Creating a Homebrew 3ds Program With Rust (Windows)

fekie July 24, 2024 #3ds #rust #embedded #guide

Creating a 3ds Project

Download the graphical installer for devkitPro here. Run the updater and have it install everything. Preferably, install it to C:\devkitPro (the default path) so the rest of the guide is easier to follow. It will take a bit to install.
Set environment variable $DEVKITPRO to C:\devkitPro. Set environment variable $DEVKITARM to C:\devkitPro\devkitARM. Set environment variable $DEVKITPPC to C:\devkitPro\devkitPPC.
Make sure that Rust is installed, as cargo is needed to install toolchains and create the project.
To install cargo-3ds, run the following

cargo install --locked cargo-3ds

If you run into errors, make sure rust is updated and on stable. 5. Switch to rust nightly with

rustup override set nightly

rustup component add rust-src --toolchain nightly-x86_64-pc-windows-msvc

before running the cargo 3ds command. Just follow what it tells you to do if a toolchain error comes up. 7. Create a new project with

cargo 3ds new first-3ds-rust-project

Make sure LLVM is installed. You can do this by downloading the Windows executable from here. Make sure that when you install it, you check the box that creates a path for all users.
Add C:\devkitPro\devkitARM\bin to your PATH so that your system can find the linkers.
Make sure that smdhtool is part of your path by adding C:\devkitPro\tools\bin to your PATH.
Create a new terminal window. cd into the directory and run

cargo 3ds build

and you have successfully created a 3ds project in Rust!