Artic Base, an open source tool for broadcasting games from your Nintendo 3DS to an emulator, has been released! Artic Base allows playing your owned collection of 3DS games, physical or digital, on a compatible emulator without having to dump them first. Furthermore, the tool syncs the save data, so you can resume your progress at any time from the console. Below is the list of features this tool provides, coming from the Artic Base Server github repository.

Features​

• Play games from your console without having to dump them.
• Sync the savedata/extdata of the broadcasted game during the play session.
• Load shared ext data and NCCH archives from your console.
• Remove the need to dump AES keys, as the decryption is done by the console's OS.

Advantages over playing on real console​

• Play your games at higher resolutions.
• Use external controllers that may better fit your playstyle.
• Switch between playing on your PC at home and your console on the go.
• Reduce e-waste by reusing partially broken consoles to broadcast your games to your PC.
• Allow museums or non-profit game preservation organizations to have a centralised database of preserved games, while using an Artic Base Server + a compatible emulator to do research as needed.

As the tool author claims, Artic Base aims to help players enjoy their collection of Nintendo 3DS games with several advantages, such as being able to play at higher resolutions, switch between playing on a 3DS on the go and and a PC at home, and using their preferred external controllers. Furthermore, it helps reducing e-waste by allowing the use of partially broken consoles to act as a server instead of having to toss/replace them. The tool also removes the need of having to deal with classic emulator shenenigans, such as having to dump games or getting cryptographic keys. Keep in mind however that due to the network speed of the 3DS, slower loading times may be experienced.

At the time of writing, the only emulator supporting Artic Base is a forked version of the former 3DS emulator Citra, maintained by PabloMK7.

A demonstration of Artic Base was posted to PabloMK7's YouTube channel a few days ago, showcasing Shovel Knight being broadcasted to a PC.

​

What do you think? Will you do another playthrough of your collected 3DS games using this tool? Leave your thoughts in the replies!

Artic Base Server (3DS application)
PabloMK7's Citra fork with Artic Base support

 

[BuddhaHunterMac]

AmazeBalls

 

[FanNintendo]

I am having trouble connecting with Artic Base with N3DSXL it kept fail commucating with Artic Base. I copied my server address from N3DSXL so what am I missing?

Edited - Look like Im gonna need a 2.4ghz wap wireless router almost like Nintendo DS Wi-Fi USB Conntector.

 

[Kiiro_Yakumo]

*reads this tool's post*
*looks up Nintendo's definition of emulators in the Yuzu lawsuit*

View attachment 436801

"Pirated" video games, now playing live straight from the original cartridge. My ass, Nintendo. My ass.

Nintendo forgetting that emulation is legal and proven in court at least twice.
There is no pill to remember to take a pill for bad memory.
Yuzu would win too if not for some mistakes straight from elementary school that weren't in fact about emulation.
Nintendo wanted to cast a baseless fear in people that maybe emulation is illegal now.
Emulation is legal, always has been (insert well known picture here).
Nintendo can scream all they want, they can't change reality like that.

EDIT - Sorry, as for the homebrew itself, quite interesting idea actually, I would probably mostly use that save sync part, having a backup copy of the save on PC done in such a way is a good thing.

 

[fvig2001]

Cool in concept but sucks that 3DS' wifi is pretty terrible. I do hope that there's an alternative solution where you can use this to get the rom initially and then just sync saves with another tool.

 

[AlexMCS]

All the people saying they don't get the point of this, something to consider.

In the future, if modern video game consoles ever are given a DMCA exemption or the DRM provisions of the DMCA are otherwise no longer relevant and it becomes fully, defensibly legal to homebrew them, this could provide a legal software framework for libraries to allow people to play library-owned legal copies of games. Imagine a farm of 3DS 'servers' all with legal copies of games, and people able to play them on the library computers, 1:1 to the library's owned copies.

This is basically a more physically localized, video game equivalent of controlled digital lending. And, tbf as long as people are fine with longer load times, I don't think it necessarily needs to be localized to within the library, either. So like, this is basically just a framework for CDL for video games instead of books. This is HUGE.

