/vr/ - Retro Games

[Anonymous No.5325814]

Which 2/3DS offers the most screen real estate when 1:1 pixel mapping in VC games?

I have a KTR-001 new 3DS and the only legacy handheld screen it beats is the GB micro (2 3/8" vs 2").

It doesn't bother me but was curious if the XL screens were big enough to even beat the GB pocket.

[Anonymous No.5325986]

For reference, on KTR-001:

>GB/C: 34 x 29 mm
>GBA: 2 3/8" diagonal
>DS/i: 2 6/8" diagonal

[Anonymous No.5328265]

>>5325814
Almost certainly the XL will do you better for this, it has a 4.88" diagonal top screen.

[Anonymous No.5328647]

>>5328265
image would be tiny when doing 1:1, no?

[Anonymous No.5328701]

Retarded question, maybe, but what's wrong with just emulating with a modern smart phone. I've never done, don't even emulate, and if I did, it wouldn't be on a portable device, but even if I did, it would be on my phone.
The strongest reason I see is the lack of control, but then I would just buy a controller attachment for my phone, which may or may not be less convenient than bringing a 3DS everywhere.

[Anonymous No.5328782]

>>5328701
Even if you buy an input device, it's connecting over Bluetooth and it's fucking Android so enjoy input delay. Even if the phone had physical buttons, I'd never use anything running Android for emulation. Ever. I honestly don't know if ios is any better

[Anonymous No.5328792]

>>5325814
On my 3DS XL, it's slightly bigger than on my SP.

[Anonymous No.5328796]

>>5328782
>Even if you buy an input device, it's connecting over Bluetooth and it's fucking Android so enjoy input delay.
That may be the case, but I wouldn't just assume it without asking people who have tried gaming with these peripherals.

[Anonymous No.5328834]

>>5328792
It’s the exact same size as it would be on the DS lite, which has more window boxing than the SP.
same goes for GBA games—they’re the exact same size as they would be on the DS lite.

[Anonymous No.5328837]

Game Boy screens:

>DMG: 47 x 43 mm
>GBP: 48 x 44 mm
>GBC: 44 x 40 mm

[Anonymous No.5328867]

>>5328647
No, the resolution stays the same across all 3DS models. The pixels are only getting bigger
The percentage of the screen taken up by the image stays exactly the same.

[Anonymous No.5328876]

OP here and I realized not longer after posting that of course the one with the largest screen offers the largest 1:1 display sizes—which would be the n2DS XL.

I'm still curious whether its screen is big enough to offer the same or greater viewing area compared to a GBC, SP or DSi.

[Anonymous No.5328887]

>>5328876
It’s not. Get a DSi XL if you want comparable size from a backlit screen with 1:1 pixel mapping.

[Anonymous No.5328901]

>>5328876
Also keep in mind that on every 3DS model except the O2DS, everything is upscaled on the horizontal axis. It has a screen resolution of 800x240, so the pixel mapping won’t completely be 1:1.

[Anonymous No.5329014]

Personally I find the DSi XL (via GameYob) is perfect for GB/C games. It's also one of the only emulators that properly handles the GBC boot screen color selection trick for regular game boy games. You can add a border too, such as a scaled down version of the 3DS one which is fairly nice, though personally I prefer none as I find it distracting.

I do with GBA was possible on it as well, as the thing has the ARM7 processor like every other DS model, but despite some attempts (https://gbatemp.net/threads/gbarunner2.451970/)) nothing really works very smoothly yet.

For those reasons I've decided to play GBA games on the 3DS via ROM injection. It's not emulation so the compatibility is excellent, which is good since GBA emulation still has some quirks outside of the absurdly good Wii U emulator by M2, though I'm fairly confident mGBA will surpass them before too long. It's actually ever so slightly larger than the view on the GBA/SP, making it the largest way to play GBA games -- both the DS and DS lite had slightly higher PPIs than the GBA/SP. I forget the numbers, it was like 99ppi on the SP versus 97ppi on the 3DS XL. A minor improvement but still technically the largest.

The main downside would be the fairly large black borders on all sides of the game, but personally I find that I forget about it pretty quickly once I get into the game. The screen and speakers blow the SP or lite out of the water, including the overhyped AGS-101 which has some annoying ghosting and timing issues if you look too closely. It's a good mix, with two devices (DS for GB/C/DS and 3DS for GBA/3DS) you have some 20 years of handheld games covered. I've done an autistic amount of research about this so I'll be happy to answer any questions.

[Anonymous No.5329037]

>>5329014
>DSi XL
This is honestly the best way to play GBC nowadays. It's also pretty good for GBA if you have a DSTwo.

[Anonymous No.5329263]

I rather like what I've seen of the Vita through mGBA, it's an active-development emulator that's still getting new feature support (ie. they recently added GB Camera emulation in beta, which while not identical to the real thing is still a nice touch). Also, you can use SGB borders on it.

[Anonymous No.5329270]

>GB VC/DS games look washed the fuck out on normal 3DS screen
>making them smaller with start+select makes them too small to enjoy

[Anonymous No.5329407]

>>5329037
Even with the improved GBAtemp version of the DSTWO emulator it still wasn’t hitting full speeds on most games. Even ones that were fairly stable had fairly annoying dropped frames. I doubt it’s going to improve at this point, especially since it’s basically impossible to get a DSTWO now.

