3DARCADE FORUM

[Jester69]

Setting up a Nintendo DS emulator for use with 3D Arcade

The emulator we'll be using here is NO$GBA and a couple of utility programs to get it just the way we want it.

A} Downloads: We'll start by getting the files we need;

1.) download skinfiles and config setup by Jester & billhicks
2.) download NO$GBA from the official site (using version 2.6a in this tutorial)
3.) download myZoom from the ngemu forums (using version 1.8.24 in this tutorial)
4.) download my myZoomCL (BETA)

A quick explanation of what all these downloads are;
nintendo_ds_skin.rar contains all the configs and skins we need for setting up the emulator.
NO$GBA is obviously the emulator itself, however it is missing some features (noteably texture scaling/filters and a fullscreen mode)
which have been corrected by the addon...
myZoom which guess what, has a few features missing (configs and command line ability) which I created the...
myZoomCL complied autoit script for (source included).

B} Installation: for the tutorial I'll assume you have installed 3D Arcade to: C:\3DARCADE\ ,it doesn’t matter if you have it elsewhere

5.)copy 3D_Arcade_DS.zip into your 3d arcade folder and unzip it there.
6.)extract the NO$GBA file somewhere and copy the .exe into the 3DARCADE\emulators\nintendo_ds\ folder
7.)extract the myZoom file to the same place ensuring that myzoom.exe and all files|folders are in the same directory and the NO$GBA.exe
8.)extract the myZoomCL file to the same directory as above.

Your 3DARCADE\emulators\Nintendo DS\ folder should look something like this:



C} Setup Emulator: NO$GBA uses the .nds format for game ROMs and myZoom will allow you to load 7zipped .7z roms
9.) copy your roms (7zipped or not) into your 3DARCADE\emulators\Nintendo DS\roms\ folder.
Freeware homebrew roms can be had at www.ndshb.com though not all will work with NO$GBA or will pop up a warning screen
10.) run myZoom.exe and browse to your roms directory and pick a file to run
11.) right click the lower screen and select set hide emu to "show" and press F11 to bring up the setup screen
12.) most of the settings on this screen are fine left at their defaults (feel free to adjust them to your PC's spec),
but the "NDS Cartridge Backup Media" setting can change from game to game and the auto setting doesn’t always work,
so a helpful list can be found here or check the ngemu forum for particularly stubborn games.



13.) once you have found what media type to use for your rom click {OK} then go into the NO$GBA options menu and select "Save options"
14.) now in your 3DARCADE\emulators\Nintendo DS\ you should see a file called NO$GBA.INI copy this file into your \configs directory
and rename it to exactly the same name as the rom you just loaded (but with .ini on the end) so if you were playing Ballance.nds rename the file Ballance.ini

15.) Repeat steps 10 - 14 for each rom you have. Sorry to those of you with large collections but there is no foolproof automatic way at the moment. After you’re all done right click the lower screen and select set hide emu to "hide"
16.) copy the upper screenshots (in .png or jpeg format) into the \marquees folder with the same filename as the rom
17.) copy the lower screenshots (in .png or jpeg format) into the \sshot folder with the same filename as the rom
18.) copy the front boxscans (in .png or jpeg format) into the \flyers folder with the same filename as the rom

D} Adding a 3D arcade gamelist
19a) in your 3DARCADE\cfg\ folder open feemulators.cfg and copy and paste the following line at the bottom

[EVEGames]

Jester,
Excellent writeup, my man. And good work on all the customization to make this emu do what we need it to do. Can't wait to get home tonight and try it out. The bummer part, of course, is the manual setting-up of each game, but until a more viable cab-friendly DS emulator comes out (or a batch script to automate the process), sounds like this is a good solution.
Cheers!
-EVEGames

[EVEGames]

Jester, just a thought, and having zero experience with NO$GBA... but what are the chances that the .ini files you have created, or any of us will go on to create using your method described above, would work fine for everyone else? Or are these .ini files so custom-fitted to each user's individual setup as to make them basically useless to the next guy?
-EVEGames

[Jester69]

Thanks for the praise, it was a lot of work.

Trouble with the ini's is that they have to be exactly, the same name as the games are, eg diddykongracing.nds & diddykongracing.ini

Its the same as gamenames and screenshots for any other emu in the FE.

I've heard of DAT files 'out there' for NDS sets, so in theory it should be possible for the community to share and make ini's, but I dont know if the dats have a checksum in them for the .nds file, for the compressed file or not at all.

All my nds files (bar 1) I dumped myself (from my own games) so I also dont know if a homedumped file would have the same checksum as a scene release dat file?

All in all its a pain in the butt and would be a massive undertaking to ini all the 2400+ roms, but if you have any ideas let me know.

[EVEGames]

Jester,
I tried out your DS procedure this weekend, and it worked like a charm. Thanks again for doing this walkthrough. Two quick questions if you don't mind...

1) Do you know any way to get rid of those ugly grey bars on the sides of the DS emulation window? I don't want to stretch the window to fit the screen, I just want those bars to not be that ugly grey... maybe black? Or a static bitmap? I realize this is more of a question for the author of the emu, but I thought you might know.

2) Is it safe to say that the only reason for creating the .ini files for each game is to allow for save games? It seems the .ini's are mainly to allow for different "NDS Cartridge Backup Media" for each game. So the question is, if I do not care about saving my game between sessions, is there any other downside to not creating the .inis?

Thanks,
-EVEGames

[Jester69]

@EveGames,

Glad everything worked out well for you as to your points;

1) not quite sure which grey border you mean (as there are 2 possibilities)
a) if you are running fullscreen then click on the area either side of the game area and a file browser window should pop up. Point it to the file ?3dArcade?\emulators\nintendo_ds\skin\fullscreenbg.bmp that I created just for this purpose
b) if you are not running full screen right click in the bottom ds screen and goto Border>None of ALL

2)You are partially correct in your assumptions, the .ini's are for game saves, but beware some games will not run AT ALL or past a certain point if they find they can't save, so just bear that in mind if you have problems with a game.

Hope you enjoy your DS emulation
Best of luck

Jester

[EVEGames]

Jester,
I missed that part about the custom fullscreen bitmap you created! Good deal, now I've got something new to try out tonight
Looks like all the bases are covered, Thanks again!
-EVEGames