Hacking Loading ROMs on NDS over a network

[nightraver]

I have a NAS server with roms. I thought it'd be nice if it was possible to load these roms on my NDS over the network and play them directly without the need of an microsd cart. I assume this isn't supported by any of the flashcarts, but would this ever be possible?

 

[azotyp]

I think not, unless nintendo would develope that technology (which they wouldnt, cose it would make piracy easier). Nintendo ds memory is 4MB of ram it is too small to fit all downloaded game.

 

[DanTheManMS]

Only the Download Play demos would work this way as they are small enough to fit entirely into RAM. Official games rely on the entire rom being available on a card to pull resources and code from, and it would not be possible to stream this info to the DS wirelessly.

 

[arctic_flame]

However, a small capacity microsd card, a clean ROM dldi-compatible cart and lilou box would work just fine.

 

[nightraver]

Yes I meant actually that I would like to stream roms to my flashcart over the wireless network. Then you don't have to run to the pc and copy the games on your sd cart, but just copy them over with your NDS.
It would be nice to have an homebrew app that lists your roms which are located on a network drive, then select the games to be copied over. The selected games will then stream directly to your microSD memory in your flashcart over the wireless network.

I'm going to give that app lilou box try.

 

[myuusmeow]

Let's see: ~30kB/s max transfer rate (if you're lucky) and for example a 32mB .nds file. Waiting almost 20 minutes doesn't seem that fun. (or practical, some ROMs are 128mB, 1 is even 256mB)

 

[nightraver]

You're right. I didn't think of the transfer rate. I assumed it was the same as my laptop.

 

[dmonkey21]

Let's see: ~30kB/s max transfer rate (if you're lucky) and for example a 32mB .nds file. Waiting almost 20 minutes doesn't seem that fun. (or practical, some ROMs are 128mB, 1 is even 256mB)

Totally off-topic, but which one is 256MB?

 

[arctic_flame]

Let's see: ~30kB/s max transfer rate (if you're lucky) and for example a 32mB .nds file. Waiting almost 20 minutes doesn't seem that fun. (or practical, some ROMs are 128mB, 1 is even 256mB)

Lol millibyte?

The correct abbrieveation of Megabit is Mb.

 

[coolbho3000]

Besides, you'd need Flashme because the games aren't RSA signed.

edit: didn't read the topic, sorry.

 

[Law]

Let's see: ~30kB/s max transfer rate (if you're lucky) and for example a 32mB .nds file. Waiting almost 20 minutes doesn't seem that fun. (or practical, some ROMs are 128mB, 1 is even 256mB)

Totally off-topic, but which one is 256MB?

I think it's A.S.H.

Edit: Yes, it is.

 

[DanTheManMS]

The transfer speed would be a problem, yes. If my experiences with DSLinux are any indication, the DS can actually receive data quite fast (80-100 kb/s), but once it starts writing that data to the card itself, things really bog down to about 30 kb/s max.

In addition to the Lilou Combox app, you could try the various networking apps available in DSLinux if you have a slot-2 device with extra RAM. There's ftpd for FTP transfers, and Samba support for using a standard networking client, plus you might be able to use ssh or wget for something as well.

 

[matriculated]

You could save on transfer times by trimming and zipping the files. But unzipping under DSLinux is probably slow.

 

[techforumz]

Ok so let's do the math:
A typical 32MB ROM will trim to about 20MB
a 20MB file will zip to about 10MB
The first 4MB will be at 100KB/s (Direct to RAM)
The last 6MB will be at 30KB/s (Direct to Flash)
So 40 seconds for the first segment.
And 200 seconds for the last segment
Total DOWNLOAD time: 4 minutes.
Unzip time: 96 seconds
Total time: 6 minutes
That's alot of time for one ROM, but if you really want to, it's possible.

 

[nightraver]

The transfer speed would be a problem, yes. If my experiences with DSLinux are any indication, the DS can actually receive data quite fast (80-100 kb/s), but once it starts writing that data to the card itself, things really bog down to about 30 kb/s max.

In addition to the Lilou Combox app, you could try the various networking apps available in DSLinux if you have a slot-2 device with extra RAM. There's ftpd for FTP transfers, and Samba support for using a standard networking client, plus you might be able to use ssh or wget for something as well.

100 KB/s would be acceptable I guess, it would take 5 minutes to transfer an average sized rom. Too bad that it lowers to 30 kb/s with writing the data. Maybe it's better with a flashcart with built-in memory instead of a SD-cart?

Anyway, I tried that app Lilou box, I could FTP to my home NAS server, but I was unable to browse to my roms directory. It just showed my root directory and if I clicked it, nothing happened...

DSLinux sounds interesting, unfortunately I don't have a slot-2 device.

 

[pasc]

You could save on transfer times by trimming and zipping the files. But unzipping under DSLinux is probably slow.

I would recommend DSCompress for this purpose.