The biggest update since 0.5.0, for the RG DS and RG DS Plus, delivered over Wi-Fi only. It brings together everything from 0.5.1 and 0.5.2, which went to the beta testers first: BananaOS's own player for seven systems, three new emulator cores, a Pokémon companion for the DS games, Russian, button remapping and a reorganised Settings.
There is no new SD card image. A fresh install is 0.5.0 from the 0.5.0 release, followed by this update.
⏻ Shut down and Restart have moved
Settings › System no longer has Shut down or Restart. To turn the handheld off:
- press START on the home screen to open Settings, then Y to open Power: Sleep, Restart and Shut down (press A twice);
- or hold the power button for 2 seconds, anywhere. A running game saves first.
A short press of the power button still sleeps, as before.
🍌 BananaFront, BananaOS's own player
Game Boy, Game Boy Color, GBA, Mega Drive, NES, SNES and PICO-8 games now start in BananaFront instead of RetroArch. It does up to half the CPU work for the same core (Game Boy Color −50%, GBA −40%, Mega Drive −33% on an RG DS), so the handheld runs cooler and the battery lasts longer, and a game starts in about 20 ms.
- Saves and save states carry over both ways, and the hotkeys are the same.
- Pixels are sharp with no shader, and fast-forward runs at full speed with a shader on.
.7zgames work for these systems, and zips packed with any method.- RetroArch is one setting away (Settings › Other systems › Frontend), and still runs PlayStation, N64 and RetroAchievements Hardcore.
🕹️ New emulator cores
- BananaNES (a FCEUmm fork) is the NES core now, about twice as fast.
- BananaGBA (an mGBA fork) and BananaSNES (a Snes9x fork) are in Settings, next to the cores you know.
All three are open source: BananaFront, BananaGBA, BananaSNES, BananaNES.
🔴 DS Pokémon companion (alpha)
A companion for all nine main-series DS Pokémon games: Diamond, Pearl, Platinum, HeartGold, SoulSilver, Black, White, Black 2 and White 2. A small icon in the top-right corner of the touch screen opens it; the game keeps running and keeps its buttons, and a red badge says when there is something to see.
- Battle: your Pokémon against the foe, each move's effectiveness and expected damage, and in wild battles the catch chance per ball, plus the wild Pokémon's nature, IVs and Hidden Power.
- Party, Team, Here, Guide, Dex and Log: stats, IVs and EVs, a team score with what to catch next, the area's wild Pokémon with their odds, the next gym and how to prepare, a full Dex with the game's own animated sprites, and a journey log.
- Challenge mode tracks a Nuzlocke-style run.
- It reads the game's own data, so nothing from the games is shipped, and it works with zipped games and any revision of the games.
It is off by default: Settings › Nintendo DS › BananaDS › NDS Pokémon companion (alpha). It works in BananaDS only, not in SuperDrastic. If the icon doesn't show, check the game isn't set to SuperDrastic in its own options (X on it in the library).
🇷🇺 Русский
The menu in Russian, translated by Vladislav (LVD) and Ruslan (Nestrahoff), with Cyrillic support. Thank you both!
🎮 Buttons pages
- Settings › Nintendo DS › Buttons and Settings › Other systems › Buttons: choose what L2, R2, L3 and R3 do.
- New DS defaults in both emulators: L2 swaps the screens, R2 fast-forwards, L3 blows on the microphone, F + R saves a state and F + L loads it. L3 no longer opens the menu (F and HOME do).
- Swap A/B and X/Y, and the left stick as the d-pad (all systems but N64; it also moves in PlayStation games now).
If you remapped L2, R2, L3 or R3 in DraStic's own menu, those four are now set from BananaOS's Buttons page instead.
⚙️ A tidier Settings
Each emulator has its own page, and the groups have subpages: System › Updates, System › Box art, Display & sound › Menu look, Network › Bluetooth and Network › File sharing. The rows you use most come first. Updates now live in Settings › System › Updates.
🐉 BananaDS
- Faster and cooler at 3x and 4x.
- A per-game Timing: "Fast, DSi CPU" (X on a game › Timing) lets games that slow down on a real DS run at full speed, for example Pokémon HeartGold: Origin at 60 fps. It also loads the game card 8x faster.
- SuperDrastic: a freeze at game start is fixed, and a quit-save that fails keeps the previous resume state.
📁 Files and sharing
- Files on the home screen: copy, move, rename and delete on both cards, and get games from a NAS or a computer over SMB, SFTP or FTP. Zip, 7z and RAR archives are unpacked on the handheld.
- Bshare (in the App Store): send and receive files with phones and computers over LocalSend.
- Home server: games can go to the second SD card (RG DS Plus), RomM's covers download, the RomM pairing link works, and each sync writes a report on the card.
🔧 Fixes
- Bluetooth speakers no longer wake the handheld silently after a sleep (#148).
- Cover frames no longer jump while a cover loads.
- Power and volume keys work before the boot animation ends (#87), and a shutdown never turns into a sleep (#46).
- A bad line in a settings file no longer crashes the menu; cartridge art and icons fixed; the box art on a game list's top screen has no border.
- Developer options (press A seven times on System › About): a flight recorder that logs what the handheld did, for bug reports.
Translations
- Simplified Chinese (简体中文) by Majirefy.
- Russian (Русский) by Vladislav (LVD) and Ruslan (Nestrahoff).
Lines added since their translations (the DS companion, the reorganised Settings) still show in English or as machine drafts until the next round.
Contributors
Thank you to everyone who sent pull requests for this release:
- tjsmith00: the Buttons pages (#151), the Settings reorganisation and the GBA Pokémon companion improvements (#124).
- Misaka0x2730: Files, with network downloads and archives (#115, #133).
- swouapiy: Bshare / LocalSend (#127), card-file hardening and sleep tests (#73), and Developer options with the flight recorder (#94, ported).
- BarakRL: the RomM pairing link, games to the second SD card, RomM covers and sync reports (#149, #150), and cover frames that no longer jump (#139).
- marlupatrocinio: the PlayStation analog stick (#144, reworked).
- jesussaves-ai: the OG RG DS fixes (#140, in part) and the BananaLinux Flasher.
The DS companion's idea credit goes to PokeDaisy by Lidor Itzhari.
Update
- On 0.5.0 or 0.5.0.1: Settings › System › Update › Check for updates, then Download and Install.
- From 0.5.2.2 on: Settings › System › Updates.
It installs to the card's other system slot; the version you had stays one restart away (Settings › System › Updates › Previous version). Your games, saves and settings stay as they are.
Known issues
- The DS companion is an alpha: BananaDS only; Black 2 / White 2's season isn't read from the game yet (pick it on the Here page); games whose intro needs a touch were not all tested with the companion on.
- Russian: the home screen's START chip and Settings' power-button chip are a little too long.
- The known issues from 0.5.0 still apply: README › Status.
Tested on the RG DS and RG DS Plus. 0.5.1 and 0.5.2 went to the closed beta first; the DS companion was checked game by game on both handhelds.