I was hoping to get one site a day back online but real life takes over, however our Nintendo DS Site which like most of our other sites was born even before the DS had a Homebrew scene is back online, theres hundreds and hundreds of Homebrew releases on their for those who like to relive Homebrew from the begining of a scene.

Check out Nintendo DS News here --> http://nintendo-ds.dcemu.co.uk/ ...

News via http://www.nintendomax.com/viewtopic.php?t=13548&f=19

New version available of the Lua interpreter for the Nintendo DS " Micro Lua DS "now in version 4.0.2.



4.0.2 Microlut ======================[[ ]]==================== ===
.................................................. ...............
|| ||
|| By the MicroLua forum, from the original project by Risike ||
|| CHANGELOG file by Reylak ||
|| ||
¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨ ¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨ ¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I-..... New features
II-.... Improvements
III-... Bugs fixes
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(((((((((((((((((((((((((((()))))))))))))))))))))) )))))))))))))))
I- New features |
----------------+
* Nothing for this time, the awesomeness of MicroLua is already
*__ quite great
°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°° °°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°° °°°°°°°°°°°°°°°
II- Improvements |
-----------------+
* Change the logo of the binaries. It is now really cute
°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°° °°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°° °°°°°°°°°°°°°°°
III- Bug fixes |
---------------+
* Fix getting a BSoD when pressing Start at startup.
* Fix some Image transformations not being permanent with Canvas.

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Sega's latest entry in the Yakuza franchise has proved a significant hit in Japan, with the PlayStation 3 game selling 298,717 units in its debut week.

Although it retains many of the same characters as the previous titles, the new game is a more action-orientated spin-off featuring a zombie attack on Tokyo. Despite the strong sales, the debut is still less than that of the more serious-minded Yakuza 3 (372,000 units) and Yakuza 4 (384,000 units).

Sales in the rest of the chart were as slow as previous weeks, with Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D on 3DS holding onto second place but selling only 15,551 units.

The second-highest new entry of the week was an anime-themed pachinko game at number six with just 6,808 first week sales.

Although its chart position is higher than that achieved in the UK individual format charts Red Faction: Armageddon at number nine sold only 5,436 units on PlayStation 3.

In terms of hardware sales there was little change from the previous week, with the gap between the PSP and 3DS remaining much smaller than previous months. Sony's portable was still the biggest-seller though at 26,681 units to 24,649.

The success of Yakuza did little to affect PlayStation 3 sales, with only a minor increase to 17,104.

Last Week This Week Title Format
New Entry 1 Yakuza Of The End PS3
1 2 Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D 3DS
3 3 Battle & Get! Pokemon Typing DS DS
4 4 Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker 2 Professional DS
2 5 One Piece Unlimited Cruise SP 3DS
New Entry 6 Gekiatsu!! Pachi Game Tamashi Vol. 1: CR Evangelion - Shinjitsu no Tsubasa PSP
13 7 Wii Party Wii
7 8 Akiba's Trip PSP
New Entry 9 Red Faction: Armageddon PS3
9 10 Patapon 3 PSP
Platform This Week Last Week
PSP 26,681 30,155
3DS 24,649 27,357
PlayStation 3 17,104 16,510
Wii 6,357 6,315
Nintendo DSi XL 5,283 5,452
Nintendo DSi 5,232 5,187
Xbox 360 2,370 2,499
PlayStation 2 1,291 1,228
Nintendo DS Lite 146 138
PSPgo 69 62

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...apanese-charts ...

Sega's mobster/zombie mash-up Yakuza: Of The End takes the top spot in this week's Japanese sales chart, and by some margin.

According to the latest Media Create numbers, as reported by Andriasang, the PlayStation 3 exclusive sold 298,717. That's leagues ahead of runner-up Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D, which managed 15,551 in its second week on shelves.

Elsewhere in the chart, Red Faction: Armageddon managed to creep in at number nine, selling 5436 copies.

Here's the full top 10:

Yakuza Of The End (Sega, PS3): 298,717 NEW!
Resident Evil The Mercenaries 3D (Capcom, 3DS): 15,551 (Life-to-date: 74,343)
Battle & Get! Pokemon Typing DS (Pokemon, DS): 11,421 (130,812)
Dragon Quest Monsters Joker 2 Professional (Square Enix, DS): 10,526 (530,022)
One Piece Unlimited Cruise Special (Namco Bandai, 3DS): 8,384 (105,625)
Gekiatsu!! Pachige Tamashii Portable Vol.1 Evangelion Shinjitsu no Tsubasa (Fields, PSP): 6,808 NEW!
Wii Party (Nintendo, Wii): 6,243 (1,911,195)
Akiba's Trip (Acquire, PSP): 5,523 (89,477)
Red Faction Armageddon (Spike, PS3): 5,436 NEW!
Patapon 3 (SCEJ, PSP): 5,306 (116,798)
Yet again, the PSP took the hardware crown, although sales were down from 30,155 last week to 26,681.

