Table of Contents:

Introductory Chapters:

1. Preparing the environment
2. Variables!
3. Functions!
4. Operators in C
5. Conditions - if/else Statements and switches
6. Looping - for() and while() Loops
7. Containers of Variables - Arrays and Structures

Introduction to DS Hardware:

1. RAM and VRAM
2. OAM and 2D Sprites

Practical use of libnds:

1. Input: Keys and the Touchscreen

Practical Use of NightFox Lib:

1. NightFox Lib Integration
2. 2D MODE-0 Part 1 - Tiled Backgrounds
3. 2D MODE-0 Part 2 - Tiled Sprites

Excercises:

1. Your first program!
2. MODE-0 Tiled Backgrounds Example
3. MODE-0 Tiled Sprites Example
4. Our very first game: Tic Tac Toe!

Additional Utilities:

1. GRIT

PDF Version maintained by CannonFoddr available on FileTrip HERE!

PDF Version maintained by Pomegrenade GBAtemp Mirror HERE!

Preface

Hello and welcome! If you are reading this then it’s likely that you’re interested in getting to know more about programming for the Nintendo DS! If you are not, then you likely took the wrong turn, but let’s not get into that. Let’s also start with establishing one important thing – as the title suggests, this is a “From Zero to Hero” guide. If you are an experienced programmer then it is likely that you will not benefit from it much, if at all. It is going to introduce the very basics to users who have never even seen a compiler before and never coded in their life – stuff that you probably already know and aren’t interested in anymore. You are however still welcome as this is my first tutorial and will likely require a certain degree of proof-reading, plus, you may of course have useful suggestions! Keep in mind the target audience though, I’m doing my best not to introduce complicated concepts early on. If you’re not an experienced programmer or never programmed at all, this is a great place to start!

I’ve seen many guides approaching this subject – some were more helpful, some were rather vague, but there is one thing that was common in all of them, and it became apparent to me that something has to be done about it. The guides I’ve seen so-far are dedicated to users who are familiar with programming and only require an introduction to the DS environment, none of them are actually “tutorials” from the ground up. Does this mean that a non-experienced user simply cannot program for the DS or should not begin his adventure with programming on this exact platform? No, it does not! In fact, the DS is likely the easiest platform to program for when it comes to consoles – libnds is really not that hard to wrap your mind around and there are numerous libraries out there that facilitate programming for it even further. You probably want to ask: “If it’s so easy, why do You think it requires some sort of an explanation? The libraries are well-documented, do you expect the readers to be dill-wits who can’t follow simple examples?” and the answer to that is “No, in fact, I do believe that everybody is capable of programming, however one has to learn and acquire some basic programming habits and have some practice in C to be successful at it” and this is exactly the main goal of this tutorial. Depending on the interest shown by users and my workload at Uni this may or may not be a full-featured guide, however I promise that I will at least try to keep it up-to-date and expand upon it from time to time.

Now that the purpose is established, let’s move on to the juicy parts! I hope you will enjoy learning together and in case of any questions or suggestions, do write! Dear readers, keep in mind that the first few tutorials will be an incredibly rapid course in C, applicable to any type of programming, not just for the DS! We won’t be compiling much until this material is covered and thoroughly understood! So… Let’s get it on!

 

[IC_]

Hello! I've being trying to make a Hello World program with an FPS counter built in just for fun, but I have this problem when compiling the program:

"expected primary-expression before '.' token" (see attached file)

The RTC seconds are stored into the "seconds" variable situated into the "RTCtime" struct (system.h library).

Do you have any fixes for this? Thanks in advance!

I'm not exactly sure how these libraries work but don't you need to create your own struct object with that type first?

 

[safendrd]

I'm not exactly sure how these libraries work but don't you need to create your own struct object with that type first?

The struct object is inside the system.h file, trying to declare it gives me an "already declared inside file system.h"-sort of error.

 

[IC_]

The struct object is inside the system.h file, trying to declare it gives me an "already declared inside file system.h"-sort of error.

Even if you use a name different from the struct name?

