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Would a Nintendo DS emulator be possible on the Droid?

C

CeeJayII

Member
Seems like it could be, maybe if the Droid was overclocked. Droid has a touch screen and mic just like the DS. Anyone know if this is possible or if it is being worked on?
 
Simple answer, no. DS has 2 screens, Droid has one. Even if you got a game to run it would be insanely hard to play missing half of the content. Perhaps you could split the screen but that would require some serious hacking of not only the emulator but the games also.
 
All the emulators automatically split the screens on the computer...Are you telling me people attach a second screen when playing the emulator on a pc? I think it CAN be done.
 
I see, since the droid is widescreen and the ds is not I was thinking the droid could support 2 screens split down the middle. Does sound like quite the project though.
 
I'm not saying it couldn't support it, just saying you have so little screen real estate compared to a PC it would be tricky to do it, and even when done it would be hard to play. Two 1.8/9" screens is pretty small.
 
True, I would say make the main screen larger since the second screen is mostly used for maps, options, and gimmicks.
 
zandroid said:
Serious. People still play DS's?
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Heh, I played DS for all of one week. When it first came out and I was hooked on Mario 64. Once I beat it, I just gave the DS to my little brother. I think he still plays pokemon and stuff on it (he's 10).

Now if only we could get an Xbox 360 emulator, then I could play Mass Effect 2 on the go. I've been addicted since installing it on my PC a few days ago.
 
The DS has a couple gems but most of the games are pretty bad.

Besides, IMO the phone is an ideal retro-gaming device (NES / GBC / GBA / SEGA). Everything from SNES to PS1 works better on a netbook or a dedicated gaming platform (PSP over DS hands down) and everything else belongs on consoles / PCs.
 
This thread's gone off topic pretty quick.

I remember seeing somewhere that you need something like 10 times more power to emulate a system properly. I'm not sure of the specs of the DS relative to the Droid but it's something to take into account.

Personlly, I can't get used to the button layout to use the regular NES emulator with much accuracy so adding more buttons for the DS doesn't seem like it would work too well.
 
i have heard that to! you need a lot more power to emulate! hence why no one has tried and why no one has got a really good version of the n64 (ten year old console) working on the wii, except nintendo.

ps: i hope dsi gets hacked soon, they seem close and then it will be great for retro gaming!
 
Simple rejection to your answer...

This is done quite easily on the PC. I run a DS emulator and it works without flaw. The screens are virtually split. I think your thinking way to literal in the hardware sense. You wouldn't need to screen to emulate DS...but the real question is: Does the Droid have the power to run the OS and a bulky emulator like DeSMUME? I think the answer to that is no.
 
milrtime83 said:
This thread's gone off topic pretty quick.

I remember seeing somewhere that you need something like 10 times more power to emulate a system properly. I'm not sure of the specs of the DS relative to the Droid but it's something to take into account.
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It just so happens that the Motorola Droid is about 10x faster than the Original Nintendo DS. I'm not sure how much power the OS takes when its not in use, but I think it may be possible. As for the screens, all of the current android phones have high enough resolution that the games could be displayed natively. Kinda like the failed gameboy micro's screen.
 
Actually, i think a DS emulator for an Android Powered device wouldnt require as much processing power as one on a PC would. Almost all android devices, including the Droid, are powered by an ARM core, like the DS.

The Droid Specifically uses an ARM11 core, exactly like the DS, so one wouldnt really need to worry about different CPU instruction sets. The Samsung Vibrant also has a GPU that is better than the one in the DS, and Has an ARM Cortex A8 core(faster than the ARM 11 but same instruction set).
 
Solution!

I got a DS Emulator for my pc, then i setup a VNC server on my pc and connected to it with remote vnc pro so that i could play pokemon diamond / pearl. Not viable for any real time games. :)
 
Jancarius said:
Solution!

I got a DS Emulator for my pc, then i setup a VNC server on my pc and connected to it with remote vnc pro so that i could play pokemon diamond / pearl. Not viable for any real time games. :)
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Yeah, that doesn't really count, I could say that we have any Windows app on the Droid if I did that. Only native apps! :p

Plus, like you said, there's the lag of the DS emulator itself, in addition to the lag of the VNC server. So it's incredibly slow, even on Wi-Fi.
 
droid processing power is much much higher thn the Ds and even the dsi.. u can check the hardware in wikipedia.. the resolution is so small in ds.. even split 2 screen on droid still got plenty of empty place.. u can try when playing gba game using gameboid.. what is the size when u scale the game in original size.. damn small..
 
secret_tidus said:
droid processing power is much much higher thn the Ds and even the dsi.. u can check the hardware in wikipedia.. the resolution is so small in ds.. even split 2 screen on droid still got plenty of empty place.. u can try when playing gba game using gameboid.. what is the size when u scale the game in original size.. damn small..
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Computers are many times more powerful than PS3s and 360s. We don't even have an alpha-stage emulator for those systems.

Emulation requires a huge overhead in processing power. People say it's been estimated at 10x, but I don't believe estimates. Different consoles have such different architectures that how could you really estimate how much overhead you need?
 
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