Homebrew RELEASE melonDS for Switch — continuation

[JCLKingu]

Hey I love this, but while playing zelda spirit tracks for some reason there's some weird blinking border around characters and the train when it's in a station, it's a visual only problem and the game can be played mostly normally even though the microphone part is a bit annoying, can this be somehow fixed? It's pretty annoying but again not unplayable

 

[_fab999_]

@catlover007 just wanted to tell you how much I am enjoying your work on my Switch.
I have installed melonDS also on my PC in order to put my own DSi nand and install DSIware titles to it.
Putting the nand back to the switch allows me to play my DSI titles there.
It works perfectly well, except for Soul Of Darkness.
That game runs slow, regardless of the OC used (trust me, I tried everything). Best I found was to uncap the framerate and underclock the cpu to get it to an enjoyable state. But it is not ideal.
Also the game seems to be crashing on my switch when you have to go through a door using the X button.

Any ideas around it? Or should I give up playing this game on my switch? It is a shame because everything else I threw at the emulator worked great !

PS: That game runs flawlessy on melonDS on my PC btw

 

[hippy dave]

FWIW the leaked DS port of Yoshi's Egg from the GameFreak leak runs great on melonDS. It only uses the bottom screen so you can set the emulator to only display that single screen. It has additional controls that you can use the shoulder buttons to flip all the objects in the column by Mario's left or right hands, or press up to flip both columns. This changes an egg bottom to a top and vice versa. I don't believe this mechanic was in the 8-bit versions of the game, and it makes it easier and I think more fun to play.

I can't link the ROM but you're looking for yossy_egg.srl - you can change the extension to .nds

 

[dragonz]

Hey guys! Total noob question here—how do I use the mic on this emulator? Any tips would be super appreciated! Thanks!

 

[draftguy123]

Hey guys! Total noob question here—how do I use the mic on this emulator? Any tips would be super appreciated! Thanks!

Read the first post

How can I give microphone input? (e.g. a lot of games require one to blow into the microphone)

Press down the left stick to simulate a blowing noise. Proper microphone input via an external microphone is currently not supported.

 

[MrScottyTay]

will Retroachievements be added to this version?

 

[Samus12345]

Just discovered this port 7 months after modding my Switch. All the games I tried run at a playable speed without overclocking, which is impressive! Just wanted to say thanks to the dev for this great port!

 

[Monty3540]

Hi there I've been playing melonDS on Switch for a while but took a couple of months away from playing with work being so busy.
I havent updated my Switch since 18.1.0 and AMS 1.7.1E
However now whenever I try to play melonDS - it just hangs on a black screen when opening the application?

This is in full RAM mode aswell holding the R Bumper

I did think it might be updated firmware / BIOS files - but they don't seem to be changed from when I first added melonDS to the Switch

Please can anyone advise why this may have been. I haven't changed any files since I last played it.

 

[celip99716]

Hi, does local lan work? Can I play pokemon with my girlfriend and we can trade? Not over WiFi but local?

 

[iiTzSamurai]

melonDS is a Nintendo DS emulator mainly developed by Arisotura (@StapleButter). It was first ported to the Switch by @Hydr8gon. I'm responsible for several optimisations and the current port. Depending mostly on whether a game utilises the 3D hardware of the DS a lot of games already reach fullspeed without overclocking.

The last few releases of my continuation where done in Hydr8gon's thread which quickly resulted in a lot of confusion.

Setup

For those coming from older versions of my port, using the /melonds directory located at the sd card root is still possible.

Since Release 5 the JIT recompiler isn't enabled by default, so make sure to enable (under Emulation Settings), since the interpreter is pretty slow.

Atmosphere title replacement to launch the hbmenu is the only supported method of running melonDS!
If you don't know what that means: press R while starting any game from the Switch's main menu to enter the hbmenu, don't use the album!

• Download the latest release from here: https://github.com/RSDuck/melonDS/releases
• Extract the release onto your sd card, so that there's /switch/melonds folder melonds.nro and some other files inside it.
• NAND, BIOS and firmware files go into /switch/melonds as well
• ROM files can be placed anywhere on the sd card

For DS mode the following files are necessary (in parantheses is how they should be named for melonDS to recognises them):

• ARM9 BIOS (bios9.bin)
• ARM7 BIOS (bios7.bin)
• DS mode firmware (firmware.bin)

For DSi mode the following files are necessary (in parantheses is how they should be named for melonDS to recognises them):

• DSi ARM9 BIOS (biosdsi9.rom)
• DSi ARM7 BIOS (biosdsi7.rom)
• DSi mode firmware (firmware_dsi.bin)
• NAND dump (nand.bin)

For information on how to dump those files from your own DS or DSi see here: http://melonds.kuribo64.net/faq.php

Release notes

Release 6, fix 1:

Just a few bug fixes (the pendulum on the title screen in Chrono Trigger, several things in Mortal Kombat and a freeze in Pokemon Platinum, likely also in Diamond/Perl).

