How Powerful is the Nintendo DS?

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The Nintendo DS, the worlds best selling hand held games console ever. But just how powerful is this thing really? How does it compare with home consoles like the N64 and the original PlayStation and what about its main rival the Play Station Portable?
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Thanks to Rodrigo Copetti for another fascinating analysis which was very helpful in creating this video:
www.copetti.org/writings/cons...
Modern Vintage Gamer on DS graphics:
• How Graphics worked on...
Index:
00:00 Intro
01:15 N64
07:50 PlayStation
14:25 PSP
18:35 Patreon thanks

[@MichaelODonoghueMOD]

The DS had a 10 hour battery life, and you could comfortably fit the Lite in your pocket. That made it a pleasant handheld experience that few consoles after that could match

[@Ghennesph]

Battery life is so underrated these days. Everything is 2~4 hours at best, and that's just sad. GBASP is still the king of handhelds IMHO, but classic DS is a strong contender for that top spot, thanks to it's great battery life and crisply moving screen; PSP was a smeary mess with a poor battery life, and Vita, well, it's not so smeary, but it still lacks the battery life and is even less pocketable than PSP was. though, if I had a GPD Win(1) I might favor that.

[@EmergencyChannel]

10 hours of battery life but you had to play on tiny, low resolution screens and 2D games. Full 3D games like Mario 64 ate the battery fast.

[@ThibautMahringer]

​@@Ghennesph Sadly you can't have good graphics and amazing battery life, it's already a miracle that we can get 5h of battery life out of the mariko Switch

[@ArminAwesome]

​@@ThibautMahringerwhen I first played on my new Oled switch I was blown away that it lasted almost a hour longer, despite having the same battery and better screen. I knew Oled is known for power efficiency, but it felt quite nice nonetheless.

[@ThibautMahringer]

@@ArminAwesome Yep, the SoC used in Switch V.2 and Switch Oled consume a lot less power, dropping from ~15W to around 9 to 11W docked, and from ~11W to 6 to 8W handheld. Personally I got a Switch V.2 after giving my V.1 to a friend and the gain in battery life is quite nice. Moreover Switch OLED also have a more efficient screen because the pixels are off when displaying black content, though the effect on real battery life is minimal.

[@dan_loup]

Something interesting is the way DS draws it's 3D graphics. it's more like an old school sprite engine rather than the usual "draw to a frame buffer, show to screen". you feed it the list of 2048 triangles, and it will draw em onscreen along with the 2D engine. you can optionally tell the DS to write the 3D graphics to the memory as well (which is how you do things such as 3D on two screens on it), but the default is a direct, on the frame output. This results in some pretty interesting advantages, such as being the only 3D system without a frame of input lag due not relying on double buffering, and the 3D being locked to 60 FPS unless the CPU can't update the triangle list in time.

[@dan_loup]

Another thing i have to add after watching the video is that you CAN blow past the 2048 triangle limit by using the aforementioned technique of telling the DS to draw to the memory instead. Wizard of OZ (and possibly other games) do just that to draw 2048 triangles to a bitmap on a frame, then on the next draw another 2048, using the bitmap as the background. This however cap the frame rate to 30 FPS, as does using the engine to draw 3D to the two screens, like the dragon ball games on the DS do.

[@espfusion]

​@dan_loup DS can't draw directly to memory nor can it draw more than the 2048 polygon limit in one frame. What it can do is copy the 3D output to VRAM while it's being fed to the 2D engine. That VRAM can then be used as the source for a 2D bitmap layer or composition of sprites, which the next frame's 3D can be composed on top of or behind. This can be used to draw a scene that seemingly exceeds the polygon limit. The problem is that the depth buffer isn't captured so you have to do some kind of ordering or depth culling between frames, and that makes it tough to really fully utilize 4096 triangles efficiently.

[@dan_loup]

@@espfusion The game i cited (Wizard of OZ) does a pretty simple trick to deal with the depth issue, they just draw the level geometry from further away to a certain depth while writing to VRAM (which i should had specified instead of giving the impression it is to any of the memory pools in the system), then it draws the rest of the closer scene. i imagine the game work on a per object basis to select which of the renders it will go to stop weird intersection errors.

[@VarietyGamerChannel]

Like Sega Saturn

[@espfusion]

@@dan_loup Yeah I think most games that do this draw ground-ish or background terrain on one scene and models and occluding elements on the other. The former always being behind the latter. It might not work that great for a first person view indoors but walls don't take a lot of polygons anyway.

[@Diwasho]

The DS was the one system that had, in my opinion, the biggest disparity between its best looking games and worst looking ones. The difference was seemingly several generations apart, like they were on completely different devices altogether. It's too bad very few games really pushed the DS to its limits and many of the ones that did stayed exclusive to Japan.

[@roberto1519]

Rare games do push limits on handheld devices, battery life is one of the primary aspects developers take into account. There were interviews of Japanese developers designing a game in a way during planning/early stages, but they had to cut back a lot of the original design. This is not to say there aren't 'heavier' games, still, if battery life wasn't that much of an issue, they would be much more common.

[@V8chump]

Can you guys name some of these heavier, higher fidelity, games that we didn’t get? I’d really like to see what the DS could really do. It still looks great in most cases, imo.

[@TheShadowhog759]

@@V8chumpI was about to ask the same lol I wonder what the DS looks like at its limits

[@roberto1519]

@@V8chump Yes, overall, most DS games are quite charming, have you seen how Final Fantasy Tactics A2 pixel art is beautiful? As for pushing the DS hardware, here are some examples: C.O.P.: The Recruit, C.O.R.E., most Call of Duty games, Colin McRae - Dirt 2 is the opposite here, the PSP version runs at 30FPS with much improved graphics, the DS have simpler visuals but mostly runs at 60, Dementium, GoldenEye games, Mario Kart DS, Metroid Prime: Hunters, Moon and more. As you can see, most exclusively 3D games will require more processing power, thus, playing them will drain the battery way faster than games based on sprites, obviously.

[@mausmalone]

This is one of those things that results (in part) from the system being hugely popular and therefore being a target for shovelware. Some people spent a lot of time and effort making the best looking DS game they could muster and some people just wanted to get something out the door to cash in on the popular platform. The Wii and the PS2 were both like this too - both of those systems had some incredible limit-pushers, but they also had some absolute garbage hiding in their vast libraries.

