#43498 - SuperSonik - Tue May 24, 2005 1:23 am
Hello from Viper Strike Clan http://www.viperstrike.tk Currently I am the DS Moderator there. Times are changing, and as the fanbase for the DS grows, so does the hacking community. I will be taking C starting next semester, and I wish to be a part of the homebrew squad. There are just a few questions that have been on my mind.
I have a DS, a computer, a X-ROM 512Mbyte card, and a bit of knowledge. However, I seem to find that there is no "easy-to-use" tutorial out there for preparing your DS for homebrews. I hear of PassMe, WiFiMe, NeoMe, etc., and it's very confusing for a newb. So, onto my first question.
What is the safest choice for a wireless card for interacting with the DS, or basically what do you guys have that works?
Once I receive the wireless card, which drivers do I need to download for said card?
Once the drivers are installed, I wish to update the firmware to play homebrews without having to be near a computer. Is this possible with an Xrom and using only WiFiMe?(I have a spare GBA to flash the Xrom). If so, how?
Once I update the firmware, how can I play homebrew games on the DS? Do I have to first send them to my flashcart or can I stream them from the computer? Which is the easier way? Which way has a higher success rate?
Is it simple to "reflash" your firmware to it's original state?
Thanks to everyone for their time to answer my questions. Hope this can be a shining beacon for newbiez everywhere.
Viper Strike Clan is an online community (still in it's infancy) based on fostering online friendships, gathering to discuss video games, and set up times to play online games.
_________________
You mess with the best, you die with the rest.
Jesus said to John "Come forth and I will grant you eternal life." John came fifth and won a toaster.
#43500 - doublec - Tue May 24, 2005 1:31 am
| Quote: |
| What is the safest choice for a wireless card for interacting with the DS, or basically what do you guys have that works? |
The following tutorial explains all about using a wireless card for homebrew:
http://www.aaronrogers.com/nintendods/wifime.php
Drivers and programs from:
http://users.belgacom.net/bn967347/
| Quote: |
Once the drivers are installed, I wish to update the firmware to play homebrews without having to be near a computer. Is this possible with an Xrom and using only WiFiMe?(I have a spare GBA to flash the Xrom). If so, how?
|
See: http://ds.gcdev.com/dsfirmware/
You use Wifime to boot the program that flashes the firmware from your card. From then on you should be able to run homebrew from the card without using the Wifi options.
| Quote: |
Once I update the firmware, how can I play homebrew games on the DS? Do I have to first send them to my flashcart or can I stream them from the computer? Which is the easier way? Which way has a higher success rate?
|
Either works. Download them via wifi is easiest if you're near your computer. For homebrew it's probably faster than transfering to the GBA cartridge and running from that. When away from the computer of course your only choice is to boot off the card.
#43503 - SuperSonik - Tue May 24, 2005 1:37 am
Thanks a lot doublec. One more thing. I'm confused as to this .nds and .ds.gba extensions. Which format should I install the demos in after I update the firmware? Can I put multiple demos on the same cart? When I stream, which format do I use?
| Quote: |
| Download the installation file and flash it on a GBA flashcard and boot it using PassMe or WifiMe |
Also, I don't understand this part from the ds.gcdev site. How do I boot something using WiFiMe if it's on the cart?
_________________
You mess with the best, you die with the rest.
Jesus said to John "Come forth and I will grant you eternal life." John came fifth and won a toaster.
#43513 - doublec - Tue May 24, 2005 2:21 am
Here's an explanation of how I think things work that may make it clearer.
Wireless Multiboot, wmb.exe, is a program that lets you provide programs that can be run on the DS using 'Download and play'.
'wifime' is a DS application that you can downloaded to your DS using WMB. What wifime does is some tricky stuff to allow the DS to run DS code stored on a Flash cartridge. So wifime lets you run applications stored on the flash cartridge.
This is needed because the DS expects GBA code to exist on the Flash cartridge not DS code.
For a program to be downloaded and run via 'download and play' it must be digitally signed. No one to my knowledge has cracked the encryption so only correctly signed executables can be downloaded using WMB. This is why the Nintendo demo programs like Polarium can run fine using WMB, without storing on the flash cartridge. They are signed.
'wifime' uses some method of getting around this I'm not sure how.
The firmware patcher is a program that must be run on the DS. To download it you need to use 'wifime' to run it from the flash cartridge. Once it has flashed the firmware it disables the digital signature checking.
So once you have the new firmware you can now use WMB to download your homebrew programs directly, in the same manner as the polarium demo. For this to work your program should be a .nds file.
The .nds.gba files have a small 'gba' loader at the front of it that does some things I have no idea what but enables the program to run from a GBA cartridge. So a program running from the flash cartridge requires the .nds.gba.
