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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Gaming => Topic started by: motorollin on October 15, 2006, 10:20:01 AM

Title: Nintendo DS
Post by: motorollin on October 15, 2006, 10:20:01 AM
I've had my DS Lite for a week now and absolutely love it. This will sound weird, but the games actually feel a bit Amiga-like. The graphics in most of the games are really nice and feel very arcade-esque, which probably explains the Amiga-ish feel. Some recommended games for Amiga lovers:

Nanostray
A vertical shooter with really nice arcade graphics.

Polarium
A wicked puzzle game. Reminds me of an Amiga PD puzzle.

Mario Kart DS
It's even better than XTR  :oops:

That's just for starters. There are loads of games available for the DS and they all look great. The touch screen is a fantastic innovation in games consoles.

You can even get Robocod for the DS :-)

--
moto
Title: Re: Nintendo DS
Post by: Nickman on October 15, 2006, 10:49:44 AM
Yeah they are realy nice. Will try Nanostray right away  :-)
Title: Re: Nintendo DS
Post by: justthatgood on October 15, 2006, 11:39:56 AM
Yeah but don't those suckers have very flimsy hinges on the units.  I wanted to go get my girl one, but I'm just afraid that if I do that, the thing will get broke within a few weeks  or something from getting accidently bumped.

I have this same fear of flip-clampshell cellphones too.
Title: Re: Nintendo DS
Post by: DBAlex on October 15, 2006, 12:47:59 PM
Cool, I was thinking of getting one for the cool opera browser software! Also saw someone using some tracker software on one... If I only really use it for that kinda stuff I may as well get a PDA though, although some of the games are pretty cool!

Are thinking of getting the browser for it motorollin?
Title: Re: Nintendo DS
Post by: toca180 on October 15, 2006, 04:15:57 PM
Mario Kart DS is great. Equally as good as the N64 version. Metroid Prime Hunters is also very impressive, slighly repetative and frustrating at times though. Tetris DS was a little disappointing I thought in marathon mode but the touch mode makes up for it.
I've not heard good things about the browser (I dont own it, just what I've read), anyone here got it? Whats it like (better or worse than web browsing on an Amiga)?
Ita an amazing little console though and dont regret buying it for a minute.

Robert
Title: Re: Nintendo DS
Post by: toca180 on October 15, 2006, 04:20:59 PM
@justthatgood

Yeah I've heard that. I've got a black DS and was a little conserned before I bought one. I've now had mine for about 3 months, used it daily and its fine :nervous: (but very rearly clicked the screen all the way down to flat).

Robert
Title: Re: Nintendo DS
Post by: motorollin on October 15, 2006, 04:27:34 PM
Don't think I'll bother with the browser. Linux is already running on the DS (text only). It supports the touch screen and WiFi, so Lynx works for basic browsing. It's only a matter of time before there's a GUI and a graphical web browser :-D

--
moto
Title: Re: Nintendo DS
Post by: toca180 on October 15, 2006, 04:37:14 PM
@motorollin
Quote
It's only a matter of time before there's a GUI and a graphical web browser :-D


 :-o The stuff of dreams! Do you run home brew on yours? Is it easy/worth the money/worth it? Is DSLinux any good?

Robert
Title: Re: Nintendo DS
Post by: fx on October 15, 2006, 05:55:16 PM
I have tried DSLinux a little and it felt really nice and stable. Unfortunately I only have an old GBA flashcart so I can't write to the filesystem (so configuring the network is quite tiresome each time I have to do it).

But I telnetted to my linux box and ran alot of network programs from there (which was basically what I wanted to do in the first place) and everything ran as well as one would expect it too.

Now it's just the long wait for 'Portrait of Ruin' and 'Final Fantasy 3' to be released :)
Title: Re: Nintendo DS
Post by: motorollin on October 15, 2006, 06:10:07 PM
DS Linux is stable but doesn't do a lot which is useful to me without a GUI. Though Squirrelmail works in Lynx so at least I can check my IMAP box :-) I've got an M3 Lite Micro SD so I can use the filesystem version of DSLinux.

There's a homebrew tracker for the DS which I'm about to try.

--
moto
Title: Re: Nintendo DS
Post by: d0pefish on October 15, 2006, 07:05:53 PM
I have a DS and use homebrew too :-D really good stuff.

