It’s hard for me to imagine anyone buying brand new AAA games these days. Between the huge back catalogues of previous gen consoles as well as the PC and the insane prices for new AAA games which don’t innovate very much anymore, I can’t see much reason spend that kind of money.
I have a hacked New Nintendo 3DS and it can basically run every console emulator up to and including PS1 as well as natively run GBA, DS, and 3DS games. The library for the thing is enormous and with a 128GB microSD card you can store a ton of stuff on it.
Oh and it can also run DOSBox and SCUMMVM games though I haven’t tried them so I can’t vouch for the play experience. I should think the stylus would make a decent mouse replacement but I’m not sure how well it works in practice. Arcade-style DOS games that use the keyboard only (Duke Nukem, Crystal Caves, Commander Keen) should work great though!
From what I understand, with the 3DS, you had to get roughly ‘Version 1’ of those before they changed the actual hardware to make… basically ‘rooting’ it more difficult… or maybe I’m thinking of the Switch?
Either way, what I’m trying to say is basically ‘thats impressive’ if you were the one to actually uh… cough, install the sea shanties.
I went the easier route and just have a Steam Deck, and yep, they are perfect for emulating basically everything up to roughly current gen - 2… and most stuff within the last two gens can be made to run on it in some way…
… I was doinking about with the 3DS remaster of OoT earlier, and was actually very surprised to find that with my setup, the touchscreen… just worked as a 3DS touchscreen, I didn’t even think to intentionally configure it, accidentally poked the screen and oh well there ya go, lol.
Anyway, yep, we are absolutely gonna see a uh ‘return to tradition’ so to speak, as many high budget high fidelity modern games… basically suck, and are outrageously expensive.
As to a stylus as mouse for DOSBox and SCUMVM… i don’t know what the actual software configuration solution would look like there, but if the touch screen is high enough dpi dense… then it should at least conceptually work, as most of the games from that era that use a mouse are like, point and click adventures.
The one I have is called the “New Nintendo 3DS XL” and it has a much faster CPU (804MHz Arm 11) compared to the original 3DS (268MHz Arm 11). While the CPU difference doesn’t matter for running DS or 3DS games (apart from a handful of games written specially for the New 3DS) it makes a big difference running the more intensive emulators (such as the PS1).
When I got mine it had the very last version of the 3DS operating system installed (Nintendo still maintains the update servers even though the eshop is shut down). Yet the instructions for the hack were easy enough to follow and I had no trouble getting up and running.
The Steam deck is an attractive option too though. The main reason I got into the 3DS is because my friend bought 2 of them and gave one to me so we could both do the hack and play lots of games and discuss them. I think the main reason to really prefer a 3DS comes down to form factor: if you really like the folding case, the stylus, and the dual screen setup (which really shines for many games in the massive DS/3DS library) then you’re not gonna get an optimal experience with the single-screen Steam Deck. I think in particular the stylus really matters for puzzle games which demand higher tap precision than you can comfortably achieve with a fingertip.
Damn, yeah, thats like ~3x more MHz, that is quite a jump from the earlier version!
And yeah, no argument whatsoever that even a big 3DS can fit in a pocket, whereas a Deck is… roughly as transportable as a laptop, its gonna need a case or bag or go into a backpack.
And also again no argument that the dual screen thing is a very neat configuration with a lot of potential use cases.
I can get the dual screen emulation of a 3DS working on a Deck, but yeah it is weird doing it by basically drawing two windows on one screen.
And of course… can’t do the whole stereoscopic thing either, not without some actual 3d glasses to emulate the old red/green red/blue anagraph thing, and it wouldn’t have the same viewing angles.
See, I think there are a lot of points going toward a hacked/modded 3DS of some kind vs a Deck… unlike for a Switch/2 vs a Deck.
A 3DS is actually significantly cheaper, has all that real portable form factor stuff going for it, and sure it cant top out as high as a Deck in performance terms, but if you don’t want or need that, or prioritize the pure portability more, or you just prefer stylus type games or slightly older/pocket games… its definitely a solid choice.
You are basicslly getting your max bang for buck at a lower price point / different priority situation, and… having built a lot of custom PCs… yeah, its all about finding those sweet spots of sorts of tiers of capability at the lowest price point.
Either way, glad that you are repurposing instead of consuming next product!
Nintendo fans and Valve fans do not have to hate each other, lol.
(EDIT: Although technically, on a Deck, you can futz with Steam Input to set up a turbo clicker for those stylus puzzle games… but that is basically cheating lol)
Yeah I don’t hate Valve fans at all. I have a Steam account myself with a decent library that I play on my laptop.
I had no clue whatsoever about the hacked 3DS ecosystem until my friend basically dragged me into it by buying the consoles (refurbished actually)! Once I started learning about the scene I really got impressed with what the small homebrew community accomplished. In addition to emulators and some homebrew games, there are also a number of utilities in the scene. You can run an FTP server on the hacked N3DS and just bulk copy over files via wifi rather than having to pull the microSD card and sneakernet it to your PC. There’s also a program called universal updater which is a package manager of sorts that makes it easy to download and install emulators and other apps quite easily.