3DS came in second, though sales slipped from 27,357 to 24,649 following a couple of weeks of modest growth.

Nintendo will be hoping the release of Ocarina of Time 3D this week will push the struggling system back to the top of the pile.

The full hardware chart played out as follows:

PSP: 26,681 (Last week: 30,155)
3DS: 24,649 (27,357)
PS3: 17,104 (16,510)
Wii: 6,357 (6,315)
DSi XL: 5,283 (5,452)
DSi: 5,232 (5,187)
Xbox 360: 2,370 (2,499)
PS2: 1,291 (1,228)
DS Lite: 146 (138)
PSP go: 69 (62)

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...s-japan-charts ...

Do you remember that crazy Super Mario Bros. 3 fan remake we posted about late last year? Well, creator SKJmin has finished a sizeable update to his ambitious remake, one you'll be able to download on June 16. If you plan on doing so, we'd suggest making sure you actually own New Super Mario Bros. DS -- you know, for legal reasons.

The update adds enhanced graphics to each level, including new block sets and backgrounds, plus 84 bonus rooms, a new final castle and over 30 different cameos. For now, we must be content with 14 minutes of footage, which we've gone and tucked just past the break.

http://www.joystiq.com/2011/06/15/ne...-gets-updated/ ...

Amazon offers buy one, get one half-off on select games

f last week's video game industry festivities filled you with an unquenchable thirst to buy more video games, you should turn your unhealthy impulses towards Amazon. For a limited time, the retailer's offering buy one, get one-half off on a beefy list of 186 titles across various platforms.

Notable titles eligible for the offer include:
Killzone 3: Helghast Edition -- $59.99
Assassin's Creed Brotherhood -- $39.99
Heavy Rain -- $27.99
Fallout New Vegas -- $59.99
Medal of Honor -- $19.97
Demon's Souls -- $19.73
Metal Gear Solid 4 -- $19.16

http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.htm...96491&plpage=4 ...

US boxed video game sales in May 2011 totalled $743.1 million, a 14 per cent decline on the same period in 2010 and the lowest since October 2006.

That's according to data released by the NPD Group, which reported that software sales were down 19 per cent to $375.8 million and hardware down 5 per cent to $228.9 million. Accessories was also down 6 per cent to $114 million.

"Keeping in mind that these sales figures represent just the new physical portion of the market for video game hardware, software, and accessories and not the growing portion of the industry that is comprised of digital format content distribution, May 2011 was the lowest month of sales for the industry since October 2006," said the company. "A light slate of new releases is at the heart of this month's performance."

Sales of the PlayStation 3, PSP and Xbox 360 were all up over May 2010, with 360 seeing the highest increase.

NPD noted that "sales of the 3DS were light, but with next Sunday's release of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D, we will begin to see a slate of strong content come to market for the 3DS, which should help to significantly boost sales of hardware during the remainder of 2011."

"Combined sales of the PS3 and Xbox 360 (HD hardware) are up 28 per cent for the month and 21 per cent year to date. Although the declines in console hardware sales in 2011 are attributable to the Wii, the platform remains the best-selling of this generation at nearly 36 million installed in the US."

NPD suggested that at the current rate of growth and decline, the Wii will still maintain the lead in the console space, although the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 will have closed the gap. "Of course, new details on hardware introduction could certainly change the picture," added the company.

During May there were 42 new software SKUs released compared to 58 last year and 72 for May 2009.

"Keep in mind that purchases of content are increasingly occurring in digital format, and May saw a notable digital release in the second map pack for Call of Duty: Black Ops which was titled Escalation. Undoubtedly, this shifted some dollars that might have been spent on new physical content at retail," noted NPD.

The biggest release of the month was Team Bondi's L.A. Noire, followed by Brink, LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean, Portal 2 and Mortal Kombat.

The top ten best sellers for May follow:

01 L.A. Noire (360, PS3)
02 Brink (360, PS3, PC)
03 LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean (Wii, 360, DS, 3DS, PS3, PSP, PC)
04 Portal 2 (360, PS3, PC)
05 Mortal Kombat (PS3, 360)
06 Call of Duty: Black Ops (360, PS3, Wii, DS, PC)
07 Zumba Fitness: Join the Party (Wii, 360, PS3)
08 NBA 2K11 (360, PS3, Wii, PS2, PSP, PC)
09 Just Dance 2 (Wii)
10 LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars (Wii, DS, 360, PS3, 3DS, PSP, PC)

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...e-october-2006 ...

News via http://dsx86.patrickaalto.com/DSblog.html

For the past week I have been working on the new audio system for DS2x86. As I mentioned in the previous blog post, the code was mostly done by last Sunday, but the problem was that it sounded very bad and also seemed to cause the games to hang much more frequently than with the old audio code. The current status is that the new code is in use, and works at least as well (if not better) in the games that had audio also with the old code. The new code also has ADPCM audio supported, and it works fine in Warcraft, when the original code either failed to initialize or caused the game to crash very often.

