Is it possible...?

[Thee_Stranger]

Hey, guys. Moron here, equipped with an ill-conceived concept of a theoretical 3DS application, and absolutely no practical or technical knowledge whatsoever.

So. Here I am, playing the Japan-only Legend of Xanadu via TemperPCE on my favorite electronic device in the entire world -- my trusty, reliable, fun-dispensing NN3DS -- thanks in no small part to all the actual intelligent, knowledgeable, and talented developers among this community that continually innovate and trick it out to its full potential.

Just trying to reach the first of the beautiful-looking side-scrolling sections I've seen screenshots of to experience it for myself. No fan translation for this one, though, and it's a bit of a text-heavy JRPG. So, tad bit of a language barrier going on. Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, however, I have a free phone application that uses the camera to translate Japanese text into English in real-time. Obviously, the results aren't necessarily the quality and thoughtful kind of translations that actual, dedicated fan localizations with a human touch tend to provide, but even when the English is occasionally utterly broken, it provides enough of a basis to decipher and at least piece together the general idea. Constantly hovering my phone screen over my 3DS screen can get a little tedious, but it's still amazing in and of itself that I can even do this at all. I'm thinking of maybe trying to do a run of SegaGaga with this method now. I don't see an actual translation for that one ever seeing the light of day with all the apparent technical hurdles associated with its English text-size that its various developers have faced during their numerous failed passes at it, and at this point, it's better than nothing.



Aaaand, that's when I got to wondering to myself, in my moron-mush brain, if it would be technically possible at all to create a similar sort of application natively for the 3DS. I have no idea how these phone apps actually work, of course. Just seems that it essentially interprets the text on-screen, matches it with its native-language dictionary, correlates it with the appropriate equivalent in the alternate language dictionary that's to be output, and then simply outputs the swapped text to the user. These dictionaries would probably have to be built-in to this 3DS app somehow, and I would surmise it would have to work as some sort of Luma/Rosalina application acting as something of an overlay that you can use independently and in conjunction with any other app of your choosing... that is, if Luma can actually read the on-screen text in real time, if at all. No actual clue there (or anywhere). I'm just suspecting that maybe that's technically possible somehow, simply due to the fact that you can take screen shots through Luma? I know that's pretty broad and general, though. Just because it can screen cap a native image doesn't mean it is somehow capable of actually reading or interpreting any visual information on the screen.

Reading specific visual information on-screen, natively, in real-time, is likely a ridiculously fantastical pipe-dream of a concept on my part, now that I take into account all the potential variables in text size, pixel size, resolution, fonts, etc., etc., across wildly varying types of software. This is all just occurring to me now, and yeah... this theoretical native-screen-reading app I've dreamt up in my head is probably just not how this type of shit works or reads information, and any specific software would probably need to be individually programmed for compatibility to be effectively read via the game's code itself, rather than its on-screen visual output in real-time... which then pretty much renders my entire concept moot, I suppose. These cell phone translator apps use a camera and visual information from an actual lens, adjusting the text size accordingly with draw distance and whatnot. So, you probably need an actual camera lens to pull-off reading real-time on-screen text. The 3DS has a camera of its own as well, of course. So maybe this theoretical application would actually be technically achievable through its camera in the same way the actual smart phone applications work. But who really needs that when we all already have our phones for that?

My pipe-dream is a Luma application powered by voodoo magic that can somehow detect, read, and translate native on-screen text information, and overlay the translated text box over the original foreign text in real-time as you're playing, just as the camera-operated smart phone apps do, and that you can utilize universally across pretty much anything. I'll go look for a genie lamp and get back to you guys.


Well, anyway. If there's anyone here who has any idea what they're actually talking about regarding the technical logistics of any of my nonsense here, and would care to indulge me in any genuine development insight or technical break downs to properly put my toddler's-understanding and cave-drawn development roadmap for this idea in clearer context, I would be very interested and appreciative of that. Or any other input, really.


Thanks, and enjoy your day.

 

[Kwyjor]

Please try to write a more intelligent subject line when starting a thread.

Also, "is it possible" is an infuriating question. Lots of things are possible. You probably just want to know if it's easy for someone else to do.

Retroarch already has some auto-translation capabilities, but evidently no one has yet been interested in trying to get that functionality working on the 3DS. It wouldn't work for DS or 3DS games, of course.

