nds-bootstrap loader: Run commercial NDS backups from an SD Card

Zense · Oct 2, 2020

raxadian said:
The 3DS has real hardware to run GBA games is why the "ports" are so perfect.

Anyways, this has quickly derailed from the topic at hand. I'll try to reel it back in by saying that while the GBA didn't have much AP (one hilarious example though is Digimon Adventure), the DS on the other hand had lots of AP measures which seem to mostly have been beaten by the various patches supplied with twilightmenu. Actually Pkmns post-diamond and pearl all have AP patches and I believe those were the first mainline pkmns with AP measures.

I believe some of the pkmn games still have issues with nds-bootstrap (?), although I can confess to have logged over 100 hours of HeartGold without encountering any errors or crashes, which is all kudos to the devs of nds-bootstrap and their continued efforts. I'll eventually start to play Diamond and Pearl over again, though I've heard varying reports of it having issues. I'm not sure of the current state there.

raxadian · Oct 2, 2020

Zense said:
Diamond and Pearl

Those are the fourth gen games with less issues. If Heart Gold and Soul Silver work, those two shouldn't have problems unless they are bad dumps. Of course it may be something specific about not being loaded from a cardridge in that case there are hacks that might work.

DolphinCube · Oct 3, 2020

alexander1970 said:
Hello.

May I ask please,do you have the latest Version v16.0.3 ?
(and nds-bootstrap Version v0.35.1)
You can check it in the TWiLight Settings.

Thank you.

Yeah. It's updated. And I don't see the heap shrink option for the game. But it appears in other games settings. Please fix this!

RocketRobz · Oct 3, 2020

TheAutisticGamer said:
Yeah. It's updated. And I don't see the heap shrink option for the game. But it appears in other games settings. Please fix this!

What is "Expand ROM space in RAM" set to?

DolphinCube · Oct 4, 2020

Robz8 said:
What is "Expand ROM space in RAM" set to?

It is currently set to off. I have no idea why its not working!

RocketRobz · Oct 4, 2020

TheAutisticGamer said:
It is currently set to off. I have no idea why its not working!

Me neither.

RocketRobz · Nov 12, 2020

After 5 months since it's last release, a new version of nds-bootstrap is released! ...but!
This is not the actual 100th release version. Instead, it's a stealth nds-bootstrap version, and provides long-waited bug fixes while we're waiting for the 100th version to be released.

It's available in TWiLight Menu++ v17.0.0 (GBATemp post), and the Nov 12th 3DS SD card forwarder template update.
You can also download it separate, if you know where to look.

What's new?

Pop Island and Pop Island: Paperfield now boot in DS mode, as demo versions.
ARM7 binary is now stripped out, when loading <= 12.5MB(DSi)/28.5MB(3DS) ROMs into RAM.
- This allows a few more ROMs of that size to fit into RAM. You may need to use DSLazy to repack some, in order to make it smaller.
More boot values are set.

Bug fixes

You can now take out a card in Slot-1 while in sleep mode, without causing a shut down or reboot.
(Does not apply to ROMs with IR features.)
Touch input has been fixed in a few games.
Fixed sound in Dragon Ball Z: Goku Densetsu and THUMB SDK5 games for DSiWarehax users.

agBAZE · Nov 28, 2020

I've already posted this in TWiLight Menu++ thread, but people suggested me to post in here too, so:
Hello!
I'm here after I posted an issue on nds-bootstrap GitHub repo. Since we have proved the problem is only on spanish version of Pokémon White 2 (and maybe Black 2), a guy suggested me to post here a request for "fixing" the AP-patch of these versions.
For a complete list with details of the problem, the original GH issue is the #1047
But, in abstract, on spanish version of Pokémon White 2 [TID: IRDS], you don't gain exp after a battle.

Thanks for your awesome work and keep going on!

