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3DS Euro Event Thread [Update: GAF Impressions Inside]

Tempy

don't ask me for codes
Nuclear Muffin said:
There are no options to configure for original DS games. You can't change the screen size.

Are we sure about this? Were you able to look around in the system options?
 

RoadHazard

Gold Member
Chris1964 said:
Can someone else who played confirm that tilting up and down doesn't make 3D effect go?

It doesn't. The 3D works when your eyes are correctly aligned with the parallax barrier (basically a bunch of thin black vertical bars covering the screen). Tilting right/left will change this alignment and break the 3D, while tilting up/down will not, since the bars (or the slits between them, which you are looking through) are oriented like this:

|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| (but running all the way from the top to the bottom of the screen, obviously)

Tilting or moving the 3DS up/down will not change your eyes' alignment with the barrier.
 
One thing I forgot to ask Nuclear Muffin. How did you insert the DS game into the system. Isn't the cartridge slot blocked by the "do not steal" cage mechanism (also the SD card slot seemed like it couldn't be opened...).

There is something I'm vaguely remembering about Face Raiders. It had some sort of sharing option...I'm not sure if it was to share faces or if it was a distribute a demo copy/local play. The latter of which points to it not being a built-in game and a e-store download.

Oxx said:
I can't see Game or whoever still running trade-in deals at the time when I finally get around to buying a 3DS.
I can see them opening a dustbin actually and just throwing it in there as the trade-in deal.

Wichu said:
(i.e. how likely is it that the price of a used XL will fall significantly)?
I'm not sure many people bought the XL to start with (in comparison to i and lite) and won't be trading it in using a trade-in deal if they did. As the only reason for a price crash will be "oh god the stockroom is full of used ones".

Edit: Has this video of street fighter been posted yet?
 

EatChildren

Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
jett said:
Disappointing to read so many games run at 30fps.

Has there ever been a platform, handheld or console, where games ran consistently at 60fps?
 

RoadHazard

Gold Member
EatChildren said:
Has there ever been a platform, handheld or console, where games ran consistently at 60fps?

Don't most DS games (excluding the ones that render 3D graphics on both screens)?
 
Mideon said:
Not that I noticed just side to side breaks the 3D effect.

I would imagine that that's because of the way the parallax barrier is arranged - IIRC, the barrier is (essentially) a series of vertical strips that separate the image, so horizontal movement will quickly move the barrier out of the "sweet spot". Tilting the screen will eventually have an effect, but as the strips will still remain in roughly the right position until you've moved the 3DS quite a bit, the 3D image will stay stable for longer.

If the barrier was oriented horizontally, I'd expect the exact opposite (though I don't know if the 3D effect would be possible with a horizontal barrier).

EDIT:

Oops - just noticed this was explained above!
 

jett

D-Member
EatChildren said:
Has there ever been a platform, handheld or console, where games ran consistently at 60fps?

Most DS games run at 60fps, don't they? Especially Nintendo's titles. Ditto for their Wii library.
 

RoadHazard

Gold Member
Cosmonaut X said:
If the barrier was oriented horizontally, I'd expect the exact opposite (though I don't know if the 3D effect would be possible with a horizontal barrier).

A horizontal barrier wouldn't work unless your eyes are positioned one above the other. This should be obvious if you understand how the parallax barrier works (blocking half of the pixels from each eye's line of sight, letting them see different images).
 

KAL2006

Banned
Dreamwriter said:
I haven't seen it myself, but are you sure a blur filter would be on? Thinking as a programmer, when you scale an image up by exact multiples (ie, 2x or 3x), it stays just as sharp as if it weren't scaled. But when you have to scale by fractions, the resulting image looks blurry. Remember, this isn't Photoshop doing the scaling, but simple 3D hardware using basic math for scaling. The original DS screen resolution (for both screens) was 256x192. To reach the new resolution of 320x240 for each screen, the image has to be scaled to 1.25 times the original size, which is definitely going to look a bit blurrier than the original.

This is quite lame, Nintendo should have at least doubled the resolution, so it wouln't look as bad, I think the PSP2 is exactly doubling the resolution from PSP, so PSP games don't look bad.
 
RoadHazard said:
A horizontal barrier wouldn't work unless your eyes are positioned one above the other. This should be obvious if you understand how the parallax barrier works (blocking half of the pixels from each eye's line of sight, letting them see different images).

Ha - good point :)

Up half the night with babies doesn't help when trying to think about things like this...
 

Oli

Registered User
OK, this is probably a silly question, but has Nintendo officially announced a launch line-up for NA? I can find some 3rd party stuff, but Nintendo themselves haven't seemed to announce when their games will be out.

