When it was first announced, many other people were skeptical of the Nintendo DS. Rather than harnessing raw power, this unique dual-screen handheld has been designed to explore new styles of play. Compared to more classic handheld consoles like Sony’s Game Boy Advance (GBA) or even PlayStation Portable (PSP), the DS seemed like a big bet for the Japanese gaming giant.
But it was worth it. The Nintendo DS ended up being one of the most successful gaming platforms of all time, and as [Modern Vintage Gamer] explains in a recent video, this is at least partly due to its unexpected graphical prowess. While technically inferior to the PSP to the max in any and all ways, Nintendo’s decades of delight in overcoming the barriers of 2D graphics have allowed them to exploit more hardware than many would have imagined possible.
On some level, the Nintendo DS can simply be thought of as an improved GBA. Developers who were already accustomed to the 2D features of this formula would feel right at home when they upgraded to the DS. As with previous 2D consoles, the DS had multiple screens. Hardware-accelerated modes for moving, scaling, rotating, and mirroring up to 4 background layers. This made it simple and computationally effective at achieving pseudo-3D effects, such as scrolling through multiple background photographs at other speeds to convey a sensation. depth.
In addition to its legacy 2D sprite and tile engine from GBA, the DS also included a rudimentary GPU to take care of geometry and 3D rendering. This meant that most games would keep the close-up view of the action on a single screen and use the panel for the moment to display 2D photographs, such as an aerial map. But the developers had the option to switch between slideshows at each frame to render 3. -d in any of the panels at a reduced frame rate. The hardware can also take care of shadows and includes built-in mobile shading, a popular graphic effect at the time.
By combining the 2D and 3D hardware capabilities of the Nintendo DS onto a single screen, developers could produce complex graphical effects. [Modern Vintage Gamer] uses the example of New Super Mario Bros, which places a detailed 3D model of Mario over several layers of moving 2D bitmaps. Ultimately the 3D capabilities of the DS were hindered by the limited resolution of its 256 x 192 LCD panels; but considering most people were still using flip phones when the DS came out, it was impressive for the time.
Compared to the Game Boy Advance, or even the original “brick” Game Boy, it doesn’t seem like hackers have had much luck coming up with ways to exploiting the capabilities of the Nintendo DS. But perhaps with more detailed retrospectives like this, the community will be inspired to take another look at this unique entry in gaming history.
Very clever formula to allow GPUs to percentage screen buffers for drawing.
It simply uses a large screen buffer and displays other parts of it on other screens. Nothing clever, just a popular memory-mapping behavior.
Someone didn’t see the video.
It’s wonderful to see what went into creating the video games that millions of people have enjoyed. In fact, it is a new art form that emerged in the 20th century. Writers, musical composers, three-dimensional artists, programmers, announcers, etc. are needed. to create an exclusive video game!
It’s just sad that handheld consoles have now been replaced by smartphones that are usually black rectangles. I miss the hardware buttons.
Also, I don’t play video games anymore (I used to, but hey, the time has come). Any of the accelerometer-based games from when Android smartphones were new?These games where you had to consult a ball through a maze by tilting your phone. Do they still make games with motion-based controls in those days?
A caveat is that those motion-based games can’t be played on buses/trains/cars/planes. . . anything that moves.
Honestly, those days I got my handheld console solution with Nintendo Switch, for me it’s close to the best handheld machine, they’re still the king of handhelds, that’s for sure.
Well, the only thing that helps me keep the Switch from being used with my right hand is that my old laptop runs a lot longer and plays the most intense games available at the time. Where the Switch’s battery life is pretty smart. for what it does, it’s not as smart and not as convenient as, say, older Gameboys, where you simply put a new battery in the back when it runs out.
Definitely, in my opinion, the most productive mobile gaming platform out there right now. And of course, a smart home console enjoys it too; Of course, even plugged in for maximum performance, it doesn’t look as smart as most recent games. The console or PC may make this game look smart, but it’s strangely close. The optimizations that are made for this, simplified with the resolution-type dynamic elements that it makes, provide a smart experience.
Honestly, battery life is rarely that bad, it depends on what you play, small indie games and you get decent lifespan, of course, if you play Doom, the battery seems. . . 2 hours, But come on, being able to play Doom pretty much anywhere, that’s already awesome!
In this day and age where a store is never too far away, I think it’s a small value to pay, although your mileage will possibly vary if it’s more of the rural type.
