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Jul - General Game/ROM Hacking - Is that really the best the NDS can do? New poll - New thread - New reply
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FieryIce

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Posted on 12-06-09 09:06:15 PM (last edited by FieryIce at 12-06-09 07:54 PM) Link | Quote
I was looking for SNES emulators for the DS(i) and I found quite a few but to my surprise, even though the DS has been out for quite a long time now (half a decade actually) none of the emulators could do a "very good" job at emulating the games I like. In SNEmulDS for example, Top Gear, Mario Kart, Yoshi's Island and SMW: TLC are unplayable (although the latter could be due to the size of the ROM), many other games play terribly (ZAMN, for example, has a lot of layering issues) and I couldn't even get it to save while playing SMW.

I asked in another community why is it that no better emulator has been built or why hasn't anyone improved on SNEmulDS, which is open source, and the response I got was that that's as best as SNES emulation can get on the DS's hardware... Is that true? Is no one else working on an SNES emulator or improving an existing one?

I would be willing to learn C++ (I want to anyways) and start reading on how the DS and the SNES work but that's just dreaming too much


(sorry if this isn't the correct forum, I have no idea where this suits best)
Ninji

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Posted on 12-06-09 09:13:20 PM Link | Quote
You're not the only one who's wondering this.

I'm stuck at the second castle in SMW because the boss fight is totally invisible. Seriously, not being able to emulate one of the first SNES games (which most other emulators can run perfectly) properly is just pathetic.

I think saving works fine for me in it (although I usually use savestates) though - turning on "Auto save SRAM" causes it to show "SRAM written" (or something like that, don't remember the exact message) whenever I reach a save point.

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Posted on 12-06-09 09:18:12 PM Link | Quote
The biggest problem with the emulator is indeed layering. It seems a disproportionate amount of the time the sprite layers aren't read and written correctly, often with transparency issues too. Even setting them in a custom fashion they usually don't work correctly as the layer ordering changes between parts of the game :/ I can get saving and freeze states to work fine, though.

It certainly made Donkey Kong country more difficult than it needed to be.

Yoshi's Island is unplayable in a lot of ported emulators because it also requires Super FX emulation. I'd imagine that decent SNES emulation would stretch the DS pretty far as it was.

I've also heard that SMW: TLC isn't console accurate, so it might have issues in certain emulators.
Rena
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Posted on 12-06-09 09:58:09 PM Link | Quote
Post #2698 - 12-06-09 04:58:09 PM
There are two reasons:

First, the DS isn't really very powerful. It's actually quite a bit less powerful than the N64. 33+66mhz CPUs, 4MB RAM, simple GPU with no real framebuffer to speak of. Compare to the N64's 93+99(?)mhz, 4MB expandable to 8MB, and somewhat more capable GPU.

Second, the SNES GPU is a fucking beast. It can do many things that even the DS GPU can't, such as tile offset mode, 16x16 tiles, automatic HDMA, and switching resolution mid-frame. That makes it very difficult to emulate on anything.

The real question is why even a PSP with its two 333mhz CPUs PLUS powerful 3D GPU can't do it well. That, I blame on software. It can do GBA perfectly, N64 even semi-decent, but barely manages SNES? Something funny there.

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FieryIce

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Posted on 12-06-09 11:03:35 PM Link | Quote
So it's a bit far-fetched the idea of someday decently playing SNES games on my DS? Or is it theoretically possible to build an excellent SNES emulator without altering the DS's hardware? I think the DSi is slightly stronger than the normal DS although I don't think it's by any significant margin...
Peardian

  
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Posted on 12-06-09 11:48:30 PM Link | Quote
How does the emulator compensate for the DS screen(s) being only 240x192 instead of 256x224? Does it squash everything?

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Ninji

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Posted on 12-07-09 02:28:38 AM Link | Quote
Originally posted by Peardian
How does the emulator compensate for the DS screen(s) being only 240x192 instead of 256x224? Does it squash everything?

There are several options. Width isn't a problem, since both screens are 256 pixels wide. For height - you can use scaling, or you can move the screen up and down. (There's also an option that pushes the HUD down to fit on the moved screen.)

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FieryIce

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Posted on 12-07-09 11:14:21 PM Link | Quote
Ok so I asked this on gbatemp and what I got was that the DS simply has too little RAM and a weak CPU, but what about the DSi? I read somewhere that the DSi has a stronger CPU and 4 times the RAM of the older versions of the DS. This is really interesting, I already ordered a book on C++ and I'll see if I can understand how SNEmulDS works ... I don't actually think I can do anything worth the time but I can try
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Posted on 12-07-09 11:26:37 PM Link | Quote
Originally posted by FieryIce
Ok so I asked this on gbatemp and what I got was that the DS simply has too little RAM and a weak CPU,


Nice work ignoring Hyperhacker's Response.
Originally posted by FieryIce

but what about the DSi? I read somewhere that the DSi has a stronger CPU and 4 times the RAM of the older versions of the DS.


