Happy birthday, melonDS!
I'm one day late, oops! Regardless, counting from the first real commit, melonDS is 5 years old. We don't realize, but that's quite a bunch of time. To think, back then, it was just that little project I started for the sake of it. And now, the 'DS emulator, sorta' is turning into something completely serious.

Speaking of, I would have loved to provide a birthday release, but the tight timings and usual factors (real-life shito, ADHD, ...) didn't let this happen for this time. However, depending on how development and testing goes... we will keep you informed, as usual :)

As I said in the last post, we're in the process of making melonDS less obtuse for the average emu user, and while we're at it, there are some more popular-request features we may throw in for the next release. One would be configurable paths for save files and such -- I have some ideas for a clean system for these. I also want to add an interface for modifying user settings, among other fun things.

1.0 may not come in the near future, though. One of the requirements for it is getting local multiplayer stable. melonDS is largely known as 'the wifi emulator', so it's lame that local multiplayer is still this finicky. I have already explained why it's hard to emulate, so instead of going in detail over that, I will simply state that Generic is working on getting it stable. He also working on addressing the shortcomings of our OpenGL renderer, like the lack of proper upscaling in dual-screen 3D scenarios.

I'm also going to give you an occasion to know more about melonDS and the little team behind it!

The melonDS repo was actually created in May 2016. Why did it take until November to see any real work on it? One of the reasons was that I moved out of my parents' home in June that same year. It's been a rocky adventure to say the least, but I don't regret any of it. melonDS, having existed within this timeframe, is also part of this whole adventure of self-discovery for me.

Of course, I also have to thank the rest of the team, and everyone else who got involved, for sticking around and helping make melonDS what it is today. I mean, I have quite a bunch of old projects, and none of them have lasted as long as melonDS has. These projects all fell to my ADHD, and melonDS would likely have met a similar fate without the team and without the emulation community in general. So, thank you all!

Self-discovery can surprise you, in fun or less fun ways. When I moved out, I first thought I was going to lead a normal life, graduate, get girls, all that. Well, so much for that. I would never have predicted what has happened to me, but again, zero regret.

So yeah, I come with all sorts of quirks, fun and less fun. Now, as I'm taking care of the last bits of my transition, there isn't much to say about it anymore, and I have already mentioned ADHD a billion times, so I'm going to mention something more fun:

[melonDS but written in pretty colors]

Heh.

There is probably a lot more to say, and from the other team members too. Thus, I'm opening 'ask us anything' threads:

On our board
On reddit

In either of these threads, you can ask questions of your interest to any (or all) of the melonDS team members, be it about melonDS itself, the development process, our relationship to the project, or anything about ourselves.

You will need an account on either of these two sites, but registering an account on our board is quick and easy.

Enjoy!
lucaspltn says:
Nov 4th 2021
I consider myself an average emu user, and I personally don't find melonDS to be that obtuse. I don't find the interface to be that rough, and even if one thinks so, it's still very intuitive: Just get all the ROMS, put them in paths, and to run a game you can just do File > Open ROM and *bam*! Game.

I'd say it's just as intuitive as Dolphin, just with fewer enhancements. And I like how it opens to the two screens; it's quick and easy to enter an experience that feels closer to reality, and that's actually one thing that makes melonDS *better* than Dolphin, in my opinion!
Arisotura says:
Nov 4th 2021
one of the things I was referring to is the requirement for original BIOS and firmware, though we are overcoming that
Peduls says:
Nov 4th 2021
Hooray for OpenGL improvements! Happy Birthday, melonDS!
keisui says:
Nov 5th 2021
happy birthday melonds !🎉
DSFan says:
Nov 6th 2021
So melonds birthday is 3rd Nov? Will be marking that on my calendar now lol. I love this emu, it helped me regain a little of my childhood, you are doing Gods work
Minessota Klei says:
Nov 6th 2021
Hi MelonDS team,

I want to thank everyone who contributed to this wonderful project! I am so happy and grateful to be able to play my favorite Nintendo DS games on my computer!!!
Nixel says:
Nov 7th 2021
Getting dual-screen 3D upscaling to work will be a very welcome improvement! It's not something that too many games use intensively, but just by stitching together some screenshots I can already tell it will make those games play much more nicely!
poudink says:
Nov 7th 2021
You don't have to stitch screenshots, I think DeSmuME already has it.
kirimaru says:
Nov 8th 2021
I dont think MelonDS is hard to use or obtuse, is pretty well made, the only thing that lacks is to launch in fullscreen from command line, very good job
rezirex says:
Nov 8th 2021
staplebutter is a dictator and killed rvlution
poudink says:
Nov 8th 2021
Certainly a contributing factor, but the site was doomed either way. Also, calling a mod a dictator doesn't work. No forum uses democracy, especially at rvlution's scale.
Arisotura says:
Nov 8th 2021
it's amazing, in a way, that 5 years after the shitshow, someone would make that sort of post

by the way: I talked with RoadrunnerWMC a while back and RVLution could be brought back at any time. the only thing holding it back is that two persons don't want to show up in an archive of it.
AsPika says:
Nov 10th 2021
Happy birthday MeloNDS! 🎂🥳️🎉🍉🎮
Guest says:
Nov 14th 2021
Calling someone a dictator, at the basic level, is neither positive nor negative.
Every kind of governance has things going for it, both for and against.

What is important, is what kind and how it is used, in order to actually help people (not just tell them what you want then to think).
K says:
Jul 17th 2022
@Guest Bruh what
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