How Graphics worked on the Nintendo DS | MVG
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 17 ม.ค. 2021
- The Nintendo DS launched in 2004, with its Dual Screens it was a smash hit for Nintendo, selling over 150 million units. It's graphics subsystem is a combination of Nintendo's proven 2d tile based renderer and for the first time on a Nintendo handheld, introduced 3d graphics in hardware. How does it all work? In this episode we take a closer look.
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Watch Other Episodes in This Series:
► How Graphics worked on the Nintendo Game Boy - • How Graphics worked on...
► How Graphics worked on the Nintendo Game Boy Color - • How Graphics worked on...
► How Graphics worked on the Nintendo Game Boy Advance - • How Graphics worked on...
Sources/Credits in this Episode:
► Nintendo DS Architecture A Practical Analysis - www.copetti.org/writings/cons...
► DS example/test programs - github.com/devkitPro/nds-exam...
► ODSL DS Homebrew Guide - osdl.sourceforge.net/main/docu...
► Nintendo DS Overlay Used - Pokefan 531- forums.libretro.com/t/real-gb...
► no$gba - problemkaputt.de/gba.htm
► LiraNuna's DS Development Blog - www.liranuna.com/nds-2d-tuts/
► Emudev discord group
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#Nintendo #DS #Graphics - เกม
once again a great video!
cool to see you here
yes
Kale koppen niet te stoppen!
Hey, you're that bald guy.
😄
Developing DS games was a pain, if you hit the 1k triangle limit it would just stop rendering tris/models at random, making it hard to figure out if you had hit the limit. We ended up being very conservative to try and make sure we never hit that limit. It took real skill to get the best out of it.
*pain. If (to fix your comma splice run-on)
@@alvallac2171 No thanks.
cool! can i ask what you worked on?
@@BynineStudio It was called Gormitti, an italian toy line I think! th-cam.com/video/gS42LtbFRGc/w-d-xo.html
@@nicholasfarley5967 holy shit gormitti I remember that shit
Incredible talents by devs putting all these graphics on such a small console.
Hey Marco whats up
Nintendo is the handheld messiah for many who grew up in the 90's
Fucking insane how such a small machine could handle such big games like Pokemon Black and White. Kinda understandable how that console was still revelent only 10 years ago...
yeah like the 3ds is i little smaller and has better graphics
psp was way more impressive than Nintendo ds even though they were released almost at the same time
Man, I remember getting Mario 64 on launch day and being blown away that something could look *that good* on a handheld. Really cool video!
even though i don't have anything against low poly pixelated 3d graphic, SM64DS was running too slow for my taste, and the controls with the dpad were literally painful for my thumb.
impressive, yes, but it wasn't fun for me ^^ mario kart DS was (and still is) awesome though :D
@@lol-ih1tl This is no exaggeration. Even when upscaling its native resolution to 4K, a lot of DS games look like early GameCube titles. They look absolutely stunning.
@@lol-ih1tl i know, i also tried it with this "thumb attachment" but it just wasn't for me. but the speed was the bigger problem ^^
lol I remember that but it was on the 64 not a ds
@@chrisakaschulbus4903 To be fair tough, the game didn't run THAT great on the N64 either. Constant Lag in many of the Levels, wich kinda sucked. But I don't have a good comperation on the other hand, since I never played 64DS on original Hardware, only emulated.
But the controlls were pretty bad indeed. 3D Plattformers and D-Pads just aren't a good match.
I wander what they could have done with the 3DS tough. It had an analoge Joystick and was much more powerfull. Ocarina of time on that thing looks and plays a whole lot better then on the N64, so SM64 on that thing would have been pretty awesome I guess.
As a developer at the time, I wished they had implemented additive blending modes. Probably one of the most frustrating omissions when I was doing FX
Wow, you were developing DS games? I think I've heard people say that about the N64 too
What games did you make?
@@why8308 nearly all of the DS ports of the Lego games. (the first Lego Star wars ds game was by a different studio)
@@gamecat666 harry potter was great on the ds
What would that have done?
I remember being super impressed with having those graphics in my hand
And now a mobile phone can pretty well emulate a GameCube and Wii... and can have more RAM than your PC at the time.
@@kellychristopherfay2761 what a time to be alive! I love looking back at old tech thinking about how simple it seems now
@@kellychristopherfay2761 Which mobile device had 8+ GB RAM at that time?
