DraStic

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DraStic
DraStic new.png
Developer(s) Exophase
Latest version r2.5.1.2a
Active Yes
Platform(s) Android, Linux (on Raspberry Pi), Pandora
Emulates Nintendo DS
Website DraStic-DS.com

DraStic is a closed-source commercial Nintendo DS emulator for Android, Linux (on Raspberry Pi) and Pandora.

Downloads

Overview

DraStic is currently available for Android, Linux (on Raspberry Pi) and Pandora.

Contrary to what some may assume, the ARM instruction set of the DS processors are of little benefit to the ones used by most Android devices. According to Exophase, running DS code straight on Android would lead to numerous issues. He also noted that the approach used in DraStic isn't any much different to other emulators, apart from implementing and optimizing it with speed and low-end devices in mind.[1]

Just like with No$GBA, there are likely to be bugs to come with the speed. Please expand if you see anything broken. Posting bug reports to the author could also help later on.

  • If both screens are used in sync, like with Hotel Dusks's scenes, Strawberry Shortcake: The Four Seasons Cake or Etrian Odyssey's intro, the screens may be flipped and flicker. This does not flip the touch controls though.
    • To fix, in most cases at least, disable multithreaded 3D.
  • Various pokémon games' 3D may have black holes. And the games themselves may crash at various points.
    • Supposedly improved in 2.1.
  • Some games, namely Holly Hobbie and American Girl titles, run with rendering issues like flickering geometry or sprites. This was largely fixed in r2.3.0.0 and up, however.

There's also been plans to make DraStic open-source, but not until it adds support for 64-bit[2] since Android is requiring all apps to support 64-bit by August 2019. More will be mentioned by spring of 2019 in terms of progress, but if things aren't going well, Exophase may "consider open sourcing so it can be tasked to others".

Devices

Nvidia TEGRA 2-based devices (including the Xoom and some versions of the Galaxy S2) and Intel x86-based devices will not work properly with this emulator. You may be able to run DraStic on a Zenfone, for one, but don't expect any miracles due to them being on an Atom. You will need a reasonably powerful (hopefully multi-core) ARM device for games to work full speed. Tested devices:

  • Nexus 4: Full speed in tested games: Mario Kart, Super Scribblenauts, and Advance Wars: Dual Strike. (Scribblenauts is too difficult to play without a gamepad, though)
  • HTC Desire: Significant lag in most (all?) games
  • Transformer Infinity: Some slowdown in Luigi's mansion level of Mario Kart DS. Generally full speed though.
  • Lenovo A369i, Blu Studio 5.0 II and most other MT6572 devices: Most games run well with some frameskip, albeit with stuttering audio in some titles.
  • Allwinner A31s: Some games run at full speed even on high-resolution 3D mode with the beta update. Otherwise, average performance is to be expected.

References