DesmumeX Xbox

DesmumeX
General
Author(s)	HCF
Type	Handheld
Version	0.87
Licence	Mixed
Links
Download
Website

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WHAT IS THIS?

DesmumeX is a Nintendo DS emulator for Xbox. It is based on the 0.9.11 version of Desmume.

Please, don't expect a good emulation in many of your roms. This emulator is still not fully optimized. Anyways, this version can play some games quite well.

IMPORTANT: To toggle between the different display modes, press the BLACK BUTTON (read the "Controls" section for more information). If all the action only happens in one screen, you will feel a much better experience if you choose to show only that screen at full resolution.

Only uncompressed roms are supported.

WHAT IS NEW?

DesmumeX v0.87 has 3 main advantages over the previous versions:

1) It is much more stable, due to a better memory management. Games that crashed quickly due to memory leaks, can now be played during much more time.

2) It is slightly faster (speed increase around 5%)

3) It supports HD resolution in the rom list interface: the emulator will autodetect the resolution of your dashboard, and it will use HD or SD in each case. Please, read the section "ROM LIST RESOLUTIONS" for more information.

IMPORTANT!!!!!

• Roms MUST be placed in the "roms" directory.

• Roms must be UNCOMPRESSED, with the .NDS extension.

• This emulator can only work from hard disk.

• Games can be trimmed with a program like "NDSTokyoTrim25Beta2.exe" to make them smaller, and they will use less space in disk.

• Remember that when you have selected a configuration for your rom in the GUI, you can press the "Y" button (before starting to play the game) and then the emulator will create a config file for that game (stored in the "cfg" folder). Next time that you play that game, the emulator will "remember" your favorite configuration. This system needs that the folder "cfg" is existing, to be able to create the config files. A few sample configurations have been included.

ROM LIST RESOLUTIONS

DesmumeX v0.87 supports both SD and HD resolution in the rom list interface. You don't need to do anything: the emulator will automatically detect the resolution that you are using in your dashboard, and it will use the proper resolution in the rom list interface too.

The screenshots that you had from old versions of DesmumeX, and also the screenshots included in this release in the media/artwork/action folder, are SD images; so they will be small if you begin to use the HD mode. If your Xbox uses HD resolution, you will need to use larger screenshots.

In that same folder "media/artwork/action" I have also included a subfolder with some HD screenshots made by gilou9999. So, if you are using HD resolution in your dashboard, I recommend to take the screenshots of gilou9999 and moving them to the "media/artwork/action" folder, because they look really well! Don't forget that the roms and the screenshots should have the same filename (except the extension).

DesmumeX v0.87 looks for screenshots with the extension PNG. But if you had old screenshots with the JPG extension, you don't need to convert them to PNG format: you can simply rename the extension from JPG to PNG and it will work :)

Finally, it's important to know that the emulator automatically selects HD or SD for your ROM LIST INTERFACE... but you can still select your desired resolution for THE GAMEPLAY after you choose a rom to play. So, it is possible to run the rom list interface in HD, and the games in SD if you want (games in SD spend less memory, so in a few cases this could be useful).

SAVE FILES

Problems with savefiles should have disappeared in the former v0.8 version, because now the emulator uses the new savefile system (with the new ".dsv" format).

If you have old savefiles from very old versions (DesmumeX v0.7 or previous, with the old ".sav" format) don't worry, you won't loose your progresses: the first time that you launch those games, DesmumeX v0.87 will convert your old .SAV files into the new .DSV format, and everything should run well.

In the rom list, this DesmumeX v0.87 still keeps the possibility of creating a blank savefile in the rom list pressing the X button, but this SHOULD NOT BE NEEDED NOW. This feature will probably disappear in later versions.

CONTROLS

The Nintendo DS has 2 screens. The screen of below can be touched with a digital pen named "Stylus". In DesmumeX, I have implemented both the physical buttons of the DS, and the possibility of "touching" the screen with a virtual "stylus".

Physical buttons:

* D-pad: It's mapped to the D-pad of the Nintendo DS

* A,B,X,Y buttons: They are mapped to the Triangle, Square, Circle, Cross buttons of the DS. 

* Left and right triggers are mapped to the triggers of the DS. Start button is mapped to the Start button of the DS.

