endrift, the developer behind the multi-platform mGBA emulator, revealed that his April fools prank was actually real. He is indeed working on a new DS emulator that he plans to merge with mGBA and create Medusa, a GB, GBA and DS emulator in one application.

He says that it's currently an early alpha with about 80% of the DS' hardware implemented. Be sure to head over to his website and check out his post, that also includes new information about the next versions of mGBA.

Check out the downloads page for early Medusa builds for Windows, macOS and Ubuntu. Source can be found on his Github. Issues can be reported to the bug tracker.

If you want to support the developer, you can do so via his Patreon or donate page.

Source

 

[lAkdaOpeKA]

...unlike DeSmuME which is a massive clusterfuck of contributions and iDeaS which is both abandoned and closed source.

DeSmuMe's is slow, which is surprising considering the hardware the Nintendo DS uses, and you can't even change rendering resolution, which is something I think all 3D emulators should allow (yes, I know there's a build for this, but it's unofficial and very buggy)

 

[daxtsu]

Personally, I believe another emulator was needed. There's only 4 "main" emulators, of which only 1 is actually good (nocash GBA) but it's closed source, Win32 only, and knowing nocash probably written >80% in i386 assembly. Seeing how the world is moving to open source operating systems (Linux, *BSD, etc) and "non-classic" architectures (AMD64, AArch64), it makes sense to write a portable alternative - a SANE one, unlike DeSmuME which is a massive clusterfuck of contributions and iDeaS which is both abandoned and closed source.


To OP and most of the users here: endrift (the author) is a "she".

Preaching to the choir.

I'm all for people wanting to try new things when it won't hurt anything. They have their own reasons, and that's all that matters, whether it's for education, trying new emulation techniques, aiming to be the BSNES of GB(C)/GBA/DS(i) or whatever.

DeSmuMe's is slow, which is surprising considering the hardware the Nintendo DS uses, and you can't even change rendering resolution, which is something I think all 3D emulators should allow (yes, I know there's a build for this, but it's unofficial and very buggy)

The higher resolution stuff was actually integrated upstream a few months ago, and it's more stable now, to my knowledge.

 

[leonmagnus99]

this is really cool, i won't have to rely on my Flashcard for nds games if this emulator turns out to be running smooth.

 

[Deleted User]

I don't get the point, it's not something like Dolphin which does something that never was done before, blends GC and Wii together into one, but there already exist 1000000s of GBA and DS emulators.

 

[Wolfvak]

I don't get the point, it's not something like Dolphin which does something that never was done before, blends GC and Wii together into one, but there already exist 1000000s of GBA and DS emulators.

Other than nocash GBA none of them do things "the right way". They rely on code hacks and assume things that shouldn't be assumed.

I remember reading once (maybe it was here, can't remember) that there was a sort of "emulator revolution" around the time Dolphin came out. Emulators are somewhat simple: they're meant to emulate a main CPU and peripherals (generic ones like RAM/ROM and specific ones like mappers, timers, sprite generators, etc). As such, their code was laid out without much thought - a CPU core over here, some timer code that came somewhere else, you get the idea. This is how most emulators were created "pre-Dolphin", like DeSmuME. "post-Dolphin" (which includes Dolphin itself) emulators have well structured code, written specifically for that emulator, but as generic as possible.

Also, these old emulators are basically one hack on top of another - they're like a house of matches.

 

[ihaveahax]

Other than nocash GBA none of them do things "the right way". They rely on code hacks and assume things that shouldn't be assumed.

one thing I think is worth mentioning is some (maybe only DeSmuME) emulators have very different feature sets depending on the platform. DeSmuME does this. from my experience the macOS port seems to have the most features in it compared to Windows or Linux. things like creating multiple windows with different filters or sizes, for example. I haven't tried the Windows version in a long time though

http://wiki.desmume.org/index.php?title=Faq

Why doesn't a menu option or tool exist in my Mac build?
As of this release, all of the DeSmuME features that exist in the Windows port also exist in the Mac port, except for the following:

• The HUD
• Custom path settings
• AVI / WAV recording
• The various tools listed in the Tools menu
• RAM Watch / RAM Search
• Lua scripting

While we are actively working to attain full feature parity between the Mac and Windows ports, this will still take some time to achieve.