Release 6:

This release is a big one, because we finally hit fullspeed in most games including 3d ones! This is all thanks to the new 2D and 3D renderers which run on your Switch's GPU (which previously was only used for the GUI and putting the video output onto the screen) instead of CPU.

The 3D renderer doesn't use the builtin triangle drawing functionality melonDS's OpenGL renderer does, thus it doesn't have issues like it (https://github.com/Arisotura/melonDS/issues?q=is:open+is:issue+labelpenGL). Instead it's basically the good old software rasteriser but translated to run on GPUs thus ideally it should have the same pretty amazing compability.

Both the new 2D and the new 3D renderer are implemented using deko3D for minimal CPU usage compared to OpenGL, though I want to port both of them back to OpenGL for desktop melonDS. In the future there's the possibility for some enhancements like high resolution rendering with less issues than the OpenGL renderer currently has (I'm sure yet whether Switch can handle this, so don't get your hopes too high on this).

For older versions look inside the spoiler.

Spoiler

Release 5, fix 1:

Bug fixes, also the overclocking option was readded.

Release 5:
It's been a long while since the last release, but we're finally here! It has a completely new GUI, DSi support and of course a bunch of bug fixes and smaller additions. Since a lot of work went into the GUI there aren't many new optimisations in this release, but this will change for the next one! The controls have been changed, pausing is now done by pressing ZL and ZR at the same time.

Release 4:
I wanted to make this release already multiple months ago, though always something came into my way, whether it was some feature I wanted to finish or later me loosing seeing it as pointless when a Drastic port will happen sooner or later. Thus a lot of smaller things have been accumulating:

• Fast memory emulation by mirroring virtual memory so that it has the same layout as on the DS. This also should resolve all previous issues with Literal Optimisations
• Start at making geometry submission faster
• The GUI is now rendered using deko3d instead of OpenGL (using mesa). Deko3d not only has less overhead, but this also reduced the binary size significantly. Special thanks go to fincs and where we're at it also to the the other devkitpro and libnx people like yellows8 and Wintermute!
• Misc improvements to the GUI (the rom directory isn't hardcoded anymore, a melony color scheme, ...)
• Better screen layout options
• Alternative ways to give touchscreen inputs, including my (unironically besides using the real touchscreen) favourite mode: motion control. See the FAQ for more info
• This isn't really that noteworthy, but in 30 FPS games every second (3D) frame is now skipped automatically
• A bunch of fixes, optimisations and features I can't remember because I'm too unorganised

As I've already described in the old thread, sooner or later DSi and wifi support will be added to this port (the first was recently merged into master, the latter is thanks to the improved indirect wifi mode now possible on switch as well). Optimisations to make 3D rendering faster are together with a new GUI on my list as well, but one step at at time.

FAQ?

How can the emulation be paused?

Press ZL and ZR at the same time.

How can I fast forward?

By pressing either ZL or ZR depending which button is used to do a touchscreen click (which depends on whether Left handed mode is enabled in the Input settings). Note that this is not available in gyro mode, because there this button is used for recalibration.

What do the Block Size, Branch Optimisations, Literal Optimisations and Fast Memory settings do?

Ideally they can stay enabled/at maximum all the time because they enable optimisations beneficial for the performance. But if there's an issue with the JIT recompiler it can be tracked down faster. Only touch them if something unexpected happens and mention which (if any) setting makes a difference in bug reports.

I want to play with a Flip Grip. Which settings should I use?

Use the Global Rotation option which rotates the entire GUI. Shout-out here to @uzimakiuchiha who got me a Flip Grip!

I want to play a game where the DS is held side ways (like e.g. Dr Kawashima's Brain Training), which should I do?

For this case it's the best to use the Screen rotation in the Display settings, once a game is launched (it rotates the buttons as well, as if you're holding the DS that way).

How can I quickly switch the focussed screen?

Press down the right stick. There's also an automatic mode where we the main screen is guessed in the display settings.

How can I only display one screen at a time (and for some reason I want it to be stretched across the whole screen ruining all proportions)?

Go into the Display settings. Set Top aspect ratio and Bottom aspect ratio to 16:9 and then set Screen sizing to either Top only or Bottom only.

How do I use gyro control?

