#161711 - Mike123 - Tue Aug 12, 2008 2:18 am
Hi,
Looks like I found an '.nds' files which uses R4DS I/O interface to trash sectors on SD card.
Is there any way to disable I/O interface in R4DS?
More important thing, I'm looking for ARM disassembler. I would like to check if there is access to I/O control registers.
Full problem description:
http://wiki.scorpei.com/index.php/R4_compatibility_list/SD_card_corruption
Regards
#161712 - tepples - Tue Aug 12, 2008 3:00 am
| Mike123 wrote: |
Looks like I found an '.nds' files which uses R4DS I/O interface to trash sectors on SD card.
Is there any way to disable I/O interface in R4DS? |
Eject R4 card immediately after the program loads.
| Quote: |
| More important thing, I'm looking for ARM disassembler. |
Something like arm-eabi-objdump.exe?
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#161714 - keldon - Tue Aug 12, 2008 6:08 am
Although I can see the piracy relation; interesting!
#161718 - Mike123 - Tue Aug 12, 2008 9:44 am
| tepples wrote: |
| Mike123 wrote: | | Is there any way to disable I/O interface in R4DS? |
Eject R4 card immediately after the program loads. |
There might be short time-frame after program is loaded and before running. Playing too early, too late game is not fun.
| tepples wrote: |
| Mike123 wrote: | | More important thing, I'm looking for ARM disassembler. |
Something like arm-eabi-objdump.exe? |
There is linux version, gr8.
#161719 - spinal_cord - Tue Aug 12, 2008 10:09 am
Surely the easiest way to get around this problem, is to not play these games on the R4?
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#161720 - Mike123 - Tue Aug 12, 2008 10:29 am
| spinal_cord wrote: |
| Surely the easiest way to get around this problem, is to not play these games on the R4? |
Sure. I can look into this problem using iDeaS.
I would like to find as much as I can about this issue.
I'm not interested in piracy and flaming.
#161721 - sonny_jim - Tue Aug 12, 2008 12:22 pm
I think the point spinal_cord was trying to make is that if you run pirated games, don't expect much help from a homebrew forum.
In fact commercial developers producing games that cause deliberate corruption on cards is probably a good thing for homebrew.
(or have I missed the point?)
#161723 - Mike123 - Tue Aug 12, 2008 12:44 pm
| sonny_jim wrote: |
In fact commercial developers producing games that cause deliberate corruption on cards is probably a good thing for homebrew.
(or have I missed the point?) |
At this moment we don't know much.
Developers make it on purpose? Then fine. But it might be good idea to prove that.
R4DS hardware/software bug? Then homebrew community might be in trouble.
We don't know what triggers this issue and why. How much time it will take until someone make virus for NDS? Yes, homebrew poker game with chicks ;)
No switch off for I/O interface is a bug or feature?
I understand that finding ".nds" file which is less related to piracy could be good idea and make less hassle there.
#161724 - sonny_jim - Tue Aug 12, 2008 1:46 pm
| Quote: |
R4DS hardware/software bug? Then homebrew community might be in trouble.
|
Not really, because there are a multitude of devices that they can use other than the R4. It may even be a good idea for the homebrew community to distance themselves from the R4 as it seems to be Nintendo's number 1 target at the moment.
| Quote: |
We don't know what triggers this issue and why. How much time it will take until someone make virus for NDS? Yes, homebrew poker game with chicks ;)
|
NDS malware already exists (I think darkfader made a bricking program ages ago). The point is that malware programs get identified pretty quickly thus the distribution of them gets cut short. Besides, if you wanted to make a malware program, you'd probably not bother using something as specific as a bug in the R4 firmware to do it.
BUT
If there is a 'problem' with the R4, it would be good for the homebrew community to be aware of it.
#161727 - Lynx - Tue Aug 12, 2008 3:41 pm
| Quote: |
| Surely the easiest way to get around this problem, is to not play these games on the R4? |
There you have it.. problem solved. Or use the original game card you purchased while playing those games.. what's that? You don't have the original game card?
| Quote: |
If there is a 'problem' with the R4, it would be good for the homebrew community to be aware of it. |
Why would it? If it is only related to illegal warez romz, what does the homebrew community care?
Now, if it was the DLDI for the R4, then yes, I would agree it should be looked into.
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#161733 - simonjhall - Tue Aug 12, 2008 7:26 pm
I think I missed a subtle post here...but where's the "I am playing a pirated game" message?
