Nintendo DSi - The 8-Bit Classic Powerhouse!

[+wavemotion]

As I near completion of the 3 Atari emulators for the DS/DSi, I'd like to take a minute to say what an amazing little handheld this is for classic gaming. With full speed and reasonably high compatibility for Atari 2600, 5200, 7800 plus SMS, Colecovision, NES and TurboGrafx, this handheld is a powerhouse of classic gaming. It's about US$40 for a used DSi XL/LL and about 30 minutes of time to put the right software onto any old SD card to get it unlocked to play all sorts of great games. 

Here's a few screenshots of the emulators I've worked on.

Edited January 21, 2021 by llabnip
Fix images.

[Hwlngmad]

On 1/21/2021 at 12:26 PM, llabnip said:

As I near completion of the 3 Atari emulators for the DS/DSi, I'd like to take a minute to say what an amazing little handheld this is for classic gaming. With full speed and reasonably high compatibility for Atari 2600, 5200, 7800 plus SMS, Colecovision, NES and TurboGrafx, this handheld is a powerhouse of classic gaming. It's about US$40 for a used DSi XL/LL and about 30 minutes of time to put the right software onto any old SD card to get it unlocked to play all sorts of great games. 

Here's a few screenshots of the emulators I've worked on.

Very cool!  The DS line are really good handhelds and I enjoyed mine quite a bit.  However, I got modded 3DS instead, which has even more capability.  That being said, 3DS go for a lot more money whereas you can find CIB DSes for $50 or so.  Keep up the nice work and keep us posted.

[Tanooki]

Nice one, you found the one and only really good use of the DSi at all given Nintendo never really gave it anything of value in the day.  The network for it like Wii is offline so that would be useless under normal use.  The fact they 2-4x the amount of various hardware parts inside that over a standard DS model gave it a lot of room to do quite a bit.  Same can be sadly said for the New 2/3DS models as well as not that much was made for it directly either, some was, and actually desirable stuff too unlike on that one.  But still, both are amazing for being a catch all to run whatever.  I think the DS tops out at 32bit non-3D level(no ps1) stuff, but the New3DS has some far wider capabilities I'm not sure where it stops at.

[+wavemotion]

7 hours ago, Tanooki said:

Nice one, you found the one and only really good use of the DSi at all given Nintendo never really gave it anything of value in the day.  The network for it like Wii is offline so that would be useless under normal use.  The fact they 2-4x the amount of various hardware parts inside that over a standard DS model gave it a lot of room to do quite a bit.  Same can be sadly said for the New 2/3DS models as well as not that much was made for it directly either, some was, and actually desirable stuff too unlike on that one.  But still, both are amazing for being a catch all to run whatever.  I think the DS tops out at 32bit non-3D level(no ps1) stuff, but the New3DS has some far wider capabilities I'm not sure where it stops at.

I agree - so few things took advantage of the DSi extra memory and speed. I think you can count the released cart games that supported it on one hand (and ALL of them ran fine on a stock DS-LITE/PHAT with just a bit of reduced speed/graphics that most people wouldn't even notice). 

 

The DSi does have a nice library of DSIWare games that an only be run on a DSi (not the older models) - and all of those games are now playable from SD Card if you install custom firmware (UNLAUNCH is what I use). 

 

The Atari 2600 was a beast to emulate properly on the DS. I only ended up getting about 25 or 30 of the simple 4K games running full speed... but on the DSi things are much better with more than 500 games running full speed and most of the rest are close enough to be playable. A few holdouts are some of the Starpath Supercharger games which run in the low 50FPS and Pitfall II with the DPC cart that will only run in upper 40FPS and without proper music support. But the worst offender?  Elevators Amiss   Yeah, for some reason it's taken me months of tweaks just to get it up near 40FPS (and it's playable at that speed... just barely). It just hits all of the emulation code in exactly the wrong way and it's chewing up a silly amount of DS CPU time. 

The best part about these emulators on the DSi is not that the DSi's extra speed/memory is being taken advantage of but rather that a really well engineered handheld makes for a really enjoyable play experience. I've tried and seen some other handhelds for the Atari and they are just not as well built.  The DSi can take a pounding and still remains responsive and looks great. 

Edited January 27, 2021 by llabnip

[Tanooki]

On 1/27/2021 at 2:48 PM, llabnip said:

I agree - so few things took advantage of the DSi extra memory and speed. I think you can count the released cart games that supported it on one hand (and ALL of them ran fine on a stock DS-LITE/PHAT with just a bit of reduced speed/graphics that most people wouldn't even notice). 