RocketRobz · Jan 20, 2021

Still waiting for WPA1/2 support in DS games?
While it'll probably be implemented later than DSi mode support (which will make WPA networks work with DSi-Enhanced games), you can already use your WPA network on an existing DS game, "Advance Wars: Days of Ruin"!
This will not work with the regular ROM however, as you'll need the Japanese DSiWare version, along with the English patch for it here. It'll also require a DSi with Unlaunch, or installing it as a CIA file on 3DS.
Currently, this is the closest we'll get to using a WPA network in DS games!

RareCandyMan · Feb 10, 2021

Sorry if this issue was discussed, I tried searching this thread but there are over 250 pages so I might have overlooked it.

Sometimes, and only sometimes, my Pokémon Diamond ROM on my 3DS seems to crash when waking up from sleep mode. I saw the notes that this can be a clock speed issue, I made sure it was set to NTR so that shouldn’t be an issue. I haven’t noticed any patterns on when it crashes and when it doesn’t, it seems random. When it crashes it will stay on a black screen for about 5 seconds, then show the shut down menu as if I have pressed the power button.

RocketRobz · Feb 10, 2021

RareCandyMan said:
Sorry if this issue was discussed, I tried searching this thread but there are over 250 pages so I might have overlooked it.

Sometimes, and only sometimes, my Pokémon Diamond ROM on my 3DS seems to crash when waking up from sleep mode. I saw the notes that this can be a clock speed issue, I made sure it was set to NTR so that shouldn’t be an issue. I haven’t noticed any patterns on when it crashes and when it doesn’t, it seems random. When it crashes it will stay on a black screen for about 5 seconds, then show the shut down menu as if I have pressed the power button.

Make sure you're on TWiLight Menu++ v18.4.0 (the latest, as of this post), and that the nds-bootstrap version has an "s" after "35.".

RareCandyMan · Feb 10, 2021

Robz8 said:
Make sure you're on TWiLight Menu++ v18.4.0 (the latest, as of this post), and that the nds-bootstrap version has an "s" after "35.".

Yep, just verified I am on v0.35.s5 bootstrap, v18.4.0 TWLMenu. Everything else looks default, the only one I’m not sure if I changed or not is VRAM boost, should that be on or off (or irrelevant?)

RocketRobz · Feb 10, 2021

RareCandyMan said:
Yep, just verified I am on v0.35.s5 bootstrap, v18.4.0 TWLMenu. Everything else looks default, the only one I’m not sure if I changed or not is VRAM boost, should that be on or off (or irrelevant?)

Irrelevant.

Try using Universal Updater. It should repair your TWLMenu++ installation.

RareCandyMan · Feb 10, 2021

Robz8 said:
Irrelevant.

Try using Universal Updater. It should repair your TWLMenu++ installation.

Will do, thanks so much for your help and all of your hard work on TWLMenu.

UPDATE: I ran the install from UU, played for a bit, then closed the 3DS and put it on the charger for the night. When I opened it up this morning it giving me the screen as though the power button had been pressed again. In fact, since running the UU install it seems that every time I close the 3DS while it is running the ROM it crashes out, as opposed to it only happening sometimes before.

I opted for the nightly release for TWLMenu, should I try the stable version instead?

I confirmed again that I am at 67mhz NTR. The only other setting is that it is set to DSi mode, not sure if that is relevant. Everything else should be defaults.

BitMasterPlus · Feb 14, 2021

I hope you can get games like Golden Sun: Dark Dawn to on day work on this, it'll complete the collection. Otherwise I'll just buy it lol if I knew more about programming I would help if I could

RocketRobz · Feb 14, 2021

BitMasterPlus said:
I hope you can get games like Golden Sun: Dark Dawn to on day work on this, it'll complete the collection. Otherwise I'll just buy it lol if I knew more about programming I would help if I could

It's going to be a while, unfortunately.

BitMasterPlus · Feb 14, 2021

No problem, just keep doing the good work you and others have been doing at your own pace of course.

MarioKartFan · Feb 14, 2021

Flash carts also work wonderfully as an alternative to nds bootstrap on the rare compatibility issues.