@@Terkzorr there are some i guess... But the claim "phone can have more ram than pc at the time" is just plain bs lol. Lemme see a phone with 2TB ram.
I just bought an R4 gold Pro 2020. Which is the best, most accurate gameboy emulator I can use with it on my DS lite? Also, how accurate it is? Can I use the R4 gold Pro 2020 to play gameboy advance without emulation too? If so, how?
Holy crap, I can’t believe that Christmas was almost 17 years ago
Christmas was 3 weeks ago
@@danielolaru1419 they mean the christmas they got the ds
@@danielolaru1419 thank you for the chuckle
THAT christmas, not "that christmas".
gotcha
@@danielolaru1419 Lmao, got me you bastard
Something you failed to mention is that the DS contained two CPUs. One was the old GBA CPU that was used to run GBA back compat. The other was a new more powerful CPU. When running DS games both CPUs where used at the same time. The new CPU would run the 3D-enabled main screen and the older GBA CPU would run the 2D-only sub screen. So if you look at the map screen in say, Mario Kart DS, that's essentially like a mini GBA game.
Yep, pretty neat stuff
So how did it work in a DSi? Just guessing but was the new CPU powerful enough to handle both at the same time?
@@seva7500 The DSi continued to use two CPUs. One for the DS (ARM9 architecture) and one for the GBA (ARM7 architecture).
This was because DS games would use both in parallel and they didn't want any changes in hardware to cause errors. The DSi did have have double the clock rate for its ARM9 CPU though, going from 67MHz to 133MHz.
Interestingly, this is the same reason the 3DS has an ARM7 chip onboard, as well as an ARM9, because it's needed for backwards compatibility with DS games.
@@jaredcramsie182 Interesting, thank you for the info!
@@seva7500 The DSi still had the GBA CPU, and the 3DS also has it to maintain backwards compatibility with DS games. They just don’t have the slot. If you have a hacked DSi or 3DS, you can run GBA ROMs natively
Nintendo: "This isn't going to be used to replace the gameboy advance"
Also Nintendo: Includes a GBA cart slot on the DS
Nintendo was always good at providing backwards compatibility options. =)
SNES had Super Gameboy cart. GC had GBA player. Wii could play GC games. All their handhelds (except Switch) could play the previous gen handheld carts.
Backwards compatibility was just expected for Nintendo handhelds at the time, so this isn't too shocking. It also meant that people who were reserved about buying one wouldn't be afraid to bring their DS on the go versus their GBA if it meant losing access to their favorite games. Pretty much it was a "We are doing this with hope it replaces the GBA, but we'll sell them on it being a third pillar so they won't freak out." It worked, and no one cared after it replaced the GBA in the end.
@@thebasketballhistorian3291 now:yeah pay full price for these old games and get this increasingly shittier emulation for an outrageous price
I made good use of that slot. GBA titles, like Golden Sun run like a charm :-)
@@thatitalianlameguy2235 remember, piracy is bad unless it’s a Nintendo game
Nintendo's decision to go with weaker hardware may, ironically, have been a factor in outselling the PSP. That resulted in a much cheaper and more robust console, and price and resilience are more important in a handheld than processing power.
This has always been a main strategy by Nintendo, that other companies just can’t seem to fathom. History has shown again and again that the bleeding edge doesn’t automatically win you the market. It has to be MAYA, “most advanced, yet acceptable”.
@@pixelotix I also think it makes better developers in the long run
@@lasthopelost9090 This. People actually liked the more power psp hardware but game quality will almost always be the most important thing. Being underpowered meant more profitability for Nintendo but jack squat to gamers. Simple fact is Nintendo had the better games by far and more importantly they had good mobile games. The psp often focused on bringing full fat console experiences to a handheld which was neat but often didn't make for great on the go gaming. You couldn't turn around without stumbling onto a big hit DS title.
They did the same thing with the Game Boy and later, the Switch. What their consoles lack in power they make up for in affordability, they just need to strike the balance between super-cheap and cheap but quality.