/having a slow brain day
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#161736 - gauauu - Tue Aug 12, 2008 7:40 pm
When you follow the link, he has a list of games that cause this problem. All are pirated games.
#161739 - tepples - Tue Aug 12, 2008 8:15 pm
| sonny_jim wrote: |
| It may even be a good idea for the homebrew community to distance themselves from the R4 as it seems to be Nintendo's number 1 target at the moment. |
With R4 and M3 in Nintendo's sights, what would you recommend for SLOT-1 homebrew now? SuperCard DS One, CycloDS Evolution, Acekard, or something else?
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#161741 - nanou - Tue Aug 12, 2008 8:32 pm
Based on the age of the games in that list, it looks like a bug in newer R4 firmware. It would have shown up earlier if earlier versions were affected and I sorta doubt anyone would bother suddenly inserting trojans into games that old. Anyway it's easy to work out if you can compare md5sums.
Developers aren't doing this on purpose. It just wouldn't pass Nintendo's quality control. "Intentionally destroys users' data" wouldn't be acceptable. It's a liability risk, and probably indictable to boot. Even without that Nintendo does nothing if not enforce their concept of quality. Somehow I don't think this kind of shenanigans would be exempt from that.
As for "bawww piracy!", this just in: the earth is round and there's science to be done. (inb4 flat-earth society.)
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#161745 - gauauu - Tue Aug 12, 2008 10:05 pm
| tepples wrote: |
With R4 and M3 in Nintendo's sights, what would you recommend for SLOT-1 homebrew now? SuperCard DS One, CycloDS Evolution, Acekard, or something else? |
The Edge (received from http://forum.gbadev.org/viewtopic.php?t=13664) has treated me nicely so far. Actually worked with some apps where my M3 failed. But they says it's just a clone of the CycloDS.
| nanou wrote: |
| As for "bawww piracy!", this just in: the earth is round and there's science to be done. (inb4 flat-earth society.) |
True, but the sometimes overzealous anti-piracy bent on this forum is out of self-preservation. The last think we want to do is give Nintendo any reason to try/succeed in shutting us down. The more we talk about piracy, the more Nintendo would want to shut us down. And the more ammo they would have if they tried. (Although really, the only ammo they would really need is a team of lawyers and a big enough pocketbook).
Completely outlawing talk about piracy also helps to establish homebrew development as a legitimate, legal area.
#161746 - sonny_jim - Tue Aug 12, 2008 10:19 pm
| tepples wrote: |
| what would you recommend for SLOT-1 homebrew now? SuperCard DS One, CycloDS Evolution, Acekard, or something else? |
Out of that list, my personal preference would be the Acekard RPG (not 2), as it's got both 1GB of nand and a microSD slot. Also it has/had an open source firmware, so you could theoretically create a firmware that disallows booting commercial games. They've closed the source on the newer Acekards.
| Quote: |
but where's the "I am playing a pirated game" message?
|
I think the idea is that rather than having "You are playing a pirate game" pop up, the game silently trashes the users data to try and dissuade the user from pirating stuff. It's much more likely that it's just a bug and completely unintentional.
EDIT: Ungibber gibberish
EDIT2: Also I've heard (through the grapevine) that even official Nintendo developers use R4's as the official kit can only hold one game at a time. This would mean they would be familiar with the R4.
#161750 - nanou - Wed Aug 13, 2008 12:31 am
| gauauu wrote: |
| nanou wrote: | | As for "bawww piracy!", this just in: the earth is round and there's science to be done. (inb4 flat-earth society.) |
True, but the sometimes overzealous anti-piracy bent on this forum is out of self-preservation. The last think we want to do is give Nintendo any reason to try/succeed in shutting us down. The more we talk about piracy, the more Nintendo would want to shut us down. And the more ammo they would have if they tried. (Although really, the only ammo they would really need is a team of lawyers and a big enough pocketbook).
Completely outlawing talk about piracy also helps to establish homebrew development as a legitimate, legal area. |
It's a fair point, I don't even mind the "don't discuss this here" attitude even a little. What I do mind is all the ignorant "omg piracy you're evil, honey get the kids" stuff. If this is off limits, tepples or someone should have said "don't talk about this here please" by now. And hey, it would save a lot of whiny bitching, myself included.
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#161752 - keldon - Wed Aug 13, 2008 12:59 am
I think Tepples places a lot of trust in the strength of his sig!