 

[Thee_Stranger]

Please try to write a more intelligent subject line when starting a thread.

Also, "is it possible" is an infuriating question. Lots of things are possible. You probably just want to know if it's easy for someone else to do.

Retroarch already has some auto-translation capabilities, but evidently no one has yet been interested in trying to get that functionality working on the 3DS. It wouldn't work for DS or 3DS games, of course.

Alright. Well. Thank you for the reply. Even though it's not overwhelmingly positive, and just a tad condescending, you took the time, and eliciting some type of response from someone at least feels better than staring at a blank page of no replies.

So. Let me apologize for infuriating you with my subject line. But, honestly speaking, don't you think that's kind of a minor and innocuous thing to be getting infuriated about? Little petty, sir. Little petty.

And I disagree with your premise. Yes, of course. Lots of things are possible... and lots of things are also not possible. So, I feel it is a perfectly valid question for openers on a subject line, which I can then fully elaborate and expound upon in my subject post. And sometimes, I just like my subject lines to be something of an ambiguous hook for the reader. I really don't see the foul here. But I'll try to do better.

However, considering the particular delivery method I had proposed for this theoretical Universal 3DS Auto-Translator -- acting as something of an overlay application via Luma Rosalina menu or something, that could be universally pulled up and applied across any and all software on 3DS, and read/translate/overlay custom text graphics over the original text boxes in real-time, basically exactly like these camera phone translation apps work -- I'm guessing now that that's probably (maybe?) just not how whatever the existing internal screen capture technology the 3DS has works? These android translation apps I would basically be seeking to emulate all use a camera lens to read and interpret the text, and they also detect and position the text overlays by the camera orientation accordingly. So, how would a 3DS achieve that internally without using a camera? Is there any such technology in there that can read and interpret its on-screen text? I dunno. I have no idea. If not, is it possible given the existing technology of the 3DS to build some kind of custom software for it to give it that capability, or is its inherent architecture as such that it is simply not possible to implement in the manner required? Don't know. Not a coder. Not a developer. And if all that checks out, and it does have the capability to read and interpret on-screen text in real-time, do any of the given 3DS models have the required memory and GPU capacity to handle this proposed ancillary software running simultaneously alongside the actual game software in real-time, whilst sifting and juggling through all these internal dictionary directories, and overlaying custom text graphics accurately on top of the original in-game text without significantly throttling game performance or bottlenecking? I honestly don't know. Don't have the first clue of what the implied logistical demands of my proposed real-time translation software would be. And apparently, neither do you. So, again, I would say the question of my subject line is still perfectly valid, as of this moment.

I would be interested in knowing if it would be considered easy or not, sure. I'd be interested in hearing any genuine insight into the matter, honestly. I'd be interested in hearing about perhaps an alternative and more elegant, practical, or reasonable solution according to the 3DS' specific hardware specifications and limitations, from someone with an actual intimate knowledge and skill set, and maybe a layman breakdown of the delivery method that would be applied. I wouldn't expect them to lay out an entire coding class for me or anything like that, but just a basic overview of how they'd do it. I'd be genuinely curious to know. Or alternatively, if just another layman moron with no actual technical knowledge or skillset at all -- like me -- wants to propose his own vague idea or delivery method that he just thinks would be cool, or better, I'd be interested in hearing that, too.

Sure, I would love for someone with the actual skillset to possibly build this thing and make it a reality someday, if it was actually possible or viable, and they were so inclined. I'm not requesting it. I dunno, I just discovered and started playing around with this phone app translator to help me a bit with Xanadu, and it occured to me that I have a few other Japanese DS games and such that lack translations, and the idea naturally occurred to me of a potential native 3DS application that achieves the same basic effect, and additionally, was of the impression that if implemented via Luma/Rosalina Menu somehow, that the program could potentially be accessed and applied across all software on the platform, in a streamlined and less cumbersome manner than what I'm currently doing. Not that I'm complaining much, mind you. Again, I'm happy and amazed that I have any method at my disposal to basically quick-translate this stuff on-the-fly to make certain region-specific games I've been wanting to play for some time, somewhat playable.

