Nintendo DS Can run Irrlicht?

smartwhiz · Post by **smartwhiz** » Tue Jul 08, 2008 3:24 am

I have been into Homebrew Game Development, has anyone here tried to run Irrlicht on NDS? Well, kinda a hav a kiddo/noob doubt, does Nintendo platform support .dll files on system? Is it worth trying on porting Irrlicht to work on NDS? Guys need your help and guide sites you are aware of it.

Well NDS development sites I am aware off.

Thanks
SmartWhiz

wyrmmage · Post by **wyrmmage** » Tue Jul 08, 2008 3:45 am

There is a version of Linux for the DS, so Irrlicht might be able to run on that, but I haven't heard of anyone trying (you could be the first!

). I'd wager that you probably couldn't run Irrlicht on the native OS that comes on the DS, but again... haven't actually heard of anyone trying.
-wyrmmage

hybrid · Post by **hybrid** » Tue Jul 08, 2008 8:10 am

If you already know about the homebrew SDK for DS you should also be aware that it's not Windows-based. Hence, no dlls (and also .so for Linux wouldn't make much sense, because it simply slows down the loading process). Do yo have a ressource for the SDK specs? Because using the Linux on DS directly would only allow for the software renderers, which might be far too slow on such a small machine.

JP · Post by JP » Tue Jul 08, 2008 9:07 am

You can certainly use OGL on NDS so i imagine you could write an OGL driver for it.

smartwhiz · Post by **smartwhiz** » Tue Jul 08, 2008 1:39 pm

wyrmmage : I am just gonna try it out well it can take a hell lot of tweaks!

hybrid : DS uses OGL this is a known fact and yeah its on Linux and hence no support to windows to .dll based structures. What i have seen is that most of the DS SDKs used for homebrew development are static libraries and the final build is just the .nds build < no other libraries are shipped with this file>

twilight17 · Post by **twilight17** » Tue Jul 08, 2008 1:57 pm

You could maybe integrate Irrlicht with PALib

smartwhiz · Post by **smartwhiz** » Tue Jul 08, 2008 2:25 pm

Exactly i would be needing to to take the devKitPro + PAlib for the new OGLDriver inherited from the basic abstract renderer class of irrlicht .
But my question is Irrlicht applications all need the .dll to work on as a part of dynamic linkin.

Is it possible that Irrlicht can be made as a static library and we can compile the .exe only without any dependency towards irrlicht's dll? not taking D3D and OpenGL foundation runtime dlls into consideration for the time being because i will be writing a new driver with devKitPro+PAlib...

JP · Post by JP » Tue Jul 08, 2008 2:41 pm

Yep, you can make it a static library, just change a #define in irrCompileConfig.h and make sure the IDE is set to make a static lib and that's what you should get. And OGL doesn't use a .dll so no problems there.

smartwhiz · Post by **smartwhiz** » Tue Jul 08, 2008 3:09 pm

mmm... if thats the case then i can try out a driver that supports for NDS.. but its still at the startin phase.. will let u guys know once i get thru something.. thanks for the help... will be back for more info here .. same place..

hybrid · Post by **hybrid** » Tue Jul 08, 2008 3:23 pm

Either I'm missing an important point or all this talk about dll and exe is complete nonsense. This is Linux, you don't have exes, you don't have dlls with export lists, you get a static library by just saying 'make' in the command line. And the d3d is of course also not compiled in, because it's Linux

Anyway, PALib's gfx functions seem not very useful, but the devKit features a rather braod support for OpenGL functions. You might need PALib for things such as I/O, not sure how far you'd come with just the devKit.

smartwhiz · Post by **smartwhiz** » Tue Jul 08, 2008 4:15 pm

Hybrid : its not nonsense, well you are not knowledgble enough to understand though! Well DevKitPro + PALib are libraries which provide you the environment for DS and with help of these libraries you are capable of developing .nds (the compiled executables for NDS OS).
NDS OS being Linux - I have a doubt on whts the OS thats running on NDS but i am for sure that we use DevKitPro + PALib and Visual Studio to compile the executable ie, .nds. By the way Mr. Hybrid - I did mention that keeping the renderer drivers coded for D3D and OpenGL apart, a new renderer have to be programmed with respect to DevKitPro + PALib, meaning that DevKitPro + PALib's DS Renderer which is called as Nitro or NitroSDK thats the SDK of DS Platform, which means i didn't mention that D3D would be runnin on DS.

So before you conclude a conclusion on the this nonsense, understand wht i just told!

And as long as emulators are available, the compiled executables are still checkable on Windows Machines.

hybrid · Post by **hybrid** » Tue Jul 08, 2008 5:30 pm

Sorry to tell you that you seems to not understand the concept of cross-compilation. The only thing that matters is what the target platform can run. And the devKitPro is juse a cross-compiler, I already use it.
So make your course and enlighten us with the wonderful things you encounter

Just a hint: The main problem will be the device, not the driver, because the latter will be based on the OpenGL one, with just some things disabled or adapted. And don't start with the win32 device, it simply doesn't fit...

twilight17 · Post by **twilight17** » Wed Jul 09, 2008 12:43 am

You won't need DSlinux if you have .NDS files.. as you can launch them straight from your Slot-1 Device (Mine being CycloDS Evolution, great card BTW)

If you would like to go into DSLinux then launch your game or whatever, you would just compile for DSLinux.. (IDK how...)

Noob123 · Post by **Noob123** » Tue Apr 07, 2009 3:44 pm

Hi I am interested in giving the NDS a go. What config for the compiler would you suggest for a starting point? SDL? not opengl....not zip,jpeg,bmp etc to start with.....

hybrid · Post by **hybrid** » Tue Apr 07, 2009 4:45 pm

Depends on what you have. Does your SDK support OpenGL or SDL?