Homebrew DS(i) Mode hacking progress thread

[Apache Thunder]

wait, what, where?

Look at my stage2 launcher thread:

http://gbatemp.net/threads/r4-stage2-twl-flashcart-launcher-and-perhaps-other-cards-soon™.416434/

 

[Ryuzaki_MrL]

run it via my stage 3 action replay launcher. Just replace the ar rom with your unbricker.

Looks like my card is done for, the updater always get stuck at "erasing device" until either I remove the card or power off x(
But the trick works, so it's a damn nice progress on DSi mode hacking!

 

[Apache Thunder]

Sad to see it go. But it does look like cards that are not as broken as yours can probably be saved with the same method. You were just unlucky.

 

[Nintendo4DSXL]

@Apache Thunder my M3 Crashes the HomeMenu but NitroHax doesnt crash so i need a Slot 1 reset before i launch the unbricker/Firmware Upgrade Tool

 

[Yokujin]

i dont understand how to get started :/

 

[undergroundmonorail]

i dont understand how to get started :/

On what?

If you want to help develop this stuff, that's out of my league and I have no idea how to point you in the right direction. Sorry.

If you're just a user, install the TwlBg patches (the easiest way to do this is to be running Luma3DS and boot your 3DS while holding Select, then enabling the bottom option). If you want to use Nitrohax or the NTR Launcher, you're done. If you want to load NDS roms off the SD card and play those, people are working on that and there's nothing to do but wait.

 

[Apache Thunder]

@Apache Thunder my M3 Crashes the HomeMenu but NitroHax doesnt crash so i need a Slot 1 reset before i launch the unbricker/Firmware Upgrade Tool

Use my Action Replay Stage 3 launcher (simply replace the rom to be used on 3DS SD with the unbricker. Note you must use the original file name the bootstrap expects else you want to hex edit the path in the SRL and rebuild the CIA).

That launcher resets card before booting the rom, so if you use that to boot your unbricker, it should reset the card for you it does this while in NTR mode so you won't have to worry about home menu crash. Just insert the card shortly after you hit the icon for action replay. Wait till screen resets. I believe my bootstrap will detect ejected cart and wait for you to insert cart so you won't have to get the timing right or anything. But I could be wrong. I forgot how i handled cart ejected situation in the code.

 

[Yokujin]

On what?

If you want to help develop this stuff, that's out of my league and I have no idea how to point you in the right direction. Sorry.

If you're just a user, install the TwlBg patches (the easiest way to do this is to be running Luma3DS and boot your 3DS while holding Select, then enabling the bottom option). If you want to use Nitrohax or the NTR Launcher, you're done. If you want to load NDS roms off the SD card and play those, people are working on that and there's nothing to do but wait.

playing nds games on my 3ds generally

 

[undergroundmonorail]

@Apache Thunder Out of curiosity, do you know why the card init code only works if the slot was empty when the software started? That's really odd to me. I can't think of a reason why anything would be in a different state depending on whether there was a card or not when NTR software launched. Sorry about the stupid questions, I think I know this stuff well enough to understand explanations people give me but not well enough to know how to do my own research about it

playing nds games on my 3ds generally

What do you mean by "generally"?

Real cartridge: Congratulations, this can already be done!
Flashcart: Doable, but depending on which cart it might be a pain to set up
.nds file on the sd card: on its way bud

 

[Yokujin]

@Apache Thunder Out of curiosity, do you know why the card init code only works if the slot was empty when the software started? That's really odd to me. I can't think of a reason why anything would be in a different state depending on whether there was a card or not when NTR software launched. Sorry about the stupid questions, I think I know this stuff well enough to understand explanations people give me but not well enough to know how to do my own research about it



What do you mean by "generally"?

Real cartridge: Congratulations, this can already be done!
Flashcart: Doable, but depending on which cart it might be a pain to set up
.nds file on the sd card: on its way bud

never could get my r4i cart to work and @Apache Thunder never helped me getting my cart to work with his stage 2 launcher

 

[AntnioMoura]

@Apache Thunder If i am right....You once said that you made Mario Kart DS demo run from the SD right? So I gotta some kind of idea around it... Did any more demo worked( like, with different size). So it may be possible to make the 3DS(or the DS mode) think that is playing MK DS but is running another game no? Like a patch.

 

[astronautlevel]

@Apache Thunder If i am right....You once said that you made Mario Kart DS demo run from the SD right? So I gotta some kind of idea around it... Did any more demo worked( like, with different size). So it may be possible to make the 3DS(or the DS mode) think that is playing MK DS but is running another game no? Like a patch.

The Demos were probably made to run entirely out of RAM, whereas real games have slot-1 reads programmed into the code itself, so that wouldn't work, unfortunately

 

[AntnioMoura]

I think is worth of trying... well i have no idea how to progamming or something. But is a concept that could maybe be tried.

 

[Apache Thunder]

@Apache Thunder If i am right....You once said that you made Mario Kart DS demo run from the SD right? So I gotta some kind of idea around it... Did any more demo worked( like, with different size). So it may be possible to make the 3DS(or the DS mode) think that is playing MK DS but is running another game no? Like a patch.

All the demos currently work if you launch them from NTR mode hbmenu. TWL mode hbmenu will soon be available that allows mode switching. But for now you either have to install them as CIAs or run them from NTR mode hbmenu (which requires dev launcher patch)

The demos work because they store all their assets in their arm7/arm9 binaries and do not use overlays or NitroFS. So there's no slot-1 calls to worry about.

 

[undergroundmonorail]

I think is worth of trying... well i have no idea how to progamming or something. But is a concept that could maybe be tried.

The reason it's difficult to run roms off the SD card is that whenever the game tries to load data, it's hardcoded to look for data from slot 1. It says "alright, let's get some of that good data from the slo... there's no card in the slot! aaaa! aaaaaaaaaa!!" and breaks. If we're going to run them off the SD card, we need to figure out how to make games look there instead.

The MK demo (and other demos) sidestep this issue by never looking at the slot at all. The run by being loaded entirely into RAM, and then when it wants data it needs only to look at the RAM. If it tried to load data from slot 1, like other games do, then it too would break.

It works because the hard thing doesn't have to happen. It still has to happen for any cartridge game.

 

[AntnioMoura]

Oh now i understand... I wish i could help more but unfortunatily i can't.

 

[Dotmore]

Is playing DS games without a flashcard possible yet?

 

[astronautlevel]

Is playing DS games without a flashcard possible yet?

No. Try reading any of the posts above yours first in the future.

 

[Swiftloke]

Yeah, basically what @undergroundmonorail said.
DS games have hardcoded reads to slot-1 whenever it loads its assets. Technically, you can convert a DS game to a CIA. This is what will happen:
-Load the code from the CIA.
-The code says to get its assets (things like graphics) from slot-1.
-There's nothing in slot-1. The code reacts like this:

(It crashes)
However, in our new expanded NTR mode we have DSi hardware access without breaking DS mode games. (TWL mode would normally break a DS game if you forced it to launch from it) All that's left for DS games off SD card is for devs to write an app that runs in a separate thread on the DSi mode hardware (while the game, of course, runs on the DS mode hardware) and patch out calls to slot-1 to the SD card. Obviously, this won't be easy at all, but it's doable.
I hope this answered any questions you had, @AntnioMoura

 

[RocketRobz]

@Apache Thunder If i am right....You once said that you made Mario Kart DS demo run from the SD right? So I gotta some kind of idea around it... Did any more demo worked( like, with different size). So it may be possible to make the 3DS(or the DS mode) think that is playing MK DS but is running another game no? Like a patch.

The demos are actually installed to TWLNAND.