Ancient Aliens: New Nin. 3DS now offers the best SNES emulation on any handheld

Rich! said:
Homebrew can only access 30% of the power of the OG3DS compared to near 80% of the N3DS, which is significantly more powerful to begin with. that's why.
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I'm afraid your calculations are off on this one. 3DS HB can access 100% of one core and 30% of another. N3DS HB can access 100% of first core, 80% of second and 0% of the other two. That's what they said last time, at least.

You're correct about N3DS being way better since it apparently can overclock itself from 268 MHz to 804 MHz. I don't know if HB uses this.
 
stan423321 said:
I'm afraid your calculations are off on this one. 3DS HB can access 100% of one core and 30% of another. N3DS HB can access 100% of first core, 80% of second and 0% of the other two. That's what they said last time, at least.

You're correct about N3DS being way better since it apparently can overclock itself from 268 MHz to 804 MHz. I don't know if HB uses this.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that's correct. I think my figure takes all cores into account though.
 
Anyway, DS and GBA did not-too-bad when it came to SNES because the GBA video core, and by extension the DS one, has abilities that are pretty much directly translatable to what SNES PPU did in typically used modes. 3DS video core is a completely different thing.
 
I activated the microSD Management on my 3DS and PC :) So, I'm tryna download the homebrew launcher on the system by placing boot.3dsx and 3ds/ onto the microSD. Where... should I store these? What folder? I don't wanna potentially destroy my system or something and just wanna be safe before I do anything!
 
Solid SOAP said:
I activated the microSD Management on my 3DS and PC :) So, I'm tryna download the homebrew launcher on the system by placing boot.3dsx and 3ds/ onto the microSD. Where... should I store these? What folder? I don't wanna potentially destroy my system or something and just wanna be safe before I do anything!
Click to expand...
In the root of your sd card. Apps then go in the 3DS folder.
 
Trojita said:
Anyone? OP?

So I see you might be able to inject the gba games but I'm lost from there. I have an OG 3DS, 3DS XL, and New 3DS XL. I'm guessing hacking the New 3DS from the Animal Crossing bundle is out of the question, I was thinking about buying one.
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There are GBA emulators that work okay (not sure about those games specifically), but they are, of course, still emulators. Mother 3 in particular won't have perfect audio sync.

In order to run GBA games natively--the way the ambassador games do it--you need to be on firmware 9.2 and below. Yeah, I know, sucks. The 3DS has native backwards compatibility with the GBA, and yet almost no one is able to use it :(
 
sörine;180026663 said:
In the root of your sd card. Apps then go in the 3DS folder.
Click to expand...
Thanks! Saving right now, this seems pretty simple, but I'm really hoping I don't screw something up and potentially nuke my system... I have the Majora's Mask n3DS too, so it'd be pretty shitty to warrant it useless due to a minor fuck up.
 
Solid SOAP said:
Thanks! Saving right now, this seems pretty simple, but I'm really hoping I don't screw something up and potentially nuke my system... I have the Majora's Mask n3DS too, so it'd be pretty shitty to warrant it useless due to a minor fuck up.
Click to expand...

Impossible.
 
Solid SOAP said:
Thanks! Saving right now, this seems pretty simple, but I'm really hoping I don't screw something up and potentially nuke my system... I have the Majora's Mask n3DS too, so it'd be pretty shitty to warrant it useless due to a minor fuck up.
Click to expand...

You're on the latest firmware right? There is literally no way you can screw up. Current Homebrew apps running on the latest firmware do not have the physical ability to alter your system in any way whatsoever.
 
Solid SOAP said:
real quick question. So, the retroarch nightlies... where do I save those?
Click to expand...

The file structure should looks like this:

Code: 
[Root of SD card]
├── 3ds
│   ├── 2048_libretro
│   │   ├── 2048_libretro.3dsx
│   │   └── 2048_libretro.smdh
│   ├── catsfc_libretro
│   │   ├── catsfc_libretro.3dsx
│   │   └── catsfc_libretro.smdh
├── Nintendo 3DS [B](don't touch this!)[/B]

Basically you can just drag the 3ds folder from the RetroArch zip archive onto the root of the SD card and let Windows merge with the existing "3ds" folder if necessary.
 
So Rich and others that are up and running, I'm curious if I'm doing anything wrong.

