Why does the DS have a second screen?

Incenjucar

I like that, even if you manage to ruin the touch screen, you can still play the games properly because your main screen will be fine.

Also, with two screens, they can be at different angles. I almost never have my DS "flat."

Also, the second screen means you can have like twenty "buttons" instead of just the ones that the game comes with, and which can be used with even less effort than normal buttons. You can play some games one-handed because of it, like Pokemon, so you can take a drink without having to stop slaughtering small animals.

Sushisource

blue integer wrote: »

Æthelred wrote: »

The name of the device, standing for "Dual Screen" seems to me to show a misunderstanding of why the DS is special. Did Nintendo really think the two screens would be the selling point?

From Nintendo's perspective, 'DS' actually refers to 'Developer's System'.

http://www.nintendo.com/consumer/systems/ds/faq.jsp#ds

NO WAI! That's crazy.

Well, I'm going to be redundant and say what everyone else has said. Your hand would block your view in any FPS type game if there weren't two screens.

agoaj

SimBen wrote: »

Something that most people don't realize about the DS is how the two screens maximize its graphic processing power.

See, in the DS, each screen has its own GPU, BUT there is only one 3D rendering chip in the system. That means that, most of the time, all the 3D capabilities of the system are channeled into either one of the two screens (think about it, do you ever see 3D on both screens at the same time?)

Yes you do. In Mario Kart, the level intros pan over both screens. But it's not interactive, and if you counted the frames, you'd find that the framerate is significantly lower than during gameplay. That's because the 3D chip is splitting its work on both GPUs, which it wasn't specifically designed to do efficiently.

Basically, if you had only one screen as large as the two screens put together, you'd need a 3D chip capable of outputting twice the resolution it's currently capable of, which would make the system more expensive. As it is, you get great 3D and a large playing surface, at the cost of not being able to have 3D on both screens at once (which basically no game needs anyway). Except that, as Mario Kart shows, it's still possible to weasel your way around that limitation if framerate isn't a real issue (like in cut-scenes).

That being said, developers do seem to lack imagination. It seems obvious to me that an FF-type RPG should have its in-game menu permanently displayed on the bottom screen, with the action taking place on the top one. You should be able to navigate the menu using the touch screen without interrupting gameplay. You could even streamline some functions, so if you wanted to, say, give a potion to someone, you'd click "Items", then you'd have a menu with all your items (with a scrolling bar, obviously) and your characters on one side of the screen, and you'd only need to drag a potion to a guy to heal him. AND, you could do all of that while walking around if you wanted to (though it would be pretty annoying to get a random battle while you're trying to heal someone, so that would only be advisable in towns and such).

Viewtiful Joe has 3d on both screens during gameplay.

mntorankusu

agoaj wrote: »

Viewtiful Joe has 3d on both screens during gameplay.

It does it the same way Mario Kart does. The main processor does the work on both screens, and it runs at a lower frame rate. It renders one frame and waits, then renders a second frame, and when the second one is completed, it displays them both on separate screens.

RainOPain

emnmnme wrote: »

EBA with one screen, sacrificing the fun little animations =

To be fair, most of the animations happen in between the action and could easily be displayed on the bottom screen. The animations displayed while you're actually playing aren't really anything special and generally you're concentrating too hard on the bottom screen to pay attention to them.

Wupideedoo

The idea for the two screens comes from that whole connectivity thing Nintendo was trying to do with the GameCube and the GBA. They found that the entry barrier was often too high, and that even something as simple as the not having the proper cable would be a huge deal breaker for customers.

So they built a system where everything you needed was right there. 3D processing for one of the screens (a la: GameCube)? Check. 2D processing for the other (a la: GBA)? Check. Wireless technology so there is never a need for cables? Check. And while we're throwing everything in the package, let's include that crazy microphone we're trying out on the GameCube, and a touch screen so we can still emulate some of those proprietary controllers we love so much (i.e. the bongos).

But really, it all spawned from wanting to see the potential of connectivity realized without having to worry about these people scaring away good developers from making games for it.

Mr_Grinch

Because it worked well before?



Nintendo seem to be returning to a few of these ideas, the Wii controller is remarkably similar to THE POWER GLOVE.

Personally, I see it as a good thing

Alistair Hutton

Big Dookie wrote: »

I think simply being able to assign UIs and Maps and stuff like that to the second screen is useful enough to justify it being there. After playing Dawn of Sorrow, I went back and replayed Metroid Zero Mission. I really, REALLY missed having the map in DoS available at all times without having to go into a second menu and everything. There are a number of games where this type of thing has helped quite a bit.

It turns out, after all the joking, that having a map always on is totally awesome.

Who'd have thought, eh!

slash000

Shooter Mcgavin wrote: »

Local H Jay wrote: »

Shooter Mcgavin wrote: »

Because the last time they had someone try to fold a single screen in half, things didn't end well.

LOL

LOL, nice.

Maybe it's the video or maybe that screen is a prototype, but it appears to have a bunch of black lines of dead pixels.


Still very cool and impressive though.

Rook

Stormwatcher wrote: »

Metroid Prime Hunters and Starfox Command pretty much wouldn't be possible without the 2 screens.

