I'm delighted to announce the latest version of QuakeDS for public consumption - pre-release two!
I was going to do several releases over the last two months, but I'm kinda glad I held back as I think that "one more feature" thing really helped!

Changes from pre1->pre2:

- faster rendering
- vertex lighting and light animations (proper lightmapping may be in the next build)
- Alias model texturing
- proper timebase, so no variable speed
- a crosshair and a HUD
- the Quake font (or whatever font is available in the mod you're playing)
- a nearly-proper sky
- sky, water, lava, sludge animations
- full control configuration
- game save saving/loading
- every level works - I have played from beginning to end with no crashes or thrashing
- wifi network play, via an access point (build coming in a few days after more testing)
- adequate support for mods/TCs in this build - full compatibility in the EXRAM build (coming in a few weeks)
- much improved sound system on the ARM7 (no music yet...)
- transparent water support via r_novis or VIS'ed maps
- hardware fogging for a light depth cue, or thick fog for underwater
- LOADS more little things (eg the end-of-episode finale messages)


The bad,

- if you had problems getting pre1 to run on your card before (say you had a DS Link) then it ain't gonna run this time! Same goes for cards which have no DLDI driver.
- you will only get textured models if you use pak files - loose files won't work any more
- if you have a slow flash card then loading textures on the fly may really annoy you
- particles and sprites still haven't been fixed
- there's an occasional sound glitch
- no on-screen keyboard in this build


To run (the quick way),

- download the zip file, and put the NDS in the root of your card
- DLDItool it with the DLDI driver of your choice
- make a directory in the root of your card named id1
- put the config file (downloaded from the site) in the id1 directory
- put your two pak files in that directory too
- plug into DS and power on.


As I said before, wait a few days for the networking build (full co-op and deathmatch) and hang on a little longer for the full TC compatibility.
Don't forget to actually read the web page as there are a bunch of options to change stuff like loading textures etc.

Anyway, a big thanks go my testers - I couldn't have done it without you! Oh and the 20000+ people who downloaded pre1 in the first few weeks after it came out ;-)

Legal: I take no credit for the development of Quake, that all goes to the guys at id Software. I also claim no copyright, trademark etc. Again, all work, copyrights, trademarks are owned by them.
I just made the patch which coaxes the game into running on the DS.

Well, most of you have seen the video. You know what's in this release. This is a very dirty release, so use it at your own risk. The only files provided are the updated executable and a fixed resource0.bin. You must have the install files from 2.6 or 2.61 to use this, or unexpected things may happen. Grab the alpha from my site here. Enjoy the first working homebrew browser for the Nintendo DS!

What works:
- Normal HTML rendering
- Clicking links
- Server redirects
- Forward/Back history
- Basic caching

What doesn't:
- Cookies
- Forms
- Images
- Meta Tags
- Javascript and CSS

After some good programming sessions, the alpha version is ready.

Some notes:

- The file can be unpacked directly to the root of the flashcard, that is, Okiwi directory must be just under the root.

- Inside this there's the fonts directory, which contains three TrueType font files for the different character families, and also those fonts prerendered at different sizes (*.okf) and some other which contains tables needed to associate character bitmaps with their Unicode codes (*.okm). The extensions stand for Okiwi Font and Okiwi Map, respectively. If these fieles are deleted, the software will generate them again from the TrueType fonts, so each one can use the typography he/she likes more. The included fonts are Bitstream Vera.

- By now the only way to move along the document is to drag it with the stylus.

- The only working buttons by the moment are: the first, which will allow in a future to enter an URL, and the last, which allows to set the zoom level.

- By misfortune, the other displaying mode I wanted to include, with a general view in a screen and a zoomed one in the other, isn't there yet.

- The icons have been designed by my brother. Actually, he has created some variants, but I've had to choose one of them. In future versions they will be able to be selected.

- As I said, DLDI is used. Released files are patched for SuperCard Lite. If you have another device, you'll have to use the patcher with the corresponding patch for your flashcart.I think this is a prosiming result.

