Hacking 3DS Emulation potential for 2D->3D

[Wizerzak]

Wow that does actually look awesome in 3D!

 

[McHaggis]

So get to it. Chop-chop.


Anywho, converting old NES games to 3D may not be viable. Stereoscopic, perhaps, but it may take another card like the SC2 with it's extra chip to make them playable without each rom needing to be converted or having major slowdown. I could be wrong, but do we really need some NES games in 3D? Urban Champion says "Hi".

The real question is.... why bother? Not that I'm saying that some SNES may not look amazing with layered 3D effects, but if it has to be done via romhack for each game (which seems more logical then some emulator being coded to do it automatically), games could trickle out slower than the official virtual console, or......you get the community involved, and a few talented people plus a whole lot of "i hack games hurr hurr hurr" idiots dump everything, and you spend more time sifting through islands of crap looking for the good ones.

We already have that. It's called DS software.


As for suddenly turning DS games 3d..... What makes you think Nintendo isn't waiting a bit and going to rerelease various DS games "now in 3D"? .....like the Player's Choice games for the Wii with new shitty motion controls.

Re:SNES, many games might run OK with default settings. The video demonstrates quite a few games which makes me think that they're all using the same setup (otherwise a video showcasing only a couple of games would have sufficed to get the point across). I doubt it could ever be slower than Virtual Console releases. Re: NES games, the NES classics on the 3DS look pretty cool. Re: DS games, I'm not about to rebuy all my favourite DS games for the 3DS. If I could put DS my games in my 3DS and the 3DS could put some 3D in my 2D to make it look 3D, that would be cool. However, I think that's an overly optimistic outlook, every 3D game would require a second camera hacking in which could be a tad tricky. Those might be released slower than VC releases

What app?

The one in my sig. The day the hack is released is the day it becomes useful to someone, though.

 

[Shubshub]

Ahem. The first few versions of the Wii were compatible with Gamecube software. Didn't stop them. Slap the 3D label on them, put them at a bargain bin price, and they will sell. Add Streetpass hits, or even just re-release them with a 3DS box instead, and they'll sell. They have done this before.

Um the Wii isn't 3D Compatible so that has nothing to do with what we are talking about

 

[DaniPoo]

By the looks of things, the layers look shifted (not stretched) because there is a small amount of what looks like empty space at the side on some of the games. Anyone interested can check out the source, it's a bit late here and my CPP-fu isn't all that great (even though I made that one app that nobody uses).

What is this? snes9x with 3d capabilities? Dont have the tools for compiling that. And im not skilled enough to actually understand the code of an emulator haha.

 

[Sychophantom]

Um the Wii isn't 3D Compatible so that has nothing to do with what we are talking about

You're special.

Nintendo has a history of re-releasing the same games multiple times. If Nintendo took, say, Custom Robo Arena and either converted the game to 3D or just slapped it with a 3DS box, it'd sell. Or a Zelda DS game, or even New Super Mario Bros 1. It would sell even if not converted, just from being a new release with a 3DS box.
Or a pokemon re-release, though that's never happened so far, so I wouldn't count on that.

 

[Shubshub]

You're special.

Nintendo has a history of re-releasing the same games multiple times. If Nintendo took, say, Custom Robo Arena and either converted the game to 3D or just slapped it with a 3DS box, it'd sell. Or a Zelda DS game, or even New Super Mario Bros 1. It would sell even if not converted, just from being a new release with a 3DS box.
Or a pokemon re-release, though that's never happened so far, so I wouldn't count on that.

They won't re-release a Nintendo DS Game
They would Remake it with new stuff and Updated graphics
They Never Re-Release things they remake them and change stuff in them

 

[McHaggis]

What is this? snes9x with 3d capabilities? Dont have the tools for compiling that. And im not skilled enough to actually understand the code of an emulator haha.

I'm getting build errors and it's 11pm here, so I'm not even going to try and resolve them. I doubt I'd get far on my own anyway.

 

[Sychophantom]

They won't re-release a Nintendo DS Game
They would Remake it with new stuff and Updated graphics
They Never Re-Release things they remake them and change stuff in them

Wow. Really? They never re-release things?

Just how many times have they tried to sell the original Super Mario Brothers?

NES, GB Color, GBA, Wii VC, 3DS VC....

 

[DaniPoo]

An ongoing off-topic discussion in the kernel access thread raised a suggestion that a new thread should be made regarding emulating older consoles with 3D. I thought it was a good idea, and I'd like to see it discussed a bit more perhaps with input from a few more people.

Not very long ago in a thread not very far away...

spinal_cord and newcomer DaniPoo were duking it out over how SNES games could be emulated whilst manipulating the layers to make a 3D effect. This isn't the first time it's been brought up, we've actually seen a mock-up of how Yoshi's Island might look if it were transformed into 3D ― very cool, it turns out. So, the discussion went as follows:

spinal_cord: We can do it by adjusting the position of the layers to create a 3D effect.
DaniPoo: No, we need to stretch the background layers.
spinal_cord: blah blah blah no stretching.
DaniPool: blah blah blah stretching.

It seems that they couldn't agree on that, but they did settle on the fact that each game would have to be individually configured to display 3D properly. I suggested this might require some community involvement, perhaps using a config file or scripting engine to decide what to do with the layers to create the 3D effect at certain points in the game.