Though my DS is the older phatboy one, and I have a SuperCard MiniSD.

DSLinux is great, the RAM-enabled build works on my SuperCard which, and that paves the way to a GUI - someone is working on porting the PIXIL GUI to DSLinux.

NitroTracker is cool, but it needs an update pretty badly - filesystem access is very slow on some flash cards (which should be fixed by using a more recent FAT library) and it also doesnt implement any tracker effects.

Still very cool though.

Some cool stuff I recommend you try:

nesDS (http://www.dcemu.co.uk/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=30670) is a VERY good NES emulator, try it, ALL games I've tried run at 100% speed with fantastic sound. It even has an amazing real-time "rewind" feature that lets you "un"-fall down that gap that killed you in Mario Bros. :)

SnezziDS (http://wiki.pocketheaven.com/SnezziDS) is coming along nicely and the SNES games that work are mostly going full speed with sound, just needs to be made more stable and compatible.

MoonShell (http://mdxonline.dyndns.org/archives/2006/09/moonshell_ver141_dl.shtml) turns your DS into an media player, it even does tracker MODs/XMs, SPC SNES music files, NSF NES music and more, as well as its own movie format. However if you want to try movie encoding, I recommend you use BatchDPG (http://ls5.cydonianknight.com/) as it'll gives you much better quality than MoonShell's own encoder.

WiFiVoiceChat (http://mdxonline.dyndns.org/archives/2006/10/wifi_voicechatc_5.shtml) is a pretty amazing program that lets you talk to other people using the DS microphone and draw on a whiteboard using the touchscreen all at the same time. Watch out for this idiot who keeps coming in and insists on drawing Nazi swastikas as well as other... unsavory... drawings... still, great app. :lol:  :lol:  :lol:

I have Mario Kart too - awesome stuff. Tetris DS, Animal Crossing, and Metroid Prime Hunters are the other three Wi-Fi enabled games I have. At the moment I'm addicted to New Super Mario Bros. It's just insanely fun! :-D

I agree, a lot of the stuff on the DS has this really nice Amiga feel. As well as Robocod, there's Rainbow Islands and Bubble Bobble... the first time I saw Rainbow Islands in the shop for the DS I was pleasantly surprised, I haven't bought it (yet?) though. Too many other games to keep me busy for now.  :-D
Title: Re: Nintendo DS
Post by: kickstart on October 15, 2006, 08:20:10 PM
Hi

Music in Nanostray is made by Manfred Linzner most know like Pink in amiga scene, dont know if any of the rest of the team behind Nanostray is near to amiga.
Title: Re: Nintendo DS
Post by: Damion on October 15, 2006, 08:54:00 PM
My favorite DS games...

New Super Mario Bros (it's cheesy, yet SO addicting)

Age of Empires

Mario Kart (g/f loves this game, many heated "battles" between us)


I still want to pick up a copy of Electroplankton.

Title: Re: Nintendo DS
Post by: KThunder on October 15, 2006, 11:02:11 PM
i still have the advance classic. all the newer gameboys are too small. they give me cramps. they keep making the smaller though.
im a big guy i need a big system. or at least a landscape oriented one rather than portrait
Title: Re: Nintendo DS
Post by: toca180 on October 16, 2006, 09:23:43 AM
@motorollin

I guess its not really worth getting all the home brew kit just to run it then (at the moment). I does look interesting though and (as far as I know) the PSP doesn't have Linux.  :-D  Will be very cool if the GUI can be sorted.

Thanks
Robert
Title: Re: Nintendo DS
Post by: Giana on October 16, 2006, 09:37:07 AM
Anyone on GP2x or GP32x ?
I had both. On GP2x, u can run a cool port of UAE.
There are also a lot of ports, homebrew games, trackers, players, mp3, avi, demos, emulators (ST, Mame, Sega, Nintendo ...). Easy to code with C/SDL or Python and now java (experimental).
No active screen nor stylus, but a cool Linux in it
A cool machine which sounds like ... the good old days ...

Giana
A1200 - 060
A1200 - 040
A600
Title: Re: Nintendo DS
Post by: Debaser on October 16, 2006, 12:04:27 PM
@ KThunder:

Have you held the original DS (fatboy)??? Its quite...er umm... husky.