I have been using four different games to test the new audio code, as each of these games use somewhat different SoundBlaster audio features:

Supaplex uses the plain simple DMA transfers, playing one digitized sample at a time. The samples have varying sample rates.
Doom uses auto-initialize DMA method, with a 1024-sample buffer but with an IRQ request after every 128 samples. The playing rate is 11kHz.
Warcraft uses auto-initialize DMA with 2048-sample buffer and IRQ request every 1024 samples, with 11kHz sample rate.
Duke Nukem 2 uses various ADPCM sample formats with simple DMA transfers, and with varying sample rates.

I am using 22050Hz audio playing rate in DS2x86. In the original audio code I had initialized the DSTwo audio transfers to 3*128 samples per transfer (with the ds2io_initb() call), as that was the closest I could get to be able to send a new audio buffer within my 60Hz main emulation timer handler. That number was derived from the fact that I would need to send 367.5 (= 22050/60) new samples during each 60Hz timer interval, and the need of the transfer size to be divisible by 128. Using the 60Hz timer for this also meant that I could not emulate an SB IRQ faster than at 60Hz (which again corresponds to 367.5 samples at 22050Hz). For example Doom wanted to get an SB IRQ after every 128 samples have been played. As Doom played the audio at 11kHz (which is very close to half the 22050Hz playing rate I use), I should have generated an SB IRQ after every 256 output samples, or at 85Hz (= 11000/128). To make the audio in Doom work, I had coded a special hack into my audio code where I slowed down the sample rate if a game wants SB IRQs faster than my code could provide them. Obviously this was not a proper solution, so in my new audio code I wanted to handle this situation better.

The basic idea of my new audio code is that the emulation interrupt runs at 4*60Hz (240Hz) and calls the screen and keyboard handling only during every fouth interrupt. The audio emulation is handled at 240Hz, which should be fast enough for any SB IRQ frequency a game would need. By last Sunday I had implemented this new audio code, using 128 samples per transfer in ds2io_initb(), with a separate 1024-sample ring buffer that is filled in the 240Hz interrupt. Since 22050/240 = 91.875, I had designed the ring buffer filling algorithm so that it tried to fill the buffer with approximately 96 samples in each 240Hz interrupt, with the actual amount adjusted by the number of DSTwo IO/ layer audio buffers in use. Since the DSTwo I/O layer has 4 audio buffers, I calculated the needed new samples as 128-ds2_checkAudiobuff()*32. And in every interrupt where the ring buffer had >=128 samples, I sent the buffer to the DSTwo I/O layer.

I thought this code was much better than the original one, however there were several problems that took me pretty much the whole of last week to fix:

Doom had a weird looping/stuttering problem, where parts of the audio kept repeating.
The audio had a horrible constant warble, regardless of what audio was playing.
All games (playing audio) kept hanging within a minute or two of playing them.

I first debugged the behaviour in Doom, as that was one of the main problematic games I tried to fix with the new code. At last I found that the problem was in how the timer and SB IRQs interract in the Doom code. For some peculiar reason, Doom does not fill the 1024-sample DMA buffer during the SB IRQ, but instead in the timer IRQ. And with my new 240Hz maximum SB IRQ frequency, when the DSTwo audio buffers were empty, Doom could get two SB IRQs with no timer IRQ in between, and thus it skipped one 128-sample block in the DMA buffer, which in turn caused that block to play some old data that was in the buffer. I fixed this problem by fine-tuning the amount by which I fill the ring buffer, and never continuing to fill it after it was time to send the SB IRQ to the emulated game.

The second problem with the warbling sound seemed to be simply caused by the 128-sample transfer size. The DSTwo I/O layer does not seem to work very well with anything less than 512-sample transfer sizes. I tested all sizes between 128 and 512, and the 512-sample transfer size sounds best by a wide margin. It would be better to use smaller transfer sizes, as the larger the transfer size the bigger ...

News via http://www.nintendomax.com/viewtopic...e01e1ee39e3a54

Popolon offers version 0.90 of " msxDS "excellent emulator MSX/MSX2/MSX2 + for the Nintendo DS.

The enhancements include:

Display engine optimization. (Thanks for the suggestion pixador for sprites)
Improved emulation MSX1 VDP registers.
Some optimizations in emulation of Z80 and sound functions.
Added emulation of the Z80 R register.
Update libnds (v1.5.0). MsxDS is now compatible with mode CycloDS iEvo CIO.
New memory management ITCM to put the most useful routines depending on the mode selected the MSX.
Correction color values ​​of Screen mode 8.
Fixed problem with color 0.
Redefinition of L and R triggers to Angma Jida - Devil Zone (Uttum Soft). (ROM version)
Fixed a bug in displaying error messages.
Update file Carts.crc.
Fixed a problem detecting the CSC for games in ROM.

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