So yeah, just seemed cool to me, and I just got kind of excited about the idea and put it out there. Maybe someone had already developed something like this that I didn't know about, or maybe someone would educate me on why such an application for 3DS would be a logistical nightmare, or straight-up just not possible for whatever reason. Didn't think it through too much, clearly. And when the idea first popped in my head, it seemed to me in my excitement like it was a pretty good idea that probably would be an easy thing for the technically-inclined to build and implement... until I started actually laying it out and ruminating on it a bit.

 

[Maximumbeans]

Alright. Well. Thank you for the reply. Even though it's not overwhelmingly positive, and just a tad condescending, you took the time, and eliciting some type of response from someone at feels better than staring at a blank page of no replies.

So. Let me apologize for infuriating you with my subject line. But, honestly speaking, don't you think that's kind of a minor and innocuous thing to be getting infuriated about? Little petty, sir. Little petty.

When they're not being actually helpful, Kwyjor generally spends their time here being unnecessarily rude and snotty. Try not to let it bother you, easier said than done, I know, but try to think of it like a lack of capacity rather than outright malice.

 

[zekro94]

Too much wall of text. You didn't infuriate kwyjor, he explained normally what the issue is with the thread and what can or can't be done in regards to your question. The thing is, many times entitled users would demand that a 3ds dev do something, like they're obligated or something so naturally we (the ones who kinda get that it's not that easy to develop/port things) kinda try to defend devs and put some common sense into people. There have been many, too many entitled users so don't take it so seriously


Anyway, I also think the thread title is too vague, next time try a more complete title, for example: Can a plugin be made to autotranslate?

As discussion starter that would have been a good title

 

[Thee_Stranger]

Too much wall of text. You didn't infuriate kwyjor, he explained normally what the issue is with the thread and what can or can't be done in regards to your question. The thing is, many times entitled users would demand that a 3ds dev do something, like they're obligated or something so naturally we (the ones who kinda get that it's not that easy to develop/port things) kinda try to defend devs and put some common sense into people. There have been many, too many entitled users so don't take it so seriously


Anyway, I also think the thread title is too vague, next time try a more complete title, for example: Can a plugin be made to autotranslate?

As discussion starter that would have been a good title

"Your title is too vague"
"Too much text to read"

Next time, I'll swap the actual content of my post itself for the thread title. Maybe that'll make ya happy. Apparently, that's where the entirety of the information should be consumed, rather than the actual post.

... Alright, well, he said my thread title was an "infuriating" question. So, just going by his choice of words here. Also, no, he didn't explain anything that could or couldn't be done in regards to my specific questions here about the applied feasibility of this concept (which you apparently couldn't even be bothered to take the time to read yourself, before running here to his defense). He told me my choice of thread title is infuriating, and that Retroarch has an auto-translator feature on PC. That's it. These are the actual take-away's you glean from this when you actually bother to read.

Right. Well. I'm very sorry entitled users demand things from developers, and you're here to fight the good fight on their behalf. That's got nothin' to do with me or anything I've said here, so... good for you.

Thanks for the advice.

 

[The Catboy]

Shit too long, me no read.
Would it be possible to get a TL; DR? No one wants to read through a wall of text to answer a simple question

 

[Sono]

Edit 2: for anyone else reading this thread, please don't turn this into the 3DS LCD overclocking thead once again! I know it's not heading in that direction *yet*, but I'm chiming in to warn readers (and potential repliers) to please not go that route

Edit: I was so focused on trying to form a good reply, that I forgot to tell that your 3DS skin looks epic

[Note: I can't convey emotions via text, please take my text as friendly helpful advice, not an attack, thank you]

I do agree with the others that you can shorten the thread contents. Try focus on what you actually want, this is not an IRC server with people older than the internet who berate you for even joining their sacred channel.
So feel free to remove your self-berating and expressing lack of knowledge "me mere mortal, lack of any knowledge compared to y'all programmer gods" mentality, and feel free to reword it just as a normal request and/or question
Also try to emphasize the two images you have, it helped much more than the text!
Also, not every person is created equal. Some do whinge about wall of text for being lazy (they probably need Subway Surfers footage just to read the title, idk), but others (like me) actually have real difficulty reading the wall of text due to vision problems. This is also why I don't read books, as it's physically exhausting, and I don't even see what I'm reading.
So yes, please try to reword your messages. I tried to read all of it (so I could give a honest reply without accidentally missing something important and thus also looking like an asshole as a result), but I have severe difficulty reading the meaning, especially in your 2nd reply. I'll be more than happy to reply to actual technical or theoretical questions, but please reword them so I can actually read them!

