Release DraStic Nintendo DS emulator

[Askarus]

I like the customisable UI.

But please keep the option to swap screens via button press.

Maybe some shortcuts as well where you can save some configurations ans swap them.

Touch screen drag and drop would be nice as well.

There should be no reason to have separate configuration files for internal and external controls here, the configuration will store something like 0-4 inputs for each action. I can't think of a reason why you wouldn't want to have both the Pandora controls and the external controls set to trigger actions at the same time. Or maybe this is actually what you were saying?

That's not what I'm saying.

If I use an external gamepad I have to set it's controls.

If those controls would overwrite Pandora controls then I'd have to set the controls back to Pandora controls when I unplug the gamepad.

So the Gamepad and the Pandora controls should be able to coexist.

 

[PokeParadox]

Okay, I found/fixed the bug with Axe. The problem was that it was rejecting PSG/noise type samples that have zero-length sample buffer lengths, which shouldn't happen because those don't have sample buffers to begin with.


This also fixes missing sound effects in Fire Emblem, something I totally forgot about. So uh, thanks

Ha! Glad I could be helpful... I think :blink:

But seriously I've been meaning to mention this for a while and somehow remembered last night. So glad it was a straighforward fix! And as usual very interesting to hear the resons why it was broken too.

 

[WizardStan]

So the Gamepad and the Pandora controls should be able to coexist.

From what I understand Exophase is saying, each action will be able to map from up to 4 inputs, so they will coexist. You'll setup your Pandora controls, you'll set up the external controller, and then if you press either the Pandora's buttons or the controllers buttons it'll perform the same action.

 

[mcobit]

So the Gamepad and the Pandora controls should be able to coexist.

From what I understand Exophase is saying, each action will be able to map from up to 4 inputs, so they will coexist. You'll setup your Pandora controls, you'll set up the external controller, and then if you press either the Pandora's buttons or the controllers buttons it'll perform the same action.

This is like MAME and some other emus do it and the best choice imo.

 

[levi]

Yes, although I personally dislike MAME's way of setting up multiple control schemes using the Tab menu. I think I'd prefer four (or however many) sets of controls that you can configure independently, rather than just multiple controls for each direction/button, even if the latter is more powerful.

 

[Exophase]

Yes, although I personally dislike MAME's way of setting up multiple control schemes using the Tab menu. I think I'd prefer four (or however many) sets of controls that you can configure independently, rather than just multiple controls for each direction/button, even if the latter is more powerful.

I don't know how MAME works here, does it make you perform the entire configuration at a time like Mednafen does? If it's like that I can see why you wouldn't want multiple controls per action. But I wouldn't do that, it'd just be like this:


DS A: PND_B KB_X J0_0 J1_0
DS B: PND_X KB_Y J0_1 ----
Save State: KB_S KB_0 ---- ----
You'd press up/down/left/right to select a row and column, then press a button on Pandora to configure the slot, and press a button on something to make it set. Or you'd press a button to remove the slot item.
Given this setup is there any reason you'd prefer separate configurations?

 

[levi]

In MAME you have to select the control to change, press the first key, reselect it, press the second key, reselect it etc. If you wait too long before reselecting it it clears the list and you have to start again.


Your proposal for selecting which control set you want to change then changing the settings for that is almost exactly what I was thinking when I said separate configurations.

 

[Exophase]

EDIT: Okay, this actually causes a big performance degradation on the latest kernel, possibly having to do with huge pages being set to writeback. notaz and I are investigating more.

Here's a little trick to gain 1-4% or so more performance, at least with frameskip off. Do this in a terminal as root:

echo always > /sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/enabled

This will enable transparent huge pages, which will make the kernel try to map large contiguous page regions to 2MB pages instead of 4KB pages. This can make a tangible difference on Cortex-A8 since it has such a small DTLB of only 32 entries, which can only map 128KB of small pages.

However, according to notaz this option can cause problems with some other programs; he listed Firefox. So you should turn it off outside of using DraStic. I'm going to try to get the same benefit just for DraStic by using madvise, hopefully that'll work out as well.

 

[ingoreis]

another simple Trick to get little more Performance is....

