Hardware How powerful IS the 3DS exactly?

[doyama]

To me the topic is more of a tech troll. Does it really matter how 'powerful' the 3DS is compared to its competitors? If you want a graphical feast then sure having more powerful hardware helps. But to me that doesn't correlate to a good GAME. Certainly my PSP looks better than my DS. But note that I haven't updated my PSP since firmware 1.5, while my DS continues to enjoy constant use. Pokemon graphically looks like crap but continues to sell like hot cakes. The Wii has almost outsold the X360 and PS3 combined (45.8% according to vgchartz), yet is technically one generation behind and doesn't even have the 720p/1080p checkbox. The iPad can run the Unreal Engine, yet its best selling games are Angry Birds and that slicing game that are pretty technically simplistic.

Games on different platforms are going to have distinct advantages and disadvantages. The best games are ones that take all the advantages, and mitigate the disadvantages effectively.

If the games are good, then people will go to that platform and purchase your product. We can compare MHz, tick check boxes, and troll all day. But really if the games suck then that's the end of it. With the 3DS ultimately how devs use the 3D effect to create good games will dictate whether the platform is a success or not.

 

[Skelletonike]

It's SOOOO Powerful it is used to POWER Chuck Norris's House

lol it's just about Powerful as a Ps2 or below it.
So I can see this thing emulating PS1 games.

It may be more powerful than a PS2, really dunno for now.
Well, so far I've tried some games when Nintendo started to show it off before release and the games were:

-Zelda: Ocarina of Time
-Kid Icarus
-Resident Evil
-Street Fighter
-Other games that didnt catch my interest.

What I could see from the ones I tried was pretty awesome, Zelda looked much better than the orignal one, not to mention the cool things they added. Kid Icarus was great, the graphics were really clean and the change from walking to flying was made without any kind of slowdown, the only downside was that I couldnt get into it because I'm left handed.

 

[Varia]

I hate it when mods remove posts... makes me even more curious to what was written (especially since I like arguments) :/
DAM U MODZ!!

Well, on-topic, I do believe the graphics are quite similar to the PSP, but I think the 3DS hasn't reached it's full potential just yet.
Then again, I don't have a 3DS, so I'm just basing things out of videos/screens.

 

[MelodieOctavia]

I hate it when mods remove posts... makes me even more curious to what was written (especially since I like arguments) :/
DAM U MODZ!!

Well, on-topic, I do believe the graphics are quite similar to the PSP, but I think the 3DS hasn't reached it's full potential just yet.
Then again, I don't have a 3DS, so I'm just basing things out of videos/screens.

Just FYI, if a post is removed it's most likely not worth reading.

 

[doyama]

I hate it when mods remove posts... makes me even more curious to what was written (especially since I like arguments) :/
DAM U MODZ!!

Well, on-topic, I do believe the graphics are quite similar to the PSP, but I think the 3DS hasn't reached it's full potential just yet.
Then again, I don't have a 3DS, so I'm just basing things out of videos/screens.

Just FYI, if a post is removed it's most likely not worth reading.

If you are curious here is a great way to simulate what was probably written.

1) Enable caps lock on your keyboard
2) Go drink a few bottles of tequila. Eat the worm for bonus points. Go to the garden for the worms for double points.
3) Type whatever your semi-consious brain delivers
4) Pass out
5) Wake up and see what you wrote

Huzzah you've now accurately simulated 90% of removed posts. The other 10% can only be created by drilling several holes in your brain simultaneously during a full moon. We are currently recruiting test subjects for this part of our study. Please feel free to PM the mods in order to assist in our continuing research.

 

[DeadLocked]

Simply that ridge racer 3D was a rush job and on PSP they had all the time in the world. 3DS is much more powerful but from what I've seen so far no one has really pushed the hardware (maybe pilotwings although I've not seen it in person and I still think they could do much better considering PSP's best looking games (GT PSP, Dissidia etc. look even better than pilotwings))

 

[DeadlyFoez]

The 3DS should be powerful enough that if we can get homebrew and homebrew adapters the .mkv 720 output should be possible. The 3DS is NOT a weak system. It is certainly better than the PSP. Just for the fact of the 3d Display (displaying 2 images to make a 3D scene in realtime) should show it's processing power. But who honestly know outside of the N engineers?

 

[gigcees]

OK LEMME JUST SAY THESE 2 THINGS
1) Maybe the psp is better, the ps3 and xbox360 are also better than the wii so why do they sell so much wii,s then? cuz nintendo got zelda, mario, pokemon and alot of more games and they are fun.
that is why the 3ds is better than a psp, nintendo already anounced titles as zelda and mario so....

