Homebrew GBA on DSi?

[Diablo1123]

From what I've heard, the DS reads faster from the slot 2 then slot 1.
If you played GBA games with a flashcart, you'll notice that it'll have a short loading before launching the game when it loads it into the RAM
Unlike DS games.

 

[YueFairchild]

Ah. Thank you!

I asked 'cause I recall reading somewhere that a special edition Kingdom Hearts DSi was coming out in Japan that came with the DS game and a ROM of Chain of Memories. I thought...Yeah. Sorry!

 

[MyauChanDesu]

I've read somewhere that there are rumors that there will be be a GBA capable DSi bundled with a Japanese Kingdom Hearts game

 

[DanTheManMS]

From what I've heard, the DS reads faster from the slot 2 then slot 1.
If you played GBA games with a flashcart, you'll notice that it'll have a short loading before launching the game when it loads it into the RAM
Unlike DS games.

That's... kind of the exact opposite of what happens. There are no loading times on the GBA. Code is executed directly from the cartridge itself without being copied into RAM first. This is why the GBA has so little RAM - only 256 KBytes. The DS on the other hand loads chunks of the game into RAM before executing it, made possible by the fact that it has 4 MBytes of RAM. Because the slot-1 cartridge is not directly accessible like slot-2 is, you can't execute programs directly from a DS cartridge.

The "loading time" you're referring to is actually the rom being copied into fast RAM before launch. Because code is executed directly from a GBA cartridge, the game expects lightning-fast response times from the cartridge. SD/miniSD/microSD and CF media are much too slow to handle these response times, and so something faster is needed. In the past, NOR flash was used, which was very slow to write to but very quick to read from. Later however, devices started using RAM instead as a substitute for NOR flash due to the decreased cost and increased convenience. The EZ-Flash 3, 4, and 3in1 (among others) combine both of these methods.

QUOTE(Slyde1052 @ Oct 22 2008, 06:18 PM) I'm sorry to ask, as I'm sure it has before, but is there a way to "trick" the DS into going into the GBA mode after loading a GBA rom from a slot 1 device?

Once you enter GBA mode, all the DS-specific features are disabled, including access to slot-1. Thus, there's no place to store the GBA rom at all. Even if you could access slot-1, you couldn't use it since you can't address it directly like GBA games must do. The DS RAM is no longer an option, and the GBA's RAM is too small for anything except special multiboot files (and even that RAM gets cleared when the GBA BIOS launches so that's a moot point).

 

[Hadrian]

The Kingdom Hearts bundle if true could by handled by two ways:

1. The ROM of Chain of Memories will already be in the DSi memory, and it will use GBA hardware inside.
2. No GBA hardware that helps run these ROMS? A simple DS port could be done and that could too be already installed in the memory or on a cart.

Anyway I don't think any of these is true as the PS2 port of Chain of Memories is coming out and Square Enix would probably want people to buy that game instead of giving away a GBA version. Most likely is that there is a KH DSi bundle but it only includes the new DS game.

 

[gizmo_gal]

I dont know anything, but I doubt it. I feel like the GBA will be faded out just like GBC games were. Its the way of commercial media, but I will always keep a GBAsp around because I loved it too much--and all the games that goes on it

 

[xcalibur]

Even if the extra ram made it possible, the DS processor is still too weak.
You need a processor several times faster than what you're emulating and I don't think tha the DS is up to that.

 

[playallday]

My guess is that they will sell them like they do on the Wii. I also think that there may be a hardware mod that lets you play the real games (not the downloaded ones).

 

[Deleted User]

http://www.qj.net/Rumor-DSi-Kingdom-Hearts...g/49/aid/124796

There's the DSi GBA Thingy. Who knows

If it's true I'm getting one. The main reason I prefer the Lite over the DSi overall is because of the GBA compatibility.

 

[Jasonage]

Thankyou for crushing our dreams Narin. xD

Anyways, what might happen is Nintendo may put popular GBA games up for download, but port them instead so they work just like a DS game. I don't know if it would eb possible, it just seems like the sensible thing to do.

 

[Hop2089]

My goodness and I just got my DSi but I don't have many GBA games and the fact that a slot-2 device may not work on it makes me want to keep the one I already own.

 

[Pazuzu]

http://www.qj.net/Rumor-DSi-Kingdom-Hearts...g/49/aid/124796

There's the DSi GBA Thingy. Who knows

It's a fake. Machine translation into Japanese, I'm guessing, because it's really poor. They didn't even get the Chain of Memories title right.