@@r.jclark4641 i wouldnt put the switch in that category. For a gaming handheld of its size and day game performance superseded flagship phones and handheld window pcs like the gpd win 1 and even 2 in some aspects during release. I think ppl get a misconception with the switch but in reality it came out as a successor to the vita in hardware. If you look at the time between the psp to vita and vita to switch releases, theres actually less time between the latter. Its strange that the vita was hailed as one of the most powerful handhelds when devices like the nvidia shield portable came soon after which tech was more capable but held back by android. But the switch didnt get the same reputation even when it took longer for other handheld gaming devices to catch up and succeed it.
As impressive as 3d on the DS was, i , to this day, am amazed by the quality of the 2d sprites.The colors, the manipulation of the sprites modes and the sheer crispy nature of them made a beautiful composition.All Castlevanias ,wayfoward and inti creates games didnt age a day in my opnion,it carried on the GBA tradition.Praise to all those devs and sprite artists, for what i think was the last mainstream effort in pushing 2d art!
One good example is Dark Fawful in the final boss in Bowser's Inside Story. It would have been impossible or too much sprite availability for the GBA.
@@videogamesuperstars bowser's inside story was a gem
Look at Pokemon Black And White, The World End With You, The 2d sprite, Color Palette,Environment Texture so awesome. Beat any 2d ps1 games even Castlevania SOTN
I was a kid when the original ds came out, me and all my friends were crazy about the device. The download play was one of the coolest aspects. It just blew our minds that only 1 person needed to own Mario Kart for us all to play together haha.
If you were a kid when the DS came out… then you’re still a kid.😂
@@JJ-ze6vbit came out 19 years ago
@@JJ-ze6vb the math isn't mathing. cuz when the DS came out i was a kid too. now i'm 26 years old with a 3 year old and an 8 month old. don't think i'm a kid anymore lol
then you have the opposite on switch with a lot of multiplayer games gouging for extra copies, like kirby's dream buffet in which you cant play with 3-4 people for unexplained reasons
@@JJ-ze6vb i had a ds lite as a child. dsi came out, then dsi xl, 3ds and xl, and finally 2ds and 2ds xl. all in my lifetime. i'm 23. definitely not a child.
So now we can expect a "How graphics worked on the 3DS" video next.
I own a New 2ds XL and a regular 2ds pretty good handheld playing Shin Megami Tensei Strange Journey
Pretty sure 3DS is more straightforward, apart from the inclusion of a DSi hardware mode to run DS games natively. Iirc 3DS mode uses an off-the-shelf PowerVR GPU core rather than a custom in-house solution like the DS. I'd guess this is part of why a DS will play almost all day while 3DS battery life is kind of sad.
@randomguy8196 Honestly not sure how long the original 3DS took to charge. I've got one but almost always either just left it charging overnight or continued playing while charging. Also worth noting that plugging it in unlocked a higher brightness level than you could get on battery. I've moved on to New 3DS XL and Switch since, but I still prefer it for travel since it's the smallest 3DS available, is the same size as a DS Lite, and at least when hacked can play any Nintendo handheld game up through 3DS, minus the very few that require New 3DS.
@@joemck85 my dsi battery is fucking awesome even to this day and it's been through a lot
I really liked the mixed 2D and simple 3D graphics on the DS. Really unique visuals in a lot of games!
Nintendogs was the killer app on the DS.
Where's the 360 Port then?
I have that game somewhere 😅
RIP Glizzy
I remember that game. I had a datsan, a sheltie, a pug, a syberian husky, a shiba inu, a yorky and a shnouser.
Named them Willow, Lassie, Frank, White Fang(WhtFang for short), Akane, Shinji and Tillie respectavly in the order that I got them. However It's been such a long time playing due to real life as well as more then likely missplacing the card, I can't remember which three I had with me last.
? sarcasm? lol pokemon is always the largest seller and killer app, then theres mario.
I always looked at the DS like Nintendo's version of the PS1, especially in terms of the polygonal games graphically
Although the graphics capabilities of the DS surpass that of the PS1 in many ways, just take for example RE1, on the DS the backgrounds are of lower quality to save space on the cartridge, but the 3D models have more polygons
True that.
Was a wonderful system.
And I’m so happy that they also made the 3DS.
I really enjoyed all the games with dual screen gameplay and the 3D function on the successor was nice too to me.
After the Switch I guess there’ll never be another two screen console but luckily we have hundreds of games to enjoy over two generations.
