DS Question.

[EnAll]

Do you think it would be possibile to put Castlevania: Symphony of the Night on the DS intact, given how strong the DS is?

 

[Chad Bonin]

...

I believe Castlevania: Symphony Of The Night, minus a few unnecessary-to-gameplay elements, could have been easily ported to the roughly 32-bit GBA.

 

[fuchikoma]

Castlevania Symphony of the Night is too large to be held on a NDS cart.

 

[auto]

Castlevania Symphony of the Night is too large to be held on a NDS cart.

The Nintendo DS cartridges can hold up to 128 MB, they could easily fit the game into that much.

 

[Noukon]

Easily. The DS has excellent sound and video compression technology; porting any PlayStation game would be a piece of cake.

 

[Marble]

Except for the fact that some PS games would be just too graphically advanced for it.

 

[Nin-Nin69]

They're pretty much another version of flash drives. That doesn't mean they can't use one bigger than 128MB.

 

[fuchikoma]

1 gigabit is the largest ds carts come. Most Playstation games could not fit on a ds cart intact or otherwise. That's part of the reason behind why you won't be seeing ports of PS1 games on the DS. The only handheld that can currently handle PS1 ports is the PSP. With the GBevolution, the successor to the GBA, things might be different but that won't be out until maybe 2007.

 

[Noukon]

Except for the fact that some PS games would be just too graphically advanced for it.

Not true.

1 gigabit is the largest ds carts come. Most Playstation games could not fit on a ds cart intact or otherwise. That's part of the reason behind why you won't be seeing ports of PS1 games on the DS.

I will say this again: The DS has much stronger video and audio compression technology than was available in the days of the PlayStation. With that in mind, most PlayStation games can be fitted onto a 1 gigabit DS cart.

The only handheld that can currently handle PS1 ports is the PSP. With the GBevolution, the successor to the GBA, things might be different but that won't be out until maybe 2007.

Now you're just making things up/repeating false rumors.

 

[fuchikoma]

Compression can't perform the impossible. If one really wanted to fit most PS1 titles on a DS cart then you would need to hack away at the game before compressing it and I don't mean just by getting rid of the fmv's and replacing any XA audio with music in a midi like format. Textures, sprites, 3D models, and areas would need to be removed depending on the game.

It's possible that the gizmondo might have the power to handle ps1 ports. I don't know the medium they use or the size of it.

 

[Lazyboi13]

How many bits is the DS anyway?

Except for the fact that some PS games would be just too graphically advanced for it.

Really? out of the games of seen on the DS it seems to have much crisper graphics then both the PS1 And the N64

 

[Noukon]

Compression can't perform the impossible. If one really wanted to fit most PS1 titles on a DS cart then you would need to hack away at the game before compressing it and I don't mean just by getting rid of the fmv's and replacing any XA audio with music in a midi like format. Textures, sprites, 3D models, and areas would need to be removed depending on the game.

An average DS game is capable of models and textures superior to the PlayStation. Just how much experience do you have with the DS, anyway? It seems obvious that you're fairly unaware of its capabilities in comparison to the PlayStation.

Most of the excess space on PlayStation games is taken up by audio and video files, anyway, and that's what the DS is better capable of compressing.

How many bits is the DS anyway?
Really? out of the games of seen on the DS it seems to have much crisper graphics then both the PS1 And the N64

Bits aren't an important measure on modern gaming hardware. The DS has very similar capabilities to the N64, and can outperform the PlayStation on most levels.

 

[atf487]

Yeah, most of the PS1 discs have a ton of audio/video data on them. The real part of the game is probably 40 megs.

 

[Artimus Gigan]

An average DS game is capable of models and textures superior to the PlayStation. Just how much experience do you have with the DS, anyway? It seems obvious that you're fairly unaware of its capabilities in comparison to the PlayStation.

Most of the excess space on PlayStation games is taken up by audio and video files, anyway, and that's what the DS is better capable of compressing.


Bits aren't an important measure on modern gaming hardware. The DS has very similar capabilities to the N64, and can outperform the PlayStation on most levels.

The thing is, the DS screens are both very small. Even if you could fit an entire PSX game you would still need to fix the problem of the resolution. Any game with Menus would need to be re-configured so the menus are on the second screen. Take a game like Final Fantasy 8, it didn't even show up exactly all too well on the portable screen for PSOne, menu's included. There's also the thing about the multiple discs, it's a 4 disc game, discs 1 and 2 are pretty much full, and discs 3 and 4 can be combined into one. So you would probably need multiple cards, but there's also the probalme of switching cards. The DS has no external memory unit or memory card, any data that is saved is saved on the card itself, you can't exactly transfer the data from one card to another with just one DS.

So you wouldn't really be able to decently replicate any of the big PSX games anyways. They tried doing the same thing with Lunar for the GBA, but they ended up cutting out many many plot scenes just to fit it onto the cart. The thing is, if you try to remove a DS card while it's inserted, the DS will freeze and you would need to turn it off, if you tried removing a disc from the PSX, the machine would re-read the disc after you re-inserted it, or it would keep playing the level you were on.