There appears to be no way to get back in the emulator menu or home brew loader once you're in a game. It seems like LRStartSelect should do this, but it locks me up. Same for you guys?

I can't map zL and zR or the C-stick to anything.

When I power off after being in a game I have to hold the power button for about 3 seconds and the screens go off but the power light stays on. I have to release the power button and hold it again to power the system down all the way. That seems odd.

I'm sure most of these things are just early software quirks and will be fixed, but I want to be sure I'm not doing anything wrong.
 
thechristoph said:
So Rich and others that are up and running, I'm curious if I'm doing anything wrong.

There appears to be no way to get back in the emulator menu or home brew loader once you're in a game. It seems like LRStartSelect should do this, but it locks me up. Same for you guys?

I can't map zL and zR or the C-stick to anything.

When I power off after being in a game I have to hold the power button for about 3 seconds and the screens go off but the power light stays on. I have to release the power button and hold it again to power the system down all the way. That seems odd.

I'm sure most of these things are just early software quirks and will be fixed, but I want to be sure I'm not doing anything wrong.
Click to expand...

lol, Press the touch screen.

Oh and the CPP/N3DS extra controls aren't supported yet.
 
For those of you stuck using tubehax, you can install this new exploit - themehax.

https://github.com/yellows8/3ds_homemenuhax/releases/tag/v1.2

You now don't have to be online or rely on any app or game to load the HBL. You simply hold L when turning the console on. Another way is to press the power button, then hit home. Immediately hold L at that point and the homebrew loader will instantly load.

The only downside is that this hack utlises the exdata for themes to work, which means you currently can't use it along with any custom themes.
 
stan423321 said:
You're correct about N3DS being way better since it apparently can overclock itself from 268 MHz to 804 MHz. I don't know if HB uses this.
Click to expand...

Ooh, this explains a lot. I always thought it was strange how the N3DS could handle HTML5 a *lot* better (in the Miiverse apps and so on), as well as the installation of packages and other CPU-bound tasks like Fullblox/Stretchmo's draw-call intensive stages, Code Name STEAM's enemy turn speeds (which go from 2x at a choppy framerate to 3x at a smooth framerate) and Xenoblade 3D, well, being able to exist.

Adding two more ARM11 cores at 266mhz and 2 more co-processors (probably for the head tracking) didn't add up, at least when vaguely thinking about things.

The web browser is an order of magnitude better, too, being far more modern and standards compliant (I believe it's a close cousin to the Wii U's also-great browser) and loading pages more efficiently. The small amount of the 256MB RAM available to "small apps" seems to be the only real bottleneck with it, as it's hard to load two tabs at once without the other one being kicked out of memory.
 
Toadthemushroom said:
The web browser is an order of magnitude better, too, being far more modern and standards compliant (I believe it's a close cousin to the Wii U's also-great browser) and loading pages more efficiently. The small amount of the 256MB RAM available to "small apps" seems to be the only real bottleneck with it, as it's hard to load two tabs at once without the other one being kicked out of memory.
Click to expand...

Keep in mind that the web browser was also completely rewritten. The browser on the DSi was actually a lot better than the one on the original 3DS.

I mean, I'm sure the extra processing power helped a lot too, but it's not just that.
 
Rich! said:
Useless? Uh, no.

Everything I've ran is 50fps minimum. Kirby nightmare in dreamland is a locked 60fps. Mgba standalone, not retroarch. Newest nightly, N3DS.
Click to expand...

What? The retroarch emulator doesn't even recognize 75% of my games. It's useless.
 
diaspora said:
What? The retroarch emulator doesn't even recognize 75% of my games. It's useless.
Click to expand...

You are doing something wrong then. Retroarch has recognised every single ROM I've thrown at it just fine.

Use mgba standalone for a start for GBA, use the newest nightly. Also, if you are on an OG 3DS just give up as you aren't gonna get a decent performance.
 
I'm absolutely convinced that whoever decided on the trickle down release schedule for Virtual Console instead of just dumping their roms has been costing Nintendo millions.
 
Rich! said:
You are doing something wrong then. Retroarch has recognised every single ROM I've thrown at it just fine.

Use mgba standalone for a start for GBA, use the newest nightly. Also, if you are on an OG 3DS just give up as you aren't gonna get a decent performance.
Click to expand...

I've done nothing wrong, the emulation is terrible, it works on 25% of the files, and is broken on the rest.
 
diaspora said:
I've done nothing wrong, the emulation is terrible, it works on 25% of the files, and is broken on the rest.
Click to expand...