You're jumping through way too much hoops to bypass a legislation that can be altered way more easily.
If it ever becomes an issue, they'll just include it in their "law"
Trying to use to common sense to circumvent laws, specially corpo-mandated ones, is not a very fruitful endeavor.

As for the project itself, the only part of it that is actually very interesting is save sharing, so you can continue on the go.
I've done it once to sync Octopath 2 Switch and PC (Steam) data via python scripting, but not live like this. (Maybe if there is some way to get cloud storage - gdrive, onedrive, owncloud etc. - on the switch and limit network usage since the battery consumption is outrageous outside of airplane mode).

However, streaming game data is kinda useless IMO.

 

[regnad]

All the people saying they don't get the point of this, something to consider.

In the future, if modern video game consoles ever are given a DMCA exemption or the DRM provisions of the DMCA are otherwise no longer relevant and it becomes fully, defensibly legal to homebrew them, this could provide a legal software framework for libraries to allow people to play library-owned legal copies of games. Imagine a farm of 3DS 'servers' all with legal copies of games, and people able to play them on the library computers, 1:1 to the library's owned copies.

This is basically a more physically localized, video game equivalent of controlled digital lending. And, tbf as long as people are fine with longer load times, I don't think it necessarily needs to be localized to within the library, either. So like, this is basically just a framework for CDL for video games instead of books. This is HUGE.

You need a modded system to be able to do this. I suppose Nintendo could argue just owning a modded console is encouraging piracy or online cheating. It certainly enables it.

Here in Japan it’s illegal to modify your system, regardless of what you do or don’t do with it.

 

[fvig2001]

Tested it out using new super mario bros 2 using latest luma3ds on my 2ds and arctic 3dsx.

Citra crashes on connect. Arctic says it's connected then error reading from socket. I already allowed it through firewall of windows.

Debug log ends at worker 3: Processing Process_GetExheader

Edit:

Tested using Cavestory 3d cart and same result. msys/vc versions behave the same.

Annoyingly, there's a suspended citra-qt.exe using 36kb that I can't kill.

Edit2:
Tested on Android with my Tab s8 ultra and I don't know. Performance is choppy compared to my LG V60 using Citra MMJ. It takes like 3 minutes to get into New Super Mario Bros. main menu.

On S24 Ultra, it crashes on the same place as windows

 

[SecureBoot]

This is awesome for save syncing. Early this year, I spent a lot of time setting up methods to sync emulator saves between my phone and PCs. The biggest bummer to this was the 3ds where sometimes I want to play on the big screen, and sometimes I want original hardware. If this works how I understand, this is going to be awesome to flip back and forth

 

[ZeroFX]

Nice a tool so I can sync my pirated games progress from the 3ds to citra?

​

Sync the savedata/extdata of the broadcasted game during the play session.

Can you do a lite version that does only this?

 

[xxjeysonxx]

I was testing some games on an OLD3DS and discovered that articbase does not activate in extended memory games like smash bros and pokemon sun and moon

 

[SquidHominid]

You're jumping through way too much hoops to bypass a legislation that can be altered way more easily.
If it ever becomes an issue, they'll just include it in their "law"
Trying to use to common sense to circumvent laws, specially corpo-mandated ones, is not a very fruitful endeavor.

As for the project itself, the only part of it that is actually very interesting is save sharing, so you can continue on the go.
I've done it once to sync Octopath 2 Switch and PC (Steam) data via python scripting, but not live like this. (Maybe if there is some way to get cloud storage - gdrive, onedrive, owncloud etc. - on the switch and limit network usage since the battery consumption is outrageous outside of airplane mode).

However, streaming game data is kinda useless IMO.

You need a modded system to be able to do this. I suppose Nintendo could argue just owning a modded console is encouraging piracy or online cheating. It certainly enables it.

Here in Japan it’s illegal to modify your system, regardless of what you do or don’t do with it.