[@FatNorthernBigot]

Everyone in our office had a DS. "Mario Kart Lunchtime" often turned into "Mario Kart Afternoon Skive". There is no substitute for in-person multiplayer and this console really nailed-it. If its a choice between playing against a friend and some rando teen who claims to have bumped uglies with your mum, the choice is an easy one.

[@user-vi4xy1jw7e]

Playing against a stranger for sure

[@andrewgoss1682]

Download play was honestly huge for the time

[@FatNorthernBigot]

@@andrewgoss1682 download play! I remember that, now. You're right. Not every in the office had a copy of MK.

[@Christopher-md7tf]

You'll be glad to hear that in the year 2023, Nintendo's online service still doesn't support voice chat and hence, there's zero chance of anybody insulting your mother when playing MK against randos.

[@wonphi]

DS and PSP era was the golden age in handheld gaming.

[@maroon9273]

Plus, psp vita and 3ds.

[@joncook7510]

​@@maroon9273no

[@BlueEyedVibeChecker]

PSP Vita? The one that competed with the DS3DS?

[@xenobreak1160]

@@maroon9273 The last of the pocket handhelds. Such a shame.

[@tomrow32]

11:35 This isn't entirely correct. The DS can use software routines to chop up scenes into multiple bite-sized 2048 triangles or less scenes which are overlaid together to bypass the limit. Each scene render takes exactly 1 frame to render, regardless of triangle count. Due to this, splitting the scene into 2048 triangle chunks cuts the frame rate to 60/x frames per second, where x is the number of scenes it needs to render.

[@3dmarth]

It should also be mentioned that graphical knowledge and techniques improved rapidly and drastically between the mid '90s and early/mid '00s. Games like Super Mario 64 DS and even Mario Kart: Double Dash on GameCube had fewer polygons per character than the original SM64, yet they still looked better because of the artists' skill, combined with newer modelling and rigging techniques.

[@C.I...]

Perhaps a more fair comparison would have been the Ridge racer hi spec demo - it was a tech demo for new techniques and showed how far programmers had pushed the system since '95

[@TheWorldDBZ]

What bugged me the most was the lack of interpolation in PCM samples, which greatly reduced sound quality in ports like Mario 64 DS and Kirby Super Star Ultra. I understand Nintendo thought it's less of a problem with handheld consoles because they have bad speakers, but it was always noticeable if you play it with headphones.

[@MaxOakland]

What does interpolation do?

[@FigureFarter]

@@MaxOaklandYou know how the Super Nintendo has that muffled sound? That's interpolation. Without it, the sounds would be rather crispy

[@MaxOakland]

@@FigureFarter That's interesting. Why do you prefer it? I always figured muffled=bad

[@FigureFarter]

@@MaxOakland If you listen to lower pitch sounds, sometimes they'll sound lower quality and more crushed i.e., the Game Boy Advance

[@iamdarkyoshi]

Mario Kart DS's 3D fullscreen track overview at the start of a race always impressed me as a kid. It has left me curious how easy or difficult that was to pull off.

[@VexAcer]

FYI the DS couldn't actually render 3D on both screens at the same time. To achieve the dual screen 3D effect they switched between each screen of what was being rendered on every other frame. Also since the processor is limited to 60fps output max, it meant you had to divide that up. So 30fps on each screen was the max possible when doing the technique. In the case for Mario Kart DS you'll notice the framerate difference. The track views are effectively 30fps, but the actual gameplay is 60fps. There's also another DS game called Spectrobes. The gameplay for it takes place entirely on both screens with 3D graphics, so it runs at 30. For certain cutscenes though it uses only one screen and during those it runs at 60fps.

[@frapippo420]

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[@frapippo420]

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[@frapippo420]

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[@frapippo420]

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[@cheapshot777]

COP the Recruit is an example of an open-world DS game the PS1 and N64 wouldn't have a chance in hell of running, while running at a completely locked 60fps.

[@PhoticSneezeOne]

The biggest shortcomings of the DS in my opinion are the lack of bilinear filtering and an analogue stick. Since the "Lite" revision of the handheld the missing texture filtering was a true letdown at least for me

[@Leeki85]

Bilinear filtering does not work well in very for low resolution screens. Everything becomes a blurred mess. Furthermore nowadays it's preferred to not use bilinear filtering in early 3D games like DOOM or Quake. They simply look better with pixelated textures. Bilinear filtering started to work when graphics cards had at least 16 MB of RAM and games started to require 3D accelerators. In other words Dreamcast is the first console when texture filtering was useful. Nintendo might also wanted for NDS games to have distinct look, while also allocating hardware resources to other features. While they could make more powerful hardware (PSP is the example here), they did really well in designing NDS if you consider how successful it was.

[@ArneChristianRosenfeldt]

@@Leeki85how do you hide mipmaps without bilinear filtering? If you have to use 60 fps on LCD, you are free to jitter for FSAA . Linear is less noisy.

[@bizarroeddie1]

Lite is lite, not "pro" or "plus". And people forget this thing has a tiny screen, it looks better on it than on these comparisons with the picture completely blown out.

[@PhoticSneezeOne]

​@@bizarroeddie1 On the contrary: The "Lite" was indeed a "pro" iteration of the first chunky and low contrast screens DS "Phat" model. With much better contrast, color reproduction and brightness the pixelated textures were much more apparent than on the old Phat.

[@ArneChristianRosenfeldt]

@@bizarroeddie1 bilinear filtering got totally cheap once transistor count went past 500 000 . Though, if you fight low resolution on SD TV (N64) or even handheld, I would instead like to see FSAA( super sampling). 3x3 internal pixels in a 4x4 grid for extra sharpness. I mean: don't sample on the borders). Computer is cheap. Memory access is not worse thanks to cache. Maybe also cache the z-buffer for all partial filled pixels. Then image quality stays when we tesselate organic surfaces ( up to certain size where the z subpixel cache is trashed ). Ah, I forgot: GBA has no texture cache. So: 8 memory accesses. But at least cache along the line! So a little less. At least the low res mip map will hold its cache values for some pixel.

[@Dwedit]

The NDS can exceed the hard cap on polygons if you use its "capture" feature, where it will output to video memory instead of the screen. Then you can draw that, plus a second pass of 3D (No depth buffer on your previously rendered screen though)

[@hicknopunk]

The star trek psp/ds title is a great example of DS vs PSP. The PSP looks a lot better, but the DS gives you a better interface/info.