I’m just about to complete my collection. :D
no
@@lucaspereirahmj HAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHA no
same! I always called the DS a portable PlayStation 1 and the PSP a portable Sega Dreamcast
I loved how you could play an RPG or other inventory/map/menu-intensive game, and not have to constantly switch screens just to check where you are, use an item, etc. The Castlevania games were some of the best they made...
Dawn of Sorrow changed my life
IIRC the Saturn's 3D subsystem was an extension of what Sega did with the Genesis. The polygonal quads it drew were sprites stretched and scaled according to Jon Burton of GameHut and Digital Foundry. It also accounts as to why it can't draw transparent objects easily compared to the PS1.
3DO was already doing this, but will less power and no dedicated 2D. This is why it was hard to port Doom to both.
@@noop9k Burger Becky struggled to convert _Doom_ to the 3DO and it didn't help that the guy who hired Becky to do the conversion was too confident and naïvely believed that it's just the matter of a copy-paste job from the DOS release.
@@therealsnowwhite1937 I know all of that. I just wanted to make the statement above. Quad rendering in both systems is very similar and creates similar problems, because can’t be adapted to hybrid hw/sw approach used on PS1 and PC Rendition Verite port. Both Saturn and 3DO use hardware only for some parts of the scene. 3DO uses hw for walls and 2D, but CPU for floors and ceilings. Saturn port, IIRC, uses hardware for UI and 2D.
@@noop9k Don't forget about the NV1 as well. NVidia tried to market it as "superior" to traditional triangle rendering but that created a whole laundry list of issues. Then again that was when everyone was doing their own thing and developers had to adapt games for a _myriad_ of GPUs until 3Dfx came along.
@@therealsnowwhite1937 Truly a wild west of developing technologies. From sound hardware, to 3d graphics.
Pokemon BW and B2W2 are so technically impressive
Still playing it in the original console the way the game look was pretty good
My DS broke a few months ago after more than 15 years of service. Thank you for all these delightful hours of fun
Great little machine. Was lucky enough to develop for this device back in the day - great devkit and very well documented, an absolute pleasure to work on!
0:28 the way they planted the Potato Mine hurts
Was searching for this comment.. I was under the assumption everyone knew how to play pvz, guess not lmaoo
My girlfriend and I still play Mario Kart on DS together 😃
Eucalyptus oil
Sad you didn't propose to get married since 2004.
@@adamiskindasmart6427 😂
cleaned with eucalyptus oil ofcourse
Try online on wiimmfi it's getting popular
NDS rom carts were so damn cheap and good, great times to be a poor teen.
I had about 50 games on a flashcart, it was great
I remember spending my birthday money on a beaten up fat DS and an R4 cart when I was in high school. So many damn good memories lol
I gave some guy in h.s. some money and he loaded up a whole bunch of japan only games, shonen jump was so fun.
In case FBI is watching: Not that I'd ever have bought one of them, but I know that here in Europe, when people went into holidays e.g. to Turkey, on the bazaar you could get a cracked "300 games in 1" - DS card for freakin *10 $* .
Sure, most of them were crap, BUT there were around 20 good games per card, like Animal Crossing, Nintendogs, Need for Speed, Mario Kart, Super Mario Bros and Sonic Winter Olympics...
Mindblowing if you ask me... today, for 10 Euro you don't even get one single DLC/Season Pass for an EA-game... Gaming was definetly way cheaper back then.
@@54356776 I mean they are technically privacy so it's not like ur the only one that bought games
Remember the slogan: “touching is good”
*slogan
make touChInG GrEaT aGaIn
I didn't even realise that the DS's 3D hardware supported antialiasing: it seems as if most games on the DS don't bother with it at all.
Of course, with the resolution so low, it would look kinda chunky anyway. But I would take a guess at, for instance, Professor Layton making use of it.
*antialiasing. It
@@alvallac2171 nobody cares stop correcting people
Is this alvallac or whatever it's name is a bot? Seen that shit on multiple comments
The screen is quite small and the resolution is really low so anti-aliasing wouldn't add that much. But it would incur quite a heavy price and would require cutting down other things.
Now the 3ds would be an interesting one
Yes! Absolutely agree!
The 3DS doesn't use custom graphics hardware, it just uses a PICA200 GPU designed for embedded hardware like phones, digital cameras, noticeboards, and arcades.
