

New 3DS Emulator - bane
http://gbatemp.net/threads/new-3ds-emulator.365154/

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rquirk
What are the demos that this is running? Is it possible for anyone to write
3DS code, compile it with GCC + friends, and run it on an off-the-shelf 3DS? I
was under the impression that Nintendo had got security right this time and
the device remained uncracked.

~~~
GuiA
> What are the demos that this is running?

Homebrew code.

> Is it possible for anyone to write 3DS code, compile it with GCC + friends,
> and run it on an off-the-shelf 3DS?

Yes. You need a flash cart for this. GBA Temp has a nice sub forum for this:
[http://gbatemp.net/forums/3ds-hacking-
homebrew.201/](http://gbatemp.net/forums/3ds-hacking-homebrew.201/)

~~~
bitwize
Any flashcart that works today is likely to be rendered a brick by an upcoming
software update. Welcome to modern console gaming: ever changing, ever more
crackproof. The exception is Nintendo DS code, for which flashcarts still work
because the DS fw is fixed.

~~~
slantyyz
>> Any flashcart that works today is likely to be rendered a brick by an
upcoming software update.

IIRC, some of the flashcarts have an Emunand feature that lets you play games
requiring a newer version (i.e, 6.x) on a 3DS without updating your firmware
from 4.x (4.x is required to support the current crop of flashcarts)

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higherpurpose
Since the hardware is an old ARM9, would it be much faster on say the newest
ARMv8/Cortex A57 chips, rather than on an x86 chip?

~~~
TD-Linux
It would be possible to use hardware virtualization features to emulate the
different memory layout and hardware MMIO. I would predict that most of the
bottleneck is going to be in GPU emulation and the like, so I don't think it
would help that much. The greater control and precision of software emulation
for the CPU would make quite a bit of sense.

~~~
MichaelGG
Are GPUs the bottleneck? I thought the modern approach (for anything above an
~SNES) was to simply rewrite graphics calls to run on the native hardware.
It's not like Dolphin can emulate 1080p by fully "correctly" emulating a GPU.

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oatmealsnap
Beyond "for the fun of it", what is the purpose of this? So that hackers can
run other hackers' games?

Why not spend that effort writing games for an open platform like the web, or
for iOS/Android and have the possibility to make money?

I'm not trying to criticize bunnei's work, I'm just generally curious if this
is a "because I can" hacker project, or if there is actually a demand in the
community to write DS games.

~~~
Danieru
In my experience the emulator development community is driven in large part by
the "because I can" mentality.

Developers do play games but mostly for debugging. Once an emulator is "done"
they move on to a harder console. For example ppsspp was started by the same
guy who started Dolphin. When I hung out on the ppsspp irc I found several
other developers were present or former Dolphin devs.

The users tend to be very game-playing focused which is part of why the
user&developer relationship is so strained.

Users are the pathological worst customers, the ones patio11 keeps mentioning,
they are cheap and demand the sky. Meanwhile the developers are managing
immense complexity and no one is getting a paycheck.

It makes everything much easier to understand when you hear of developers
quiting. That anyone creates anything is amazing.