Can't really pre-order until I find out.
 

Plinko

Wildcard berths that can't beat teams without a winning record should have homefield advantage
KAL2006 said:
This is quite lame, Nintendo should have at least doubled the resolution, so it wouln't look as bad, I think the PSP2 is exactly doubling the resolution from PSP, so PSP games don't look bad.

Wouldn't that have jacked up the price at least another $50? My guess is that's why they didn't.
 
KAL2006 said:
This is quite lame, Nintendo should have at least doubled the resolution, so it wouln't look as bad, I think the PSP2 is exactly doubling the resolution from PSP, so PSP games don't look bad.
It's quite probable that a doubled resolution (over the ds) 3d screen wouldn've used far too much power, everyone's complaining enough about the battery life I dread to think peoples reactions if you'd get like an hour out of the 3ds
 

Dash Kappei

Not actually that important
Mideon said:
Pro Evo was excellent the 3D adds a nice depth to the pitch and looks and feels amazing when crossing the ball etc. Felt like classic Pro Evo and the slide pad worked perfectly.
Can you add more impressions here?
What was the last time you played PES on consoles, do you normally like the game?
About the 3D effect, does it work well when on classic TV view and not with all the crazy rotations going on with the trailer they showed? What about the graphics/framerate/texture/jaggies?
I thought it was going to be a shitty cash-in but your brief impressions are making me think about getting it since otherwise I'd only have SSFIV to play if Mercenaries not out at launch.
And what about Monkey Ball, how's the 3D effect, does it help gameplay-wise?

Thanks!
 

Mideon

Member
Dash Kappei said:
Can you add more impressions here?
What was the last time you played PES on consoles, do you normally like the game?
About the 3D effect, does it work well when on classic TV view and not with all the crazy rotations going on with the trailer they showed? What about the graphics/framerate/texture/jaggies?
I thought it was going to be a shitty cash-in but your brief impressions are making me think about getting it since otherwise I'd only have SSFIV to play if Mercenaries not out at launch.
And what about Monkey Ball, how's the 3D effect, does it help gameplay-wise?

Thanks!
The last Pro Evo I played was the last one on the PS2 nice and fast more arcade than sim.

I didn't change the default view but I think it was set to the action cam to show-off the 3D it was not classic side on.

Monkey Ball was ok although i did not play I for long and only used the slide pad to control it. When I was going very fast I found the 3D on it to be quite a blur but that might just be the setting I had the slider on.
 

BooJoh

Member
Disappointed to hear about DS game blur. I'd much rather have a smaller 1:1 picture. Hopefully you just overlooked/couldn't find the option, otherwise I'm second-guessing transferring my DSiWare.

If it indeed ships without the option for 1:1 DS games, maybe enough people complaining to Nintendo would get them to add the option in a firmware update if that's possible.
 
I was thinking about why the 3D effect didn't work so well for me. I wonder if its due to a similar thing I find when using binoculars. I tend to have the two eyepieces very near to each other. It could also be a case "eyes not used to 3DS" or "you just weren't using it properly".

BooJoh said:
If it indeed ships without the option for 1:1 DS games, maybe enough people complaining to Nintendo would get them to add the option in a firmware update if that's possible.
Remember how many years it took of people complaining the GBA screen being impossible to see and the Wii being full for those issues to be "fixed". Its kind of scary to think the GBA SP came out before the Wii SD card channel thing in terms of months after launch. Fun fact: Wikipedia said in the fulltext the GBA SP came out in 2003 but says 2002 in the infobox...
I've fixed it. I'm sure an overzealous mod of wikipedia will erase the changes.

Otherwise, you bring up a very good point re:DSiWare. 3DS will be my chance to try DSiWare but the subpar picture could easily put me off.
 
BooJoh said:
Disappointed to hear about DS game blur. I'd much rather have a smaller 1:1 picture. Hopefully you just overlooked/couldn't find the option, otherwise I'm second-guessing transferring my DSiWare.

If it indeed ships without the option for 1:1 DS games, maybe enough people complaining to Nintendo would get them to add the option in a firmware update if that's possible.

I agree, very disappointing if the option to play DS games unscaled is indeed missing. Thankfully it seems like firmware updates will be more flexible on the 3DS, allowing for this type of feature to be added later. But hopefully it's there from the start, just well hidden (even the GBA could do it!).
 

M3d10n

Member
Nuclear Muffin said:
Original DS games: DS games get no visual enhancements of any kind. No texture filtering or 3D or up rezing. The DS games fill the screens (bottom screen has no boarders, while the top screen has boarders on the left and right sides) so they are the same size as on the Lite.

