Hacking What simple thing could lead to DS emulation?

[James310]

The DSi had an SD card slot though. We've been able to get DSiWare running fine. DS never had an SD card slot though which is why we've made almost no progress.

Hopefully that wario game coming up as a reward in mynintendo is actually a true ds rom

 

[astronautlevel]

Hopefully that wario game coming up as a reward in mynintendo is actually a true ds rom

It's already confirmed to be recompiled DSiWare.

 

[WindyRain0212]

How about this?:

We would need to ADD a CIA that brings you to a menu and you can select which game you want- then reboots into a different partition on the SD card (like EmuNAND) that is a virtual copy of TWL_Firm that redirects all saves and access to the extra partition and has the game loading

What we would need is some kind of hax that sits between the game that's been launched, and the hardware, which basically "catches" the communication and redirects it. Everything after this would be ez.
I'd say we should look into how HBmenu and or flashcard launchers work.
Flashcard launchers in particular, cause they HAVE to redirect the read/write operations to the specific ROM, else it would just write to some addresses on the SDcard the flashcard has attached.

 

[Apache Thunder]

I recall early versions of YSMenu had source code available. I suggest you hunt that down if you want to look into how the retail rom launchers worked.

It would be nice if the source could be found. Would be nice to add some things to it. Like DSi Enhanced Mode support for R4 users.

EDIT: Also, WoodRPG which is what WoodR4 was based on was also open source at one point.

 

[Deleted User]

Deleted

 

[Billy Acuña]

Would be nice to add some things to it. Like DSi Enhanced Mode support for R4 users.

Will you add DSi Enhanced to your TWL Slot-1 Launcher or does it need to be on a separate SRL?

 

[Apache Thunder]

TWL Slot-1 Launcher can not launch DS carts in any other mode then what their internal rom tells TWL_FIRM to boot in. That's because TWL Slot-1 Launcher is a TID based exploit. TWL_FIRM reads the TID. Because file type is cartridge in the TID, it immediately jumps to the cart in Slot-1 and boots it.

Altering the mode it launches in doesn't do anything because TWL_FIRM never reads the SRL that was installed. You need a stage2 launcher to alter how the flashcart in question boots. Also, it's highly unlikely you will ever get any of newer carts to boot in DSi Enhanced mode. They all pretend to be a retail game to get around antipiracy checks and as a result they contain a portion of the original game's code they pretend to be as. Because of this booting them in DSi Enhanced mode or DSi Exclusive mode cause them to hang while booting. I have tested a rom dump of Gateway Blue Cart and this was the conclusion I came too.

Currently the only card confirmed to boot in DSi Enhanced Mode/Exclusive mode (besides CycloDS iEvolution which officially supports it) is the original R4. Although besides hbmenu, none of the retail rom loaders currently support loading anything while in said modes.

 

[Plailect]

It's truly disheartening to see the gross oversimplification and complete disregard of and for the work done by dedicated members of the community for free on their own time.

The use of buzzword style catch phrases that are being thrown around like "reprogram" and "give directions to" are ultimately just that- meaningless buzzwords that describe and advance nothing in particular while sounding impressive and obvious.

Most of the points listed in the OP are either incredibly far off base or just literall restatements of another point (#3 and #8 come to mind) that they don't even come close to representing anything meaningful in terms of advancement towards whatever "backup" or piracy related goals you may have.

The continued belief that any of this development work is "simple" or could be done easily just by "reprogramming" (whatever that means) shows a lack of understanding as to how complex a system such as this console actually is.

Phrases such as "CFW has hardly progressed at all because the CFW devs are not skilled enough to figure out things on their own without help" is, in my mind, a completely insane thing to say in this period just weeks after the greatest advancements to the public 3DS scene in years were pioneered (for free!) by CFW devs. (not counting the private exploit crap nobody was sharing before it was rediscovered for the public)

If anyone honestly beleives that the CFW devs do nothing and this task is so simple, I challenge them to get DS ROM loading working off the SD card.

tl;dr: The issues being complained about in this thread are ridiculous simplifications of complex systems written by people who don't even understand the system they think is so easy to just "reprogram," all the while insulting CFW devs for doing nothing just after the CakesFW team essentially revolutionized the entire public scene.

