400×240 per eye in 3D. “Per eye”, That is the crucial detail. It’s still 400×240 in 2D mode.
I’ll write up below what exactly that means, but feel free to skip. TLDR factor is high.
Playing 3D polygonal games, or 2D parallaxed games in stereoscopic 3D on a 3DS,
you are shown two 400×240 images rendered from positions some horizontal distance apart, like the distance between your eyes.
Because these two are viewing the same scene from different perspectives, they are also picking up on details exclusive from the other one.
Between the pixels if you will.
This is the reason you can say you are effecitvely viewing an 800×240 pixels resolution, potentially twice the detail per unit of width than in height, in 3D mode.
If you set the slider to zero, the game no longer renders the two 400×240 images, and settles for drawing only the one. (This is the primary reason that saves battery.)
This usually comes with better texture filtering – something you notice on surfaces from a distance or at sharp angles – and 2x horizontal anti-aliasing.
(as a side note, lacking that anti aliasing is beneficial to the stereoscopic 3D illusion, the sharper contours the more drastic the effect)
Now, games made for 2D aren’t using the dual-render 3D mode to begin with, so that’s just 400×240.
And so the 3DS (XL) screens arent better for either 3D games in 2D mode, or 2D games in 2D mode. They’re exactly the same.
3D mode is higher res, but the decrease in image quality otherwise means it pretty much boils down to how much you value the 3D effect,
which you find to be the true higher quality image.
Wait a second…
2dsxl says 400 x 240 pixel resolution
3dsxl says 800 x 240 pixel resolution
(400 x 240 with 3D On)
That would imply that the 2DS XL Screen is actually worse for 2D than the 3DS XL Screen.
400×240 per eye in 3D. “Per eye”, That is the crucial detail. It’s still 400×240 in 2D mode.
I’ll write up below what exactly that means, but feel free to skip. TLDR factor is high.
Playing 3D polygonal games, or 2D parallaxed games in stereoscopic 3D on a 3DS,
you are shown two 400×240 images rendered from positions some horizontal distance apart, like the distance between your eyes.
Because these two are viewing the same scene from different perspectives, they are also picking up on details exclusive from the other one.
Between the pixels if you will.
This is the reason you can say you are effecitvely viewing an 800×240 pixels resolution, potentially twice the detail per unit of width than in height, in 3D mode.
If you set the slider to zero, the game no longer renders the two 400×240 images, and settles for drawing only the one. (This is the primary reason that saves battery.)
This usually comes with better texture filtering – something you notice on surfaces from a distance or at sharp angles – and 2x horizontal anti-aliasing.
(as a side note, lacking that anti aliasing is beneficial to the stereoscopic 3D illusion, the sharper contours the more drastic the effect)
Now, games made for 2D aren’t using the dual-render 3D mode to begin with, so that’s just 400×240.
And so the 3DS (XL) screens arent better for either 3D games in 2D mode, or 2D games in 2D mode. They’re exactly the same.
3D mode is higher res, but the decrease in image quality otherwise means it pretty much boils down to how much you value the 3D effect,
which you find to be the true higher quality image.