Homebrew The Truth behind GBA emulation

[Opium]

so someone says his friend has coded a proof-of-concept but wont show to anyone... and it gets a news on the frontpage? lol

If it comes from Normmatt then yes. Show some respect.
Normmatt has done a lot of different work on the DS scene including working on DeSemuME.

btw, the annonymous programmer isn't the one who came forward with this to let people know it was possible, he's not trying to blow any whistles and then turn around and say he wont release it because of piracy. No need to get pissy at him. Normmatt was kind enough to let us know what has been going on in the first place.

Even if nothing practical comes of it, it's still interesting to know it is 'possible' I find.

 

[CockroachMan]

Well.. we now know that it is possible.. but it's still very hard to do.. the guy just gave the first step.. a lot of stuff still need to be done.

 

[enarky]

This hypervisor approach has even been discussed on GBADev already, too. There's a thread about it somewhere, can't be bothered to search it. Bottom line was, emulation would still be useless, since the Slot-1 bus is too slow to emulate ROM access (IIRC).

I'd recommend taking this news item away from the frontpage, if you don't want a flood of newbs asking for "teh Slot-1 gBA emulatorz0r" every few hours in the froums.

 

[imz]

They're approaching this possibility now? After I lost all hope of ever being able to emulate GBA roms off a slot-1 cart? Well I think it's pretty cool if it does happen, but I won't have to wait for it anyway as I have just ordered an EZ flash 3-in-1

 

[Normmatt]

This hypervisor approach has even been discussed on GBADev already, too. There's a thread about it somewhere, can't be bothered to search it. Bottom line was, emulation would still be useless, since the Slot-1 bus is too slow to emulate ROM access (IIRC).

I'd recommend taking this news item away from the frontpage, if you don't want a flood of newbs asking for "teh Slot-1 gBA emulatorz0r" every few hours in the froums.

.

Yeah i suppose taking down the item from the front page would be a good idea i mean we already get enough gba emulator for nds posts, I was posting this because i keep reading everyone say that it is impossible so i posted saying it is indeed possible its just no one has released one.

 

[No-Lifer]

If I patch and boot gba games on my slot-2 Supercard they work fine, no problems.

 

[DanTheManMS]

Alright, assuming it is possible to get full-speed emulation for a second, wouldn't the "2 MB swap" trick lose its effectiveness as the game got larger as it would have to swap out more and more to reach all parts of the game? I could see it maybe happening for 4 MB games, but 16 or 32 MB ones? SNEmulDS already uses this approach for large SNES games, and at least in the older versions you could visibly see when it swapped out more ROM into RAM as the game would pause for a second. This is with 4 MB being the max supported size. It's become less noticeable now, but I imagine if it was given larger rom sizes it would start to choke again.

 

[nephdj]

maybe mr anon could sell his tech to ubisoft or some company

then they can bundle gba games on DS

 

[Kamgusta]

ez flash expansion pack is less than 20 dollars, id actually be upset if someone wasted a lot of time on GBA emulation when its better SNES we need!

Ewin GBA Explorer is $12, and has 32MB RAM.
Case closed.

 

[shakirmoledina]

internet downloaded program is free and easier to obtain (case re-opened)
I really wish this happens
That would mean that the picture from gbatemp about the GBA being played on the DS has to be changed
ie.) R4 cannot play GBA roms
EZV cannot play GBA roms... etc has to be R4 cannot play GBA roms yet

 

[arctic_flame]

Now, I'm sure you've been told many many times that gba emulation on the nds is impossible well this is entirely untrue.

It is however impossible to software emulate the gba on nds well at any descent frame rate anyway.

It is possible to create a hypervisor using the mpu that translates the writes to the graphics and sound hardware of the gba to the nds hardware this however is hard to do which is why no one has done it well except for someone who will not under no circumstances release it because he does not condone piracy.

Using the hypervisor approach you can get full speed, maybe even faster, not to mention you could potentially add things such as save states etc but first someone would need to create a hypervisor and release it to the public.

I will not be creating a hypervisor but i thought i'd let others know that running GBA games from slot1 is not entirely impossible its just no one has bothered to code something that the nds hardware does natively and release it to the public.

Sigh. You're just saying what everyone already knows. Why this is news astounds me.

I doubt it would get near full speed with paged roms. Especially if you're reading off the card with libfat. Especially in games like "Golden Sun"

 

[funem]

I always thought the argument was that you couldnt run GBA games from a slot 1 by accessing the GBA hardware inside the DS, I dont think anyone doubted you could emulate a GBA game on a DS via an emulator one day with majr or minor restrictions of some kind... or did I just get the wrong end of the stick.. or was it both ?

*turns stick round just in case

 

[Deleted User]

Whoever made the concept should definitely either release a video, or pictures, otherwise we can just forget it.

I'm not sure whether to believe it or not, so some proof would be nice...

 

[NeSchn]

That would be pretty cool, even though I have a GBA flashcart coming in the mail.

 

[T!b0]

Oh noooooez!!

With this news on front page, the "how do I run GBA game on my slot-1?" flood will never cease

Well, anyway that's an interesting concept... Not very useful, but interesting. And a good challenge for whoever tries to make it real..

 

[.TakaM]

posting this on the front page will probably be good in the long run in that perhaps someone will figure it out...
but until then I expect that R4-GBA question topics will be returning

 

[elfsander]

Maybe it would be best if we'd try to get a team of DS homebrew devs. to work on this, maybe then we'll see something that works.

 

[iNFiNiTY]

Why put up with an inferior method to run the games if its even possible, when theres cheap hardware to run them as intended?

 

[JPH]

Wow...after all the naysayers.
It's good that it is possible to play GBA ROMs on Slot-1's...but if it is a pain in the ass to get them to work, I say just go ahead and by a Slot-2...

Good news though

 

[Whizz]

I wrote a PS3 emulator for the DS. I won't release it because I'm affraid of it being used for piracy.