Homebrew OPEN_AGB_FIRM discussion thread

[Kwyjor]

This is a brand new SD card I got via the Microcenter "free 32GB USB drive and microSD card" in-store coupon that they were running for the last 6 months or so on sponser-spots on various Tech-tuber videos (Linus, Jay, etc).

Okay, don't you think you should be more suspicious of something you got cheaply using a coupon?

People get "brand-new" SD cards all the time that end up being of dubious quality. That's what h2testw is for.

 

[Nintendo Maniac]

I've made a new SysNAND backup and, knowing what I know now, I'm going to at least attempt the fastboot3ds route one more time.

Okay, don't you think you should be more suspicious of something you got cheaply using a coupon?

People get "brand-new" SD cards all the time that end up being of dubious quality. That's what h2testw is for.

You're not wrong, and I say this as someone that majorly dodged a bullet back 15 years ago when I actually "bought" what was probably a fake 1GB CF card on ebay, but the seller had their account terminated within 24 hours after I was supposed to (and didn't) send payment.

...but I'm unsure you're aware of who or what Microcenter actually is. This was an in-store coupon for a Microcenter-branded microSD card. I'm not sure there's a more reputable brick-and-mortor computer electronics store in the entire US. I mean, when I was there in February, they had Ryzen 5000 CPUs on the shelf, including the really in-demand SKUs like the 5900X, at MSRP ($549.99) - that alone is a major sign of good reputation with the current ridiculous PC component pricing and demand.

Also to be more exact, the YouTubers in question were LinusTechTips and JayzTwoCents (though if Microcenter really wanted to up their sponsership reputation, they should sponsor Gamers Nexus). Here are two random videos of theirs that have the aforementioned Microcenter coupon sponser-spot (non-clickable links because I don't want GBATemp turning them into embeded videos and therefore junking up this thread with something that's kind of off-topic):

Linus: youtu.be/emlRd643NVI
Jay: youtu.be/K48-nO441pg

Or, if you really want clickable links without dealing with GBATemp's auto-embedder, you can always use the following YouTube "proxy" (it doesn't proxy by default, but it can do so optionally):

Linus: https://yewtu.be/watch?v=emlRd643NVI
Jay: https://yewtu.be/watch?v=K48-nO441pg

 

[lone_wolf323]

.

It will be pretty simply to find out about the card. Just run https://3ds.hacks.guide/h2testw-(windows).html to verify that on a fully empty card no errors get reported back after a full write and read test.

 

[Nintendo Maniac]

The card passed h2testw without issues, and I even tested with both my microSD reader and with the full-sized SD card adapter that is used on my O3DS.

So I tried the fastboot3ds stuff again. Thing is, I don't think I had "Enable FCRAM Boot" enabled previously (in my defense, it was like 2am when I tested the first time), so sure enough enabling it made things "just work".


...I'm still not the biggest fan of how fastboot3ds forces the user to keep the SD card inserted in order to just boot the device. This obviously isn't that big of a deal for games located on the SD card anyway, but it's kind of a pain for cartridge games as well as any installed DSi ware since those normally don't need the SD card (same goes for the likes of the "Download Play" app).

Unless of course, there's a way to set up one of fastboot3ds's boot slots to still be able to access the home menu, or alternatively boot straight into download play and/or the inserted game cartridge directly? (which are the two main things I'm interested in having function without an SD card)

 

[Kwyjor]

it's kind of a pain for cartridge games as well as any installed DSi ware since those normally don't need the SD card (same goes for the likes of the "Download Play" app).

Does holding A+B+X+Y+RT while turning on the power still boot the cartridge even after fastboot is installed? (That's a little-known stock function, primarily used with 2DSaver.)

 

[Nintendo Maniac]

Does holding A+B+X+Y+RT while turning on the power still boot the cartridge even after fastboot is installed?

With fastboot3ds installed, unless the button combo is wrong, that doesn't seem to even work with or without the SD card present.

 

[lone_wolf323]

With fastboot3ds installed, unless the button combo is wrong, that doesn't seem to even work with or without the SD card present.

Did you ever set up the ctrnand with the boot.firm?

Section VI - CTRNAND Luma3DS

1. Power off your device
2. Press and hold (Start), and while holding (Start), power on your device. This will launch GodMode9
   • If you do not boot into GodMode9, ensure that GodMode9.firm is in /luma/payloads/ and that payloads is correctly spelled
3. If you are prompted to create an essential files backup, press (A) to do so, then press (A) to continue once it has completed
4. If you are prompted to fix the RTC date&time, press (A) to do so, then set the date and time, then press (A) to continue
5. Press (Home) to bring up the action menu
6. Select “Scripts…”
7. Select “GM9Megascript”
8. Select “Scripts from Plailect’s Guide”
9. Select “Setup Luma3DS to CTRNAND”
10. When prompted, press (A) to proceed
11. Press (A) to unlock SysNAND (lvl1) writing, then input the key combo given
12. Press (A) to continue

From the guide.