@ Group:

Funny there is a thread on the DS now... I just felt compelled to start playing around with mine again. Mario Kart is so much  fun. I though Animal Crossings is really clever, but couldnt get into it...ahem unlike my wife - she wore that game out!

Supposed to finally be an MP3/Media player software comming out for the DS - commercailly - anyone know the latest on that?
Title: Re: Nintendo DS
Post by: toca180 on October 16, 2006, 03:03:11 PM
@Debaser

Quote
Supposed to finally be an MP3/Media player software comming out for the DS - commercailly - anyone know the latest on that?


Did you mean the Play-Yan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Play-Yan) or the Max Media Dock (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Max-Media-Dock-Nintendo-DS/dp/B000G2S4I2)? The Play-Yan is only avaliable in Japan at the moment (I found some on eBay though), but the other can be bought now.

Robert
Title: Re: Nintendo DS
Post by: Debaser on October 17, 2006, 04:28:02 AM
Toca180

Thanks for the info & links. The Max Media Dock seems like the one to go with - compact flash cost & storage capabilities. options are better than Play-Yan's SD-card capabilities.Very cool.

Title: Re: Nintendo DS
Post by: toca180 on October 17, 2006, 10:43:33 AM
@Debaser

That's cool. I haven't used either of them, btw, so don't know how well they work.

@Group

Has anyone here used the Max Media Dock? How good it is at running home brew? Is it better than a GBA flash card reader and Max Media Luncher/Pass Me/Wifi Me?

Thanks
Robert
Title: Re: Nintendo DS
Post by: AmigaHeretic on October 18, 2006, 09:34:13 PM
Funny I had been thinking lately about getting a DS lite recently and after this thread I decided to do it.

I also ordered an M3 Lite (http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=37063) with a passcard.  Hope to start programming some some homebrew stuff when I get it.  There are quite a few good guides out there including This One (http://www.patatersoft.info/manual.html).  A pretty good guide to DS programming basics, setting up a compiler, as well as source code from the guide.

Looking forward to trying Opera and MSN messenger too.  I think a Scorched Tanks clone would be pretty cool.  Use the touch screen and stylus to sort of "throw" your bombs with the correct speed and angle and using the built in WiFi to have multiple players.  I was recently at a conference at a Hotel with some friends playing New Super Mario Brothers, one of the games/levels in it uses the Mircophone built into the DS as a control.  You blow very litely to make your character jump/float around.  Some other people with DSes came up to us and asked about playing together and just WiFi'd in and started playing with us.  Very cool.

Looks exciting and kinda reminds me of the Amiga days with all kinds of interesting/inovated stuff to play with for very low cost.

Haven't been this excited about a computing device since Amiga.
Title: Re: Nintendo DS
Post by: motorollin on October 28, 2006, 07:53:48 PM
Glad you decided to get one :-) look forward to seeing what homebrew stuff you come up with. The DS browser is really good. I'm using it to write this post :-D

--
moto
Title: Re: Nintendo DS
Post by: AmigaHeretic on November 08, 2006, 05:11:59 AM
Ah I really want to get Opera for it, but I'm in the US and it's hard to find.


I thought this was funny... I was using IRCDS v0.3b (irc client for DS) and it crashed.  The top screen was all red and the error said "Guru Meditation"!!  How cool is that? ;-)
Title: Re: Nintendo DS: Settlers
Post by: raddude9 on November 08, 2006, 10:22:35 AM
One of my favourite amiga games from way back was settlers and that's  being ported to the DS too:

http://uk.ds.ign.com/articles/716/716686p1.html

http://www.4colorrebellion.com/archives/2006/07/06/the-settlers-announced-for-ds/

Title: Re: Nintendo DS: Settlers
Post by: toca180 on November 21, 2006, 11:18:49 AM
Didn't know if anyone had seen this:

DS-Xtreme (http://www.ds-x.com/cgi-bin/dsx/engine.pl?page=home)

Its an all in one memory card and homebrew loader and only used the DS cart slot. Looks good, if a little pricey.

