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Why is DS homebrew lacking?

Smashed_187

By Smashed_187
in DS Hacks [/ds]

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Smashed_187 Newbie

Smashed_187

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I got bored the other day and was scouring the net for DS homebrew and one thing really irked me: For every piece of DS homebrew, there was at least 5 for PSP. Then I started wondering why this was...and I came up with these. If anyone wants to argue a point or add more, feel free.

 

- Incomplete/Unstable Wifi lib (I know stephen has worked hard on it, but hey, its lacking in certain places. Wifi and the touch screen being the biggest advantage to the DS, which brings me to the next point....)

 

- Poor accuracy for the touch screen code (Yes, I know its improved, but when you try to hit backspace and a D keeps appearing? Irritating.)

 

- Mind numbing range of GBA carts -each with their own specific way of running things and hardware advantages. (e.g. compare the SUpercard CF or SD to the Magic Key 2/3)

(edit: As a side note, the neo flash coding comp specifically states that you should take advantage of the MK2/3 hardware if you intend to win. Thats nice and all, but what is the point of alienating over 50% of DS users by making a program that only works with certain flashcarts?)

 

- The overhead to get the actual homebrew running. (I know, now because PSP uses the GTA game there's not much difference, but in the beginning there was. I live in Australia and had a Supercard CF delivered from Jandamann, it cost me $88. That is $12 less than what I paid for the console. After buying a 1GB CF card for $55, that's $43 more than I paid for the DS!)

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sgstair Newbie

sgstair

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I got bored the other day and was scouring the net for DS homebrew and one thing really irked me: For every piece of DS homebrew, there was at least 5 for PSP. Then I started wondering why this was...and I came up with these. If anyone wants to argue a point or add more, feel free.

I'll take you up on this;

For starters, there's no great outnumbering of homebrew from either side, it's pretty close to 1:1 or just leaning slightly to one side or the other. If you want to make an argument about the quantity of homebrew, it would be nice to have some sort of evidence; I'm betting you just haven't found the right sites.

 

- Incomplete/Unstable Wifi lib (I know stephen has worked hard on it, but hey, its lacking in certain places. Wifi and the touch screen being the biggest advantage to the DS, which brings me to the next point....)

I'm not sure on this anymore, but not too long ago the only wifi the PSP was enjoying was only through the official psp SDK, which is a huge nono for homebrew development. The wifi lib for DS isn't perfect yet, for sure, but it's very easy to use and works for nearly everyone at this point.

 

- Poor accuracy for the touch screen code (Yes, I know its improved, but when you try to hit backspace and a D keeps appearing? Irritating.)

Yes and no, a lot of this is just older applications, recent ndslib versions greatly improve this. And if you're talking about my code, it's not using the touchpad in an optimal way (I've come up with a better way to do it now, but I haven't yet implemented it)

 

- Mind numbing range of GBA carts -each with their own specific way of running things and hardware advantages. (e.g. compare the SUpercard CF or SD to the Magic Key 2/3)

(edit: As a side note, the neo flash coding comp specifically states that you should take advantage of the MK2/3 hardware if you intend to win. Thats nice and all, but what is the point of alienating over 50% of DS users by making a program that only works with certain flashcarts?)

Mind numbing range of gba cards, and yet nearly everyone agrees on a very few range of options for homebrew; all the options are mainly for pirates. :P

And none of us should be appreciating neoflash anyway, the damage he's already done to the community is far greater than any sort of competition could undo, especially a competition that (as you stated) seems to serve to do more damange to the community.

 

- The overhead to get the actual homebrew running. (I know, now because PSP uses the GTA game there's not much difference, but in the beginning there was. I live in Australia and had a Supercard CF delivered from Jandamann, it cost me $88. That is $12 less than what I paid for the console. After buying a 1GB CF card for $55, that's $43 more than I paid for the DS!)

And, this didn't *used* to be a problem, but it is more so (but if you are trying to justify a freaking 1GB CF card for homebrew, that's ridiculous). The cheapest option right now is probably passme2 + a really cheap flashcard. A number of us like the GBAMP(v2), which is very cheap (~$20), widely used, and until passme2 became the norm, all you needed was a gbamp + passme....

Besides all this, there will shortly be cheap "true" DS flashcards which will make homebrew cheaper, easier, and more universal again.

 

Overall though, don't get the wrong idea - we're happy to have you around & contributing <_<

 

-Stephen

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Smashed_187 Newbie

Smashed_187

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I'll take you up on this;

For starters, there's no great outnumbering of homebrew from either side, it's pretty close to 1:1 or just leaning slightly to one side or the other. If you want to make an argument about the quantity of homebrew, it would be nice to have some sort of evidence; I'm betting you just haven't found the right sites.

