News

DSx86 is a PC/DOS emulator for Nintendo DS written by Patrick Aalto. It’s purpose is to allow you to run old DOS games on your Nintendo DS game console. Some of the older games run quite good and bring back memories.

Release notes:

Sorry for this unscheduled release, but as this is the day of the original Homebrew Bounty deadline, I decided to release a quick fix version to address a couple of issues introduced in the previous 0.33 version. This version supports ‘sudokuhax’ for running in DSi mode again, and it also has the screen blitting and keyboard reading code in the same order as in the 0.32 version.

I had reports about DSx86 missing keyboard events in 0.33 when using Smooth scaling mode, and the only thing I had changed that could cause this was that I moved the keyboard reading before the screen blitting in the VBlank interrupt. The reason I did this was that reading the keys also reads the scrolling buttons L and R, and scrolling the screen must happen within the VBlank period or the screen will tear. However, adding the Smooth scaling options make the screen blitting take so much time that the VBlank period has ended before the code gets to keyboard reading. I still don’t quite see how swapping the order of the subroutines would cause key events to get missed, but it seems that changing the order back and just making sure the screen scrolling actually takes place only during the NEXT VBlank period fixes this problem.

The other problem introduced in version 0.33 was that I had to remove the DSi SD slot access code from libNDS 1.5.0 to make my AdLib emulation run without crashing. I now found a way to include that back in and still have my AdLib code run properly. I still need to dig into the original problem further to see what actually causes the hang. I originally got rid of the problem after I removed the SD reading code, the i2c handling code, and all the additional DSi mode ARM7 interrupt and FIFO handling. Now I managed to add the SD reading code (along with the FIFO stuff that that needs) back in, so I plan to check whether it is the interrupt, some remaining FIFO or i2c code that actually causes the problem. I have already tested the original libNDS 1.5.0 by only removing the i2c code, but that still caused a hang.

Anyways, I think I’ll need to make some final touches also to DS2x86 before the actual Homebrew Bounty deadline, so this might very well be the final DSx86 Homebrew Bounty version.

🔗 http://dsx86.patrickaalto.com/

This article is over 2 years old — the linked page may have changed, moved, or been taken over since then.

Retrogaming Times Monthly #85 is available. RTM is a retro magazine, sometimes with focus on homebrew the homebrew scene.

Content of this issue:

ATTRACT MODE
* Press Fire To Begin
* Retrogaming News

THE RETROWORKS
* Defending His Bases – Paul Zimmerman Breaks Atlantis World Record… And Then Some
* Gaming Tetralogies – The Contra Series

THE GAME REVIEW H.Q.
* Commodore Du Jour – Jumpman
* Standalone Spew – The Me-Decade Brainiacs Whose Games Begat Generation X
* Dual Perspective – Donkey Kong
* Mutated Output – The Many Faces Of The BBC Micro – Part 2
* Apple II Incider – Championship Baseball
* MAME Review – Escape From The Planet Of The Robot Monsters
* The Pixelated Mage – Ninja Gaiden
* A Pixelated 21st Century

POWERING DOWN
* Game Over

🔗 http://www.retrogamingtimes.com/magazine/?issue=85&page=frontcover

This article is over 2 years old — the linked page may have changed, moved, or been taken over since then.

c64-network.org is a networked port of the Frodo C64 emulator.

Changes:

Several bug fixes
Window zooming
General Preferences saved manually
Added items in info menu

🔗 http://wiibrew.org/wiki/C64-network.org

This article is over 2 years old — the linked page may have changed, moved, or been taken over since then.

Shutdown Timer by atom is a simple shutdown timer for the Pandora.

Release notes:

New Version now uses yad instead of zenity for some of the dialogs .
This allows left click action on the tray icon to view minutes to remain, change or stop the timer.

The icon is by courtesy of Aleksandra Wolska shared under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 license.

🔗 http://repo.openpandora.org/?page=detail&app=shutdowntimer.atom.001

This article is over 2 years old — the linked page may have changed, moved, or been taken over since then.

LPairs is a Memory game from the LGame series.

🔗 http://repo.openpandora.org/?page=detail&app=lpairs-lpairs-19607

This article is over 2 years old — the linked page may have changed, moved, or been taken over since then.

LGeneral is a turn-based strategy engine heavily inspired by Panzer General. You play single scenarios or whole campaigns turn by turn against a human player or the AI. Entrenchment, rugged defense, defensive fire, surprise contacts, surrender, unit supply, weather influence, reinforcements and other implementations contribute to the tactical and strategic depth of the game.

🔗 http://repo.openpandora.org/?page=detail&app=lgeneral-lgeneral-19038

This article is over 2 years old — the linked page may have changed, moved, or been taken over since then.

Barrage (ported to Pandora by Clop) is a game created by lGames. Your objective is to destroy as much as possible enemy units. Short instructions are provided ingame.

🔗 http://repo.openpandora.org/?page=detail&app=barrage-barrage-5296

This article is over 2 years old — the linked page may have changed, moved, or been taken over since then.

Space Impakto DS by relminator is an old school space shooter for Nintendo DS.

Changes:

Fixed the bug in the replay system interface
Changed the Replay System Interface to a more intuitive one.
Normal and Boss Rush has different highscore tables
Second loop!
Loop 2 is the “HARD MODE”(For HardCore BulletHell players) ala Strikers 1999 and Gunbird 2
Loop 2 is reminiscent of Psykyo 2nd loops where you kill something, it explodes bullets.
Level is also spawnign “popcorn” enemies when facing bosses to up the ante of difficulty.
Edited some enemy sequence to make the first loop beatable w/o using a single bomb.

🔗 http://gbatemp.net/t288012-space-impakto-ds-ds-entry?&st=30

This article is over 2 years old — the linked page may have changed, moved, or been taken over since then.

MaCoPiX (Mascot Constructive Pilot for X) is a desktop mascot application for UNIX / X Window system and Microsoft Windows.

Release notes:

Was looking the reason for hangs in wrong place, seems like how it handles balloons was the cause. I just hope I don’t need to touch at it again 🙂

🔗 http://repo.openpandora.org/?page=detail&app=macopix-1.7.4

This article is over 2 years old — the linked page may have changed, moved, or been taken over since then.

PokeMini is an Open-Source Pokemon Mini emulator for various systems. It now has been ported to Dingux by Coccijoe.

🔗 http://dl.openhandhelds.org/cgi-bin/dingoo.cgi?0,0,0,0,71,508

This article is over 2 years old — the linked page may have changed, moved, or been taken over since then.