GimliDS

[chicobalay]

Hi Dave! I'm having trouble running GimliDS and SugarDS on my DS Pico cartridge. Both hang at boot, I'm guessing because they can't access the SD card. If I load Twilight Menu++ from the DS Pico launcher I can load both of them fine.I don't have this problem with any other app, other emulators run fine.

Anyway congratulations for your great work!!

 

[djleviticus]

Hi there. Speccy and Gimli run no problem on my DS Pico without twilight menu. Very strange. How are the folders placed on the sd card?

Post automatically merged: Apr 3, 2026

This is how my sd card is layed out

 

[chicobalay]

Hi there. Speccy and Gimli run no problem on my DS Pico without twilight menu. Very strange. How are the folders placed on the sd card?

Post automatically merged: Apr 3, 2026

This is how my sd card is layed out

I usually place all my emulators on /_pico/emulators/, but I also tried to run them from the root folder and /Emulators/

I have the same problem with StellaDS. ColecoDS, SpeccyDS and nesDS.

ZXDS, GbaRunner2m GBArunner3, SNESemulDS and GameYob run Ok.

Stock DSI XL, DS Pico with WRFUXXED - AutoNTR 1.2.2 firmware and 1.3.0 files from Ansem.

Post automatically merged: Apr 4, 2026

I solved the problem by changing to the Hybrid Firmware.

 

[djleviticus]

Perfect that's what I'm running

 

[vanzan]

Please note that if you are running from an R4 card (or similar), youwill be running in 'Compatibility' mode that keeps the CPU at the slower 67MHz. While GimliDS will run, it must use some levelof light frameskip to get full speed gameplay.

How does the above work if I'm running GimliDS from a DS Pico on my DSi XL? Is it still in compatibility mode? Is it still better to have Moonlight or Unlaunch directly installed on the XL for increased speed? Thank you.

 

[djleviticus]

How does the above work if I'm running GimliDS from a DS Pico on my DSi XL? Is it still in compatibility mode? Is it still better to have Moonlight or Unlaunch directly installed on the XL for increased speed? Thank you.

I would say yes it is. Run from the sd card on the Dsixl through Twilight menu

 

[wavemotion]

Donations Welcome (but never required!)​

All of the emulators I've helped develop over the last 6 years are free to use. I tried to estimate the number of hours that have gone into these hobby projects - for sure more than 2000 hours of development total - including answering many hundreds of questions. It's free to use and always will be, however if you feel inclined to buy me a virtual coffee for the effort, that would be beyond amazing!

https://ko-fi.com/wavemotiondave

I'll be bumping up a few of my more common emulators with this donation post... hopefully the moderators will be kind enough to allow this based on my contributions to the community.

 

[Tomtani1]

GimliDs is an excellent C64 emulator for the DSi. It runs really smooth. I am running GimliDS through TWiLight Menu++ straight from the SD card on my regular sized DSi. I have been playing my Jumpman.d64 game and the highscore is not saved. I don't know if the problem is because of GimliDS or the TWiLight Menu++. BTW, I also have the same Jumpman.d64 game running on the standalone Vice 3DS emulator (not using TWiLight Menu++) on my 3DS XL and the highscore is saved correctly. Could someone help identify the the problem?

 

[wavemotion]

Thanks for the feedback! I just tried my copy of Jumpman.d64 and it seemed to write the disk just fine after getting a (pathetic) high score. The disk label on the keyboard should light up blue briefly on save.

Make sure that in settings you have the emulator set to one of the "Write DSK" options. That should be the default, but perhaps the setting got turned off accidentally for you.

 

[Tomtani1]

Thanks for the feedback! I just tried my copy of Jumpman.d64 and it seemed to write the disk just fine after getting a (pathetic) high score. The disk label on the keyboard should light up blue briefly on save.

Make sure that in settings you have the emulator set to one of the "Write DSK" options. That should be the default, but perhaps the setting got turned off accidentally for you.

Hi Dave,

For the Disk/Flash, there are two write options (Write with SFX and Write No SFX) What do they mean? Which "Write" option updates the Highscore table in the Jumpman.d64 game file?

