Homebrew [DS(i)/3DS] TWiLight Menu++ - GUI for DS(i) games, and DS(i) Menu replacement

[Draxikor]

Hi there i hope someone could help me with some doubts about Twilight Menu, I tried it a long time ago on my DSiXL but as nds bootstrap is not fully compatible with all games I removed it and continued playing with my R4, I recently saw that the functions Overclock and sound frequency can also be used in the games that are in the R4 so these are my questions:

1. Do I have to install Twilight Menu only on DSixl or do I also need to install something on R4?

2. Having everything you need, the games already have those extras loading them from R4 or do I have to run them from the Twilight Menu with access to the Flashcard?

3. If I activate the option to load the games using the kernell of the flashcard, do they still have the extra overclocking and sound frequency or do they only work using nds bootstrap?

P.D. My flashcard is a R4iSDHC

 

[Alexander1970]

Hello.

Hi there i hope someone could help me with some doubts about Twilight Menu, I tried it a long time ago on my DSiXL but as nds bootstrap is not fully compatible with all games I removed it and continued playing with my R4, I recently saw that the functions Overclock and sound frequency can also be used in the games that are in the R4 so these are my questions:

1. Do I have to install Twilight Menu only on DSixl or do I also need to install something on R4?
You can use it on BOTH Devices,but you do not need to install it on the Flashcard too.
2. Having everything you need, the games already have those extras loading them from R4 or do I have to run them from the Twilight Menu with access to the Flashcard?
TWiLight is in the meantime very fast on Loading like a Flashcard (maybe some Games still need "Time"...) and very,very,very many Games are working without Issues.
3. If I activate the option to load the games using the kernell of the flashcard, do they still have the extra overclocking and sound frequency or do they only work using nds bootstrap?
The "better" Sound Frequency is only available on the 2DS/3DS Devices if I remember correct.
Some Games - mostly Homebrew/Emulators uses the extra Speed/faster Clock.

P.D. My flashcard is a R4iSDHC

Maybe it is a good Idea to use TWiLight on your DSi XL and leave the Flashcard with its Kernel (R4/TT Menu or YSMenu) as "Backup" if some Game is not working correct.

Good Luck.
Thank you.

 

[Treeko]

So I just finished a playthrough of Soul Silver, after the credits instead of restarting the game it kicked me back to the 3DS main menu, starting up twilight menu again gives a white blank screen, twilight menu just doesn't boot.

 

[RocketRobz]

Hi, many thanks for this project. I'm using 18.2.1 on an (Old) 3DS with the latest luma3ds and was trying to combine it with an old Acekard 2i in what I believe to be a supported configuration, but I'm having some issues. I did the following installation:

• Installed TWiLight Menu on the 3DS's SDCard following the "Installing (3DS, Manual)" instructions: copied _nds / BOOT.NDS / roms and installed the two .cias with FBI.
• Installed TWiLight Menu on the Acekard 2i following the "Installing (Flashcard)" instructions: started with a fresh microSD, installed AKAIO 1.9.0, then copied both _nds / BOOT.NDS / roms and Afwd.dat / _afwd (from the Flashcart Loader/Acekard 2(i) folder) to the root of the Acekard's microSD. I ignored Autoboot for now as I was first trying to get everything to work.

At this point, TWiLight Menu booted from the 3DS's SD works fine, NDS roms boot using nds-bootloader. However, I get several issues when attempting to chain TWLMenu from the 3DS's SD Card with TWLMenu from the flashcard, which from the documentation looks like it should be a supported configuration for getting things like enhanced sound, clock speed and SD access while being able to use the (better compatibility) flashcard loader.

These two work fine:

• Booting the Acekard 2i from Slot 1 directly from the 3DS home menu, then executing TWLMenu from AKAIO works fine, including using the flashcard loader when "Use nds-bootstrap (B4DS)" is set to NO, but obviously no access to the 3DS's SDCard and can't change clock speed / sound sample rate.
• Booted TWLMenu from 3DS's SDCard, kept "SCFG access in Slot-1" to "OFF", booted Acekard from Slot 1: same results as above, as expected

However, things started to get weird:

