Does the 3ds play ds games via hardware or emulation?

[Wolf_]

I was looking into solutions for getting my handheld consoles to display on my tv via hdmi and I know of 2 solutions for the 3ds xl new, an internal mod that outputs to a computer which then displays it on the tv (honestly it is designed for streamers and I kinda hate the entire concept of it) or just jailbreaking the 3ds and using a program called Snickerstream to stream the footage to a computer which requires no modding beyond jailbreaking and installing the program. But this got me wondering if using my 3ds to stream ds games would be a good idea or if the ds was only supported via emultion and might have issues when streamed (or if it is even possible to stream ds games using either of those methods).

[Fudoh]

DS games aren't emulated. It's full hardware.

AFAIK (!) Snickerstream isn't able to provide full refresh rate and losless quality. It's intended for streaming while you're playing on the original system and quality and/or fps aren't really this important.

[CZroe]

3DS even natively plays GBA games, just like an original DS. That’s why the Ambassador GBA games were never available on the 3DS Virtual Console: they didn’t have all the emulation functions, like save states, since they were running natively. Nintendo felt that they should not have varying levels of functionality for VC games.

[Wolf_]

DS games aren't emulated. It's full hardware.

AFAIK (!) Snickerstream isn't able to provide full refresh rate and losless quality. It's intended for streaming while you're playing on the original system and quality and/or fps aren't really this important.

It isn't a perfect solution but it is good enough to play most games and it doesn't require a mod, not to mention even if you do get the hdmi out mod that still isn't a better solution because that is designed to simply allow streamers to record gameplay and not to have low latency responses so you can actually play games on a tv if you use that as your pc display.

[bobrocks95]

Using NTRViewer (which Snickerstream appears to be a better version of at this point), I wasn't able to get 60 FPS without extremely low quality video settings. I don't have great internet though, so maybe it's possible. At the quality/framerate I was getting it isn't what I would consider acceptable for playing on a TV.

BUT, NTRViewer doesn't allow you to stream DS games and I assume Snickerstream doesn't either.

[Wolf_]

BUT, NTRViewer doesn't allow you to stream DS games and I assume Snickerstream doesn't either.

I haven't jailbroken my 3ds yet so I'm not sure but that would really suck. Do you know if the physical mod is able to send ds footage out?

[DejahThoris]

BUT, NTRViewer doesn't allow you to stream DS games and I assume Snickerstream doesn't either.

I haven't jailbroken my 3ds yet so I'm not sure but that would really suck. Do you know if the physical mod is able to send ds footage out?

http://3dscapture.com/ds/

It's not HDMI, but it is an option.

Alternatively, you could find a cheap IS NITRO-CAPTURE, sometimes they pop up for $50-100. You can mod earlier models of them for RGB, then OSSC to HDMI if you really need HDMI as your format in high quality.

If you just want playable quality, they do composite out and I *believe* S-Video. I don't own an S-Video cable to test that unfortunately.

[Wolf_]

BUT, NTRViewer doesn't allow you to stream DS games and I assume Snickerstream doesn't either.

I haven't jailbroken my 3ds yet so I'm not sure but that would really suck. Do you know if the physical mod is able to send ds footage out?

http://3dscapture.com/ds/

It's not HDMI, but it is an option.

Alternatively, you could find a cheap IS NITRO-CAPTURE, sometimes they pop up for $50-100. You can mod earlier models of them for RGB, then OSSC to HDMI if you really need HDMI as your format in high quality.

If you just want playable quality, they do composite out and I *believe* S-Video. I don't own an S-Video cable to test that unfortunately.

I wonder if that has as much lag as their same mod for the 3ds does. I don't understand why that company insists on outputting to a computer that needs a special program to display it just so streamers can record it without using a capture card when realistically many more people are going to want to play games than stream them and most streamers are going to own capture cards.

[DejahThoris]

I don't have those answers unfortunately. At the time I was looking at the DS video output mod I ended up finding my Nitro Capture for less than he was asking to do the mod. And you can output to two monitors using that rather than just the one. Or just the one if you prefer that! Much more versatile for around the same price (or less if you're lucky).

Just don't get the "Emulator", it's not the same thing and does not easily play retail carts.