Fast Nintendo DS Emulator.

[typs lik dis]

Searched this site all over and couldn't find anything.


Is there any possibility of a high-compatibility Nintendo DS emulator for the Pandora along the lines of DeSuMe or No$GBA? I know that the Pandora has only one physical screen, but it could display the top one through TV-out, right? Or is it one-or-the-other? This is kind of a selling point for me, as I carry my DS everywhere for Pokemon Heart Gold.

 

[Aninhumer]

So do you want fast or high compatibility?


That said, we're unlikely to get fast emulators running fullspeed any time soon, so I wouldn't expect compatible ones to get anywhere close.

 

[lulzfish]

I know that the Pandora has only one physical screen, but it could display the top one through TV-out, right? Or is it one-or-the-other?

Oh, man.


No, the screens are the least of the problems at hand. The DS's hardware is a bit more powerful than the N64, I don't think we'll ever see a usable Pandora emu for it.

 

[gruso]

Obvious troll is obvious. This guy has been a member of GP32X for two years and knows exactly what the score is.

 

[neko]

Searched this site all over and couldn't find anything.

cool story bro

 

[typs lik dis]

Obvious troll is obvious. This guy has been a member of GP32X for two years and knows exactly what the score is.

GP32X? I just joined these forums...

 

[Bosbeetle]

You made a joke! You're becomming a real boy.

 

[typs lik dis]

........

 

[WizardStan]

I find it hard to imagine that "typs lik dis" would be such a popular name choice that it would appear uniquely in two separate forums devoted to the same thing.

 

[Exophase]

I find it hard to imagine that "typs lik dis" would be such a popular name choice that it would appear uniquely in two separate forums devoted to the same thing.

You lack imagination. If his name was anything else people would probably take him seriously.. I think it's just a coincidence.


I'll play this one straight.


To the thread starter: the reason why people think you're kidding around is because in this community there has been a popular (overdone) joke about how the technical challenge to DS emulation is about fitting two screens on one. This is a mocking response because in reality there are plenty of pretty nice/viable ways to put the two displays on Pandora's high resolution display, and actually getting a DS emulator to be fast enough to be enjoyable is a much more significant problem.


To answer your question, there's very little chance of No$GBA being ported to Pandora because it's closed source, the author barely exists anymore (he mysteriously vanished for a long time and I hear he sort of came back at some point, but I haven't heard about anything regarding this), and from what I understand writes things mainly in x86 ASM anyway.


desmume can (and assuredly will) be ported, but it won't be "fast", it'll mostly be too slow to be worth using by anyone. The best shot Pandora would have at a "good enough" DS emulator would be a new one written for speed and targeting Pandora, with a recompiler and fast graphics renderer, and ideally with some of the video workload pushed onto the DSP.

 

[nonchip]

there would be another possibility: using desmume trough a "ssh -Y" tunnel. yes i know it wouldn't be really ported or running native, but when I'm at home, with 3 Ubuntu hosts running 24/7, i think it would be nice, because of the pandora's controls, and the ability to take it anywhere (in WiFi range), not having to stick in front of a 19" LCD and using a default keyboard.

 

[Exophase]

there would be another possibility: using desmume trough a "ssh -Y" tunnel. yes i know it wouldn't be really ported or running native, but when I'm at home, with 3 Ubuntu hosts running 24/7, i think it would be nice, because of the pandora's controls, and the ability to take it anywhere (in WiFi range), not having to stick in front of a 19" LCD and using a default keyboard.

My experience with X11 forwarding even on a LAN is that it's way too slow for something like that. Maybe VNC would work better. Overall my experiences with this sort of thing haven't been good.


You'd really have to do something additional to the data to fit the Pandora's screen in a nice way and map touchscreen and controls properly.

 

[b1ueskycomp1ex]

there would be another possibility: using desmume trough a "ssh -Y" tunnel. yes i know it wouldn't be really ported or running native, but when I'm at home, with 3 Ubuntu hosts running 24/7, i think it would be nice, because of the pandora's controls, and the ability to take it anywhere (in WiFi range), not having to stick in front of a 19" LCD and using a default keyboard.

All the raw data that's required would make it slow to a crawl, not to mention the lack of sound. Have you ever tried playing a flash video using a forwarded X server?