Control of the Stylus:

* Left thumbstick: Move the virtual cursor. 

* White button: Touch the screen with the virtual cursor. You can even drag and drop, keeping the white button pressed.

* Pressing the right thumbstick changes the color of the cursor.

• Pressing the left thumbstick toggles if we want to display the amount of free memory, and the frames per second.

If you don't need the Stylus, you can move the cursor down below the screen, and it will disappear. Move it up, and it will appear again.

Change of screen:

* Black button: Changes the screen to be displayed on the TV. We can toggle between seeing both 2 screens (above and below), only the first screen at full resolution, or only the second screen at full resolution.

Note: Showing only one screen is slightly faster than displaying the 2 screens.

With the BACK button, the configuration menu is displayed. Pressing START + BACK simmultaneously, you will exit to the rom list.

CONFIGURATION OPTIONS:

If a game crashes during the gameplay or it is hung, you can try to enable/disable the 3D functionality, or enable/disable the dynamic recompiler. Please, if you find a game that needs to disable the dynamic recompiler to work, let me know. My final goal is that the dynamic recompiler is used all the time. At the moment, I have found that "DK Jungle Climber" needs dynamic recompiler disabled.

If a game is slow, you can play with these options to try to make it playable. For example, first of all I try to put a higher Frameskip. If frameskip is not enough, we can go with the sound: disabling the sound can bring a boost of 20% of speed (depending of the game). If you don't want to disable sound, you can decrease its quality (for example overclocking it, or reducing the number of audio channels) and this can make things speed up too.

Here is a description of the configuration options:

• 3D funcionality: You can enable or disable it. Disabling it, the emulator can work a bit faster in a few games, although you can loose some things of the game.

• Frameskip: There are two options related to Frameskip: a Mode (Auto/Fixed) and a Value. Let's explain this with an example: if you select FIXED frameskip and value=3, the emulator will use a constant value of 3 for the Frameskip. On the other hand, if you select AUTO-frameskip and a value of 3, the emulator will change the value of the frameskip automatically, with a maximum value of 3 (i.e, between 0 and 3) to try to achieve a ratio of 60 frames per second. So, in the "AUTO" mode, you configure a value that is the maximum frameskip that you are going to tolerate.

Besides, the "Auto" option has 3 different choices: you can have auto-frameskip using only even values (0,2,4...), only odd numbers (1,3,5...) or both (0,1,2,3,4...). The "odd" and "even" options are only usefull in a few games that have problems with some frameskip values (for example, if a game only refreshes the screen in odd frames, a frameskip of 1 should be avoided).

Anyways, my advice is forgetting about the "Auto frameskip", because in several games it doesn't work very well, so many times the best choice is using the FIXED frameskip, combined with the "Limit to 60 FPS" option if the game runs too fast.

• Pointer speed: We can select the speed that the virtual cursor uses in its movement.

• Graphics: We can select if the emulator is going to draw only the screen that we are seeing ("optimized"), or both screens ("everything"). The "optimized" choice is faster, but some games will not refresh the screen properly with this method. If your game does not refresh the screen, try selecting "Graphics: everything".

• Sound: You can disable sound (of course this brings the greatest boost) or overclock it. Overclocking x2 has no effect (I still don't know why), overclocking x3 or x4 will reduce the audio quality and boost the emulation. Note that overclocking does not work well with synchronized sound mode, so if you select any overclock value, be sure to select "Sound Mode: Async" in the option below!

• Number of audio channels: The DS has 16 audio channels. We can configure to play 16, 8, 4 or only 2 channels. This speeds up things too. There is no "cracking" sound (as in the overclocking option) but you will feel a lack of notes in the played songs.

• Sound Mode: There are 3 different sound modes: ASYNC (the sound is NOT synchronized with the emulation), SYNC (the sound IS synchronized with the emulation) and SYNC INTERPOLATED (the sound is synchronized, and also an interpolation is performed to try to make audio smoother). Interpolation makes emulation slightly slower, although in many situations this speed difference is barely noticeable.

If your game sounds bad, consider changing the sound mode. Also, keep in mind that "SYNC" and "SYNC INTERPOLATED" modes don't work well with overclocked sound, so if you selected any overclock value, be sure to choose the ASYNC mode here.

