If the Portal Steam Deck wasn’t cool enough, someone has turned their Steam Deck into a working Nintendo DS, complete with two screens.
One of the biggest problems in the world of DS emulation is screen size. Having a screen large enough to render two separate windows isn’t always feasible unless you want to play with your eyes constantly squinted.
If you’ve ever tried turning your phone into a DS, yeah, you know what’s up.
Thankfully, Reddit user Piegoose has a solution for that. Why confine the DS to one screen when you can just add a second screen yourself? It’s legit genius and I won’t hear otherwise.
You can check out the DS version of Contra 4 running on the Steam Deck (Steam DS?) below.
How is this surprisingly cool idea put together? There are several components at play here. First up is the seven-inch screen, obviously. There’s also an adjustable field monitor mount, and a hinge. Throw them all together and you end up with something similar. Just be careful not to drop it, yeah?
On the emulator side of things, Piegoose uses MelonDS. What’s funny is looking at the device, it appears the Steam Deck is outputting the screens as they would be on the DS – one screen for each half.
This isn’t the case, though. It’s actually “an extended window across both screens,” according to Pie Goose.
“In Linux you can hide the top bar of a window, but I couldn’t find a way to hide MelonDS’ settings bar at the top of the Deck’s screen. For the second display, it’s a touchscreen that has a pinch-zoom function so I just set the default position to be zoomed in past MelonDS’ settings bar.”
Smart!
Elsewhere in the world of Valve’s rather large handheld, we recently took a look at what the Steam Deck is capable of emulating for those who want to turn it into a retro gaming device.
Meanwhile, the Steam Deck isn’t the only handheld that’s had a lot of eyes on it recently. Not so long ago Aya Neo revealed the company’s most affordable Air console, while Ayn – the makers of the much-loved Odin console – unveiled the Ayn Loki – another Windows-based device with a shockingly low price tag.
