Release DraStic Nintendo DS emulator

[Klumpen]

The Zelda lid-close thing in this case specifically is that you find a map on a wall with a location marked which you can look at on the top screen, and in order to transfer that location to your own personal map you need to open the map on the bottom screen and then "mash" the two together: close the screen.

Just another sort of emu-protection, if you ask me and I can imagine, that this was one of the reasons for the second screen.

Nintendulation (lol) has gotten quite popular the years before and now the flashcards since ds. They do not approve. ^^

I always thaught, that this was the main reason why Nintendo began with these ingame microphone actions.

Next Gameboy, it will be microphone, lidcloseing, vibrationfeedback again, motion sensors and dual cameras you will need to finish a zelda game.

 

[Exophase]

Just another sort of emu-protection, if you ask me and I can imagine, that this was one of the reasons for the second screen.

Nintendulation (lol) has gotten quite popular the years before and now the flashcards since ds. They do not approve. ^^

I always thaught, that this was the main reason why Nintendo began with these ingame microphone actions.

Next Gameboy, it will be microphone, lidcloseing, vibrationfeedback again, and motion sensors, and dual cameras you will need to finish a zelda game.

I don't think so. It didn't take long for DS emulators to have a "close the lid" menu option. Needing microphone input could stop you if you don't have a microphone with your computer but thanks to much of the uses boiling down to "blow at the DS" the game is easily fooled by having an option to emulate white noise on the microphone line. Lack of second screen can suck on a handheld but it's not much of a big deal on anything with a pretty big display. The touch screen is more annoying IMO - you can emulate it with a mouse but it's much harder to use.

I think it's really down to Nintendo and other companies loving milking dumb gimmicks. After all the times I've been confronted with a "touch the screen to continue!" display where pressing buttons does nothing I've developed a permanent scowl.

 

[PokeParadox]

I like Another Code and Hotel Dusk for neat uses of the two screens... at least one of those has you use the reflectiveness as a mirror to solve a puzzle...

 

[LTStone]

I know I'll probly get flak for this but I kinda like a lot of dumb gimmicks as for me , like using the sixaxis on ps3 to row a boat, melee attack, disarm a bomb (call of duty 3) or the odd quicktime event or even using the headset to command my troops on Squad based games. The main thing though is the ability to turn these options off as most of these can be distracting and annoying or won't even work well enough for many players.

P.S.

For those who don't agree with me all I can say is this:

OBJECTION!   

 

[fusion_power]

I tested Advance Wars Dual Strike so far, runs good on my CC Pandora @ 800 MHz. It also runs at 600MHz but then the Music stutters. I'm not sure if the game is 3D but the map appears as an isometric 3D scrolling area, even if it still looks like the old 2D AW maps, same graphics but an enhanced "Mode 7" effect. ^^

However, the game should be playable with just one screen visible. Dual Strike uses the Touchscreen as gaming screen, lid screen is only for some visuals and informations.

Question: do "EU" Versions of NDS games come in various languages or do I have to pic a german rom if I want for example gemran language? Not sure if the NDS Bios sets this right, at last I didn't found anything ingame to switch from english to german.

 

[Neelix]

I like Another Code and Hotel Dusk for neat uses of the two screens... at least one of those has you use the reflectiveness as a mirror to solve a puzzle...

That's Another Code.  That nearly stumped me on my recent play through because it had been long enough since I last played that I couldn't remember the solution, and of course because both screens were displayed on one screen I had no way to reflect one screen off the other.

(Eventually I made do with using the in-game image manipulation tool to work out the alignment and mentally flipping the one of the images right to left to solve the clue)  In retrospect I could have just ignored it and done an exhaustive search of the room to find what I needed, but I couldn't remember what the significance of the clue was until after I solved it.

- Neelix

 

[Bachstelze]

Thanks Exophase,

the new version is great. Pokemon white 1 runs fullspeed in 2d and 80% and up in 3d scenes.

Wario Master of disguise is also fullspeed.

I saw a bug with the ingame time (in pokemon to tell if it is day or nigth, and in wario supposly to set a clock displayed in the background), its not the ingame playtime and not the ds time (Pokemon displays them all 3). The bug let the clock rapidly spin from 0:00 up to hour 39. The minutes are always zero.
To show what i mean, i attach a savestate. Stepa: Select Speichern and watch all displayes times, go back, select Speichern again.

Besides the time i saw 2 sprites garbeled in Wario, i have savestates for them attached too.
The Wario game crashes from time to time for no clear reason. I can sometimes play only 2 minutes, sometimes 25 minutes without a crash. But the savestate is not damaged, i can reload a save fine and then progress after the point where the crash has happened.

