Duke3DS - Duke Nukem 3D for DS

[SylentEcho]

Hi. I installed this on my r4. It works, but doesn't run very smoothly, it kind of hangs and there's a big sound problem.

any idea how to solve this?

[Sektor]

It runs slow on all DS flash cards. The only way to solve it would be to rewrite the game so that it uses the 3D hardware of the DS. That would be a huge effort.

[Starkiller]

Sorry for bumping this pretty old thread but I have a question : wouldn't programming this game so that it uses RAM expansion make it run better ? The original game required 8MB of RAM (although 3D Realms recommended 16MB) so I assume we just can't expect it to run correctly on a stock DS with only 4MB of RAM.
I understand that it would probably require a lot of programming but I believe it would enable us to solve some of the problems that DS players get to face when they are playing the current version of the port of Duke 3D.

Thanks in advance for answering.

EDIT : this could apply for the ports of other great FPS games from the 90's (Doom, which seems to have trouble with saving/loading in certain levels, Hexen which can crash while saving a game, or Rise of the Triad which crashes at a certain point of the 2nd level).

[Creuza321]

can someone help me??
i'm getting a error when i start the game.

Can't Open directory: /duke3d
Unable to open /duke3d/DUKE3D.GRP

[Starkiller]

You need to create a /duke3d directory where you must put the DUKE3D.GRP file (if you own the original PC game, it is located in the folder where you have DUKE3D installed). I you don't have this file, that means you don't own the original PC game. In that case, you can download the shareware DUKE3D.GRP file from 3D Realms's website.

[Starkiller]

There is something that I really don't get. I am currently trying to work on programming the game so that :
- the framerate gets enhanced.
- the sounds/music are played correctly.
- saving/loading of games become possible.
- the game crashes as little often as possible (especially when you get underwater).
- The Atomic editions levels become playable (which actually isn't the case).

The problem that I'm facing is that, I have downloaded GPF's source code for DUKE 3DS and yet, when I try to compile it as it was when I downloaded the code, I get countless error messages saying that a function or a variable is undeclared in the file called arm7/source/template.c, which is absolutely unbelievable. Anyone got an idea about why this is happening ?

[Sektor]

That's most likely because it was originally compiled with an older version of the DevKitPro devkit. Often you just need to replace the old macro names with the new names.

You could try adding this if it's not already there:

#include <nds/registers_alt.h>

That lets you use many of the old names but it's best to rename them before a public release.

[Starkiller]

Thanks for your reply, Sektor. Thanks to your help, I have been able to replace a bunch of old macro/function names with their equivalent in the latest versions of devkitPro and libnds.

I've also managed to compile the game for the first time. I tried to program the game so that it uses RAM expansion from slot-2 cartridges (The game needed at least 8MB of RAM although 3D Realms strongly recommended 16MB so I'm sure the game can't work correctly without EXRAM). I added a menu to choose your RAM card and speed (which is a lot inspired by Simon J. Hall's Quake and Quake 2 beginning menues). The game seems to be able to detect RAM from slot-2 cartridges and to tell the player what card he is using for RAM expansion if you select "Auto-detect" (at least, it worked in my case, as it was able to tell me that I was using an EZ-Flash RAM card with 16 MB of RAM).

Now I get to face another problem : after detecting the EXRAM, the console prints "compiling /duke3d/GAME.CON" and then seems to stop loading (this is most likely due to a crash). I'm gonna have to have a deep look at the original code used to start the game in order to fix the problem, but for now I cannot guarantee that I will be able to upload a new version of the game any soon.

[Starkiller]

OK, I've managed to correct the error that made the game crash during its startup. First, it was due to the fact that the program was trying to load the file called "DEFS.CON" in the root directory of the flash card, whereas it was in a "duke3d" directory created by the user. This took a bit of time to figure out but after understanding this, correcting the mistake was "a piece of cake", Duke would say.
There was another problem due to a misinterpretation of the keyword "return" : apparently, when the devkitPro compiler (Msys) encounters the keyword "return" in a void function, it does not interprete it as a keyword used only to interrupt the function, but as a keyword used to interrupt the whole main function, causing the game to restart from the very beginning. Again, it was easy to correct the mistake.

But now I have to deal with sound, which is going to be very, very long. The problem I get to face is that, whenever the game tries to play a sound, it just crashes because it is unable to play a sound, apparently. I guess the VOC file format just isn't appropriate for the DS so I decided to convert the sounds to WAV. I need to reprogram the sound engine because the sound was kinda choppy in the latest version of Duke Nukem 3DS by GPF, and it would be better to have a sound engine that fits correctly with the DS hardware anyway. This will take a lot of time.

[sonic007m]

I got the "unable to initialize media device" error... i already found that on this forum, but cannot seem to get any wiser... any help plz? i just love this game and want to have it on ds... i used desmume, no$gba and r4i gold v1.14 to test it. all the same problem. also: clicking a link on this site just leads me to the newspage of dcemu
AND THATS NOT FUNNY