Topic: DS games on 3DS: Resolution disparity

I'm not sure if this has been mentioned (didn't see anything when glancing throigh the threads) but I think it is something to at least think about.

The DS has a resolution of 256x192. The 3DS has 800x240 on the top screen (I'm guessing in 2D mode it won't be forced to use 400) and 320x240 on the bottom screen.

When playing DS games on the 3DS, the system will probably perform some kind of image scaling which I don't think will look very good... Maybe the top screen will look better as it is of higher resolution, but the bottom one will look worse (or smaller, as it happened on the old DS when playing GBA games).

I guess they didn't show this on the floor at E3 but for now I'm thinking that keeping the DS/DSi around to play DS games will be necessary...

It's possible, but not likely, that the DS will be emulated and in that case the resolution may be fixable.... I think.

Seeing as only the top screen is bigger, i think they will keep the same screen size ad the DSi for use of DS games.

I guess it will be like when you play GB games on the GBA. You had the option of using a smaller size with 1 to 1 pixel conversion or use the whole wide screen with a distorted image and some scaling issues.

In this case, at least the bottom screen has the same ratio, so the image wouldn't be stretched. The top screen is wide screen unlike the DS, so even with scaling you'd get two black bars on the side or a stretched picture. But still, converting a 256x192 screen to a 320x240 image (or 640x240 if using all the pixels on the top screen) will produce some artifacts, as it is a 1.25x conversion, so some pixels will look strange... Although the console probably does some image smoothing to counter this although it probably won't look as good as the real thing...

I've been thinking about this as well, and I'd say it's very likely that there will be large black bars on both screens (or a black "frame" on the bottom screen I suppose). I do wonder how that will look, particularly since the bottom screen is about the same size as it is on the DSi, so you'd be getting a much smaller resulting play area.

I've been thinking about it too, since before the 3DS was even unveiled. I imagine a 3DS Virtual Handheld service would present similar issues.

In the case of using 1 to 1 conversion, youd get a frame on both screens: On the bottom you'd get 32 black pixels on each side and 24 pixels vertically (on top and under the image). On the top screen, you'd get 72 pixels on each side (well, really 144 but they'd look like 72) and the same 24 vertically. That's a lot of screen gone to waste, but I guess it would give you the best quality.

If my calculations are correct, that would mean a screen size for DS games of about 1.94in x 1.45in (or 4,92cm x 3.69cm) which is tiny (even smaller than the old DS screens).

I hope they find a way to smooth the artifacts from scaling, but I'll sure be keeping my DSi around...

I think they will scale up the touchscreen part at the very least, as otherwise you'd have dead areas on the screen where the stylus could go but which wouldn't register in DS games.

If they don't rescale, they better use the top part of the bottom screen and bottom part of the top screen rather than centering them; otherwise, you'll have a huge space in between the two screen areas.

Good point, the dead areas would pose a problem in many games (particularly those were you're watching the top screen while dragging around on the bottom screen). Nonetheless, this proportion of scaling is very difficult to do without awkward results, so I can't fathom how they're going to get around the problem cleanly without sacrificing appearance or causing touchscreen issues. One possibility is that the final 3DS hardware will be a bit different from that shown at E3; Nintendo certainly still seems to have a few things to work out. Perhaps a more elegant solution is still out there.

Clearly, the best would have been to double the resolution of the DS. Make the bottom screen 512x384 pixels and the top screen 1280x384 (with 640 horizontal pixels for each eye).

That way the scaling factor would be exact and DS games could fill the screens only leaving two vertical bars at the top which are inevitable anyway because the DS is not widescreen... Even then the pictures would probably look a bit pixelated but at least there would not be strange artifacts...

It's hard to say what they'll do, because developers presumably have already been working with the current resolutions, so there may not be any option to make that kind of change at this point. Perhaps they have a decent scaling algorithm, but even the best would be sure to cause some issues. Like you, I'll probably be keeping my DSi anyway.

I bet Nintendo will find a way! They've always done so in the past!

maybe they will us choose what proportions we want to use, you know:

1- 1:1
2- Full screen keeping original aspect ratio
3- Full Full screen

at least sega did that in their sega collection for psp,,,

maybe they cut the screen as the gba games in the nds screen. I keep the ds lite for the gba games...guess the 3ds will be my change call.

DS games look horrible on 3DS...