 

The DSi does have a nice library of DSIWare games that an only be run on a DSi (not the older models) - and all of those games are now playable from SD Card if you install custom firmware (UNLAUNCH is what I use). 

 

The Atari 2600 was a beast to emulate properly on the DS. I only ended up getting about 25 or 30 of the simple 4K games running full speed... but on the DSi things are much better with more than 500 games running full speed and most of the rest are close enough to be playable. A few holdouts are some of the Starpath Supercharger games which run in the low 50FPS and Pitfall II with the DPC cart that will only run in upper 40FPS and without proper music support. But the worst offender?  Elevators Amiss   Yeah, for some reason it's taken me months of tweaks just to get it up near 40FPS (and it's playable at that speed... just barely). It just hits all of the emulation code in exactly the wrong way and it's chewing up a silly amount of DS CPU time. 

The best part about these emulators on the DSi is not that the DSi's extra speed/memory is being taken advantage of but rather that a really well engineered handheld makes for a really enjoyable play experience. I've tried and seen some other handhelds for the Atari and they are just not as well built.  The DSi can take a pounding and still remains responsive and looks great. 

Yes FULL use of it there were 4 physical pieces of DS media that did it, and they were all mostly garbage that used a gimmick like the camera or mic to do strange stuff.  DSiware is an issue as that's dead, so that's a total hack and piracy issue to fire that stuff up at all which for many isn't ideal or even acceptable.

 

Now there was a solid use for it and so so stupidly was not advertised.  2nd tier DSi support, games made which asininely did NOT advertise on the box "optimized for DSi" anywhere.  While this is not a 100% complete list, it's largely there and that's impressive: http://www.rfgeneration.com/blogs/pdrydia/DSi-enhanced-titles-an-incomplete-list-1969.php

 

Some of it is dumb gimmicks like camera usage to do unlockables, some are utility such as the art games allowing you to use that power to redraw pictures you have taken.  But some, some really tap the power of the memory and cpu upgrades and improve performance or add something more to the game.  Sonic the emulation package stutters and chugs on a DS, but on DSi it's smooth so the bad rep it has is only partly deserved.  The KORG sound tool, it gets double the sound channels to mix with.  Pokemon Black/White added in voice chat, wireless internet play, some gear changes, and the game plays smoother at a faster pace.

[+wavemotion]

And to add to the lineup... the XEGS-DS has launched.  This emulates an XEGS with RAM upgrade to 128KB (so, really the equivalent of a 130XE). 

It supports .XEX and .ATR formats only so that the user just has to pick and run... no worrying about cart type, banking setup, chip types, etc. This renders about 95% of the 8-bit Atari gaming library playable at full speed, sound, etc.

[youxia]

NDS is amazing, I still use Lite to play roguelikes and Pirates! on its astonishing 286 emulator. For some emus there is a big problem though: the screen resolution is too small. I think ZX Spectrum and Atari 8-bit fits okay though.

 

 

 

 

[Asaki]

On 1/27/2021 at 2:48 PM, llabnip said:

The DSi does have a nice library of DSIWare games that an only be run on a DSi (not the older models) - and all of those games are now playable from SD Card if you install custom firmware (UNLAUNCH is what I use).

Actually, they can be played on the 3DS as well, although a bunch of games got removed from the eShop recently, with no warning

 

Any plans on releasing these for the regular DS as well, or is the downgrade just not worth it?

I never did pick up a DSi, I never had too much interest in it, aside from a small handful of homebrews.

There's a pretty decent 5200/8-Bit emulator for the 3DS BTW, but it ports the PC version a little too literally, so you have to mess around in the menu every time you want to load a different game.

 

16 hours ago, youxia said:

For some emus there is a big problem though: the screen resolution is too small. I think ZX Spectrum and Atari 8-bit fits okay though.

ZX Spectrum fits perfectly, just not the border (a bit of it can be seen on the bottom screen). SMS fits perfectly, too, and ColecoVision.

3DS has a perfectly sized screen, but it just didn't attract a very large homebrew community like the original DS did. DSx86 on the 3DS would have been awesome, but it doesn't look like the dev got very far into it before abandoning it.

[youxia]

2 hours ago, Asaki said:

3DS has a perfectly sized screen, but it just didn't attract a very large homebrew community like the original DS did.

Haven't most of the popular emus been ported though? I thought about buying it for that reason some time ago, but I always get distracted by something like the GPD XD, or thinking "ah, should just buy PSP again" and end up getting nothing.