It wouldn't be though. It's just a normal 3D GPU like you would find in a computer or phone.
@@leohuangchunwang *hardware. It (to fix your comma splice run-on)
@@palaceswitcher *It's (contraction of "it is/has")
its: for possession
You can also make 3D with two screens and more polygons on the DS by using it's "write to bitmap" 3D mode.
Basically you can optionally tell the DS to write the results of the 3D graphics to the VRAM, so you can reuse it with the 2D engines later on.
Some games like that OZ use it to render 2048 triangles on one pass, and then use the result as a background and draw the other 2048 triangles to get to 4096 on a maximum 30 FPS rate.
Other games render to the VRAM in a frame and to the screen in the next frame, and set the sub engine to display the vram to get the two screens in a comfortable fashion.
OZ? What game are you talking about again?
@@PlasticCogLiquid Wizard of OZ - Beyond the Yellow brick road.
It has some quite amazing graphics for the DS
@@dan_loup Nice! I wish that trick would've seen more use
@@PlasticCogLiquid I think it's a bit hard to pull off, not THAT hard
One of the best channels on TH-cam, thanks for the years of amazing content !
*TH-cam. Thanks (to fix your comma splice run-on)
Every time I watch MVG I feel I understand how hardware interfaces with games and software a lot better due to the fine commentary and slow and clear explanation. Cheers.
The DS was such a simple and flexible system getting around his limitations was actually fun
*system. Getting
*its limitation
*fun.
@@alvallac2171 *its limitations
The pedant made a mistake haha
Get it? Flexible?
I always loved how the 3D graphics of the DS looked. They had a lot of charm, and were visually comparable to the PS1, minus the signature flaws such as texture warping and vertex snapping. The lack of ugly filtering on the low res textures is great, and I love the low poly look.
In particular, I absolutely love the look of the few FPS games on the system.
I think this in a way is an example of how limits help create an environment for creativity. The limits of the Nintendo DS helped fuel creativity among developers to utilize that hardware in some pretty insane ways! :D
DS has an amazing selection of Dragon Quest games.
I was buying and playing Dragon Quest games on the DS well into the 3DS's lifespan. I couldn't afford new copies because they were long out of print and pretty expensive so I had to scour gamestops for used copies. Seeing as how they were (and still are, don't try to tell me the mobile versions are better) the definitive ways to play DQ 4, 5, and 6, I'm glad I was able to stock up.
all of your videos like this give me higher appreciation for the console covered and the engineering behind all of them. amazing work.
Best console childhood that I owned. Thanks to R4 as well. 😂😂
Also shoutout to the R4 video converter for converting non 18+ videos
Please, more of these videos! I love learning about how consoles work. This video reminded me a ton of when I used to dabble in Ace Attorney fangames and fan translations.
car
Such a polished video. Loved every bit of it. One of the best game channels on TH-cam
I really miss the 3DS/DS lineup, I wish Nintendo would make them again.
That was the Wii era. All of their systems were quite charming, then.
But every era ends. We can buy retro hardware for the memories. The Switch Lite brings certain feelings with it, though.
Why didnt they just put a card slot on the Switch
@@jimmyjay689 how many screens does a switch have, again?
@@rockstopsthetraffic the amount of screens doesn't effect emulators. So why should it matter for the switch?
@@Lanceolson4586 because it's Nintendo, emulation was still taboo in 2016 when the Switch was specced out, and they're not going to provide a subpar experience with compatibility like that.
The episode I'd been waiting for. Thanks for the excellent rundown, as always!
Been waiting for a video like this for a long time, I'm still super impressed that the DS CPU can't even handle floating point numbers yet devs managed to pull off pretty compelling 3D physics and movement without it
Oh crap I didn’t know it couldn’t do that! I mean, I guess he kinda said it when he said it couldn’t do subpixel coordinate precision?? But still. It doesn’t dance around like the PS1 does.
*time. I'm (to fix your comma splice run-on)
We used all integer fixed point math.
You can do subpixel with fixed-point math, it's just that fixed-point is more annoying to program and stuff like squares / square roots will overflow or lose precision easier than with floats. @@kaitlyn__L
Oh man, now I want to make a DS emulator once I finish this NES emulator I'm working on. This is fascinating! Making my own emulator really helps me appreciate what you're saying here so much more.
