The ROM Report Part V - Running Old Arcade Games on the Nintendo DS with R4DS and MarcaDS (MAME)
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In this Fifth edition of The Rom Report, we'll look at running something special on the Nintendo DS, with an exceptionally good looking piece of homebrew software and a bunch of ROMs as well.
According to Wikipedia, MAME, which stands for Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator, is an emulator application designed to recreate the hardware of arcade game systems in software. In plain English it would mean that old arcade games can be played on MAME emulator running on a PC!
All you need to do is to supply the ROM image of the arcade game, by which downloading them is a legal gray area, yadda, yadda, yadda.
Legalities aside, the same thing (running arcade games using a MAME emulator) can be done with the Nintendo DS! The piece of software that I'm about to introduce may just support a paltry sum of 75 games, but it really is a piece of work.
For starters, MarcaDS looks like a piece of commercial software, with the nice intro screen and all. It even apparently supports the use of the Rumble Pak, but the best part is yet to come. It uses BOTH DS screens to display a game! It's something like playing games from this year's Konami Classics Series: Arcade Hits for the Nintendo DS.
Running MarcaDS is pretty easy. Just copy the MarcaDS.nds file to the root directory of your Flash Cart's Trans Flash memory card (Most of the time, it's a MicroSD card). If your Flash Cart's firmware doesn't support auto DLDI patching, it would be a good thing to apply the DLDI patch to the MarcaDS.nds file before attempting to run it.
I've always recommended creating a folder (let's call it MAME) in the Trans Flash memory card, to store games of a specific type. It's a much better way of organizing than just dumping everything in the root directory. Arcade ROMS are stored as ZIP files and you'll have to make sure that the zip file names match the ones listed in the compatibility list.
Here's the entire compatibility list taken from the MarcaDS site. The rest of the site is in French, but you can visit it here.
In this Fifth edition of The Rom Report, we'll look at running something special on the Nintendo DS, with an exceptionally good looking piece of homebrew software and a bunch of ROMs as well.
According to Wikipedia, MAME, which stands for Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator, is an emulator application designed to recreate the hardware of arcade game systems in software. In plain English it would mean that old arcade games can be played on MAME emulator running on a PC!
All you need to do is to supply the ROM image of the arcade game, by which downloading them is a legal gray area, yadda, yadda, yadda.
Legalities aside, the same thing (running arcade games using a MAME emulator) can be done with the Nintendo DS! The piece of software that I'm about to introduce may just support a paltry sum of 75 games, but it really is a piece of work.
For starters, MarcaDS looks like a piece of commercial software, with the nice intro screen and all. It even apparently supports the use of the Rumble Pak, but the best part is yet to come. It uses BOTH DS screens to display a game! It's something like playing games from this year's Konami Classics Series: Arcade Hits for the Nintendo DS.
Running MarcaDS is pretty easy. Just copy the MarcaDS.nds file to the root directory of your Flash Cart's Trans Flash memory card (Most of the time, it's a MicroSD card). If your Flash Cart's firmware doesn't support auto DLDI patching, it would be a good thing to apply the DLDI patch to the MarcaDS.nds file before attempting to run it.
I've always recommended creating a folder (let's call it MAME) in the Trans Flash memory card, to store games of a specific type. It's a much better way of organizing than just dumping everything in the root directory. Arcade ROMS are stored as ZIP files and you'll have to make sure that the zip file names match the ones listed in the compatibility list.
Here's the entire compatibility list taken from the MarcaDS site. The rest of the site is in French, but you can visit it here.
