ROM Hack Did common sense fly out the window when this person made Citra?

[Deleted member 110780]

Okay, so making an emulator for 3DS games is smart, because not everyone can afford a 3DS. What completely baffles me though is that the creator requires decrypted roms, and the only way to decrypt roms is to have a 3DS with custom firmware, since that is what is linked in the error message when you try to use a standard rom. Now why would you make a program to decrypt roms that only works on a 3DS with CFW? Doesn't make sense to me when most people who are trying to emulate 3DS games don't have a 3DS to begin with, with CFW to boot. Shouldn't you have a program that can be run on computers to decrypt roms? I literally can't even why the current situation is the way it is right now. Seems counter-intuitive.

 

[VinsCool]

Okay, so making an emulator for 3DS games is smart, because not everyone can afford a 3DS. What completely baffles me though is that the creator requires decrypted roms, and the only way to decrypt roms is to have a 3DS with custom firmware, since that is what is linked in the error message when you try to use a standard rom. Now why would you make a program to decrypt roms that only works on a 3DS with CFW? Doesn't make sense to me when most people who are trying to emulate 3DS games don't have a 3DS to begin with, with CFW to boot. Shouldn't you have a program that can be run on computers to decrypt roms? I literally can't even why the current situation is the way it is right now. Seems counter-intuitive.

Not to be rude, but google brings you all the stuff you need.

 

[Kioku]

Not to be rude, but google brings you all the stuff you need.

Not rude at all. It's true. Decrypted roms can be found and download in quite a few various spots.

 

[daxtsu]

Okay, so making an emulator for 3DS games is smart, because not everyone can afford a 3DS. What completely baffles me though is that the creator requires decrypted roms, and the only way to decrypt roms is to have a 3DS with custom firmware, since that is what is linked in the error message when you try to use a standard rom. Now why would you make a program to decrypt roms that only works on a 3DS with CFW? Doesn't make sense to me when most people who are trying to emulate 3DS games don't have a 3DS to begin with, with CFW to boot. Shouldn't you have a program that can be run on computers to decrypt roms? I literally can't even why the current situation is the way it is right now. Seems counter-intuitive.

Because up until about 4 months ago, it wasn't possible to decrypt 3DS content on a PC, since none of the keys were properly known, and the formula to generate the keys was also not known. Now the knowledge is there, but they just haven't added it yet. PSP emulators were the same way, it took them a while to get around to adding support for decrypting things on the fly. It's not unreasonable to expect the user to decrypt the ROMs themselves when the knowledge isn't there (and that was the situation for a long time).

 

[FireEmblemGuy]

If Citra could run encrypted ROMs, then it would be decrypting them. You're basically asking why Citra can't do this thing that no other program can do either. It's a question with an obvious answer, don't you think?

That aside, even if it could decrypt them, bundling the decryption key with the emulator would've ended badly for everyone. You could probably create a program that finds the keys on-the-fly, but it'd still be subject to a C&D at best and a major lawsuit at worst.

 

[Deleted member 110780]

Not to be rude, but google brings you all the stuff you need.

I've checked google and all of the results bring up tools that only work on a 3DS with CFW.

 

[Raylight]

I've checked google and all of the results bring up tools that only work on a 3DS with CFW.

yeah same results for me but i may be looking in the wrong places

 

[cearp]

I've checked google and all of the results bring up tools that only work on a 3DS with CFW.

then you don't understand it, and didn't research how to decrypt 3ds roms.
it's like common sense just flew out the window.

 

[Jayro]

Seems like adding a .cia installer to citra wouldn't be terribly difficult, especially if it uses native_firm and other firmware files.

 

[Vappy]

Because up until about 4 months ago, it wasn't possible to decrypt 3DS content on a PC

Seems like adding a .cia installer to citra wouldn't be terribly difficult, especially if it uses native_firm and other firmware files.

It's not possible to decrypt 3DS NCCH contents without a 3DS (or add a hypothetical .cia installer to Citra) because we don't have the NCCH key (0x2C KeyX). That key is set in bootrom, so unless someone obtains a bootrom dump, we're going to continue needing a 3DS for decryption.

