Hacking What does 3DS mean for homebrew?

[iceissocold]

Homebrew on the 3DS is inevitable and so I was wondering what could be done. Obviously its a big hardware difference from the DS and PSP. How difficult will it be to create Homebrew software that utilizes the 3D function of the 3DS?

 

[Pippin666]

... jesus ... *sigh*

Pip'

 

[iceissocold]

... jesus ... *sigh*

Pip'

Lol? Is there a problem? It's an honest question. I have no knowledge on how the 3D imaging works. Does the hardware do all the work or is there extra programming that has to be done.

 

[MelodieOctavia]

... jesus ... *sigh*

Pip'

Lol? Is there a problem? It's an honest question. I have no knowledge on how the 3D imaging works. Does the hardware do all the work or is there extra programming that has to be done.

Unless someone here has a crystal ball, no one will be able to give you a straight answer without giving you a complete lie.

 

[Ravenius]

I'm pretty sure when we get to do homebrew there'll be some sort of library that does all the work for you. I haven't seen a lot of 3D homebrew on the DS though, I wonder if people are more interested to do it for the 3DS.

 

[ultimatt42]

3D on the 3DS is most likely done by loading all the geometry into the GPU and then rendering the same scene from two slightly offset cameras, simulating your two eyes. The two frames are then combined into a single display that alternates pixels from each frame, and the parallax barrier on top of the screen makes sure that light from even-numbered rows goes to your right eye and light from odd-numbered rows goes to your left eye (or maybe vice-versa, my eyes aren't good enough to tell).

I don't know how exactly the rendering happens, but there are a few possibilities I can think of. Maybe they render to two separate framebuffers, and use specialized hardware in the GPU to interleave them as they get sent to the display. Or maybe the GPU has a special mode where it renders them already interleaved. Or maybe it's just all done in software (probably not, that would be slow). Regardless, once we're able to decrypt and disassemble retail games then we can just look at the code to see what they do and copy it. Once we get to that stage it will probably be very easy.

Ravenius: of course there will eventually be a library to handle all this for you, I'm sure the devkitarm guys are itching to add 3DS support. But someone still has to write that library, and Nintendo isn't going to share theirs...

 

[iceissocold]

3D on the 3DS is most likely done by loading all the geometry into the GPU and then rendering the same scene from two slightly offset cameras, simulating your two eyes. The two frames are then combined into a single display that alternates pixels from each frame, and the parallax barrier on top of the screen makes sure that light from even-numbered rows goes to your right eye and light from odd-numbered rows goes to your left eye (or maybe vice-versa, my eyes aren't good enough to tell).

I don't know how exactly the rendering happens, but there are a few possibilities I can think of. Maybe they render to two separate framebuffers, and use specialized hardware in the GPU to interleave them as they get sent to the display. Or maybe the GPU has a special mode where it renders them already interleaved. Or maybe it's just all done in software (probably not, that would be slow). Regardless, once we're able to decrypt and disassemble retail games then we can just look at the code to see what they do and copy it. Once we get to that stage it will probably be very easy.

Ravenius: of course there will eventually be a library to handle all this for you, I'm sure the devkitarm guys are itching to add 3DS support. But someone still has to write that library, and Nintendo isn't going to share theirs...

Thanks you so much! I was just curious because before the 3DS I was never really interested in how it worked until now. All that makes sense and I'm wondering if its all hardware that does the extra work and not software only because Nintendo has always been about making their platforms easier to program on after the N64 days. If the developer had the extra tasks of implementing 3D into their software it might turn away developers who would otherwise bring their titles to the their platform.

Have there been any software titles announced to not offer 3D? Curious if Nintendo is making it a mandatory for all software designed for the 3DS to be 3D capable.

 

[Rydian]

There has been at least one title that won't offer 3D. Games that use the gyroscope won't work well with the 3D needs a sweet-spot.

 

[KingVamp]

There has been at least one title that won't offer 3D. Games that use the gyroscope won't work well with the 3D needs a sweet-spot.

I find tilting right and left, but not forward and back is easier to maintain and is more room.

 

[DiscostewSM]

I don't know how exactly the rendering happens, but there are a few possibilities I can think of. Maybe they render to two separate framebuffers, and use specialized hardware in the GPU to interleave them as they get sent to the display. Or maybe the GPU has a special mode where it renders them already interleaved. Or maybe it's just all done in software (probably not, that would be slow). Regardless, once we're able to decrypt and disassemble retail games then we can just look at the code to see what they do and copy it. Once we get to that stage it will probably be very easy.

I want to think that the 3D screen, when you remove the parallax barrier, is just a mutation of 2 screens molded together that still act like 2 400x240 displays, rather than a true single 800x240 display. They both update at the same time under the refresh rate, but both can read from different frame buffers or the same one (3D vs 2D).