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DS Misc > Differences between M3 loading methods.

#76847 - tssf - Sat Mar 25, 2006 10:07 am

I don't know if this was disgussed before, but I may as well ask because I'm sure some people are curious about it as well.

The M3 has two loading methods. The A button, which loads as a "game", and the "start" button which loads as a "demo".

Now..

Can anyone explain what's the difference between the two? Why say, a homebrewn demo will not work if loaded as a game, and why a game will not work if loaded like a demo?
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#76853 - ?hr - Sat Mar 25, 2006 11:37 am

demo is always smaller than 4mb. so it can be loaded in the DS ram(max 4mb). you also dont have to convert roms with the gm, because it has a special bootformat allready. if you use the gamemanager, the demo wont work. real games have to be converted with the gm and start with A, because
1. they (nearly) always bigger than 4mb
2. you can choose between normal(load in m3 ram before boot) and fastboot(dma 1x/4x)
3. special boot code is added with the gm to let it boot on m3 with A(uses other read "code")

[START] fixes a lot of homebrew too.

#76861 - pepsiman - Sat Mar 25, 2006 3:43 pm

tssf wrote:
Can anyone explain what's the difference between the two?

Pressing Start prepends an NDS loader (turns a *.nds into a *.nds.gba).
Pressing A doesn't.

Recent *.nds homebrew has a built in loader, so it doesn't matter which you press.
With *.nds.gba homebrew you need to press A.
With old *.nds homebrew and captured Wifi demos, you need to press Start.

#76863 - tepples - Sat Mar 25, 2006 4:18 pm

pepsiman wrote:
With *.nds.gba homebrew you need to press A.
With old *.nds homebrew and captured Wifi demos, you need to press Start.

So why didn't they just key it off the file name suffix?
Code:
*.nds -> load m3powerloader + file, jump to loader
*ds.gba -> load file, jump to loader
*.gba -> load file, go to GBA mode

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#76866 - pepsiman - Sat Mar 25, 2006 4:34 pm

tepples wrote:
So why didn't they just key it off the file name suffix?

Maybe you didn't notice, but my post deliberately only mentioned homebrew.
M3 patched ROMS have a .nds extension, but won't work if you add a loader.
They should have used the file name suffix, but they put the wrong suffix on their warez.

The M3 situation is slightly saner than supercard where only files with a loader will work, but all nds homebrew has to be named *.nds