So in summary:
Download on a flashed firmware via WMB: Use .nds
Run from flash cartridge using wifime: Use .nds.gba
You can only put one demo on the cartridge. But the 'Darkstar' system provides a 'multi boot' facility allowing you to package multiple demos in one application binary:
http://forum.gbadev.org/viewtopic.php?t=5732
Hope that helps. By the way I have some development tutorials here if that's of interest:
http://www.double.co.nz/nintendo_ds
Chris.
#43522 - FourScience - Tue May 24, 2005 3:49 am
doublec is our resident NDS Homebrew Instructor. Keep it up with those tutorials, man.
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Work in progress: Dual-Soft.com
#43527 - Abcd1234 - Tue May 24, 2005 4:30 am
And just to expand on what doublec was talking about regarding the boot loader, an NDS cart image is composed of two main parts: an ARM9 image and an ARM7 image. In addition, the NDS cart contains a header which describes where these images are on the cart, their size, where to copy those images into memory, and where to start the ARM7 and ARM9 executing.
So, when the NDS starts up, the ARM7 executes code in the BIOS that reads that header, copies the ARM7 and ARM9 images to the places specified, causes the ARM9 to begin execution at the specified address, and then jumps to the ARM7 execution address.
Now, WifiMe and FlashMe work by hijacking this process by sending a modified cart header to the DS which instructs the ARM7 to begin execution at address 0x08000000, a.k.a the GBA cart. And this is where we get to the bootloader. The bootloader is stored at the very start of the cart, so the ARM7 immediately begins executing the loader. This loader basically does all the aforemention operations (copying the images, starting the ARM9, etc), but reading from the GBA cart slot instead.
#43694 - SuperSonik - Wed May 25, 2005 7:21 pm
Ok, thanks a lot guys. One more thing. Which Wireless card should I buy? Which kind do you guys have, and what did it cost?
_________________
You mess with the best, you die with the rest.
Jesus said to John "Come forth and I will grant you eternal life." John came fifth and won a toaster.
#43700 - wintermute - Wed May 25, 2005 8:35 pm
| SuperSonik wrote: |
Thanks a lot doublec. One more thing. I'm confused as to this .nds and .ds.gba extensions. Which format should I install the demos in after I update the firmware? Can I put multiple demos on the same cart? When I stream, which format do I use?
|
This is a forum for homebrew development, not warez.
#43703 - TheMikaus - Wed May 25, 2005 8:59 pm
Is a demo really considered warez? If it is then the E3 post probably should be locked. I don't think it would be since it's just a demo... that's free. or maybe the user meant demo as in I made a demo. And nds no longer just implies commercial roms.
#43705 - Abcd1234 - Wed May 25, 2005 9:08 pm
| wintermute wrote: |
| This is a forum for homebrew development, not warez. |
Well that's not terribly fair. The demos have been quite openly discussed in these forums. Hell, coordinating the ripping process was done here.
To answer your question, SuperSonik, all files flashed to the GBA cart should be in .nds.gba format (ie, an NDS file with a loader prepended to it), regardless of your boot method (PassMe, WifiMe, or FlashMe). Multiple .nds.gba files can't directly be stored on a single cart, though DarkStar can be used as a .nds.gba loader.
For downloads, check out this topic. There's links to the individual demos, as well as DarkStar with all the E3 demos packed into it.
Now, back to the topic of warez for a moment, it should be pointed out that these really are just *demos*. None of them are full-blown games, and many are just tech demos. Consequently, I fail to see how "pirating" these things is a big deal. Hell, if I was Nintendo, the first thing I'd do with the upcoming DS online service is provide free demos of upcoming games. After all, what better way to sell games than with a try-before-you-buy model (hell, Polarium and Meteos both look like games I might buy, and I only say that after having the opportunity to play the demos).
EDIT: Whoops, DarkStar can be used as a .nds loader. Thus, it must be used with .nds files (no loader should be present).
Last edited by Abcd1234 on Wed May 25, 2005 11:01 pm; edited 1 time in total
#43715 - wintermute - Wed May 25, 2005 10:00 pm
Perhaps unfairly, when I see the term "streaming" I tend to think of warez
#43716 - TheMikaus - Wed May 25, 2005 10:07 pm
Do you associate streaming to warez because of GC stuff?
#43723 - FourScience - Wed May 25, 2005 11:12 pm
| wintermute wrote: |
| Perhaps unfairly, when I see the term "streaming" I tend to think of warez |
I think he meant wireless multiboot/WiFiMe. I think his questions were legitimate... and I think wintermute gets the point so we can all be nice-nice again =).
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Work in progress: Dual-Soft.com
#43727 - SuperSonik - Thu May 26, 2005 1:01 am
No, I meant streaming as in streaming demos from my computer. Maybe I used the incorrect term.
So, If I don't use a loader, I use nds.gbs, but if I use a loader, .nds. Got it.
And still, which card should I buy? Which do you guys have?
_________________
You mess with the best, you die with the rest.
Jesus said to John "Come forth and I will grant you eternal life." John came fifth and won a toaster.