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DS development > The DS kicks some serious

#37470 - headspin - Fri Mar 11, 2005 9:13 pm

My g/f just bought me a DS and I must say damn it's a cool little machine! The 3d stuff in Mario DS is bloody awesome, I'm kinda spewing I completed the game on the N64. My g/f just got Urbz and that looks pretty cool. I just gotta say if you havn't got one yet, then do it! There only $200 AU here which I think is really reasonable considering the price of an SP is still around $140 retail here. I thought the price would go down when the DS was released, obviously I was wrong.

All this talk about hacking the DS is cool and all that, but the flash card I got works fine on my DS for GBA stuff so I can still run my homebrew on it.

This thing is so powerful I'm wondering how much harder to code it will be. With the extra power homebrew will be expected to go that extra mile. I guess all the 3d stuff is software rendering or does the DS have inbuilt functions? I doubt it, so that means I have to figure out how to write a 3d engine to make a decent game now? I kinda didn't want this day to come cos this really means the death of pixel games no? When u look at the PC, since the 3d video card revolution it's rare to find decent 2d games. Is this the death of the pixel pusher? Mobile phone are sure to follow suite.
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#37473 - Lupin - Fri Mar 11, 2005 9:50 pm

The DS has real 3D hardware, even though it looks like very cheap software rendered 3D.

I think at the moment it's still a bit hard to dev for the NDS because the emulators are not ready yet and you would need to build yourself an pass-through to run code on the real hardware (either by using an FPGA or by using the PassMe)
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#37474 - DekuTree64 - Fri Mar 11, 2005 10:01 pm

headspin wrote:
My g/f just got Urbz and that looks pretty cool.

Yay!

Quote:
This thing is so powerful I'm wondering how much harder to code it will be.

Harder, yes, but very fun. And with full control over both CPUs, it's almost scary the kind of hacking that could be done on it :)

Quote:
I kinda didn't want this day to come cos this really means allmost the death of pixel games no?

Yeah, I know what you mean. It's hard to accept the last little 2D hardware market going away. Then again, maybe someone will realize the connection between the GBA's success and its resemblance to the old SNES days. I think we are just about due for a change in the direction of game development. Systems are so powerful these days that you couldn't hope to push their limits with a 2D game, but that doesn't mean you can't push your own imagination and artistic limits with it.
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#37475 - headspin - Fri Mar 11, 2005 10:03 pm

Yeah, it dosn't have that blurring or softening effect of the N64 version does it. So I guess that's cool, as to how much of the rendering is done via hardware is still a mystery. Can't wait for the PassMe to be available retail and with a proper plastic cover (those soldered connectors look dodgy as), I'll be looking forward to buying one.
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Warhawk DS | Manic Miner: The Lost Levels | The Detective Game

#37476 - headspin - Fri Mar 11, 2005 10:11 pm

DekuTree64 wrote:
Yeah, I know what you mean. It's hard to accept the last little 2D hardware market going away. Then again, maybe someone will realize the connection between the GBA's success and its resemblance to the old SNES days. I think we are just about due for a change in the direction of game development. Systems are so powerful these days that you couldn't hope to push their limits with a 2D game, but that doesn't mean you can't push your own imagination and artistic limits with it.


The day was inevitably coming, and a shame, yes. I just love the whole pixel thing, I remember my first magazine being Crash for ZX Spectrum, and now there is a mag called Retro in the same style. Still like looking at pictures made of square dots.. dunno why? I guess there is still a place for pixel art, but you have to admit, there are only a few more years before it's not gonna be retro anymore, but history.
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Warhawk DS | Manic Miner: The Lost Levels | The Detective Game