If you want to play or test a NDS .nds or ds.gba game which requires FAT support in iDeaS or no$gba or something else, this is the tutorial for you. Usually, iDeaS is supposed to support FAT, but in most cases it doesn't, and in the cases that do work, that are extremely buggy. This is for those people who get FAT loading errors in homebrew such as Super Smash Bros Rumble etc. This method of enabling FAT support is only for iDeaS. For the other emulators, scroll down more. 1: Download iDeaS http://www.ideasemu.org/ 2: DLDI patch your homebrew ROM to work with R4DS and R4DS ONLY. 3: Keep your files in the same folder like structure of your flashcart's MicroSD, doesn't have to be the same, but similar 4: Keep your ROM file (you can keep iDeaS with it) and place it in a directory that is short and has no spaces etc. in it, such as C:\rom. 5: Start iDeaS, and then load the ROM. 6: That's all, this method is not good for ROMs 100MB or over. 2nd Method (no$gba, and others) 1: Download the updated DLDI RC Patcher, this has been updated with some more options http://psychowood.altervista.org/getDLDIrc.html 2: Make sure to select every flashcart you own as well as FCSR. 3: Right click your ROM file and patch it with FCSR. This should work. If you would prefer to do it the hard way, you can download the FCSR image and DLDI file from here http://gpf.dcemu.co.uk/ Scroll down and follow the instructions in the txt file. These methods work as they trick the emulator and ROM loading to think that it is being run on a storage device or media card. There's another method which enables FAT loading and partial writing specifically for no$gba (if the above one doesn't work) but I'll get to it soon.
The following will allow you to enable FAT reading and partial FAT writing with no$gba. Remember, this technique is designed to be used by people that actually develop for the Nintendo DS, Devkitpro/DevkitARM libraries are required to use this, as they contain the command line executable line to install the images. 1: Download the FCSR (Flashcart and Sram), look on the sidebar, and scroll down until you find the images for FCSR and the DLDI file. Download them. 2: Extract both of them from their archives. Copy or cut the fscr.dldi file and paste it into the fcsrimage folder. Take this folder to a directory with no spaces or much letters in it, such as C:\fcsrimage 3: You will now need to padbin or install the images onto the .nds file. padbin.exe comes with your DevkitARM. 4: Open the command prompt, type in: padbin.exe 512 homebrew.nds Rename "homebrew" with the name of your .nds homebrew file. Go to the fcsr subfolder and put all files you want to access from your homebrew, so if it came with other files like a data directory, or .bin files (for 3D) etc., put them in. If it didn't come with anything, just the ROM will do. Basically the fcsr folder is labelled as the root directory of the filesystem. You will get a .nds file once this is completed, being padbined. Now type in: build.bat image.img fcsr You will get a ds.gba file, which is meant to be run on Slot 2 flashcarts. build.bat basically builds code and compiles it into a working .nds or ds.gba (older library versions had sc.nds, for Supercard, when Supercard had really bad homebrew support). 5: Now combine the padbinned ds.gba and .nds files together by typing in: copy /b homebrew.nds + image.img final.nds Of course replacing the names if necessary. 6: Now you need to DLDI patch the final ds.gba file. Go to http://chishm.drunkencoders.com/DLDI, download the dlditool.exe file, and place it in your working folder. 7: Now for the final step, type in: dlditool.exe fcsr.dldi final.nds This will install the .dldi and assorted images to the homebrew file. Now test in no$gba. If you want experimental FAT writing support, download http://davr.org/ds2/fcs2.zip. Just replace the fcsr.dldi with the new .fcs2.dldi and repeat the steps. It will enable very basic FAT writing support, up to 0.5KB for SRAM.