[@espfusion]

DS has hardware edge anti-aliasing and unlike N64 it's at least kind of order independent and mostly free. A lot of games use it. But it doesn't always work that well. If you're looking at emulators most don't emulate it because it's a big pain.

[@2fernandoc1]

Yeah, I noticed it in Mario Kart DS and Sonic Rush Adventures

[@JAC3DG33K]

Yeah the PSP was almost a full generation a head of the DS and honestly as someone who has Tekken 6 on both the PSP and 3DS it seems like the graphics are almost identical on both platforms and have similar downgrades from the PS3 version. Would be interesting to see how the PSP, 3DS, PS Vita, and New 3DS (the one I don’t own) stack up against each other

[@sadnessasf]

you should compare the tekken on 3ds to tekken x street fighter on ps vita because they are the same generation, it looks almost like the ps3

[@benjib2691]

In terms of raw performance (GFLOPS), the DS is roughly 3x the N64 (0.6 vs 0.2 for the N64), the PSP (2.6) is a tad faster than the Dreamcast (2.1) but a bit over a third of a PS2 (6.2). The 3DS is at 4.8, so nearly 2 times more powerful than the PSP but still less capable (in raw computations) than the PS2. The New 3DS isn't much different in terms of GFLOPS as the GPU is mostly untouched compared to the regular 3DS, with just a small bump in VRAM (10 MB compared to 6 MB in the old3DS or regular 3DS). The CPU however is vastly more powerful (2 cores @ 266 MHz in the old3DS compared to 4 cores @ 804 MHz in the New 3DS) and it has twice the RAM (256 MB compared to 128 MB is the old3DS). I think the New 3DS is roughly equal to a PS2. And the Vita is far more powerful than all of them at 28.4 GFLOPS, which is a bit more powerful than the original Xbox (20) and 2x the Wii/3x the Gamecube (12 GFLOPS for the Wii and 9.4 GFLOPS for the Gamecube). For reference both HD consoles of the 7th gen (PS3/Xbox 360) are over 200 GFLOPS, with the Wii U at 176 GFLOPS and the Switch (when docked) at 393 GFLOPS. However while the GFLOPS values give a good estimation of the capabilities of these systems, they don't tell the whole story. GPU architectures have changed so much over time that at the same GFLOPS number, a more recent GPU might be capable of using rendering technics which make better use of theses GFLOPS than an older GPU with the same GFLOPS rating. In addition, GPUs of handheld consoles usually render games on lower resolution screens compared to home consoles. So for example the 3DS tend to be quite similar to the Gamecube graphically (if we compare Luigi's Mansion on both systems, the Gamecube version has better textures and higher resolution but the 3DS version has slighly better 3D models with a touch more polygons and far better lighting even if it's not really the same flair). However the Wii remains more powerful graphics-wise than the New 3DS while having less RAM (Xenoblade Chronicles on the New 3DS isn't really up to the task compared to the Wii version in my opinion).

[@user-vi4xy1jw7e]

​@@benjib2691What's your fav systems?

[@benjib2691]

@@user-vi4xy1jw7e That's a good question. If I had to choose, I would say the SNES, Megadrive/Genesis, PS1, N64, Dreamcast, Gamecube and Xbox 360 for home consoles, and the DS and GBA for handhelds (I was more of a Nintendo player when I was younger, but in 2013 I began to buy Xboxes and Playstations from the past and other retro consoles). However I do like all consoles I've tested or possess (NES, SNES, Megadrive/Gen, Saturn, PS1, N64, Dreamcast, PS2, GBA, Gamecube, Xbox, DS, Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, 3DS, Wii U, PS4, Switch, Xbox Series X) for one reason or the other. I find it facinating to see a dedicated hardware, with its own specific architecture and history, playing the games made for it. Understand the reasoning behind the hardware architecture choices which more often than not define the games on that specific platform. And of course the associated controller.

[@equinox1141]

​@@benjib2691damn that was a whole class about hardware ☠️ Thx tho.

[@TanookiSuit]

For a chapter of the pushing it series on DS(DSi) make sure to include the DS games that quietly had included in them DSi access mode. Sonic the Hedgehog is one of the most notable how not great it ran on DS/Lite but on DSi they used the added beefed up parts to get the game to run silky smooth and just behave as it should. There were a considerable amount of titles that got this kind of treatment where stuff went from passable to play to just great on the newer hardware. 3DS had the same issue where Smash loads faster on the new model and a game like hyrule warriors is almost unplayable unless put on the new model. I would think as far as pushers on the DS goes the Dementium titles would be worth a look.

[@Vulpas]

I'd love a comprehensive look at those features.

[@CobiaCrossink]

What game of Sonic are you talking about? You talking about the classic collection or what?

[@kuugoriver]

​@@CobiaCrossinkI had the same doubt but they might be talking about Sonic Rush, I remember when you stack multiple combos the game would slow down

[@VexAcer]

BTW the DS does actually have native anti-aliasing in the form of edge AA. In fairness most emulators (easiest way to capture footage/screenshots) don't simulate it properly and it can be extremely spotty in some games. Some games like Fossil Fighters do make pretty heavy use of it though. It does make a difference and help clean some of the games up, but the games being on a smaller screen are really what help alongside it. Blowing then up to a big screen really doesn't portray the visuals accurately.

[@AfterBurnerTeirusu]

Ridger Racer DS is a port of Ridge Racer 64. It would have been cool to see RR64 alongside the others.

[@dreamcastfan]

Yeah that was a comparison I would have liked to have seen too. The port of Diddy Kong Racing to the DS might have been a good one to compare as well, even if it was somewhat spoiled with touchscreen gimmicks.

[@EmuNext]

There is an unofficial port of Super Mario 64 running on the DS. While some things like text appear garbled, it runs really well.

[@mihsan.2572]

​@@EmuNextIt's important to note it's a native port for the DSi, not the DS. It only runs on a DSi due to the extra and needed RAM available on the DSi

[@EmuNext]

@@mihsan.2572 yes thanks for adding that.

[@ulrich5000]

One thing I would want to compare is how Resident Evil on DS compares to the PS1 version. That would make for an interesting topic on its own. I had a friend who actually preferred the DS version but grew up on the PS1 version.