How much of that is actually just the lack of an analogue stick though?

Lemming

Rook wrote: »

Stormwatcher wrote: »

Metroid Prime Hunters and Starfox Command pretty much wouldn't be possible without the 2 screens.

How much of that is actually just the lack of an analogue stick though?

An analog stick would be AWFUL for Hunters.

slash000

Well, how would Quake 3 handle with an analog stick?

Sure, Hunters would have worked with a stick, but it's nevertheless much better as it is.

Rook

slash000 wrote: »

Well, how would Quake 3 handle with an analog stick?

Sure, Hunters would have worked with a stick, but it's nevertheless much better as it is.

Pretty well, came out on the dreamcast an all. I mean it was good enough for Metroid Prime/2 wasn't it?

James Dekk

I have a lot of gripes with the game, but I do like SimCity DS's use of the two screens. The top screen gives you a view of your city with the landscape and your buildings rendered, while the bottom screen gives you a flat, abstracted view where each zone or building is represented by a color or icon on a grid. You do all of your building on the bottom screen, which makes finding things you've already built or placing a new building much easier. You don't have to remember what each building looks like in order to locate it, and your view is never obstructed by a tall building.

GSM

Wasn't there some giant robot fighting game being made for the DS that had custom touch-screen controls for each mech you could pilot?

I hope it wasn't a Japan-only title...

YesNoMu

I'll add in Etrian Odyssey (if only because I've been obsessed with it). The bottom screen is a persistent map that you draw yourself, and everything else in the game happens on top. Having a screen devoted to the map all the time gives it an awesome old-school feeling that it's not part of the game at all, just a guide to it that you make. Having to switch to a map screen would totally ruin it.

Boilerbird

GSM wrote: »

Wasn't there some giant robot fighting game being made for the DS that had custom touch-screen controls for each mech you could pilot?

I hope it wasn't a Japan-only title...

MechAssault DS, believe it or not. I thought it was actually pretty good. You might be able to find it for $20, if at all.

Stormwatcher

Rook wrote: »

slash000 wrote: »

Well, how would Quake 3 handle with an analog stick?

Sure, Hunters would have worked with a stick, but it's nevertheless much better as it is.

Pretty well, came out on the dreamcast an all. I mean it was good enough for Metroid Prime/2 wasn't it?

Many people (including me) bought the Dreamcast Mouse and KB to play Q3.

And MPH plays nothing like MP1/2. The Cube games had lock on.

GSM

Boilerbird wrote: »

GSM wrote: »

Wasn't there some giant robot fighting game being made for the DS that had custom touch-screen controls for each mech you could pilot?

I hope it wasn't a Japan-only title...

MechAssault DS, believe it or not. I thought it was actually pretty good. You might be able to find it for $20, if at all.

The screen shots don't look like what I remembered seeing in a magazine. These screen shots just seem to have a map on the touchscreen.

What I saw had dials and sliders as special controls for each of the available mechs.

Stormwatcher

That was a strange japanese game, each robot has one attack which is controlled on the lower screen.

for instance, your robot hits with a big hammer, so there is a lever that you move up and down.

But I don't know the name of the game.

Xenogears of Bore

YesNoMu wrote: »

I'll add in Etrian Odyssey (if only because I've been obsessed with it). The bottom screen is a persistent map that you draw yourself, and everything else in the game happens on top. Having a screen devoted to the map all the time gives it an awesome old-school feeling that it's not part of the game at all, just a guide to it that you make. Having to switch to a map screen would totally ruin it.

Another fun EO fact, you can draw on the map while doing anything else on the top screen. Sometimes in the middle of a random battle I'll finish out lines or add in item spaces or whatever. Not too too useful, but still neat as all get out.

Big Dookie

Stormwatcher wrote: »

Rook wrote: »

slash000 wrote: »

Well, how would Quake 3 handle with an analog stick?

Sure, Hunters would have worked with a stick, but it's nevertheless much better as it is.

Pretty well, came out on the dreamcast an all. I mean it was good enough for Metroid Prime/2 wasn't it?

Many people (including me) bought the Dreamcast Mouse and KB to play Q3.

And MPH plays nothing like MP1/2. The Cube games had lock on.

Quake 3 on dreamcast SUCKED using the standard gamepad. It was awful. You pretty much had to buy the KB/Mouse to be able to play it at all.

And yeah, MPH has basically nothing in common with the other MP games, control-wise. Hunters actually has the closest thing to KB/Mouse control that you can find on any platform (though this might change when Prime 3 comes out on the Wii). The good Hunters players can control about as well as someone playing with KB/Mouse. They may be painful to use, but they're dead-on accurate and precise.

deadonthestreet

Lemming wrote: »

Rook wrote: »

Stormwatcher wrote: »

Metroid Prime Hunters and Starfox Command pretty much wouldn't be possible without the 2 screens.

How much of that is actually just the lack of an analogue stick though?

An analog stick would be AWFUL for Hunters.

But Starfox would be way better with a stick. Or even if you could use the d pad.


Goddamn that game pissed me off so bad.