Questions about 3DS hacking

[conchobhar]

I've been thinking about picking up another 3DS, jailbreaking it, and using it as my primary method for playing classic games (and maybe some original DS games too). The actual hacking process seems simple enough, but there's a couple things I'm not sure about in terms of features and support…

1) What systems can a hacked N3DS emulate? GB, GBC, NES and SNES are a given, but what about GBA? Or non-Nintendo systems, like the Genesis or TurboGrafx-16?

2) Is there any sort of homebrew scene? This isn't a major factor but it'd be cool to play, say, Cave Story (in original freeware flavour) on a 3DS.

Also, what's the best model of the New hardware: New 2DS, New 2DS XL, New 3DS or New 3DS XL? Not in terms of hackabiliy but just, most ergonomic, best screens, button placements, that sort of thing. For comparison's sake, I have a standard 3DS XL right now. The N2DS XL seems to be the most readily available, but I'm willing to go track down another model if it's preferred.

 

[Issun]

I'd say just message Tegan but I'm sure she'll be along any time now. I doubt anyone on TT knows more about this than her.

 

[Little Sampson]

I've hacked a couple 3Dses over the past month, but I only did it for DS emulation and playing 3DS games, so I can't speak much to your first couple questions. For the last one I can say for me personally the New 2DS XL is the ideal 3DS model. As someone who doesn't care about 3D at all I appreciate being able to have the larger form factor while still having an overall smaller and lighter unit. The only complaint I have is that the speakers are on the bottom and often get covered by my hands when I'm playing. I've heard some people say the N2DSXL screens are duller and have a worse viewing angle than the N3DSXL, but I can't really speak to that and it hasn't been an issue for me at all.

 

[muteKi]

If the primary goal is emulation then your best bet probably is the n2DS because of availability, comfort, and the fact that 2D homebrew actually doesn't tend to play well with the 3D effect (and very little homebrew, mainly the Doom port, actually uses it).

If you mean strict emulation for GBA you can probably get away with it running decently on a n3DS with mGBA. That's the only feasible way of playing, say, Yoshi's Topsy-Turvy if you're into that sort of thing. For almost anything else I would strongly (strongly!) encourage you to use the GBA VC tools to actually run GBA games natively. I think mGBA might support some kind of wireless link cable emulation (I haven't checked the 3DS mGBA builds in a while so no idea what features they actually support).

SNES emulation using the VC emulator doesn't support most of the fancy expansion chips. Bubble2k16's port of SNES9x will support most of the important ones (so you can play Yoshi's Island on the go, though probably not at full-speed) but doesn't support the 'mosaic' effect of the system like you see at the start of levels in Mario World -- a minor loss considering the benefits.

Genesis and TG-16 emulation is good. While there is a TG-16 injector (since the Japanese eShop got a handful of games supported that way) I would encourage getting TemperPCE so as to support TG-CD games. Similarly, there's a port of PicoDrive that I would recommend, and it supports Sega CD games. 32X games are unlikely to run very stably even on a new 3DS, though I've mostly used the retroarch port for that (and been disappointed; it had a tendency to crash). Honestly I would probably avoid using Retroarch cores because they tend not to run very stably, preferring these individual emulators over them. Mostly for arcade (i.e., Neo Geo) and stuff like NES or older.

I tend to prefer to use something like GameYob (though the DSi build is significantly more stable than the 3DS one) or mGBA for GB games because they partially support Super GB features and GBC coloration, so you don't have to have plain black-and-white games like VC releases do.

The homebrew scene is largely built around emulators but there is the occasional original game or source port (like, as mentioned, Doom). GBATemp is where the vast majority of this stuff is documented so you'll want to check out there for specific things that I have missed or ignored.

There are also tools to launch DS games right off the 3DS SD card, but the interface is going to be slower than running from cartridge and unless you don't want to have to set up an additional SD card for it I would very strongly encourage using a flash cart -- and of course unlocked 3DSes are going to support the vast majority of flash cards, overriding firmware lockouts from Nintendo.

 

[YangusKhan]

I know we can't openly talk about this part, so it'd have to be taken to PMs or some such, but I've been wondering: what's a moderately safe/non-sketchy website to find 3DS games? Or maybe alternatively: is there easy homebrew that can rip an official game card for the purpose of applying translation patches to it?

 

[YangusKhan]

I managed to update my 3DS custom firmware over the weekend without breaking anything! It was 4 years out of date at this point and I had some investigation to do because none of my updaters could auto-update over wi-fi. I'm still a little confused about how to figure out what's installed into my various NANDs, and I seem to have a duplicate but older version of the FBI installer that I'm afraid to remove. I also successfully got my original DS flashcart to read on it, which I think means I can get rid of my DSLite entirely...

Also I found the answer to my 2nd question: there is a program called GodMode9 that can rip 3DS games from an official cartridge. It can also de- and en-crypt things, which means I should have no problem buying a couple Japanese games and rip them to apply translation patches.

 

[muteKi]

Yep, GM9 is the best option for you. Meant to reply but got sidetracked with lots of other stuff. Can also rip DS games, unsurprisingly.

 

[conchobhar]

Thanks for the reply, @muteKi! I really had no idea where 3DS hacking stood w/r/t system support (SGB completely slipped my mind— would be great to get DK'94 in that form), so the primer is both much appreciated and makes doing this a much stronger proposition.

Since it looks like I'm in the market for a flashcart, too, is there any particular one you'd recommend? Ideally one that can also be used for ntrboot, since I'm getting a flashcart anyway…

 

[muteKi]

I would say don't bother with a 3DS flashcart since the system is designed to load games off the SD card. There are ways to boot DS games off SD card which, interestingly, support DSi mode, but they tend to introduce severe loading and have a tendency to not play nice with antipiracy checks on some of the later games (so it's finicky to get those same DSi games working!). I don't know if any DS flash carts support booting into DSi mode but that's the kind of thing I'd recommend, though I use a DSTwo personally (got it back before CFW on 3DS was feasible, though its GBA emulator left a fair bit to be desired).

 

[madhair60]

You can "inject" GBA games very easily and performance is superb, I think it might just run them natively.

 

[conchobhar]

After an extended period of hemming and hawing, I finally took the plunge and ordered a N2DS. It arrived earlier this week and I've spent the last few days setting it up and loading it up:

There's still plenty I could put on, and I could stand to look into emulators rather than injecting everything, but this is good enough for now since I'm still waiting for the larger SD card I ordered to arrive. I'm very pleased with this, it's going to make classic gaming a lot more convenient for me.

 

[Troa11]

Looks good and not unlike how my N2DS XL is set up. Some days I wish I had hung on to the N3DS XL just for the occasional 3D and battery life... but I play it so rarely anyway that it's not justifiable. Still, plenty of fun to be had, good luck with it all!