[@PureBloodedwolf]

The DS version is better

[@Xilefian]

"Dementium The Ward" is probably the game that to me pushed the limits of the DS the most

[@vshade]

The rayman game you showed would definitely be a great game for the comparisons, as it was available on all cited platforms and even on the ds successor

[@adamrogowski2748]

Love your series on "games that pish the limit of x system". Informative and entertaining and i often learn games i had no prior knowledge of. Looking forward to more of them!

[@muslimmetalman]

need a "pushing the limits" for DS!

[@ivan55227]

DS is a great console, packed full of quality titles (among lots of gargabe games though). But it's performance never was a selling point, in fact I'd say ps1 titles released in 1999-2000 blow the dust of what DS could dream of, there simply is no comparison when you look at graphically impressive ps1 titles like Vagrant Story or MGS, NFS High Stakes, Alien Resurrection and others. It may not be clear why this happened, because as demonstrated by the author, it seems like DS could potentially produce anything PS1 could do, but it did not. Maybe developers on DS did not care enough to make cutting edge games, as it was a portable platform with lesser expectations and budgets tied to that.

[@aegisreflector1239]

Agreed

[@PlasticCogLiquid]

Yeah, They could have made a real proper Tenchu game, I was pissed when we got that lame top-down perspective half ass Tenchu. That was such a wasted opportunity. The Tony Hawk Pro Skater games were great and prove that it could've been done right.

[@bryandavidasuncion9515]

I think Lufia 2 for the DS had incredible graphics, at times looking like an early PSP game.

[@kasjamm]

Metroid Prime hunters look better than all those games

[@codezero7981]

Hotel Dusk Room 215, Prime Hunters, COP The Recruit, Moon, Brothers in Arms, Animal Crossing Wild World look better than anything on the PS1.

[@kidcat3000]

You have to talk about C.O.P The Recruit for your next video. An open worldish FPS game on the DS with 60fps!?

[@roberto1519]

The DS is unique and offers a lot of educational/interactive software that no other system has. It also has many unique and exclusive games which mostly likely will never be ported over, due to its dual display nature. One thing to note is that without Pokémon, Nintendo handhelds wouldn't sell half they do, the PSP was way ahead of the curve and brought true console experiences to the handheld market in 2004/2005. It was interesting, a time each product had specific target audiences and many exclusive games you couldn't play on PC or consoles. Apart from Mario, Zelda, Metroid and Pokémon, the DS library still holds up and would be enough to make the device a success nonetheless, it wouldn't sell as much and like I said, Pokémon was THE reason GBC/GBA/DS/3DS sales skyrocketed. Still, having to choose a handheld, I'd go for the PSP easily.

[@abaque24]

What i like about nintendo is that as a company and as developers they dont think less of their portable and handheld games- every portable mario kart counts, every metroid game counts, mother 3’s there, etc, etc.

[@MattyIcecubes]

I had both the DS and PSP. Loved them both but PSP was where it was at. It was basically a PS2 in your pocket and it was mindblowing at that time. The Vita was basically a PS3 in your pocket but the game selection was not good at all and it died a quick death. I've never been into mobile games; they feel too different from traditional games. I continued to use my PSP for portable gaming; stained screen, noisy disc drive and all; until I got a Switch in 2018.

[@flekkzo]

That 4KB on the Nintendo 64 always gets me. The texture looks terribad and I have the hardest time getting over that. I bet I would have a different opinion of the N64 if it had been 16 instead.

[@jsr734]

There are some Nintendo 64 games with nice to good texture work for example Banjo Kazooie and Banjo Tooie and Conker.

[@funkmasterfrex]

Finally, a KZbin personality that asks the IMPORTANT questions...... 🤣

[@davidstring8301]

I remember being amazed at RR on PSP when it first launched, and I'm still amazed at how great it looked nearly 20 years ago

[@RightNowMan]

Excellent analysis, as usual, cheers!👍

[@hteekay]

DS's battery life was so impressive that it was my 1st handheld that even if I forgot to bring it's charger to my 2 days road trip, I don't have any anxiety of it getting low in power. It's the reason why I play DS more than my PSP even though PSP have prettier graphics and such... Well that and DS ultimately have better game library than PSP overall

[@P_D-px6iv]

DS has a better library? Since when? Most the DS library was straight up shovelware whereas PSP has 100s of AAA games and every multiplatform game was superior on the PSP

[@Sly2Cooper]

PSP had more variety in good platformers. Also much more variety in quality racing games, fighting games, sports games, action-adventure games. So what library are you talking about? Arguably shooters were also better on PSP (except for Metroid of course). DS was only better in adventure titles like Trace Memories, Hotel Dusk, Ghost Trick, Leyton and Ace Atorney. RPGs were great on both platforms.

[@P_D-px6iv]

@@Sly2Cooper exactly this idk what that guys talking about DS library was piss poor compared to the PSPs PSP had GOW, Ratchet and Clank, Daxter, MGS, Midnight Club 3 & LA, Ape Escape, Gran Turismo, full 3D GTA games, Twisted Metal, Assassins Creed, Burnout, Wipeout, Killzone, Final Fantasy, SOCOM, Manhunt, Syphon Filter, SSX, Dantes Inferno, and Hundreds of other AAA titles DS had a couple Mario games, a couple Kirby games, Pokemon, Zelda, Animal crossing, Lego Star Wars, some misc hits like Rhythm Heaven and the rest was shovelware typically based off TV shows/cartoons or movies. I guess it had a handful of JRPGs but nothing comparable to what you could get on PSP Also while DS can play GBA games PSP can emulate GB-GBA aswell as NES, SNES, Master System, Genesis, etc. Hell an overclocked PSP 3000 can even emulate Sega Saturn games via the Yabause emulator and get up to 30fps+

[@Sly2Cooper]

@@P_D-px6iv and even Lego games were better on on PSP ))) As for music games because of terrible hardware and small cartridge space even the Elite Beat Agent was merely playable compared to Gitaroo Man, Idolmaster, DJ Max and of course Project Diva series. Not to mention the Patapon series for its innovative gameplay merging rhythm, strategy and RPG elements.