Oh, and you can report your own thread. Despite its name, you can actually request moderators there, so you can write them something like "Please rename my thread to "Is on-screen translation on 3DS possible?", thank you", and they will be more than happy to do it for you in just a few minutes.

Now to the actual reply...

---

It certainly is possible, although old3DS poses a tiny issue due to low RAM free.
Not only that, but there is no overlay feature as far as we know (no hardware cursor, or whatever else that would let us do this), so you would need to do some "ungodly" things to the hardware registers to bypass the game rendering, and use your rendering instead.

And also using lots of CPU to know when to actually re-translate the text, is a difficult task. Does the player character moving change text? Is the player character a text? How much text does need to change to necessitate a re-translation? Is the text redrawing too slow? Even if this is not a 3DS, there are valid issues with this. Obviously, the "app" you use handles all this for you for "free", but if we want to use its APIs outside of the app, well... hell ensues. Good luck finding an API which let you use it for this purpose. You may have to pay for your own API key.

But assuming the issues in the above paragraph are null (idk, let's assume you host it yourself), then the only real issue is the lack of overlay support.
As for memory accessibility, that is an issue on old3DS due to not enough RAM to have a copy of the framebuffer, but it can be dealt with "cleanly" via using DMA. I've been doing this in HzMod somewhat fine, so that is possible.
I also have unreleased homebrew which does actually try to simulate an overlay, but it's absolutely horrible. Although, you may be able to tolerate it for story-heavy games (visual novels, bunch of text, etc.), but only if you're not photosensitive epilleptic.

Post automatically merged: Apr 3, 2024

Shit too long, me no read.
Would it be possible to get a TL; DR? No one wants to read through a wall of text to answer a simple question

I hope I didn't miss anything, but basically on-screen image translate for 3DS, how possible it is, what are the technicalities, etc. Seems like the interesting technical bulk is in the 2nd reply (post number #3).

 

[Kwyjor]

and that Retroarch has an auto-translator feature on PC.

And Retroarch should provide you with a good indication of what is "possible" with hardware vastly more powerful than the 3DS running emulated code. There is an abundance of videos of this feature in action. I believe there's even a DS core already so you can run your DS games that way if you wanted to.

I was going to question the feasibility of video overlay, but that has in fact been done with NTR CFW.
https://github.com/44670/ntr_overlay_samples
https://www.gamebrew.org/wiki/Clock_&_FPS_with_menu_3DS

So yes, it is "possible", but it would be slow and it probably wouldn't be very satisfactory even if it was working properly.

 

[The Catboy]

I hope I didn't miss anything, but basically on-screen image translate for 3DS, how possible it is, what are the technicalities, etc. Seems like the interesting technical bulk is in the 2nd reply (post number #3).

Appreciate the TL; DR, now to disappoint and say I have no idea if possible but I am going to follow to see if it is

 

[anotherthing]

When they're not being actually helpful, Kwyjor generally spends their time here being unnecessarily rude and snotty.

To be fair, there's been several threads where I've seen the poster ask some things in really, really poor ways or post the same question in multiple threads minutes apart, and I look forward to Kwyjor finding those posters.

 

[Maximumbeans]

To be fair, there's been several threads where I've seen the poster ask some things in really, really poor ways or post the same question in multiple threads minutes apart, and I look forward to Kwyjor finding those posters.

To each their own. I don't see why people need to 'pay' for the crime of not phrasing something very clearly but that's just me ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[anotherthing]

I don't see why people need to 'pay' for the crime of not phrasing something very clearly but that's just me ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Oh no, I'm not talking about those people. I'm talking about the ones that actually deserve it. Like I said, the people who post the same thing in multiple threads in the span of minutes or people who post, "My 3DS doesn't work! PLZ HELP!" with nothing else to go on.

Another bit of fairness, I just ran across a post where Kwyjor corrected himself for not being more clear on what "working normally" means, so there's that as well.

 

[Jayro]

I wish more emulators were hardware-driven on the 3DS systems.

