Hardware 2ds or dsi XL for og ds games

[kaitlin459]

so currently nintendo has refurb 2ds consoles for 50$ so my questions to you is this: since i wanna play original ds games do i buy a dsi XL or a 2ds and why? i know on the 2ds the games are stretched to fit the screen price isnt an issue sure the 2ds is cheaper but also keep in mind im not 100% sure if i wanna play 3ds games or not mainly wanna play some DS games with an r4 flash cart

edit also how bad to ds games look on a 2ds in stretched mode?

 

[Cha0tic]

2ds, you get the ds games and if you ever want to play 3ds games you have the option. Don't limit yourself imo

 

[emcintosh]

I'd recommend the 2DS - you have the option of playing 3DS games, and with custom firmware you might not even need a flashcart to play DS games, instead loading them from the console's SD card (but check our favourite games' compatibility with TwiLightMenu++ - some games like Golden Sun: Dark Dawn won't work).

The first post of https://gbatemp.net/threads/twpatcher-ds-i-mode-screen-filters-and-patches.542694/ shows what the default scaling and various improved possibilities (under 'spoiler: scale matrix comparison'). The double pixel one shows every pixel as it would appear on a DS with no blurring, but adds an extra copy of every 4th row and column, which looks bad, but possibly still better than the default blurred scaling. I use Sono's Crisp, which averages the two neighbouring rows/columns to fill in the 5th row/column. On a DSi XL, every pixel will be exactly where it's supposed to be with no distortion, but each pixel will be visibly bigger.

With this patcher, you can even play some 3D games in widescreen (if someone has made a cheat code for changing the field of view), though the horizontal scaling isn't as fancy as in the non-widescreen version, and objects will look more pixellated as the game renders them squashed into fewer pixels to fit a wider view into the original DS resolution (like anamorphic widescreen for films), before the 3DS stretches them back out.

 

[LegitimatelySped]

The DSi xl if you want your DS games to look pixel perfect and the 2ds if you want the option to play 3ds games, it's also really comfortable in the hands.