Of course none of this is as smooth and convenient of an experience as installing Steam games would be on a Steam deck, though I’m sure if you’re into emulators you’ll have to use other tools to get those installed anyway.
My friend and I are currently playing through some classic NES RPGs which we’d previously overlooked. The N3DS has pretty good battery life, lasting about 10-12 hours on a full charge; far more battery life than I have time to spend gaming in a day anyway (due to my job). The standby time is good but not great, knocking off maybe about 10% battery per day while sleeping. Lastly, a big plus for me is that replacement batteries are available through iFixit. I bought 2 of them and the install process is very easy (just a couple of screws and you’re in).
My hope is that iFixit will continue to make replacement batteries available long term. That could potentially allow my N3DS to last decades into the future, barring premature capacitor failure or some unfortunate accident.
I think the N3DS really shines as a dedicated older emulator (NES/SNES/SEGA/GBC/GBA) machine and it may be very hard to beat if you’re like me and prefer those older games. For newer games, especially PC games of the last decades or PS2/GameCube/Wii/Switch emulators, the N3DS is just not an option. I am looking forward to playing the Majora’s Mask remaster (written specifically for the 3DS) however!
Damn, all that is great info and much of it is news to me as a PC centric gamer person!
Like, I’m starring this for myself, for future reference.
I had no idea n3ds homebrew OS had gotten to the point you can run an FTP server on it, I knew PS3 had gotten to that point, but still, damn!
Yeah I mention the Nintendo vs Valve thing because… well, lately, there has been a lot of online screaming centered around the Switch 2 and a lot of Nintendo’s business practices, a whole lot of Nintendo fans on Xwitter just fucking hate Deck users, its been a whole genre of harvestable slop for youtubers for months now.
Wasn’t trying to imply you personally partook in any of that, I just wanted to exemplify that… level headed people from basically somewhat different fanbases/knowledge sets/ tech backgrounds can in fact have level headed discussions, without becoming tribalistic.
Always proud to see someone else pursuing their own useful specialized skill set, always ready to learn from someone who isn’t obviously blowing smoke up my ass, haha!
Anyway yeah, I am currently in the process of building a huge rom lib for my Deck… so far I’ve filled up about 350 gb of a 512gb sd card… internet archive still has a fuckton of working, downloadable collections, I’m grabbing as much as I can before we get an even harder crackdown.
I predict an increase in market demand for sea shanties.
It’s hard for me to imagine anyone buying brand new AAA games these days. Between the huge back catalogues of previous gen consoles as well as the PC and the insane prices for new AAA games which don’t innovate very much anymore, I can’t see much reason spend that kind of money.
I have a hacked New Nintendo 3DS and it can basically run every console emulator up to and including PS1 as well as natively run GBA, DS, and 3DS games. The library for the thing is enormous and with a 128GB microSD card you can store a ton of stuff on it.
Oh and it can also run DOSBox and SCUMMVM games though I haven’t tried them so I can’t vouch for the play experience. I should think the stylus would make a decent mouse replacement but I’m not sure how well it works in practice. Arcade-style DOS games that use the keyboard only (Duke Nukem, Crystal Caves, Commander Keen) should work great though!
From what I understand, with the 3DS, you had to get roughly ‘Version 1’ of those before they changed the actual hardware to make… basically ‘rooting’ it more difficult… or maybe I’m thinking of the Switch?
Either way, what I’m trying to say is basically ‘thats impressive’ if you were the one to actually uh… cough, install the sea shanties.
I went the easier route and just have a Steam Deck, and yep, they are perfect for emulating basically everything up to roughly current gen - 2… and most stuff within the last two gens can be made to run on it in some way…
… I was doinking about with the 3DS remaster of OoT earlier, and was actually very surprised to find that with my setup, the touchscreen… just worked as a 3DS touchscreen, I didn’t even think to intentionally configure it, accidentally poked the screen and oh well there ya go, lol.
Anyway, yep, we are absolutely gonna see a uh ‘return to tradition’ so to speak, as many high budget high fidelity modern games… basically suck, and are outrageously expensive.
As to a stylus as mouse for DOSBox and SCUMVM… i don’t know what the actual software configuration solution would look like there, but if the touch screen is high enough dpi dense… then it should at least conceptually work, as most of the games from that era that use a mouse are like, point and click adventures.
The one I have is called the “New Nintendo 3DS XL” and it has a much faster CPU (804MHz Arm 11) compared to the original 3DS (268MHz Arm 11). While the CPU difference doesn’t matter for running DS or 3DS games (apart from a handful of games written specially for the New 3DS) it makes a big difference running the more intensive emulators (such as the PS1).
When I got mine it had the very last version of the 3DS operating system installed (Nintendo still maintains the update servers even though the eshop is shut down). Yet the instructions for the hack were easy enough to follow and I had no trouble getting up and running.
