Hardware Is the 3DS' NDS-Mode really an NDS Emulator?

Nollog

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popoffka said:
koji2009 said:
you can't virtual machine a PPC linux on an x86/x64 based windows pc.
GTFO. Please, at least make some research before claiming anything.
It is possible to emulate PPC architecture on x86. How would we have a Wii emulator otherwise?
Wow, way to miss the entire point.

Virtualisation != Emulation.

LOLS.OMGLOLS.
 

gtmtnbiker

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Nollog said:
koji2009 said:
You can't virtual machine PPC linux on a Windows PC.
Sure you can.
Windows NT4 runs on a PPC arch.
You mean You can't virtualise a PPC Linux version on an x86 processor.

Yes, there was an NT4 Power PC port but that's not the same as virtualization which NT 4.0 never supported.
 

Rydian

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I gotta' chime in, I agree that mapping the analog pad to the d-pad is trivial.

Sticking an overlay menu via the use of a new button into a virtualized environment is also easily possible.

So my vote is for virtualization as well. I guess it'd also be sort of a protection against DS hacks trying to break out into the 3DS system.
 

popoffka

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Nollog said:
popoffka said:
koji2009 said:
you can't virtual machine a PPC linux on an x86/x64 based windows pc.
GTFO. Please, at least make some research before claiming anything.
It is possible to emulate PPC architecture on x86. How would we have a Wii emulator otherwise?
Wow, way to miss the entire point.

Virtualisation != Emulation.

LOLS.OMGLOLS.
Well then, explain why you can't virtualise an emulated environment.
 

ManFranceGermany

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TyRaNtM said:
I also think that 3DS is emulating DS rather than downgrading to be a DS.
If you check another Nintendo's consoles in the past with backward compatibility, they used hardware emulation:
- GBA games in DS: GBA games runs in DS like a GBA. You can only play with the buttons that a GBA have.
- GC games in Wii: GC games runs in Wii like a GC. You can only play with the buttons that the GC have (and only with the same GC controller, not Wiimote).

uhhmm..lol, ure really wrong.
The Wii could never emulate the GC, its just downgrade itself, as its almost the same hardware, with higher clockspeed and some new stuff.
Same for the GBA modus using the DS. Its just downgrading, the DS could very very hardly emulate the GBA.

Imagine it like a sandbox on ur PC, its just giving -less rights- to Games, which use the GBA or GC Mode.

About DS mode on 3DS, in my opinion it will be the same, but maybe Im wrong here, as we almost know nothing about its real specs.
 

Searinox

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It's really hard to tell. NORMALLY a hardware-based emulation would duplicate the results of the DS exactly, and this is ESPECIALLY evident in buggy situations, where a bug behaving the same way on both consoles usually signals highly-accurate, likely hardware emulation. I think what you're describing here is the 3DS' way of handling certain types of memory corruption, which the DS handles properly and the 3DS doesn't.

But I will also beg to differ out of personal experience. Pokemon emerald, firered, and leafgreen exhibit a minor glitch only on the DS' GBA slot and not on the original GBA. There is a slight freezeup whenever fading into the area of a pokemon center or the E4 entrance room(which also has pokecenter tileset). The NDS GBA BIOS in the DS is identical except for 1 bit to the original GBA BIOS. At the same time, it is well known that the DS has dedicated hardware specifically to run GBA mode.

This shows that some differences CAN be present even in dedicated hardware-based emulation environments. I think it's all down to the hardware's accuracy. The bottom line is that it's not unlikely that hw-based emu can exhibit bugs just like sw-based ones.

I very strongly agree with Rydian's post though - most likely software-based virtualization. It saves the costs of separate hardware for DS mode, also the 3DS has more than enough power to emulate DS mode. One good news about this is that if we ever get a firmware hack or a flashcart smart enough, we could softreset from DS mode back to 3DS, whereas on the DS it was impossible to softreset once you booted GBA mode because once the dedicated hardware took over, it powered off the DS hardware essentially turning the DS into a GBA until it was turned off. One bad news is that a software-based emulator takes up more power. If Nintendo had went with hw-based emulation, we could likely have even longer battery life in DS mode.
 

yifan_lu

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World of sand unscaled doesn't remap the touchscreen. So if you touch the black spot, it still draws sand. Also, dumping the bios/firmware you can see all the files are smaller than native DS and the firmware is blank except for settings. In additions, DS system menu won't load as it does in dsi.
 