 

I would appreciate it if you could point me toward some :P

 

 

I'm not sure on this anymore, but not too long ago the only wifi the PSP was enjoying was only through the official psp SDK, which is a huge nono for homebrew development.  The wifi lib for DS isn't perfect yet, for sure, but it's very easy to use and works for nearly everyone at this point.

 

And yet, xbox homebrew is one of the largest, and the only way to complile code for it is with the official XDK.

 

Yes and no, a lot of this is just older applications, recent ndslib versions greatly improve this. And if you're talking about my code, it's not using the touchpad in an optimal way (I've come up with a better way to do it now, but I haven't yet implemented it)

 

All I can say is: Yay.

 

Mind numbing range of gba cards, and yet nearly everyone agrees on a very few range of options for homebrew; all the options are mainly for pirates. <_<

And none of us should be appreciating neoflash anyway, the damage he's already done to the community is far greater than any sort of competition could undo, especially a competition that (as you stated) seems to serve to do more damange to the community.

 

I don't know what he's done in the past, but that comp irritated me. And how is it that people can make fake DS carts and sell them on ebay, but there are no DS carts for homebrew scene to use?

 

And, this didn't *used* to be a problem, but it is more so (but if you are trying to justify a freaking 1GB CF card for homebrew, that's ridiculous). The cheapest option right now is probably passme2 + a really cheap flashcard. A number of us like the GBAMP(v2), which is very cheap (~$20), widely used, and until passme2 became the norm, all you needed was a gbamp + passme....

Besides all this, there will shortly be cheap "true" DS flashcards which will make homebrew cheaper, easier, and more universal again.

 

I won't bullshit, I use it for other things than homebrew (and we all know what that is). It is good that nintendo doesn't object to homebrew as much as sony seems to though.

 

Overall though, don't get the wrong idea - we're happy to have you around & contributing :P

 

-Stephen

 

Thanks!

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Samor Newbie

Samor

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well, in my case, I was lucky to happen to have the right equipment for wmb/wifime already (before ever hearing of it), after that it was a matter of getting a gbamp and flashing the gbamp's and nds' firmware (flashme).

So for me, it was very cheap and logical to make my DS homebrew enabled.

 

I could imagine people not wanting to buy a passme or more expensive flashcard, or be afraid to flash the firmware.

 

If it weren't for wifime, I wouldn't have been using ds homebrew right now. A gbamp I might've gotten anyways (my favourite homebrew app is the emulator Goomba, which is actually GBA and not DS - if I had the coding skills I'd try and port it to DS, but that's out of the question right now).

 

That's another point - gba homebrew seems really popular, still...so maybe people would sooner develop for that.

 

GBA homebrew works on DS, but with GBAMP, only a few things, because of the memory limitation. With a flashcard, that's no problem, of course.

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Grey Newbie

Grey

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Samor? Do I remember seeing you on NGEmu from the days when I used to go there? If so, it's good to see you. I don't really remember that place so well anymore... but I think I liked you. :lol:

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Grey Newbie

Grey

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I was actually the one who Photoshopped the stars for Beyond Hope. I was the only one in the group when it was first established. I created the thread "What do you think the admins look like" or something like that. I'm sorry, but I really hesitate to mention my name, as I was a very different person then. I think I also was voted "member of the year" the first year that NGEmu held awards for that sort of thing. (not anything I am proud of... just trying to give obvious hints without saying my name). I still hate Kane however.

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sgstair Newbie

sgstair

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Hehe, well, grey seems to have hijacked the thread :D

 

Back to the discussion at hand...

 

About homebrew volume?

Watch the following sites for breaking news:

http://www.drunkencoders.com/

http://ds.whatalicefound.net/news/

http://scdev.org/

and a semi-comprehensive list (though a bit older): http://patatersoft.info/links.html

 

To answer some of your other statements:

 

Just because an official SDK is widely used in a homebrew scene does not make it legal or justified; in all of the nintendo homebrew scenes I've been involved in, we take a lot of care not to do anything to compromise the legality of our work.

 

About cards:

Actually, Pirate DS cards are a very new phenomonon - the information requisite to actually making them was kept secret until recently, and now several groups are actually making "true" ds flash cards - this will be very good for homebrew, as running code will no longer require all the jumping through hoops. On the other hand, it makes piracy so much easier too, but I suppose that can't be prevented anyway.

 

-Stephen

PS: Sony sucks any way you look at it :lol:

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Samor Newbie

Samor

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sorry we hijacked the thread,

I'll continue that over pm :P

 

the "real" ds flashcarts, is that exactly what I think it is - a flashcart in the format of a ds cartridge instead of gba cartridge ?

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