Homebrew List of DS Emulators

[AMPonzi]

Let me try and explain this as best I can...

An emulator's main job is to create a virtual environment for the emulated device's CPU, memory, and other components. When many of these authors talk about stuff like SWI 3, SWI 6, etc. These are instructions that the CPU carries out to do it's work. SWI in this case means software interrupt I think. Registers are memory locations on the CPU that are faster than standard memory like RAM chips.

So to summarize, what they do for games is one of two things:
Either fix problems in running them (i.e. an instruction wasn't performed properly on the data)
Optimize running speed (i.e. an instruction is emulated in an inefficient way)

There you are, a mini-emulator definition.

 

[AMPonzi]

Dualis 18.2 moving along

CPU: Added the LZ77UnCompWram SWI
CPU: Fixed a typo in the SWI 3 emulation that caused single cycle waits
GPU: Added the option to display only one of the DS' screens (useful in fullscreen mode if only one of the screens are used)
GPU: Added support for texture alpha bits (for 16-bit textures)
APU: Optimized the resampling filter a bit, and applied filter to PCM16 samples as well
APU: Added PSG emulation (rectangle waves only)
GUI: Added fullscreen support (toggle with Alt+Return)
GUI: Added a couple more registers to the I/O register viewers


The preferred fullscreen resolution can be specified in dualis.ini.
Some new keyboards shortcuts have been added: Ctrl+Shift+1..Ctrl+Shift+3 to select which of the screens are displayed, and Ctrl+Shift+F to toggle on-screen fps display while in fullscreen mode.

 

[AMPonzi]

Dualis Release 19

*Update: The original version of Dualis 19 would freeze if you loaded a ROM by double-clicking it in explorer. This should now be fixed.

CPU: Added the LZ77UnCompVram SWI (callbacks are ignored)
APU: Added support for PSG noise
MMU: Fixed a problem with the IRQ flags sometimes being set when they shouldn't be
MMU: Added some support for ATAPI and FAT16 (GBAMP)
GUI: Screenshots are saved in the same directory as the ROM file
GUI: Various small changes to allow the FAT emulation to work


Some current limitations of the FAT emulation: Only read operations are supported, max number of files/directories: 256, max combined file size: 32 MB, only 8.3 format filenames.

 

[AMPonzi]

DeSmuMe is done for, here's a message from the official website:

DeSmuMe project is over.
You may don’t know but there are a new law in France that could put me in big trouble.
With DeSmuMe, I have closed the doors of game company but I can not offer to pay for it.

The worst thing is that I have found the bad coded instructions.
For those how have download the sources you have to look in sbc, rsbc instructions the Carry flag updating is wrong.
Sorry for the home brew programmers.

yopyop

 

[blue99]

DeSmuMe is done for, here's a message from the official website:

DeSmuMe project is over.
You may don’t know but there are a new law in France that could put me in big trouble.
With DeSmuMe, I have closed the doors of game company but I can not offer to pay for it.

The worst thing is that I have found the bad coded instructions.
For those how have download the sources you have to look in sbc, rsbc instructions the Carry flag updating is wrong.
Sorry for the home brew programmers.

yopyop

Damn that sucks, there still iDeaS.

 

[Paladin]

Yeh, Remember DeSmuME...

I liked it better than iDeaS at first but iDeaS has a lot more usability now than DeSmuME had.. It will be missed.

~Allustar

 

[Dirtie]

Yeah that does suck

Hopefully someone picks it up though.

 

[AMPonzi]

Dualis 19.1 keeps on kicking, he must not be from France =)

GPU: Added support for the A3I5 and A5I3 texture formats
GPU: Fixed some errors in color selection for paletted textures
MMU: Upped the FAT limits to max 32768 files/directories with a total size of 256 MB
MMU: Added support for long filenames in the FAT
GUI: GBAMP emulation can be turned off (on memory tab, or in dualis.ini)
GUI: Switched from WM_TIMER to a multimedia timer callback


Note that the max number of directory entries at the root level still is 512, and that the max total number of files/directories will be lower than 32768 if there are files that uses long filenames.

 

[_ORiON_]

and i do hope these dualis and iDeaS would end up successful, i just can't wait. yeah, too bad for desmume, be now in our memories

 

[Normmatt]

YopYop has just released the source code for the latest stable version of DeSmuME which means others can continue his great emulator

 

[kernelPANIC]

YopYop has just released the source code for the latest stable version of DeSmuME which means others can continue his great emulator

Someone should let Lino know in case he might find something useful in yopyop's source code.
Sure some coders prefer tu code everything from scratch but he could get a couple useful ideas

 

[AMPonzi]

Apparently that's already taken place. According to a post over at GBARL.it, Evrain already knows about it and is going to forward the information to Lino. Maybe we'll have iDeaSmuME or something... But to have the speed of DeSmuME and compatibility of iDeaS would be really great. We'll see soon enough!