[@P_D-px6iv]

@@Sly2Cooper can't forget Beaterator which was practically a full blown semi pro music mixer with rhythm games and challenges, PSP also has Vib-Ribbon and Parappa the rapper from PS1 I'd say the only 1-up DS had over PSP was Party games since DS had Mario Party, Crash Boom Bang, Kirby Super Star, LOL, Rabbids TV Party and Wario Ware whereas PSP only notably had Ape Escape Academy and Kazook

[@Crono_Triggered]

Fantastic video! Love your videos man. Super interesting. I would have been interested to know more about the hardware and architecture differences. I know it's apples and oranges and doesn't always give a clear picture, but I still find it interesting. Maybe not the best for this video though. One thing about the DS is that the screens weren't the best and were somewhat small, so the pixelated blocky polygons weren't as noticeable which kind of "improved" the graphics somewhat.

[@SHGames97]

Ridge Racer DS is actually a port of Ridge Racer 64! If you do a follow up comparing those would be interesting but the Goldeneye section really drove your points home! Amazing video

[@kurtg5405]

The PSP was way better than I remember hey

[@penfold7800]

Well, i bought my first DSlite for just one game series, The Professor Leyton series of games. ....Then I was further hooked by the inclusion of the Gameboy cartridge slot which meant I could also play many retro games too. Just brilliant.

[@estherstreet4582]

Professor Layton was such a good franchise, it was never quite the same on the 3DS.

[@BeefJerkey]

I got the 3DS version of Moon (called "Moon Chronicles") just before the eShop closed, it was a digital exclusive. It doesn't look like the graphics got an upgrade in that version, but it still doesn't look bad.

[@mosiunyan7774]

Game that pushed limits... Tales of Innocence, Solatorobo - Red the hunter, Kingdom Hearts.

[@Tofu3435]

Dragon quest monsters joker 2 was close to ps2 DQ8. cop the recuit was a 3D open world game similar to gta on ps2 style.

[@pokepress]

Kinda surprised you didn’t compare SOTN to the DS Castlevania games.

[@nguyengamer7906]

Yeah, psp and ps1 have Castlevania SOTN

[@seekingsolutions7078]

Let's go! I love these videos! Next do gameboy color games that look like game boy advance games!

[@connordarvall8482]

10:36, which is why it relied on using textures for detailing more than models. Also, that second screen made inventory management a blast. I would have loved to see something like a 3DS port of Oblivion or maybe have the older Elder Scrolls finally have their sword swing mechanics realised on the DS. If I had the motivation, I'd even want to make a series of what games would have looked like on the DS/3DS and what the touch screen could have added.

[@DaoistYeashikAli]

I was waiting for this topic for years. I was always curious about how powerful was the DS compared to the 5th gen consoles and could those consoles can run cel shaded games like Okamiden

[@Cwiiis]

Something that DS graphics videos rarely mention that is absolutely worth mentioning is that, similar to the N64, the DS had edge anti-aliasing for untextured polygons (N64 didn't have this limitation) and it makes a big difference when accounted for. Mario Kart DS in particular always struck me as looking much better for it. You can see it in this video in the New Super Mario Brothers DS footage too. Anti-aliasing didn't become the norm until the 360/PS3 generation, it's odd that Nintendo thought it was important enough for the N64 and DS, but then let it go afterwards (and often don't feature it even in games today!)

[@ArneChristianRosenfeldt]

For edge antialiasing like for translucency you have to sort back to front. But wait, what if two front faces touch on an edge? Order shouldn’t matter. Antialiasing on a texture is easy. Edge antialiasing internally of a triangle strip may work. Otherwise you would have to go full old school: sort by y and then sort by x. Then you can do a full vector drawing, a pixel high. Then sample onto the sun-pixel. Only software did that ( early Pixar renderman).

[@chosenone3137]

Well done, you really stepped up your game good job. Awesome video!

[@Sharopolis]

Thanks!

[@AndroidFerret]

The touchscreen is an absolute insane and awesome way of control . especially for egoshooters cause it is basically a mouse

[@lukashenrique4295]

yet another awesome video! can't believe I wasn't subbed, just noticed it.

[@deemster4249]

You sound like Richard from Digital Foundry putting on a voice. Interesting video btw

[@loganjorgensen]

The "aliasing" function on the N64 was an overrated hardware feature and something people have been trying to disable since it was just blurring in reality. I remember when I learned it could be turned off and in hindsight wanted that option in every N64 title heh. Actually to some extent I would have liked the option to turn off texture filtering on N64 too since the low-res textures wash out a lot by default. Overall I give the cake to the DS with it's sharper more mature graphics. The difference between 320x240 and 256x192 is fairly negligible but can make a performance difference in low end hardware, it was similar on Sega Genesis for it's 3D rendering examples, or the later day of the first 3D accelerators using 640x480 and 512x384 screen modes. Actually a nice transition from PS1 to DS just from being a newer more refined albeit restricted graphics architecture Eg. having a Z-buffer. Mainly the PS1 has the potential of greater than 240p screen resolution which does sharpen things a great deal. While I think the DS compares well to N64, PS1, and SS there's no way it can outdo a PSP. Still an interesting platform in throughput since it's somewhere between a PS1 and PS2 Ie. PS1.5 heh. I think it was dollars per hour fun mileage that had me get a DS and pass on PSP, sure Sony's hardware was stronger but that's not really how the handheld market ever operated Eg. GB's much superior battery life.

[@cube2fox]

Texture filtering makes textures always look better, otherwise at least) PC games would have had the option to disable texture filtering, but they didn't. The N64 textures did look bad because of the tiny texture cache which meant they had extremely low resolution. It had nothing to do with texture filtering.

[@loganjorgensen]

Lol yeah I hate texture filtering, worst hardware feature ever added.😆 Well that's the texture scale the N64 had by default so it looked very smeared typically, thus I'd rather have PS1-style texture appearance as an option especially for sprites. Adding the option doesn't harm anything Eg. Hexen. For example texture filtering, plus aliasing blur, and 4PL-SS equals no picture definition. There's a reason why modders are trying to disable the blur.🤨 Filtering would look a lot better in the next generation but too soon at these texture resolutions. Doom64 looked good but that was 4-way texture mirroring for maximum pixel resolution.@@cube2fox

[@asterchades2082]

Honestly I feel the touch screen was one of the worst additions to the DS. A neat idea, sure, but so many titles tried to shoe-horn it in which ultimately proved to be detrimental. Not only that but that it continued into the 3DS, seemingly into the Switch (though thankfully I haven't seen that used much) and likely inspired the awful twin touch design of the Vita means it has a lasting legacy of terrible that's hard to match with any other system.

