Homebrew Can someone give me a crash course on what homebrew can do?

[HexZyle]

Or tell me where I can find a noob's guide to everything homebrew?

I have 10.0 and Tubehax, and I sort of get how it works. You have internet settings set up to redirect traffic to a particular page, which happens to tell the 3DS to load a payload (the custom launcher) which you've previously placed on your 3DS's SD card. The site is basically saying "load the YouTube video from this address. Oh, except the address is on your own system, and has a different extension"

I know these are called "entrypoints", and in PC layman's terms they're the difference between double clicking an application, pressing your enter key while the application is highlighted, or downloading the application from the internet and having it automatically run on download. The application (the homebrew launcher) is the same, but accessing it varies depending on whether Nintendo has disabled your mouse, or your internet or something.

But I don't get much else after that. I've got homebrew launcher, and it says here that it supports nothing except 3dsx files. Why is that? Are there other launchers that support more software? What are these "CIA" files I keep hearing about?

What makes Ninjhax so special compared to Tubehax? Or oothax?

I understand the region free thing, it's just a check bypass.
I get the theme modifying, as the current theme is stored on the SD card and the data accessed by the system.
I haven't tried the FTP app, but I sort of understand basic networking so it's not that hard of a stretch to assume that 3DS's work the same way.

What else can the 3DS do, apart from SNES and GBA emulation? And is anybody actually working on some decent 3DS homebrew games? What would it take to do something like this?

 

[ironmaster49]

Ninjhax IS Tubehax, and so is oothax, and there is portal3d and 3dscraft and a few other games, and .cia format are 3ds apps that appear on the home menu (eShop format), and need a custom firmware to run and .3dsx are like .exe files for 3ds, executables

 

[HexZyle]

Ninjhax IS Tubehax, and so is oothax, and there is portal3d and 3dscraft and a few other games, and .cia format are 3ds apps that appear on the home menu (eShop format), and need a custom firmware to run and .3dsx are like .exe files for 3ds, executables

I only saw portal3d uncompiled on the github, and I don't know how to compile them.
I sort of get that .cia are apps on the home menu, and that I can't install them because I have 10.0, but I don't know why. Is there any way to convert these into 3dsx applications? Is there difference between cia and 3dsx only in the method that they are launched? Or is there more? Are there other launchers I can use?

 

[ironmaster49]

No cia because no kernel exploit on 10.0, just use 3dsx, and look around the 3ds homebrew thread. And i dont think you can convert them, cia is a package and 3dsx is a bare executable, and use homebrew menu to launch them. Sorry, but you need 9.2 or lower to use .cia files

 

[~Poke~]

All the *hax are basically the same, just different entrypoints. I'll paste what I told someone else earlier.

Ninjhax, Tubehax, Ironhax, OoThax and now SSBhax are all capable of the same on firmware 9.3 - 10. The only real difference is convenience - Ninjhax works off the cart, Ironhax works off the download and OoThax can be either (later carts were patched, but the eshop version is still unpatched I think). Tubehax is free but you have to mess with internet settings, and I think SSBhax needs even more fiddling.

On firmware 9.0 - 9.2 Ninjhax can be used to get kernel access, with ninjhax 1.0. I don't think that's been ported to other games so Cubic Ninja is still very valuable there.

I do know that .3dsx files can be converted to .cia but I don't think this is possible the other way around. The main difference is that 3dsx is a format invented for the *hax, and code has to be written specifically for it while cias are what nintendo uses to distribute eshop games. With other exploits only known on older versions, these cias can be installed and run just like a normal downloadable game. Basically, 3dsx is homebrew created within *hax limitations, cia can contain homebrew or official games and is not (as) restricted.

As for what's possible, well, whatever people decide to program.

 

[teampleb]

All the *hax are basically the same, just different entrypoints. I'll paste what I told someone else earlier.


I do know that .3dsx files can be converted to .cia but I don't think this is possible the other way around. The main difference is that 3dsx is a format invented for the *hax, and code has to be written specifically for it while cias are what nintendo uses to distribute eshop games. With other exploits only known on older versions, these cias can be installed and run just like a normal downloadable game. Basically, 3dsx is homebrew created within *hax limitations, cia can contain homebrew or official games and is not (as) restricted.

As for what's possible, well, whatever people decide to program.

That's not completely true, there are some functions that *hax homebrew can access that cia can't. Even on *hax 2.1.