The Nintendo DS Consolizer Thread

[cyo_the_vile]

Hey guys. I'm one of the developers at Gamebox Systems and we are currently in active development for making a Nintendo DS consolizer. Previously we have made consolizers for GBA and GBC. Recently we also released the 64HD which is an HDMI modification for N64. Anyway, I am here to discuss DS Consolizer.

The idea is for you to play the Nintendo DS on a TV at home and eliminate the functionality of portability and to consolize your system

On launch, we plan to support the launch model Nintendo DS and DS Lite. The kit will be solderless and totally reversible if you so choose. It just requires the screwdrivers to lift the main board out of the DS. So any DS with a smashed screen or hinges fairs as a good candidate. We might support DSi models at another time with limited camera functionality.

The features we have planned are:

-Installation will be solderless. Soldering is not required at all.
-480p, 720p, 1080p HDMI complaint video output
-touch screen emulation through the controller
-Controller not decided yet; We might use Gamecube controller since it fits the time frame the NDS came out. We can also use Bluetooth type controllers.
-Reversible
-One output to the TV will contain both screens. You don't need two analog screens like the DS Nitro kits.
-On-screen display menu triggered by button combo to control video output resolution, video filters, and video
-System reset feature selectable in the on-screen display
-There is one very big feature that won't be revealed until the product launch.


This was not intended to be an ad campaign. I'm primarily posting here because we want to hear from the community what they want to see out of a Nintendo DS consolizer. I'm especially interested in the opinions of developers. We want to hear from you.

 

[FAST6191]

Not sure what developers are going to get that flash carts don't already provide almost inherently and also going to be a nightmare for you to implement (possibly even if you did have a solder option). Facilitating an easier download play access maybe (might have to be competition for the wifi boards and use those as a download station from something more modern devices can talk to) but that is not how most devs are going to do code owing to size constraints (not to mention boot into FTP server loaded on flash cart if you can't be bothered to eject SD card). There is no great scope for a real time memory viewer or debugger that I can see (and again some flash carts will do it for you/savestates are a thing). Doubt you will be able to squeeze in an overclock to a solderless setup. If you are tapping test pads for the control inputs you might be able to do some kind of latency testing there but that is super niche, macros rather less niche but an option in that. Said macros might also do for touchscreen emulation and technically remapping for it as well (press a button for this touchscreen action, and might be worth having a reset to central screen as well if getting fancy).
You might be able to add a cart and/or save dumper for those without a modded 3ds, wifi setup, suitable GBA flash cart, standalone dumper or the like. Firmware flasher as well maybe (it might take off, especially with the large chip replacement options increasing size available to play with). I suppose I was blindsided by the TV out thing the other month so could be surprised by a memory dumper, or maybe some fun with JTAG to get more than that, but I have not seen much on that front. If memory becomes viable I suppose that also means at least light cheat support.
Maybe you can bypass the DAC (assuming you did not do it as part of things) and give a nice one for the audiophiles.

Appear to be suffering a lack of imagination today. Do like the consolizer concept in general though and nice to see more TV out options appear than dev kit, emulator, crazy mods, borderline worthless streaming from later things and that DS lite upopulated port/hidden feature thing.

 

[Ligeia]

Sounds very interesting ! I don't like playing handheld systems but the DS has a lot of great games. I would love this for the 3DS as well.

 

[Levine91]

I know some of these are unrealistic or would increase the price of the project, but I'll mention them amongst what comes to mind anyway:

- Horizontal & Vertical display options
- Ability to the scale each display independently (Ex: Top Screen @ 3x Display Size + Bottom Screen @ 2x Display Size, as opposed to only one large screen + one tiny screen like most emulators do.)
- Optional second HDMI out for those who do want two physical displays
- GBA support (The Phat & Lite do have the slot afterall)
- GB/GBC compatibility restored to the GBA slot
- Download Play "Split" screen (Host cart for game results in a 4-way split screen for 2 players, the second DS is emulated perhaps)
- System link w/ video out. (Physical cable linking 2 consolizers via USB-C, resulting in the HDMI output from one system displaying the aforementioned 4-way split screen for 2 players)
- Personally, My vote would be for the Wii Classic Controller as the input
- Customizable Hotkeys (Screen swap, rotate screen, screen size, microphone, open/close lid, soft reset, etc. on the fly without going into the menu)
- Rumble Pak supported games make use of controllers that vibrate without the need of the Rumble Pak cart
- Alternate: If GBA slot is available & rumble pak is connected to it, bluetooth controllers make use of it.
- Ability to use a 3DS (or another DS) as a wireless controller.