[@estherstreet4582]

The DS' touch screen was a blessing and a curse for nintendo, in the same way that the wii's motion control was. It was, undeniably, the feature that was behind nintendo's massive success among casual gamers, but it made developing games that used more traditional control schemes basically impossible.

[@GABESTA535]

@@estherstreet4582 Also makes games on the system almost impossible to port to modern systems.

[@jsr734]

@@GABESTA535 why?, everything you can do with touch controls you can do with a mouse for example. And most of the time it feels more confortable than trying to use your fingers or a stylus on a tiny lcd screen.

[@jsr734]

I cannot express how much i hate touch controls in games, specially in games that will work better without them. The biggest example for me is Zelda Phantom Hourglass, as it requires you to draw a circle on the screen to do a simple spin attack, i died continually trying to draw a "perfect circles" but apparently the game thought my circles were not that perfect so i died and died and died. Were other Zeldas you only needed to hold a button this game was forcing me to do it with touch controls. Then i reached a place where i really needed to use this drawing circles mechanic and i stoped playing.☹

[@Poketroid23]

Really should have tried Dementium: The Ward for the PS1 FPS comparison. It had way better lighting effects and performed like a champ. Great video, puts the console in perspective.

[@enderjed2523]

Did you know that the Wii (2006) had the same raw GFLOPS as the Deep Blue supercomputer from 1997?

[@Sharopolis]

I do now!

[@JMFSpike]

As you said in the video, it can be hard to compare consoles sometimes because all of them seem to have at least a couple of unique features. There may be things one console can do that the other can't and vice versa, and that can sometimes even them out. Also, while it's always fun to compare hardware like this, nobody should take it too seriously, because in the end the hardware doesn't matter so much. It's the library of games that really make the difference. That's the main reason why the original Game Boy beat out both of it's much more powerful competitors (Game Gear & Lynx). I'd love to see an N-Gage vs. DS comparison. I don't know if that's ever even been done before, and I am quite curious how N-Gage would hold up.

[@taihounaishi7261]

3:40 - damn, Perfect Dark without textures

[@stunthumb]

Old carts weren't measured in megabytes... it was megaBITS... basically divide those numbers by 8. So not 512megabyte, 512megabit = 64megabyte.

[@timotheatae]

That's what he did! DS games were up to 512 megabytes, but N64 was only 64 megabytes!

[@stunthumb]

@@timotheatae Ahhh my bad - I didn't know N64 carts went as high as 64mb, I thought nowhere near that... so that threw me a bit :D - I wonder what N64 games were 64mb! - I wonder if Doom64 needed that much.

[@timotheatae]

@@stunthumb Conker's Bad Fur Day, Pokémon Stadium 2 (Gold and Silver) and Resident Evil 2, all used 512Mb(64MB) Nintendo 64 Game Paks!

[@NeoTechni]

@@stunthumb but he's wrong about DS games being 512 megabytes, so it seems he did mix up his units there. The biggest I know of was MechAssault at 64 Megabytes (coincidentally that's 512 megabits)

[@timotheatae]

@@NeoTechni According to the developers of MechAssault: Phantom War, sizes above 128MB did indeed exist. Ni No Kuni used a 4Gb Game Card, at 512MB.

[@suntannedduck2388]

The Gizmondo, Zodiac, GP32 & NGage were interesting for PDA features (GPS/Camera built in unlike PSP) or phone interesting in their own way. I usually think 2D on DS and the handful of 3D on there. Ridge Racer 64 (don't know about the hi spec demo like someone else said) is that version on the DS as far as I'd heard so comparison there would have made more sense but the PS1 version sure is fairly close and more recognisable to people. Besides other possible PS1/PSP comparisons to be made. Grid DS is impressive not seen enough footage of it to remember prior to this video but it's pretty interesting. But of course GT2 is what it is for the time in comparison of graphics and of course content. Both interesting 3D shooter comparison. On PSP some games look awkward like Medal of Honour gun aiming it's clear it's PS1 pixelated but otherwise many games do look good enough for it. But of course the graphics difference of PSP/DS, touch screens and dual screens make them interesting for the time. The DS for textures always were interesting even if noticeable pixelation.

[@HybridAngelZero]

There's something really special to me about how the look of 3D games platforms mentioned here. They all have their distinct style, but there's still something special about it i can't quite place

[@estherstreet4582]

The DS' slightly crispy textures due to the lack of texture filtering is really nostalgic to me, I grew up with a DS and played a *lot* of slightly shovelware-y games.

[@mekman4]

Great Stuff!

[@matsv201]

Fun fact. PSP and N64 have basicly the same CPU MIPS R4000 series. The diffrance is that PSP have two cores and 333Mhz maximum core clock. The DS have significantly slower CPU than N64 (about half the preformance), but T&L that of load quite some work from the CPU to the GPU. The main reason N64 wasn´t faster than it was, was because it was bandwidth starved. The bandwidth of the RDRAM memory under-preformed quite significantly.

[@mohammedganai9636]

The 2d meets 3d approach kind of reminds me of the Sega Saturn, though the two systems handle it in different ways.

[@bigdeano4459]

3:49. I recognize the lobby from Perfect Dark anywhere.

[@2NDFLB-CLERK]

▪️ YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE COME HERE, GIRL!!! 🟥

[@user-hw1zc7zf7c]

it even have resident evil1 from ps1 2 versons in cart 1 with touch extras and 1 full og verson really nice specually as heavy rde fan as me

[@dbzwarrior4321]

Interesting video👀

[@StraightOuttaJarhois]

Did the DS really have texture warping? I never noticed, perhaps due to the small screen. Anyway, it was clearly much (MUCH) less severe than the PS1.

[@espfusion]

It has perspective correct texturing and 4 fractional UV bits so wobbling and warping is a lot less bad than it is on PS1.

[@diamondsmasher]

@1:16 Watch the castle walls and roofs, you can see the wobble. Granted it’s not as bad as PS, likely antialiasing might’ve helped mask it.

[@VexAcer]

Technically yes to a minor extent but its very different to how it was on the PS1. It's hard to spot but in some games when a texture is nearing the edge of the camera it'll stretch a little. Hard to explain without a direct example but yeah. The DS does have a proper Z-buffer though (essentially how the triangles are sorted by depth) which alone gives it a much more stable look than PS1.