Especially with all the improvements that Robz and others made to TWiLightMenu in 2020. It is pretty seamless on a flash cart now and makes even the cheapest POS carts work well.

godreborn · Feb 14, 2021

MarioKartFan said:
Flash carts also work wonderfully as an alternative to nds bootstrap on the rare compatibility issues.

Especially with all the improvements that Robz and others made to TWiLightMenu in 2020. It is pretty seamless on a flash cart now and makes even the cheapest POS carts work well.

That is true. Golden sun works for example.

RocketRobz · Feb 15, 2021

v0.36.0: 100th release!

NOTE: Please read the full post before downloading.

Some of you might've heard that the 100th release is supposed to bring one or all of these features:

DSi mode, which will allow:
1. Booting DSi-Enhanced games with DSi features, such as WPA1/2 and camera.
2. Booting DSiWare games without the need for Unlaunch, or installing the game as a CIA.
Fixed cloneboot support, which will allow multiplayer via Download Play to work for the games that currently don't work the feature.
Slot-2 emulation for games such as MegaMan ZX, Pokémon Gen 4, and more.

Unfortunately, due to my failed attempts of implementing those (thus lacking the knowledge how to do so), and the devs like @ahezard (the main dev) and @shutterbug2000 not being around for a while, those features have not been implemented, and this release was solely made to bring nds-bootstrap out of the stealth release state, bringing some features and fixes that have only been in stealth and nightly builds.

For a bit of news:

A month ago, shutterbug has began work on DSi mode once again, and he plans to commit the changes soon.
A while back, ahezard has stated that he will return to coding at some point.

With all that said, it'll be a while before we see those features implemented, and even fixing some broken games, such as Pokémon Dash and Golden Sun: Dark Dawn, as well as fixing cheat support (some E-type codes don't work).

Reg = Only for nds-bootstrap for DSi/3DS
B4DS = Only for nds-bootstrap for DS flashcards

What's new?

Two DSiWare games now boot in their DS mode demo versions!
- Pop Island
- Pop Island: Paperfield
Reg: (@xonn and me) You can now swap the screens by holding L+R+UP+X for 1 second. Useful for consoles with the GameBoy Macro mod.
- Note that this doesn't work for all games (or all areas of the game), and some games that do work with this feature, will corrupt some graphics.
- This will also not work with B4DS, due to memory limitations.
Reg: Added a Hi heap shrink setting.
- Set this, if there's a cheat code not working. If this does not fix it, then wait for a fix.
- Set by setting `CARDENGINE_CACHED` to `2` in `nds-bootstrap.ini`.

Improvements (Reg)

ARM7 binary is now stripped when pre-loading a ROM into RAM (as it's already loaded).
- This allows more 28MB (or 12MB for DSi) ROMs to fit into RAM.
FAT table cache is now copied to DSi WRAM, if:
- DSi WRAM is not mirrored (DSiWarehax not used, in other words)
- Game is running in DS mode
- Game is on the console's SD card

Bug fixes

Reg: Slot-1 is now disabled, in order for sleep mode to work with any card inserted in Slot-1!
- Ejecting the Slot-1 card will also no longer cause the console to reboot or shut down!
- This does not affect IR games such as Pokémon HGSS, if Slot-1 isn't empty.
Reg: Fixed sound in Dragon Ball Z: Goku Densetsu and some SDK5 THUMB games, if using DSiWarehax (e.g. Memory Pit).
Reg: Fixed a bug with reading a pre-loaded 28.5MB (or 12.5MB for DSi) ROM from RAM.
Fixed long-standing bug with overlay pack size calculation.

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Stylish TWiLight Hero

Well-Known Member

Stylish TWiLight Hero

Stylish TWiLight Hero

Member

Stylish TWiLight Hero

Member

Stylish TWiLight Hero

Member

Stylish TWiLight Hero

Member

Well-Known Member

Stylish TWiLight Hero

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Welcome to the Machine

Stylish TWiLight Hero

Similar threads

Popular threads in this forum