 

[cyo_the_vile]

- Horizontal & Vertical display options
- Ability to the scale each display independently (Ex: Top Screen @ 3x Display Size + Bottom Screen @ 2x Display Size, as opposed to only one large screen + one tiny screen like most emulators do.)
- GBA support (The Phat & Lite do have the slot afterall)
- Customizable Hotkeys (Screen swap, rotate screen, screen size, microphone, open/close lid, soft reset, etc. on the fly without going into the menu)

Hi. We can certainly look at these. We know there are a few games that benefit from a "TATE" mode view for these.

 

[JuanMena]

Eh...

 

[cyo_the_vile]

Sounds very interesting ! I don't like playing handheld systems but the DS has a lot of great games. I would love this for the 3DS as well.

We can try 3DS at another time. We are tired of seeing very expensive and obscure HDMI capture modification. The gyrometer, motion sensor and camera will present challenges but we think we can reach a compromise.

Post automatically merged: Aug 16, 2023

Eh...

Hey! We think thats cool method for people that want to solder wires.

Perhaps there are a lot of people that have trouble soldering lots of small wires. What do you think?

 

[JuanMena]

Hey! We think thats cool method for people that want to solder wires.

Perhaps there are a lot of people that have trouble soldering lots of small wires. What do you think?

I think, if it solves the problem, do it.
Also, got confused and changed the video, you might want to check again.

I personally don't find soldering difficult at all, been doing tiny soldering recently and I love it.
I guess that's just me though.

 

[TheStonedModder]

We can try 3DS at another time. We are tired of seeing very expensive and obscure HDMI capture modification. The gyrometer, motion sensor and camera will present challenges but we think we can reach a compromise.

Post automatically merged: Aug 16, 2023

Hey! We think thats cool method for people that want to solder wires.

Perhaps there are a lot of people that have trouble soldering lots of small wires. What do you think?

If you include a good quality flex cable (like the loopy 3ds capture cards use) I don’t see people having many issues with soldering

That would than allow you to also include support for things like the GBAcceloator

Less soldering is never a bad thing either of course !

 

[cyo_the_vile]

If you include a good quality flex cable (like the loopy 3ds capture cards use) I don’t see people having many issues with soldering

That would than allow you to also include support for things like the GBAcceloator

Less soldering is never a bad thing either of course !

We dont want people to pay modder to install hardware kit. That is additional cost. We want everyone to be able to assemble it.

 

[Diminuendo]

Hi! I hope I'm not too late to contribute.

I dislike having to use button combinations to access the menu. Is it possible to make this feature optional for controllers with a home button?

I'd really appreciate the ability to assign coordinates on the touch screen to button inputs or control a cursor using an analog stick. It would also be fantastic to assign a stick to games that pseudo analog like Mario 64 DS, Spirit Tracks, and Metroid Prime Hunters.

A robust GBA mode is essential.

Scaling too, there are several SNES games on the DS, such as Chrono Trigger, which is arguably the most complete version of the game. It would be great to have the option to stretch the image to SNES dimensions.

 

[islandniles]

Hey not sure how tough to implement this would be but integer scaling options would be glorious. Basically whatever the ps vita sharpscale hack does.

 

[supermist]

The way drastic lets you customize how the two screens display would be big. For some games you definitely would want both to be equally sized but for others an 80% top 20% lower would suffice. Chrono Trigger DS comes to mind.

Xinput support would also be great since that opens up the 8bitdo line and has 2 extra shoulder buttons compared to the original NDS which could act as hotkeys. The right analog stick can act as a stylus.

I'm very interested in this.

 

[Lorenzooone]

Just putting my two cents here: support for up to 85 FPS, if possible.

Although not used by any commercial games, it's possible to reach about 85 FPS by editing the VCOUNT.

I've published a demo to play with it here: https://github.com/Lorenzooone/Pokemon-Gen3-to-Gen-X/tree/dev_nds_fps_config_refresh

If you need it to be compiled for you to test things out, let me know.

 

[izaaner]

I have wanted a consolized DS for a very long time.

It would be great if the lower half of the DS could be the controller with the option to use it as the lower touch screen.

 

[Jarrod-Makin]

What has happened to gamebox systems since postman sadly died? I remember the site having a memorial post for him on the front page, but the whole site has now disappeared as a parked domain