Mvg really grew man . Been such a joy seeing you get to this great b roll and such.
I love these in depth videos on how stuff works. When I was a kid, I got DS and seeing mario kart DS's overview of the track in 3D across both screens was super impressive to me. Very interesting to see so much later that it had to be done with clever coding tricks!
I just recently played MegaMan Starforce, a game that mixes 2D and 3D graphics a lot, and i was really impressed with how it looked. The models looked pretty good for a game in 2007, and there was no slowdown at all either.
Also another shoutout to the 2 DS Starfy games, that mixed in models with sprites, and it looked absolutely amazing.
Really interesting and educational video on how one of my most nostalgic consoles worked. Great video sir!
What a great time it was to be a handheld gamer during the DS and PSP era. So many great games were released for both systems.
Outstanding video. Your visual demonstrations are spectacular, especially the separation of the various render layers. Thanks so much for sharing. Subscribed.
I just want you to know that these mini documentaries are like a gift to me after a long day at work. Thank you!
I love the DS. I still play my black DS Lite about every other day, and I actually bought a pink DS Lite for my Mom a couple months ago. We both have Edge Card flash carts with 16gb and tons of games on them. We love to play Clubhouse Games, Tetris, Pac-Man, and Lego Star Wars 2 together! It’s an older console, but it still impresses me everyday. When I play games like Phantasy Star 0 or Kingdom Hearts, it blows me away with how they were able to put such graphics intensive and amazing games on the DS. The hard work lots of developers put into the console really shows and some timeless video games were definitely made, and that’s why it was the #1 handheld console back in the day. For me it’s incredibly nostalgic and the fact that it was mine and probably most people’s first 3D handheld console is certainly a marker in gaming history. I remember when my parents first bought me a DS Phat when it was newly released and Mario 64 DS... I remember hiding under my covers at night and playing my DS until I would fall asleep... I would be so amazed at how the heck I was able to actually play a n64 game in the palm of my hands. Anyways... sorry for the long post. If anyone read this, thanks for taking a walk down memory lane with me! 😌🙏🏼
You didn’t know this, but I’ve been waiting for this video for a very long time. Thanks!
I remember being BLOWN AWAY by how good the Metroid Prime Hunters: First Hunt demo looked. I had a first person shooter in my hands! Then that game came out, and I was again blown away by the full game. And it had online multiplayer. Prime: Hunters was just amazing.
That online muti player was so good it has everything even Nintendo games don't have today.... customizeable game modes. Voice chat (with friend codes) and just a very tight shooter.
To think it slipped past Japanese execs. They would've had any of it
That was one of the only games I've ever pre-ordered.
Yeah it was! the imp SUCKS if you were hit by it
Always love to see how a game system works, and your way of explaining it makes it so clear!
Great video MVG! I would love to see more like these where you explain how the hardware works!
Love your videos. From a developer perspective, its a great learning source
Great video, must've taken a lot of time to put together
*video. Must've (to fix your comma splice run-on)
*together.
@@alvallac2171 will you ever shutup?
@@alvallac2171 good luck fixing all the typos on the internet
Love watching your videos MVG! You inspired me to soft mod my Wii U, load a bunch of backups on it and now I'm having a blast reliving my childhood.
This is legit one of the coolest videos I have seen in ages. Subscribing for this ngl. Amazing job explaining and providing visuals
Already know this gonna be a good vid
What timing... Uploading at this very moment 3 gigs of ds roms to my hacked switch 😃
Space invaders extreme 2 in Tate mode on a 32in monitor ❤️
How is ds emulator gameplay on the switch? Is it like phone emulators but much larger?
"TATE MODE"
Please tell me you watch Game Sack.
Very informative! Videos explaining the hardware intricacies of individual platforms are always appreciated.
Delighted to see this sort of thing on the channel again! I only understand some of it, but what I do is fascinating!
Thanks for the video!
Lol nintendo always says their new products are supposed to compliment the old but end up replacing them fairly quickly
Who else clicked because they saw Radiant Historia in the thumbnail? Such a top tier game!
Duuuuude I used to love your videos but somehow they disappeared from recommended and I haven't seen them in so long. Glad to be back, your videos are great as always. Glad to see someone giving love to the DS as it is slowly fading into the abyss thanks to the Switch but it really was a great console with so many niche titles you couldn't find anywhere else.
