Homebrew WIP melonDS for Switch

[PsychOsmosis]

And I'll just throw this out there again: melonDS Patreon

I just pledged my (way too meager) contribution for that sweet hardware renderer!

 

[FMCore]

Saw this on twitter

Highly experimental rebased melonDS core (libnx):
https://t.co/85ACsxs1HH

Windows x64:
https://t.co/54x4u2LORV

Note: Creates savefiles in the current folder <- will be fixed later, test build.

— m4xw (@m4xwdev) February 18, 2019

 

[Csmrcc]

Saw this on twitter https://twitter.com/m4xwdev/status/1097556787585273858

yes, i tried it and very impressive, even if its not playable most of the stuff
would that core nro work with this homebrew?

 

[Hydr8gon]

Saw this on twitter https://twitter.com/m4xwdev/status/1097556787585273858

Interesting. How does it run? Last time I compiled the melonDS libretro core for the Switch it didn't run very well. Not that my standalone port runs perfect either, but it ran better

 

[ZachyCatGames]

Interesting. How does it run? Last time I compiled the melonDS libretro core for the Switch it didn't run very well. Not that my standalone port runs perfect either, but it ran better

I heard it runs pretty much the same as your standalone port, I haven't tested it myself though.

 

[TotalJustice]

Interesting. How does it run? Last time I compiled the melonDS libretro core for the Switch it didn't run very well. Not that my standalone port runs perfect either, but it ran better

About the same. Slightly worse performance in some games, but that could just be my RA setup.

 

[DollyWhipDoll]

Interesting. How does it run? Last time I compiled the melonDS libretro core for the Switch it didn't run very well. Not that my standalone port runs perfect either, but it ran better

Hopefully yours/StapleButter's stays standalone.

 

[Hydr8gon]

Hopefully yours/StapleButter's stays standalone.

Don't worry, it will. I prefer standalone emulators anyways.

While I'm here, I suppose I'll give a little update. I have some fun UI changes that I've been holding onto for a few weeks now; I was going to wait for melonDS 0.7.4 to release, but then melonDS development slowed down so I was going to make my own "0.7.3b" update, but then I accidentally updated my Switch to 7.0.0 and lost homebrew access (I have a 6.2.0 NAND backup, but it wasn't worth the hassle) and now that I have homebrew again melonDS development is picking up so 0.7.4 should be soon. Either way, I'll make sure the update is released on time to qualify for the emulator bounty! Not that I expect to win with an emulator that doesn't even reach full speed in most games, but hey, it's worth a shot. Not many projects have been submitted from what I've seen, so maybe we have a chance! If melonDS wins, I plan on sharing the prize with @StapleButter (now known as Arisotura) since obviously this project wouldn't exist without her.

In other news, the weeks I spent not working on melonDS I spent learning how to program my own emulators from scratch. I had success with a simple CHIP-8 emulator and now I'm working on an NES emulator which currently runs all the games I've tried on it, with varying degrees of success. Who knows, maybe I'll make my own DS emulator one day!

Anyways, there's what's been happening if anyone cares. I'll end this with a couple screenshots of the new features. Oh, and a screenshot of my NES emulator because I'm damn proud of it.

 

[Hydr8gon]

Hey guys, I've decided to release 0.7.4 a bit early! Grab it here. Actually I should've done this even earlier; the remaining core melonDS changes are all desktop-specific networking and UI changes, which doesn't affect us at all right now. Anyways, this is mainly a UI release, though there are a few changes to the core. Here's the changelog:

-Updated to melonDS 0.7.4
-Added continuous menu scrolling on input hold
-Improved audio quality in docked mode
-Overclocking now persists across docked/undocked switching
-Added ROM and folder icons for the file browser
-Added input and hotkey remapping

By the way, I think 0.7.4 will be the last 0.7 release, which means the big hardware renderer release will probably be next! For now, still don't expect anything full speed except for Ace Attorney and such. I know the UI stuff doesn't help with that, but I hope it's at least something interesting to play around with! It was interesting for me to program, especially writing something to extract the game icon; it's not as straightforward as you might think!

 

[Marsxz]

We're almost there keep it up brodie!

 

[Exclamation_Point]

Thanks for your hard work! I’m really looking forward to the release with the hardware renderer.

 

[MK73DS]

Who knows, maybe I'll make my own DS emulator one day!

I'm just curious, if you make your own DS emulator one day, despite the knowledge you'll acquire and the challenge it represents, is there any benefit for the user ? (Faster/more reliable emulation especially)

 

[Hydr8gon]

I'm just curious, if you make your own DS emulator one day, despite the knowledge you'll acquire and the challenge it represents, is there any benefit for the user ? (Faster/more reliable emulation especially)

Who knows? [emoji14] But it would make more sense for me to just help with melon instead of starting from scratch, so I'll probably do that.

 

[MK73DS]

Who knows? [emoji14] But it would make more sense for me to just help with melon instead of starting from scratch, so I'll probably do that.

I totally understand, your work on melonDS is amazing
But why starting from scratch can lead to a better emulator ? Is the "base" you use not great ? Or is it because you can make it more specific to the Switch's CPU architecture ?

 

[Hydr8gon]

I totally understand, your work on melonDS is amazing
But why starting from scratch can lead to a better emulator ? Is the "base" you use not great ? Or is it because you can make it more specific to the Switch's CPU architecture ?

Well, if a project gets really big and complex it can become hard to change things. Something may need to be reworked, but changing that thing would require changing something else, and that would require changing something else, etc. Or the codebase can just become so big and messy that it might be a good idea to just start over. I think DeSmuME has both of these problems to some degree, which is why Arisotura decided to create melonDS. Luckily melonDS has a good codebase behind it right now, so I don't see much need for writing an entire new DS emulator aside from teaching myself about the hardware. Optimizing for the Switch's architecture doesn't require a full rewrite, though. It just needs one of those famous ARM64 JIT recompilers. I'd love to write one someday, though JITs are much less straightforward to program than interpreters, so I'll have to do some more research into how it's done [emoji14]

 

[mustafag32g]

I always thought why devs never started porting Desmume emulator to switch.... oh welll, nice job anyway <3

 

[Csmrcc]

I always thought why devs never started porting Desmume emulator to switch.... oh welll, nice job anyway <3

as far as i know, they started, but was very difficult, and then the author stopped improving it because of that

 

[Janio_scjr]

Thank you so much for the awesome work. I've been waiting this emulator since day 1 of switch jailbreak.

 

[Csmrcc]

Hummm, something weird here, horizon 6.2, atmosphere, without issues with other versions of this homebrew, but after new version the menu crashes when scrolling down a little between my ds titles.
Tried also fresh installation, same issue, any clues?
thanks!

 

[Hydr8gon]

Hummm, something weird here, horizon 6.2, atmosphere, without issues with other versions of this homebrew, but after new version the menu crashes when scrolling down a little between my ds titles.
Tried also fresh installation, same issue, any clues?
thanks!

That's weird. The only thing I can think of is that it's failing to load an icon. Do you know what game causes the crash? It should be whatever one is next to come on screen but hasn't yet (if that makes sense!). Also try removing that game and see if it fixes the crash, to verify if that is indeed the problem.