melonDualDS 0.7.0 RC5 is now available
Hi everyone!
melonDualDS 0.7.0 RC5 is now available.
This release is focused mainly on RetroAchievements stability, Hardcore achievement reliability, leaderboards, and new offline achievement provider options.
This is also an important release because it will be the last release using the melonDualDS name.
The next release will become WatermelonDS, with a new interface, a new icon, and a new experimental Vulkan feature called FastPath.
Download
The release is available here: https://github.com/SapphireRhodonite/melonDS-android/releases/tag/0.7.0.rc5
What is new in RC5
This release includes three major changes:
Complete RetroAchievements Hardcore stability
RAOfflineProxy integration
Better Hardcore disconnect recovery UI
This update is not focused on Vulkan fixes, UI changes, or general emulator improvements.
The main goal of RC5 is to make RetroAchievements more stable, more reliable, and more flexible before moving into the next phase of the project.
RetroAchievements Hardcore stability
This release brings major stability improvements for:
RetroAchievements login and session behavior
Achievement unlocks
Hardcore achievement tracking
Leaderboards
RetroAchievements UI state
Pending achievement synchronization
This makes melonDualDS 0.7.0 RC5 the only melonDualDS release currently approved by the RetroAchievements team for earning achievements in Hardcore Mode.
If you want to earn Hardcore achievements with melonDualDS, this is the recommended version to use.
RAOfflineProxy integration
melonDualDS now supports RAOfflineProxy as an offline achievements provider.
RAOfflineProxy can be used to earn casual RetroAchievements while offline and sync them later when you are back online.
RAOfflineProxy website:
Please note:
Hardcore Mode is disabled while using RAOfflineProxy.
This is expected behavior. RAOfflineProxy is intended for offline casual achievement use.
How to switch to RAOfflineProxy
Open Settings.
Open RetroAchievements.
Select Offline achievements provider.
Choose RAOfflineProxy.
Start RAOfflineProxy before launching a game.
Restart the current game session if it was already running.
Hardcore is disabled while using RAOfflineProxy.
How to switch back to melonDualDS Offline
Open Settings.
Open RetroAchievements.
Select Offline achievements provider.
Choose Built into melonDualDS.
Restart the current game session.
Existing melonDualDS offline progress and pending submissions are preserved when switching providers.
Better Hardcore disconnect recovery
This release also improves the experience when playing in Hardcore Mode and your device temporarily loses connection.
If you start an online Hardcore session and then disconnect, the UI now shows exactly how much progress has not been synchronized yet.
You can also synchronize directly from that UI.
This helps avoid losing Hardcore achievements if your connection drops for a short time.
This should be especially useful for handheld devices, unstable Wi-Fi, mobile hotspots, or any setup where the connection can disconnect briefly during gameplay.
Next release will be WatermelonDS
This is the final release using the current melonDualDS name.
The next release will move to the new identity:
WatermelonDS
The next release will include:
A new name
A new interface
A new icon
A new experimental Vulkan path called FastPath
FastPath is designed to significantly improve performance at high internal resolutions, such as 4x, 6x, or even 8x depending on the device and game.
It may also help devices with slightly weaker chipsets, or users who want to get more performance and battery efficiency.
However, FastPath will be experimental.
If you want the most stable and accurate Nintendo DS experience, closer to real DS behavior, I recommend keeping FastPath disabled when it becomes available.
After WatermelonDS relase I want to focus on:
I will focus on resolving the currently open issues in the repository.
The goal is to continue improving the overall Nintendo DS experience, polish the new interface, and make the emulator more reliable across different Android devices.
Thank you
Thank you to everyone testing melonDualDS, reporting issues, and helping improve RetroAchievements support.
RC5 is an important stability release before the project moves into its next stage as WatermelonDS.
I am very excited about what is coming next.
- Sapphire 💙
Comments (12)
I've been testing a few games with Vulkan and for some reason Retro Game Challenge 1 really seems to struggle with it, despite running fine on OpenGL and Software rendering. I'm playing on an AYN Thor, and with x1 resolution (with and without threaded rendering) it has some graphical glitches and a lot of slowdown, and it gets dramatically worse as you increase the resolution. It only seems to happen in the story mode when you're in the room picking games, which is accessible right away on a fresh save, in Freeplay and the main menu everything runs fine even at x4.
Would you be able to add right stick as touch screen support for games that use the touch screen as a camera
Would it be possible to get a time setting in the Internal Firmware Settings menu at some point? Having the option to toggle between automatically setting the time based on the system time or using a custom time would be handy for things like Animal Crossing and a few other games, since you can't change the system time and still connect to RetroAchievements, but they do allow changing of the time within an emulator.
ummm let me ask with RA admin, if they are fine with that, if its fine I will add it if the said nope, I will add it but only for casual mode
I've been noticing a bug where when you load a patched game and it shows how many RetroAchievements you have, it only counts the total from that patch set, but it's out of a total for all the sets you can earn from. For example, I have the Retro Game Challenge 2 Daily Challenge patch that I've been playing, and I have 17/66 unlocked for that subset, and I have 125/189 for the main set, but whenever I load the game it shows 17/255. So it shows the total possible for both sets I can unlock from, but not the total earned from both sets.
Thanks I will fix that!
think found bug Compute mode don't see have per game res target like outher mode
before ask why can't post github fact github account kinda always invisible and don't time deal with it sorry.
Thanks so much for this update! By any chance, are you planning to add support for a frame generator (LSFG) to the new Vulkan renderer, similar to what the Drastic Switch build did?
these updates are always so cool to see. Thank you so much for your commitment to the project!
Wow, thank you for all the updates! This emulator is becoming quite amazing Question, what is the benefit of using the proxy over just launching the game online once to build out the cheevo db and then playing offline and syncing when online again later?
The proxy is more for casual mode; in hardcore, it doesn't work. However, the benefit is that you can start a session completely offline. So, if you are on a plane and want to play with achievements on casual, you can do it with the proxy! (Also, with the current melonDualDS implementation, RAOfflineProxy is to have everything in a single app!)