..simply run it from MiniMenu,not from Xfce

Most People forgot this little Trick for little more Performance

 

[ekianjo]

..simply run it from MiniMenu,not from Xfce

or Openbox.

 

[romanaOne]

Can the nintendo DS movement gestures be mapped to the D-pad in Drastic?

I don't know about most people, but the deal-breaker for me and the DS was the clumsy, inefficient touchscreen movement in games like Zelda.

If this were a feature of Drastic, it would be more fun to play games on Drastic than a real NDS!

Btw, there is a cheat for the Phantom Hourglass where you can make the d-pad move Link.

Does Drastic support cheats so I can enable this feature at least in one game?

 

[matzesu]

Jepp, Drastic dos support Cheats, (and its noch besser: you  just have to chose the cheats from a Menü, ),

 

[Exophase]

Can the nintendo DS movement gestures be mapped to the D-pad in Drastic? I don't know about most people, but the deal-breaker for me and the DS was the clumsy, inefficient touchscreen movement in games like Zelda. If this were a feature of Drastic, it would be more fun to play games on Drastic than a real NDS! Btw, there is a cheat for the Phantom Hourglass where you can make the d-pad move Link. Does Drastic support cheats so I can enable this feature at least in one game?

You say games like Zelda, can you give concrete examples actually outside of those two Zelda games? I can't stand the controls in DS Zelda either, I think Nintendo was on acid when they designed them that way (good think they didn't do Link Between Worlds that way too). The thing is, it's not like you just use relative swipes to move Link, you also have to use gestures to attack and roll and stuff. If you mapped swipes to the d-pad and/or analog nub but still had to regularly touch the screen to attack and do other maneuvers I think it'd actually be even worse than using the touchscreen for everything. For that reason ROM hacks that change the game logic to fit different control schemes make more sense, and yeah you can use the cheat code for that. Sadly, they still seem far from perfect.

 

[PokeParadox]

Mario 64 DS used the touchscreen as an analogue stick. It would be cool if this could be somehow mapped to the nub.

 

[romanaOne]

Animal Crossing uses a similar if not the very same gestures for movement as the Zelda games. Well, it feels the same as Zelda anyway. I haven't gotten into that game much b/c of the stylus. Those were the first (and last!) 2 NDS games I got.  I just assumed that there are lots of DS games that involve moving a little adventure guy around and they would do it the same way.

I'll go see how to start cheating in Drastic.

 

[levi]

Yeah, Mario 64 uses the Metroid Prime Hunters control scheme as far as I recall. Press down the stylus to set the dead zone, then drag away from it to move. Whereas Animal Crossing uses something more like the Zelda control scheme, which is more like a point-and-click adventure where your avatar goes to where you click. Though I don't recall using that when I played Animal Crossing, so I guess it also supports d-pad control.

 

[Kumaki]

OK....how does one put .sav files into the appdata, so that Drastic will find the saved game...so that I can import a saved game from my regular DS?

I can play on my reqular DS...and on Pandora...but I can't manage to get my saved game onto the Pandora.

I'd like to play this a little bit on my Pandora, where I can use SAVESTATES...and then go back to playing it on my DS...since you can't do SAVESTATES directly on a DS.

I want to cheat at the Casino on Dragon Quest VI.

 

[ekianjo]

Sav games may not be using the same format though.

 

[levi]

Though you must make sure DraStic boots the same DS BIOS as the save file was made from, else it won't load. In case you're moving a sav file from a DS flash card, you'll need to dump your DS's BIOS and use that in DraStic.


Edit: Misread you there Eki. I thought the save file format was the same, but I don't recall ever trying it so I might be wrong. I only know the above because I once cleared my BIOS files when resetting appdata, and despite restoring my saves, none of them loaded until I put my BIOS back too.

 

[ekianjo]

Though you must make sure DraStic boots the same DS BIOS as the save file was made from, else it won't load. In case you're moving a sav file from a DS flash card, you'll need to dump your DS's BIOS and use that in DraStic.

That may still not work. Depending on which flashcart you used on DS, I know there were some incompatibilities between one brand to another, so whether they work in Drastic is really a big question mark.