homebrew ds

Dartagnan · Post by **Dartagnan** » Fri Feb 23, 2007 10:39 pm

HI

I am interested in running homebrew on my ds, and I had a few questions. Whats the best way to make the ds run homebrew? I was looking around and saw NoPass, and from what I can see, you don't need to do any of the short circuiting, is this true? And is the emulation good on the ds?
all help appreciated

-sewercake

Jipcy · Post by **Jipcy** » Fri Feb 23, 2007 11:53 pm

http://www.ds-x.com

mog123 · Post by **mog123** » Fri Feb 23, 2007 11:54 pm

there isn't any need in shortcircuiting.

A nopass shortens battery life(dont know exactly, but it's around 1h less of playtime)

You can do FlashMe on your ds.

Getting some kind of adapter/flash cart to store your apps(if you want advice, go to www.pocketheaven.com/boards/index.php )

And have the joy of playing.

Firon · Post by **Firon** » Sat Feb 24, 2007 1:37 am

M3 Simply or R4. No GBA support, but whatever. Same with all other Slot-1 devices. They all use MicroSD.

If you do want GBA support, then get an M3 Lite (which uses MicroSD) and a Passcard3 (aka NoPass).

Slot-1 = DS slot, Slot-2 = GBA slot, btw.

Dartagnan · Post by **Dartagnan** » Sat Feb 24, 2007 2:27 pm

OK, i looked at the m3 simply, and I have a question, does it come with memory? or do you have to buy something extra for it to stor things in.
thanks for the help

-sewercake

paulguy · Post by **paulguy** » Sat Feb 24, 2007 8:45 pm

The slot-2 flashcarts are much better for homebrew, especially the M3 Perfect because it comes with 32MB RAM that homebrew can use. You also get good GBA support and most emulators are GBA based.

Firon · Post by **Firon** » Sat Feb 24, 2007 9:05 pm

sewercake, you have to buy a MicroSD card. Make sure it's a decent brand (Kingston, Sandisk, A-Data are good; Transcend is not) so things work well.

I've got an M3 Perfect SD personally, but it's bulky, and I think that slot-2 carts aren't going to last too much longer at this rate.

ReRuss · Post by **ReRuss** » Sun Feb 25, 2007 1:12 am

I got a SUperCard SD and PassMe , but I done FlashMe on mine , but as little as I been gaming I been considering selling off my stuff and eventually gettin a DS-X

LobStar · Post by **LobStar** » Sun Feb 25, 2007 11:25 pm

hmm, I just use the GBA Movie Player (www.movieadvance.com) alot of homebrew heavily supports it and its a very nice and cheap alternative to other means. In fact, I just had to load the hacked firmware and use wifime once to install FlashMe. MightyMax is also a very pretty and skinable frontend for it as well. I've almost even beat Sam and Max on scummvmds on it.

Firon · Post by **Firon** » Sun Feb 25, 2007 11:31 pm

The GBAMP is pointless. You can't run any GBA homebrew, and it has no SRAM. And it relies on crappy CF cards (the SD version's support is eh).
You might as well buy a slot-1 cart if you're not gonna get GBA support.

LobStar · Post by **LobStar** » Sun Feb 25, 2007 11:40 pm

Thats VERY not true, in fact, theres even special versions of pocketnes that do away with size limitations. Just open the FC Game menu and select the .gba file you want to run. It's also a very reliable means of reading/writing data in most homebrew. If your talking PIRACY... then yes the GBAMP is a bad choice, but for homebrew, its a very cheap very effective method of running homebrew on the DS.

Firon wrote:The GBAMP is pointless. You can't run any GBA homebrew, and it has no SRAM. And it relies on crappy CF cards (the SD version's support is eh).
You might as well buy a slot-1 cart if you're not gonna get GBA support.

Firon · Post by **Firon** » Sun Feb 25, 2007 11:49 pm

No, I'm talking about any GBA homebrew that isn't multiboot. It limits you severely. It doesn't even have compatibility advantages anymore, and writing on it isn't any better than on another device.
You still need to buy a NoPass, bumping up the costs of it to about the same as a Slot-1 device.

Dartagnan · Post by **Dartagnan** » Mon Feb 26, 2007 12:05 am

so......im still confused
I want something to play hombrew stuff on, such as emulation, and other homebrew stuff.
So what should I buy, preferably tell me everything to buy at once, so I don't get messed up.

LobStar · Post by **LobStar** » Mon Feb 26, 2007 1:31 am

Firon wrote:No, I'm talking about any GBA homebrew that isn't multiboot. It limits you severely. It doesn't even have compatibility advantages anymore, and writing on it isn't any better than on another device.
You still need to buy a NoPass, bumping up the costs of it to about the same as a Slot-1 device.