DiscostewSM

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yifan_lu said:
World of sand unscaled doesn't remap the touchscreen. So if you touch the black spot, it still draws sand.

From what I have tested, any and all DS homebrew on the 3DS has a problem with touch-screen input scaling, where it will work according to what scale mode you used last before re-calibrating the touch-screen. What I mean is that if you used the full-screen mode, then re-calibrated, then touch-screen input will always be based on full-screen mode, even in native mode. Same with using native mode prior to re-calibrating, which then bases on native mode input for both native and full-screen mode.

Commercial DS games are not affected by this.
 

yifan_lu

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DiscostewSM said:
yifan_lu said:
World of sand unscaled doesn't remap the touchscreen. So if you touch the black spot, it still draws sand.

From what I have tested, any and all DS homebrew on the 3DS has a problem with touch-screen input scaling, where it will work according to what scale mode you used last before re-calibrating the touch-screen. What I mean is that if you used the full-screen mode, then re-calibrated, then touch-screen input will always be based on full-screen mode, even in native mode. Same with using native mode prior to re-calibrating, which then bases on native mode input for both native and full-screen mode.

Commercial DS games are not affected by this.
That's weird. Maybe there's an official SDK call for screen settings that we're not knowing?
 

DiscostewSM

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Rydian said:
AFAIK we don't use ANY official SDK functions.

^this. All the information known of the DS hardware is based on reverse-engineering, and how each memory-mapped register works with the hardware. The info compiled isn't 100% accurate, so there can be flaws, with correct touch-screen input possibly being one of them.
 

MaGosT

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Playing trought Phantom Hourglass atm, and noticed quite heavy lag @ ghostship boss with the 4 witches, when 3 were shooting beams and the 4th did her ballshot.

Dno wether this part was laggy on a regular ds/dsi.
 

Snailface

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I don't know if this sheds any light on things, but my DSGM homebrews that use PA_RTC (real time clock) do not function on the 3DS. The same exact homebrew, firmware, and card played on any other DS results in the RTC working properly. This would seem to support the theory that emulation is being used for the DS function on the 3DS. I'd love to hear feedback on this.
 

yifan_lu

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If this is indeed true, does it mean that the 3ds advanced hardware is not disabled (like gc on wii), but just used to run an emulator? If so, it may be possible to hack the system through the DS "emulator". Just some thoughts.
 

DiscostewSM

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Snailface said:
I don't know if this sheds any light on things, but my DSGM homebrews that use PA_RTC (real time clock) do not function on the 3DS. The same exact homebrew, firmware, and card played on any other DS results in the RTC working properly. This would seem to support the theory that emulation is being used for the DS function on the 3DS. I'd love to hear feedback on this.

PA_RTC -> PAlib ...... enough said.
 

TyRaNtM

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ManFranceGermany said:
TyRaNtM said:
I also think that 3DS is emulating DS rather than downgrading to be a DS.
If you check another Nintendo's consoles in the past with backward compatibility, they used hardware emulation:
- GBA games in DS: GBA games runs in DS like a GBA. You can only play with the buttons that a GBA have.
- GC games in Wii: GC games runs in Wii like a GC. You can only play with the buttons that the GC have (and only with the same GC controller, not Wiimote).

uhhmm..lol, ure really wrong.
The Wii could never emulate the GC, its just downgrade itself, as its almost the same hardware, with higher clockspeed and some new stuff.
Same for the GBA modus using the DS. Its just downgrading, the DS could very very hardly emulate the GBA.

Imagine it like a sandbox on ur PC, its just giving -less rights- to Games, which use the GBA or GC Mode.

About DS mode on 3DS, in my opinion it will be the same, but maybe Im wrong here, as we almost know nothing about its real specs.

I know that the Wii isn't emulating and all. I was only explaining with a example how the hardware emulation works.
If the hardware emulation will be easy to input new hardware features like buttons, we should be able to use that buttons in the new hardware, but we cannot, because maybe isn't impossible, but is very hard to do.
3DS maybe isn't using a full emulation, but still IS emulation.
And if is an emulation, they can improve it with updates.
 

gumbyx84

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I still say its not emulation or virtualization. I do not believe the 3ds has enough resources to emulate a ds and dsi. If anything, it underclocks itself and runs a modified firmware (like DiscostewSM mentioned) . There could be some dsi hardware in there. That is how the ps3 originally had its BC work.
 

mister_C

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Another interesting note is that if you use DS-mode Download Play on the 3DS, when you detect the download play game, the old DS system menu appears on the 3DS! Take a look:

 

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