Snesds :)


Sonic-NKT

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Apr 15, 2003
Messages
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Hi,
just read the first Snes emu for the DS is out..was exicted since i own one, but i thought it would be like the emus on the gp32. Now i read it has 100% Speed and Sound (which is a still a bit buggy).Ok Compatibility is still low but hey, its a first release. This emu could get perfekt! Why is it so much better? ok the DS has 2 CPUs, but the arm 9 is much slower than the one of the GP32 and the ARM7 even more.
 
Hmmm I'll believe it when I see it...


or at least, hear it first hand from one of our members here.

So how 'bout it? Can anyone verify this please? How's it look with the DS's low res?
 
Last release I tried, it wasn't that brilliant. There was no sound and graphics were broken in many games. It also only seemed to support a single rom.

I have heard that partial sound support has been added now, although I've not tried the new version yet.
 
i doubt it can ever have a acurate emulation with fullspeed and sound as long as they dont find a way to use the gba chips in ds mode, but if they do, it would be perfecktly possible i gues.
 
a bit off topic, but don't want to start a new thread. I want to try some of the DS stuff and I heard you can get stuff through the download and play via wifi.

Do you still need a flash cart to do it? With my DSL i have a modem with wireless conectivity, how do you get it to transfer to the DS? With my PSP its all automatic, or do i need other stuff to get the DS working with my DSL?
 
Vimacs: why do you need to use gba chips in ds mode? The DS basically has 1 3d gfx core (which is really just a geometry engine), and 2 2d gfx cores (which are almost identical to the gba graphics), so think of it as a gba on steroids :)

KickinWing: You need a GBA Flashcard *and* a suitable Wifi card installed in your PC (I use a Ralink 2560 adaptor). You then install non-standard drivers for the Wifi card as the DS uses a non-standard Wifi protocol, so isn't compatible with any other Wifi-standard, like what you DSL modem supports. You then need to run a dos application to upload a signed image via the wireless link to your ds, and this will trick the ds into running the image you place on your gba card.

You can only upload the programs directly via Wifi or flash card if you flash the DS bios (which must be done using the above procedure).

More info of the Wifi method is available at http://www.aaronrogers.com/nintendods/wifime.php
The other alternative would be a PassMe card http://www.natrium42.com/
 
My laptop has build in wlan, would this work also?

Besides that, after flashing the DS bios will you still be able to run DS and GBA games normally?
 
You need a wlan card ( not a router ) with the correct chipset.. have a look at the links Squidge posted, you should find a matrix of supported cards somewhere. Nope, flashing the FW has no affect on the ability to run DS or GBA games.

Also you don't _need_ a flash cart to run DS stuff, if you google you'll be able to find a load of wireless demos dumped at E3 these will run directly over wifi with no need to reflash the DS or load anything onto a GBA flash card.

So I just tried the latest version of dsSnes and yep its pretty impressive for "Super Mario World" slight cropping due to the screen but hardly noticable. Sound and speed is good, about the same standard as the PSP snes emu a few weeks back... Sadly though it doesn't yet run Mario Kart. That and SMW was all I tried.

PS Also just tried the JAP demo of "Famicon/Advance Wars" looking good ;)
 
Basically, download over Wifi (or Nifi as some people call it, as it's not compatible with Wifi) will only executable signed ds code, so you can either upload a signed binary to it, or a signed binary with a cleverly modified header to fool it into running from somewhere else (like the gba slot).

The gba slot is required to be able to run any unsigned code, unless you flash the bios, which removes all the signing checks (although all signed software such as commercial games still run, like ratx says). The flash updater itself is unsigned, so for a lot of people, it's normally a "buy wifi card, flash bios, sell wifi card", but of course, if your a devver, uploading over wifi with a hacked bios is easier than constant reflashing of gba carts.

Flashing the bios gives you a lot of advantages:
- Ability to run unsigned code over wifi
- Ability to run unsigned ds code from the gba slot
- Autoboot ds code held on gba slot (insert cart, turn on ds, it runs)
- Removal of "health of safety" screen when autobooting from cart
- Funky backlight fade-in
- etc.

There might even be further bios hacks now, but the one I'm using (from several months ago) did all the above and a bit more.
 
or use pass me available from gbax..

go to dsdev.org and have a look at the forums there you will find all the most up to date info there. Thats where all the ds devs seem to hang out
 
as I suspected then.... the SNES emu for DS is nowhere near perfect.
 
Just fiddled around with the DS WiFi stuff yesterday:

- You need a RT2500 / RT2560 chipset card, otherwise, it won't work
(luckily, my Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo Notebook has exactly this chip!)

- With the standard bios and WiFi you can
* run SIGNED NDS-Files (official Nintendo demos) without a GBA FlashCard
* run UNSIGNED NDS-Files with a GBA FlashCard.
Note: The GBA FlashCard needs to be one which supports a SINGLE ROM
MODE (NO selection menu when booting up! Otherwise it won't work!)

- With the FlashMe bios and WiFi you can
* run SIGNED and UNSIGNED NDS-Files without a FlashCard! Nice!

But: To flash the FlashMe Bios, you need to run the flashtool, which is unsigned (as the RSA signature hasn't yet been hacked).
So you need a compatible flashcard once to flash it.
The FlashMe bios runs unsigned stuff.

So you either need to get a compatible flashcard - or wait until someone hacks the RSA signature.

Note: WiFi doesn't support commercial games (as they feature a filesystem, DS doesn't support filesystems via WiFi).
Only NeoFlash or XG2Turbo 2005 1G with NeoFlash Software support running commercial NDS games via PassMe (or MagicKey, which is the same).
 
Sonic-NKT posted on Jul 6 2005 at 11:36 AM said:
Hi,
just read the first Snes emu for the DS is out..was exicted since i own one, but i thought it would be like the emus on the gp32. Now i read it has 100% Speed and Sound (which is a still a bit buggy).Ok Compatibility is still low but hey, its a first release. This emu could get perfekt! Why is it so much better? ok the DS has 2 CPUs, but the arm 9 is much slower than the one of the GP32 and the ARM7 even more.

It is probably better because the coders working on it are more determined. The GP32 could probably have a near perfect SNES (w/sound at FS1, no transparency) if there were some coders determined to pursue it. Most (all?) of it would probably have to be written in optimised ASM and be alot of work. But I think it would be doable. The GP32 has more memory, a faster CPU, higher resolution screen to do SNES. Maybe one day some l337 coder would take it on, I hope.
 
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OpenSNES9x is already Assembler, only sound mixing routines aren't, so it should'nt be too much work.
 
I know its done to death, but I really wish someone would do it for the gp, it just has to be possible, at least better than it is now (and don't tell me to do it, I've been trying to learn coding, but I could never attempt that!)
 
of course it's possible, it just depends on how much compatibility you are willing to sacrifice to get the speed.
 
Question - would it be possible/feasible to make MULTIPLE versions of the Snes emu on GP32?

For example, the way there are multiple fxe's for Franxis' Mame?


make different SNES fxe's that are optimised to run certain games which use certain chipsets or use certain features... so snes pack 1 would run these 20 games, and snes pack 2 would run these 50 games. Since you could then remove some compatibility or features from each fxe you could speed them up significantly?


Is that just a totally stupid idea or do you think it could actually be done and provide a good speed increase?
 
hmm could speed up some things... but it is also more work to code improvements for every single game or some games. Dont know if there is a coder who would do this
 
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