Not unless you know a flashcart that is currently doing more than forcing the dsi in DS mode, locking out the extra functions.

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FieryIce

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Posted on 12-07-09 11:39:30 PM Link | Quote
Originally posted by Darkdata
Originally posted by FieryIce
Ok so I asked this on gbatemp and what I got was that the DS simply has too little RAM and a weak CPU,


Nice work ignoring Hyperhacker's Response.
Originally posted by FieryIce

but what about the DSi? I read somewhere that the DSi has a stronger CPU and 4 times the RAM of the older versions of the DS.


Not unless you know a flashcart that is currently doing more than forcing the dsi in DS mode, locking out the extra functions.


Oh wow, I honestly didn't see it D: Well that was a waste of time... (going to gbatemp when my question was already answered here )
Rena
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Posted on 12-08-09 05:15:33 AM Link | Quote
Post #2708 - 12-08-09 12:15:33 AM
Originally posted by FieryIce
I already ordered a book on C++ and I'll see if I can understand how SNEmulDS works
You realize you're jumping right into the deep end? Emulators are pretty complicated. Anyway, probably the best bet is writing an emulator from scratch in ARM assembly, optimized for the DS. Which, obviously, would take a while.

DSi may well be able to pull it off, if anyone ever actually hacks it. Is anyone even trying? I haven't heard anything.

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Rachel Mae

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Posted on 12-08-09 07:38:32 AM Link | Quote
Originally posted by HyperHacker
PSP with its two 333mhz CPUs
I'm pretty sure the PSP only has one CPU. Same with the N64. Where'd you get your info?

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Posted on 12-08-09 02:01:31 PM (last edited by Onyx at 12-08-09 11:02 AM) Link | Quote
Originally posted by HyperHacker
The real question is why even a PSP with its two 333mhz CPUs PLUS powerful 3D GPU can't do it well. That, I blame on software. It can do GBA perfectly, N64 even semi-decent, but barely manages SNES? Something funny there.


Huh... was the last version of snes9x you used on that an old one? There's been quite a bit of progress made since the original authors dropped the project, and a decent enough chunk of games run near-perfectly.

Then again, I might just have some of the less intensive games.

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Ninji

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Posted on 12-08-09 11:52:36 PM Link | Quote
Originally posted by Onyx
Originally posted by HyperHacker
The real question is why even a PSP with its two 333mhz CPUs PLUS powerful 3D GPU can't do it well. That, I blame on software. It can do GBA perfectly, N64 even semi-decent, but barely manages SNES? Something funny there.


Huh... was the last version of snes9x you used on that an old one? There's been quite a bit of progress made since the original authors dropped the project, and a decent enough chunk of games run near-perfectly.

Then again, I might just have some of the less intensive games.

I actually remember being able to play SMK and SMAS and several other games pretty well on Snes9x. In 2005. Was it really THAT bad?

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Roy Koopa
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Posted on 12-08-09 11:57:02 PM Link | Quote
Nintendo-proprietary games that don't use special chips are usually the first ones to be emulated decently.

That being said, it's hard to find emulators that play Yoshi's Island correctly. :/
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Posted on 12-09-09 06:05:29 AM Link | Quote
Originally posted by HyperHacker
Originally posted by FieryIce
I already ordered a book on C++ and I'll see if I can understand how SNEmulDS works
You realize you're jumping right into the deep end? Emulators are pretty complicated. Anyway, probably the best bet is writing an emulator from scratch in ARM assembly, optimized for the DS. Which, obviously, would take a while.

DSi may well be able to pull it off, if anyone ever actually hacks it. Is anyone even trying? I haven't heard anything.

Team Twiizers has managed to run DSi homebrew useing a save exploit in a DSi mode game.

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Rena
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Posted on 12-09-09 10:14:18 PM (last edited by HyperHacker at 12-09-09 07:16 PM) Link | Quote
Post #2724 - 12-09-09 05:14:18 PM
Yeah, and I've seen nothing since then.
Originally posted by Gunstar Green
Originally posted by HyperHacker
PSP with its two 333mhz CPUs
I'm pretty sure the PSP only has one CPU. Same with the N64. Where'd you get your info?
PSP has the main CPU and the "media engine", which is rarely used but can serve as a coprocessor. It's another MIPS running at up to (I believe) 333mhz, independent of the main CPU speed. There are plugins that use it to decode MP3 during games, and Snes9x uses it for audio emulation.

N64 has the MIPS R4300, and the RCP which is a customized R4000 used primarily for graphic processing. Throughout most of the N64's life, Nintendo only allowed their own rather inefficient programs to be used on this chip (Fast3D, F3DEX, etc), so there are very few different binaries for it; thus, most emulators high-level emulate the binary and ignore the chip entirely.
(I see I had the speeds wrong though. Only 67mhz. )

Did you know the Wii also has a second CPU, used primarily as a hardware abstraction layer and security system? Sadly, the software architecture is too poor to allow it to really be useful.

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Jul - General Game/ROM Hacking - Is that really the best the NDS can do? New poll - New thread - New reply


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