There is a blur filter being used for original DS games. It is quite noticeable, but I wouldn't say that it looks terrible. It's a bit like what PS1 games look like on a PS3 with the blur filter turned on. I ran Zelda Phantom Hourglass on it and there were no glitches of any kind. It ran exactly as it would on the original DS hardware (if it's running under emulation, then it's bloody good emulation!)

There are no options to configure for original DS games. You can't change the screen size.
Fuck! My top worry has been confirmed: DS games are upscaled, instead of using 1:1 pixel mapping with borders. I was really looking forward to pass my Lite down to my sisters and catch up on all the DSiware stuff I missed. We need to start pestering Nintendo to add a 1:1 option in a firmware update.

But there are good news in this: if the 3DS upscales DS games and can use the slide-pad as a d-pad replacement, this means DS games are being run through some sort of virtualization/emulation layer which means Nintendo probably managed to finally block the DSi DS-mode flashcards and the DS-mode can probably be updated via firmware updates.

Did you try pressing the home button while playing a DS game?
 
Ok extra answers coming up!

RE Mercenaries - Enemy limit:

It still felt like Mercenaries mode and was still good fun. That being said, the trailer shows greater enemy numbers and the demo is still very early (unchanged from before and it still has a while to go before release) so I wouldn't really worry about it yet.

DS games - How I worked my magic despite the card slots all being locked.

Sneaky Metal Gear Solid style shenanigans with DS download play via a hidden DS ;)

DS games and the menu

Yes I did try using the home menu, no you cannot multitask while playing original DS games. It just asks if you want to go back to the 3DS menu (just like PS3 and 360 when playing games from older consoles.

DS games and screen options.

Yes I did check the main system menu on the 3DS. There are no options for original DS games at all.

misc stuff I forgot to mention

The web browser and game transfer options are there on the system already, but it tells you that it will only be available with a system update (just like the weather and news channels when the Wii first came out).

The game transfer option is in the system settings, not in the e-shop. Also, you have seperate data management screens for 3DS software and DSiWare.

Also, for those wishing that they had an option for 1-1 pixel mapping of DS games. Do realise that this would make most touch screen controlled games unplayable since the onscreen objects would simply be too small to touch (shivers at the thought of playing Trauma Center on a smaller screen!)
 
Nice impressions. How'd the pictures turn out?

Nuclear Muffin said:
Just got out, will post impressions soon. Most importantly I got to try out an original DS game on the 3DS! I got some pics too, don't know how well they turned out though. We'll see when I get home!
 

KamenSenshi

Junior Member
One thing that I'd just like to get confirmation on, even though it doesn't seem to be a problem at all for most part, is the power button placement. I figure since it hasn't been mentioned it must not be an issue at all when playing most games, so just kinda curious if during a faster paced game such as SSF4 there were any inadvertent presses.
 
Some games would look horrible with scaling/smoothing. Especially stuff with hand drawn pixel graphics, like Shantae or Contra 4. Having a smaller image is definitely preferable.

Edit: Can't seem to post images on gaf without smoothing being added, which is ironic.

Image
 

dvolovets

Member
twingloxx2 said:
Some games would look horrible with scaling/smoothing. Especially stuff with hand drawn pixel graphics, like Shantae or Contra 4. Having a smaller image is definitely preferable.

Edit: Can't seem to post images on gaf without smoothing being added, which is ironic.

Image
As already mentioned, a smaller image would effectively ruin most touch-screen games. That, and it'd make for one hell of a small image...
 

krumble

Member
Regarding the power button placement..

At the end of the day yesterday when I was playing street fighter one of the girls covering that area said that people had picked it up, and then when they were playing kept hitting the power off button and resetting it - then pretty much giving up and walking off - had been happening all day (though I didn't manage to do it)
 

KamenSenshi

Junior Member
That's good to know, it sounds like perhaps it's a case of getting overly excited while playing, making exaggerated movements vs calmly performing button combinations/presses. Cool, I shouldn't have anything to worry about in that case. Thanks.
 

totowhoa

Banned
Nuclear Muffin said:
DS games - How I worked my magic despite the card slots all being locked.

Sneaky Metal Gear Solid style shenanigans with DS download play via a hidden DS ;)

Good idea. So can we assume that your Kid Icarus impressions were made while using a stylus to work the controls, or did you just use your finger/thumb as well?
 
rpmurphy said:
Is there any way to change brightness on the fly like on DSi?

