Hacking best solution for snes games on a 3ds XL

[nosenuggets]

Hello. I am getting a 3ds xl and am looking for the best way to play NES and SNES roms on it. can someone give me a quick rundown on the different options available and things to be aware of?

Thanks!

 

[Snailface]

Please, just get a SuperCard DStwo only.

Besides, it has the best emulation for the systems mentioned.

 

[nosenuggets]

Thanks for the quick reply. I have been doing a bit of reading over the last few days and seem to have some conflicting information.

i have heard that emulators dont work well, one guy was saying he tried to play mario kart for the snes via emulator on his dstwo and it had terrible lag/framerate - is that typical? is the snes emulator performance poor?

i saw another post that said dont use snes emulators at all on the 3dsxl because it can cause permanent screen damage due to trying to force an odd resolution or some such.

any of this accurate?

 

[Latiken]

I highly doubt it. SuperCard would have fixed it by now if it were true. They wouldn't advertise it as "3DS Flashcart" if it didn't work well.

 

[Janthran]

The SNES emulator isn't very good at all.

 

[Rydian]

Mario Kart is what's known as a "special chip" game, and those are harder to emulate than games that don't use extra chips. Unfortunately most of the best-looking and innovative games are special chip games... Yoshi's island, Mario RPG, Star Fox, etc.

Emulation on the DS series is relatively bad. The DS is handheld hardware that's over eight years old. It doesn't matter than it's on a 3DS, flash carts only work in DS-mode and so only have access to the power of an original DS. Even with the added power of the DSTwo, emulation is rather lacking for anything at about the SNES/Genesis range and up (older systems like the NES run well though).

If you're looking for handheld emulation, don't aim for a DS. Even the PSP is much, much better at it.

 

[nosenuggets]

My main focus is Zelda and Matroid games for NES, SNES, gb, gba, gbc.


the main reason i was looking at the 3dsxl is because the Ocarina of time for it looks really good.

 

[emigre]

If emulation is high priority for you than a PSP would be a better solution. DS emulation of NES and GB/C are fine but 16 bit territory and beyond, the options on DS are pretty painful in comparison to what else is available.

 

[nosenuggets]

crap.

 

[AngryGeek416]

I have a 3dsxl with a supercard dstwo, the games mentioned above Mario RPG,Starfox,Yoshi island they dont run to well because of the special FX chip but i have not seen any other games with the same slowdowns just to let you know. So its still a relevant option, But i will agree PSP is probably better overall for emulation.

 

[Rydian]

GBA's iffy territory as well. Don't get me wrong, the SNES and GBA emulators for the DSTwo are functional and better than any of the normal DS emulator options, but they still need to run with frameskip and such.

While the PSP is old hardware as well, it's still significantly more powerful than the DS, and SNES/GBA emulation runs fullspeed in the majority of cases. I've played Super Metroid, Metroid Fusion, Zero Mission, Minish Cap, and A Link To The Past (both SNES and GBA versions) on the PSP. In addition, the PSP can do stuff like PSX games and emulate more systems, and used PSPs can be gotten rather cheaply nowadays (and all models can be hacked).

I'd suggest getting a normal flash cart for DS games on the 3DS (DS games are relatively small and you can fit 70+ on an 8GB card, and there's a ton of good games in there) and getting a PSP for emulation.

 

[Theconejo]

I haven't had much problems playing earthbound on my dstwo. I'm using CATSFC snes emulator. Im sure it is much smoother on other emulators, but for a handheld fix of snes games it's fine for me. Plus I don't want to buy another handheld and have all these systems all over.

And these days the dstwo seems to be the one that will be around for a while. I bought an because it was cheaper than the dstwo last winter and now it's worthless to me.

My suggestion, get the dstwo and if it's not good enough look for a psp.

 

[Vanth88]

For the 3DS XL(or ANY DS) I highly recommend SNEmulDS. It has great compatibility, great FPS, and it'll play the majority of games. Of course its not 100% perfect and some games don't work and others have graphical issues. However from what I've seen it tops Supercards emulator. This emulator runs on a stock DS without any additional crap. Of course if you had a DS/Lite you could use the ram pak for better speeds but even without it it'll play a ton of games.

 

[Rydian]

SnemulDS's emulation is not nearly what the DSTwo can do in terms of compatibility and graphics and such. I don't even know where people get that idea from.

Oh wait, yes I do. Not having actually tried the same games on both, or never having looked at compatibility lists.

 

[AngryGeek416]

SnemulDS's emulation is not nearly what the DSTwo can do in terms of compatibility and graphics and such. I don't even know where people get that idea from.

Oh wait, yes I do. Not having actually tried the same games on both, or never having looked at compatibility lists.

ya dstwo emulators are superior

 

[nosenuggets]

how well do super metroid and link to the past play?

 

[Rydian]

I have both a PSP and a DSTwo, want me to just go ahead and make a comparison video? It might be a few hours if so, since my 'net is crappy.

 

[nosenuggets]

that would be SWEET!

 

[Ryupower]

if you want a nice portable system for playing emulators
the psp is one of the best ways to go

snes, nes, gb/gbc gba, all run nicely


the snes emulator may need some tweak for some games

 

[Rydian]

Alright, got the stuff set up, starting the recordings.