Homebrew Question Porting C64 titles / C64 emulation

[theLilaQ]

Hi guys,

a few days ago I remembered that a few years ago (apparently 11 years, wow), someone ported 2 C64 games for the Nintendo DS, Giana Sisters and International Karate (galway.c64.org/ikds/)

I'm not sure, but I guess it's the same user who uploaded it to GBATemp (users name is "Hadrian", gbatemp.net/download/authors/hadrian.27232/).

Sadly I can not message him, so I'm looking for help here now.
I would really love to port IK to the Switch. I am a coder, but I have never really touched the topics of porting / emulation. I have read up the last few days about emulation, read a few source codes, and would be willing to give this a go myself. But if someone has something I can work off, this would be really appreciated. I guess in the end it's gonna be a "complete" C64 emulator, rather than only packaging single game.

But if someone happens to have the sources files from the ports from the NDS, or maybe still has contact to "Hadrian", I guess it should be pretty easy to compile with devkitpro / libnx for the Switch.

This is a shot in the dark, but it's better than nothing. Looking forward to your replies.

Regards,

 

[Pleng]

Well you're certainly not going to be porting anything that old as the source code will be long gone, and even if you had access to it, it would be totally irrelevant for today's systems. So you're either going to need to bundle an emulator with a rom (in which case why not just use the emulator directly without messing about with limiting yourself to one ROM), or remake the game from scratch.

(edit)
Sorry, I didn't realize there was already a DS version of the game you want to port, in which case the source code would indeed be helpful if you're able to get hold of it

 

[SmashinGit]

Would love to see a C64 emulator on the Switch, good luck

 

[retrohead]

Try FrodoDs. It's hard to find the source code of the latest version but here is an older one:

https://www.zophar.net/consoles/nds/c64/frodods.html

 

[theLilaQ]

Thanks retrohead, I will definitely look into this!

 

[thealgorithm]

Frodo is a faster alternative and usually should be fine for most games. Demo's on the other hand require a more accurate emulator such as Vice.

 

[snoofly]

there’s a vice core for retronx which actually runs games as long as you can navigate the garbled menu

would love to see a fixed version