 

[Snailbait]

1 gigabit is the largest ds carts come. Most Playstation games could not fit on a ds cart intact or otherwise. That's part of the reason behind why you won't be seeing ports of PS1 games on the DS. The only handheld that can currently handle PS1 ports is the PSP. With the GBevolution, the successor to the GBA, things might be different but that won't be out until maybe 2007.

This has already been shot down as a rumor. Eventually they're going to have to replace the GBA but I don't get why everyone thinks it's announced and it's called the Game Boy Evolution...'cause right now, it's not (not announced or called that). Besides, Game Boy Evolution? Come on! That's a sucky name for a game system...it's way too long.

 

[Noukon]

The thing is, the DS screens are both very small. Even if you could fit an entire PSX game you would still need to fix the problem of the resolution.

Either of the DS' screens is just slightly lower resolution than the PlayStation's output.

Any game with Menus would need to be re-configured so the menus are on the second screen.

Such a reconfiguration is not difficult from a development standpoint, especially when the new design is simply integrated during the porting process.

Take a game like Final Fantasy 8, it didn't even show up exactly all too well on the portable screen for PSOne, menu's included.

Perhaps whatever screen you were looking at it on was not properly optimized for the PlayStation? Menus on some Xbox games are often almost unreadable on my 27" TV.

There's also the thing about the multiple discs, it's a 4 disc game, discs 1 and 2 are pretty much full, and discs 3 and 4 can be combined into one. So you would probably need multiple cards, but there's also the probalme of switching cards. The DS has no external memory unit or memory card, any data that is saved is saved on the card itself, you can't exactly transfer the data from one card to another with just one DS.

Games typically have multiple discs to hold long series of cinematics. These can be compressed, abridged, or removed. In most cases, when a game spans multiple discs, the entire game is on every disc; the pre-rendered videos are what's spread across them.

So you wouldn't really be able to decently replicate any of the big PSX games anyways.

Go ahead and list "the big" PSX games for me, please.

They tried doing the same thing with Lunar for the GBA, but they ended up cutting out many many plot scenes just to fit it onto the cart.

The GBA was significantly less powerful than the PlayStation. The DS is more powerful, and its cartridges also hold a lot more data. This comparison holds absolutely no weight.

The thing is, if you try to remove a DS card while it's inserted, the DS will freeze and you would need to turn it off, if you tried removing a disc from the PSX, the machine would re-read the disc after you re-inserted it, or it would keep playing the level you were on.

You say this like you're an expert on the intricacies of the DS' hardware and firmware. You can't possibly know that cartridge swapping is impossible to implement.

This entire argument is bogus; it's a simple rag-fest on the DS consisting of false arguments and made-up facts.

 

[Artimus Gigan]

You say this like you're an expert on the intricacies of the DS' hardware and firmware. You can't possibly know that cartridge swapping is impossible to implement.

When has cart swapping ever been implemented and ever worked before without the aid of a memory card?

It doesn't work for the DS, the game will freeze and you need to restart. This has always been the case for a cart system and handheld. Which is why discs are the format used by the majority.

I mean take a look at Xenosaga for DS, episodes 1 and 2 were entirely re-made in 2 1/2D Sprites and put onto one cart because you can't cart swap.

The only other viable option would be to have the Revolution act as a big memorycard for the DS. It saves your stats and then reloads them onto the second card so the characters keep their stats for the next part.

There's also the instance of Golden Sun, to transfer data to part two you needed either a big ass 50 character password, or a link cable and another GBA to transfer from one GBA to another.

Or they make a Hard drive for the DS that inserts into the GBA port

So if anything the DS would pretty much need another machine to transfer from cart to cart, it has no ability to do so by itself. Those ways would be pretty much the only ways to get spot-on good emulations of multi-disc games. I mean 1 card cannot hold entire un-altered games like Final Fantasy 8-9 and have the system work it properly. 7 could be viable, it uses low polygon characters and the cinematic scenes are no trouble to render, it could also be condenced to two discs because the third disc has nothing on it, and I'm sure the two discs could be put onto one DS card without any major changes.

 

[Chad Bonin]

...

Hell, Capcom successfully ported RE2 to the N64 back in the day. Given that the DS is a more powerful 64, it can be done easily.

But here's a thought... say that there still wasn't room on the 1gig DS cards. What prevents a company from including a chunk of the game in a cartridge for the GBA slot? Like, the entirity of gameplay engine is on the GBA cart, but the entirity of audio/visual (including music, textures, video, etc.) on the DS card?

 

[Marble]

How many bits is the DS anyway?
Really? out of the games of seen on the DS it seems to have much crisper graphics then both the PS1 And the N64

Yeah because unlike on a TV, the picture isn't stretched. You probably wouldn't get a game like say, Spyro 3 on the DS. Not at all. In fact they made the Spyro DS game 2D I believe. Then again, I might be wrong.

 

[Artimus Gigan]

Hell, Capcom successfully ported RE2 to the N64 back in the day. Given that the DS is a more powerful 64, it can be done easily.

But here's a thought... say that there still wasn't room on the 1gig DS cards. What prevents a company from including a chunk of the game in a cartridge for the GBA slot? Like, the entirity of gameplay engine is on the GBA cart, but the entirity of audio/visual (including music, textures, video, etc.) on the DS card?

Capcom Ported RE2 onto one N64 cart, I'm not saying that good ports can't be done. I'm just saying there can't be multiple cards.