 

[KleinesSinchen]

Sadly I can't add anything of value to the topic since @Sono covered this in an excellent way and is A LOT(!) more knowledgeable than me.

I'll add my opinion on behavior nevertheless.

Spoiler: Off topic, behavior, decency

Nobody deserves to get told off in condescending manner. Be nice to each other →

I've seen too many instances of people getting lectured in arrogant way for creating thread titles and content in suboptimal way. I don't want to remain silent anymore. This time i choose to say my opinion in detail – while noticing it goes off-topic. Frankly: I've had enough. No, it doesn't belong here, as much as it didn't belong in all the other threads in similar situations. But it is also not worth an own thread in Site Discussions. This would get downvoted to -10 in five seconds anyway, might get stupid replies and end up in EOF.

Title​

Criticism on the particular title – if told in factual, not arrogant way – makes sense here. Just imagine a library with all books having titles like "Manual", "Crime Thriller", "Science Fiction Story", "Sociology Book"
This is what happens in the overview of a forum when many people use thread titles like "Question", "Need help" or like in this case "Is it possible…?" Anybody expecting help could do their part by providing easy to understand questions, including a good title.

Rudeness​

What I can't agree on is rudeness, even when presented in poor disguise. This is just text on the internet, not a conversation face to face, where facial expression, pronunciation and gestures carry secondary information how something is meant. Anything you say in plain text is prone to even more misunderstandings than in real life, so I ask anybody including myself, to watch the wording extra carefully.
In my opinion there is a general problem with behavior on the forum lately, each instance way(!) below anything what would be report-worthy or against the rules. I would call it a lack of respect and basic decency. Critique, if needed, can be expressed in factual, neutral or even nice words.

tl;dr Arrogance​

Also a point of problematic behavior is "Provide tl;dr!" What the hell? You are not willing to read a text, but nevertheless you comment on it?! If it is not worth your time reading because "too long", well… how was that overused phrase again… Just move on. Nobody has the right that their lengthy texts get read on a free support forum. They might notice the lack of replies and use more concise expression next time. But not everything can be adequately addressed in few words. Creating the abstract for a scientific paper – which would be the equivalent of the "tl;dr" internet nonsense phrase – is a difficult task. Please take both sides in account. Work for the reader and work for the writer.

The posts by @Thee_Stranger for example are not a wall of text. They have paragraphs and punctuation and are at the border of a text getting too long for easy(!) and quick(!) reading without further layout. → That would be a not condescending way of replying: "Please provide a little more layout for longer texts. You will have more chance people will read through them. You'll help yourself and others with this." →
If you are interested in a topic, then read it. If it is not worth your time, then don't. But please don't reply with "tl;dr" without understanding what it is about after skimming over a few words. That helps nobody.

I've seen the opposite happen when somebody provides a short initial post: They get asked some questions, answering back and forth… and in the end get told off for not providing the needed information right from the beginning in one shot. Yeah. Cool.

Pick your poison:​

• Long initial text → tl;dr → You are wasting my time!​
• Short initial text → questions/answers back and forth → You are wasting my time!​

 

[Sono]

I was going to question the feasibility of video overlay, but that has in fact been done with NTR CFW.
https://github.com/44670/ntr_overlay_samples
https://www.gamebrew.org/wiki/Clock_&_FPS_with_menu_3DS

So yes, it is "possible", but it would be slow and it probably wouldn't be very satisfactory even if it was working properly.

Please keep questioning the feasability, as it is much more difficult than NTR makes it look.
Remember that NTR is super horrible, and copies itself into a bajillion processes, modifies the memory map, and other sins that I can barely remember. There are much better and less jank ways to make an overlay, but those are still horrible. But definitely not as horrible as NTR's way.

Edit: some time later I realized that NTR is even worse than I remembered. Not sure if it still does this, but didn't it do overlays by just overwriting the framebuffer in real time and hoping that the screen tearing won't be visible?

 

[Maximumbeans]

Oh no, I'm not talking about those people. I'm talking about the ones that actually deserve it. Like I said, the people who post the same thing in multiple threads in the span of minutes or people who post, "My 3DS doesn't work! PLZ HELP!" with nothing else to go on.

