melonDS for the Switch gets JIT support allowing most 2D games and some 3D to run without overclocking & Gears Of Kombat homebrew game (UDK Ultimate) for PS3, XBOX 360 and PC is out

While the Nintendo DS may seem like a pretty old console, emulating it with good performance isn’t too easy and one had to overclock their Nintendo Switch in order to get playable performance in DS games on Horizon OS but now, that’s changed! In this article, we’ll be looking at the release of a build of melonDS with JIT support for the Switch and Gears Of Kombat for the PS3, XBOX 360 and PC.

Nintendo Switch: melonDS build with working JIT support released

Nintendo DS emulation on hacked Switch consoles isn’t anything new and it’s been around for over a year first with DeSmuME-NX and then melonDS. Up till today, melonDS could run some less demanding titles at fullspeed provided you overclocked your Switch to 1.5/1.7GHz but doing this reduced battery life and generated extra heat which would undoubtedly shorten the battery’s lifespan. As a result, the only realistic way to emulate DS games on the Switch was through DraStic on Android but now, that’s changed thanks to catlover007’s work!

Thanks to the JIT, melonDS can run many games well on the Switch! ( Image Source)

Catlover007 has been working on writing a DS JIT for the Switch for quite a while and now, he’s released the first public build of melonDS with an ARM64 JIT and NEON GPU optimisations. According to the release post, his build of melonDS allows you to run most 2D games at good speeds and even some 3D titles like Pokemon HG without overclocking. While this build provides better performance than other melonDS for Switch releases, it doesn’t have the regular UI so controlling it might be a tad more annoying but it’s certainly doable.

Shrimptacular on Reddit has tested numerous DS games on this build and he’s confirmed that the following titles work properly:

• Plants vs Zombies
• Tetris DS
• Yoshi’s Island
• Castlevania Ecclesia
• Castlevania Portrait
• Mario Kart DS
• Metal Slug 7
• New Super Mario Bros
• Many other titles which can be seen by viewing this Reddit comment

To grab a build of melonDS with JIT, follow this link and enjoy playing DS games on your Switch without killing its battery life!

PS3 & XBOX 360 Release: Nidal Nijm releases Gears Of Kombat game to showcase UDK Ultimate’s capabilities

Gears Of Kombat is a fun little tech demo demonstrating what could be done with UDK Ultimate!

A while ago, we published an article on UDK Ultimate which is a modified version of the Unreal Engine 3 SDK with support for creating PS3 and XBOX 360 binaries. While it has a decent deal of potential and could be used to create some great games, no games were ever created with it and this is probably due to the complexity it takes to write a UE3 game and the timing of when it was released. However, its creator Nidal Nijm has decided to change that by releasing Gears of Kombat which is a homebrew game for the PS3, XBOX 360 and PC to showcase UDK Ultimate’s functionality.

Gears of Kombat is a 3rd person shooting game featuring Mortal Kombat’s Johnny Cage as its only character. Currently, not all modes work and only the ‘Gears Of Kombat’ mode is enjoyable but you can change some settings to make the game a little more interesting. When it comes to gameplay, you must kill a bunch of NPCs by shooting at them and then fight against a helicopter with another helicopter that the game conveniently spawns for you. While the game sounds pretty simple, killing all the enemies might prove a tad challenging so it might be fun to check out when you have some time to kill 😉

To grab Gears Of Kombat, follow this link to its Wololo /talk thread and select the platform of your choice. Nidal Nijm will continue developing games with UDK Ultimate so more homebrew games for the PS3/XBOX 360 may be released in the coming months

Conclusion

For more stuff on the PS3 side of things, multiMAN has finally been updated with official support for PS3HEN and if you’re interested about more stuff relating to emulation, this video by MVG about early N64 emulators and low/high-level emulation might be of interest.