I don’t have any argument, my definition of a handheld device has had this comparison in mind with portable devices of the past, and these had easy-to-swap alkaline/rechargeable batteries (and pretty impressive battery life), or much more than 2 hours of life playing the most productive titles on the platform.
In fact, you can get a moderate shelf life out of some games, but it never felt as long as I can forget on older systems. Which prevents me from considering it a “real” handheld. Actually, it’s completely mental, nothing opposite. As for the system, I’d rather enjoy it (although greater ergonomics for larger hands would be nice). It’s just for me because of the battery life, it’s a ‘home console’ with an extra mode, kind of like a gaming PC compared to a gaming PC/real computer, it’s that satisfied medium of being almost a true gaming PC in terms of functionality or almost a true cellular computer in terms of battery life and portability, but never both.
And in my corner there’s a tilt.
One thing that was lost in the video is the DS’s ability to have 16 palettes of 16 colors AND some other set of 16 palettes of 256 colors, consistent with 2D/PPU engine, all at the same time in a VRAM configuration.
I can’t remember if the 16×256 were separate sets for sprites and backgrounds or shared.
As far as tile-based graphic hardware goes it was extremely flexible short of going with a full software 15bits color 2D engine, which is doable as well: the machine had the RAM and CPU to handle it if you wanted to.
The last time someone was seduced by 256 colors was in 1993 and 15 bits would have been classified as inadequate in 1999.
You can have a bench for extended palettes and a bench for extended palettes of sprites. And you can use other sets of extended palettes on other backgrounds.
This PPU is a little-known gem.
It’s an amazing formula for creating 2D pixel sets that surpasses even the Neo Geo hardware when you load up the 3D engine’s ability of triangles and quad sprites to load effects and make the “Mode7” towers pop out of the water (you can have two). consistent with the screen). ).
3D is made up of 3D sprites, a frame buffer, and instead a scan line buffer.
The fools used the principles of 2D sprites to create 3D.
So you’re guaranteed a smooth 60fps (tradeoff is dropped sprites/poly on object-heavy scanlines) as long as the CPU side keeps up.
Which with a 33Mhz ARM CPU is easily doable with a very tiny bit of assembly thrown in.
It’s a shame that the marketers I worked for at the time only wanted to make games entirely in 3D.
Interestingly, I didn’t know the “3D line/sprite buffer” trick. However, it was 66 MHz for the main processor. As far as I can tell, the 33MHz ARM7 core had access to audio and wifi, but it wouldn’t be for graphics.
To say that “it doesn’t look like pirates have had much luck finding tactics to exploit the capabilities of the Nintendo DS” is, in my humble opinion, a bit short-sighted. There’s a jumbotron, a wifi tool for ds, homebrew launchers, editors, midi controllers and much more!
That’s just software stuff, the other linked projects are hardware hacks. Because, you know, this is a hardware site.
Veo. De fact, the NDS already contained so much stuff that the few hardware tricks I know of next to the Jumbotron (https://sylvainhb. blogspot. com/2007/09/supersized-ds. html) would be located on GBA cars or through a serial line added to a traditional SLOT-1 card. The hull itself remained largely intact.
The DS has enjoyed the home scene for a while, with less resistance from Nintendo than the PSP scene experienced in the early days, with Sony providing firmware updates for each and every little feat. Nintendo didn’t make any OTA updates for the original DS, and wasting ROM space on carts wasn’t going to be well received by game publishers.
The first two DS models even had GBA slots that we took advantage of to connect traditional hardware, and Natrium42’s DSerial interface had a huge following.
What held the DS back also allowed it to sell some of the value of the PSP. By opting for simpler, less rugged, and backwards compatible hardware, Nintendo was able to put more systems (and games) in people’s hands.
IIRC, the DS BIOS wasn’t updated by the user, so it’s not like Nintendo is simply offering a firmware update via cart or online. That’s why you still need flashcarts like R4 to this day to run unsigned code on a DS. The DSi, however, has flashable firmware, so it can be flashed frequently with Twilight CFW.
Confirmed (https://sylvainhb. blogspot. com/2016/05/les-debuts-du-homebrew-sur-ds. html)
And you can accept it as true with GrizzlyAdams’ experience here: he was one of the first to write launchers for other homebrews like DSchannel, code I still use today to update my live homebrew tracks.
I had a good laugh wearing up or recreating some of my old favorites from the DS platform. Thanks to the R4 and similar products, it’s never been less difficult to write for a Nintendo.
Except the Wii U was the first dual screen system that failed to sell 1 million pieces of hardware. For those who said it’s not dual screen, try playing Splatoon without a television!
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