 

[Nintendo Maniac]

Did you ever set up the ctrnand with the boot.firm?

Indeed I did - I followed the "3ds.hacks.guide"...uh, guide to a T, and everything seemed to go smoothly.

As a sanity check I even just tried it again, but nothing changed.

From what I can tell, as long as fastboot3ds is installed, it's simply not possible to boot the console without an SD card as it by default sets all of the boot slots to disabled, and the only way to change that is to save the settings...which are saved on the SD card.

So if the SD card isn't present, those settings aren't loaded and it instead loads the default...which is to disable all boot slots and therefore dump you into fastboot3ds with no way to exit save for simply hitting the power button.


EDIT: OK, it does seem that, when in fastboot3ds, if you select "Boot from file..." and then navigate to nand: and select "boot.firm", it'll then successfully boot into the home menu via luma3ds CFW even with the SD card removed.

That's still very much not at all ideal though and doesn't really make things all that better - it basically just makes it possible, not streamlined. And streamlining the process is the entire reason why I wanted to use Open AGB Launcher in the first place, and Open AGB Launcher itself is the only reason I even installed fastboot3ds.

 

[cugel]

Thanks to this thread I installed fastboot (which I never heard of before) and now I can boot directly into agb_firm by holding B, which is great and extremely fast!

 

[Nintendo Maniac]

So it turns out one CAN achieve what I want with fastboot3ds and have identical behavior regardless of when the SD card is present or removed. The confusion is that, when the SD card is present, fastboot3ds settings are saved to the SD card. When the SD card is removed, fastboot3ds settings are saved to the NAND.

It was simply a case of this inconsistent saving behavior throwing me for a loop. So all one has to do is, while the SD card is removed, set the first boot slot to "nand:/boot.firm" and then also change the boot mode to "quiet boot"

The following github issue is what tipped me off: https://github.com/derrekr/fastboot3DS/issues/41

 

[Rahkeesh]

https://v2.femto.pw/fb7t

This build is really great. Can set backlight to 250 on N2DSXL and its getting about as bright as the VC can. With the added gamma correction you can get fairly nice colors.

 

[HTV04]

This build is really great. Can set backlight to 250 on N2DSXL and its getting about as bright as the VC can. With the added gamma correction you can get fairly nice colors.

I'm glad you like it! Just want to note that the new backlight cap is actually 142, but I added a failsafe that allows values above it (before the backlight defaulted to 0 if it was out of range).

 

[epistaxis]

I'm glad you like it! Just want to note that the new backlight cap is actually 142, but I added a failsafe that allows values above it (before the backlight defaulted to 0 if it was out of range).

Just wanted to add thanks for the build as well. Do you think playing at the backlight cap might be dangerous for the LCD? Maybe IPS screens?

 

[Rahkeesh]

The current 142 cap should be safe on New systems at least, I don't think it's even quite as bright as level 5 in the normal OS / VC.

 

[epistaxis]

Anyone having "your game save is corrupt" issues on the Super Mario Advance (SMW and Yoshi's Island) games on bootup? Using HTV04's build with the save DB.

Edit: Figured it out. If you use any IPS patches (like the color pallet restoration mods for the aforementioned games) it messes with how the save DB marks games (CRC check?). Might only affect EEPROM_v122 games.

Double Edit: Fairly certain this only pertains to EEPROM_v122 games now. A few other ones I patched (like Boktai 1) have the same issue. I wonder if there's a way around this?

 

[Gand21]

This build is really great. Can set backlight to 250 on N2DSXL and its getting about as bright as the VC can. With the added gamma correction you can get fairly nice colors.

Just curious, what are your preferred settings for backlight and contrast?

 

[Rahkeesh]

I leave brightness and contrast on default. Backlight is max (142?) and currently outputgamma 1.8

You could mess with brightness/contrast but they seem kind of "destructive" in that they should degrade image quality. I wouldn't touch it unless I really wanted to raise the minimum brightness in bright environments, and I would start by raising outputgamma to 2.2 first (i.e. unmodified) if I really wanted that.

 

[AleronIves]

Is there a reference document for the ini options and the allowed ranges?

 

[HTV04]

Is there a reference document for the ini options and the allowed ranges?

https://github.com/HTV04/open_agb_firm/blob/kernel_experiments/README.md#configuration

 

[ghjfdtg]

I leave brightness and contrast on default. Backlight is max (142?) and currently outputgamma 1.8

You could mess with brightness/contrast but they seem kind of "destructive" in that they should degrade image quality. I wouldn't touch it unless I really wanted to raise the minimum brightness in bright environments, and I would start by raising outputgamma to 2.2 first (i.e. unmodified) if I really wanted that.

Basically all of the color correction options are destructive because of integer math. A 256 entry, 8 bit per color lookup table is generated from these options and set in hardware. Unfortunately there is no way whatsoever to calibrate the LCD panel itself which would give much better results with zero color banding.