First enable it in the Input settings. Press ZL or ZR (depending on whether you enabled Left handed mode in the Input Settings) to calibrate the rotation. Since this utilises the gyroscopes (and not IR like the Wiimote, which gives an absolute position) it's only based on it's rotation, so it needs recentering if you change the way you hold the Switch/Joy-Con.

How can I change the access the DS menu (e.g. for changing the system language)?

Press Boot Firmware or disable the setting Direct boot in the Emulation settings.

Starting a DSiWare dumped as a NDS file doesn't work, what is wrong?

To run DSiWare it needs to be installed on the NAND. If you start it from the filebrowser it will be started as a cartridge and thus fail to load.

How can I give microphone input? (e.g. a lot of games require one to blow into the microphone)

Press down the left stick to simulate a blowing noise. Proper microphone input via an external microphone is currently not supported.

Can we please get a fix for the graphical errors in pokemon soulsilver and heart gold. Please...... I've been patiently waiting for an update. It's literally the only two games I would like to play at the moment!

 

[Vigilant_Veggie]

I just discovered this emulator a few days ago and wow, I'm super impressed! I was particularly impressed with how Pokemon Black ran. I'm very glad to have added this to my suite of Switch homebrew

 

[Taffer]

Hi, does local lan work? Can I play pokemon with my girlfriend and we can trade? Not over WiFi but local?

I dont think there is any networking. You could probably manage that with Retroarch or try Drastic on other systems. I wish it would do this along with achievements and upscaling. Hopefully one day!

 

[b4scul3g10n]

Hi there I've been playing melonDS on Switch for a while but took a couple of months away from playing with work being so busy.
I havent updated my Switch since 18.1.0 and AMS 1.7.1E
However now whenever I try to play melonDS - it just hangs on a black screen when opening the application?

This is in full RAM mode aswell holding the R Bumper

I did think it might be updated firmware / BIOS files - but they don't seem to be changed from when I first added melonDS to the Switch

Please can anyone advise why this may have been. I haven't changed any files since I last played it.

Did you fix this? I got this issue after I added save files to my nds folder lol.

Post automatically merged: Feb 2, 2025

You have to use Atmosphere and title redirection, meaning launching HBL by pressing R when launching a game.
Running from Album doesn't give homebrew enough access to certain things from the Switch, which is why it might be crashing.

Hey so I'm starting HBL by pressing R and mine crashes after a long black screen as well.

 

[XaneTenshi]

So this is probably a shot in the dark, but I am currently playing Pokemon Black 2 and having played for a long time with the C-gear both on and off, I've noticed a really annoying/critical issue that always seems to happen sooner or later if your C-gear is turned on:

At some point, time in the game will always stop, which of course, would break all time-related events in the game. I say would, because if you try to save the game after this occurs, it will just hang and never save the game. I'd imagine that using save states only would circumvent this issue, but I am also afraid that loading from a savestate after the error happens, will make the bug permanent, whereas the bug is temporary if you just re-load an in-game save from before the issue happens.

It does mean that if you turn on the C-gear and don't save for a long time, you're gonna end up losing some progress since you can't save once the bug happens. And while the bug won't happen immediately, it always happens after 1-2 funfests, where it's very easily noticeable, because the counter that's there during the funfest mission stops counting down, making that part of the game unplayable on Switch. The c-gear works perfectly with MelonDS for PC mind you.

I hope that someone has a fix for this. I am currently switching between playing the game on my Switch and my PC because of this annoying issue.

 

[Gostw]

Fast forward is too fast... Is there are any way that I can change the frame limit of fast forward?

 

[harticho]

Does it work with retroachievements? Last time I checked it did not...

 

[Deleted member 671446]

Does it work with retroachievements? Last time I checked it did not...

Hi, I'm working for a version that supports it, you can check it here:

https://github.com/Gheovgos/melonDS

I'll make a separate thread when it will be ready

 

[angelhp]

Hola, estoy trabajando en una versión que lo soporte, puedes checarlo aquí:

https://github.com/Gheovgos/melonDS

Haré un hilo aparte cuando esté listo.

It seems that DSI mode is broken, it doesn't load the NAND and it just get a white screen.

 

[Deleted member 671446]

It seems that DSI mode is broken, it doesn't load the NAND and it just get a white screen.

You downloaded from the last prerelease tag right? Right now it's not the only thing broken probably, I always recommend you use the latest catlover release. Although it seems strange to me, I didn't touch the part about the DSi. I'll work on it after the RA support is stable

 

[angelhp]

You downloaded from the last prerelease tag right? Right now it's not the only thing broken probably, I always recommend you use the latest catlover release. Although it seems strange to me, I didn't touch the part about the DSi. I'll work on it after the RA support is stable

Yes, I downloaded it from there.
Everything else seems to be working fine, except the DSi won't launch the firmware