ROMs?

[HH92]

Ive been working on a ZC quest for a while now and I thought it would be great if I could play it on my DS (as a GBA game). But there is no ZC for DS and quests are in QST format, not ROM. Is there any way to convert it?

[Shazza Dani]

Nope. Nevah!

[The_Amaster]

Nope. Unfortunatly. Getting ZC to play on a handheld has been an issue for a long time now, and there aren't currently any plans to make it work. Although the ROM idea is new...maybe theres something there.

[sps999]

Well, if you get a Flash Card (looks like a game for DS, put it in DS, able to put games and .nds files on there) you'll be able to get a program called DSLinux, that may be able to run Linux builds of 2.5, I looked on the Zelda Classic website and it appears that there is no 2.10 version of ZC, but I will check if you could run 2.5 builds (as a matter of fact, I'm downloading DSLinux as I type this.

[Russ]

DSLinux? Of course, I never thought of that.

But I doubt it will make much of a difference. Zc uses a lot or ram, which the DS doesn't have. But I do have a ram expansion for mine. It's worth a try, I guess. I'm going to try.

[sps999]

hmm... can't get Linux to work on my card.

[Russ]

Neither can I. So much for that.

Plus, I think I read that to run a program, it needs the source code, and ZC is closed source.

[Chris Miller]

The processor in the DS probably isn't fast enough to run ZC even if you do have enough RAM.
(I could be mistaken; I don't actually own a DS)

[sps999]

I've been reading, and it says some cards come jock full of a bunch of Ram, good for programs like DSLinux, now I don't know how much ram ZC uses, but it said a couple cards come with up to 32 MB, plus extra Gameboy Slot Ram (not Opera Browser, I'm talking bigger ones) and the DS's already exsisting Ram, and you might (most likely not, I'm saying no) be able to run something close to ZC (Perhaps a older version, 1.92 or something, I don't know how much ram ZC takes up though)

----EDIT----

Looked some more, it appears a DS only has 4 MBs Ram, and Slot 1 (DS game Slot) doesn't provide extra RAM, but here's a list of Slot 2 (GBA Slot) cards that provide extra RAM. (It used to be a chart, until I copied and pasted it)

Device
Onboard RAM

Supercard SD/CF/Lite (NOT Rumble)
32MB

M3 Perfect (NOT Pro)
32MB

M3 DS Real GBA Expansion Pack (NOT Rumble RAM pack)
32MB

G6 Lite
32MB

EZ-V 3-in-1
16MB

Opera Expansion Pak
8MB

[Russ]

Okay, then with my M3 and expansion, I have 36 MB or RAM. I doubt that's enough to run ZC.

[sps999]

Okay, then with my M3 and expansion, I have 36 MB or RAM. I doubt that's enough to run ZC.

I THINK ZQ uses 60MB of Ram, I'm not sure. All I did was open ZQuest, CTRL + ALT + DELETE, looked at processes, and ZQuest was at 60,800 Kilobytes, making it 60.8MB, too much for the DS. On the other hand, Zelda-W (Program to play the games) only takes 53,488 which would mean it takes 53.5 MB to play the game, although it doesn't really make a difference.

Sorry guys, looks like ZC wouldn't even be avaliable on the DS, let alone lower handhelds, but I don't know how much RAM a PSP has, I doubt it's 53.5 MB though, in fact, I'm pretty much sure of it.

Although, perhaps there's a stronger RAM expansion for the DS, I'm scanning the internet now.

----EDIT----
Nope, no other Slot 2 things that have even more RAM. The only way to get ZC on DS would maybe be to hack your DS and install extra DS RAM, so going from 4 to (hopefully) 32 of something, and the other 32 from the Slot 2, that would be 64 and enough to play ZC, but that all comes with high hopes that there is such a thing in which you hack your DS (which is risky in the first place) that adds extra RAM.

[HH92]

Sorry guys, looks like ZC wouldn't even be avaliable on the DS

What about the Wii? Do you think I might be able to run it with the Homebrew channel?

Oh, and thank you for all of your help everyone, I really appreciate it!

[Russ]

There's been lots of talk about it, but I seriously doubt it.

The only way I can possible see would be to use hack the Wii and put more RAM on it, then use Linux Wii to run ZC. But I think Linux Wii needs the source code of the program, so it probably wouldn't work anyways.

I'm not sure thought. This is making me curious. I'm going to look into this.

[MottZilla]

Zelda Classic has NOTHING to do with ROMs. You can't "convert" shit.

About handhelds, the DS can't do it. The CPU can't handle it, neither can the GPU as for one thing the resolution is too low. Major adjustments would be needed, not to mention the DS can't really handle all the software graphics drawing ZC does anyway.

The PSP could handle ZC, if Allegro were ported to the PSP. But it's not there, atleast not yet. But the PSP has a 333mhz MIPS processor and model 2000 and 3000 have 64MB of RAM which should be enough for some sort of port. But I find it unlikely that Allegro will be ported.

Wii is the same thing. Allegro needs to be ported to Wii, and then it would likely work fine. The Wii has a fairly good size of RAM and a fairly fast PowerPC type CPU. But I don't see allegro being ported. Things might change though if ZC were ported to SDL. I don't know if that is in the plans but doing so might open up possibilities for porting. But you should expect nothing of this sort in the near future. Porting is a good bit of work.

[Nicholas Steel]

I believe it can only be ported to systems using a x86 compliant processor.

[MottZilla]

That might be true for whatever was added to play SPCs and other things like that but the main game is all portable C++ code or atleast it was. So an x86 compatible is not really required. The main requirement is that the target platform have Allegro.

[System Error]

Couldn't a replacement be used in place of Allegro on the PSP, or couldn't we even port Allegro to the PSP ourselves (maybe building it into the program or something)? I'd LOVE to play Zelda Classic quests on my PSP, just for the novelty factor. Sure, it'd take a lot of work on the development side, but it'd be sweet. >_>

[King Aquamentus]

...since everyone else is restraining themselves from killing you, I'll follow suite.

No, you can't, sorry. No, we won't, sorry. Have a nice day, sorry.

...I think I'm gonna fish back to the first time this was asked, and link it in my sig. No offense to the new person in this statement, but it may reduce the number of threads we get like this.

[MottZilla]

Yes System Error, that's what I just said. If Zelda Classic were ported from Allegro to SDL (another library) you could probably port it to PS2, PSP, Xbox, and Wii pretty easily as I believe all those systems have SDL ported to them. But you'd have to ask whoever develops ZC now if a SDL port is anywhere on their radar. Chances are the answer is no.

Old-skool, you're right, these threads pop up fairly often.