 

[safendrd]

Even if you use a name different from the struct name?

Yes, I tried using it as a normal variable too

 

[Foxi4]

Yes, I tried using it as a normal variable too

I suggest using time.h instead and getting seconds as such:

secs = timeStruct->tm_sec;

Relevant libnds example:
https://github.com/devkitPro/nds-examples/blob/master/time/RealTimeClock/source/main.c

You may be able to use the built-in RTC function in the same way, but at this stage I have no idea what does or doesn't work as expected in libnds, so I tend to go by what libnds creators themselves suggest.

Structure reference:
http://www.cplusplus.com/reference/ctime/tm/

I'm not at my PC right now so I can't compile on my end, but when in doubt, standardised functions come to the rescue.

EDIT: Did this resolve your issue @Dani24f, or should I start up my PC and look at your source? I'm back at my workstation if you need a hand.

 

[safendrd]

I suggest using time.h instead and getting seconds as such:

secs = timeStruct->tm_sec;

Relevant libnds example:
https://github.com/devkitPro/nds-examples/blob/master/time/RealTimeClock/source/main.c

You may be able to use the built-in RTC function in the same way, but at this stage I have no idea what does or doesn't work as expected in libnds, so I tend to go by what libnds creators themselves suggest.

Structure reference:
http://www.cplusplus.com/reference/ctime/tm/

I'm not at my PC right now so I can't compile on my end, but when in doubt, standardised functions come to the rescue.

EDIT: Did this resolve your issue @Dani24f, or should I start up my PC and look at your source? I'm back at my workstation if you need a hand.

Hi, I tried using time.h as you said, but I get a "'timeStruct' was not declared in this scope" error.

Here's my code, so you check it out (thanks for helping me btw!):

#include <nds.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <time.h>

u8 secs=0;
float fps=0;


int main(){
    consoleDemoInit();
    while(1){
        printf("Initializing..."); /*This displays while waiting for the first second to pass*/
        fps = fps + 1; /*This increases the fps counter every frame*/
        secs = timeStruct->tm_sec; /*This gives a "timeStruct' was not declared in this scope" error when compiling*/
        if (( timeStruct->tm_sec - secs ) == 1 ) { /*If a second is passed*/
            iprintf("\rHello world by Dani24f! FPS: %.2f ", fps);
            fps = 0; /*Resets the fps variable and waits for another second to display the current fps*/
            if ( secs == 58 ) { secs = 0; } /*This prevents any error in the subtraction tm_sec - secs*/
        }
        swiWaitForVBlank();  
    }
}

 

[Foxi4]

Hi, I tried using time.h as you said, but I get a "'timeStruct' was not declared in this scope" error.

Here's my code, so you check it out (thanks for helping me btw!):

#include <nds.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <time.h>

u8 secs=0;
float fps=0;


int main(){
    consoleDemoInit();
    while(1){
        printf("Initializing..."); /*This displays while waiting for the first second to pass*/
        fps = fps + 1; /*This increases the fps counter every frame*/
        secs = timeStruct->tm_sec; /*This gives a "timeStruct' was not declared in this scope" error when compiling*/
        if (( timeStruct->tm_sec - secs ) == 1 ) { /*If a second is passed*/
            iprintf("\rHello world by Dani24f! FPS: %.2f ", fps);
            fps = 0; /*Resets the fps variable and waits for another second to display the current fps*/
            if ( secs == 58 ) { secs = 0; } /*This prevents any error in the subtraction tm_sec - secs*/
        }
        swiWaitForVBlank();
    }
}

You need a timeStruct first.

time_t unixTime = time(NULL);
struct tm* timeStruct = gmtime((const time_t *)&unixTime);

This will create a time structure "tm" in UTC format. Admittedly a bit overcomplicated, this would be used for something like a clock, so I'll see if it can done in a simpler way (it can be). Honestly, you should be able to get framerate by comparing CPU ticks vs. screen refreshes with acceptable accuracy.

 

[KonPet]

Thanks for this awesome guide! I wanted to start making NDS homebrew a while back, but I just didn't know where to look for a guide or sth like that, but about 2 months ago, PolyMars led me here. Nice work!

