Homebrew DSi SNES compatability?

[lord0fshred]

I was wondering with the DSi having more horsepower if it would fix some compatibility issues with some SNES games like Star Fox, Levels 2+ in Axelay, Street Fighter alpha 1 and 2, and Donkey Kong Country.

Anyone test these games yet?

 

[BoxShot]

Well no one can test that since we haven't hacked the dsi features.

 

[Dookieman]

Right now, the cards available only work with the same limitations that the original DS has. So using SNES emu doesn't do anything extra.

 

[lord0fshred]

thanks Dookieman. ^__^

 

[SonicMC]

Right now, the cards available only work with the same limitations that the original DS has. So using SNES emu doesn't do anything extra.

Actually we have a slight further limitation with the DSI pending on snes emulator used. Let me explain... I believe some snes emulators for DS allow use of a gba slot-2 for additional memory on that emulator. When we use it on the DSI we have no slot 2 gba port. This means in essence that we could be worse off using the dsi on some snes emulators.

Correct me if I'm wrong

 

[Spartan A24]

Right now, the cards available only work with the same limitations that the original DS has. So using SNES emu doesn't do anything extra.

Actually we have a slight further limitation with the DSI pending on snes emulator used. Let me explain... I believe some snes emulators for DS allow use of a gba slot-2 for additional memory on that emulator. When we use it on the DSI we have no slot 2 gba port. This means in essence that we could be worse off using the dsi on some snes emulators.

Correct me if I'm wrong

That is correct for the time being, but once we get access to all of the DSi features, the DSi will (most likely) run emulators much better.

 

[Dookieman]

You are wrong. As far as I know SNES does not use Slot-2 devices. Extra memory would be helpful with allowing larger roms to be played, but other than that, there isn't much benefit. The problem that is holding back the progress of SNES is the lack of updates to the emulator. SNES emulation on the DS has already surpassed other console versions such as the Dreamcast in terms of speed (not compatibility and accuracy), which is a feat in and of itself. Compatibility could be increased if more debugging and secondary chips were coded into the emulator. Pretty much the only thing hold back higher compatibility is the time it would take to improve the code.

 

[wolfmanz51]

You are wrong. As far as I know SNES does not use Slot-2 devices. Extra memory would be helpful with allowing larger roms to be played, but other than that, there isn't much benefit. The problem that is holding back the progress of SNES is the lack of updates to the emulator. SNES emulation on the DS has already surpassed other console versions such as the Dreamcast in terms of speed (not compatibility and accuracy), which is a feat in and of itself. Compatibility could be increased if more debugging and secondary chips were coded into the emulator. Pretty much the only thing hold back higher compatibility is the time it would take to improve the code.

"You are wrong. As far as I know" really well if it only as far as you know how can you be sure he is wrong. which by the way he is right snemulds uses the extra ram to improve emulation and compatibility.

 

[Sarvesh50]

dsi has more main ram so it will be better for homebrew developemnt the ds has 4 mb ram not really much

 

[DanTheManMS]

You are wrong. As far as I know SNES does not use Slot-2 devices. Extra memory would be helpful with allowing larger roms to be played, but other than that, there isn't much benefit.

Which is exactly what SNEmulDS does use slot-2 RAM to do. It loads the game into slot-2 RAM so that it doesn't have to keep shuffling portions of the game in and out of the DS's own 4 MB of RAM, and like you said this is only a benefit with larger SNES games. Please check your facts before calling someone a liar.

I do agree with the rest of your post, however.

 

[Sarvesh50]

lol it sound very simple more ram more options

 

[Dookieman]

You are wrong. As far as I know SNES does not use Slot-2 devices. Extra memory would be helpful with allowing larger roms to be played, but other than that, there isn't much benefit.

Which is exactly what SNEmulDS does use slot-2 RAM to do. It loads the game into slot-2 RAM so that it doesn't have to keep shuffling portions of the game in and out of the DS's own 4 MB of RAM, and like you said this is only a benefit with larger SNES games. Please check your facts before calling someone a liar.