• JIT/Dynamic recompiler: This should be ALLWAYS ENABLED, because everything will run faster. Please, if you find a game that needs to disable the dynamic recompiler to run, let me know. If a game runs too fast, you can disable the dynamic recompiler, and it will run slower.

• Limit to 60 FPS: This option limits the speed of the emulator, trying to avoid it running too fast. Enable this option if you feel that a game is running too fast, and you will hopefully get proper speed. Obviously, this option is not needed if a game is not running too fast.

There are two methods to limit the framerate: the HCF method, and the Desmume method. The most accurate one is the Desmume method (and it is the default one), so you should allways use it. The HCF method will probably disappear in future releases.

• Video mode: You can choose between 480 (low resolution mode), 720p or 1080i video modes. This option cannot be changed during the gameplay.

• Language: You can select the firmware language of your Nintendo DS. This is the language that will be used in multi-language games without language selection. What is this? Well, there are 3 kinds of roms:

1) Games with one fixed language: you will allways play in that language.

2) Multi-language games with a language selection menu: the game will display a menu, and you will be able to select your preferred language.

3) Multi-language games WITHOUT language selection menu: the game will be played with the language of your firmware. The "Language" option in the Configuration Options of DesmumeX, is usefull to play these games. One example is the European version of "Professor Layton and the Curious Village".

INSTALLING:

To install the emulator, simply copy it to your hard disk, and put the roms inside the "roms" folder. Create a "cfg" folder if you want to store config files.

If you had old screenshots for the rom list, you will need to rename their extensions from JPG to PNG (this was explained in the section "ROM LIST RESOLUTIONS").

BACKGROUND LOGO, MUSIC and SCREENSHOTS:

The image of the screen is the logo_HD.png (if you are using HD resolution in your Xbox) or logo_SD.png one (if you use SD resolution). You can replace it if you want. The background music is the BGM.ogg file, and you can also replace it if you want.

You can put screenshots of your games in the media/artwork/action folder. Some sample screenshots are included in this folder for SD resolution... and also there is a subfolder with screenshots at high resolution (thanks to gilou9999!). If you are using HD resolution, put these samples in the same media/artwork/action, and don't forget to rename your roms with the same name than the PNG files.

I recommend resizing your screenshots to the same size of these samples (SD or HD), and they will show very well in the GUI.

TRUSTY XBOX / MODIFIED XBOX OWNERS

Trusty and modified Xbox owners can use the same executables now. The emulator will probably work much better for them. Also, the "Limit to 60 FPS" option may be very usefull if a game runs too fast ;)

SPECIAL THANKS

Thank you very much to Gilou9999, Madmab, SPPV, Weinerchnitzel, Neobomb, Freakdave, Hyper_Eye, XtecuterX73, and everybody else who helped!

FAQ:

Q: Can I use compressed/zipped roms? A: No

Q: The game is running, but the image is frozen! A: Try selecting "Graphics: everything", or selecting a different value for Frameskip. Some games only refresh the screen on odd frames or on even frames. So, if we use an odd value for frameskip and the game refreshes in odd frames, we will not see any change on the screen...

Q: Can I use some software to make the big roms smaller? A: Yes, some programs like "NDSTokyoTrim25Beta2.exe" can make roms a bit smaller.

Q: This game is too slow, even changing the configuration options! A: I'm sorry, this emulator is still not fully optimized. If you want to help to improve this emulator, let me know ;)

Q: This game is too fast! A: Try enabling the "Limit to 60 FPS" option, and the game should work at a proper speed now. If it does not work, then disabling the dynamic recompiler will make things much slower.

Q: I have selected my language in the configuration options, but the game is played using another language! A: You must check that your rom supports the language that you selected. For example, if you want to play in French or Spanish, sometimes you should choose the European version of that game, because the [US] one will probably admit only English.

Q: My screenshots are not displayed anymore! A: The new rom list looks for screenshots with the extension PNG. Rename the old JPG extension of your screenshots to PNG, and you will see them again.

Q: My screenshots are very small now! A: You are probably using an Xbox with HD resolution, so the rom list is displayed in HD resolution now... but you are still using SD screenshots. You will need larger screenshots. There are some samples included in "media\artwork\action\HD artworks"; simply move them to the "media\artwork\action" folder and they will be displayed very well (your roms must be named with the same filename, except the extension).