No you don't, unless you have V4 firmware or higher, it cost me a total of 30 dollars total for the GBAMP and a 2 GIG CF card. And yes, there are PLENTY of compatibility advantages when WRITING data. SD card functionality is VERY finicky, and some homebrew could even corrupt your card!!

sewercake, getting the right product really depends on what YOU want to do, what you have, and how much your willing to spend. For starters, it would be nice to know what firmware is on your DS. Also about emulation being good on the DS. There some emulators that are built for the GBA, and some built for the DS. Some DS solutions can run some of the GBA designed code, but if one exists, grab a DS Version of a homebrew application. You get an increase in performance (better processor, and more RAM) and an increase in features (ARM9 sleep mode and touch screen on some applications

).

Again it depends on if you only want homebrew, or not. Emulation depends on what emulators you want to use, like Firon said, there are some for GBA and some for DS, but most GBA applications I have seen and wanted to use I can use through the GBAMP menu, or through a loader, and they have DS ports so I get a bigger screen size and better speed meaning, less scaling, better framerate, etc. Maybe if we knew what you wanted to run exactly, it would help better pick whats right for you.

paulguy · Post by **paulguy** » Mon Feb 26, 2007 1:42 am

Alright, here's some more detail. Most emulators are GBA based so you're going to want a slot 2 card and a nopass (which is, like, $10). SD card compatibility is actually very good with most homebrew that's worth using and lots of newer homebrew use DLDI which GREATLY helps. Also, the only case of corruption I heard of was DSOrganize and I think they fixed that.

LobStar · Post by **LobStar** » Mon Feb 26, 2007 2:02 am

scummvmds had MAJOR issues with SD cards, my friend lost all his game saves from it, I found it generally best to avoid them even with dldi, its still picky.... and most emulators I have used are DS based actually, though, scummvm and SNESDS is about the extent of my use aside from pocketnes which boots fine from the movieplayer, no passes drain the battery and cost money, he may not even need one, lets see what he has first

.

Firon · Post by **Firon** » Mon Feb 26, 2007 2:05 am

LobStar wrote: And yes, there are PLENTY of compatibility advantages when WRITING data. SD card functionality is VERY finicky, and some homebrew could even corrupt your card!!

libfat is much, much, much better at writing now. I've used DSO to write -a lot- on my M3, and not once has it ever corrupted my card. Hell, even the G6 DLDI has write support now and it works perfectly fine. DS-X had a bug, but that's been fixed.
Like I said, writing is not an advantage anymore.

LobStar · Post by **LobStar** » Mon Feb 26, 2007 2:13 am

Firon wrote:
LobStar wrote: And yes, there are PLENTY of compatibility advantages when WRITING data. SD card functionality is VERY finicky, and some homebrew could even corrupt your card!!
libfat is much, much, much better at writing now. I've used DSO to write -a lot- on my M3, and not once has it ever corrupted my card. Hell, even the G6 DLDI has write support now and it works perfectly fine. DS-X had a bug, but that's been fixed.
Like I said, writing is not an advantage anymore.

May be good and all for you, but it was also ntoed earlier that you do need certain brand media to write to it, plus its all expensive! $30 compared to $80-90+? I still say it depends on what you want to be able to do, its pointless to buy something so expensive when you dont need to.

Dartagnan · Post by **Dartagnan** » Tue Feb 27, 2007 1:49 am

I got my DS the first week it came out, so i believe i have the first version of firmware, so is it cheaper this way???

-sewercake

paulguy · Post by **paulguy** » Tue Feb 27, 2007 2:52 am

The nopass isn't powered or operating once it's booted. You can actually take it out if you're that worried about it. You need to have SOME kind of DS card in there for standby to work though.

Firon · Post by **Firon** » Tue Feb 27, 2007 3:11 am

Standby works for homebrew if there's no card. It's only when running commercial stuff that it's required.

LobStar · Post by **LobStar** » Tue Feb 27, 2007 6:33 am

sewercake wrote:I got my DS the first week it came out, so i believe i have the first version of firmware, so is it cheaper this way???

-sewercake

Awesome, your probably on version 1 then, you can try the pictochat test to be sure though. You dont have to do what I did but I did this:

I had the following:
V1 DS
GBA Movie Player ($25 after shipping) with CF card ($5 dollars for 2 gig after thanksgiving sale ftw ^^;)
Nintendo wifi usb adapter (used for my Wii and DS at my school)

I put the hacked firmware on the gbamp (copy a file and click it in the menu)
copied flasme bios to the CF card
used wmb under linux to allow wifime and flashed my DS's firmware (eaisest way for a newcomer is to use knoppix)

Now whenever my GBAMP is in my DS at startup it takes me to a bootloader (which is skinable! you can view the skin I made here, if you go this route you can use it too, http://ciprianispasta.com/pkgingo/subatheme.zip ) where I pick what I want Nintendo DS homebrew to run, like an emulator )SNESDS, NESDS, scummvm, etc. I can also hold select to bypass this boot and run the DS and GBAMP normally (useful for gba homebrew like pocketnes). Best of all, no health and safety screen, though you can optionally include that as well.

If you got any of this, its the cheapest way to go I feel and still gives you alot of freedom.