+----------------------------------+-------+--------------+-------------------------------+
| | | ZipFile | |
| Game Name | Sound | Name | Problems |
+----------------------------------+-------+--------------+-------------------------------+
| 1942 (Set 1) | Yes | 1942.zip | |
| Amidars | No | amidars.zip | |
| Anteater | No | anteater.zip | |
| Arkanoid | Yes | arkatayt.zip | |
| Bagman | Yes | bagman.zip | Partial sound : no voice |
| Bank Panic | Yes | bankp.zip | |
| Battle of Atlantis (set 1) | No | atlantis.zip | |
| Bomb Jack (set 1) | Yes | bombjack.zip | |
| Botanic | Yes | botanic.zip | |
| Calipso | No calipso.zip | |
| Caterpillar Pacman Hack | Yes | ctrpllrp.zip | |
| Cosmic Avenger | Yes | cavenger.zip | |
| Crush Roller (bootleg?) | Yes | crush.zip | |
| Dig Dug (rev 1) | Yes | digdugb.zip | |
| Donkey Kong (US set 1) | No | dkong.zip | |
| Donkey Kong 3 (US) | No | dkong3.zip | |
| Donkey Kong Junior (US) | No | dkongjr.zip | |
| Eyes (Digitrex Techstar) | Yes | eyes.zip | |
| Frogger | Yes | frogger.zip | |
| Galaga (Namco rev. B) | Yes | galaga.zip | No score print |
| Galaxian (Namco set 1) | No | galaxian.zip | No background |
| Galaxian Part 4 | No | galap4.zip | No background |
| Galaxian Part X | No | galapx.zip | No background |
| Galaxy Wars (Universal set 1) | No | galxwars.zip | |
| Green Beret | Yes | gberet.zip | |
| Hangly-Man (set 1) | Yes | hangly.zip | |
| Hexa | Yes | hexa.zip | |
| Invader's Revenge | No | invrvnge.zip | |
| Invader's Revenge (Dutchford) | No | invrvnga.zip | |
| Jr Pacman | Yes | jrpacman.zip | |
| Joyman | Yes | joyman.zip | |
| Jump Shot | Yes | jumpshot.zip | |
| Lady Bug | Yes | ladybug.zip | |
| Le Bagnard (set 1) | Yes | bagnard.zip | Partial sound : no voice |
| Lizard Wizard | Yes | lizwiz.zip | |
| Lost Tomb (easy) | No | losttomb.zip | |
| Lunar Rescue | No | lrescue.zip | |
| Masao (bootleg) | No | masao.zip | |
| Mr. Do! | Yes | mrdo.zip | |
| Mr. Do! (bugfixed) | Yes | mrdofix.zip | |
| Mr Goemon | Yes | mrgoemon.zip | |
| Mr. TNT | Yes | mrtnt.zip | |
| Ms. Pac-Man (bootleg) | Yes | mspacmab.zip | |
| Pac-Man (Midway) | Yes | pacman.zip | |
| Pac-Man (Midway, harder) | Yes | pacmod.zip | |
| Pac-Man Plus | Yes | pacplus.zip | |
| Pengo (set 2 not encrypted) | Yes | pengo2u.zip | |
| Penguin Kun Wars | Yes | pkunwar.zip | Some tiles are missing ? |
| Phoenix (Amstar) | No | phoenix.zip | |
| Pickin | Yes | pickin.zip | |
| Pinball Action (set 1) | No | pbaction.zip | |
| Ping Pong | Yes | pingpong.zip | |
| Piranah (hack) | Yes | piranhah.zip | |
| Ponpoko | Yes | ponpoko.zip | |
| Pooyan | Yes | pooyan.zip | |
| PuckMan (Japan set 1) | Yes | puckman.zip | |
| Rush Attack | Yes | rushatck.zip | |
| Scramble | No | scramble.zip | No background |
| Snap Jack | No | snapjack.zip | |
| Solomon's Key | Yes | solomon.zip | |
| Space Invaders | No | invaders.zip | |
| Space Invaders (Logitec) | No | invaderl.zip | |
| Space Invaders (Model Racing) | No | invadrmr.zip | |
| Space Invaders II | No | invad2ct.zip | |
| Space Invaders Deluxe | No | invaddlx.zip | |
| Space Invaders Part II | No | invadpt2.zip | |
| Space Invaders Part Four | No | invader4.zip | |
| Space Invaders Galactica | No | galap1.zip | |
| Super Bagman | Yes | sbagman.zip | Partial sound : no voice |
| Super Cobra | No | scobra.zip | |
| Super Galaxians | No | superg.zip | |
| Time Pilot | Yes | timeplt.zip | Not playable |
| Video Hustler | Yes | hustler.zip | |
| Vulgus (Set 1) | No | vulgus.zip | |
| Zig Zag (Galaxian hardware set 1)| Yes | zigzag.zip | |
+----------------------------------+-------+--------------+-------------------------------+
In order to download MarcaDS, scroll right down to the bottom of the page, with the latest version being the first on the list of files. Click here for a direct download, but it's best to check back with the previous link provided, for latest updates.