 

[Dirtie]

Don't forget about Dualis

http://www.1emulation.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=17836

 

[AMPonzi]

Updated Rankings:

April 13, 2006

GOLD (ITA) - iDeaS 1.0.0.8c - Highest playable game compatibility of the six as well with very good touchscreen emulation. A good amount of games go in-game with this emulator and the speed is decent as well with little graphics glitches. Highlights of the recent release include much better graphics in Metroid Prime Hunters, an in-game Meteos, and a working Polarium.
SILVER (FRA) - DeSmuME 0.3.3 - Highest bootable game compatibility of the six and fastest of the six for the most part. Touchscreen emulation is near flawless from what I can tell. Many games at least boot and a few games actually run near perfect such as Polarium and Bomberman. Being picked up by the author of Yabause, this emulator might jump back into first.
BRONZE (SWE) - Dualis R19.1 - Updates are very frequent and this author may just be adding features only to make a surprise strike in the end with excellent compatibility. As of now, however, no commercial games are running but some E3 demos are. Dualis supports a number of rendering modes however including OGL and D3D along with primitive sound emulation.
4TH (GER) - NO$GBA 2.2b - Game compatibility is minimal but this emulator is building for the future making full use of the DS BIOS files. How this emulator will develop in the future remains to be seen, but it may make a run toward the finish. However, no updates in over two months.
5TH (CZE) - DSEmu 0.4.10 - Very few updates recently with an unknown status of what is coming in the future. This emulator runs some demos but no commercial games. This project is assumed dropped.
6TH (RUS) - VGBA 3.0r - Unknown compatibility due to the fact that this emulator charges and few people, if any, actually bought it. Updates seem to be few and far between as well.

 

[Paladin]

Dualis is R20 now

 

[Dirtie]

Yes, and it actually kinda has (buggy) sound in some games

 

[AMPonzi]

As pointed out above... Dualis R20 hits the scene!

CPU: Fixed some problems with mode changes after SUBS
CPU: Fixed some problems with SWI 6
CPU: Fixed some problems with address writeback for LDM instructions
CPU: Modified interrupt return address handling a bit
CPU: Added a few missing LDM/STM instructions
CPU: Added the Thumb BLX instructions
GPU: Fixed alpha blending for extended palette BGs
GPU: Added the possibility to turn off 3D emulation
APU: Added support for ADPCM audio
MMU: Fixed some destination address control bugs in DMA transfers
MMU: Fixed some problems with the IPC FIFO
MMU: Added support for IPC FIFO interrupts
MMU: Added support for virtual ITCM resizing (up to 32 MB)
MMU: Added support for 64bit/64bit->64bit operations to the hardware divider
GUI: Fixed some problems with the keyboard shortcuts when using the debugging windows


When running the demos from E3 2005 you should generally use the GDI renderer and disable 3D emulation in the video settings. It should also be noted that touchscreen input does not work in those demos at this point.

 

[Normmatt]

Apparently that's already taken place. According to a post over at GBARL.it, Evrain already knows about it and is going to forward the information to Lino. Maybe we'll have iDeaSmuME or something... But to have the speed of DeSmuME and compatibility of iDeaS would be really great. We'll see soon enough!

Lino can not take any code from DeSmuME unless he wants iDeaS to fall under GPL which I'm sure he doesnt.

anywho ive added saving/loading sram and also savestates to DeSmuME and also most of the arm 7/9 bios functions which are mainly only useful for homebrew, i dunno if i should release it so I'm not at the moment

 

[Suzaku X]

Apparently that's already taken place.  According to a post over at GBARL.it, Evrain already knows about it and is going to forward the information to Lino.  Maybe we'll have iDeaSmuME or something... But to have the speed of DeSmuME and compatibility of iDeaS would be really great.  We'll see soon enough!

Lino can not take any code from DeSmuME unless he wants iDeaS to fall under GPL which I'm sure he doesnt.

anywho ive added saving/loading sram and also savestates to DeSmuME and also most of the arm 7/9 bios functions which are mainly only useful for homebrew, i dunno if i should release it so I'm not at the moment

You tease.

 

[spotanjo3]

anywho ive added saving/loading sram and also savestates to DeSmuME and also most of the arm 7/9 bios functions which are mainly only useful for homebrew, i dunno if i should release it so I'm not at the moment

Very funny, I think. Wishful thinker.

If you really did. We will applauding you for your successfully with it.