Author Topic: Am I the only one excited about DS emulating OTHER SYSTEMS? (Read 7321 times)

Terranigma Freak · « **on:** May 21, 2004, 04:26:20 AM »

I might be getting a little bit ahead of myself but for me, the DS isn't simply about new games, but also old games. Now, as much as I love my GBA, it's still not a true SNES to me. First of all it lacks the buttons thus the fighting games don't match up. Second, the sound is worst than the SNES. And third, the resolution isn't even as high as the NES.

Sure there's the SNES and NES emulators for GBA but those aren't perfect. For one thing, the graphics will have to be either squished or not everything will fit on screen. Now with the NDS, I think a TRUE PORTABLE SNES will finally become a reality. It has everything the GBA lacked and then some. And really, why stop with just SNES? I'm sure the DS can emulate pretty much every 2D system ever created. Nes, Snes, Genesis, Turbo Graphics, GameGear, Neo Geo, WonderSwan Color, Neo Geo Pocket, Gb and GBC. Can you image being able to have so many systems with you, and they're all portable!?

Ian Sane · « **Reply #1 on:** May 21, 2004, 07:22:12 AM »

I find a portable SNES is kind of a waste of time since the cartridge is so f*cking big. The games are like the size of the DS itself. One thing I would like to see is for future GBA SNES ports to work differently with the DS so that they use all six buttons for a more authentic feel. Naturally they would continue to use four buttons on the GBA. I wonder if it's possible for developers to do that. The Zelda Oracle games for the GBC had extra content if played on a GBA so it would be nice to see bonus features like that when playing GBA games on the DS.

jasonditz · « **Reply #2 on:** May 21, 2004, 08:08:59 AM »

There might be a difficulty in making an adaptor for cartridges when you've got that thin little card slot to work with.

Bill Aurion · « **Reply #3 on:** May 21, 2004, 08:13:42 AM »

Well I guess you could use the GBA port, but still it seems silly...

jasonditz · « **Reply #4 on:** May 21, 2004, 09:38:24 AM »

That assumes one can access the entire DS with a program running through the GBA cartridge port.

Bill Aurion · « **Reply #5 on:** May 21, 2004, 09:43:11 AM »

I'd assume you could, but if not, you could create something that plugs into both slots with the GBA slot for support...

jasonditz · « **Reply #6 on:** May 21, 2004, 11:39:22 AM »

that's true... or you could have a card with a dongle on it, like a PCMCIA card does...

DJSapphire · « **Reply #7 on:** May 21, 2004, 12:50:14 PM »

Guys, I think he was talking about emulating the SNES games as roms on the DS (like PocketNES or SNESadvance for the GBA). The DS is more than powerful enough for it, and I'm sure it'll become a reality soon.

-Deej

joeamis · « **Reply #8 on:** May 21, 2004, 06:20:09 PM »

That's what I got from it too. As for Neo Geo emulation, the carts for the DS aren't large enough to hold all the frames of animation and such those games had on those huge (pun intended) Neo Geo carts. So yes it can emulate Neo Geo but until the sizes of DS cartridges get bigger than 1 gigabit they won't be able to do the premier Neo Geo games unless they sacrifice lots of animation. As for the Neo Geo CD games well that would be very tough...

Many people still believe to this day the Saturn was the best hardware for 2d games. It would be interesting to see how well the DS could emulate the best Saturn 2d games, ofcourse they would have to be stripped down considerably given the large amount of memory.

Grey Ninja · « **Reply #9 on:** May 21, 2004, 06:50:23 PM »

system's not even out, and already the piracy starts.

Reminds me of poor GBA.

ActorJ · « **Reply #10 on:** May 21, 2004, 07:03:14 PM »

The largest size possible for Neo Geo games was 128megabytes, or 1 gigabit, which, conveniently is the same size as a DS card. Of all the memory, only a small portion of it was actually used for storage of the game, due to the fact that the neo geo system did not have any memory, it was all embedded with the game on the cart. So storage capacity is not an issue.

