Homebrew WIP melonDS for Switch

[Csmrcc]

I wholeheartedly agree with this.
I am 100% against the idea of having other OSs running on the console.
Not because they shouldn't, they offer a great PoC and can help develop drivers for the thing, but because people will jump to them at the first sight of decent emulation.

I have always preferred emulators made as homebrew apps for the console's original OS.
That's where the devs have their chance to shine and bring something incredible to the machine.
But not if people just flock like seagulls to the Android bait.

It pulls both users and devs away from any interest just because "there's already a workaround".
Screw that.
Not to mention that some devs might use that as a point for not even bothering porting an emu.

I agree with that, I prefer hb over new is, unless it's impossible: like gc or Wii, only available with lakka os

 

[Arisotura]

definitely. the homebrew ecosystem atleast has a chance of offering some creative software. not that it worked well for the 3DS, which didn't get much besides low-quality emulator ports and countless CIA installers, but eh, we can try I guess.

because on the other hand, Android? who wants to gouge their ass out coding shit for fucking Android? I have been into Android app development before (for an internship) and it's all but fun. in the end my app mostly worked, but it felt like, y'know, when you're trying to build something sturdy out of a fundamentally weak material.

the Android ecosystem might have some good apps but it's mostly loads of shitware packed full with ads and in-app transactions and shit. why would you hack your Switch if only to install a different flavor of capitalism on it? the whole point of hacking your console is to get control back, not turn it into a different type of consumer toy. granted, Android is more open than Nintendo's OS thing, but... yeah.

 

[DiscostewSM]

Please, @Josshy0125 and @StapleButter, this is not the place to do this. Please take it to PMs if you must continue.

 

[Josshy0125]

@RinkuSonic41

From the latest XDA article. DraStic working flawlessly it seems.

Is there a tutorial for this? (:

 

[Basketto]

I wholeheartedly agree with this.
I am 100% against the idea of having other OSs running on the console.
Not because they shouldn't, they offer a great PoC and can help develop drivers for the thing, but because people will jump to them at the first sight of decent emulation.

I have always preferred emulators made as homebrew apps for the console's original OS.
That's where the devs have their chance to shine and bring something incredible to the machine.
But not if people just flock like seagulls to the Android bait.

It pulls both users and devs away from any interest just because "there's already a workaround".
Screw that.
Not to mention that some devs might use that as a point for not even bothering porting an emu.

Im not a fan of android, but going to have to disagree with the rest. Honestly if I could have everything running on one OS, like linux running lakka(eg) aslong as it supported everything like docking/2player/some form of sleep mode/ wireless controllers, id be happy as hell. The fact you don’t need to fiddle with a bunch of rubbish every time nintendo releases a stability update is already a huge bonus, and you don’t have any risks of a ban. You will never have Wii or gamecube games or PS2 games running at playable speeds on horizon, all of which are possible in Lakka. Even dreamcast/psp/n64 which work in retroarch all have better compatibility and performance in lakka. Im not against retroarch, but it will always be limited to poorer emulation than linux, so I would rather see one OS that can do it all.

 

[Smoker1]

Some Games run Slow, but with enough work, could run great

 

[Csmrcc]

Is there a tutorial for this? (:

Wrong thread my friend

 

[Josshy0125]

Wrong thread my friend

Which is why I asked. . . Smh. Unnecessary comment

 

[redcat2401]

Which is why I asked. . . Smh. Unnecessary comment

Android hasn't released on switch yet, once it does, they plan to have an easy to follow installer. Hopefully it releases soon

 

[phillyrider807]

If android is gonna give us full speed ds emulation then thats what we should support. Its gonna have dual boot from same memory card and reboot to payload options so there is no reason to not use it.

Native is always gonna be better but if it works out the box then it works out the box. No reason to waste time developing alternatives.

 

[MK73DS]

If android is gonna give us full speed ds emulation then thats what we should support. Its gonna have dual boot from same memory card and reboot to payload options so there is no reason to not use it.

Native is always gonna be better but if it works out the box then it works out the box. No reason to waste time developing alternatives.

Then why you replaced your camera, phone, notebook, maybe television and computer with your smartphone ? It doesn't do anything you couldn't do before. It just does it in one place. Native DS emulation is the same thing.