Then offer more information.

1. New or old 3DS?
2. Which build? Are you using the newest nightly from today?
3. What core? Gpsp? Mgba?
4. What games?

What you are stating right now does not help anyone.
 
Rich! said:
For those of you stuck using tubehax, you can install this new exploit - themehax.

https://github.com/yellows8/3ds_homemenuhax/releases/tag/v1.2

You now don't have to be online or rely on any app or game to load the HBL. You simply hold L when turning the console on. Another way is to press the power button, then hit home. Immediately hold L at that point and the homebrew loader will instantly load.

The only downside is that this hack utlises the exdata for themes to work, which means you currently can't use it along with any custom themes.
Click to expand...

Does this still require that custom DNS setting? It seemed to work fine holding L on boot to get to homebrew a couple times, but after I changed the DNS back to normal my system just booted to an empty screen regardless of whether I was holding down L. PANIC! Thankfully removing the SD card caused it to boot normally, so I inserted the SD card after boot and reselected my theme and now it boots normally with the SD card again (but I haven't tried reinstalling the hack yet).

edit: and now tubehax fails to work even though I changed the DNS back, their servers overloaded today?

edit2: solved both problems, somehow the firmware got updated from 10.0 to 10.1 when I turned DNS back to normal without me realizing it
 
All gba games seem to work for me, but most run mediocre at best. Is there a list with games that run decent with retroarch?

Any way of setting this up without the 3ds crashing when you close the lid on the 3ds, by far my biggest annoyance with homebrew so far. I'm on ironhax.
protomouse said:
Press the home button before closing the lid.
Click to expand...
My hero. ^.^b
 
SO i don't quite get the themehax exploit. I installed it from tubehax but now im kinda lost to where i put the homemenu hax on the sd card or where i go after installing themehax
 
tm24 said:
SO i don't quite get the themehax exploit. I installed it from tubehax but now im kinda lost to where i put the homemenu hax on the sd card or where i go after installing themehax
Click to expand...

That's it. It's installed.

Try using it. Turn the console on whilst holding L, or press the power button then press home and hold L.
 
protomouse said:
The file structure should looks like this:

Code: 
[Root of SD card]
├── 3ds
│   ├── 2048_libretro
│   │   ├── 2048_libretro.3dsx
│   │   └── 2048_libretro.smdh
│   ├── catsfc_libretro
│   │   ├── catsfc_libretro.3dsx
│   │   └── catsfc_libretro.smdh
├── Nintendo 3DS [B](don't touch this!)[/B]

Basically you can just drag the 3ds folder from the RetroArch zip archive onto the root of the SD card and let Windows merge with the existing "3ds" folder if necessary.
Click to expand...
Did this, and I can access it from the Homebrew channel! Now, where do I put the games I want? I'm assuming in the 2048 folder, right?
 
Got everything up and running. Thanks for the help guys, this is like a dream! Playing Earthbound on a handheld for the first time, I can't wait :)
 
Themehax is godlike. Thank you, Rich, for sharing the link.

I've played a handful of SNES games, and just like you'd expect with an early emulator, some things work great and some things hardly work at all. Turtles in Time and Castlevania 4 are fantastic. Dracula X runs at 40fps, which is pretty much unplayable for an action game. Final Fantasy 6 goes between 40 and 60 which is fine for an RPG. Super Mario Allstars has a weird deal where the game becomes uncontrollable on the SMB3 world map.

I've got my Genesis collection on my SD card so that's my next console to test. I'd expect it to work pretty nicely. I'm sleeping on NES for some reason.
 
Hello? This is Hailun! said:
Were SNES games 60fps?
Click to expand...


They were timed to tv refresh rates. So NTCS games ran at 60 cycles per second, which most of the time, resulted in 60fps game play. Some games would slow down if too much was on the screen (or the game was a 3d super fx chip game), but yes, for the most part, snes games ran at 60fps
 
Wowfunhappy said:
Keep in mind that the web browser was also completely rewritten. The browser on the DSi was actually a lot better than the one on the original 3DS.

I mean, I'm sure the extra processing power helped a lot too, but it's not just that.
Click to expand...

Aye, the huge gains in Miiverse and HTML5 rendering are more indicative of how much of an improvement the extra power makes.
 
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