 

[Roboman]

This is still overlooking the fact that DS games are explicitly designed to work with a cartridge slot...so okay, we somehow work out how to load the game into RAM, and then we also work out how to allow TWL to access all of the systems RAM...we're still sitting back at square one with the games still trying to communicate with the cart slot.

the arm 11 also has access to the cart bus.
if we can get the arm 11 to use the cart bus to emulate a cart using data stored in ram it might work

 

[dark_samus3]

2. The DS games won't fit in RAM
(The DS only had 4mb ram. The O3DS has 127mb and the N3DS has 256mb)

Do..... do.... no you can't be THAT much of an idiot... OK, you haven't put much thought into it obviously, you need to load the ENTIRE ROM into RAM (at least for the simplest solution), some ROMs are at least 100 MB which is almost the FULL amount of FCRAM that we have available, at least on o3ds... not to mention there are bigger ones out there (the largest I've heard of is 512 MB, which is more RAM than the amount the o3ds and n3ds have combined) no to mention that you also need to make space for the RAM that the DS mode uses, not to mention that we're probably cut off from the rest of FCRAM, so now we'd need to get around that, so yes, the fact that DS games won't fit into RAM is a HIGHLY valid excuse

It's truly disheartening to see the gross oversimplification and complete disregard of and for the work done by dedicated members of the community for free on their own time.

The use of buzzword style catch phrases that are being thrown around like "reprogram" and "give directions to" are ultimately just that- meaningless buzzwords that describe and advance nothing in particular while sounding impressive and obvious.

Most of the points listed in the OP are either incredibly far off base or just literall restatements of another point (#3 and #8 come to mind) that they don't even come close to representing anything meaningful in terms of advancement towards whatever "backup" or piracy related goals you may have.

The continued belief that any of this development work is "simple" or could be done easily just by "reprogramming" (whatever that means) shows a lack of understanding as to how complex a system such as this console actually is.

Phrases such as "CFW has hardly progressed at all because the CFW devs are not skilled enough to figure out things on their own without help" is, in my mind, a completely insane thing to say in this period just weeks after the greatest advancements to the 3DS scene in years were publicly pioneered (for free!) by CFW devs.

If anyone honestly beleives that the CFW devs do nothing and this task is so simple, I challenge them to get DS ROM loading working off the SD card.

tl;dr: The issues being complained about in this thread are ridiculous simplifications of complex systems written by people who don't even understand the system they think is so easy to just "reprogram," all the while insulting CFW devs for doing nothing just after the CakesFW team publicized OTP information and essentially revolutionized the entire scene.

^ what this guy said... seriously, if you don't know what goes into "reprogramming" then DON'T talk about it like it's some super easy process, it surely isn't... not to mention the fact that you have decrypt, disassemble and then sift through ~a megabyte of stuff (which, if you've ever opened a 1 MB file in a hex editor, you'll know that that's quite a lot of information) to find the code that you THINK (mind you, you have to check and make sure you're right, which involves patching the firmware, re-encrypting it (and nintendo is kinda crypto crazy) then installing/launching it on the device somehow (not always easy)) so, before you go and say it's "easy" or talk about it like it is, do some damn research, and if you aren't willing to, then don't make a thread, quit complaining and have a nice damn day

 

[Cuphat]

"What simple thing could lead to DS emulation?"

Well, Nintendo could release a DS game that worked like GBA VC and allowed injections. I guess that is simple, from our standpoint. That's almost certainly not going to happen, though, given that they aren't jumping to re-release DS games on a massive scale and DSiWare is a functional alternative, given that they have the source code and can recompile it.

Otherwise, it remains a theoretical possibility, but there is nothing about it that is simple.

 

[MAXLEMPIRA]

o,0... so, I think that is not easy yet to emulate or redirect Slot-1 to SD and then modify TWL_Firm or patch it(Like Wii or PS3), right?

 

[MAXLEMPIRA]

TRIPLE POST...

 

[MAXLEMPIRA]

o,0... so, I think that is not easy yet to emulate or redirect Slot-1 to SD and then modify TWL_Firm or patch it(Like Wii or PS3), right?

DOUBLE POST, Please someone delete it?

 

[Billy Acuña]

-snip-

You were very easy on him, but you basically said the crude truth...