At this point, though, I think we can all agree that it's possible. I can go one better than that, and show you this:



Looks awesome.

This video shows clearly what happens if you just move the layers without stretching @ 01:14 If you separate the background it will creat a gap on each screen. And this could be fixed by stretching that background just a few pixels to fill the gap.
What im talking about is not the traditional stretch to fill screen. Im talking about a few pixels to solve that problem. It shouldn't be too hard to do for an emulator

 

[Shubshub]

Wow. Really? They never re-release things?

Just how many times have they tried to sell the original Super Mario Brothers?

NES, GB Color, GBA, Wii VC, 3DS VC....

They are Emulated
And the All the ones before Virtual consoles are Remakes with Other Features in them

 

[DaniPoo]

They are Emulated
And the All the ones before Virtual consoles are Remakes with Other Features in them

Isn't the GBA version an emulated version of the original?

 

[McHaggis]

This video shows clearly what happens if you just move the layers without stretching @ 01:14 If you separate the background it will creat a gap on each screen. And this could be fixed by stretching that background just a few pixels to fill the gap.
What im talking about is not the traditional stretch to fill screen. Im talking about a few pixels to solve that problem. It shouldn't be too hard to do for an emulator

Yeah, I was more or less saying in one of my previous posts that the fact it is not stretched is clear because of the empty-looking borders down the sides. However, I still don't like the sound of stretching because even the slightest amount can cause blurring and distortion in places. I don't like the sound of clipping the foreground either, though. You'll notice that it's not always a problem, like when the edges of the background are covered with stuff in the foreground. Some of the games shown don't need it, Castlevania and Mega-man, for example.

 

[Sychophantom]

They are Emulated
And the All the ones before Virtual consoles are Remakes with Other Features in them

Actually, the GBA one was pretty much a direct port of the NES version.

And you're missing the point. Each version is a re-release. The average user doesn't know or care if it's emulated, just that in the end, it's Super Mario Brothers.

So if Nintendo wanted to slap a 3DS label on a few of their older DS releases, they will, and people will buy them. So what if you won't, there are other suckers out there.

Getting back to the topic, though, I doubt that if Nintendo was going to convert older DS games to 3D, they would do it for free via firmware. They're still selling the DSi..... why shoot themselves in the foot like that? If they do convert DS games, they'll sell them in new packaging.

And a homebrew 3D upscaler for DS games won't happen until the 3DS is spread open more than a Penthouse centerfold, if even then.

 

[gundalf]

Layers may change per Level or Swap ingame for Effects. Not sure if this can be sorted out.
Are the 3D remastered VC Games on the eShop emulated or recompiled/native?

 

[Sychophantom]

Layers may change per Level or Swap ingame for Effects. Not sure if this can be sorted out.
Are the 3D remastered VC Games on the eShop emulated or recompiled/native?

Straight VC are emulated much like the Xbox 360 emulates the original Xbox, I believe. Sega did a bit more with the ones they did, though.

3D classics are recompiled.

 

[DaniPoo]

Layers may change per Level or Swap ingame for Effects. Not sure if this can be sorted out.
Are the 3D remastered VC Games on the eShop emulated or recompiled/native?

Not sure how those games work really. But Nes may be a litle more predictable than Snes when it comes to layers

 

[DaniPoo]

Straight VC are emulated much like the Xbox 360 emulates the original Xbox, I believe. Sega did a bit more with the ones they did, though.

3D classics are recompiled.

Are you really sure the the 3D classics are recompiled?

 

[DaniPoo]

Dont ya just love the blur effect of the background in New Super mario Bros 2 hahaha

 

[Shubshub]

Actually, the GBA one was pretty much a direct port of the NES version.

And you're missing the point. Each version is a re-release. The average user doesn't know or care if it's emulated, just that in the end, it's Super Mario Brothers.

So if Nintendo wanted to slap a 3DS label on a few of their older DS releases, they will, and people will buy them. So what if you won't, there are other suckers out there.

Getting back to the topic, though, I doubt that if Nintendo was going to convert older DS games to 3D, they would do it for free via firmware. They're still selling the DSi..... why shoot themselves in the foot like that? If they do convert DS games, they'll sell them in new packaging.

And a homebrew 3D upscaler for DS games won't happen until the 3DS is spread open more than a Penthouse centerfold, if even then.

You can't convert a DS Game into 3D via Firmware otherwise it would have already been done and all NDS Titles would be 3D Compatible

 

[McHaggis]

Are you really sure the the 3D classics are recompiled?

I'm not so sure they are. Beyond the custom menu each game has (which could be done with an emulator, to start the game you'd just jump to a specific location in memory), everything else is pretty much the same. It would be interesting if we could reverse engineer one to see if the game ROM is inside. My money is on ROM with heavily customized emulator.

You can't convert a DS Game into 3D via Firmware otherwise it would have already been done and all NDS Titles would be 3D Compatible

Sure, just like you can't render a Wii game at 1080p and that's why they didn't include such a feature in the Wii U. Oh, hi Dolphin, whatcha got there!? In all seriousness, though, rendering DS games in 3D would be much harder. But not impossible, IMO.