• Booted TWLMenu from 3DS's SDCard, set "SCFG access in Slot-1" to "ON" and "S1SD: Use nds-bootstrap (B4DS)" to "NO" as detailed in the manual. Also kept "SD Access in Slot-1" to "OFF" at this time. Booting onto the Acekard and then TWLMenu from Slot 1 succeeds, but three unexpected things happen when running this chainloaded TWLMenu:
  • The TWLMenu splash screen, DS Classic Menu and settings all look fine, but the main menu has a graphic glitch at the bottom of both the the top and bottom screen, regardless of the theme (the last perhaps 10 lines of pixels at the bottom of each screen are mirroring exactly their 10 lines above).
  • Even though "SD Access in Slot-1" is still set to OFF, I *can* switch to the 3DS's SD card by doing SELECT + Down, which I wasn't expecting.
  • Booting a NDS rom from the Acekard's microSD from TWLMenu when chainloaded like this results in a black screen with "akmenu4.nds not found".
  • Also, booting a NDS rom from the 3DS's SD uses nds-bootstrap and proceeds to boot the ROM fine, I believe this is the expected behaviour since from what I read there's no support for booting roms on the 3DS SD Card with the Acekard loader.
• Booted TWLMenu from 3DS's SDCard, set "SD Access in Slot-1" to "ON", booted onto Slot 1+TWLMenu: same exact same behaviour as the above on all points.
• Booted TWLMenu from 3DS's SDCard, set "Slot-1 MicroSD access" to ON. Switching to the Acekard's microSD using SELECT + Down on the 3DS's TWLMenu now works. Goes directly to a white screen when I try to run a rom with set to "S1SD: Use nds-bootstrap" set to "No". With "S1SD: Use nds-bootstrap" set to "Yes", I see the debug messages onto a black screen when I have Debug turned on (ndsPath is pointing to "fat:/roms/nds/Name of the Rom.nds"), but then a white screen following it (no nds-bootstrap loading screen). Not sure if they're both expected behaviour for the Acekard.

Another thing I noticed is that on the DS Classic Menu in TWiLight Menu fairly often the top entry only says "slot1" with no icons, if I eject the card and put it back, then the proper Acekard logo and description show up, but regardless of what is displayed there, the behaviour is always consistent, so I assume that's an unrelated issue.

In summary:
TWLMenu is working fine on its own when booted via the 3DS SD Card, it's also working fine on its own when booted via Slot 1+AKAIO. Chainloading 3DS TWLMenu onto the Acekard TWLMenu also works fine with "SCFG access in Slot-1" to OFF, although this is pointless since you get none of the benefits, might as well just boot the Slot 1 card directly.

The trouble happens when I chainload 3DS SDCard TWLMenu -> Acekard TWLMenu with "SCFG access in Slot-1" to ON, there's a graphical glitch on the menu and I can no longer boot any rom via the Acekard loader ("akmenu4.nds not found"). nds-bootstrap still works fine. "SD Access in Slot-1" seems to have no effect, I always seem to have SD access in Slot 1 when SCFG access is on, regardless of this setting.

I'm also a bit unsure as to what expect of "Slot-1 MicroSD access" when running on the 3DS TWLMenu, neither nds-bootstrap nor the Acekard loader work for booting ROMs off the Acekard microSD from the 3DS TWLMenu work for me, but I believe my Acekard 2i is on an old bootloader (not the one with the horse icon), so that may be causing issues. I also have an even older Acekard 2.1 that I can do testing on, the graphic glitch + "akmenu4.nds not found" issue on chainloading happens there as well, but I haven't tested the other scenarios extensively with it.

Sorry for the long post, I spent a while trying to debug this and just wanted to figure out what is wrong with my configuration. Hopefully that is all clear.

• The graphical glitch is a TWL_FIRM bug that happens randomly.
• The "SCFG access in Slot-1" overrides the "SD access in Slot 1" option in TWLMenu++.
• The white screen issue with "S1SD: Use nds-bootstrap" set to "Yes" is expected, since arm7 cannot init the AK2i DLDI successfully for some reason.
  That's why it recommended to run TWLMenu++ from the flashcard instead, with autoboot set up as well.
  Why a ROM doesn't boot (via AKAIO) when launched by TWLMenu++, idk.
  
• The .nds not found error should be fixed by setting up autoboot. If that doesn't fix it, idk.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

So I just finished a playthrough of Soul Silver, after the credits instead of restarting the game it kicked me back to the 3DS main menu, starting up twilight menu again gives a white blank screen, twilight menu just doesn't boot.

Upload your "settings.ini" file from "sd:/_nds/TWiLightMenu/".

 

[Treeko]

• The graphical glitch is a TWL_FIRM bug that happens randomly.
• The "SCFG access in Slot-1" overrides the "SD access in Slot 1" option in TWLMenu++.
• The white screen issue with "S1SD: Use nds-bootstrap" set to "Yes" is expected, since arm7 cannot init the AK2i DLDI successfully for some reason.
  That's why it recommended to run TWLMenu++ from the flashcard instead, with autoboot set up as well.
  Why a ROM doesn't boot (via AKAIO) when launched by TWLMenu++, idk.
  
• The .nds not found error should be fixed by setting up autoboot. If that doesn't fix it, idk.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

Here

Upload your "settings.ini" file from "sd:/_nds/TWiLightMenu/".

 

[RocketRobz]

Here

Where?

 

[Treeko]

So I can't upload the ini file over here

Where?

Yeah I just tried uploading directly over here and its apparently not allowed to be uploaded here, any other way I can get it to you?

 

[RocketRobz]

So I can't upload the ini file over here

Yeah I just tried uploading directly over here and its apparently not allowed to be uploaded here, any other way I can get it to you?

