nintendo DS?

patddfan

is there anything that can run DS roms on a mac yet? i just downloaded a batch of roms, and DS was in this archive!

zweitplatzierungsboy

you could give DeSmuME a try: http://desmume.org/

mossy_11

Yeah, DeSmuME's the one. It has decent compatibility and performance. You might find the controls a bit weird on games that use the touch screen and all buttons.

I strongly discourage its use if you're running commercial DS games, though, as the Nintendo DS is a current handheld sold in retail stores around the world and Nintendo are putting a lot of effort into prosecuting pirates. (And piracy is wrong. Blah, blah, blah)

finkmac

Well, Its a great emulator BUT… the mac version is insanely limited. For instance, you can export .sav's, start from the DS BIOS, and Even emulate the GBA slot on the Windows version. But not on the Mac :angry:

Kuribo

DeSmuMe is... well, a work in progress. I remember downloading and trying it quite a while ago; it performed relatively poorly. However, now that a year has gone by (perhaps less) it's shaping up, having a respectable frame-rate on my 2007 Mini.

The features are gradually expanding and are being created as I type, although some of them simply refuse to work (for the time being). I'm getting a bit aggravated by the fact that it refuses to save preferences. Probably some authorization issue, like lack of write permissions or faulty .Plist file. Or maybe the interface is wonky...

Oh, well. It's the best we've got, for now.

HDL

You can also try No$GBA in Wine or CrossOver. It works almost as well as running it in Windows, and it's faster/more compatible. Probably the best option right now, until DeSmuMe becomes more capable.

finkmac

HDL wrote:

You can also try No$GBA in Wine or CrossOver. It works almost as well as running it in Windows, and it's faster/more compatible. Probably the best option right now, until DeSmuMe becomes more capable.

It's actually less capable than desmume, but it IS faster… And the audio quality is horrible…
Also don't run desmume win on wine/crossover, you won't have any audio.

HDL

Does anyone know how to set DeSmuME's renderer to OpenGL in Terminal? The Mac version of 0.9.6 is really slow, even more than its previous version. I found this:

http://forums.desmume.org/viewtopic.php?id=3590

I tried changing it according to the documentation, but the shell always outputs "SoftRast initialized" instead of OpenGL.

Also, not only can I not get audio in the Windows version using Wine, I can't even get video to display properly with OpenGL (only rasterizer). And the amount of options available for that version is ridiculous. Cross-platform projects should place more priority on maintaining equality for each port.

Edit: I was able to compile the current source from SVN. I couldn't figure out how to build it with a GUI (I always got some sort of error), but using it in the shell is pretty simple. I noticed that it also uses the soft rasterizer, but it runs at normal speed unlike the current binary they have on their site.

After reading for a while on their forums and wiki, it kind of seems like they dislike OS X, Cocoa, and things related to Mac in general. As if the only reason they bother at all is because cross-platform development has become a "trend" and it's the best way to increase your user base. I've also seen developers give rude remarks to some posters. What a shame.

finkmac

I solved It by buying Windoze 7 XD
But the windows version is insanely crashy… Like, it crashes when I click the screen!
So The Mac Version is sort of OK.
Maybe a Mac Developer should try to port it. Like, Say Bannister…
Oh well… :(

Squishy Tia

Somehow I think RB has enough on his plate without more to drain away his free time, what little he has with his emulators, work, etc. He's already going to be spending a fair bit of time on BSNES and its new tri-core functionality.

jack59splat59

I'd love to get my old DS games together, but I wonder if you could use one of those touchpads to use as the touchscreen.