 

[phillyrider807]

Then why you replaced your camera, phone, notebook, maybe television and computer with your smartphone ? It doesn't do anything you couldn't do before. It just does it in one place. Native DS emulation is the same thing.

Your still doing it in one place though lol. And we already know Gamecube/Wii emulation will never be done natively so if you want to get all you can out the switch emulation wise you already have to dualboot.

 

[Hydr8gon]

Your still doing it in one place though lol. And we already know Gamecube/Wii emulation will never be done natively so if you want to get all you can out the switch emulation wise you already have to dualboot.

Well, there's nothing stopping somone from porting Dolphin as a homebrew app. Problem is, it would run worse than it does on Linux because we don't have access to Nvidia's proprietary drivers, and nouveau (or the nouveau-based drivers we have for Horizon) aren't nearly as optimized for the hardware. This is the same reason why the hardware renderer on melonDS isn't giving us the performance boost we were hoping for. Theoretically it would be possible to achieve the same speeds on the native OS if we had access to the same drivers, but unless Nvidia releases their source code we have to make do with what we've got.

Also, DraStic's existence shows us that it's definitely possible to make a DS emulator that runs good on the Switch's hardware. Even if DraStic has a hardware renderer, considering how light the DS GPU is (maximum 2048 polygons) and how fast DraStic runs, it would still easily run full speed on the Switch with a software renderer. DraStic is a great emulator, but I think a free, open source alternative would also be cool. To plug my new emulator NooDS again, this is my goal: a fast, open source, and portable emulator that will run on Switch, desktop, and Android.

Oh, and one more thing. People keep saying that Android will be able to reboot to payload. Is this true though? Last I checked Linux wasn't able to do so, so I don't see why Android would be able to. Although I haven't really kept up with any dual booting news since L4T Ubuntu came out, so this is more me inquiring than anything.

Anyways, just throwing my thoughts out there. To say developing alternatives is a waste of time is a bit close-minded. Having more choice can't be a bad thing, right? If we just settle for the first thing that works and never try to make anything better, we'll just be stuck with hacky and inconvenient solutions. Even if Android can reboot to payload, you can't deny that wanting to switch over to some Smash after a good round of Mario Kart DS would be much less of a hassle if you didn't have to switch OSes.

 

[phillyrider807]

Well, there's nothing stopping somone from porting Dolphin as a homebrew app. Problem is, it would run worse than it does on Linux because we don't have access to Nvidia's proprietary drivers, and nouveau (or the nouveau-based drivers we have for Horizon) aren't nearly as optimized for the hardware. This is the same reason why the hardware renderer on melonDS isn't giving us the performance boost we were hoping for. Theoretically it would be possible to achieve the same speeds on the native OS if we had access to the same drivers, but unless Nvidia releases their source code we're out of luck.

Also, DraStic's existence shows us that it's definitely possible to make a DS emulator that runs good on the Switch's hardware. Even if DraStic has a hardware renderer, considering how light the DS GPU is (maximum 2048 polygons) and how fast DraStic runs, it would still easily run full speed on the Switch with a software renderer. DraStic is a great emulator, but I think a free, open source alternative would also be cool. To plug my new emulator NooDS again, this is my goal: a fast, open source, and portable emulator that will run on Switch, desktop, and Android.

Oh, and one more thing. People keep saying that Android will be able to reboot to payload. Is this true though? Last I checked Linux wasn't able to do so, so I don't see why Android would be able to. Although I haven't really kept up with any dual booting news since L4T Ubuntu came out, so this is more me inquiring than anything.

Anyways, just throwing my thoughts out there. To say developing alternatives is a waste of time is a bit close-minded. Having more choice can't be a bad thing, right? If we just settle for the first thing that works and never try to make anything better, we'll just be stuck with hacky and inconvenient solutions. Even if Android can reboot to payload, you can't deny that wanting to switch over to some Smash after a good round of Mario Kart DS would be much less of a hassle if you didn't have to switch OSes.

Yea i agree full speed ds emulation on native os is 100% possible.. Was more talking about Gamecube/Wii Emulation not being possible natively for the reasons u already listed.

