I recently ordered a DSi XL for a sharper image when playing GBA and DS games than my 3DS XL. I was wondering if the earlier games for GB and GBC would be better on the DS and Twilight menu's emulators or if I should stick with 3DS VC injects.
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You're in the rabbit hole now. imo DS vs 3DS for a Game Boys. Is moot point.
imo if you want to play GameBoy games. You should have got a GameBoy.
imo if you want to play GameBoy games. You should have got a GameBoy.
It depends.
For bw gb there are many choices. On a 3ds, I'd recommend mgba, because it has many features and is in active development. On a ds(i), gameyob will do the job for almost any gb game.
gbc is another story. mgba, or any 3ds-mode gbc emulator, is a bit slow for many gbc titles, on a o3ds (it's fine if your console is 'new'). The most performant emulator for gbc in a o3ds is, surprise, gameyob (working in dsi mode). Therefore you could prefer playing gbc games in the DSi you've just ordered.
For bw gb there are many choices. On a 3ds, I'd recommend mgba, because it has many features and is in active development. On a ds(i), gameyob will do the job for almost any gb game.
gbc is another story. mgba, or any 3ds-mode gbc emulator, is a bit slow for many gbc titles, on a o3ds (it's fine if your console is 'new'). The most performant emulator for gbc in a o3ds is, surprise, gameyob (working in dsi mode). Therefore you could prefer playing gbc games in the DSi you've just ordered.
Entirely depends on your tastes.
I also got a dsi xl thinking on GB and GBA, for a larger, but also correct display, because the 3ds' resolution doesn't go well with handheld systems and look tiny if kept at 1:1.
Once I got one, I found out that the xl screen of the DSi is... very "pixely" compared to the nds2 I have. You can easily notice the "grid" where one pixel ends and the other begins, and it's taking some time for me to get used to. It's basically the drawback of blowing up the size of the DS' original resolution. I am sure some people will like that though.
For GB I think it does the job well through the emulator it has, Lameboy I think? Enough options for a DS based emu, and performance wise I have not seen anything weird.
On 3DS, the emulation is also great and you have several emulators to play, like Gambate or mGBA (which plays gb/c great) but as mentioned, you either play on 1:1 aspect ratio, or you use some filter to smooth out an scaled up picture.
Another thought is that, to preserve your 3ds battery life, playing gbc on DSi is going to be preferable, and the DSI's battery last quite a bit longer (weaker hardware and less things going on under the hood as is working).
...As said entirely up to you taste. For other 240p based systems? 3ds all the way, but for retro handhelds is a tossup.
Edit:Well, for GBA 3ds wins in the end for much better overall performance, even if with like the GB, DSi's show those games "bigger' without scaling.
I also got a dsi xl thinking on GB and GBA, for a larger, but also correct display, because the 3ds' resolution doesn't go well with handheld systems and look tiny if kept at 1:1.
Once I got one, I found out that the xl screen of the DSi is... very "pixely" compared to the nds2 I have. You can easily notice the "grid" where one pixel ends and the other begins, and it's taking some time for me to get used to. It's basically the drawback of blowing up the size of the DS' original resolution. I am sure some people will like that though.
For GB I think it does the job well through the emulator it has, Lameboy I think? Enough options for a DS based emu, and performance wise I have not seen anything weird.
On 3DS, the emulation is also great and you have several emulators to play, like Gambate or mGBA (which plays gb/c great) but as mentioned, you either play on 1:1 aspect ratio, or you use some filter to smooth out an scaled up picture.
Another thought is that, to preserve your 3ds battery life, playing gbc on DSi is going to be preferable, and the DSI's battery last quite a bit longer (weaker hardware and less things going on under the hood as is working).
...As said entirely up to you taste. For other 240p based systems? 3ds all the way, but for retro handhelds is a tossup.
Edit:Well, for GBA 3ds wins in the end for much better overall performance, even if with like the GB, DSi's show those games "bigger' without scaling.