Robert
Title: Re: Nintendo DS: Settlers
Post by: motorollin on November 21, 2006, 11:58:40 AM
The problem with the DS-Xtreme is that it doesn't have any RAM on board (unlike the M3 which has 32MB). This means no DSLinux.

--
moto
Title: Re: Nintendo DS: Settlers
Post by: toca180 on November 21, 2006, 12:25:14 PM
Thats a bit of a shame. That would be my main reason to get a homebrew set up. Would yo say the M3 is the best to get? What would you get to boot the homebrew? PassMe? Max Media Launcher? No Pass?

Robert
Title: Re: Nintendo DS: Settlers
Post by: motorollin on November 21, 2006, 12:32:28 PM
If you want to use homebrew, get the M3. If you just want to make backups of your carts and play them from a memory card, get the DS-Xtreme.

I bought a Passcard 3 with my M3 as a bundle from mrmodchips, which gets you booted to the M3. From there you can run FlashMe which lets you flash the DS firmware. Once that's done you no longer need the Passcard as the DS will boot directly to the M3 if it's there.

--
moto
Title: Re: Nintendo DS
Post by: toca180 on November 21, 2006, 12:51:12 PM
Thanks for the info. Always fancied playing around with DSLinux and other homdbrew but didnt realise they were that expensive. Guess its time to save or just use it for games (but thats not as adventurous  :-D ).

Thanks
Robert
Title: Re: Nintendo DS
Post by: motorollin on November 21, 2006, 01:10:17 PM
The DS itself can be bought relatively cheaply now. It's bound to drop further at Christmas too. The M3+Passcard3 is quite pricey at about £70, but you can sell the Passcard 3 later if you flash the firmware of your DS.

--
moto
Title: Re: Nintendo DS
Post by: toca180 on November 21, 2006, 02:14:15 PM
I've got a DS Lite and very happy with it. Just been looking into homebrew for it, trying to work out if its worth it. Only DSLinux has really got me excited at the moment.
Theres still games I want to get for it, so I guess until I run out of games I may hold off on the homebrew.

Robert
Title: Re: Nintendo DS
Post by: toca180 on January 21, 2007, 11:07:46 PM
Sorry, for resurrecting an old thread, but I didn't know if anyone had seen Quake for the DS:

DS Quake (http://dsquake.blogspot.com/)

Has anyone played it? I would love to be able to play Quake anywhere, its one of my all time favourite games. (Sorry if this is old news to people.)

Robert
Title: Re: Nintendo DS
Post by: adz on January 21, 2007, 11:31:34 PM
Bought one for the missus just before Christmas and she loves it. I actually quite like the sound and the graphics are fantastic.
Title: Re: Nintendo DS
Post by: Darklight on January 21, 2007, 11:59:19 PM
I've got a black DS Lite (had a phat DS before that), and it's a great machine.  I bought a Supercard Lite for it, that lets me use MSN Messenger, DSMail, Linux, etc.  It's become almost a habit for me to check for wireless networks wherever I have my DS to see if I can use MSN  :lol:
Title: Re: Nintendo DS
Post by: d0pefish on January 22, 2007, 12:21:15 AM
Quote
Sorry, for resurrecting an old thread, but I didn't know if anyone had seen Quake for the DS:

DS Quake

Has anyone played it? I would love to be able to play Quake anywhere, its one of my all time favourite games. (Sorry if this is old news to people.)

Robert


That port of Quake is seemingly dead.

There is a new port of Quake started by another guy, and he's very regular with the news updates. He's reporting a very fast speed and is readying it for release soon-ish. He made a video of it working.

This is the thread that you need to be watching if you're interested:
http://forum.gbadev.org/viewtopic.php?t=11556

And here's his blog:
http://simonjhall.blogspot.com/ (there's a video of it working for you to watch)

He also - amazingly - plans to port Quake2 afterwards, and seems pretty confident in doing so. For that, though, you'll definately need a homebrew adaptor with extra RAM, like the M3 or Supercard SD.

No releases yet, but he's getting close, so keep an eye. :)
Title: Re: Nintendo DS
Post by: toca180 on January 22, 2007, 10:28:14 AM
I didnt know that the other port had stopped. This one looks fantastic, it runs so smoothly. It may even make me buy a homebrew set up. Quake on the move is a dream come true. Cant believe Quake 2 is possible.

Robert