Have you tried putting it in a .zip file?

 

[Treeko]

Have you tried putting it in a .zip file?

Here

 

[RocketRobz]

Here

I see this in the .ini file:

SLOT1_LAUNCHED = 1

For some reason, TWLMenu++ is trying to launch what's inserted into Slot-1, instead of the ROM you last launched. One other user got the same issue.
The next TWLMenu++ version will fix this. For now, hold A+B+X+Y after the white screens appear.

 

[WraithTDK]

I can't find the "Save FAT table cache" option

 

[RocketRobz]

I can't find the "Save FAT table cache" option

It's in the Games/Apps settings page.

 

[WraithTDK]

Couldn't find the "Save FAT table cache" option anywhere in the setting page; but it doesn't matter, I just got a 64GB card; it's enough for all the roms I want. More importantly though, I can't seem to get GBA games to run. I just get black screens. I'm thinking BIOS problem? I had a GBI bios on my computer that I've been using with Retroarch, so I dropped that in the root, as well as in the _gba folder that was auto-generated. Should it be somewhere else? Is there perhaps a different reason I'm getting black screens when loading a GBA title?

 

[RocketRobz]

Couldn't find the "Save FAT table cache" option anywhere in the setting page; but it doesn't matter, I just got a 64GB card; it's enough for all the roms I want. More importantly though, I can't seem to get GBA games to run. I just get black screens. I'm thinking BIOS problem? I had a GBI bios on my computer that I've been using with Retroarch, so I dropped that in the root, as well as in the _gba folder that was auto-generated. Should it be somewhere else? Is there perhaps a different reason I'm getting black screens when loading a GBA title?

Make sure BIOS intro is turned on in GBARunner2 settings.
This should be moved to the GBARunner2 thread though.

Also, what console are you using?

 

[WraithTDK]

Make sure BIOS intro is turned on in GBARunner2 settings.
This should be moved to the GBARunner2 thread though.

Also, what console are you using?

BIOS intro is on. I'm running DS Lite. Tried a couple more roms, Pokemon Emerald gives black screen, Ms. Packman loads fine but no audio. Very weird.

 

[RocketRobz]

I'm running DS Lite.

That explains why the FAT table cache option isn't shown.
It's only available on DSi and 3DS consoles, as with B4DS, the FAT table is never cached.

BIOS intro is on. Tried a couple more roms, Pokemon Emerald gives black screen, Ms. Packman loads fine but no audio. Very weird.

You need the ROM3M branch of GBARunner2 to run Pokemon Emerald.
The best alternative would be to buy a compatible Slot-2 flashcard listed in the first post, and play GBA ROMs natively in the console's GBA mode, which will also fix the audio issue in Ms. Pac-Man.

 

[Steven Lopez]

Hello Rob,

Thank you for this great software! I would like to make a feature suggestion.

As a fellow DSTwo owner, you have probably noticed how the flashcart has a feature where you can access an in-game menu allowing you to create/load save states, turn on/off cheats, view game guides, and reset the console to the "home" menu (in this case, the DSTwo home menu).

Would it be possible/reasonably doable to implement that same feature into Twilight++ for at least the purpose of creating/loading save states? I understand that Twilight is a front-end for nds-bootstrap, so this might not be a thing Twilight can be programmed to do.

 

[RocketRobz]

Hello Rob,

Thank you for this great software! I would like to make a feature suggestion.

As a fellow DSTwo owner, you have probably noticed how the flashcart has a feature where you can access an in-game menu allowing you to create/load save states, turn on/off cheats, view game guides, and reset the console to the "home" menu (in this case, the DSTwo home menu).

Would it be possible/reasonably doable to implement that same feature into Twilight++ for at least the purpose of creating/loading save states? I understand that Twilight is a front-end for nds-bootstrap, so this might not be a thing Twilight can be programmed to do.

I'm not sure if it's possible to implement to nds-bootstrap, and even if it is, idk how to implement it.

 

[MegaMarkLM]

Hi there! I have a question about the DSi mode (particularly in 3DS). I know that currently the DSi enhanced games do not run in DSi mode. I was just wondering what's the reason for that (if it's not too complicated to answer) and if it'll ever work in a future version.

(Sorry, I know this question might've been answered before but I didn't see anything regarding it in the FAQs and I wasn't about to look for it in the almost 650 pages of this thread.)

 

[RocketRobz]

Hi there! I have a question about the DSi mode (particularly in 3DS). I know that currently the DSi enhanced games do not run in DSi mode. I was just wondering what's the reason for that (if it's not too complicated to answer) and if it'll ever work in a future version.

(Sorry, I know this question might've been answered before but I didn't see anything regarding it in the FAQs and I wasn't about to look for it in the almost 650 pages of this thread.)

It currently doesn't work because of unpatched functions, and yes, it should work in the 100th version of nds-bootstrap.