I always love these deep dive technical videos. It's so fun. Awesome job
I bought one of these to play dragon quest nine.
I would still like to see a proper remake or re-release of DQIX on PC or the Switch, thats a hugely underrated DQ game, and people who didn't own a DS never got to try it.
Me too, but in 2020. Found a silver ds lite in mint condition with several first party games and a case for $40 just because it was missing a charge cable. Of course the battery still had charge after years without use 😂
that's RIGHT jay!
10:42 "a hard limit of *2048* polygons" Wait, what? That is a really tiny amount, even the PS1 had 90.000~180.000 polygons and that was back in 1994.
Love the video. Still part of my Monday routine!
Could you do a 3DS episode breaking down how graphics work on the console and improvements Nintendo made on the original DS???
I lost your for months man it' great to see you again
I got my original DS back then with a Metroid Demo Cartridge. I am remembering how my older Brother asked me "how the graphic are looking so good". It was a really nice Handheld, but the PSP was the the real King! 😁👌
Too bad you were tethered within 6 feet of a wall plug at all times.
@@wishusknight3009 The PSP would have benefited from a larger battery, but even stock 1000s ran for a couple of hours without a charge. I've been wanting to do a battery mod on my PSP for a while now, though, since it's my go to portable emulator, especially for PS1 games.
The real problem with the PSP battery is that you cycle it so much with normal play that you end up needing to replace it if you don't want to be tethered. GBA SP and NDS batteries seemingly last forever, since they get so much more play time on a charge from the start.
@@ssholum I remember a friend being an early adopter of a 1000 PSP and he was lucky to get 3 hours on a full charge. If he had the screen at full bright he was under 2 hours.,, My DS was averaging 4-6 times that.
@@ssholum Running the games from the memory card instead of the UMD is a massive increase in battery life.
jesus, I was searching for this yesterday
That little trick where you swap mid frame and render 3d on both screens is so cool!
I really appreciate how your thumbnail looks!
I remember the 2, Kingdom hearts games and how much I was impressed by them , it was an incredible experience
I was seriously impressed by the two Zelda games of the system, especially Spirit Tracks. These are really good looking DS games. And M64DS still holds a candle to many future releases on the system
@@rac1equalsbestgame853 it's just a great handheld . To me even if it's the weaker , it's the better system between the 3ds and the DS , because even after all his limitations it's impressive how good the games look , and on the 3da you would expect the games to be 100 times better and this is not the case .
I love the DS, it also had the best game of all time, Ghost Trick in it.
My favorite to
Second to TWEWY imo
And most of the Ace Attorney games. Capcom was on a roll with the DS!
zero escape 999 is great too
I bought that game brand new for $20 on Amazon in 2014 after buying a 3DS...lol...now the price is 4x that...wish I bought more
Just sat down, MVG pops up and it's exactly what I need right now. Thanks man.
These are always my favorite videos that you put out! I love diving into the hardware of the old consoles I love so much.
So great! Please narrate ebooks, your voice is 🔥
*audiobooks. Your
@@alvallac2171 what
@@alvallac2171 not everyone can get their books published on print. Hence narrate e-books. It really doesn't matter, we all can enjoy more of his voice narrating
And the first Game shown Is Castlevania 🤘
Back when Konami was good.
Great video. I did some homebrew on the DS back in 2007-2008 and this made me very nostalgic for it. I wish I remembered where my code was or at least still had my hardware to do it still...
once again a great video!. I remember being super impressed with having those graphics in my hand.
Next: How Graphics worked on the Sony PlayStation portable
480p gaming, but so amazing
@JM Coulon It was still a custom GPU like the PS2 which is interesting. And the UMD made the most sense at the time. In high school, I had designed a system for fun a year before the PSP or DS were even announced and I had determined that the Sony MiniDisc format was the best valued format for storage capacity and price at the time (but also knew memory cards like SD were the future). Also it would have had Wifi and optional cellular internet connectivity built in and was even shaped almost identically to the PSP, with the only difference being the location of the joystick above the d-pad and a second joystick on the right (more like an Xbox controller). I remember my friends were shocked when they announced the PSP and were like, "Holy crap dude, they must have stolen your design!" 😂
@@Bristecom ofc that happened. Whatever bro
@@brandonm6786 Mmmk. Sorry this bothers you somehow.