There has been a few hits, but mostly misses. The disk icon light up blue briefly when I enter the highscore. I then exit GimliDS and poweroff. When I turn on my DSi and run Jumpman again, the highscore that was just entered does not show up in the highscore table.

Thanks.

 

[wavemotion]

Hi Dave,

For the Disk/Flash, there are two write options (Write with SFX and Write No SFX) What do they mean? Which "Write" option updates the Highscore table in the Jumpman.d64 game file?

Either of those settings is fine. The only difference is whether the disk sound effect plays.

I assume the SD card you have is not write protected. Other than that, I can’t think of a reason.

As a workaround you could probably snap a Save State and restore it each time to bring back the high scores but it shouldn’t be necessary.

 

[Tomtani1]

Either of those settings is fine. The only difference is whether the disk sound effect plays.

I assume the SD card you have is not write protected. Other than that, I can’t think of a reason.

As a workaround you could probably snap a Save State and restore it each time to bring back the high scores but it shouldn’t be necessary.

Hi Dave,

I got my qualifying scores saved to the high score tables. I tested with both Jumpman and Jumpman Junior. After finishing a game and I get a high enough score for the high score table, I enter my initials and the disk icon light up blue briefly. My Disk/Flash setting is "Write with SFX" for both the CONFIG GAME and GLOBAL CONFIG. If I press the power button quickly and release to restart, Twighlight Menu auto load or if I long press the power button to shutdown my DSi, my recent high score is not saved to the high score table. The recent high score will not be there in the high score table the next time I power on my DSi to play the game. In order to get my score saved to the high score table I have to somehow exit the game correctly, which I don't know how. My work around is I load up another C64 game such as Klax. Once Klax is running, I long press the power button to shutdown my DSi. The next time I turn on the DSi and play Jumpman or Jumpman Junior, my recent score is in the high score table.

Do you ever consider porting over an arcade emulator such as FBNeo, FBAlpha or MAME to run the basic arcade roms straight from the SD card (no flash card) for the DSI via TwighlightMenu?

 

[wavemotion]

@Tomtani1 - you're right! I just checked the code and I don't properly flush the file out until a new file is loaded or you quit the emulator using the 'Quit GimliDS' menu item.

That's my mistake. I've just added the code to correctly flush the file immediately so you can now long-press the POWER button to turn off the DS anytime - just be sure you've waited for the blue disk label to flash for a second or two before you do and that lets you know the file has been saved.

I've just released version 1.7 with this fix plus some other small improvements at my github site:

https://github.com/wavemotion-dave/GimliDS

Version 1.7 release 14-July-2026 by wavemotion-dave

• Improved cold memory initialization for better accuracy.
• Fix for Turrican to allow SELECT to work to get past title screen.
• Fix for EasyFlash cart loading to default to 16K despite what ROM header says.
• Improved CPU1541 Drive 2K RAM mirror handling
• Improved SD Card flush so that disk files write-back immediately (so if you power off your DS the file will be properly saved)

As for porting FBNeo or similar... that's way outside my comfort zone

 

[Tomtani1]

@Tomtani1 - you're right! I just checked the code and I don't properly flush the file out until a new file is loaded or you quit the emulator using the 'Quit GimliDS' menu item.

That's my mistake. I've just added the code to correctly flush the file immediately so you can now long-press the POWER button to turn off the DS anytime - just be sure you've waited for the blue disk label to flash for a second or two before you do and that lets you know the file has been saved.

I've just released version 1.7 with this fix plus some other small improvements at my github site:

https://github.com/wavemotion-dave/GimliDS

Version 1.7 release 14-July-2026 by wavemotion-dave

• Improved cold memory initialization for better accuracy.
• Fix for Turrican to allow SELECT to work to get past title screen.
• Fix for EasyFlash cart loading to default to 16K despite what ROM header says.
• Improved CPU1541 Drive 2K RAM mirror handling
• Improved SD Card flush so that disk files write-back immediately (so if you power off your DS the file will be properly saved)

As for porting FBNeo or similar... that's way outside my comfort zone

Hi Dave,

The high score saving to the high score table now works perfectly. I am pleasantly surprised that you got the code updated as fast as you did.

Thank you.