DSi Ware Games (Part 2)

Hi

On 19 Jan this year, StingyJack made a post to this forum with regard to DSi Ware games (https://retrobat.forumgaming.fr/t1205-resolved-dsi-ware-games). That post has been marked [RESOLVED] so, although this post pretty much carries on from that one, I’ve put it into a new post rather than add to the one already marked [RESOLVED].

I have the same problem as outlined in the original post – I have a DSi Ware game (let’s call it Z1) that works perfectly in the standalone version of melonDS, but getting it to work in Retrobat is proving to be problematic. There doesn’t appear to be a lot of info available with regard to DSi Ware & Retrobat so, when I stumbled across the question posed by StingyJack – and, more importantly, the reply & solution provided later that same day by tartifless, I thought my difficulty was solved.

I copied over the 4 bios files mentioned by tartifless from my melonDS installation to the bios folder in Retrobat – I gave them the exact same filenames as tartifless had done – although not mentioned, I also copied over a 5th file (dsi_nandbak.bin) as I believed that might be required to have functional save games – possibly incorrect but I saw no harm in the file being there anyway.

The 2nd part of the solution was to make a couple of amendments to the file “retroarch-core-options.cfg” – but tartifless mentioned in a later post in the same thread that those changes would be implemented in Retrobat – so I went looking for them in Retrobat – and I found them in the game specific “advanced game options > emulation” menu

• auto save/load – I set it to “on”
• console type (use DSi for DSi games like DSi Ware) – I set it to “DSi”
• boot to bios (enable boot to bios for DSi games) – I set it to “yes”

I exited the menus – fired up the game – and it didn’t work! I  got a simple white rectangle in the centre of my screen & nothing else – in addition, the only way out of that screen seemed to be press ALT/TAB to reach desktop and then close the window. I tried several more times but each time yielded exactly the same result.

So, I took a step back & took a look at “retroarch-core-options.cfg” as per the original solution – I found that, despite what I had done in Retrobat, the 2 lines in question were written in there as follows :

• melonds_boot_directly = "enabled"
• melonds_console_mode = "DS"

So I made the changes suggested by tartifless – the 1st became “disabled” & the 2nd became “DSi” – saved the file, closed it & restarted Retrobat – it made no difference – still just a plain white rectangle! I went back to the .cfg file to find that, although the console mode entry had remained as “DSi”, the boot option had reverted to “enabled” – something had overwritten one of my changes!

I made the change again – and tried again (several times) – the change was overwritten every time. I know not by what nor why.

It then occurred to me that I was looking at the wrong thing anyway & that I should be looking for the game specific settings for the Z1 game – they were sacrosanct, or so I believed, and would take precedence over any & all other settings – so I went looking – in a file called “es_settings.cfg”, I found a number of settings relating to game Z1 :

<string name="nds.bezel" value="thebezelproject" />
<string name="nds.core" value="melonds" />
<string name="nds.emulator" value="libretro" />
       <string name="nds[&quot;Z1.nds&quot;].autosave" value="1" />
<string name="nds[&quot;Z1&quot;].bezel" value="thebezelproject" />
<string name="nds[&quot;Z1&quot;].nds_boot" value="enabled" />
<string name="nds[&quot;Z!&quot;].nds_console" value="DS" />

I have no idea if this is where the info for advanced game options is stored or not – but I have a number of games in my Retrobat system – Z1 is the only one that I have set advanced game options for – and it was the only game mentioned in this file – so I figured it was worth a go – I changed the boot value to “disabled” & changed console value to “DSi” – saved the file, closed it, fired up Retrobat – and, to my great relief & pleasure, Z1 loaded without a problem! I thought I’d found a solution!

I played through the opening sequence – mainly animated with just a couple of button presses from me  - & then looked to save the game – which was when I found that save game wasn’t working – and that ALT/TAB followed by close window still seemed to be the only way of exiting the game. I went back to “es_settings.cfg” to see if there was something relating to saving that I had overlooked – but I didn’t see anything – I went back to Retrobat & back to the game to check that there wasn’t anything there that related to saving that I’d overlooked – blank white rectangle again!

Disappointed, I opened “es_settings.cfg” yet again – my changes were still exactly as I’d set them – no overwriting had occurred - but an additional line setting the boot value to “enabled” had been inserted into the file before my line setting it to “disabled” – and I assume, this was the line the system was executing – and ignoring my amendment.

Feeling that I was already in far past my depth, I thought I’d throw myself on the mercy of the forum – so, I have 3 questions please guys :

• what have I done wrong and/or still have to do in order to get my DSi Ware game working correctly & consistently in Retrobat?
• how do I activate save game functionality for my DSi Ware game in Retrobat (it saves just fine in standalone melonDS)?
• how do I properly exit from a DSI Ware game in Retrobat?

Thanks for bearing with me this far – as you’ve probably guessed, I’m fairly new at all this – so any & all assistance will be most gratefully received

Thanks again

Hmmm - 10 days since I made this post and no responses whatsoever - at the least, I thought I might get a few words as to why the Retrobat system itself now automatically overwrites the solution outlined previously by tartifless .... but, nothing ... zilch ... nada! Very disappointing

astropop21 wrote:Hmmm - 10 days since I made this post and no responses whatsoever - at the least, I thought I might get a few words as to why the Retrobat system itself now automatically overwrites the solution outlined previously by tartifless .... but, nothing ... zilch ... nada! Very disappointing

Hi,

Personally I don't use DS/DSi games, but I tested.

However, I can't run a game...the screen stays blank!

The Libretro-melonDS core does create a savegame, but I can't tell if it works properly since it's not an in-game savegame.




Edit : And I forgot to say that on my side "hotkey+start" stops the emulator.

Hi Aynshe - thank you for taking the time & trouble to have a go at this for me - I very much appreciate you trying - your experience pretty much mirrors my own - my system created a savegame too - but it's just a blank screen - as is the game itself - and the .dsv file that's been saved has a size of zero kb - so I assume there's nothing there - the game still works perfectly in melonDS itself - so I suspect that the integration of the 2 switches in Retrobat (console type & boot to bios) has not been implemented entirely accurately (the DSi option is marked as "experimental" in melonDS - which may, or may not, have something to do with it) - I can do no more than hope that a fix will be forthcoming in a future update - thank you also for pointing out the "hotkey+start" option to quit the emulator - my problem there was that I hadn't defined a "hotkey" (my bad!) - I shall try not to be so stupid in future! All the best - take care

Hello,

Boot to bios option is reversed, use "no" to actually boot to bios !
Also ensure that the games are installed in the nand file, this can be done with melonds standalone

Hi tartifless - thank you for this - just changing the bios option from "yes" to "no" fixed it for me (just as well as I would have had to research what "installed in the nand file" actually means as I have no idea!) - so simple - kicking myself for not thinking of that - game now runs just fine - thanks again - much appreciated

Hi,

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