The closest we got in graphics to the ds are Nokia N-Gage games. But here we're not only talking about graphics, but about cpu speed and emulation of Snes, Gba, Genesis ect...
The original N-Gage has a 104mhz cpu, that's a bit faster than the ds, it could emulate nes, Gameboy color games perfectly, It could also emulate almost all Genesis gamesi tried on it with nearly perfect performance, sound had to be turned off(fixed with 120~150mhz cpu on more recent phones like the 7610~6620). On top of that, it's running the symbian operating system in the background(dozen of tasks)... I tried vboy(gb-gbc emulator) and i get better compatibility with games than Nintendo ds itself, plenty of rom hacks wouldn't even boot on my ds.
Now these emulators for nes, gbc, gba are from a company called vampent( vnes,vboy, vbag respectively) were developed on the course of a few years. Now going to faster s60v2 phones like the nokia 6630-n70, running a 220mhz arm9 cpu, Genesis emulation is rather perfect. Gameboy advance emulation is also very playable( sound off in most games) if not for controls, and the wide screen aspect ratio.
A jump to the s60v3 era, phones like n95 running on a dual 332mhz arm11 cpu, gba emulation is perfect. This cpu is 100mhz faster than the 3ds, but keep in mind it's running one heavy laggy OS on top with dozen of background tasks. Snes emulation is slow with sound(fast with sound off), but game compatibility is very good, not a single game i tried failed to start. I can only imagine if these emulators had more years of support and development.
Let's not steer away, my main point here is comparing the original nokia Ngage with ds. Here's a video of it running some emulators, it's quite interesting. The screen has 4k colors and looks very nostalgic and more genuine than the Nintendo ds, games look perfect.
Gamegear
Gameboy
Gameboy color
Gameboy advance
Genesis
Perfect gba emulation on one of most recent s60v3 nokia xm phones, this one has a 600mhz cpu i believe
Nokia E71 single 370mhz arm11 cpu (Snes-Gba-Genesis emulation)
The ds has a 67mhz cpu, but it's a pure gaming console with no os running on the background, not to mention, it has a gba mode, half burden of emulation is taken care of. I admit that snes emulation is also very impressive on this little cpu... It's quite interesting thing for me to compare it with Nokia N-Gage, this phone didn't get much attention, it had a lot of potential, had games like tony hawks pro skater, crash nitro kart, tomb raider..., cmr2005 ... these are Ps1 quality games ...
I don't mean any offense to the developers working on homebrew ds emulators, i respect all their work, they put hundreds hours of their free time.
The original N-Gage has a 104mhz cpu, that's a bit faster than the ds, it could emulate nes, Gameboy color games perfectly, It could also emulate almost all Genesis gamesi tried on it with nearly perfect performance, sound had to be turned off(fixed with 120~150mhz cpu on more recent phones like the 7610~6620). On top of that, it's running the symbian operating system in the background(dozen of tasks)... I tried vboy(gb-gbc emulator) and i get better compatibility with games than Nintendo ds itself, plenty of rom hacks wouldn't even boot on my ds.
Now these emulators for nes, gbc, gba are from a company called vampent( vnes,vboy, vbag respectively) were developed on the course of a few years. Now going to faster s60v2 phones like the nokia 6630-n70, running a 220mhz arm9 cpu, Genesis emulation is rather perfect. Gameboy advance emulation is also very playable( sound off in most games) if not for controls, and the wide screen aspect ratio.
A jump to the s60v3 era, phones like n95 running on a dual 332mhz arm11 cpu, gba emulation is perfect. This cpu is 100mhz faster than the 3ds, but keep in mind it's running one heavy laggy OS on top with dozen of background tasks. Snes emulation is slow with sound(fast with sound off), but game compatibility is very good, not a single game i tried failed to start. I can only imagine if these emulators had more years of support and development.
Let's not steer away, my main point here is comparing the original nokia Ngage with ds. Here's a video of it running some emulators, it's quite interesting. The screen has 4k colors and looks very nostalgic and more genuine than the Nintendo ds, games look perfect.
Gamegear
Gameboy
Gameboy color
Gameboy advance
Genesis
Perfect gba emulation on one of most recent s60v3 nokia xm phones, this one has a 600mhz cpu i believe
Nokia E71 single 370mhz arm11 cpu (Snes-Gba-Genesis emulation)
The ds has a 67mhz cpu, but it's a pure gaming console with no os running on the background, not to mention, it has a gba mode, half burden of emulation is taken care of. I admit that snes emulation is also very impressive on this little cpu... It's quite interesting thing for me to compare it with Nokia N-Gage, this phone didn't get much attention, it had a lot of potential, had games like tony hawks pro skater, crash nitro kart, tomb raider..., cmr2005 ... these are Ps1 quality games ...
I don't mean any offense to the developers working on homebrew ds emulators, i respect all their work, they put hundreds hours of their free time.