[@jonasak]

The ds is one of my most nostalgic consoles

[@xenotiic8356]

What a fun video. Lots of good memories with the DS era.

[@Babbages]

I remember having a ds and psp but I saw my friends gp2x and that thing blew me away at the time said his uncle got it for him but the thing was loaded with all types of emulators and ROMs took like 2 years after I saw that thing for me to get a r4 card for ms ds and mod my psp for emulators but damn was that thing cool as hell at the time lol

[@AneurynPlays]

Not going to lie brother, that intro scared the crap out of me. I'm sitting here all "Wait, is he serious right now?" XD

[@damian597]

I recently got a brand new boxed D's lite brain training edition for £5 and then spent another 5 on a R4 card. Just wish the buttons weren't so small otherwise it would be perfect

[@m1k3l1f3]

When the DS came out, I still was playing GBA, GBC and of course Gameboy games. So I never did get into the DS. I jumped straight to the 3DS in high school.

[@TechTokOffical]

Man I would have given anything to have a handheld like this when I was a kid. It's like everything someone in my generation would have wanted....then again the memories of this games opening song echoing thru the halls of the mall,the crowds of kids piled around a 15" crt nintendo 64 demo station just trying to get a glimpse let alone their chance on the controller are all things I could never foeget

[@ChaossX77]

10:34 Nice bars

[@musicviolamusician4392]

I never even knew about the Nintendo DS (phat) I had only ever known about the DS Lite. Until a kid from a party I saw him using an original ds (phat)

[@elwey7552]

there are hombrew ports of both quake 1 and 2 on ds, however q2 requires a memory expansion pak quake 1 plays well, mostly at like 30 fps

[@MaxOakland]

2:50 - But what *is* the resolution difference? I like numbers!

[@MelodyMecato6156]

In retrospect it's pretty neat that Nintendo handhelds were so underpowered, they feel like extensions of older generations (GBA was a throwback to 16 bit era, DS=extention of PS1/N64, etc). Meanwhile PSP and Vita just feel like 6th and 7th gen games turned down to "low" settings.

[@sam_64]

DS VS N-Gage would be cool

[@Nintendude.]

Funny that some video praise Ridge Race on the DS for how it looks. I'll though I am not big on graphics I for one really didn't like it when I played it back in the day, pretty sure I sold it. (I kinda miss it now) I don't know maybe as a kid I wanted Racing games more in the big screen.

[@fuzzix]

I bought a PSP and DS long after they were current. Have Chinatown Wars on both, but much prefer the DS version - those cheesy touchscreen features are great. For me the PSP's killer app is converted PS1 games - playing FF7 and MGS on the go (... in bed, really).

[@Annandul]

Was the wireframe demonstration taken from Perfect Dark's Carrington Institute?

[@Sharopolis]

Yep good spot. I had that footage from another video.

[@Annandul]

@@Sharopolis appreciate it!

[@XenoMassxx]

You should do a power and graphics comparison between the 3DS and PSP. I always felt like those two systems was very similar to each other. I felt they was so similar that I use to want the PSP game Final Fantasy Crisis Core ported to 3DS back then because I felt the 3DS could handle it graphically.

[@Anonopsful]

I've always wanted one. My friend got it for Christmas i think 04 or 05. I had every Gameboy and for some reason never got this :(

[@Wakkajakka]

Really feel like Dementium 2 is the better looking of the DS shooters if you wanted to draw comparisons to a ps1 game late in its lifecycle.

[@Sinn0100]

The DS is a 32-bit bit handheld that revolutionized gaming. It's main components are... CPU- ARM946E- 32-bit@67MHz processor CPU- ARM7TDI, 32-bit processor@33MHZ RAM- 4MB of PSRAM Voltage- 1.65V Storage- 256KB of Flash Memory Wireless- Built in 802.11 NIC (Network Interface Card)

[@CompleteAnimation]

I'm surprised you didn't mention that Moon on the DS runs at 60 fps!

[@Sly2Cooper]

And looked very primitive as a result.

[@AnthonyRiddle]

I've seen the Raycon earbuds as a sponsor for several different creator's videos. Are they actually as decent as you have to tell your viewers? And are they worth buying?

[@Sharopolis]

I am a bit biased because they did send me a pair for free, but I do genuinely like mine and use them all the time.

[@razorblade413]

What about the nintendo dsi vs nintendo 64? Would still the n64 be faster in terms of cpu pulling more poligons on screen? Because for me this video is comparing the base ds model with the n64. There are 4 models of the ds which 2 of them are revision for more battery, and the other 2 are for core specs: - ds (normal) - ds lite (same as ds but more battery) - dsi (powerful specs than the ds version) - dsi xl (sames as dsi but more battery)

[@Blas4ublasphemy]

Resident Evil DS against the PS1 version would have been a good comparison, you could have even thrown the Saturn version in...

[@wangtang32000]

those earphones, how well do they work for voice chat?

[@Sharopolis]

I've made calls with them and they worked fine for me

[@wangtang32000]

@@Sharopolis ah ok. i've been looking for some that wouldn't mess up and drop quality when i use it for both listening and voice chat.

[@brzilla1235]

I would love to see a Resident Evil Comparison PS1 and DS

[@Ghennesph]