This release contains various bug fixes, which should improve games compatibility and stability. Some minor features have also been added like options saved in save states, background Layer selector, and hinge support.
Here is a list of changes:

* Fixed ROM paging, this should improve stability of large ROMs (especillay DKC2)
* Some CPU instructions were bugged because of the way SNEmulDS write in I/O ports, this should also improve stability (ie Crash before first boss in Zelda)
* Fixed a bug that made Chrono Trigger freeze during battles
* Changed the way emulator detect blank screen (Street Fighter Turbo, RTYPE3, Final Fantasy Mystic Quest now works)
* Fixed some bugs with SRAM memory, which unlock most ROM protections (Uniracer, Bust-a-move, … now boot)
* Now sound core doesn’t randomly crash when using line by line engine
* Better reset of sound core, some games now run correctly when they are launched after another game (ie Super Bomberman >2)
* Save states also save options
* Added background layer selector. You can again enable/disable backgrounds.
* Added hinge support. If you close you DS, emulation is stopped and SRAM is saved.
* SRAM is now automatically saved before loading another ROM

SNEmulDS 0.4 alpha contained a lot of stupid bugs that i fixed in this beta release. There are still bugs, but i think it worth a try for most users, because a lot of games were broken. I also added a manual background layers selector.

Here is the complete list of changes:

* Fixed the broken BREAK and COP instructions
* Fixed the ROM write protection by using the protection unit of the ARM9 (thanks to bubble2k for pointing me that)
* Fixed the Emulation flag at startup (problem with DKC3)
* Stupid again, SNES’s RAM was not in the cached memory, speed up games (10-20%)
* Reduced memory consumption, now ROM memory is static (no more malloced), should remove ROM overflow and RAM overwriten problems
* Added an experimental “line by line” engine (buggy, slow, unstable, uncomplete… maybe useful for a few games)
* Added a manual background priority selector (can be choosen in options or with START+LEFT+RIGHT+UP or START+LEFT+RIGHT+DOWN for automatic)
* Added another speed hack option : “Interrupt speed hacks” that should be better than “Full speed hacks” for some games. “Middle speed hacks” is now “Cycles speed hacks”

As usual you may have to patch it with DLDI drivers, for more information see here : http://chishm.drunkencoders.com/DLDI/

I just finished building SNEmulDS v0.3 with DLDI support.
This system made by chishm should make SNEmulDS compatible with much more devices

More informations here : http://chishm.drunkencoders.com/DLDI/index.html

You can patch SNEmulDS.nds to support others devices as long as those device have been made compatible with the DLDI system.
So you should visit this site regularly for update, if your device is not supported by SNEmulDS yet!

Please try it with your device and tell me if you have any problems...

Well, I've put out another maintenence release, fixing a few crash bugs and one playback bug, as well as adding a DSO executable format! It is very similar to a plugin but runs standalone instead of attached to a specific set of extensions. Check it out here and download the newest beta! Don't forget to grab the newest wonderswan plugin as the update has added new features to the plugin framework and thus will not work with older plugins!

Head to the newly opened Addons Page to grab stuff designed for DSOrganize. If you want to see your creation on this page and I haven't found it while trolling the forums yet, email me at [email protected] and I'll slap it up there for you.

Also, please read my post on the GBADev forums about DSOrganize file formats.

PS. There is a new libFB out as well, with some bugfixes, optimizations to the text rendering engine, and and overall code cleanup. BONUS: Documentation!

Fixes found in 2.45

* Increased state field on address displays to be 3 long instead of 2.
* Changed boot function code, hopefully making the arm7 a bit more stable.
* Updaded dldi driver to newest version, should fix problems with some .ds.gba and .sc.nds files.
* Fixed work address display issue with vCards.
* Fixed address crash/corruption on second entry to address screen.
* Fixed crash on sample language bug.
* Fixed sqrt button not working in calculator.
* Fixed scrollbar in text reader not showing highlighted status.
* Fixed massive slowdown with some text files in browser.
* Fixed bug with mono mp3s and skipping.
* Added icon and description to plugin files in the browser.
* Added DSO executable type for standalone apps.
* Added raw stream API to plugins and executables.*
* Added more commands to help text in IRC.

*NOTE: Since the plugin architecture has been updated, please download the latest version of your favorite plugins to continue using them.

SGB mode is restricted to using palette #0 only for now, I'll add support for the tile attributes later.
For games which support both GBC and SGB, you can select which mode they run in.
There's also a weird GBC+SGB mode which can confuse some games, like Dragon Warrior Monsters. That game will update the SGB borders even when running in GBC mode, but will sometimes reassign the palette to bad colors.