Nintendo DS Background

March 24th, 2008 by Mitch

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The Nintendo DS, often abbreviated NDS or DS, is a handheld game console developed and manufactured by Nintendo, and first released in 2004. The console features a clamshell design, with two LCD screens inside - one of which is a touch-sensitive screen. The DS can stand for "Dual Screen" or "Developers System," from Nintendo's belief that the system "gives game creators brand new tools which will lead to more innovative games for the world's players." On March 2, 2006, Nintendo released the Nintendo DS Lite in Japan, a redesigned system which is slimmer and lighter with brighter screens, a longer and thicker stylus for the touch screen, an improved battery, and a relocated microphone. It was released later the same year in North America, Europe, Australia, and China.

Input and output The bottom display of the Nintendo DS is overlaid with a touch-sensitive screen, designed to accept input from the included stylus, or a curved plastic thumb tab attached to the optional wrist strap. The touch screen allows players to interact with in-game elements more directly than by pressing buttons; for example, the stylus is used in Trauma Center: Under the Knife as a scalpel to make an incision in a patient during an operation, in Pokemon Ranger to capture Pokemon, to change view in Bionicle Heroes and as a writing tool in the included chatting software, PictoChat. Traditional controls are located on either side of the touch screen. To the left is a D-pad, with a narrow Power button above it, and to the right are the A, B, X, and Y buttons, with narrow Select and Start buttons above them. Shoulder buttons L and R are located on the upper corners of the lower half of the system. The overall button layout is similar to the controller of the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. The Nintendo DS features stereo speakers providing virtual surround sound (depending on the software) located on either side of the upper display screen. This is a first for a Nintendo handheld, as the Game Boy line of systems has only supported stereo sound through the use of headphones or external speakers. A built-in microphone is located below the left side of the bottom screen. It has been used for a variety of purposes, including speech recognition (Nintendogs), chatting while playing online in some games (Wifi Talou Yakuman DS during gameplay; Metroid Prime: Hunters in lobby), and for minigames that require the player to blow or shout into the microphone (Feel the Magic: XY/XX, Wario Ware: Touched, etc).

Hardware specifications - Mass: 275 g (9.7 oz.)

- Physical size: 148.7 x 84.7 x 28.9 mm (5.85 x 3.33 x 1.13 inches)

- Screens: Two separate 2.5-inch TFT LCD screens, resolution of 256 x 192 pixels each, with dimensions of 62 x 46 mm and 77 mm diagonal, and a dot pitch of 0.24 mm. The gap between the screens is approximately 21mm, equivalent to about 92 "hidden" screen lines. Some games take this separation into account, treating the missing screen area as part of the play field; while other games disregard the gap, treating the screens as contiguous. The lower display is overlaid with a resistive touch screen, which allows for touch contact with the screen (either with the included stylus, the player's finger, or the wrist strap's thumb pad) to be registered. The system is only capable of measuring one point on the screen at a time; pressing in multiple locations will result in a point in the middle of all the locations being registered.

- CPUs: Two ARM processors, an ARM946E-S main CPU and ARM7TDMI co-processor at clock speeds of 67 MHz and 33 MHz respectively, with 4 MiB of main memory which requires 1.65 volts. There is also an additional 656 Kib of Video RAM. The ARM7 is tasked with handling audio output and the Touchscreen as well as GBA games, and the ARM9 handles the graphics and logic processing. This latter CPU interfaces with the system's custom 3D processors as well.

The system's 3D hardware performs transform and lighting, texture-coordinate transformation, texture mapping, alpha blending, anti-aliasing, cel shading and z-buffering. However, it uses Point (nearest neighbor) texture filtering, leading to some titles having a blocky appearance. The system is theoretically capable of rendering 120,000 triangles per second at 60 frames per second and the pixel fill rate is 30 million pixels per second. Unlike most 3D hardware, it has a set limit on the number of triangles it can render as part of a single scene; this limit is somewhere in the region of 2048 triangles per frame at 60 FPS. This is mainly due to its use of a form of Scanline rendering which inherently restricts the number of polygons that can be drawn at a time. The 3D hardware is designed to render to a single screen at a time, so rendering 3D to both screens is difficult and can decrease performance significantly.

The system has two 2D engines, one per screen. These are each quite similar to the Game Boy Advance's single 2D engine, though more powerful.

Nintendo itself claims on their website that the system can achieve superior graphics to the Nintendo 64 system. However, when it comes to 3D visuals the DS is limited more by its strict polygon budget than pixel fillrate, while the opposite is true for the Nintendo 64.

The unit has built-in Wi-Fi functionality, which allows communications with a standard access point to access the Internet, and with other DS units through a modified WiFi protocol created by Nintendo and partially secured using RSA security signing. The latter is used by the built-in wireless drawing and chat program, by games in non-online multiplayer mode, and to download game demos or multiplayer game software (used for DS Download Stations and multiplayer gaming with only one game card). The Internet capability is used to access the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection, where users can compete with other users playing the same Wi-Fi compatible game and access other services.