[Asaki]

22 hours ago, youxia said:

Haven't most of the popular emus been ported though? I thought about buying it for that reason some time ago, but I always get distracted by something like the GPD XD, or thinking "ah, should just buy PSP again" and end up getting nothing.

Not really. At least not the last time I checked, but I can't imagine that 3DS homebrew has gotten more popular in the last couple of years...

There's some good emus for NES, SNES, Genesis, PC Engine (all by the same guy), Lynx...

There's a newish C64 emu that looks decent, but I need to check for updates, as I had a lot of issues with the version I currently have installed.

Stuff like ZX Spectrum, ColecoVision, SMS, GG, etc, I just stick with the old DS versions.

 

They've got a bunch of RetroArch stuff on there, but most of it's pretty iffy, and I stick with the standalone emus instead.

 

I have a PocketGo, and I've thought about PSP as well, but the DS's controls are just 100x better, and the touch screen is nice for emus that require a keyboard. 3DS controls aren't bad, but it starts to get uncomfortable after a while, with how low the d-pad is positioned.

[youxia]

PSP's controls have never bothered me, and I much prefer its amazing display. It also serves perfect PSX emulation, which is quite a feat on such a low-spec (nowadays) handheld. It's a bit weird that when everything is considered it, and NDS, are still best emulation handhelds. For me ergonomics are a big issue, I'm pretty sure larger machines (Vita or GDP) would  tire my hands quickly if held in unusual (non-sitting) positions.

 

Also odd that 3Ds should be so unloved, it's got such a huge install base after all.

[+wavemotion]

On 2/7/2021 at 2:13 AM, Asaki said:

Any plans on releasing these for the regular DS as well, or is the downgrade just not worth it?

All 4 of the emulators I've worked on will run in a normal DS (LITE or PHAT) - however, they will, obviously, run with the slower CPU speed (they also have 4MB of memory vs 16MB but that's not an issue for any of these emulators... it starts to become a problem for larger cart systems like the Megadrive/Genesis).

The CPU speed on the DS is definitely a problem. The 5200 and Atari 8-bit will run some of the more common games fairly well... close to full speed. The Atari 2600 is hit-or-miss... games like Spider Fighter, Phoenix, Adventure work fine while many other games just come up short (running at about 80% of the full frame rate and sometimes much less).  I have a special build of the A7800DS-LITE that is optimized for the older DS hardware and does NOT support bank switching or some of the more "expensive" video modes. It will let you play some great games - but still only a subset of the full library.

However, the DSi is the main target for these - with 90+% of all games (2600, 5200, 7800 and 8-bit computer) running properly.

[Asaki]

17 hours ago, youxia said:

PSP's controls have never bothered me...

Maybe it just takes getting used to. I played my friend's PSP for a few hours once, and that d-pad just killed my thumb.

 

9 hours ago, llabnip said:

...many other games just come up short (running at about 80% of the full frame rate and sometimes much less).

80% still sounds a lot better than the current homebrew emulators we have (not counting the official one). Might not be so terrible with a frameskip option.

 

It's funny, you'd think such an old console wouldn't be so difficult to emulate. Are you using ASM to speed it up?

[+wavemotion]

12 hours ago, Asaki said:

It's funny, you'd think such an old console wouldn't be so difficult to emulate. Are you using ASM to speed it up?

It's hand-tuned C code. The main issue is that there's so much to emulate - the CPU (6502), the TIA, the RIOT (6532) and then all the different bank-switching for various carts which is not trivial compared to direct memory reads.  And on top of that, the sound and video all need to be converted to run in the native DS space (and the sound is tricky on the DS - they have a co-processor which needs to be coordinated with to get the sound output). 

 

Add it all up and the original DS hardware running at 67MHz is barely keeping up. The DSi fares much better at twice the CPU speed.

 

The last Intel-based PC that ran at 67 MHz was the venerable x486 which was introduced in 1990 (ish). And I'm sure that might struggle to run some of these emulators too

 

[+wavemotion]

I just released XEGS-DS 1.5 and A5200DS 2.7 both with frameskip implemented for older DS-LITE and DS-PHAT hardware. This will render thousands of 8-bit games fully playable with all the speed/sounds needed to make them fun.  This new Frameskip option is defaulted to ON for older DS hardware and OFF for DSi or above.

 

There are a few glitches after playing about 100 of the more popular games - Buried Bucks won't run properly with Frameskip ON (the dollar signs $$$ sink through the background) and there was a very occasional glitch I saw playing Caverns of Mars though I'm not convinced I have a good dump on that one - need to experiment more.