Ah, in that case I fully agree, sorry for misunderstanding. Can't argue with that. That's just being plain obnoxious regardless of being new!

Post automatically merged: Apr 4, 2024

I wish more emulators were hardware-driven on the 3DS systems.

Hard agree.

 

[master801]

Would be too resource intensive.

You could probably technically dump the framebuffer to a file, but then you run into the problem of actually HOW to OCR the text, translate it, and display it back on-screen.

Dumping would be resource intensive, as would actually OCRing the text and magically translating it (online translation service would be best, but again, resource intensive), then drawing the text on-screen over top of the game is another resource intensive process.

tl;dr You're better off just playing the English patched version of the game, using OCR on an external device, or use RetroArch to emulate and OCR the text as others have suggested.

 

[Thee_Stranger]

Edit 2: for anyone else reading this thread, please don't turn this into the 3DS LCD overclocking thead once again! I know it's not heading in that direction *yet*, but I'm chiming in to warn readers (and potential repliers) to please not go that route

Edit: I was so focused on trying to form a good reply, that I forgot to tell that your 3DS skin looks epic

[Note: I can't convey emotions via text, please take my text as friendly helpful advice, not an attack, thank you]

I do agree with the others that you can shorten the thread contents. Try focus on what you actually want, this is not an IRC server with people older than the internet who berate you for even joining their sacred channel.
So feel free to remove your self-berating and expressing lack of knowledge "me mere mortal, lack of any knowledge compared to y'all programmer gods" mentality, and feel free to reword it just as a normal request and/or question
Also try to emphasize the two images you have, it helped much more than the text!
Also, not every person is created equal. Some do whinge about wall of text for being lazy (they probably need Subway Surfers footage just to read the title, idk), but others (like me) actually have real difficulty reading the wall of text due to vision problems. This is also why I don't read books, as it's physically exhausting, and I don't even see what I'm reading.
So yes, please try to reword your messages. I tried to read all of it (so I could give a honest reply without accidentally missing something important and thus also looking like an asshole as a result), but I have severe difficulty reading the meaning, especially in your 2nd reply. I'll be more than happy to reply to actual technical or theoretical questions, but please reword them so I can actually read them!

Oh, and you can report your own thread. Despite its name, you can actually request moderators there, so you can write them something like "Please rename my thread to "Is on-screen translation on 3DS possible?", thank you", and they will be more than happy to do it for you in just a few minutes.

Now to the actual reply...

---

It certainly is possible, although old3DS poses a tiny issue due to low RAM free.
Not only that, but there is no overlay feature as far as we know (no hardware cursor, or whatever else that would let us do this), so you would need to do some "ungodly" things to the hardware registers to bypass the game rendering, and use your rendering instead.

And also using lots of CPU to know when to actually re-translate the text, is a difficult task. Does the player character moving change text? Is the player character a text? How much text does need to change to necessitate a re-translation? Is the text redrawing too slow? Even if this is not a 3DS, there are valid issues with this. Obviously, the "app" you use handles all this for you for "free", but if we want to use its APIs outside of the app, well... hell ensues. Good luck finding an API which let you use it for this purpose. You may have to pay for your own API key.

But assuming the issues in the above paragraph are null (idk, let's assume you host it yourself), then the only real issue is the lack of overlay support.
As for memory accessibility, that is an issue on old3DS due to not enough RAM to have a copy of the framebuffer, but it can be dealt with "cleanly" via using DMA. I've been doing this in HzMod somewhat fine, so that is possible.
I also have unreleased homebrew which does actually try to simulate an overlay, but it's absolutely horrible. Although, you may be able to tolerate it for story-heavy games (visual novels, bunch of text, etc.), but only if you're not photosensitive epilleptic.

Post automatically merged: Apr 3, 2024

I hope I didn't miss anything, but basically on-screen image translate for 3DS, how possible it is, what are the technicalities, etc. Seems like the interesting technical bulk is in the 2nd reply (post number #3).

In regards to the reinforcement of all the previous expressed criticisms on post over-length and title thread vagueness: Message Received.

I will take care going forward to edit myself down more succinctly, and craft title threads that are more overtly descriptive.