I couldn't find a button combo to do it, but you can do it from the menu when the game is suspended at least.


Sklorenz said:
Good idea. So can we assume that your Kid Icarus impressions were made while using a stylus to work the controls, or did you just use your finger/thumb as well?

Yes, I mentioned earlier that I had used my own stylus on all of the games.

Kid Icarus' controls are fantastic.
 

Veal

Member
Manmedaz said:
I was at the event in Paris last week and was able to take so very close shots of the blue lagon 3DS, for those of you who are interested. Here's a sample (there's about 40 pictures at the link, here >>> http://www.nintendo-difference.com/news21919--exclu-seance-photo-sexy-avec-la-3ds.htm).

3.jpg


15.jpg


38.jpg
Wow that looks much better than some of the pics I've seen.
 
dvolovets said:
As already mentioned, a smaller image would effectively ruin most touch-screen games. That, and it'd make for one hell of a small image...
Not really - 25% smaller isn't "one hell of a small image" (each screen would be 2 1/4 inches), nor would it make a significant different in touchscreen gaming with a stylus. It'd be harder to be pixel perfect, but almost no DS game depends on the player being pixel perfect.
 

M3d10n

Member
About the top screen looking sharper in 3D mode versus 2D, it is to be expected: you *are* seeing twice the pixels in 3D mode, since the left/right images are slightly different. It's like 2X SSAA, but it's your brain blending the 2 samples into a single image, not the system itself.
 

Donnie

Member
orioto said:
Well they could have come with a nice gameplay gimmick, but they obviously didn't have one...

I think the 3D is something that cost WAYYY to much to the console's design. Basically, putting 3D in the DS meant :

_2 cams = ugly front design - Haven't seen it in person so I can't comment, but that's actually for 3D photo's not required for 3D full stop, did you try 3D photo's?
_bad battery life - Nope, turn off the 3D and you get the battery life back
_expansive hardware - The screen being 3D will only be adding $5-$10 dollars at most
_2x less graphic power - 3D doesn't take twice the graphics power, also even without 3D you'd still have the same resolution so you'd still need the same pixel pushing power as in 3D.
_2x less resolution on screen - Turning off 3D enabled 2x AA AFAIK
_killing the "two equally important screen" concept of the NDS - That's about the only truly legitimate complaint here IMO
_creating a problem for some users (no 3D for some, headache for others, problems for lil kids etc..) - How can an option be a problem?


When people are saying, but the 3d is not important, this is still a great Nintendo console, well, ok.. But this could have been a totally different console without it. Was it worth it ?

Do you have anything positive to say about the system? Sorry if I missed it if you did.
 
Dreamwriter said:
Not really - 25% smaller isn't "one hell of a small image" (each screen would be 2 1/4 inches), nor would it make a significant different in touchscreen gaming with a stylus. It'd be harder to be pixel perfect, but almost no DS game depends on the player being pixel perfect.
Maybe the issue was the gap between the 2 screens (was it 68 pixels) when you have an image across 2 (though some developers ignore this anyway) would be wrong without the scaling. That said isn't it off anyway on the 3DS screen and the DSi XL? Or maybe people complained about GBA mode having borders...(that said these borders look larger than those).

KamenSenshi said:
One thing that I'd just like to get confirmation on, even though it doesn't seem to be a problem at all for most part, is the power button placement. I figure since it hasn't been mentioned it must not be an issue at all when playing most games, so just kinda curious if during a faster paced game such as SSF4 there were any inadvertent presses.
Its been mentioned in a few impressions. Its basically where start/select are on the DS Lite. So people hit it when trying to access a menu/skip cutscenes but I don't think it causes the system to switch off on one hit (it didn't in Face Raiders anyway and the only other time I tried was on the crashed Mario Kart so I assumed it needed holding down)
 

Disguises

Member
krumble said:
Regarding the power button placement..

At the end of the day yesterday when I was playing street fighter one of the girls covering that area said that people had picked it up, and then when they were playing kept hitting the power off button and resetting it - then pretty much giving up and walking off - had been happening all day (though I didn't manage to do it)
Are you sure? From what I've heard, hitting the power button brings up a menu, which you can resume the game from. Holding the power button down apparently turns it off, but I think you'd notice if you were holding down a power button. Even if it is an issue, I'm sure people will learn from their mistakes. Actually, I remember people complaining about this issue with the original DS and I certainly never came close to turning mine off.

