room chairs

 

[Thejax]

ah gotcha , yea , im stuck with real hardware too due to a graphics bug making the whole screen go blue during the dual screen segments , for example when sora pops up on the bottom screen or when the multiplayer results show with every player on the round room chairs

Might need to fiddle with your settings, the round room chair segment was working just fine for me on a mostly fresh install, only settings I changed were controls, multiplayer settings, and setting opengl/higher resolution

 

[Sonic Angel Knight]

Have they made it possible to split the screens into seperate windows yet? It would be really useful for playing on dual monitor setups.

 

[sandwichwater]

Might need to fiddle with your settings, the round room chair segment was working just fine for me on a mostly fresh install, only settings I changed were controls, multiplayer settings, and setting opengl/higher resolution

just tried , still getting the issue , oddly enough it only happens when using opengl , happened during one a prerelease build before 0.9.5 and seemingly got overlooked for the full release

 

[Catro]

So with this can local play games be played over wifi. Like say me and a friend live a state apart and we want to play Dragon Quest IX together (qnd the game was only ever local play), we can use this emulator to play it together without actually having to be together?

 

[sandwichwater]

So with this can local play games be played over wifi. Like say me and a friend live a state apart and we want to play Dragon Quest IX together (qnd the game was only ever local play), we can use this emulator to play it together without actually having to be together?

unfortunately no , not without something like parsec , though netplay is planned for the future

 

[fayt4586]

will there ever be a release nso update in the future?