However as I understand it, a an encryption system used for some game means that even powerful PCS can have trouble emulating Neo Geo. With that in mind I will leave it people with more knowledge than myself to speculate further.

http://darkwatcher.psxfanatics.com/console/details/neogeo.htm

darknight06 · « **Reply #11 on:** May 21, 2004, 09:24:17 PM »

Dude, I don't think there'd be a single PC out there now that couldn't do Neo Geo. My old 450 could do Neo Geo even with the later games. On the other note, I just can't see myself playing a game like Samurai Shodown on a little screen, no matter how good it runs. Gimme my big screen and speaker setup.

Terranigma Freak · « **Reply #12 on:** May 22, 2004, 05:55:00 AM »

You guys are thinking too big now. I was only thinking about 2D cart based systems. No Neo Geo CD or Saturn. The 1 gigabit carts can hold Neo Geo games though. The biggest I've seen was around 512 megabits, only half the size of a DS cart.

Grey Ninja, did you even read the post? It's about the DS running roms of other systems. Not PC running DS emulation. It's DS running the emulation. Remember how Nintendo says the DS isn't backwards compatible with GB and GBC, who needs backward compatibility when the DS can easily emulate them and play the roms?

Bloodworth · « **Reply #13 on:** May 22, 2004, 08:03:25 AM »

ah... they did say that it isn't compatible with GB and GBC? I don't think I saw that officially, but I was thinking about it and realized that it probably could only do GBA. I'd be interested in seeing the source if you have one.

Also, everyone ought to keep in mind that the new DS cards can hold more than just 1 gigabit. That number is listed as the minimum size. Unlike optical discs which have a set limit, you can easily triple or quadruple the capacity of semiconductor memory in just a couple years. So DS cards will surely exceed the memory limits of Saturn and PS1 games eventually. And since this is a newer and cheaper format than traditional cartridges, it may increase even more dramatically than previous cart sizes on N64, etc.

Bill Aurion · « **Reply #14 on:** May 22, 2004, 08:06:43 AM »

I was wondering about the DS' compatability with GB/GBC games as well, but the press conference made it sound like it was just GBA game compatable only...

ActorJ · « **Reply #15 on:** May 22, 2004, 08:30:07 AM »

"Dude, I don't think there'd be a single PC out there now that couldn't do Neo Geo. My old 450 could do Neo Geo even with the later games"

It's not the porcessor speed, it's lack of memory. If your PC has less than 256mb of memory, some Neo-geo games presentd a real problem. Makes senese that this issue would be magnified greatly on the DS.

joeamis · « **Reply #16 on:** May 22, 2004, 12:40:56 PM »

Quote
Originally posted by: ActorJ
The largest size possible for Neo Geo games was 128megabytes, or 1 gigabit, which, conveniently is the same size as a DS card. Of all the memory, only a small portion of it was actually used for storage of the game, due to the fact that the neo geo system did not have any memory, it was all embedded with the game on the cart. So storage capacity is not an issue.
[L=http://darkwatcher.psxfanatics.com/console/details/neogeo.htm

http://]http://darkwatcher.psxfanatics.com/console/details/neogeo.htm

Cartridges don't have limits as far as how much memory they can have. The Neo Geo console did have memory which was very similar to the SNES memory, given the size that Neo Geo carts were much larger than SNES games the faster speed of the Neo Geo processor made up for this compared to SNES's. I was off in saying Neo Geo carts are larger than DS carts due to not sleeping for 48 hours, the largest Neo Geo cart I've seen weighed in at roughly 900 megabits.

Sorry for including NGCD and Saturn but I thought you did mean them when you said: "I'm sure the DS can emulate pretty much every 2D system ever created."

It will be interesting to see how large DS games eventually get, and when they get over 5 times larger than planned to the size of PS1/Saturn games. I wonder who will make a game that large for DS, perhaps SquareEnix or maybe Nintendo themselves.