EDIT:
Starwolf_UK said:
Its been mentioned in a few impressions. Its basically where start/select are on the DS Lite. So people hit it when trying to access a menu/skip cutscenes but I don't think it causes the system to switch off on one hit (it didn't in Face Raiders anyway and the only other time I tried was on the crashed Mario Kart so I assumed it needed holding down)
Ah, that would explain things.

EDIT2 while I'm here:
Nuclear Muffin said:
Yes I did try using the home menu, no you cannot multitask while playing original DS games. It just asks if you want to go back to the 3DS menu (just like PS3 and 360 when playing games from older consoles.
So that must mean when playing DS games, the 3DS turns into a DS, much like the Wii turns into a GC when playing gamecube games. Guess this means no DS games will be able to take advantage of 3DS specific features/hardware?
 
Here are some other impressions.

From that: Wait, so the projector pointed on the floor floor in the lobby were meant to be stepped on and part of the tour (streetpass if you all stood on it the rings would touch and bound back and fourth I guess)...I'm starting to wonder if they told the Manchester reps anything at all or if their organisation was just sloppy (also the guying talking about Shawn the sheep wasn't shown). I'd say the latter as it sounds like people in London were inside for a total of an hour.

Also I regret not switching on and off more systems (well actually I don't as it took my until the end to work out how to switch them back on) now that I hear some went into debug screens.
 

KamenSenshi

Junior Member
I noticed a couple things about the power button before but, I meant brought up as in being a big problem(specifically for fighters). Good to have further clarification though.
 
So that must mean when playing DS games, the 3DS turns into a DS, much like the Wii turns into a GC when playing gamecube games. Guess this means no DS games will be able to take advantage of 3DS specific features/hardware?

Not necessarily. It at least recognises the Circle Pad as a D-pad. You can still open up the menu so it's not quite like the Wii's GCN BC. It's more like the PS3's PS1 and PS2 playback.

Oh, speaking of debug screens I managed to crash a console and get into the debug screen (the very first one I got my hands on lol)

You couldn't really do much, you had the choice of loading from the card slot or the SD card. Strangely enough, the debug menu only mentioned the system as having 64MB of RAM, which is odd since the production models have 96MB (the one that was stolen is an EU version).

The ones at the event (in the first area) all said that they were prototype models on the back (that's the one that crashed for me) and were unable to load up the 3DS menu. The other ones in the 2nd area seemed to be final models as they were running the retail OS.

If I had to hazard a guess, the final system has 64MB of RAM available to games, with 32MB reserved for the OS.
 

marc^o^

Nintendo's Pro Bono PR Firm
Nuclear Muffin said:
Not necessarily. It at least recognises the Circle Pad as a D-pad. You can still open up the menu so it's not quite like the Wii's GCN BC. It's more like the PS3's PS1 and PS2 playback.

Oh, speaking of debug screens I managed to crash one (the very first one I got my hands on lol)

You couldn't really do much, you had the choice of loading from the card slot or the SD card. Strangely enough, the debug menu only mentioned the system as having 64MB of RAM, which is odd since the production models have 96MB (the one that was stolen is an EU version).

The ones at the event (in the first area) all said that they were prototype models on the back (that's the one that crashed for me) and were unable to load up the 3DS menu. The other ones in the 2nd area seemed to be final models as they were running the retail OS.

If I had to hazard a guess, the final system has 64MB of RAM available to games, with 32MB reserved for the OS.
Did you get a chance to see if diagonals were easier to do withnthe circle pad?
 
KAL2006 said:
This is quite lame, Nintendo should have at least doubled the resolution, so it wouln't look as bad, I think the PSP2 is exactly doubling the resolution from PSP, so PSP games don't look bad.


I bet making the pixels smaller (doubling the resolutions would probably do this) would make the 3d effect harder to maintain. The bigger a pixel is, the more likely your eye will stay aligned and within the vertical barrier. The closer those barriers are together, the more likely your eye would hope between them and lose the effect.

The 3d would probably be more stable if the pixels were gigantic like normal lenticular stuff you see on album covers, but pixels that size would undoubtedly raise complaints.
 
Class_A_Ninja said:
I bet making the pixels smaller (doubling the resolutions would probably do this) would make the 3d effect harder to maintain. The bigger a pixel is, the more likely your eye will stay aligned and within the vertical barrier. The closer those barriers are together, the more likely your eye would hope between them and lose the effect.

The 3d would probably be more stable if the pixels were gigantic like normal lenticular stuff you see on album covers, but pixels that size would undoubtedly raise complaints.
Actually, in one of the Iwata Asks, they said lower resolution ruins the 3D effect. They had tried this same tech on the GBA before it launched, but it was too low a resolution to be any good.
 
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