@@danielwilliams3161 I see this misunderstanding a lot these days. The PSP has a 272p screen resolution. The resolution shorthand comes from a screen's HEIGHT not its width.
Never had the DS. I'm tempted to buy one now and build a library for it. I missed so many great games.
Now is the time. Lots of the good games are increasing in price.
Another few years and ds games will have gone up minimum 30%.
They're on that threshold of being nostalgic for a generation of young adults who had it as their first gaming system.
Also given that not all titles were printed in stupid quantities, certain games now already are getting up there.
First party titles have kept a reasonably high value when compared to their launch prices, with the exception of games that sold like hotcakes, such is the case of Mario Kart DS, which you can find for 20 Euros/Dollars or less. You can even buy games like Rhythm Heaven for 5 Euros/Dollars. That being said, keep an eye out for third party titles, since they're plenty of gems in the midst of shovelware.
@@AgsmaJustAgsma such as solatorobo for example
Just save yourself some trouble and by one of the 3Ds models. They’re backwards compatible, so there’s virtually no difference
Extremely well made. Subscribed! Would love to see a similar video on the PSP
the amount of information in your videos is amazing. 10/10
I heard that insomniac had an interesting approach on the PS3 hardware.
Would really like if you cover it.
naughty dog and insomniac did some amazing things with the PS3 hardware. Not that it couldnt have been done better on x86, but yeah
@@Kyle1444 ps3 is a beast ... difficult to program. but still a beast.
The Cell's SPE's were used to do some crazy stuff to make image quality better. The later PS3 games make the 360 look last gen at the time.
@@Loundsify yep
I remember playing Resident evil on the DS blew my mind back then.
You really are such a genius on this stuff!! great video as alwayss💻⌨🖥
The game I'm most impressed by, after your explanation, is one of my favourite games on the system: Infinite Space. Both screens display 3D pretty equally, but during battles the bottom screen shows a little video display (it's a cockpit view) that straight up mirrors what is being shown on the top screen but smaller, somehow. I'd love to know how they managed that.
"The DS was not meant to surpass the gameboy family"
Jokes on them, it became one of the best selling handhelds of all time.
When it launched in 2004 though it was not very popular, entire gaming world was confused what was the point of dual screens and even weirder at the time before smart phones existed, a touch screen, Nintendo even released the GBA micro after the DS released. I still remember the constant online threads of everyone thinking Nintendo has lost their mind. It wasn't until the DS lite in 2006 which flattened the profile making it pocket friendly, improved the backlight and battery life along with a variety of colors that it really took off in popularity. Oh and that little game called Pokemon Diamond/Pearl helped too.
Incredible facts and amazing video! I love Nintendo and I like these video’s a lot. I owned both the DS and PSP back than. But although the PSP had better graphics, I was annoyed by the loading times from the machine and poor battery life. DS games on the other hand loaded in an instant and the battery life of the handheld is great.
*videos (plural)
video's = possessive (or a contraction of "video is/has")
*back then
"Than" is for comparison.
Shocked tf out of me I was binging your videos from 2 years ago and click on this video not realizing it was from yesterday and your bread caught me off guard
That cross-section of the BG layers knocked my socks off
Ah the Nintendo DS, such a great console. I love it
I used to work developing games for the DS. I remember the 2D screen could handle indexed .bmp files but the 3D screen could handle .tga files with 8 levels of alpha channel. You could do very nice stuff combining the different file formats!
Loved the video, brought back a lot of good memories 🥰
*DS. I
*files, but
*screen
*video. It brought
*back a
@@alvallac2171 oh wow, I really didn’t see all these mistakes! I was using a Magic Keyboard for my iPad at the time and I can see some of the mistakes are because of it.
thanks MVG! i already kind of knew the broad strokes but still learned a lot, this is why i love your videos
I love your content, man. I actually look forward to seeing what you will do next. Great job with this video, great editing. I see you put a lot of work into it. 💖
Just stopping by to hear that retro / vaporwave type intro.
I see that you're using the Nintendo DS Lite for demonstration. Is it your favorite DS model?
The OG DS has a very dim backlight and the chassis is ugly as sin. More comfortable than the boxy Lite though.
Thank you for making my day again with a video!
I just love your videos... Your tech deep dive is just amazing!!! 😁