Whats possible with DS homebrew?

[chemical]

Hey,


Well I'm interested in being an animator/modeller, and i figured I could mix work with play here and try and get into DS homebrew and attempt some 3D game making, i have a bit of previous game making experiance, and quite a bit of experiance of modelling and animation.


So I wanted to first ask, what is actually possible with DS, is there a visible roof that we will soon or already have reached?, or is it just a matter of putting in the hours in order to make working advanced 3D games?


If these things are possible, what type of programming do you do to make these games, any sites that i can pick this up on them?


I'm only really interested in getting into 3D game making as thats what i'm interested in, and to really but the hours in i wouldnt want a limitation on how far the games could go, ya know.



Thanks

[zac_531]

Hmm.. well as far as i can see there is only a few 3d homebrew games, or ones that try, I do know that the
"glider" homebrew is a good 3d example along with the more recent development of DSDOOM and DOOMDS. I personally cant wait for the quake DS homebrew that is called Doom DS for some wierd reason, any way, if you really wanted something to do, join the Ds Doom team, it consists of only 2 members but needs more support! They are willing to port versions of Doom 3 for the NDS and quake along with a toned down version of Counter Strike...
So id say familiarize your self with other developers and ask, maybe start off with a few people you know rather than glaring at text tutorials all day long, Hope it helps!

[chemical]

thanks for the advice :), yeah i'll have a look around and see what everyones up to in the DS world, i guess my real question is are there not many/any advanced 3D games because its not possible, or because people just havent released any yet?, for me to really get into NDS homebrew i want to be able to go far and advance to great things, not just so-so games (no offense to homebrewers, theres been great releases, but im talk mind blowing homebrew that pushes up the standard)


P.S I'm not one of those idiots that thinks he can make GTA3 in 2 days, I just want to know what the limitations are.

[zac_531]

OMFG n00b, i Can pwn j00 in teh counter strixorx DS
I amg going to mkae it in a few weeks and i will roxorx teh homebriw develops!

Yeah, i kind of guessed you were not an idiot, since you didnt just say "can i have the homebrew code" or "give me the homebrew for my ds" in which i have recieved when i did a little bit of metroid hunters hacking, seriously, one person ASKED for the entire homebrew set i have, to send in email! How can i send a flash card in an email? They really are stupid, anyway, good luck with whatever path you take, i agree with the current position on homebrew, nothing mindblowing, 2d games with partial DS inpliments, but im sure it will get better, for now, admire the real hero's. Those cool 3D guys.

[Jesster]

Have you seen this yet?

http://payk.drunkencoders.com/

Seems like a pretty good example of what the homebrew community can do in 3D.

Frankly, I think if you really want to know what can be done on the DS, just look at commercial DS Games. Sure, commercial developers have the advantage of working with official dev kits, but in theory a homebrew developer should be able to match anything the commercial developers can do with enough time and effort.

[andysjones]

I dont really know if this will help, but I found the specifications:

CPU Core Main Processor - ARM946E-S (Running at 67 MHz)
8 KB Instruction Cache,
4KB Data Cache TCM: 8KB Instruction,
4KB Data Sub Processor - ARM7TDMI (Running at 33 MHz)

Memory Main Memory - 4 MB (Debug version has 8 MB)
ARM9/ARM7 Shared - 32KB (16KB x 2)
ARM7 Internal RAM - 64 KB VRAM - 656 KB

LCD Display Size - 256 x 192 RGB Screens x 2 Display Colors - 262,144 colors 2D Graphics Engine Background -
Maximum 4 layers Objects -
Maximum of 128 3D Graphics Engine Geometric Transformation -
Max 4 million vertex/sec Polygon Rate -
Max 120,000 polys/sec Pixel Fillrate -
Max 30 million pixels/sec

Sound 16 channel ADPCM/PCM (Max 8 channels can be set to PSG) Microphone input

Wireless Communication 802.11 Protocol

Input Device Touch Panel Direction Pad, A, B, L, R buttons, Start, Select (X, Y buttons being considered)

Power Save Sleep mode (WakeUp possible at set times or by wireless communication) Power save for 2D engine, rendering engine, geometry engine, LCD screen possible.

[Junixx]

OMFG n00b, i Can pwn j00 in teh counter strixorx DS
I amg going to mkae it in a few weeks and i will roxorx teh homebriw develops!

So are you saying your going to make counter strike DS for DS Doom or something? that'd be nice :) I was looking at the Doombuilder but then i was kind of like "umm.....hm.." anyway, I've heard soooooooooooooo many times "OMFG n00b h4xor!" on counter strike and half the time they were just good at the game

Oh, btw, Eurotunnel is another 3D game for the DS

[Mr_Biggs]

i think they meant an entire remake of counter-strike, in 3d, to run on the DS's hardware. either way, that's sweet!

[lexluthor]

Might be a dumb question.. but as a hb developer (Which im not) isnt "technically" possible to make games as good as commercial ones.

For example, if you really wanted to spend you life doing it; couldn’t a team of hb developers create a game on par with something like Mario Kart DS? As long as the console as the power to run things like that, shouldn’t that power be available to developers?