KDR_11k · « **Reply #17 on:** May 22, 2004, 10:55:02 PM »

They could just use the GBA's ARM7 in the DS, which would include the Z80 stuff required for the GBC. People managed to overclock it to 33 MHz without problems, combined with newer manufacturing processes that'd work pretty well.

Terranigma Freak · « **Reply #18 on:** May 23, 2004, 05:00:35 AM »

I'm pretty sure they said the DS can't play GB and GBC games cause it lacks the older CPUs. But like I said, who cares when the DS can easily emulate them.

joeamis, we're both wrong. It turns out, some Neo Geo games are 90MB. I checked my Metal Slug 3 and 4 rom. Both of them are 90MB. I wouldn't be surprised if some Neo Geo games went over 90MB. Well, the DS can at least hold 128MB so it should be too big of a problem.

KDR_11k · « **Reply #19 on:** May 23, 2004, 09:37:45 AM »

The GBA has the Z80 on the same die as the ARM7, so if they used an "overclocked" ARM 7 (those things were designed for 33MHz, the GBA runs at 16) they could have used the GBA ARM7 and have the GBC hardware built in.

jasonditz · « **Reply #20 on:** May 23, 2004, 10:15:23 AM »

Ewww... if the DS can't play GB or GBC games thats a serious strike as far as I'm concerned. They should build an emulator into the OS or whatever, that's the sort of thing that might prevent me from getting one. I'll be damned if I buy a handheld that can't play Pokemon: CCG

Bill Aurion · « **Reply #21 on:** May 23, 2004, 10:23:01 AM »

Errr...You could just keep your SP...

joeamis · « **Reply #22 on:** May 23, 2004, 03:07:35 PM »

Quote
Originally posted by: Terranigma Freak

joeamis, we're both wrong. It turns out, some Neo Geo games are 90MB. I checked my Metal Slug 3 and 4 rom. Both of them are 90MB. I wouldn't be surprised if some Neo Geo games went over 90MB. Well, the DS can at least hold 128MB so it should be too big of a problem.

Huh me confused now. I said the largest Neo Geo cart I've seen is 900 megabits, equivalent to 112.5 megabytes. Anyways yes it shouldn't be a problem with DS. On a side note the last Neo Geo game is coming out within a month or so.

jasonditz · « **Reply #23 on:** May 23, 2004, 08:04:35 PM »

Quote
Originally posted by: Bill
Errr...You could just keep your SP...

I'm still using a classic GBA, but that's beside the point.

"Just keep your old GBA" kind of defeats the purpose of backwards compatibility. I mean, if backwards compatibility is supposed to be a selling point, you don't want your customer to think "just keep the old one". I could buy a PSP and "just keep my old GBA".

Since a good number of my "must play" titles on the GBA are actually GBC games, backwards compatibility to the GBC is a major selling point to me. I don't want to have to lug two handhelds around everywhere I go.

I'm not saying its a total deal breaker that would keep me from ever getting a DS (and as far as I'm concerned the PSP is a non-issue, I'm not even considering that), but it would definately keep me from buying it at launch.

Terranigma Freak · « **Reply #24 on:** May 24, 2004, 10:31:55 AM »

Quote
Originally posted by: joeamis
Quote
Originally posted by: Terranigma Freak

joeamis, we're both wrong. It turns out, some Neo Geo games are 90MB. I checked my Metal Slug 3 and 4 rom. Both of them are 90MB. I wouldn't be surprised if some Neo Geo games went over 90MB. Well, the DS can at least hold 128MB so it should be too big of a problem.

Huh me confused now. I said the largest Neo Geo cart I've seen is 900 megabits, equivalent to 112.5 megabytes. Anyways yes it shouldn't be a problem with DS. On a side note the last Neo Geo game is coming out within a month or so.

Sorry, my mistake. I was thinking of something else. But whatever the size, 128MB will be enough to hold pretty much any Neo Geo game. Now whether the DS is powerful enough to emulate Neo Geo is a different question.

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Author Topic: Am I the only one excited about DS emulating OTHER SYSTEMS? (Read 7321 times)