The question comes up every so often but OK.
There are many things that can be used to make homebrew on the DS.
First up stuff like lua, basic and various other interpreted languages (no real java I am afraid)
http://microlua.risike.com/
You can make some nice stuff but the DS (I saw some graphic novels and similar things) is a bit too limited for interpreted languages to reach anything like they are with the PC.
Second up is more low level languages like ASM and C (C++ is not used all that often as it is rather cumbersome for the sharply limited resources of the DS, it can be done).
Devkitpro (more specifically the devkitarm toolchain) is the choice here:
http://www.devkitpro.org/
Pretty much everything can be done with this although there are other more specialist libraries floating around.
Nice guide to the basics:
http://patater.com/files/projects/manual/manual.html
Another guide:
http://www.liranuna.com/nds-2d-tuts/
and another for the GBA (GBA and DS hardware is similar enough to be worth knowing about both) but one I really rate:
http://www.coranac.com/tonc/text/toc.htm
You may also want a hardware guide for which we have:
http://nocash.emubase.de/gbatek.htm
On top of this there is palib which is frowned upon by some as it is considered clunky and somewhat slow and indeed it may be compared to hand optimised stuff. It has not stopped a large number of amazing apps being made using it though.
http://forum.palib.info/
Much like all other areas of coding I suggest pulling apart the work of someone else too. The vast majority of applications are open source too.
I suppose the main thing that has to be said it do not go into it expecting to make the next moonshell, dsorganize or PuzzleManiak or even something that you might see in the rom release lists (I am probably biased but some homebrew I rate above lots of commercial releases) as it will not happen as a first project. It know it should go without saying but we have still seen a few people do this.
There are many things that can be used to make homebrew on the DS.
First up stuff like lua, basic and various other interpreted languages (no real java I am afraid)
http://microlua.risike.com/
You can make some nice stuff but the DS (I saw some graphic novels and similar things) is a bit too limited for interpreted languages to reach anything like they are with the PC.
Second up is more low level languages like ASM and C (C++ is not used all that often as it is rather cumbersome for the sharply limited resources of the DS, it can be done).
Devkitpro (more specifically the devkitarm toolchain) is the choice here:
http://www.devkitpro.org/
Pretty much everything can be done with this although there are other more specialist libraries floating around.
Nice guide to the basics:
http://patater.com/files/projects/manual/manual.html
Another guide:
http://www.liranuna.com/nds-2d-tuts/
and another for the GBA (GBA and DS hardware is similar enough to be worth knowing about both) but one I really rate:
http://www.coranac.com/tonc/text/toc.htm
You may also want a hardware guide for which we have:
http://nocash.emubase.de/gbatek.htm
On top of this there is palib which is frowned upon by some as it is considered clunky and somewhat slow and indeed it may be compared to hand optimised stuff. It has not stopped a large number of amazing apps being made using it though.
http://forum.palib.info/
Much like all other areas of coding I suggest pulling apart the work of someone else too. The vast majority of applications are open source too.
I suppose the main thing that has to be said it do not go into it expecting to make the next moonshell, dsorganize or PuzzleManiak or even something that you might see in the rom release lists (I am probably biased but some homebrew I rate above lots of commercial releases) as it will not happen as a first project. It know it should go without saying but we have still seen a few people do this.
FAST6191 said:
My impression was that while that was true on the GBA, for the DS it seemed that C++ was used more often than C. I could be wrong though.
Otherwise an excellent post.
do you know ANYTHING about homebrew development? Programmers Notepad is an editor, and a reasonably popular one I believe. The only one of the things you listed which does not need an editor is NDS Game Maker, which is a piece of crap.Unoalpho said:
PALib and DevKitPro both need an editor such as Programmers Notepad or Notepad++. You obviously know NOTHING about homebrew development. PALib and DevKitPro are easier than Programmers Notepad? You're talking crap. They both need an editor like Programmers Notepad, and therefore cannot be easier than programmers notepad. Especially seeing as PN can't make DS Homebrew. It only helps you write source code files. DevKitPro compiles these into homebrew, sometimes using PALib.
fgghjjkll said:apparently Dev C++ has an old and outdated version of PAlib.
awesome thing is that it has a one click compile
You can get devkitARM/libnds/dswifi/.../PAlib combo to work in the latest vc free edition. It's not that hard.
personally I use Xcode on mac for editing my .c files, works fine too.
pitty chishm's loader is broke else I'd release my stuff
edit: some may consider palib to be bad, but personally I like it. I had no C experience but was able to get a simple menu going, but can't test it on my SCDSONEi
I can easily compile projects with DevKitARM using Visual C++ 2008 Express by following the instructions in the DevKitPro site's FAQ section. All it needs is a special "make" command, and a "source" folder created in the project directory. Never tried it with DSWifi or PAlib though.
I would be more open to using PN if I could find a way to automatically fix all the indentations in my file. In Visual C++ I can do this by highlighting everything and hitting "CTRL+K+F" but I cannot find a similar option in PN.
I would be more open to using PN if I could find a way to automatically fix all the indentations in my file. In Visual C++ I can do this by highlighting everything and hitting "CTRL+K+F" but I cannot find a similar option in PN.
Hm..which APIs would you recommend? I just got into DS homebrew, and I'm kinda at a loss of where to go to next...I managed to follow one tutorial (the one with the orange spaceship app), but dunno what else to do now. Any suggestions?
PAlib isn't to bad, you can do some nice things with it and it's not to hard, using native libnds is a bit harder IMHO, although a lot cleaner.
I guess it depends on if you want to have it easy and produce some things first or have a harder time but do it without PAlib. Or just try PAlib and if you don't like it don't use it. There forum is good too to get some help if you're stuck.
I guess it depends on if you want to have it easy and produce some things first or have a harder time but do it without PAlib. Or just try PAlib and if you don't like it don't use it. There forum is good too to get some help if you're stuck.
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