#161755 - tepples - Wed Aug 13, 2008 1:58 am
The only reason I'm leaving this up is because I've read reports of the R4 menu trashing the microSD card's boot sector even when launching homebrew. I seem to remember it having something to do with creating the SAV file instead of skipping it with the X button and letting DLDI handle everything.
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#161797 - Lynx - Thu Aug 14, 2008 2:03 pm
| Quote: |
| I don't even mind the "don't discuss this here" attitude even a little. What I do mind is all the ignorant "omg piracy you're evil, honey get the kids" stuff. |
This goes along with how your rate breaking the law (yes, it's a moral issue). Is it OK for you to steal $50 from a friend? What about your father? What about a stranger? How about a corporation?
Stealing is stealing, each person takes it as they will. If someone is a common thief, they don't think much of stealing from anyone. Others might go out of their way to give back $50 found on the street.
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#161811 - tepples - Thu Aug 14, 2008 8:43 pm
| Lynx wrote: |
| Stealing is stealing |
True, stealing is stealing. But stealing is not necessarily infringement of copyright, nor vice versa. Otherwise, we wouldn't need separate statutes for the two offenses. Should intercepting a pass in basketball be a crime?
And am I "stealing" from Nintendo when I develop software for its hardware without paying for a devkit, dedicated office space, and an ESRB rating?
And am I "stealing" from Tetris when I develop a tetromino game that uses the uncopyrightable, unpatented rules of its tetromino game?
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#161817 - nanou - Thu Aug 14, 2008 9:32 pm
| Lynx wrote: |
| This goes along with how your rate breaking the law (yes, it's a moral issue). Is it OK for you to steal $50 from a friend? What about your father? What about a stranger? How about a corporation? |
Uhh, this is an example of the kind of ignorance I'm talking about. That comment I made was to point out the short-circuit of logic that equates "relevance to piracy" in the subject to actual support or involvement of piracy. I wasn't advocating piracy even a little, but now I get a lecture from you on morals for my trouble.
I'm trying to point out that this issue doesn't have to involve itself in piracy, but you're too busy repeating the piracy-is-evil mantra to pay attention.
And as tepples points out, copyright infringement and theft are two different things, despite what the media moguls tell you. Frankly, there are far more and far better reasons for stealing $50 from virtually anyone than stealing or pirating a game with an MSRP of $50.
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#161818 - keldon - Thu Aug 14, 2008 9:44 pm
I predict a fork/lock/argument. In short, there's no comparison between (a)taking $10 the bank account of a coorporation and (b) listening to their songs on your mp3 player. Simple example: if 1,000,000 people did then in case a they would be $10m down, but in case b they would not - indicating a clear difference between the two; hence my dislike for those types of poor comparisons :)
It is much easier to say it is wrong by morals than [flawed] rationale. I used to download mp3's and movies; but I stopped on moral ground (not rationale). I now subscribe to music/film services and would suggest to many others to do the same. I didn't download to avoid the payment, I downloaded out of curiosity, often songs of people who were recommended to me - who I most certainly would not have ever for any possible reason have purchased (as I had not heard them). In the same way that people are happy to listen to a song on youtube, or record from their TV or radio (which violates copyright) ... which is why I don't turn my nose up at someone doing the same thing (but with an mp3). However I would suggest to most to get used to paying for what they use, and seeing it as an investment (mainly with software), or a subscription to their own culture (like a regular purchase of music, etc.).
Interesting question Tepples; you may not be stealing their copyright, but could it be said that you are stealing their thunder? Does your success rely on their success (yet subtracts theirs)? Does your brand identity subtract [unfairly] from their brand identity to build your own? Does your marketing rely on their marketing, and can you be found by searching for them (hence subtracting part the value of their own name)?
#161822 - tepples - Thu Aug 14, 2008 10:30 pm
| keldon wrote: |
| I now subscribe to music/film services and would suggest to many others to do the same. |
Which music/film service sells or rents copies of Disney's Song of the South?
| Quote: |
| Interesting question Tepples; you may not be stealing their copyright, but could it be said that you are stealing their thunder? |
Except thunder is not property; the NOAA isn't that powerful yet.
