Homebrew Is a DS Emu possible?

[pandavova]

Just a Question.... (I dont found anything to this in the Search)

 

[Heran Bago]

Anything is possible if you believe in yourself.

Also there are flashcarts to run DS roms.

 

[Deleted-236924]

An actual emulator, no.
Might be possible for someone to figure out a way to load DS roms from the SD card and play them natively using TWL_FIRM (I don't think DSiWare injection would really work unless DSiWare are similar enough to actual DS games.)
But for all I know that wouldn't be possible either. But point is, actual emulator most likely would not be possible. I guess maybe unless someone comes up with a flashcard like DSTwo that has on-board CPU to allow for emulation, lol.

That, and there are really cheap flashcards that work up to latest 3DS firmware that play all DS games perfectly. There is little incentive for someone to work on that.

 

[UraKn0x]

Although that could be interesting for some reasons (like HD 3D emulation), that's unfortunately impossible. The 3DS is not powerful enough to properly emulate the NDS.

 

[PF2M]

In our current state, the only way we could have DS emulation is if we get a Windows streamer.
There's some DS homebrew that plays N64 games this way, and I'm sure we could use software like 3DS Remote Desktop to achieve something similar.
If anyone wants to make that, that'd be awesome, but we don't have that yet. Any devs wanna get on it?

Other than that, no.

 

[raystriker]

There's already an app like 3ds controller which allows you to use your 3ds as a controller for your pc, the dev of the app plans to/is working on streaming the video output to the 3ds, so *maybe* one day, you could not e just playing NDS but other stuff as well

 

[RednaxelaNnamtra]

the 3ds has the hardware to play nds games native. Its always better this way, because it means better compatibility. Now only a persons needs to create a twl firmware/patch to allow us to load them from the sd card.

 

[Apache Thunder]

Emulating DS on the 3DS? No. Virtualizing it using existing hardware? Maybe.


Much like proper DS mode on 3DS, you'll have to code your "DS Emulator" to use execute DS code directly on Arm11. But this could be difficult to impossible to do correctly. NDS was mostly Arm7 and Arm9 which is why the the 3DS has to reboot into DS mode to play DS titles since Arm7 is not accessible in CTR mode.

So you'd have to find a way of getting Arm7 code to run on Arm11/GPU which I believe is what CTR games uses. Good luck with that as it would not be simple at all. Since DS mode flashcarts are still a thing on the 3DS there is little incentive to really bother with this. You could try and patch TWL_FIRM's RSA checks so you can build custom DSiWare and convert DS games to DSiWare and run them that way.

But DS games are meant to access Slot-1 and save on Slot-1, so you'd have to either patch each and every single game you want to use or find some way of creating a DSiWare app that does it. But some of the prominent devs here have said that doing that isn't possible, so I hear you have to instead try and patch the game instead. It doesn't seem to be worth the effort at the moment unfortunately.

 

[Deleted member 333767]

People keep saying theres a 3DS native DS virtualizer thingamabob in development by someone somewhere, but I've yet to see a WIP/POC thread.

 

[Jayro]

Emulating DS on the 3DS? No. Virtualizing it using existing hardware? Maybe.


Much like proper DS mode on 3DS, you'll have to code your "DS Emulator" to use execute DS code directly on Arm11. But this could be difficult to impossible to do correctly. NDS was mostly Arm7 and Arm9 which is why the the 3DS has to reboot into DS mode to play DS titles since Arm7 is not accessible in CTR mode.

So you'd have to find a way of getting Arm7 code to run on Arm11/GPU which I believe is what CTR games uses. Good luck with that as it would not be simple at all. Since DS mode flashcarts are still a thing on the 3DS there is little incentive to really bother with this. You could try and patch TWL_FIRM's RSA checks so you can build custom DSiWare and convert DS games to DSiWare and run them that way.

But DS games are meant to access Slot-1 and save on Slot-1, so you'd have to either patch each and every single game you want to use or find some way of creating a DSiWare app that does it. But some of the prominent devs here have said that doing that isn't possible, so I hear you have to instead try and patch the game instead. It doesn't seem to be worth the effort at the moment unfortunately.

Couldn't someone theoretically just make a patch that makes the TWL_FIRM save all saves to SD card instead of to the DS cartridge?

 

[kevman323]

People always like to say these kinds of thing are impossible. Just a few years ago, people said 3DS emulation was impossible, and now Citra is way under development. Same Thing Happened with the WiiU. Same thing happened with Wii. It happens all the time because people are too quick to judge, or are to unknowledgeable on the subject of emulation.

That being said, Here's what I think. I think it's definitely possible, although getting it to playable frame-rates would take a lot of time and emulation accuracy sacrifices. Also, seeing as DS flashcarts exist and work, I think it's very unlikely anyone will start up the project, simply because there's a simpler easier way, at least anytime soon. Also, It'd be way easier and way more efficient to try and load a DS rom into the 3DS's DS mode if somebody ever figures out how to do that, if it's even something technically possible. Until then, best bet is to get a flashcard. Works on 3DS, and if it ever gets blocked by nintendo, you know you can at least still use it on a normal DS or DSi. Unless you are OK with possibly waiting years for another method to come around.

 

[Ruby Gloom]

How about this:
Compiling our own DSiWare as a whole DS game?

 

[DarkFlare69]

How many times have we seen this question? taking a wild guess, at least 15 by now

 

[Ruby Gloom]

How many times have we seen this question? taking a wild guess, at least 15 by now

Yikes. I didn't know. (Unless you're referring to someone else. )

 

[DarkFlare69]

Yikes. I didn't know. (Unless you're referring to someone else. )

Asking anyone

 

[smealum]

definitely possible. hard to gauge how good performance would be, and it would take a ton of work, but there's no real reason why it couldn't be done. at the end of the day it's more a question of whether anyone would want to work on it considering the limited benefits such a solution would have over just, you know, using the built-in backwards compatibility stuff.

 

[Ruby Gloom]

Or vise versa if we are talking about my question...?

 

[Deleted User]

I would (and did) just buy a flashcart. Theyre like $10.

 

[Pikasack]

So, wouldn't using TWL_FIRM just be something like Nintendont?
The thing we really need to think about is the name for that said app.
How about, DSSD? (DS games off an SD)

 

[Tapri]

definitely possible. hard to gauge how good performance would be, and it would take a ton of work, but there's no real reason why it couldn't be done. at the end of the day it's more a question of whether anyone would want to work on it considering the limited benefits such a solution would have over just, you know, using the built-in backwards compatibility stuff.

Smea posted on forums, new thread soon to be made over it. /ends joke.

I think a lot of people want at least BC-enabled stuff, such as using retail carts and save exporting/editing/importing, more for nostalgic reasons than anything else.