 

[KonPet]

I have a question: As you may know, updating too many sprites while also having the DS calculate a lot can lead to sprites not getting properly deleted and staying on the screen even in the same position even after moving or even deleting. They don't do anything there, they just don't do anything. I had that problem when I made a game where you had to dodge falling meteors and the only way around that issue was deleting those sprites after they were off screen so you couldn't see the artifacts. Do you know how to fix this?

 

[Foxi4]

I have a question: As you may know, updating too many sprites while also having the DS calculate a lot can lead to sprites not getting properly deleted and staying on the screen even in the same position even after moving or even deleting. They don't do anything there, they just don't do anything. I had that problem when I made a game where you had to dodge falling meteors and the only way around that issue was deleting those sprites after they were off screen so you couldn't see the artifacts. Do you know how to fix this?

This shouldn't be the case, once you refresh the screen they should be gone. Can you provide a snippet?

 

[KonPet]

This shouldn't be the case, once you refresh the screen they should be gone. Can you provide a snippet?

I'm not sure what you mean, but if you mean what my update looks like, here it is:

NF_SpriteOamSet(0);
NF_ResetSpriteBuffers();
swiWaitForVBlank();
oamUpdate(&oamMain);

I may have misunderstood the question though

 

[Foxi4]

I'm not sure what you mean, but if you mean what my update looks like, here it is:

NF_SpriteOamSet(0);
NF_ResetSpriteBuffers();
swiWaitForVBlank();
oamUpdate(&oamMain);

I may have misunderstood the question though

The maximum number of sprites the DS can handle is pre-set - if they stay on the screen after being destroyed/deleted one of a couple of things might be happening - you've created more than the maximum number allowed (NFLib should stop you from doing that, so it's unlikely), you've overflown some kind of buffer or the DS is unable to properly refresh for some reason. It shouldn't display anything that's not actively loaded and within the bounds of the screen, so there's an error somewhere along the line. Your screen update routine is correct, but I would review everything else as this should not be happening.

A good way to test this is to create a test environment. Isolate all the code relating to sprite generation, set one button to create a new sprite and one to destroy the last one you've made, and keep creating them until the error triggers - that will help you narrow things down.

 

[KonPet]

I'll do that, thanks!

 

[Foxi4]

You will also see graphical glitches like this if you send more data into the screen buffer than the screen can handle, but normally NFLib handles that automatically as long as you refresh it at the end of the loop, if there are any errors in this regard it should dump them into the console, which you should be able to pull up.

 

[Arrie]

This link doesn't work anymore and it's also not in the wayback machine's web archive.

pern . drunkencoders . com /download-wiz

 

[Foxi4]

This link doesn't work anymore and it's also not in the wayback machine's web archive.

pern drunkencoders com download-wiz

The wizard is not necessary, you can compile with just the devkit.

 

[Arrie]

Oh, thanks for the quick reply! Also, I was wondering, is this still the most up-to-date tutorial? Since it's from 2012..

 

[Foxi4]

Oh, thanks for the quick reply! Also, I was wondering, is this still the most up-to-date tutorial? Since it's from 2012..

Well, nothing concerning DS development is really up-to-date since the platform was phased out, but the guide was written at the tail end of the life cycle, not to mention that the coding concepts are applicable regardless of the platform - C is C. Just keep in mind that many links might be dead and I have no backups of the software, so you may have to get creative sometimes. The forum has migrated since this was posted as well and I did my best to clean up the code since, but some fragments may be poorly formatted. Still, if you read thoroughly, you'll figure it out.

 

[Sammy6]

I'm very new to libnds and I'm not sure how to compile my code with programmer's notepad

 

[Foxi4]

I'm very new to libnds and I'm not sure how to compile my code with programmer's notepad

You should be able to find a template inside the devkitPro folder - save your code as the main file and then go to Tools - - > Make in PN. There are various templates available depending on what hardware you need to use, but if you're a newbie, you can just grab the Hello World example and start from there.