Homebrew [Theory] Trick DSi into thinking it's launching a DSiWare rom but it's really launching a DS rom

[DylanWedman]

What if it was possible to trick a DSi that an application is a DSiWare app but really it's a normal DS game but it still launches it anyway, my theory is that if you use a hex editor and change the specific values on a DS rom to the values of a DSiWare rom then maybe you could trick the DSi into thinking it's a DSiWare app and have it run normally and maybe even run it directly from the DSi Menu. Would such a thing be possible?

 

[KoopaMaster]

Normally the Dsi apps use Tmd ( tickets ) , and I don't think that DS ROM can use tickets ...

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Good theory , anyway

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And if it's the original Dsi menu , there isn't a lot of games with less size than 16 MB ... ( limit of the DSI )

 

[Jhynjhiruu]

Wouldn't work. DS games are hardcoded to run from a cart, DSiWare games aren't.

 

[DylanWedman]

Normally the Dsi apps use Tmd ( tickets ) , and I don't think that DS ROM can use tickets ...

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Good theory , anyway

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And if it's the original Dsi menu , there isn't a lot of games with less size than 16 MB ... ( limit of the DSI )

What I'm thinking is modify a DS rom so that it's detected as a DSiWare rom in .nds format, and maybe even install it from Title Manager for HiyaCFW

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I was thinking on using these values.

 

[Wuigi]

@DylanWedman Why do you think nds-bootstrap exists?
Because people that are really experienced with DSi hacking and programming in general are too dumb to use a hex editor?
You could have asked Robz8, shutterbug2000 or other people in private that are part of that scene.
But instead you decide to clutter the front page with your thread.

 

[DylanWedman]

@DylanWedman Why do you think nds-bootstrap exists?
Because people that are really experienced with DSi hacking and programming in general are too dumb to use a hex editor?
You could have asked Robz8, shutterbug2000 or other people in private that are part of that scene.
But instead you decide to clutter the front page with your thread.

My reasoning for posting this thread was that I couldn't get nds-bootstrap to work the way I wanted it to and I want to try to be able to launch nds roms from the DSi Menu on my SD Nand, it's not like they would have responded to me anyway so there is no need for your tone.

 

[Wuigi]

@DylanWedman I know it doesn't work perfectly for now, but there is no easy solution in that case.
If you need perfect nds compatibility you could buy a flashcard instead.

 

[DylanWedman]

@Wuigi I own an R4 SDHC Gold Pro 2018, but I'm just trying to come up with another way of launching these roms, I tried to use the MakeForwarder program but I couldn't get that to work no matter what I tried.

 

[Wuigi]

@DylanWedman Then maybe ask in that thread for help.
They even try to build a look-alike dsi menu for twilightmenu and most of the dsiware can also be launched from there if it is in .nds format.
So why do you even need to use the normal home menu?

 

[The Real Jdbye]

What if it was possible to trick a DSi that an application is a DSiWare app but really it's a normal DS game but it still launches it anyway, my theory is that if you use a hex editor and change the specific values on a DS rom to the values of a DSiWare rom then maybe you could trick the DSi into thinking it's a DSiWare app and have it run normally and maybe even run it directly from the DSi Menu. Would such a thing be possible?

Has been done (sort of) with nds-bootstrap and TWLmenu. It's not possible to do without patching the game to read from SD which is what those do.

 

[Mark McDonut]

you can do something like this with nds-bootstrap on a 3ds, but it involves making "shortcut" channels that redirect to loading nds-bootstrap which then autoloads your rom.

If there's a way to make your own dsi home menu shortcuts I could see it working that way, but nds-bootstrap was pretty much developed to handle a lot of what you're trying to do due to constraints.

 

[DylanWedman]

OK, let me very carefully explain what I'm trying to accomplish, I want to use a hex editor to modify a normal NDS rom to make it seem as if it were a DSiWare rom and install it onto my SD Nand using TMFH so that I can launch it from the DSi Menu on my SD Nand, the values I will be using are based on these values. All I want to know is if all this would be possible? If not, then can someone please help me get the MakeForwarder app to work.

 

[Jhynjhiruu]

OK, let me very carefully explain what I'm trying to accomplish, I want to use a hex editor to modify a normal NDS rom to make it seem as if it were a DSiWare rom and install it onto my SD Nand using TMFH so that I can launch it from the DSi Menu on my SD Nand, the values I will be using are based on these values. All I want to know is if all this would be possible? If not, then can someone please help me get the MakeForwarder app to work.

No, it's not possible.

 

[DSoryu]

All I want to know is if all this would be possible? If not, then can someone please help me get the MakeForwarder app to work.

1.- Not possible.
2.- Why don't you ask in the thread itself? You need to explain the problem with more detail, and try all the available possibilities and solutions that are at hand, there's a high chance that someone has run with the same problem as you and now there's a fix for that.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

OK, let me very carefully explain what I'm trying to accomplish, I want to use a hex editor to modify a normal NDS rom to make it seem as if it were a DSiWare rom and install it onto my SD Nand using TMFH so that I can launch it from the DSi Menu on my SD Nand, the values I will be using are based on these values. All I want to know is if all this would be possible? If not, then can someone please help me get the MakeForwarder app to work.

The closest thing would be a mod of nds-bootstrap that simply loads one game that's bundled with it, and then you install a title like that for each game. I don't really see the point when you have forwarders though.

 

[DylanWedman]

1.- Not possible.
2.- Why don't you ask in the thread itself? You need to explain the problem with more detail, and try all the available possibilities and solutions that are at hand, there's a high chance that someone has run with the same problem as you and now there's a fix for that.

Because I saw that other people also had problems trying to get it to work and they tried to ask for help on that thread and they got no response, I tried everything I could think of, using different versions of nds-bootstrap, using different roms, I even went as far as reinstalling HiyaCFW completely fresh, and that didn't even work.

 

[edo9300]

Just happened to find this discussion @DylanWedman, if you're having issue with my tool, please report it there, otherwise I will never know someone had an issue and this kind of threads usually gets lost pretty soon

 

[DSoryu]

Because I saw that other people also had problems trying to get it to work and they tried to ask for help on that thread and they got no response, I tried everything I could think of, using different versions of nds-bootstrap, using different roms, I even went as far as reinstalling HiyaCFW completely fresh, and that didn't even work.

If they have no response there, what makes you thing you could get it here?

Just happened to find this discussion @DylanWedman, if you're having issue with my tool, please report it there, otherwise I will never know someone had an issue and this kind of threads usually gets lost pretty soon

I was going to repeat myself but there you are, a response from the dev responsible of the tool.

 

[RocketRobz]

Wouldn't work. DS games are hardcoded to run from a cart, DSiWare games aren't.

Yes, what he said. Even by changing some values in the header using a hex editor, you would still need a cart of the original DS game inserted in Slot-1 for it to work, because that's what the game expects.
This does work with Download Play SRLs (which are mostly DS game demos), because those are fully loaded into RAM, and the DLP SRLs do not read Slot-1 in any way.

But yes, if you want to run the DS games from the SDNAND, use MakeForwarder by @edo9300, once you get that working.

 

[DylanWedman]

This does work with Download Play SRLs (which are mostly DS game demos), because those are fully loaded into RAM, and the DLP SRLs do not read Slot-1 in any way.

I did manage to extract this .srl file from one of my DSiWare dumps, it's works in DeSmuME and it turns out to be a Download Play Demo that get's sent from the DSiWare, is there anything useful I can do with this?