Good point, I figured any 3D games might still be better on the 3DS but I'm sure 2D elements would display far better on the DSi.
I thought GBArunner2 helped with the speed issues?
It is not "3d elements" versus "2d elements". 3DS can output better 2ds graphics than the DS, it's more powerful, it has a bigger resolution.
The big point of difference is that the DS/i has a very weird vertical resolution of 192 pixels, the 3ds has a standard 240.
The Game Boy has 144, so on the ds/i gb games fill up the screen more.
The Dsi XL screens are the same resolution as the smaller ds models, the thing is that each pixel of that screen is much, much bigger. So what you get is a bigger 1:1 scale ratio.
Because 3DS has 240, if you go 1:1 you end with what feels much smaller image. When the reality is that funny enough, both use the same amount of "pixels" but 3ds' are much smaller, and trying to increase the image to fill more will leave you with a very messy pixelated look, or a more blurred one.
But this is also the case on DSi, you can also try on Lameboy to scale it up and looks awful, but the default is fine there.
The important point is what you find more appealing. Try both, and choose.
GBARunner2/3 has improved significantly and will keep getting better, but 3DS still has and probably always have better performance, as 3DS systems have gba hardware you can take advante of by playing with Open_GBA_firm.
The big point of difference is that the DS/i has a very weird vertical resolution of 192 pixels, the 3ds has a standard 240.
The Game Boy has 144, so on the ds/i gb games fill up the screen more.
The Dsi XL screens are the same resolution as the smaller ds models, the thing is that each pixel of that screen is much, much bigger. So what you get is a bigger 1:1 scale ratio.
Because 3DS has 240, if you go 1:1 you end with what feels much smaller image. When the reality is that funny enough, both use the same amount of "pixels" but 3ds' are much smaller, and trying to increase the image to fill more will leave you with a very messy pixelated look, or a more blurred one.
But this is also the case on DSi, you can also try on Lameboy to scale it up and looks awful, but the default is fine there.
The important point is what you find more appealing. Try both, and choose.
GBARunner2/3 has improved significantly and will keep getting better, but 3DS still has and probably always have better performance, as 3DS systems have gba hardware you can take advante of by playing with Open_GBA_firm.
Last edited by Maeson,
For 3DS, I recommend the VC injects. GameYob is great, but Drenn never finished the sound portion and wav samples don't sound right. Otherwise it works really well, even from an R4 card.
3DS has a "Pixel Perfect" mode for those games. Normally when loading a DS cart, or one of the virtual console downloads, holding Select or start during the loading will force it into pixel perfect mode. The screen will be smaller but the image is sharper. The reason why it isn't sharp when scaled up is because EVERY KIND OF SOFTWARE SCALER DEFAULTS TO BILINEAR! 
From video players online or offline to even stuff like that gameboy player on gamecube, bilinear is the most common option just for being the "quick and dirty" way to smooth out jagged pixels on larger screens. So by forcing pixel perfect (original resolution) modes, the screen is smaller but doesn't apply bilinear. The proper solution to upscale for old games like these is "point scale" or sometimes called Nearest Neighbor, which can easily be done in emulators.
Unless you're able to force point/nearest scaling instead of bilinear scaling, it won't look sharp when enlarged. But that also makes another problem. Bilinear mask the uneven pixel scaling that would occur when enlarging with resolutions that aren't multiples (Which is very common and the very reason bilinear is always used) Gameboy resolution is 160X144, multiplying it by integer numbers... 2, 3, 4, would be ideal even pixels. (Doing that on 3DS small screen would just cause overscan or cropping) Instead of float numbers... 2.25, 3.50 which cause uneven pixels that some people call shimmer.
The top screen of 3DS is 400X240 which is bigger than the 256X192 the NDS has. Making it ideal for many old games. Including sega's arcade and genesis/megadrive console, where playing sonic the hedgehog on it will look better than the unfavorable collection the NDS had. So as long as you remember to enable the pixel perfect mode when playing on the systems, or use a emulator that has point/nearest scaling, that's how you get sharp... jagged pixels.
