Homebrew What is possible with A9LH and when will we see more developement?

[eskinner3742]

Ok, So I've been using A9LH now for a little while and I absolutely love it. The ability to run uncart, decrypt9, emunand9, and godmode9 are all pretty cool.

But I've been hearing that A9LH will have a lot more cool things in store in the future. But what is that exactly? Will there be the ability to further mod our home menu like setting custom buttons for screenshot or camera? Like serioiusly, what else will there be with this? What is there already? Any leads or ideas?

 

[daxtsu]

Well, I imagine we'll eventually see "prettier" recovery menus/solutions, in terms of graphics, at least. The ARM9 CPU itself isn't very powerful, so I wouldn't expect to see much more than utilities or loaders for other operating systems (i.e. Linux) springing up for the most part (however, it's not that difficult to make the ARM11 do stuff either). Keep in mind that when the system boots into A9LH, the environment is very primitive; the regular 3DS OS isn't running per-se, so everything has to be done manually and at a low level, meaning it takes more work to get anything done.

 

[eskinner3742]

Well, I imagine we'll eventually see "prettier" recovery menus/solutions, in terms of graphics, at least. The ARM9 CPU itself isn't very powerful, so I wouldn't expect to see much more than utilities or loaders for other operating systems (i.e. Linux) springing up for the most part. Keep in mind that when the system boots into A9LH, the environment is very primitive; the regular 3DS OS isn't running per-se, so everything has to be done manually and at a low level, meaning it takes more work to get anything done.

Ok, That makes sense. Better GUI isn't really a concern for me as I enjoy the simple layout as it's straight to the point and already very well implemented. I imagine that if we see forks into other Operating Systems and linux we could also see direct boots into DSi mode and allow DS roms to play? Wishful thinking, but also what about more customization to the Home Menu? Could this possibly lead to stronger emulators like finally getting an N64 or PS1?

 

[GBAFail]

Ok, That makes sense. Better GUI isn't really a concern for me as I enjoy the simple layout as it's straight to the point and already very well implemented. I imagine that if we see forks into other Operating Systems and linux we could also see direct boots into DSi mode and allow DS roms to play? Wishful thinking, but also what about more customization to the Home Menu? Could this possibly lead to stronger emulators like finally getting an N64 or PS1?

Not really. Everything I highlighted would have to be done on the ARM11 CPU in CFW. Which we've had for a while and is already possible without A9LH. To play DS games from your SD card, you'd have to modify the TWL_FIRM (a lot of work) and that's already possible though without A9LH. So while these things are possible, you wouldn't need A9LH to use them.

 

[Dr. Dew]

You can play DS games off the 3DS sd? what how?

 

[3than_H]

Ok, That makes sense. Better GUI isn't really a concern for me as I enjoy the simple layout as it's straight to the point and already very well implemented. I imagine that if we see forks into other Operating Systems and linux we could also see direct boots into DSi mode and allow DS roms to play? Wishful thinking, but also what about more customization to the Home Menu? Could this possibly lead to stronger emulators like finally getting an N64 or PS1?

There is already a PS1 emulator.
https://buildbot.libretro.com/nightly/nintendo/3ds/ , http://wiki.libretro.com/index.php?title=PCSX_ReARMed

 

[MichiS97]

You can play DS games off the 3DS sd? what how?

You can't, yet, and it is not being worked on at the moment (publicly at least)

 

[toto9992]

I would love to see custom home menu, not just themes (themes are cool, but the menu could be so much better).

 

[GBAFail]

You can play DS games off the 3DS sd? what how?

I didn't say that. I said it's already possible to CREATE that without A9LH.

 

[eskinner3742]

There is already a PS1 emulator.
https://buildbot.libretro.com/nightly/nintendo/3ds/ , http://wiki.libretro.com/index.php?title=PCSX_ReARMed

Yeah, but it's not very good. I was assuming that the ability to enter in at the arm9 entry point could result in more control over the kernel because the exploit happens so early into boot. I guess we've had the ability to play with more "brickable" customizations to the home menu and other firms but now more of us can explore it without the fear of brick (or at least being able to recover)

 

[3than_H]

Xenogears runs at around 50-60 fps

 

[eskinner3742]

Xenogears runs at around 50-60 fps

REALLY?? Last I tried Crash 3, Spyro, and Brave Fencer Musashi all ran around 20fps. Will have to check this out... If PS1 is running smoothly maybe we can see N64 and possible 3D plugin for PS1????

 

[GBAFail]

Yeah, but it's not very good. I was assuming that the ability to enter in at the arm9 entry point could result in more control over the kernel because the exploit happens so early into boot. I guess we've had the ability to play with more "brickable" customizations to the home menu and other firms but now more of us can explore it without the fear of brick (or at least being able to recover)

REALLY?? Last I tried Crash 3, Spyro, and Brave Fencer Musashi all ran around 20fps. Will have to check this out... If PS1 is running smoothly maybe we can see N64 and possible 3D plugin for PS1????

Yeah, some games run decent enough. Most don't though. All this stuff runs on the ARM11 CPU. So A9LH isn't going to improve your performance.

 

[eskinner3742]

Yeah, some games run decent enough. Most don't though. All this stuff runs on the ARM11 CPU. So A9LH isn't going to improve your performance.

Ok, so this thread may have pointed out that I'm obviously a n00b.

Do you, or anybody else, have a "crash course" of sorts on what really goes in the 3DS. Like what is run at boot, what part of the firm is used to do this and that... Like everything. I wanna learn more to avoid these n00by posts.

 

[GBAFail]

Ok, so this thread may have pointed out that I'm obviously a n00b.

Do you, or anybody else, have a "crash course" of sorts on what really goes in the 3DS. Like what is run at boot, what part of the firm is used to do this and that... Like everything. I wanna learn more to avoid these n00by posts.

All you need to know is that most code runs on the ARM11 CPU. But some code like A9LH runs on the ARM9 CPU. The ARM9 CPU in the 3DS is a lot slower then the ARM11 one. So anything that requires any remote amount of processing power you're going to want to do on the ARM11. That's not to say the ARM9 is useless. We can use it to start CFW and run tools like file browsers and backup tools. But you don't need A9LH to do that. It just makes it more convenient.