 

[cutterjohn]

Well, if N$ wants even more $$$ from people beyond buying new hardware it's likely that they added support to directly emulate the GBA as they must have made some fairly major firmware changes just to support the hardware deletions and additions of the DSi. i.e. it's pointless to directly compare DS capabilities to DSi capabilities, and I still think that even on the DS it should be possible to "emulate" the GBA from DS mode. After all the CPU is mostly binary compatible, meaning that only a HAL layer would be needed to hide the actual hw difference between the two machines.

The problem on the DS is that this is still not a trivial task, and there was no real way of making money off of it, and I am HIGHLY inclined to believe that the DSi has some sort of builtin GBA emulation mode similar to what is described above as N$ can do it at a much lower level (base console fw) than would be easily doable on a DS. (I'd imagine that someone could probably do a custom DS firmware with the GBA emulation builtin by sacrificing additional language support maybe, especially if they ejected Japanese support as western languages would get you much, but this still would predicate them having written an actual "emulator" for GBA which gets us back to non-trivial and not monetizeable in reality, while N$ doing so in the DSi would just be smart and pretty cheap(virtually free) for them as they have full specs of their own hardware, but it ALL DEPENDS upon whether or not they plan to sell GBA ROMs through their online store. Hell for that matter they could likely have even come up with the best ever SNES, Genesis, GB, & GBC emulators as well, but we'll have to wait and see, but I can't see them just selling junky little DS games as we already get those on carts in uncountable numbers.)

The DSi should need no GBA hardware to emulate a GBA, as one of the reasons more powerful CPUs are required to emulate other machines is BECAUSE they are NOT binary COMPATIBLE, so software emulation of another CPU HAS to be done which is USUALLY CPU INTENSIVE, while in this case the ARM7 and ARM9 are MOSTLY binary COMPATIBLE eliminating a major chunk of emulation requirements. Add to this IIRC the DS GPU implements the GBA gfx functionality already meaning no crazy GPU mappings really need to be done. Not sure at all about sound, but even if they have to emulate there should be plenty of processing power available to handle it. It's all just a matter of setting up the DSi into the proper state to run GBA code which as I mention above N$ should fairly easily be able to accomplish, but it all depends upon whether or not they plan to sell GBA games as downloads.

[EDIT]
Actually according to a paper that I just googled up the ARM9 has a mode that allows COMPLETE compatibility with earlier ARM CPU variants including the ARM7, although it states further that processor efficiency is degraded.
[/EDIT]

@Hop2089
Slot-2 is NOT going to work, NOT "may not work" as the DSi has NO slot-2 at ALL...

 

[beefymeatloaf420]

I just don't think you'll be able to do GBA on the DSi unless they sell them from the Shop.

 

[Taza]

Even if the extra ram made it possible, the DS processor is still too weak.
You need a processor several times faster than what you're emulating and I don't think tha the DS is up to that.

To repeat: This is plain wrong, and Xcalibur is just repeating something he heard without understanding it.

cutterjohn already explained most of the points exactly why that is the case.

 

[psycoblaster]

Even if the extra ram made it possible, the DS processor is still too weak.
You need a processor several times faster than what you're emulating and I don't think tha the DS is up to that.

To repeat: This is plain wrong, and Xcalibur is just repeating something he heard without understanding it.

cutterjohn already explained most of the points exactly why that is the case.

No, you are not understanding Xcalibur.
More RAM doesn't make a difference.
The RAM is only a memory storage that stores data.
Having a storage for memory has NOTHING to do with a emulating a GBA's CPU.

 

[Knarf]

I heard somewhere their going to release 2 versions of the DSi in the US. 1 without GBA slot, and one with it. Now I can't find the source so I could have just drempt it

 

[Taza]

Even if the extra ram made it possible, the DS processor is still too weak.
You need a processor several times faster than what you're emulating and I don't think tha the DS is up to that.

To repeat: This is plain wrong, and Xcalibur is just repeating something he heard without understanding it.

cutterjohn already explained most of the points exactly why that is the case.

No, you are not understanding Xcalibur.
More RAM doesn't make a difference.
The RAM is only a memory storage that stores data.
Having a storage for memory has NOTHING to do with a emulating a GBA's CPU.

And yet someone who a) can't read and b) doesn't have a clue what he is talking about.

First of all, more RAM does help in emulating a CPU... though with 10mb that is irrelevant.
More importantly, it doesn't take the DSi much anything in power to emulate a GBA's CPU, in fact the CPU itself knows how to do that.

 

[Kkolko]

Hasn't nintendo already told us there would be GBA games on DSIware? Ergo, the DSI can play GBA games.

 

[Everdred]

So how big of difference is there in emulating super nes games compared to gameboy advance games? I've downloaded and used a fully functional snes emulator for all nintendo ds's. It does have it's faults, but the creator is constantly upgrading it. Only downside is that some games will never be playable simply because of hardware found only in certain cartriges.