The Steam deck is an attractive option too though. The main reason I got into the 3DS is because my friend bought 2 of them and gave one to me so we could both do the hack and play lots of games and discuss them. I think the main reason to really prefer a 3DS comes down to form factor: if you really like the folding case, the stylus, and the dual screen setup (which really shines for many games in the massive DS/3DS library) then you’re not gonna get an optimal experience with the single-screen Steam Deck. I think in particular the stylus really matters for puzzle games which demand higher tap precision than you can comfortably achieve with a fingertip.
Damn, yeah, thats like ~3x more MHz, that is quite a jump from the earlier version!
And yeah, no argument whatsoever that even a big 3DS can fit in a pocket, whereas a Deck is… roughly as transportable as a laptop, its gonna need a case or bag or go into a backpack.
And also again no argument that the dual screen thing is a very neat configuration with a lot of potential use cases.
I can get the dual screen emulation of a 3DS working on a Deck, but yeah it is weird doing it by basically drawing two windows on one screen.
And of course… can’t do the whole stereoscopic thing either, not without some actual 3d glasses to emulate the old red/green red/blue anagraph thing, and it wouldn’t have the same viewing angles.
See, I think there are a lot of points going toward a hacked/modded 3DS of some kind vs a Deck… unlike for a Switch/2 vs a Deck.
A 3DS is actually significantly cheaper, has all that real portable form factor stuff going for it, and sure it cant top out as high as a Deck in performance terms, but if you don’t want or need that, or prioritize the pure portability more, or you just prefer stylus type games or slightly older/pocket games… its definitely a solid choice.
You are basicslly getting your max bang for buck at a lower price point / different priority situation, and… having built a lot of custom PCs… yeah, its all about finding those sweet spots of sorts of tiers of capability at the lowest price point.
Either way, glad that you are repurposing instead of consuming next product!
Nintendo fans and Valve fans do not have to hate each other, lol.
(EDIT: Although technically, on a Deck, you can futz with Steam Input to set up a turbo clicker for those stylus puzzle games… but that is basically cheating lol)
Yeah I don’t hate Valve fans at all. I have a Steam account myself with a decent library that I play on my laptop.
I had no clue whatsoever about the hacked 3DS ecosystem until my friend basically dragged me into it by buying the consoles (refurbished actually)! Once I started learning about the scene I really got impressed with what the small homebrew community accomplished. In addition to emulators and some homebrew games, there are also a number of utilities in the scene. You can run an FTP server on the hacked N3DS and just bulk copy over files via wifi rather than having to pull the microSD card and sneakernet it to your PC. There’s also a program called universal updater which is a package manager of sorts that makes it easy to download and install emulators and other apps quite easily.
Of course none of this is as smooth and convenient of an experience as installing Steam games would be on a Steam deck, though I’m sure if you’re into emulators you’ll have to use other tools to get those installed anyway.
My friend and I are currently playing through some classic NES RPGs which we’d previously overlooked. The N3DS has pretty good battery life, lasting about 10-12 hours on a full charge; far more battery life than I have time to spend gaming in a day anyway (due to my job). The standby time is good but not great, knocking off maybe about 10% battery per day while sleeping. Lastly, a big plus for me is that replacement batteries are available through iFixit. I bought 2 of them and the install process is very easy (just a couple of screws and you’re in).
My hope is that iFixit will continue to make replacement batteries available long term. That could potentially allow my N3DS to last decades into the future, barring premature capacitor failure or some unfortunate accident.
I think the N3DS really shines as a dedicated older emulator (NES/SNES/SEGA/GBC/GBA) machine and it may be very hard to beat if you’re like me and prefer those older games. For newer games, especially PC games of the last decades or PS2/GameCube/Wii/Switch emulators, the N3DS is just not an option. I am looking forward to playing the Majora’s Mask remaster (written specifically for the 3DS) however!
Damn, all that is great info and much of it is news to me as a PC centric gamer person!
Like, I’m starring this for myself, for future reference.
I had no idea n3ds homebrew OS had gotten to the point you can run an FTP server on it, I knew PS3 had gotten to that point, but still, damn!
Yeah I mention the Nintendo vs Valve thing because… well, lately, there has been a lot of online screaming centered around the Switch 2 and a lot of Nintendo’s business practices, a whole lot of Nintendo fans on Xwitter just fucking hate Deck users, its been a whole genre of harvestable slop for youtubers for months now.
Wasn’t trying to imply you personally partook in any of that, I just wanted to exemplify that… level headed people from basically somewhat different fanbases/knowledge sets/ tech backgrounds can in fact have level headed discussions, without becoming tribalistic.
Always proud to see someone else pursuing their own useful specialized skill set, always ready to learn from someone who isn’t obviously blowing smoke up my ass, haha!
Anyway yeah, I am currently in the process of building a huge rom lib for my Deck… so far I’ve filled up about 350 gb of a 512gb sd card… internet archive still has a fuckton of working, downloadable collections, I’m grabbing as much as I can before we get an even harder crackdown.