Running Nintendo DS Homebrew PDF Manual
Introduction Many people have asked me how to start DS homebrewing. Because of this, because I like homebrew, and feel homebrew is a great addition to the capabilities of the Nintendo DS, I made this guide. I will try to explain different aspects of DS homebrew, and how to get DS homebrew to run on your system. Aiming at people new to the scene with no previous experience with coding or homebrew, I will try not to get too technical. All hardware I have tried will be reviewed here, and stated how well they work with homebrew (meaning what types of homebrew run on the different cards). Pieces of hardware I have not tried will be noted, and any experiences I have heard will be added, but I can not guarantee anything. If you have previous homebrewing experience, but none in DS homebrewing, this is also a good guide for you. When you are a veteran you can probably figure most things out by yourself and try to skim through my guide.
There is one thing I need to mention: Pirating of software is something I do not approve of. Pirating is often associated with homebrew. Pirating is a term used for running official games you do not own, or do own, but are not allowed to play in some way by law. Homebrew is creating and sharing programs made by yourself and/or others for free. This means that no business is attached to the software. Please keep in mind that this also means that there is no support for the software, unless someone will provide it for you. Homebrewing is a really great development. Just look at what great applications the DS has been given by the homebrew community! The capabilities of the Nintendo DS are explored in many ways. Some great applications I frequently use are programs such as DSlinux, and DSorganize. But there are also great Homebrew games like ScummVM, Omalone, etcetera. Part 1: So I’ve got a Nintendo DS, and I want to run HB, what do I do? PassMe, NoPass, WifiMe and FlashMe A normal Nintendo DS, freshly out of the box, will not boot homebrew. However, DarkFader was the first to think of a way to run homebrew on the Nintendo DS. This method involved using some neat hardware to trick the DS in running code off of a flashable GBA card1.
Natrium42 developed a much smaller passthrough based on the technology of DarkFader’s findings. His device was ready for the general public, and he called it a PassMe (the -Me bit is important, as it is used for every method of passthrough from the DS-slot to the GBA-slot). Someone else has thought of a way to use the Nintendo DS’s wifi download play option to do the same thing as the PassMe did: It worked by downloading a program via the standard “Download-Play” option, which would send the DS running code from the GBA slot. Because this passthrough way was enabled via WiFi, it has been called WifiMe. Another way to do the passthrough is achieved using FlashMe. This is a Firmware2 patch which enables the DS to do the passthrough without having to use a PassMe or WifiMe. The only disadvantage of it is that it will void your warranty. Finally, we have NoPass, which is the size of a normal DS card. These do not require an original game to be inserted, nor do they need to use the SRAM (GBAMP V2 will work with NoPass). The NoPass device also stops your DS from switching in and out of sleep mode rapidly when you close it. So you wouldn’t need to have a normal card in your DS to put it into sleep mode; you can just leave the NoPass in. As you can see, all DS homebrew is booted via the GBAslot.
There are flashable DS cards, and we could run homebrew off of them, but this is undeveloped at this time. Part 2: Deeper into the passthroughs More information on the different passthrough methods. Now there are a few things you should know about the different methods of *Me’s. I will try not to get technical since that would only confuse people new to the scene. PassMe and PassMe2 There are two versions of PassMe: the original PassMe from Natrium42, and PassMe2. A PassMe(v1) only works if your DS has firmware version 1,2 or 3. A workaround was made and the PassMe2 was born. There is one difficulty with the PassMe2 and that is that it requires SRAM (memory) on the GBA media that you boot your homebrew code from. – PassMe/PassMe2 leaves your warranty intact. – PassMe and PassMe2 require an original DS game to work (PassMe2 needs to be flashed to the original game you use). – PassMe/PassMe2′s are made by different companies under different names, SuperPass, SuperKey, NeoKey, etc., but if you can, try to buy them from a developer and thus supporting homebrew development WifiMe When WifiMe was developed, it only worked with very specific wireless cards (the RT2500 chipset) and only with Windows. These demands had to be met if you wanted to run WifiMe. However, there are also ways to WifiMe via an rt2500usb/rt2570 (which are different names for the same chip) USB wireless card. This requires you to “run” Linux. To see how to use this, please read my howto on WifiMe-/WMBing (remember that the official Nintendo wifi USB card is a WifiMe compatible USB device).
Download Running Nintendo DS Homebrew PDF Manual
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