rasky / ndsemu

Nintendo DS Emulator written in Go

ndsemu

Status

This emulator is still in DEVELOPMENT PHASE.

Some games work and are playable, others have broken graphics, others crash almost immediately.

What is emulated

• ARM
  • Most opcodes implemented in both ARM and Thumb mode
  • Disassemly for debugging support
  • Correct cycle counting
  • Correct handling of miasligned memory addresses
  • Preliminar JIT (not fully working yet)
• 2D: BG layers
  • Text mode (16/256 colors, scrolling)
  • Affine modes (16bit bgmap, 8bit bitmap, direct bitmap)
  • Different map sizes
  • Priorities
  • Extended palettes
• 2D: OBJ (sprites)
  • Normal sprites
  • Different sizes
  • Extended palettes
  • Bitmaps
  • Affine (rotozoom)
• 2D: advanced modes
  • VRAM display mode
• 2D: misc features
  • Capturing: only basic support (normal BG+OBJ capture)
  • Master brightness
  • Window (OBJ and BG)
  • Color special effects
• 3D: geometry processor
  • Most commands implemented
  • Accurate timing
• 3D: rasterizer
  • Quadrangle splitting
  • Backface culling
  • Triangle rasterization
  • All different texture formats
  • Texture perspective correction
  • Clipping
  • Lighting and materials (with bugs...)
  • Toon shading
• Sound
  • PCM channels
  • Noise

What is NOT emulated

• 2D
  • Mosaic
• 3D
  • Tons of small fixes
  • Light perspective corrections
  • Edge marking
  • Fog
• Sound
  • Capture (also for reverbs)
  • Mic input
• Emulator features
  • Savestates
  • Replays

How to compile

To compile, you must clone into a ndsemu subdirectory:

git clone https://github.com/rasky/ndsemu $GOPATH/src/ndsemu
cd $GOPATH/src/ndsemu
go get
go build

BIOS

You need access to an official NDS BIOS and firmware. Put them within a "bios" subdirectory, like this:

ndsemu
  |---bios
       |---- firmware.bin
       |---- biosnds7.rom
       |---- biodnds9.rom

Run it

At this point, you can just run it with:

./ndsemu <path-to-your-rom-file>