That's why I said 'In the future, if modern video game consoles ever are given a DMCA exemption or the DRM provisions of the DMCA are otherwise no longer relevant and it becomes fully, defensibly legal to homebrew them'. The problem is, right now, homebrew and CFW are still, technically, illegal due to circumventing DRM. I'm saying, in the future, once the legal changes you allude to have occurred, this will allow for controlled digital lending, rather than having to specifically loan out 3DS hardware.

Nintendo forgetting that emulation is legal and proven in court at least twice.
There is no pill to remember to take a pill for bad memory.
Yuzu would win too if not for some mistakes straight from elementary school that weren't in fact about emulation.
Nintendo wanted to cast a baseless fear in people that maybe emulation is illegal now.
Emulation is legal, always has been (insert well known picture here).
Nintendo can scream all they want, they can't change reality like that.

EDIT - Sorry, as for the homebrew itself, quite interesting idea actually, I would probably mostly use that save sync part, having a backup copy of the save on PC done in such a way is a good thing.

Not entirely accurate. The problem is that emulators for modern consoles (Dolphin, Yuzu, Citra, etc) involve the use of console encryption keys, which violates the DRM provisions of the DMCA. It's a large, legally untested gray area, distinct from Sony v. Connectix and the reverse engineering defense.

 

[AdenTheThird]

Pablo, you madlad. This is amazing!

 

[sagey]

i hate to be the "erm ackshually" type of person but that's not hollow knight

 

[Guacaholey]

That's the most convoluted yet most lawful way of playing roms. Thanks for coming up with this middle finger towards Nintendo.

Realistically it won't matter to Nintendo. They'll still go after emulators because their issue is wanting to control how you play their software. Emulators aren't made for piracy just because you can play pirated games. The Switch and 3DS games I've emulated are ones I own a license for. If anything the Nintendo emulators like Citra discourage piracy by making you use decrypted ROMs.

The only thing that's illegal about emulators is if they include copyrighted material like code from the actual hardware's OS, decryption keys, etc. This was established over 20 years ago by the US Supreme Court.

I wish developers would stop bowing to Nintendo. Nintendo isn't going to win their cases because precedent is already set for commercial emulators.

If anything companies like Nintendo that use emulation for stuff like (S)NES Classic might be breaking the law by not following the licensing agreement of emulators they use code for. Super Mario Sunshine's Switch "port" is emulated and that had the same bugs Dolphin used to have (some bonus stages you can see the path the blocks follow, which was patched). If they made any changes to the code they are required to publish it, and by patching the bugs they would've changed code. Of course there's no guarantee Nintendo used open source code, but they shouldn't have had the same glitches as Dolphin considering Nintendo has access to the code for the game and the GameCube's OS. I'd be suing them over that just to mess with them

 

[sagey]

I'd be suing them over that just to mess with them

bros about to pull a phoenix wright

 

[SecureBoot]

Okay, so I'm playing around with it some, and it doesn't seem to actually "sync" saves between an emulator and a console. It just streams the saves on the 3ds. So, if like me, you wanted to connect the 3ds to the emulator, sync the saves, then put the 3ds away for a bit to play later, then connect and resync when you want to play on the console, you're SoL. Still a cool project though.

 

[ChaoticPumpkin]

Oh yeah, I'd seen something about this a few days ago, awesome work as always! Since I mainly use Citra for testing ROM Hacks and other development, I probably won't use this much, but I do think it's a great option for quickly loading up a game without dumping the whole thing.

Also, as others have pointed out, I think it's a great thing to have for legal protection. Obviously the overbearing DMCA absolutely can poke holes in this (Installing Luma itself is technically breaking TPMs, etc.) but when looked at as a whole, it is clear that something like this does as much as possible to not infringe on Nintendo's copyright. (Not that that should matter for games you can't even purchase anymore >:/ )

 

[AkiraKurusu]

...They do realise they misspelled "Arctic", right?
Unless they're doing the 'Articuno' thing, and doing it on purpose.

 

[Ebutuoy135]

Is it possible to use mods while using this?

 

[arceus]

why is it artic and not arctic ive been thinking about this all day please help