With that talk of some games being ugly with it switched on, though Does the mode have any performance effects other than slightly lowering screen brightness?
I didn't think it did, so I hope I haven't been missing out. User Info: Varron. I mitigate the need to turn it on by keeping my brightness around the level. But if I was just grinding in a game like Pokemon or playing on the bus or something, I'd turn it on. Life's too short for side quests. User Info: nowshining. Updated User Info: AlienPurpleKush. I get pretty great battery life on my N3DS with WiFi off, power saving mode on, and screen brightness set to 4.
More topics from this board Cannot connect to the internet with the 3DS? Tech Support 7 Answers How do I soft reset? Tech Support 5 Answers. Resolution aside, there's one key compromise in effect here - texture quality, where the detail level is clearly lower than the Wii original. However, it doesn't really matter that much owing to the fact that it's a handheld game. The media on this page can put a rather brutal spin on the shortcoming of Nintendo's handheld - and the same thing happened when we stacked up PlayStation Vita against PS3 - but in hand, the smaller screen manages to mitigate many of the compromises, be they detail or even performance-related.
Certainly, the cutbacks elsewhere are minimal. To all intents and purposes, this is effectively the same game - the title is feature-complete in terms of content, the environments and characters are left untouched in terms of geometry levels and even effects-work is a match. The developer makes some compromises in terms of level of detail LOD , so you do see more pop-in on objects are you traverse the environments, but again, the smaller screen helps to make a small issue become more of a non-issue during actual gameplay.
Frame-rate is also highly impressive too. The Wii version sticks fairly doggedly to its 30fps target, and New 3DS does a remarkable job in following suit during gameplay - especially in traversal sections.
GPU-stressing effects - in particular transparent alpha textures - do cause issues for the New 3DS though and this can impact the experience a little during combat.
Otherwise though, the hit occurs mostly during cut-scenes where the player is passive, so aside from a little judder, there's not really a tangible hit to the overall experience. Xenoblade Chronicles cements its technological credentials on New 3DS with a remarkably solid level of performance during gameplay, though effects-heavy sequences see the original Wii version take point.
Xenoblade Chronicles is a remarkable achievement - the most technologically advanced Nintendo handheld game we've played, but alas, also something of an outlier for New 3DS, standing apart from the crowd in terms of its unrestrained utilisation of the more powerful hardware.
You can't help but wonder how the quality of 3DS titles would have improved across the board if Nintendo had gone with this design right from the get-go. After all, the spec revision doesn't actually introduce any new technology as such - there's just more RAM, more CPU cores and a clock-speed boost.
The fact that we still see such impressive performance boosts when the GPU component apparently remains completely unchanged from one 3DS to the next is hugely revealing - it tells us that the initial launch hardware was unbalanced, that the GPU was left severely under-utilised, owing to a severe lack of CPU resources. Very possibly this was down to the fact that battery life was a real issue - we assume that the New 3DS takes advantage of a smaller process node for its hardware.
As things stand, existing 3DS titles see no performance bump when running on New 3DS hardware, even those with unlocked frame-rates. Unless the software asks for the additional power, the New 3DS simply runs at the old version's speed - though you do get loading time improvements from the larger pool of RAM.
Unfortunately, this is something we couldn't test, but there are reported improvements on titles such as Pokemon XY which ran poorly , Monster Hunter 3U and Luigi's Mansion 2 unlocked frame-rate , Ace Combat 3DS unlocked frame-rate. Overall then, putting this comparison together has been a hugely instructive and enjoyable exercise - but we can't help but feel some level of regret that what is a clearly substantial revamp of the hardware never really gained the traction it deserved in terms of software support.
Just how many games were held back from being the best they possibly could have been owing to the initial model's weak CPU? As Nintendo transitions towards its NX hardware, hopefully the designers can get the hardware balance right on the first try. Digital Foundry specialises in technical analysis of gaming hardware and software, using state-of-the-art capture systems and bespoke software to show you how well games and hardware run, visualising precisely what they're capable of.
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Rich has been a games journalist since the days of bit and specialises in technical analysis. The Nintendo 3DS is a handheld game console produced by Nintendo and first released on February 26, As of September 30, , the Nintendo 3DS family of systems combined has sold However, on September 16, , the 3DS family was formally discontinued and Nintendo announced that it no longer offers factory repairs for the following systems:.
No matter which model your console is, you should learn some 3DS repair skills to solve problems like "3DS won't turn on", etc. In general, when an electronic device won't turn on, the first thing you should do is to make sure it has enough power. Therefore, you can try charging it.
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