Hopefully it makes sense. I tried to keep it brief.
From video players online or offline to even stuff like that gameboy player on gamecube, bilinear is the most common option just for being the "quick and dirty" way to smooth out jagged pixels on larger screens. So by forcing pixel perfect (original resolution) modes, the screen is smaller but doesn't apply bilinear. The proper solution to upscale for old games like these is "point scale" or sometimes called Nearest Neighbor, which can easily be done in emulators.
Unless you're able to force point/nearest scaling instead of bilinear scaling, it won't look sharp when enlarged. But that also makes another problem. Bilinear mask the uneven pixel scaling that would occur when enlarging with resolutions that aren't multiples (Which is very common and the very reason bilinear is always used) Gameboy resolution is 160X144, multiplying it by integer numbers... 2, 3, 4, would be ideal even pixels. (Doing that on 3DS small screen would just cause overscan or cropping) Instead of float numbers... 2.25, 3.50 which cause uneven pixels that some people call shimmer.
The top screen of 3DS is 400X240 which is bigger than the 256X192 the NDS has. Making it ideal for many old games. Including sega's arcade and genesis/megadrive console, where playing sonic the hedgehog on it will look better than the unfavorable collection the NDS had. So as long as you remember to enable the pixel perfect mode when playing on the systems, or use a emulator that has point/nearest scaling, that's how you get sharp... jagged pixels.
Hopefully it makes sense. I tried to keep it brief.
I dislike bilinear heavily, but for those situations can be of help. There are other filters, Retroarch has a number of them for example.
mGBA does something very interesting with filtering both on GBA and GB/C, it looks mighty acceptable compared to bilinear, it's just unfortunate that for GBA it doesn't have the stable performance needed (for all games).
mGBA does something very interesting with filtering both on GBA and GB/C, it looks mighty acceptable compared to bilinear, it's just unfortunate that for GBA it doesn't have the stable performance needed (for all games).
there is a cia version of gameyob dsi as well, that might be a bit better than running it from a flashcart since it runs in dsi mode with the better ram and cpu speed. it was already very good in ds mode on flashcart, but if there were any games with slowdown, they might work better in the dsi mode version (and you can run games off 3ds sd card instead of having to use a flashcart, which is nice)
imho DSi XL is best for GB/C/A games. 3DS is too blurry in upscaled mode and too small in original resolution mode. DSi is the best compromise for them all. I would say a GBA SP AGS 101 but the DSi screen is better. Maybe a GBA with a real good screen mod.
Echoing what others have said, it is entirely up to your particular tastes.
I was using my 3DS to emulate GB games, then decided to try a DSi XL ... I liked that to a point.
I finally decided to get a GBA with an IPS screen to emulate GB games; I love the form factor, and it is nice and light.
As my eyes get older, I find using my Odin or Odin 2 is a great way to emulate GB and GBA games.
I was using my 3DS to emulate GB games, then decided to try a DSi XL ... I liked that to a point.
I finally decided to get a GBA with an IPS screen to emulate GB games; I love the form factor, and it is nice and light.
As my eyes get older, I find using my Odin or Odin 2 is a great way to emulate GB and GBA games.
I have no idea what version of gameyob is included in twlmenu, it looks like a custom build because version info doesn't even mention any version numbers or commit hashes, just "GameYob", and I don't recognize the checksum from any other files I've found
But yeah, if you have gameyob dsi on there then you can run it in dsi mode that way too. Either manually downloading it from the official repo, or the mavica one, or building it yourself and using the gameyob_dsi.nds one I guess
Do you have examples of sounds that aren't right? I'd like to see for myself how bad it is
TMNT II Back from the sewers, Pokemon Pinball, and Pokemon Yellow all have speech samples you can test with.
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