 

[phalk]

Right now the closest you'll get is creating "shortcut" applications that launch a game from an R4 which is very doable. I recently confirmed DLDI capable NTR mode homebrew can access storage on original R4 cards. So you could create a launcher that sends a command to a rom manager on the R4 (one that has argv support maybe. Perhaps some special version of Moonshell or something. Not sure if WoodR4 supports this) to start a specific game.

Not even sure the current rom managers for R4 support this. In that case, have fun programming a new rom manager from scratch. While you're at it, you might as well make one for DSi Enhanced games and even allow DSi Enhanced mode to work for such games which is theoretically possible. Say goobye to the rare and expensive iEvolution. It's theoretically possible for an R4 to use DSi Enhanced mode. You just need to program a rom manager that supports it.

hbmenu could be a good starting point for this. I have confirmed if you convert it to CIA compatible SRL that boots in DSi Hybrid mode instead of DSi Exclusive mode, give it R4 DLDI, and install it. It can access and launch things off the R4 (in DSi Enhanced mode!).

The original rom managers for the R4 don't work properly in DSi Enhanced mode however. Currently hbmenu isn't setup to launch commerical roms....For obvious reasons. The creators of it weren't interested in that. But if you got the programming knowhow, it wouldn't be difficult for you to repurpose it for that. Just don't expect the devs behind hbmenu to help, because they sure as hell won't be happy that you would ba**stardize it for retail rom loading.

I actually like this approach.

At least the Activity Log won't be all messed up with a random game used by the flashcart.
In this same line if thought, is it possible to launch a flashcart with a different Title / Banner?

 

[Billy Acuña]

o,0... so, I think that is not easy yet to emulate or redirect Slot-1 to SD and then modify TWL_Firm or patch it(Like Wii or PS3), right?

DOUBLE POST, Please someone delete it?

What they did on Wii's backwards was product of A LOOOOT of research, just thing that Nintendont was released after Wii U's launch.

 

[WindyRain0212]

o,0... so, I think that is not easy yet to emulate or redirect Slot-1 to SD and then modify TWL_Firm or patch it(Like Wii or PS3), right?

Not easy at all, mate. I'd be heavily surprised if this would be somewhere in the alpha after only 4-6 months or longer. Most likely its gonna take even longer (if its gonna be possible at all.)

EDIT: I also wonder, for now, what would the difference of power requirements be between the retroArch PSX emu and a NDS emu..
Yes I've seen the endless explanations of how unplayable it would be..

 

[MAXLEMPIRA]

What they did on Wii's backwards was product of A LOOOOT of research, just thing that Nintendont was released after Wii U's launch.

I'm not talking about how Nintendont works, but how they emulate the disc drive and redirect it to the HDD, and this can made us load .3ds files too from sd, as far as I know, we have now a total control over the 3DS, right? but take control over Slot-1 and try this? I have never seen something like that, so I'm asking, did this is possible at this moment? I mean, to redirect Slot-1 to SD Card and load .3ds files like if they were Cart Games (AKA Red Gateway function without hardware)

 

[WindyRain0212]

I'm not talking about how Nintendont works, but how they emulate the disc drive and redirect it to the HDD, and this can made us load .3ds files too from sd, as far as I know, we have now a total control over the 3DS, right? but take control over Slot-1 and try this? I have never seen something like that, so I'm asking, did this is possible at this moment? I mean, to redirect Slot-1 to SD Card and load .3ds files like if they were Cart Games (AKA Red Gateway function without hardware)

As far as I've seen, noone knows how to yet. Yes, we basically have "full control" over the 3DS afaik, still won't help us much if we don't know how the hardware interacts with the software everywhere.
Atleast I've not seen anyone admit that they know how to, or have done it already yet.

Personally imma gonna try to study about the TWL_FIRM and see whats possible with it and what not.


TL;DR: SLOT-1 redirection currently NOT possible.

 

[MAXLEMPIRA]

As far as I've seen, noone knows how to yet. Yes, we basically have "full control" over the 3DS afaik, still won't help us much if we don't know how the hardware interacts with the software everywhere.
Atleast I've not seen anyone admit that they know how to, or have done it already yet.

Personally imma gonna try to study about the TWL_FIRM and see whats possible with it and what not.


TL;DR: SLOT-1 redirection currently NOT possible.

it would be more easily to research about Slot-1 Redirection, after that, patching TWL_Firm to recognize what CTR is sending would be easy

 

[Deleted User]

Deleted