Edit: No, DS emulation isn't going to happen. If DS emulation used to be slow on my 2.2Ghz Athlon 64 3800+, it just won't happen on a 600Mhz ARM Cortex.

 

[Exophase]

Edit: No, DS emulation isn't going to happen. If DS emulation used to be slow on my 2.2Ghz Athlon 64 3800+, it just won't happen on a 600Mhz ARM Cortex.

If DS emulation becomes fast on your 2.2GHz Athlon64 3800+ will you revise your argument? I think on No$ it wasn't especially bad on my AthlonX2 2GHz..

 

[b1ueskycomp1ex]

If DS emulation becomes fast on your 2.2GHz Athlon64 3800+ will you revise your argument? I think on No$ it wasn't especially bad on my AthlonX2 2GHz..

The 3800+ was a single-core processor, and it was right on the margin of being playable with sound.


600Mhz ARM9, 2048Mhz Athlon 64


Huge performance difference between those two plaforms at those two speeds.


Edit: .... Exophase are you screwing with me?

 

[Exophase]

The 3800+ was a single-core processor, and it was right on the margin of being playable with sound.


600Mhz ARM9, 2048Mhz Athlon 64


Huge performance difference between those two plaforms at those two speeds.


Edit: .... Exophase are you screwing with me?

No, it's just that the entire basis of your argument was that it's not fast enough on one computer. If it was always fast enough on that computer you'd need a new argument.

 

[typs lik dis]

You lack imagination. If his name was anything else people would probably take him seriously.. I think it's just a coincidence.


I'll play this one straight.


To the thread starter: the reason why people think you're kidding around is because in this community there has been a popular (overdone) joke about how the technical challenge to DS emulation is about fitting two screens on one. This is a mocking response because in reality there are plenty of pretty nice/viable ways to put the two displays on Pandora's high resolution display, and actually getting a DS emulator to be fast enough to be enjoyable is a much more significant problem.


To answer your question, there's very little chance of No$GBA being ported to Pandora because it's closed source, the author barely exists anymore (he mysteriously vanished for a long time and I hear he sort of came back at some point, but I haven't heard about anything regarding this), and from what I understand writes things mainly in x86 ASM anyway.


desmume can (and assuredly will) be ported, but it won't be "fast", it'll mostly be too slow to be worth using by anyone. The best shot Pandora would have at a "good enough" DS emulator would be a new one written for speed and targeting Pandora, with a recompiler and fast graphics renderer, and ideally with some of the video workload pushed onto the DSP.

Thanks.


Is there any drawback to using the Pandora's TV-OUT and LCD to display different things simultaneously? It would be cool to e.g. run two copies of a multiplayer game with just one extra gamepad and no split-screen, given how ubiquitous TVs are.

 

[willrandship]

All the raw data that's required would make it slow to a crawl, not to mention the lack of sound. Have you ever tried playing a flash video using a forwarded X server?


Edit: No, DS emulation isn't going to happen. If DS emulation used to be slow on my 2.2Ghz Athlon 64 3800+, it just won't happen on a 600Mhz ARM Cortex.

Just how many viruses do you have on that thing? I've ran No$GBA on an old 800 mhz 256 MB PIII!!!! It ran everything but 3d games fullspeed and those about %70! An athlon at 2.2 Ghz should be running it blazingly fast!


BTW if you're still worried about the screen, typs lik dis, there are many ways around it. The pandora has enough resolution to run 3 sets of DS screens side by side. The actual emulation is the hard part, we can put the screens wherever we want.

 

[Exophase]

Just how many viruses do you have on that thing? I've ran No$GBA on an old 800 mhz 256 MB PIII!!!! It ran everything but 3d games fullspeed and those about %70! An athlon at 2.2 Ghz should be running it blazingly fast!


BTW if you're still worried about the screen, typs lik dis, there are many ways around it. The pandora has enough resolution to run 3 sets of DS screens side by side. The actual emulation is the hard part, we can put the screens wherever we want.

I think you must be really confused here. Probably you were running GBA games or something, because there's no way DS games (even 2D ones) would emulate at full speed on No$GBA on an 800MHz Pentium 3 (or 3D ones at 70% speed).

 

[gruso]

GP32X? I just joined these forums...

If you're not the guy I'm thinking of, then my apologies for the harsh introduction to the boards. This topic a huge meme/troll magnet on GP32X and this thread looked like his work. Carry on.