Full disclosure: I had a few glasses of wine in me and was a tad inebriated when I created this thread. I also tend to suffer from over-expository diarrhea-of-the-mouth -- or typing, I suppose -- in general. I was feeling excited and happy, and just expressing my enthusiasm... and trying to be personable, I suppose. The post basically went as long as it did because I jumped right over here to blurt what I thought was this incredible idea out there, and then basically started contemplating and pondering the actual technical feasibility in real-time as I was typing it all out. I did attempt to separate the technical bulk by distinctly spacing that paragraph further down from all the preamble. Clearly, it didn't work.

I'm not particularly new to GBAtemp, and know first-hand that I have occasionally annoyed people here with some of my technically-illiterate questions that naturally come as basic common sense to these guys at this point. But sure, I probably laid on the self-depreciation and grovelling a little too thick. But I am genuinely very appreciative of -- and have nothing but admiration for -- the developers and technical wizards that have made the CFW 3DS Homebrew scene what it is. I'm pretty much on this thing exclusively as far as gaming and whatnot these days.

Apart from that, a huge THANK YOU for actually addressing and providing some insight on the technical feasibility of the concept, instead of just commenting to inform me that my thread sucks. I really appreciate the insight.

And yes, I began to wonder how exactly it could be able to register the various text transitions, placement, and dialogue changes, and how long of a delay we would be looking at before the translation overlay could be thrown up on screen. And if the text auto-scrolls or something for a particular game, probably all sorts of problems. And yeah, the 3DS being touchscreen-based for menu navigation and whatnot, makes sense there isn't any kind of accommodations in place for overlays.

I was sort of piecing together that this would likely be an unfeasible technical nightmare, and the few bits of technical insight I'm seeing is pretty much confirming it.

And Retroarch should provide you with a good indication of what is "possible" with hardware vastly more powerful than the 3DS running emulated code. There is an abundance of videos of this feature in action. I believe there's even a DS core already so you can run your DS games that way if you wanted to.

I was going to question the feasibility of video overlay, but that has in fact been done with NTR CFW.
https://github.com/44670/ntr_overlay_samples
https://www.gamebrew.org/wiki/Clock_&_FPS_with_menu_3DS

So yes, it is "possible", but it would be slow and it probably wouldn't be very satisfactory even if it was working properly.

Respectfully, what is "possible" on Retroarch with vastly more powerful PC hardware is completely immaterial to what is "possible" or technically feasible on 3DS, with the particular delivery method I was proposing for my concept. And, I just don't really game on PC. Thank you for informing me of that, though. That indeed may come in handy for me as an optimal route for certain things. Maybe SegaGaga, as emulating the game with Retroarch's auto-translator may prove preferable to perpetually holding up my smart phone to the TV screen using a Dreamcast and the actual game disc. Don't know if my ancient laptop has the horsepower to run it, though.

Would be too resource intensive.

You could probably technically dump the framebuffer to a file, but then you run into the problem of actually HOW to OCR the text, translate it, and display it back on-screen.

Dumping would be resource intensive, as would actually OCRing the text and magically translating it (online translation service would be best, but again, resource intensive), then drawing the text on-screen over top of the game is another resource intensive process.

tl;dr You're better off just playing the English patched version of the game, using OCR on an external device, or use RetroArch to emulate and OCR the text as others have suggested.

Yeah. These android camera app translators all appear to use an online database of some sort for their dictionaries, with varying degrees of quality. I would think this conceptual 3DS app would probably have to store all those internally, which I thought might be an issue. Also, this camera app I'm using is not good at detecting when another line of dialogue appears and overtakes the previous line in the text boxes. I basically constantly have to jog it for the app to register the next new line that appeared.

 

[anotherthing]

Full disclosure: I had a few glasses of wine in me and was a tad inebriated when I created this thread. I also tend to suffer from over-expository diarrhea-of-the-mouth -- or typing, I suppose -- in general. I was feeling excited and happy, and just expressing my enthusiasm... and trying to be personable, I suppose. The post basically went as long as it did because I jumped right over here to blurt what I thought was this incredible idea out there, and then basically started contemplating and pondering the actual technical feasibility in real-time as I was typing it all out. I did attempt to separate the technical bulk by distinctly spacing that paragraph further down from all the preamble. Clearly, it didn't work.

You're fine. I actually enjoyed reading your initial post. I got a kick out of it and I hadn't even finished my first cup of coffee yet.