 

[porkiewpyne]

Not 100% if I am reading your post right but it seems to me that you and the Citra dev team are not on the same page. My understanding is that enabling those without a 3DS to play free games is not their objective as far as I know. It's not like decryption is the only process which requires a 3DS. Dumping requires it too as there is technically no other way to extract a ROM. So anyone who is using Citra the way the devs intended would either already have a 3DS or know someone who has one to start with. If you want to use it any other way, it is not their job to make it easier for you to do so. If I were to make a comparison, I'd say it's similar to the ePSXe, whereby the BIOS is necessary but is not bundled.

Whether or not they truly feel the same way as per their PR statement (particularly regarding their stance on the downloading games in the FAQ) is irrelevant.

I'm not sure about the technical aspect of things so I can't and won't comment on that.

 

[Thelostrune]

What completely baffles me though is that the creator requires decrypted roms, and the only way to decrypt roms is to have a 3DS with custom firmware. Now why would you make a program to decrypt roms that only works on a 3DS with CFW? Seems counter-intuitive

It's what emulators should be, honestly. Anti-piracy as far as encrypting goes.
Now it's relatively easy to get XORPads from people who already have them and shared them, if you don't have the game or system you need for it.

 

[night_hawk]

Okay, so making an emulator for 3DS games is smart, because not everyone can afford a 3DS. What completely baffles me though is that the creator requires decrypted roms, and the only way to decrypt roms is to have a 3DS with custom firmware, since that is what is linked in the error message when you try to use a standard rom. Now why would you make a program to decrypt roms that only works on a 3DS with CFW? Doesn't make sense to me when most people who are trying to emulate 3DS games don't have a 3DS to begin with, with CFW to boot. Shouldn't you have a program that can be run on computers to decrypt roms? I literally can't even why the current situation is the way it is right now. Seems counter-intuitive.

I can answer you with another question:
How are you supposed to even have the encrypted roms if you don't have a 3ds to dump them?
Oh your answer is: "i'm a pirate i download it through the internet"
Then do the same with the decryptet rom, easy

 

[daxtsu]

It's not possible to decrypt 3DS NCCH contents without a 3DS (or add a hypothetical .cia installer to Citra) because we don't have the NCCH key (0x2C KeyX). That key is set in bootrom, so unless someone obtains a bootrom dump, we're going to continue needing a 3DS for decryption.

My mistake, then. I thought we had that key as well.

 

[xtheman]

Okay, so making an emulator for 3DS games is smart, because not everyone can afford a 3DS.

Citra can't run many 3ds games. ANd those it does lags badly. Your better off buy a 3ds if you really want to play 3ds games.

 

[gbaboy123]

How the 3ds works and how the console needs to ge emulated is really complicated. emulations now are very complicated compared to the retro ones like nes,n46,snes. i actually consider citra 3ds emulator as a miracle but games are to glitchy like the emulator is only playing like the intro for example zelda oot you would not be able to actually complete the game plus it runs at 15 fps with an i7 extreme and a gtx 970

 

[cearp]

here's a tip - find xorpad, find rom, decrypt rom

 

[G25900]

Okay, so making an emulator for 3DS games is smart, because not everyone can afford a 3DS.

That's not really the reason why people make emulators, they're not being made as some kind of public service to let people play games with out buying the hardware (and to an extent the game themselves).

They do it because they enjoy the process and challenge of creating an emulator in their spare time, it also creates convenience in the future once newer generations of consoles are out and it's harder to get hold of working consoles as you can consolidate multiple things on to one piece of hardware.

It essentially creates a way to archive and enjoy games from older generations with out worrying about inevitably failing hardware, even though Nintendo consoles seemingly need to be smashed with a hammer to finally die, I got my original Game Boy towards the end of 1991 and the damn thing is still going strong and I only got it because I had two Game Gears die before that.

So to summarise, it's none of their concern if you can get the roms for it or not.

 

[TecXero]

Citra is also nice for development. It lets you test out software you're working on quickly without having to install it on your 3DS. It's not entirely accurate, but it's nice to get an idea if a small change you made has any obvious bugs or not.

 

[Deleted member 333767]

It's what emulators should be, honestly. Anti-piracy as far as encrypting goes.
Now it's relatively easy to get XORPads from people who already have them and shared them, if you don't have the game or system you need for it.

Nice sig......