Homebrew Emulation Introducing Nintellivision - an Emulator for the DS/DSi

wavemotion

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Thanks for the kind feedback. As Crash mentioned, you can change the global configuration to indicate where you want your .ovl files to reside. By default, they would be in the same directory as your roms. The .ovl file must have the same base filename as your game roms. So if you have Astrosmash.rom you would have Astrosmash.ovl

Then you pick your overlay as "Custom" for the game in question. This forces the emulator to go look for the .ovl file with the same base filename.

Enjoy!
 

MarioKartFan

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Hi, this is a great emulator! I played some super pro football and it ran perfectly. I am still trying to figure out the overlays. I put the .ovl files in with the roms and none of them are there when I try to configure the game overlays, just the original 9 are there. I also tried making a new folder for the .ovl files and it didn't work either. Appreciate any feedback.
Dave is a genius and he's done some simply incredible things. But creating .OVL files is a royal pain in the ol derriere. He has provided very clear written instructions. I would suggest spending time reading them, very closely, and then rereading them. Even if you don't understand why you are doing something, as long as you follow the instructions you'll eventually figure it out.
 

ts-x

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Dave is a genius and he's done some simply incredible things. But creating .OVL files is a royal pain in the ol derriere. He has provided very clear written instructions. I would suggest spending time reading them, very closely, and then rereading them. Even if you don't understand why you are doing something, as long as you follow the instructions you'll eventually figure it out.
100% agree with above but will add that once you figure the process out, it’s very doable so long as you’ve familiarized yourself with GIMP and have good source material for the overlay (which can be difficult to find for games first published in the late-70’s and early-80’s). With really good source material, an overlay can be put together in 30 minutes. With poor source material and/or if you’re trying to heavily customize the layout it’s a much longer process.
 

wavemotion

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I had been meaning to release some of my personal overlay creations. Nothing stunning here - but I spent the most time refining the AD&D game overlays as those are two of my favorite games.
 

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wavemotion

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Agreed MKF... I'll try to get a couple of representative shots up for preview.

I've been busy this weekend on Nintellivision working on the upcoming v3.5 with ECS support! Only a few more playable games (and a couple of sound-enhanced games like Space Patrol)... should be ready within a day.

1645992197597.png
 

wavemotion

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Sorry for the delay in getting this build out... still working on the Save State information for the ECS enabled games. Soon.

In the meantime, I've checked in 3.4e with a new mini-ECS keyboard which can be selected as one of the built-in Overlays in Configuration. This allows even more functional ECS games.

https://github.com/wavemotion-dave/NINTV-DS

If anyone tries this build, please let me know. Any feedback is welcome!

1646074457895.png
 

CrashMidnick

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Sorry for the delay in getting this build out... still working on the Save State information for the ECS enabled games. Soon.

In the meantime, I've checked in 3.4e with a new mini-ECS keyboard which can be selected as one of the built-in Overlays in Configuration. This allows even more functional ECS games.

https://github.com/wavemotion-dave/NINTV-DS

If anyone tries this build, please let me know. Any feedback is welcome!

View attachment 299908

Thanks for this new release Dave :)

DS.jpg


Do not take into account the framerate, sound was set to "excellent" on old hardware, using average sound is 59-60 fps. Did not test much but seems to work well. Cheers mate.
 

wavemotion

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Woo-hoo! It pleases me to no end to see ancient hardware running on such ancient hardware :)

The ECS does impose some performance hit - it's got a 2nd sound chip (6 channels of total sound... 3 from the original Intellivision and 3 from the ECS module) plus more RAM (not really a big performance hit here) and, of course, an expanded BIOS (ecs.bin) which has to deal with keyboards and such. So it's much like running an Intellivoice game - the older DS hardware will struggle a bit to keep up but with a few clever configuration settings, it should be playable.

I wrote this in a way that should not impose any significant penalty on non-ECS games... so all the games that ran correctly/fast enough before should be fine now as well.
 

CrashMidnick

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Woo-hoo! It pleases me to no end to see ancient hardware running on such ancient hardware :)

Glad you liked it, pure retro experience :)

I wrote this in a way that should not impose any significant penalty on non-ECS games... so all the games that ran correctly/fast enough before should be fine now as well.

I ran all my favorite "regular" games and they stick to 60fps all the time (with excellent audio setting on old HW), so I confirm this. I played with the emulator during 1 hour, I did not notice anything wrong :D
 
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wavemotion

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New release: https://github.com/wavemotion-dave/NINTV-DS

V3.5 : 01-Mar-2022 by wavemotion-dave
  • Added support for ECS and ECS-Sound-Enhanced games.
  • Improved internal database so more games are recognized correctly (thanks ts-x!)
  • Save states changed with ECS support. Finish your 3.4 games before upgrading or lose your progress.
Thanks to those of you who provided feedback (privately and publicly) - version 3.5 should be every bit as good as 3.4 performance-wise but with ECS support which brings in another half-dozen games to the playable library. I think only a few games are remaining on the 'won't play' list: World Series Baseball (requires ECS, Bankswitching and Intellivoice - a combo we don't support) and Melody Blaster (requires music keyboard).

I had to upgrade the save states for the ECS and extra sound channels... so your 3.4 saves will not load. Sorry about that - if you've got a killer game of Treasure of Tarmin going on v3.4 - finish that off before upgrading :)
 

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Very cool project. Every game I have tested works fine (~60FPS) on DS Lite. Scooby Doo music seems to slow down a bit, but it is an ECS game, so I guess it is a little more resource hungry with the extra sound channels.

Iirc Intellivision Lives DS had some issues with Minotaur, part of the inventory was cropped or something like that, so it wasn't much playable.
 

wavemotion

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Thanks for the feedback, @stranno - and cool video!

Yeah, DS Lives had some real problems... Minotaur (aka AD&D - Treasure of Tarmin) had the cut-off bottom which made the game really difficult to enjoy. Cloudy Mountain had collision detection problems (you could sometimes pass through walls when running and get stuck in solid objects) - oh... and arrow counting was not working. Space Spartans had problems with no numbers being voiced so you didn't know how many aliens were in a sector. It was kinda rough...

To be honest, had Treasure of Tarmin (my favorite game) worked perfectly, I doubt I'd have spent the time getting Nintellivision running.
 

wavemotion

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is there a complete overlay collection?
There is not. To my knowledge, there are only three of us who have made overlays and we each have our own styles and favorite games. None of us have created a full set - I think Ts-x has the most and MKF and I have less (with overlap across all three efforts). Most can be found scattered across the pages of this thread.
 
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wavemotion

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Monday mornings I check my github account to see if there is any new activity - followers, issues logged, etc.

Today I noticed that Nintellivision passed XEGS-DS as my most "popular" homebrew effort. Now we're talking about really small numbers here... 16 stars which in the grand scheme of things is the equivalent of a cute girl flashing you a smile as you pass her on a short walk. But it's something... and I finally got into double-digit followers (12).

And my mom said I'd never amount to anything! :D

1646654650579.png
 

MarioKartFan

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Monday mornings I check my github account to see if there is any new activity - followers, issues logged, etc.

Today I noticed that Nintellivision passed XEGS-DS as my most "popular" homebrew effort. Now we're talking about really small numbers here... 16 stars which in the grand scheme of things is the equivalent of a cute girl flashing you a smile as you pass her on a short walk. But it's something... and I finally got into double-digit followers (12).

And my mom said I'd never amount to anything! :D

View attachment 300744
TAKE THAT, MOM!
 

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