Why doesn't a menu option or tool exist in my Linux build?
Because making portable tools and platform harnesses are not our cup of tea and so a developer puts a feature into whichever ports he cares about. This policy is never going to change, although some features might migrate to other platforms over time. Better check the manual.

 

[the_randomizer]

My, my, people like criticizing this because other emulators already exist, yadda yadda, let it be, people, who are you to judge?

 

[Shruikan]

I've been missing a GBA emulator for 3DS, does it have any that works well (just like the Snes Old3DS)?

 

[Mikemk]

I've been missing a GBA emulator for 3DS, does it have any that works well (just like the Snes Old3DS)?

VC injection or mGBA

 

[Noctosphere]

what about GBC?

 

[ihaveahax]

what about GBC?

mgba already does that

 

[Noctosphere]

mgba already does that

just kidding man

 

[Kikirini]

Well, cool! I'll definitely check out the 3ds port when it's available, even if only for the GBA part.
Seriously... Retroarch freezes all the time and if someone can make a better, more stable gba emulator, I am totally down for it.

 

[Mr.Faq2015]

Been trying this out just for curiosity and I'm pretty astounded with it even though it's an alpha. I look forward to this new idea


Edit: someone really likes Rhythm Heaven...

 

[spotanjo3]

Just test some DS games, GBA game for this emulator and they works great on macOS. I have desmume and no$gb for more than 10 years ago. The more emulators the better.

 

[chaoskagami]

Personally, I believe another emulator was needed. There's only 4 "main" emulators, of which only 1 is actually good (nocash GBA) but it's closed source, Win32 only, and knowing nocash probably written >80% in i386 assembly. Seeing how the world is moving to open source operating systems (Linux, *BSD, etc) and "non-classic" architectures (AMD64, AArch64), it makes sense to write a portable alternative - a SANE one, unlike DeSmuME which is a massive clusterfuck of contributions and iDeaS which is both abandoned and closed source.

IIRC, half of the "important" DeSmuMe code is isolated in platform specific and toolkit specific directories. So the "posix" DeSmuMe isn't even remotely similar to the "windows" desmume, and that for some inexplicable reason there's a gtk-glade frontend AND gtk frontend. This not even getting into that frontend and backend code is blatantly and incorrectly separated, so that audio output (which is backend) is part of the platform frontend. Code organization and modularization is utter garbage in DeSmuMe.

mGBA on the other hand is extremely clean. Reading its code doesn't give me cancer.

 

[Jacklack3]

This is one of those "I have no idea why you're even bothering" projects.
DS is a really weird thing to emulate, but I actually used Desmume for 999 and it worked great.

Why make something that someone else has already done that works great?

Just becuz they wanna. There's nothing wrong with that.

 

[Psionic Roshambo]

I had looked at this the other day.

For me the best emulation for the DS will be something with a touch screen and microphone. I use my Tablet and it works fantastic with DraStic, but that emulator costs money (and yes you should buy it!) I think this one is free? So there is that at least lol

I use this emulator for GBA though, and for that it is fantastic, for that it's 10 out 10.

 

[ihaveahax]

I had looked at this the other day.

For me the best emulation for the DS will be something with a touch screen and microphone. I use my Tablet and it works fantastic with DraStic, but that emulator costs money (and yes you should buy it!) I think this one is free? So there is that at least lol

I use this emulator for GBA though, and for that it is fantastic, for that it's 10 out 10.

drastic is also android-only, while mgba and many other emulators are for PC and several different platforms.

 

[ultimatetemper]

mGBA didn't work very well speed-wise for me.
Hoping this new emulator performs better (and if this emulator could emulate local WiFi it would be awesome)