#33808 - iainprice - Sun Jan 09, 2005 12:51 pm
Now I know the booting procedure is still being worked on, but some of the processing chips are off the shelf aren't they? So realistically how long do you guys think before a basic set of libs will be available? Is it the booting and the 3d chip that are causing problems or is the LOTS more still to be sorted? Although part of my degree was in machine architecture, I found it tricky and didn't enjopy any of it so I just like to stick to the programming :)
#33811 - SmileyDude - Sun Jan 09, 2005 4:08 pm
there are multiple questions here...
first, is the question that pertains to getting code running on the machine. While there has been progress, it is difficult, if not impossible, to tell when there will be a generally available solution to loading homebrew code on the DS.
the second question was pertaining to a SDK -- specifically, you mentioned the 3D chip. This may actually be solved before we have the ability to load our own code on the machine. Since there has been a ROM dumped, some documentation has been leaked to the web, and the large similarity to the GBA's hardware, I wouldn't be surprised at all to see a DS emulator that's reasonably close to the real thing sooner than later. That would be enough for people to start developing their own code to run on the DS.
anyway, i would suggest that if you can, jump in and take a look at what's there. There is still a lot to do until both problems are solved, and besides, it's fun :)
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dennis
#33817 - tepples - Sun Jan 09, 2005 5:50 pm
| SmileyDude wrote: |
| I wouldn't be surprised at all to see a DS emulator that's reasonably close to the real thing sooner than later. That would be enough for people to start developing their own code to run on the DS. |
Not according to purists such as Michel Iwaniec of the nesdev board. To him and his ilk, if you're developing a program for a Famicom/NES emulator without testing your program on hardware, you might as well develop the same program for the emulator's native platform or for OpenGL+SDL instead. In fact, he has threatened physical violence against people who publicly release any NES ROM that has not been tested on hardware.
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-- Who?
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#33825 - ravuya - Sun Jan 09, 2005 6:46 pm
| tepples wrote: |
| In fact, he has threatened physical violence against people who publicly release any NES ROM that has not been tested on hardware. |
Sounds like my kind of guy. It's true, though: a lot of emulators don't account for the "little" glitches in hardware. I've seen a couple MSX games that were programmed in order to take advantage of said glitches, but the early emulators didn't cover it and so they didn't run particularly well.
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Rav (Win/Mac/Linux games for free)
#33842 - SmileyDude - Sun Jan 09, 2005 10:11 pm
| tepples wrote: |
| Not according to purists such as Michel Iwaniec of the nesdev board. To him and his ilk, if you're developing a program for a Famicom/NES emulator without testing your program on hardware, you might as well develop the same program for the emulator's native platform or for OpenGL+SDL instead. In fact, he has threatened physical against people who publicly release any NES ROM that has not been tested on hardware. |
Heh -- well, I would agree that it would be pretty dumb to develop only for an emulator, because if it never runs on the actual hardware, what's the point?
But, I was merely suggesting that in time, there will be DS emulators that will allow people to start developing for the DS, and hopefully at some point, they will be able to test their code on the real thing.
Physical , huh? Nice guy... :)
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dennis
#33843 - SmileyDude - Sun Jan 09, 2005 10:12 pm
offtopic -- is there something wrong with the word "V I O L E N C E" with this board, btw? both the quoted word in Tepples post and in my reply was it removed...
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dennis
#33848 - gb_feedback - Sun Jan 09, 2005 11:03 pm
Amusing. I can see the word in Tepples' original post and in ravuya's quote of it but not in your quote of it. Something to do with your ISP?
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#33866 - garlic - Mon Jan 10, 2005 5:11 am
| tepples wrote: |
| Not according to purists such as Michel Iwaniec of the nesdev board. To him and his ilk, if you're developing a program for a Famicom/NES emulator without testing your program on hardware, you might as well develop the same program for the emulator's native platform or for OpenGL+SDL instead. In fact, he has threatened physical violence against people who publicly release any NES ROM that has not been tested on hardware. |
Hehe. Perhaps he won't mind producing some dev carts for testing code on the NES? With the needed mappers, of course.
#33867 - TJ - Mon Jan 10, 2005 5:17 am
Well, it might be acceptable for something like the NES, where real hardware is sometimes not even possible for many people.
But for a current system like the DS, if you are releasing software that hasn't been tested in hardware first, you are asking for trouble.
#33870 - tepples - Mon Jan 10, 2005 5:26 am
garlic: Someone else on that board is working on an NES devcart called Squeedo, but no ETA has been announced.
That said, I'm sticking with GBA development until NES or Nintendo DS devcarts become available for sale to the public.
_________________
-- Where is he?
-- Who?
-- You know, the human.
-- I think he moved to Tilwick.
#33881 - Spaceface - Mon Jan 10, 2005 12:33 pm
how big is the chance that official devkits will "leak" and made public? and will it make sense to work with these?
#33884 - Abscissa - Mon Jan 10, 2005 4:40 pm
| Spaceface wrote: |
| how big is the chance that official devkits will "leak" and made public? and will it make sense to work with these? |
I'm not aware of the official GBA devkits having ever been leaked, so I'd say the chances of the public getting ahold of the DS ones are slim. But, from what I've heared, the official stuff really isn't all that much better than the homebrew stuff anyway (and in some cases worse), so I'm not too concerned about it.
#33923 - SmileyDude - Tue Jan 11, 2005 4:42 am
| Abscissa wrote: |
| I'm not aware of the official GBA devkits having ever been leaked, so I'd say the chances of the public getting ahold of the DS ones are slim. |
I dunno about the entire devkit, but certainly parts of the GBA ones have been leaked. I would imagine it would only be a matter of time before parts of the DS ones are leaked as well.
_________________
dennis
#33931 - Cthulhu32 - Tue Jan 11, 2005 6:10 am
from what I've heard from a gba programmer, Nintendo never released an SDK, only the registers that we already have. The only thing Nintendo has that other companies and homebrewers don't is their own custom libraries for handling different things. There was no official Nintendo GBA sdk :(
#33943 - Scha - Tue Jan 11, 2005 12:54 pm
Quote from Metrowerks' homepage:
"Metrowerks CodeWarrior Development Studio is the official toolset for the Nintendo DS? device."
And yes.. Metrowerks tools has been leaked before (for instance the GameCube version).
Cthulhu32: If the diffrent licensed developers only got what we have, then how are they makeing the games? I'm pretty sure there is a lot of documentation that are given to all licensed developers
Scha :D
#33956 - sgeos - Tue Jan 11, 2005 5:13 pm
| Scha wrote: |
| Cthulhu32: If the diffrent licensed developers only got what we have, then how are they makeing the games? I'm pretty sure there is a lot of documentation that are given to all licensed developers |
They got what we have way before we did. They work in teams of 5~10+ people and get paid for what they do. They have people with a bunch of (game specific) experience. They might have even had some nice ANSI C libraries when they started.
-Brendan