DS has antialiasing. The same vertex coverage antialiasing as the N64 has afaik. It only lacks the texture filtering, and that's probably to improve performance on the much weaker DS CPU by reducing the amount of floating point maths it needs to do. There's a lot of stuff that afaik is incorrect about N64 as well, such as the texture limits. IIRC, a developer came out and just outright said that's wrong, and is an artifact of I think the emulators at the time, and typical Nintendo SDK behavior, and not an actual hardware limitation. The memory was, afaik, 4MB of unified memory and actually internally simpler than PS1's different memory banks. The thing about DS polygons is also a bit of a myth born out of early homebrew development, and had to do with a hard limit on the number of points that could be used to calculate polygons at a time. The original myth was that it had a very hard limit on the number of polygons because of this, but the polygons could be any shape with any number of sides due to the limit being in the number of points you could store. AFAIK, this was later called out as false by another developer working on DS software at the time; I'm not sure how much of the original rumor was true or not, but IIRC there was some funkiness internally with the number of points and polygon limit, but it was a hardware function that was easily worked around in software, probably more of a number of polygons per line. This is supported by developer interviews with NST for Metroid Prime Hunters, where they outright state that they could draw more polygons on screen at 30fps than at 60, which is why the game has a 30fps limit. This is similar to the "DS can only do 3D on one screen at a time" myth from the early days; early games tasked one screen with 3D using one CPU, and 2D using the other, as a way of dividing resources and syncing data. The DS however had no such limitation, it was just a design choice to simplify and streamline early development. Comparing Gran Turismo or other high profile PS1 racers to Race Driver Grid on DS also isn't that fair of a comparison. One is a throwaway port for platform presence(though I hear it's actually quite competent despite that) at a time when no one wanted to play "real" racing games on a Dpad anymore, and the others are high-profile home console big budget releases both at a time when digital inputs for racing games was common, and on a platform that had an analogue controller to support as well, for the games that did support it. Sadly, I'm not sure the DS even has a high profile racer for a proper comparison. Something better to really show off the difference between the two, though, and favor PS1 quite heavily would be the Squaresoft 3D Final Fantasy games for DS, some of which ran quite poorly despite having clearly much lower polycount models. FFIV DS vs FFIX PS1 is a great comparison, because it showcases the much more complicated rendering pipeline with FFIV DS, but the much lower polycount and generally worse models and textures compared to FFIX, even in battle. FFXIV has two more characters in combat to deal with, but the model and effects quality is a pretty stark contrast favoring the PS1 game. Very interesting stuff there.

[@espfusion]

Both N64 and DS use edge coverage data in a post processing filter, but N64 has to approximate the background color based on surrounding pixels, while DS stores and uses the actual background color. DS also uses edge marking to properly limit anti-aliasing to model outlines based on depth and a pixel ID comparison with neighboring pixels. But I don't think DS's coverage calculation is very accurate even compared to N64's which only has 3 bits of coverage level. Lack of texture filtering isn't related to floats. Since DS uses relatively large VRAM slices directly for texturibg w/o a texture cache they probably just couldn't afford to provide all the extra bandwidth they'd need for filtering. N64's 4KB tmem limit is a real thing. You can't texture directly from the unified RAMBUS memory. You can DMA ftom RAM into the tmem but it has to be managed manually between primitives. DS's geometry limits are a real thing too. The geometry processir outputs scene data to two fixed size memories, one for vertex data and one for primitive data. An entire scene's worth of data must be stored in these buffers before rendering begins and because of how render output is synched with the screen the process can only begin exactly once per 60Hz interval. This puts a hard limit on the number of polygons that can be rendered, which is 2048 or less depending on use of quads, unshared vertexes and clipping. There is also a limit to how much the DS can render before dropping pixels but it's more of a fillrate limit, and because tgere's a 48 line render buffer that starts ahead of the 2D engines it's not really a hard line by line limit. Only one screen can display the direct 3D rendered output at a time. But because the 3D data can be captured to VRAM and used as a 2D layer the two screens can be alternated with one showing the current frame durectly and the other showing the previous frame captured to VRAM. This technique is also used to synthesize multiple scenes on one screen to appear to exceed the render limits, but this method has limitations. The biggest one being that you sacrifice a lot of texture memory. The Square PS1 RPGs really benefit visually from being able to render battle graphics at like 15 FPS (or often less for eg Chrono Cross) without having to deal with the problems of compositing multiple frames.

[@Sly2Cooper]

The only thing I've noticed while playing DS back then in comparison with PS1 - somehow PS1 games had more games with colored dynamical per-vertex lighting that most of DS games lack for whatever reason.

[@jsr734]

@@Sly2Cooper Gouraud shading? I have noticed lots of DS games having a lot of color banding maybe lack of Gouraud shading.

[@Sly2Cooper]

@@jsr734 gouraud shading just smoothes the lighting across polygon to make it look more round-ish, making low-poly objects look more complex with less visible edges between polygons. DS does that alright. I was talking about actual colored lighting. When polygons of a model are become tinted with a hue of a close light source. Look at Quake 2 on PS1, for example, how the weapon model is changing its' hue under different colored light sources. I haven't seen that in DS games. Compare it with Metroid Prime Hunters where the weapon just gets lighter or darker depending on the surrounding light and also shots do not even light objects on the way.

[@patrickross1717]

I was so confused in the beginning of this video😭

[@jan-eriksandli6221]

I still remember the cramp I got after playing the Metroid DS, but it was one of the 3d games I liked. But I never liked the 3D games on the DS, Castlevania and New SuperMario and the like was the games best suited for the DS I think.

[@estherstreet4582]

There was a bit of a push to 'compete' with the PSP by putting out a bunch of 3d games on the DS, which is a shame because its 2d sprite capabilities were much better. There are some absolutely *gorgeous* visual novels and JRPGs on the DS that have aged really well in terms of graphics, and then there are janky looking 3D games with about 13 polygons on screen.

[@alessandrooliveira3218]

Cool video. Nex make the same with 3DS and hardwares close to it.

[@LimeAtions]

the n64's textures being garbage kinda give it a distinct look that appeals to me. the frametimes and lag are a bit annoying, but not game breaking in my mind. especially considering rare has this "anti lag" system that speeds the game up when lag is detected, essentially killing lag. edit: ive had a DS sitting in a hard-to-reach spot of my couch for roughly 13 years, and i found yesterday with a halfway charged battery.

[@Chelaxim]

I perfer the DS models over the Nintendo 64 models for Super Mario 64. The models of the Nintendo 64 look a bit wonky. I think it's more of Mario's old school design.

[@askjeevescosby2928]

I got my psp on launch. I remember how much hype it had behind it and it launched on my birthday. I remember I put 25 dollars down as a pre order 6 months before it came out. Any time I got money ide walk up to game stop and put it down on it. Even when it was just 5 bucks I still wanted to make sure it went toward the psp. I was so proud of my psp because I bought it my self. I was so anal about keeping it nice, ide clean the screen every like 10 mins while playing ape escape and luminous. But the ds got pokemon, Wario ware, and mario kart so I ended up playing it far more. I played my ds literally to death.

[@TheOldFartGamer]

Ngage beat out neogeo pocket and the turbo express?! impressive.

[@Jammet]

If you ever feel like making an N-Gage > DS comparison, then Splinter Cell on both might be a contender to check out. It's a straight port from N-Gage to DS if I remember correctly.

[@crestofhonor2349]

You should really do PSP vs 3DS