>>5329263
mGBA on Vita is getting a lot better, but it’s still not great. Lots of problems with sound (though I heard some have been fixed in recent patches) and full speed is going to be difficult without a dynamic recompiler, which endrift has said seemed more difficult than it was worth. I’ve heard overclocking it with LOLicon can help a lot. The Vita’s CPU has poor single core performance, even the new 3DS fares much better, and mGBA like most emulators relies on single core performance, so it’s not likely to ever be a great option either.

Once the Switch scene is more developed that’ll probably be a great option. It’s already got an mGBA port as of the new release I believe.

[Anonymous No.5329415]

>>5328901
In my experience the horizontal pixel doubling visible in your screenshot really isn’t a detriment, if anything it helps define some of the pixels since the subpixels half to be half the width. It still comes out as square pixels.

[Anonymous No.5329696]

>>5328901
I don't understand what's supposed to look wrong in your picture.

[Anonymous No.5329891]

>>5329014
>autistic

Someone's gotta do the research. Thank you kindly, anon.

[Anonymous No.5329942]

>>5329696
Zoom in, each pixel is repeated on the horizontal axis. Not necessarily “wrong” but that’s what he means.

[Anonymous No.5330731]

>>5329942
Is that really it?? 1:2 horizontal still results in clean edges. >>5328901 is being a weenie for no good reason.

[Anonymous No.5332190]

>>5330731
I’m not sure what your issue is with me pointing out characteristics of the 3DS’ screen. The OP talked about 1:1 pixel mapping, and I simply said that isn’t possible on the 3DS. I was being descriptive, not negative. I actually quite like the pseudo-scanline look of the 3DS’ top screen.

[Anonymous No.5332901]

>>5332190
>I was being descriptive, not negative. I actually quite like the pseudo-scanline look of the 3DS’ top screen.
I like you, and agree with you, anondude.
>>5329407
>Even with the improved GBAtemp version of the DSTWO emulator
Don't bother with that. If I remember correctly that's based on a more costly x86 emulator rather than written from the ground up for GBA/DS/ARM/etc.
Gameyob is generally fullspeed, and even plays Shantae properly (Which is infamously broken in VBA, that people still use for some reason).
>mGBA on Vita is getting a lot better, but it’s still not great. Lots of problems with sound (though I heard some have been fixed in recent patches)
Really? I've only ever used it on Windows, and most of the sound issues were straight up fixed by running it through RetroArch, like 2 years ago.
The only remaining one being slightly incorrect volume levels for GBC type sound channels, like you'd find in that one Castlevania game.
Is the same not true for the Vita version/s?

[Anonymous No.5332905]

>>5332901
>>Even with the improved GBAtemp version of the DSTWO emulator
Nevermind, I misread and thought you were referring to GBC. I'm retarded, ignore that part.
Emulated GBA on the DSTWO does often run fullspeed, but with a lot of stutter regardless.
The only viable way to run GBA on DS is through a GBA flashcart in the GBA slot, optionally with a passthrough program from a DS cart to load things off its memory instead. But that's not available on the DSi.

[Anonymous No.5333624]

>>5328782
Speaking of Android, my Motogamepad which connects directly to the phone has horrible input lag, and my Xbone pad which uses Bluetooth has basically zero input lag. It's fucking bizzaro.

[Anonymous No.5333675]

>>5333624
I've had my fair share of similar experiences with USB controllers.
Countless knockoffs, clones, and other cheap shit can have up to 250ms lag at random for no apparent reason, even over wired connection.
But my DS3s, DS4s, and 3SHITTY controllers always worked fine and fast. The former 2 even over blutooth. They feel damn near instantaneous on a CRT monitor, and almost there elsewhere.

A real shame they're not nearly as portable, which sort of ruins much of the point of using phone.
But a more portable mountable controller with horrible input lag also defeats much of the point of using a controller, as you may as well just use touchscreen if it's not going to be responsive.

[Anonymous No.5333931]

>>5328796
He’s full of it. Android supports fast input Bluetooth which is measurably faster than most wired setups. Your controller just needs to support it.

[Anonymous No.5334124]

>>5332901
mGBA on Vita gets nowhere near the performance it gets on a half-decent PC. The Vita has quite a mediocre CPU.

>>5333931
Android is garbage for emulation. There’s tons of microstutters since the shit OS doesnt allow the active application to take CPU priority, so every time Google’s trash decides to do something in the background you lose frames. Even the retroarch devs basically said don’t use Android if you care about accuracy and clean performance. Avoid phone emulation like the plague.

[Anonymous No.5334305]

>>5329014
how's ghosting on the DSi XL compared to 3DS?

[Anonymous No.5334520]

>>5329014
There's a 3DS version of Gameyob too.
https://gbatemp.net/threads/372523/

[Anonymous No.5334594]

>>5334520
it's buggy as fuck
tons of cracking sounds
DSi cia is the way to go, unless you try using Retroarch

[Anonymous No.5334679]

>>5334520
Really no advantage unless you really want everything on one device or don’t have a DS around. GBA games already have a lot of empty space on the 3DS, with the GB/C it’s just ridiculous in my opinion. That being said I do prefer GameYob to the emulation on the 3DS VC because of the aforementioned color choices for GB games, in fact I don’t think they had any color whatsoever on the 3DS, just black and white.