What you say reminds me of U.S. copyright law's fair use factor #4 (effect on the market). Once, I tried to steal Nintendo's thunder by rushing a GBA port of Vitamins to the Internet before Nintendo could get WarioWare (which had Dr. Wario to unlock) out the door. I got it playable before WarioWare came out, but that didn't stop sales of WarioWare nor of Nintendo's later Dr. Mario + Puzzle League Game Pak. Nor will the proof-of-concept homebrew tetromino game for Wii affect sales of Tetris Party.
| Quote: |
| Does your success rely on their success (yet subtracts theirs)? |
The success of Heboris, Lockjaw, and Texmaster relies on what some hardcore gamers perceive as Tetris's failures since the changes made to the Tetris Guideline in 2001: slow sideways piece movement, infinite spin, overly large rewards for counterintuitive moves such as the T-spin triple, and a randomizer that makes it trivial to play forever. Tetris products tend to force these "features" on players; the freeware games let players turn them off.
| Quote: |
| Does your brand identity subtract [unfairly] from their brand identity to build your own? |
No more unfairly than GNU subtracts from UNIX, in my opinion.
| Quote: |
| Does your marketing rely on their marketing, and can you be found by searching for them (hence subtracting part the value of their own name)? |
No, but N-Blox can. I search for tetris on Google, and results 1 (www.freetetris.org), 2 (www.neave.com), 7 (www.echalk.co.uk), and 9 (kidrocket.org) are all N-Blox, not a Tetris product. The official Tetris site is number 3, and Lockjaw doesn't even show up. But Lockjaw does show up second for tetromino game.
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#161839 - keldon - Fri Aug 15, 2008 6:13 am
http://www.lovefilm.com/product/24452-Song-Of-The-South.html ^_^ I signed up to lovefilm as it was the only place I could get a copy of the original scarface and hells angels!
#161850 - Lynx - Fri Aug 15, 2008 2:28 pm
Tepples: Are those even serious questions? Or are you just babbling now?
I never mentioned copyright.
If intercepting a pass in basketball was against the rules, and you did it, it would be a violation and you would pay the penalty.
Did you (or someone) PAY for your DS? If not, yes.. you stole from Nintendo and whatever retailer you got it from. and if you did in fact steal it, I wan my money back ;)
The rest of this is just trying to muddy the waters to the point even a moral person wouldn't be able to see.. but I'll take a few minutes and kick some dirt around with you just for fun.
What does a devkit, office space, or and ESRB rating have to do with anything? You purchased hardware. Now, if you were distributing your software under the deception that it was licensed by Nintendo, then you would be stealing, as your list is what it takes to be allowed to say that.
I also understand the laws of ideas. and again, haven't mentioned copyright.
If we want to ask more useless questions, how about these:
Am I stealing from SuperCard when I give their product a bad review?
Am I stealing from all the other hardware manufactures when I give a competitors hardware a good review?
Is opening a retail store stealing from all the other retail stores?
Is it steeling when you use an electro-plating machine?
| Quote: |
| Frankly, there are far more and far better reasons for stealing $50 from virtually anyone |
And that explains it all... Which is why I stated it was a moral issue, or lack there of.
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#161854 - sonny_jim - Fri Aug 15, 2008 6:14 pm
/me slowly watches this thread turn into another piracy/copyright discussion.
So, to get back on track, is it likely that manufacturers are deliberately causing corruption on the R4 or is it just coincidence?
#161857 - keldon - Fri Aug 15, 2008 7:16 pm
I personally wasn't trying to "muddy the waters", but from Tepples post I can see he was talking more about "morally right/wrong" rather than legally right/wrong. You (Lynx) appeared (to me) to hold stronger views towards the legal aspect rather than the moral aspect (not to say you have no moral views, etc., hence my examples of actions with equal effect to what legally the same as piracy and examples of actions of different effect, such as the two examples of "stealing").
I also hate that analogy of "but it's stealing, and you wouldn't steal a car", etc. The two are terribly mismatched (as my examples show), yet everyone from programmers to music producers give such examples like they are equal ^_^
My point is clear, they are not matched in any way - hardly a below-the-belt pick, or "muddying the waters" ^_^ Is there a problem with what I said? Was it illogical? Do you disagree/agree with it?
#161862 - tepples - Fri Aug 15, 2008 8:55 pm
| sonny_jim wrote: |
| So, to get back on track, is it likely that manufacturers are deliberately causing corruption on the R4 or is it just coincidence? |
At this point, I'm inclined to believe that the microSD card corruption has more to do with programming defects in the R4 system software.
And yes, Lynx, I guess I've successfully demonstrated that the word "stealing" itself muddies the waters. GNU.org has a list of words that muddy the waters, which includes "theft".
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