So I recently got a subscription and was looking to through the Happy Hours I had missed and came across the one where they were first showing off the 3DS. Brad and Jeff warned that playing DS games on the 3DS isn't ideal because the DS games don't fill the 3DS screen fully (only about 2/3 of the screen space for top and bottom screens has the game on it), and then they demonstrated it on camera for proof.

Yet on my 3DS, DS games look great. They fill up both of the screens (apart from the widescreen aspect obviously) and have the same dimensions at a DS lite game would have.

Why is this? Did Brad and Jeff get faulty 3DSs? If you have a 3DS how do DS games show up for you? I think its a weird knock for the system to say that DS games won't look as good if its not true for all of the units. I played through all of Professor Layton and the Unwound Future on my 3DS and it looked great the whole time.

Hold Select when launching the DS game and it will come up in the original aspect ratio. Not pressing hte button just stretches it out.

@SleepyDoughnut: Are you sure they weren't talking about when you hold select to maintain original resolution?

no the thing is that if you hold Select when loading the DS games it will show the game in the original format, without stretching. By default the 3DS stretches the games to fit the screens.

Yeah, they look shitty and blury stretched (by default) or great but tiny if you hold select when you boot up the game.

Meh.

@Kyreo: @Dany: @bibamatt: I don't understand what you guys mean by stretching. The 3DS bottom screen in nearly the exact same size as both DS lite screens, so I don't see where there would be any need for stretching. I never had to hold select, it just came up in the same resolution it would on my DS lite. When playing a DS game, the top screen of the 3DS would be the same size as the bottom screen, meaning the widescreen edges were black on the top, so it was essentially exactly like playing a DS lite, no issues of stretching or tininess at all.

@SleepyDoughnut said:

@Kyreo: @Dany: @bibamatt: I don't understand what you guys mean by stretching. The 3DS bottom screen in nearly the exact same size as the DS lite screens, so I don't see where there would be any need for stretching. I never had to hold select, it just came up in the same resolution it would on my DS lite. On the top screen it would be the same size as the bottom screen, and the widescreen edges were black, so it was essentially exactly like playing a DS lite.

They are generally the same size (inches or centimeters) but the bottom 3DS screen displays more pixels than the one on the regular DS. So if it uses that exact amount of pixels needed, it wouldn't fill up the screen.

@Kyreo: So your DS games look all tiny too until you hit select and then they stretch? Then whats the deal with mine? I just put a DS cart in and it frickin works. I swear I never hit select. Is mine just a rare exception? Could it be because you were using a DSi before and they have bigger screens, meaning ds cards had to display in a different size on a 3DS which means stretching? I never had a DSi. That doesn't sound like a good theory, but I'm just trying to think of an explanation.

@SleepyDoughnut said:

@Kyreo: So your DS games look all tiny too until you hit select and then they stretch? Then whats the deal with mine? I just put a DS cart in and it frickin works. I swear I never hit select. Is mine just a rare exception? Could it be because you were using a DSi before and they have bigger screens, meaning ds cards had to display in a different size on a 3DS which means stretching? I never had a DSi. That doesn't sound like a good theory, but I'm just trying to think of an explanation.

It is the resolution of the screens that is causing the difference. The resolution of DS, DSi and DS XL games is 192x256 while the 3DS has a higher resolution of 320×240. The higher resolution of the screen on the 3DS forces DS games to upscale and stretch to fit the larger screen resolution or you can hold select when loading a game so it does not stretch.

@SleepyDoughnut: You have it backwards. Your 3DS is completely normal. If you load up a DS game normally on a 3DS, it mostly fills up the screens. If you hold select, that's when it shows up in it's small, original resolution.

You might not understand enough about resolution if you are only going by the size of the screen. Even though the DS and the 3DS screens are almost the same size, the 3DS is still packing way more pixels into that same area. That is why there is the difference.

@Dany said:

@SleepyDoughnut said:

@Kyreo: So your DS games look all tiny too until you hit select and then they stretch? Then whats the deal with mine? I just put a DS cart in and it frickin works. I swear I never hit select. Is mine just a rare exception? Could it be because you were using a DSi before and they have bigger screens, meaning ds cards had to display in a different size on a 3DS which means stretching? I never had a DSi. That doesn't sound like a good theory, but I'm just trying to think of an explanation.

It is the resolution of the screens that is causing the difference. The resolution of DS, DSi and DS XL games is 192x256 while the 3DS has a higher resolution of 320×240. The higher resolution of the screen on the 3DS forces DS games to upscale and stretch to fit the larger screen resolution or you can hold select when loading a game so it does not stretch.

Are you saying when it stretches it looks good or it looks bad? Also when it stretches for you does it take up the full widescreen on top or no?

@SleepyDoughnut said:

@Dany said:

@SleepyDoughnut said:

@Kyreo: So your DS games look all tiny too until you hit select and then they stretch? Then whats the deal with mine? I just put a DS cart in and it frickin works. I swear I never hit select. Is mine just a rare exception? Could it be because you were using a DSi before and they have bigger screens, meaning ds cards had to display in a different size on a 3DS which means stretching? I never had a DSi. That doesn't sound like a good theory, but I'm just trying to think of an explanation.

It is the resolution of the screens that is causing the difference. The resolution of DS, DSi and DS XL games is 192x256 while the 3DS has a higher resolution of 320×240. The higher resolution of the screen on the 3DS forces DS games to upscale and stretch to fit the larger screen resolution or you can hold select when loading a game so it does not stretch.

Are you saying when it stretches it looks good or it looks bad? Also when it stretches for you does it take up the full widescreen on top or no?

It looks fine, i barely noticed a difference but their is a difference because it is upscaling. Also, it should not take up the full widescreen because DS games are 4:3

@Dany: @Zithe: Alright cool, thats what I figured. I barely noticed a difference either, and mine doesn't fill up the widescreen either I was just looking for full clarification. I guess on the happy hour they had it on its original resolution, which made it smaller. Thanks for clearing up the confusion guys. I still don't get the complaint though from people like bibamatt up there who think it looks blurry and bad when stretched out. It looks pretty much identical to me between the DS lite and 3DS.

@SleepyDoughnut: Glad you don't see the difference! It's widely accepted that DS games look inferior on the 3DS screen (compared to DSi/Lite whatever) due to the resolution difference and the image needing to be upscaled and jammed into a resolution that it shouldn't be in. That's just science! In fact, the Bombcast talked about it at length when the 3DS launched, with Brad (maybe Vinny?) saying that you should keep your DSi if you like playing DS games as they look poor on the 3DS.

http://www.technobuffalo.com/gaming/playing-ds-games-on-the-3ds-is-troublesome/

http://www.joystiq.com/2011/03/09/playing-ds-on-a-3ds-is-less-than-ideal/

http://jalada.co.uk/2011/03/27/nintendo-3ds-and-ds-games-the-truth.html

It's awesome for you if you don't see the difference but it's damn annoying if you do. I play DS games on my 3DS, but it bugs me every time. Certainly not unplayable (you'd be insane if you said that), but definitely blurier and a bit washed out.

I can't refute the findings, but either I'm stupid or somethings weird, because I thought layton looked as good if not better. I started playing it on the ds lite and switched to 3ds and found the visuals to be a non issue and the sound quality was vastly improved, so i traded in my ds lite for $50 amazon credit. I don't think it looks any blurrier, and it definitely doesn't look washed out. But I guess I can't prove it to anyone across the internet so it's kind of a moot point.