Homebrew 3dsgba

[NyaakoXD]

what the fuck
isnt the nintendo 3ds officially powerful enough to run a GBA GAME?
? ?? ? ? ?????? am i missing something

If you're talking about the ambassador gba games, they are not running on 3DS mode with a VC emulator. They are being simulated on DS mode. Emulating a GBA game on 3DS mode is something else. XP

Here's a lovely article about the whole thing: http://www.vooks.net/why-the-game-boy-advance-isnt-on-the-3ds-virtual-console/

 

[MajinCubyan]

If you like Rougelike games, Powder works pretty well. Seeing as it doesn't have sound to begin with, audio is no issue. Slight lag when moving but it doesn't really affect gameplay. Got to the 8th floor before I was killed by a lich...

I'm really looking forward to this. On another note, FireRed crashes it and forces the 3DS to reset.

 

[cvskid]

Idk why i was curious about this but i tried out the nes emulator for gba called PocketNES and it turns out that it works on 3DSGBA emulator. A emulator emulating another emulator emulating a game.

 

[SLiV3R]

It has finally begun

 

[Arisotura]

If you're talking about the ambassador gba games, they are not running on 3DS mode with a VC emulator. They are being simulated on DS mode. Emulating a GBA game on 3DS mode is something else. XP

Here's a lovely article about the whole thing: http://www.vooks.net/why-the-game-boy-advance-isnt-on-the-3ds-virtual-console/

I wouldn't give this article much credit

Let’s go back in time to the Nintendo DS for a minute, that console has two CPUs in it. One is for 3D graphic processing (usually on the top screen), while the second CPU is generally for 2D processing (usually on the bottom screen) but it also had another function.

Not quite true, both 3D and 2D are connected to the main processor (the ARM9). The other one handles sound, wifi and SPI.


Either way, 3dsgba is an interesting project. I'm curious to see what it will turn into. Seems interesting that it can already play some games at fullspeed even though it uses software rendering.

 

[MajinCubyan]

Idk why i was curious about this but i tried out the nes emulator for gba called PocketNES and it turns out that it works on 3DSGBA emulator. A emulator emulating another emulator emulating a game.

I was just gonna do that. Haha, I'm sure its interesting.

 

[SLiV3R]

Idk why i was curious about this but i tried out the nes emulator for gba called PocketNES and it turns out that it works on 3DSGBA emulator. A emulator emulating another emulator emulating a game.

Cool. Too bad pocket nes has 'cropped' resolution. Otherwise we would have one of the best nes emus

 

[NyaakoXD]

I wouldn't give this article much credit

Meh

 

[Kikirini]

I just tried out the latest version and noticed that I can't exit the emulator any more. Is anyone else having this problem?

 

[shinyquagsire23]

I just tried out the latest version and noticed that I can't exit the emulator any more. Is anyone else having this problem?

For some reason he changed it to use both Start and Select to exit (while in the file chooser). It's kinda annoying honestly and I'm hoping for something similar to blargSnes where it just has an X to use to exit. Less likely to hit it on accident.

Seems interesting that it can already play some games at fullspeed even though it uses software rendering.

Really? I tried one of my personal homebrew demos I wrote in assembly a while back and even that lagged. Although I think the main limiter here will most likely be CPU, because I tried adding some basic frameskipping into it and it just made it run only a tiny bit faster (no more playable than before though). But we'll see, and I'll probably be contributing on this project since GBA is at least something I'm familiar with.

 

[DarkFlare69]

Will there ever be a version for Ninjhax (Homebrew Launcher)? There are no .3dsx files in the Github code

 

[shinyquagsire23]

Will there ever be a version for Ninjhax (Homebrew Launcher)? There are no .3dsx files in the Github code

It is for homebrew launcher, and only homebrew launcher at the moment (although it could be ported). There's a dropbox link in the README.md

 

[DarkFlare69]

It is for homebrew launcher, and only homebrew launcher at the moment (although it could be ported). There's a dropbox link in the README.md

Oh, sorry. I must've missed that.

 

[DiscostewSM]

I wouldn't give this article much credit


Not quite true, both 3D and 2D are connected to the main processor (the ARM9). The other one handles sound, wifi and SPI.


Either way, 3dsgba is an interesting project. I'm curious to see what it will turn into. Seems interesting that it can already play some games at fullspeed even though it uses software rendering.

I'd image it's that way because it not only has less to draw on-screen (240x160 vs 256x224 or 256x239), but that the base graphics themselves are in the bpp format rather than bit-plane, making it easier to address from the palette. It has 4/8-bit paletted, and 15-bit direct color (+1 bit for transparency). Also to note is there is no priority bit per tile (and no offset-per-tile), just plain flat layers.

 

[Arisotura]

Really? I tried one of my personal homebrew demos I wrote in assembly a while back and even that lagged. Although I think the main limiter here will most likely be CPU, because I tried adding some basic frameskipping into it and it just made it run only a tiny bit faster (no more playable than before though). But we'll see, and I'll probably be contributing on this project since GBA is at least something I'm familiar with.

Oh dunno; it's just that I had read about people being able to play games on it. I usually don't consider the games playable if they're too slow

Weird that frameskip didn't help, though. I'd have expected software rendering to be a bottleneck. On blargSNES, it is pretty much one.

 

[jamieyello]

Right now I'm playing Sonic Advance. Walking around at the speed of slow, got nowhere to be and got nowhere to go.

jk I know it's much to early to be complaining about that

 

[shinyquagsire23]

Just added sound, and awaiting the PR to get pulled by SteveIce10. Here's a video for those curious about performance (I tested it with Pokemon Ruby [J]) of sound and video.:



Surprisingly it wasn't too hard to hook into the audio properly, although it still runs pretty bad on that particular game. Sound in the video is a bit hard to hear although it's a lot more audible on louder sounds vs music due to the slowed-down nature of the sound.

 

[Deleted User]

Oh dunno; it's just that I had read about people being able to play games on it. I usually don't consider the games playable if they're too slow

Weird that frameskip didn't help, though. I'd have expected software rendering to be a bottleneck. On blargSNES, it is pretty much one.

Well in vba-next, they had a pix array that the screen was rendered to in RGB565(?), and that array was later uploaded to a texture and drawn. In 3DSGBA, I stripped out the pix array and made it directly write pixels to the framebuffer with the right indices and pixel format. It pretty much removes the need for hardware rendering as the time it takes to write to the framebuffer would likely be the same as writing to a texture to render instead.

Just added sound, and awaiting the PR to get pulled by SteveIce10. Here's a video for those curious about performance (I tested it with Pokemon Ruby [J]) of sound and video.:






Surprisingly it wasn't too hard to hook into the audio properly, although it still runs pretty bad on that particular game. Sound in the video is a bit hard to hear although it's a lot more audible on louder sounds vs music due to the slowed-down nature of the sound.

Once I finish looking at why Fire Red is broken, I'll take a look and pull it. Thanks!

 

[Arisotura]

Oh, I didn't mean 'hardware rendering' as in 'use the GPU to draw the final framebuffer rather than writing to framebuffer directly', but more in the sense of 'use the GPU to draw individual tiles, sprites, etc'. That's how I do it in blargSNES, and it gives a nice speed boost.

 

[shinyquagsire23]

Oh, I didn't mean 'hardware rendering' as in 'use the GPU to draw the final framebuffer rather than writing to framebuffer directly', but more in the sense of 'use the GPU to draw individual tiles, sprites, etc'. That's how I do it in blargSNES, and it gives a nice speed boost.

I could see hardware support happening for tiled modes, definitely. Those would be fairly easy to do and would most likely give a nice boost.