WIP melonDS for Switch

Thanks a lot.

 

hey hey hey

at this point Hydr8gon you might want to open a separate thread for NooDS, dunno

anyway you're making good progress there, can't wait to see what you have in store

 

Any updates?

 

on the switch/performance side yes and no. It's mostly still the same as I detailed in my last post. There have been some improvements here and there, but we're still not completely there.

The x64 JIT source already publicly available, while the ARM64 JIT still sleeps on my computer. I forked the ARM64 JIT code base of the x64 JIT code base, so it makes more sense to do developements which affect both there. That's what I've done over the last time, idk how much of a difference they make on Switch, I've yet to integrate these changes there.

In theory you could already play most 2d games, but I currently don't want to share binaries or source (plus it's GPL licensed so I'm not even allowed to only publish binaries) until everything's tidied up.

 

Are the Pokemon games considered 2D or 3D games?

 

Well you're right Pokemon games are gameplay wise 2d, but from a technical standpoint they use 3d graphics, that was what I meant.

There are also games like Pokemon Ranger, which look like completely 2d games but which are rendered using the 3d gpu, those fall into the same category.

 

so I already wanted to do a release last week, but then I didn't. I don't know why now, but I think this is a good point in time.

So behold, the first public (pre alpha) release of melonDS with ARM64 JIT and Neon GPU optimisations. The source code is available here: https://github.com/RSDuck/melonDS/tree/switch

You need to put your bios files and romlist.bin (which is shipped with regular melonds releases) into sdcard root/melonds

It currently uses my own not so great for end user interface, but this also isn't a release for general audiences.

Press ZL to hide the gui overlay while playing.

Most 2d games run well without overclocking. For 3d games it depends on the load. E.g. Pokemon HG runs fullspeed with full overclock. Saving is always slow, because it's done synchronous in melonDS, so it's bound by your sd card speed.

The jit max block size is by default set to max 32. The dynarec of melonDS seems to be more robust than the one of desmume, I haven't found a game, which breaks at this high block size. If you do experience crashes or bugs, please try to first to disable branch optimisations and then to lower the block size. Note that the fast 2d renderer currently dosen't support background mosaic, which should rarely be noticeable.

The future is currently unclear. My homebrewed profiler turned out to provide inaccurate results, there are so many things I could try, but I don't know how much impact they would make.

EDIT: I noticed that the screen layout isn't applied on load, the attached file is replaced with one where this was fixed.

EDIT 2: I noticed a second bug, when the screens are rotated the touchscreen doesn't work properly

EDIT 3: The bug above is now fixed too, the attachment has been updated

EDIT 4: Overclocking on fw versions >=8.0.0. has (hopefully, I can't test it) been fixed

EDIT 5: you can find the new version here: https://gbatemp.net/threads/melonds-for-switch.518300/page-35#post-8829940

 

where do you put the rom files now?

 

I thought I had written that, but I haven't

sdcard root/roms/ds

 

thanks

 

just out of curiousity, this new version works amazing i am just wondering if and when a version with a decent gui will be coming and once again many thanks for the hard work,

 

Damn thanks for this update @catlover007
Always nice to see improvements of the DS emulation on the Switch

 

Hmm, all I see is this?
Controller doesnt seem to work either.

EDIT: Ok figured out i have to use the touch screen to use and adjust the ui postion/size
now I can select a rom, but now it crashes when I select load?

 

This is the current UI

And yes atm only touch controls work for the UI

 

read my edit

 

this version is a bit dirty, but once the new additions mature they can be intergrated into the main developement branch, from where out it'll be easy to integrate them into the existing frontend.

that's odd. Do you have all the files(bios and romlist.bin) in place?

 

Yes, romlist.bin and bios files are in root/melonds bios files are named bios7.bin and bios9.bin.

EDIT: shit.. I forgot Firmware.bin its working now.. thanks

 

Nice

 

firmware.bin too? Does it happen with all games?