I dont know what this means, but it is in my dmesg output.
[ 3279.536499] UBI: fixable bit-flip detected at PEB 547
[ 3279.536499] UBI: schedule PEB 547 for scrubbing
[ 3279.606719] UBI: scrubbed PEB 547 (LEB 0:1995), data moved to PEB 234

Now it has happen again, i wrote so much about bugs and so few of how great the emulator already is. Thanks again for your hard work.

*edit*I have the feeling my attachments got a time out :/ will upload them later with reliable internet.

*edit2* Files attached, bz2 is not an alowed filetype -.-



pokemon.tar.bz2.txt

 

[full_indigo]

Re simulating opening and closing the DS, I believe this is in the worklog already, and there have been discussions on how it will work in the Android port, so I'm sure we'll see it in the Pandora version sooner or later.

I'm glad to hear that. Does something like a worklog document exist for DraStic?
If one is curious why one has to close and reopen the lid of the DS in Phantom Hourglass, here is the relevant part of a walkthrough:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/JO8jH52rOiE?feature=oembed
 Ahh, I had firmware version 1.52. After having a reason and updating to 1.54, the button works as expected. Thanks.

 

[Exophase]

I'm glad to hear that. Does something like a worklog document exist for DraStic?

If one is curious why one has to close and reopen the lid of the DS in Phantom Hourglass, here is the relevant part of a walkthrough:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/JO8jH52rOiE?feature=oembed

Does just the emulator crash or does the whole system hang?

 

[Bachstelze]

Savestates are now attached.

Does just the emulator crash or does the whole system hang?

Most of the crashes the emulator hangs. Sometimes the pandora os is shown after a keypress when the Drastic image turns black, sometimes the screen is not fully resetted an displays only a pink mes in the top left quarter. Then going into low power mode and wake up resets the screen.

A few crashes freeze the whole system.

Maybe the hard crashes want tell me that 1200Mhz are not allways stable.

 

[Exophase]

1.2GHz isn't stable for me, it very well may not be for you either. You'll have to see if you get the crashes still at 1.1GHz (or even 1GHz).

 

[Bachstelze]

It looks good at 1100 Mhz, no crashes so far. But could you please change the content of the file cpuspeed inside the pnd? From there Drastic reads 1200 and try to set it, regardless of the ovr setting.

 

[fahrstuhl]

Hey,

I just wanted to chime in and say how impressive DraStic is! I’ve played Metroid Prime Hunters (which, imo, has one of the best FPS controls I’ve seen on handhelds) on my Rebirth Pandora@998MHz at full speed (with some slowdowns in some bigger areas)

Thanks very much, Exophase!

 

[Exophase]

It looks good at 1100 Mhz, no crashes so far. But could you please change the content of the file cpuspeed inside the pnd? From there Drastic reads 1200 and try to set it, regardless of the ovr setting.

I didn't set anything like that.

 

[PokeParadox]

It looks good at 1100 Mhz, no crashes so far. But could you please change the content of the file cpuspeed inside the pnd? From there Drastic reads 1200 and try to set it, regardless of the ovr setting.

I didn't set anything like that.

CPUSPEED - you can just delete the file?

 

[Exophase]

I don't see a file called CPUSPEED in my pnd directory. I think it's him who set that, not me..

 

[PokeParadox]

That's what I meant!

 

[Bachstelze]

But how does this file got there in the first place?

Its in /mnt/pnd/Drastic. How got it there if i did not mess with the pnd and Exophase did not write such file? Is this some undocumented „feature“?

 

[TrashyMG]

in the PND directory where drastic live is there an  .ovr file with the same name as the .pnd file.. If so, when you open it in a text editor does it have a cpu speed setting to 1200Mhz? These files as far as I know are either hand created or can be made in the minimenu interface when the user selects to override cpu speed and such..

 

[Kumaki]

OVR files are hand-created.  I know, because I use them.

They can be used simply to give an emu a more friendly name, for example, Commordore 64 instead of Vice.  so that you don't have to remember all sorts of alternate names.

Anyway, in the .ovr files...so called because they over-ride the defaults of a particular .pnd, you can set things like clockspeed within them...if you want a certain program to run at a higher or lower than normal clockspeed, you can do this.

This can help save your battery, for example, if you do not need a lot of clockspeed to just play music, for example.  You could write an .ovr file for your .pnd file that plays your music, and set a lower clockspeed in the .ovr file, and then that particular program will run at the lower clockspeed.

I personally just use them to rename things I don't like the names of, to names I do like, which are more familiar, for example, I have DraStic's icon on my screen showing "Nintendo DS" because I don't like to have to remember whcih name goes to which emu....I just name the emu'd system instead of the emu.  It helps me to know which icon is which on my screen.