Sonic Classic Collection

You've checked it yourself?

 

No, I don't own any version of the DS, I just know from what people have told me who own the lite, and DSi that all games run smoother.

 

All games? Now that, I find harder to believe.

 

The DSi has double the CPU power, why is that hard to believe?

 

For the same reason that GC games don't run smoother on the Wii. Ever play Geist? It's just as laggy on Wii as it is on the GC.

 

The Wii limits its power when running GC games, and turns off everything the GC didn't have. The DSi on the other hand doesn't seem to do that.

 

Except the DS processor is hardcoded to say that 1 second is x CPU cycles. Speed up the processors, it'll speed up everything. The DSi, however, was designed with this in mind, and so it says that 1 second is y CPU cycles.

td;dr - An overclocked processor is not the same as one that natively runs faster.

 

Where did you get that info?

tl;dr - sourcepls

 

Is it not the Sonic Retro policy to stick to facts and back them up with sources anymore? :3

 

I was playing Mario Kart DS on a DS Lite and a DSi via multiplayer, and there was no difference.

Stop making shit up, kids.

 

I fixed my post here in this quote to say what it should have said. I am a poor communicator. I meant to speak in generalities, to say not to rule out that possibility that this is the case, not to say that it definitely is. My point was simply that just because speeding up a DS does this doesn't necessarily mean that running on the DSi has the same results.

In reality, I'm not terribly familiar with either the ARM7 or the ARM9, but I can say I've seen this behavior on other processors, particularly older PC processors.

(Covarr doesn't terribly enjoy admitting when he said something stupid, but it's better than backing himself into a corner and looking even stupider)

However, I did say before that I suspected there was no difference, when comparing the DSi to the Wii.

 

Case and point, guys, they gave it a DSi header so that the DSi could possibly give it an oomph for processing, hopefully to make the game run smoother. If my idea is the case, it's actually a good move.

 

Guys... playing this on the DSi or DSi XL will not magically make it better by any stretch. The game will not run smoother on either and the screen size increase on the XL will probably make things look uglier since it's still the same resolution, but just bigger in an inches/centimetres scale.

 

Oh good, because sorry S3&K, not even you're worth paying £150 for a DSi to POSSIBLY have you slightly smoother.

 

Is it not possible for modern DS games to see that they are running on a DSi and do some extra things with the game? always possible the emulator knows there is more power to use.

 

About the DSi, ever since it was released it was said that if you play a regular DS game, it runs in what is called DS Mode, which means the extra RAM and CPU power is not accessible to the game running. In order for a game to have the ability to use any of the DSi's extra hardware, the game need to be DSi enhanced, meaning even though its a regular DS game, when running on the DSi, the DSi has the extra DSi hardware unlocked to be used by the running game. Since there was that big fuse about the game being DSi enhanced or not due to the header and the fact that it was built with the DSi SDK makes me believe that the game does have some form of DSi enhanced features where the game utilizes the extra RAM and CPU power to increase performance.

Also, about the slowdowns everyone is saying is happening all the time. I my self am not just seeing it. Sure there are times where the emulator seems to enable a frame skipping feature, but that game it self doesn't seem to actually slow down, only on some rare occasions, have I seen it really slow down.

 

The game must be specially programmed or signed with some key to access the DSi mode (double CPU and super RAM size). I don't even know if it is possible to ask a normal DS for the DSi mode without some crash, so it might not be possible to build a game to run in both modes depending on hardware detection.

 

That is the whole point of the DSi type header of DSi enhanced games, when the DSi sees this, it boots the game in DSi Mode. having all the extra hardware available. On the software side something as simple as retrieving the amount of free ram available on boot could determine if it is running on a DS or a DSi in DSi Mode.

*EDIT*

I figure out a way to enable debug mode for Knuckles in Sonic 3.

Start a new game and play through the entire game. After you have beaten the game, you are able to to pick any level on that save file. Now start on Zone 1 (Angle Island), go to the first swinging rope and hang on it and then press Left, Left, Left, Right, Right, Right, Up, Up, and Up. If done correctly, you will here a ring sound. Now die over and over until you get a game over, if you have any continues, do not use them, wait for the counter to goes to zero. Now go back to the same save file and this time select act 7 (Mushroom Hill). Go to the first pulley that is right past the dude that throws mushrooms and the Speed Shoes box. (Knuckles needs to back track on Sonic's path once you get to the point where they merge) While hanging on it, press Left, Left, Left, Right, Right, Right, Up, Up, and Up. If done correctly, you will here a ring sound. Now die, and hold Y until the level reloads. Press B to confirm that the entire code has been enabled successfully. Get another game over if you wish to change levels. Just make sure to hold down Y when ever a level is loading.

 

OK, so I've been on the fence about getting this and I was curious about the DSi enhancement so I bought it this morning. I boot it up in my DSi and... nothing. It won't play, it just shows the grey icon as if there is no cart inserted.

After a few minutes of head-scratching, I think I figured it out. My DSi is a Japanese model, impulsivelly bought at launch. And DSi games are region locked. So I think there is some kind of enhancement of this game when played on a DSi, but of course I can't confirm it. It would explain the conflicting reports of how it runs, anyway.