And saying its a "Waste of a time" is a bit close-minded i agree so i apologize for that statement. It was really in response to people saying "Since android and drastic is coming it's gonna mean people aren't gonna develop a native emulator cause a workaround already exists" Like they are owed one or something. Im simply of the thought that if drastic does work at full speed then yea it's probably best to spend resources somewhere else. I personally would of killed for a native moonlight app on switch but with it already confirmed working with android thats another window already checked.


As far as rebooting to payload the people behind switchroot have confirmed that its a function that will be included. There's a couple quotes of theirs regarding this subject you can find over at the xda forums.

 

[hippy dave]

Oh, and one more thing. People keep saying that Android will be able to reboot to payload. Is this true though? Last I checked Linux wasn't able to do so, so I don't see why Android would be able to. Although I haven't really kept up with any dual booting news since L4T Ubuntu came out, so this is more me inquiring than anything.

It's planned for both afaik, once they've got it fully sortd out.

 

[catlover007]

just wanted to let you know that the x64 JIT now almost finished (nothing is ever finished). The performance increase depends on the game but it's around 30%-100%.
It needs some testing and polishing, once it's done I'll tackle the ARMv8 jit

 

[ploggy]

just wanted to let you know that the x64 JIT now almost finished (nothing is ever finished). The performance increase depends on the game but it's around 30%-100%.
It needs some testing and polishing, once it's done I'll tackle the ARMv8 jit

Heh, I was just looking at the Melonds github too Looking forward to a new switch build to try it out.
Thanks for working on this.

EDIT.. Oops just saw X64jit. ARMv8 hype!

 

[chaitea]

Hey! I'm really looking forward to the developments in MelonDS and NooDS too. The performance of DraStiC is fantastic and has always been on top of the DS emulation scene at least since it's release, but we've needed someone to create an open source and free competitor for a very long time because who the f--- just wants DS emulation on Android. Having something open source that works dependably and beautifully well that can be ported to all sorts of platforms will be much better.

Having MelonDS for accuracy's sake and NooDS for speeds sake will be wonderful. I look forward to the progress StapleButter continues to make on MelonDS as it's my goto emulator now on desktop and I'm excited for the possibilities to come with NooDS hydr8gon. Thank you both for continuing to make huge contributions to the emulation scene. If either of you guys need help (especially NooDS! I'm plenty researched in emulation development, but still haven't gotten my hands into a project, so tell me if there's anything fun for me to start on ) feel free to tell me. Appreciate y'all and keep it comin <3.

 

[Hydr8gon]

Hey! I'm really looking forward to the developments in MelonDS and NooDS too. The performance of DraStiC is fantastic and has always been on top of the DS emulation scene at least since it's release, but we've needed someone to create an open source and free competitor for a very long time because who the f--- just wants DS emulation on Android. Having something open source that works dependably and beautifully well that can be ported to all sorts of platforms will be much better.

Having MelonDS for accuracy's sake and NooDS for speeds sake will be wonderful. I look forward to the progress StapleButter continues to make on MelonDS as it's my goto emulator now on desktop and I'm excited for the possibilities to come with NooDS hydr8gon. Thank you both for continuing to make huge contributions to the emulation scene. If either of you guys need help (especially NooDS! I'm plenty researched in emulation development, but still haven't gotten my hands into a project, so tell me if there's anything fun for me to start on ) feel free to tell me. Appreciate y'all and keep it comin <3.

Well, I dunno if I'd have anything "fun" for you to work on right now, because up next I have to tackle cartridge commands, encryption, etc. Which is probably one of the hardest things for a DS emulator! Anyways, I don't mind doing it myself, at least for now, becuase it's sort of a learning experience and personal challenge. Also, the DS is pretty complex, so I always recommend aspiring emulator devs to start by looking into making a CHIP-8 emulator, because it's fairly simple and teaches you a lot of important concepts. That's how I started anyway.

And on the topic of NooDS, here's an idea of where I'm at now:

Spoiler

Pretty exciting stuff! We might see commercial games booting in the coming weeks, but we'll see. Thanks for the interest and support in my projects, it's always really appreciated!

 

[MK73DS]

DraStic is going to be opensource next year, will this drastically (pun intended) improve or change the DS emulation abilities of the Switch ? Will MelonDS benefit from that ?
It is an insane emulator running very fine even on old hardware, so I hope this will accelerate the development of DS emulators on Switch

Source : https://drastic-ds.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=5680