i would like some info on nintendo DS client projects

[witeds]

i am thinking of making a port for the Nintendo DS but i would like to hear what any one who has worked on this project type so far has done or if any one still is working on it and i could help test and what not.

mainly i just would like to know what you did to get it to run on ds if you have.

[RooO]

i dont know nothing about it on DS but in psp alot so if you need help im to help you with the Ds because i have DS lite and a R4 you will understand what im talking about

[witeds]

that would be nice as i only ave ds thats my platform for portability but any help would be nice the question is do you know any devkit programming for it

[Crush]

A big problem when porting the Mana client to a different platform is its reliance on a lot of 3rd party libraries like SDL or pThreads for all the platform-related stuff. When these libraries don't work on the target platform, you will have to write some code to either patch those libraries or work around them.

Another problem when porting to a handheld device is the usability. The Mana client is supposed to be used with a mouse and a keyboard on a screen with at least 800x600 pixels. To provide a really enjoyable user experience you will have to redesign the controls.

I have no experience with developing for the NDS, so I don't know which other barriers are in place here (digital rights management, lack of documentation etc.).

[Crush]

I just took a look at the hardware specifications of the NDS on Wikipedia and was shocked how weak it is hardware-wise:

67 MHz ARM9 CPU
4 MB of RAM
656 kilo(!!)bytes of video memory

My first PC from 15 years ago had more power than that. I am afraid this won't be enough to run the Mana client. On my Windows machine it takes ten times that much memory just for showing the login screen. When you really want a client for the NDS, you will have to code it from scratch keeping the limitations of the platform in mind.

[witeds]

I just took a look at the hardware specifications of the NDS on Wikipedia and was shocked how weak it is hardware-wise:

67 MHz ARM9 CPU
4 MB of RAM
656 kilo(!!)bytes of video memory

My first PC from 15 years ago had more power than that. I am afraid this won't be enough to run the Mana client. On my Windows machine it takes ten times that much memory just for showing the login screen. When you really want a client for the NDS, you will have to code it from scratch keeping the limitations of the platform in mind.

yet wit that i have seen it emulate supernes, i have seen it emulate sega genesis, and i have seen Linux run natively on it the ds might not look it but when set up right it is a good console plus the 3ds is coming out soon with a bit better hardware

i do plan to re write it but right now 1) i need to know what others have done to get it partially working and what they have tried 2) the client dose need to be setup to work with the ds setup
i dont think it would be to hard to make it connect with the server but change the client for a ds setup
this is also a project to help me learn C++ which i have been trying to figure out on my own.


is it doable? it seems posible the graphics match that of most of the zelda games that came out befor the ds's time and i would think therewould be a way to use the ds's native settings to have a cient that will work

is it esy? that would depend on how much help i get on this and how much of it i can understand.

[Crush]

yet wit that i have seen it emulate supernes, i have seen it emulate sega genesis

The genesis and snes
1. had even weaker hardware. Their CPUs were just clocked at a tenth of the DS.
2. had a hardware which was very similar to the DS. They all have, for example, a hardwired engine for tiled maps and sprites which allows quite performant 2d games with the cost of reduced flexibility and a lot of arbitrary constraints like sprite size, color palettes or number of sprites per scanline. The x86 PC platform has nothing like that, and so the graphic engine of the Mana client interacts with the graphic hardware in ways you would never do when having a hardwired sprite engine (redraw every frame from scratch, treat sprites and tiles exactly the same, have sprites which are just a hand full or several thousand pixels, always use 32bit color even when not strictly necessary).

this is also a project to help me learn C++ which i have been trying to figure out on my own.

When you are new to C++ I would really recommend you to start with a less ambitious project than porting a complete game engine to a completely different, badly documented, DRM infested and most of all much weaker platform. You will run into a lot of problems which will be very hard to pinpoint and very hard to comprehend and reproduce for others you ask for help.


When the Nintendo DS is your platform of choice, how about creating your own single player game engine from scratch first? When you also like TMW, remember that when you release your game under the [GNU General Public License], you can use all TMW graphics for free.

[witeds]

i get that you don't understand who you are dealing with here oh and for the snes and sega genesis they were said that they could not be done the ds had not enough power. much like you are saying now

plus even being new i have programing experience what i lack with C++ is a list of commands and an understanding of its structure


like secondlife LSL

Code: Select all

default{
  state_entry(){
  }
}

or if you have worked with visual basic 6 or greater

how about a bit of qbasic

for me scripting/programming/coding what ever you prefer to call it its not that hard just
need a few tools and i can do anything that is possible.


is any of this giving you a hint of what i am capable of i am just trying to say that programming comes naturally to me i just need something to do though something not just for me a need and i see a place where something could be done but has not yet been tempted

[Crush]

Well, when you don't want to listen to me, then all help I can give you is to wish you good luck with proving me wrong.

[witeds]

i admire your words of warning but thats why i created this post was to get any info on already attempted projects so i don't have to go it completely from scratch or in the blind if you can understand.

[RooO]

witeds just stop... if you are not very goodwith homebrews with DS

why u need to port it when u dont have a flashcart ??
just buy a psp or help us porting it to psp because for DS ...

[witeds]

witeds just stop... if you are not very goodwith homebrews with DS

why u need to port it when u dont have a flashcart ??
just buy a psp or help us porting it to psp because for DS ...

fyi i have an R4i gold with r4wood i have a dsiplayer, i gave my little brother a ezflash v+
i run Linux becomes i do so much with my computer it makes windows unstable, programing comes easy all i need to get started is to understand the language structure and the commands possible.

psp is both to expensive and is not a device i would prefer to use i do not have the money to put into it nor do i wish to put something into a device whose market i could care less about at this point in time.

the ds dos not require firm ware flashing for the system all you need is a card so it is easy to take your project from system to system they are kept up to date with the systems did you know that before the 3ds was even released in the us they had gotten a card to work on it how many of you can say something like that for a psp, also the touch screen makes a better keyboard than a psp keyboard which is horrid to use, my dad has a psp my friend has a psp and i know what the systems menu's look like so don't say i haven't seen a psp before.

i relay get sick of people saying some one cannot do something LSL took me a year to learn and i did it using big projects, visual basic was easy i took only a small portion and now i can script programs on it easily.

Qbasic is the language i used to make my first YU-GI-OH life point calculator.

[Matt]

I think TMW on DS is definately possible if you dumb down the graphics (size and color depth), resolution and the maps a bit, but not with the default server, more as singleplayer game.

But I don't believe that you can implement it, primarily because of that:

i run Linux becomes i do so much with my computer it makes windows unstable

[witeds]

are you familiar with the ds homebrew apps that have been made, are you familiar with the ds homebrew programming tools, or how about have you played games like doom or chex quest wich have been ported natively to the ds by homebrew developers, or even the uClinux based linux os for the ds?

if you have none of these then how can you even say the ds is capable of something or not, unless you have tried it and failed your self it is hard to use such comments as a source of info.

[yourmistakes]

honestly, you'd be better coding a client from scratch than trying to port something like tmw. if you'll kindly take a look at the source, you'll abundantly see why we are telling you this.
tmw has umpteen lib requirements, hardware requirements that greatly outclass the ds, and a very small community to get help from. note that the size of the community willing to help is directly related to how you act.