A RetroArch for old NDS/NDSi systems?

General Development
#1

Since there is a version of LibRetro/RetroArch for 3DS systems (and seems to be up-to date with the main releases) I would like to ask for a compilation for the old NDS/NDSi systems too…

Note that I know that there are some emulators that runs poorly even on 3DS (mainly the SNES and GBA ones), but I gess those can be stripped from this version. Plus, my main target is arout the SEGA 16bits emu’s (PicoDrive/Genesis Plus GX - to SEGA Genesis and SEGA CD), wich are not (SEGA CD) nor “badly” (Genesis) emulated by actual homebrews for the console.

If not possible to made this dedicated version, i would like to know if there’s anywhere to download the sourcecode for these two emulators specifically (PicoDrive, Genesis GX Plus) - and MAYBE if there is a way to compile it using DevKitARM for “commom” DS’s (i’m not that skilled on programming emulators do made a port, but really want to try my best if possible)…

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#2

The DS is barely powerful enough for basic NES and Gameboy emulation let alone the RetroArch frontend on top of that, but you’re certainly welcome to try.

The source code for everything including the cores you requested can be found right here:

https://github.com/libretro?tab=repositories

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#3

If a Sega genesis emulator is what you are looking for you’ll need to download jenesisDS. Even picodrive may be too much for the DS.

#4

JenesisDS is quite “glitchy” (doesnt scale propperly and doesnt supports games over 4MB) and doesnt supports SEGA CD games. Plus, it’s development has been stopped since SEGA hired his author.

PicoDrive is very outdated (the port to DS is a very early version) BUT seems to not be too much - there’s also a adaptation from Dingux PicoDrive for Supercard’s DS TWO, but even this is very troublesome to use (seems to require specific SD Cards, formatting types and goes on). Also, both seems to not emulates SEGA CD propperly (but tryies)…

The solution would be to re-port a more up-to-date version of PicoDrive NOR por a version of Genesis Plus GX, but i’m not that skilled on low-level programming (i’v learned databases and office apps programming and emulation requires assembly knowledgement). And since RetroArch is a multi-platform project, seemed reasonable to me to do the suggestion…

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