I do agree with the rest of your post, however.

I have never heard of SNEmulDS using the Slot-2 for extra ram. Seems like it wouldn't really help a lot if the emu can shuffle the game in and out without it being noticeable. My apologizes if I am wrong, I will investigate further.

 

[koji2009]

The thing is, it can't swap back and forth unnoticably. The DS slot has slower random access times than an original SNES cart. Without the extra ram, SNEmulDS literally freezes the game while that data is loaded. Otherwise the game would crash as it expects that data pretty much instantly and if it's not there, it goes into a tizzy.

 

[DanTheManMS]

Pretty much, yeah. However, the freezes are much less noticeable in the later versions of SNEmulDS.

 

[helmon1]

SNEmulDS was been a bit of a disappointment for me thus far. I've found out that the one game I really want to play (Super Mario RPG - Legend of the Seven Stars) requires a special GFX chip that was included in the original cartridge but obviously not available on the DS/DSi, thus renders it unplayable (can be played on PC though), which is not a fault of the emulator itself. However, I found the only other games I really wanted to play like Super Metroid, Chrono Trigger, and Donkey Kong Country doesn't work properly on it. The only other game I've tried was Super Mario World and that works okay although there's some graphics overlay problem on the world maps on that too.

Are there any other SNES games anyone would recommend that actually works 100%?

 

[eSquire]

http://wiki.pocketheaven.com/SNEmulDS_Compatibility_List

 

[DanTheManMS]

However, I found the only other games I really wanted to play like Super Metroid, Chrono Trigger, and Donkey Kong Country doesn't work properly on it.

Uh, all of them boot fine. Chrono Trigger has some severe graphical glitches, I'll give you that, but Super Metroid and the entire DKC series are entirely playable in the latest version. Yeah you might have to turn off the automatic layering and manually choose the layers for certain levels, but it's only a minor annoyance.

 

[helmon1]

Uh, all of them boot fine. Chrono Trigger has some severe graphical glitches, I'll give you that, but Super Metroid and the entire DKC series are entirely playable in the latest version. Yeah you might have to turn off the automatic layering and manually choose the layers for certain levels, but it's only a minor annoyance.

I think I'm pretty picky when it comes to presentation. I've only tried Donkey Kong Country but there's some glitches even before the main menu comes up so that put me off already (I think it was Grandpa Kong floating in the air as he's winding the gramaphone), in addition the first level of the game has a massive green band across the middle of the screen. Granted I've not got the latest update so maybe these things have been fixed. Can't remember what was wrong with Super Metroid, but it was definitely graphical. And as for Chrono Trigger, it was the sound that was broken. The music became static like noise.

Basically my string of attempts have not been great. Maybe my expectation was too high after playing emulated games on the PC for too long.

 

[DanTheManMS]

Well yeah, the DS is not a PC. SNEmulDS uses hardware-based rendering, meaning that it sacrifices graphical accuracy for the sake of getting fullspeed. Fully accurate graphics would be possible but at a greatly reduced framerate. You're not going to get 100% perfect emulation, so if that's what you're expecting then you're out of luck.

In v0.6 Alpha, the opening intro animation seems to work decent. The green bar can be removed by going into Advanced - GFX config - turn off Block Priority. I generally leave this option on, but in this case you'll want to turn it off. Also note that this is only for the jungle levels like the first level and second-to-last.

The thing with SNEmulDS is that you sometimes have to tinker with the options to get things working better. Again, it's something you'll have to accept if you want to play these games on your DS.

The Super Metroid glitch you're probably talking about is the fact that when the screen scrolls, the backgrounds lag. I believe this can be fixed by changing the Vblank setting ("speed" setting in v0.6 Alpha) and messing with the speedhacks to get back up to fullspeed.

 

[Findecanno]

do any of the old fire emblems work on this?