2) everyone says 3ds vs psp, i say 3ds vs NGP. if the ngp is released , the 3ds gets blown away, nahhh it won,t cuzz nintendo gots nintendo GAMES.

 

[doyama]

The 3DS should be powerful enough that if we can get homebrew and homebrew adapters the .mkv 720 output should be possible. The 3DS is NOT a weak system. It is certainly better than the PSP. Just for the fact of the 3d Display (displaying 2 images to make a 3D scene in realtime) should show it's processing power. But who honestly know outside of the N engineers?

Uh.... why would you need to run 720p (1280×720) on a 3DS when considering that the screen itself is only 800x240 pixels, and only 400x240 per eye in stereoscopic mode. Without direct access to the PICA GPU, it's going to be hard to get HD movies running on it (again why do we need HD on a screen that is not even 720p is still baffling...)

 

[DeadlyFoez]

The 3DS should be powerful enough that if we can get homebrew and homebrew adapters the .mkv 720 output should be possible. The 3DS is NOT a weak system. It is certainly better than the PSP. Just for the fact of the 3d Display (displaying 2 images to make a 3D scene in realtime) should show it's processing power. But who honestly know outside of the N engineers?

Uh.... why would you need to run 720p (1280×720) on a 3DS when considering that the screen itself is only 800x240 pixels, and only 400x240 per eye in stereoscopic mode. Without direct access to the PICA GPU, it's going to be hard to get HD movies running on it (again why do we need HD on a screen that is not even 720p is still baffling...)

I'm saying the 3DS SHOULD be powerful enough to do those tasks, not that it is able to. Make sure you read the wordings and not just quickly skim through.

I know the 3DS itself can not do 720p, but the processor is capable to output without lag if given different output hardware.

 

[DiscostewSM]

The 3DS should be powerful enough that if we can get homebrew and homebrew adapters the .mkv 720 output should be possible. The 3DS is NOT a weak system. It is certainly better than the PSP. Just for the fact of the 3d Display (displaying 2 images to make a 3D scene in realtime) should show it's processing power. But who honestly know outside of the N engineers?

Uh.... why would you need to run 720p (1280×720) on a 3DS when considering that the screen itself is only 800x240 pixels, and only 400x240 per eye in stereoscopic mode. Without direct access to the PICA GPU, it's going to be hard to get HD movies running on it (again why do we need HD on a screen that is not even 720p is still baffling...)

Maybe for the convenience of not having to re-size/re-compress a video just for use on the 3DS?

To add, we all know what type of CPU/GPU the 3DS uses (ARM CPU, DMP PICA200), but actual clock speeds have not been confirmed. We do know the RAM type/speed/amount, and I would assume that Nintendo wouldn't want such great RAM to go to waste on something that couldn't keep up with that.

 

[pachura]

C'mon, there's no need to get offended...

I own DS Lite and 3DS, never owned any Sony console. But the facts are:
- most of 3DS launch games (excluding Street Fighter) could easily run on PSP graphics-wise
- 3DS's resolution (400x240) is less than PSP's (480×272), and I haven't yet seen a single use of antialiasing. Even in the Home Menu, which displays really simple 3D scenes
- according to leaked specs of Pica200, its triangle throughput is slightly less than PSP (30.6 vs. 33 million)

Let's wait for the release of Resident Evil and Metal Gear Solid to see what's this machine capable of. But for now, comparisons against PSP are perfectly reasonable.

 

[granville]

C'mon, there's no need to get offended...

I own DS Lite and 3DS, never owned any Sony console. But the facts are:
- most of 3DS launch games (excluding Street Fighter) could easily run on PSP graphics-wise
- 3DS's resolution (400x240) is less than PSP's (480×272), and I haven't yet seen a single use of antialiasing. Even in the Home Menu, which displays really simple 3D scenes
- according to leaked specs of Pica200, its triangle throughput is slightly less than PSP (30.6 vs. 33 million)

Let's wait for the release of Resident Evil and Metal Gear Solid to see what's this machine capable of. But for now, comparisons against PSP are perfectly reasonable.

Don't take this as an offense of anything, i mean no harm. I would like to correct a little part about your post though. You're right on all accounts, save the third one. First of all, the vertex performance of Sony products is always overstated to a point where it's not anywhere near realistic in a gameplay sense. The ~30 million triangle benchmark is not actually what the system can do once you add textures, lighting, and other such effects. Many companies including Sony always overstate their system's vertex performance, while not actually factoring in other effects being used in addition to geometry. I just wanted to state this, don't listen to official Sony polygon benchmarks as they are often overstated and not including many graphical effects.

Also, no one knows the full specs of the pica200 in terms of clock speed and vertex performance. The pica200 still remains a series of GPU's. And contrary to popular belief, the specs for the one in the 3DS were never revealed. The earliest known model was shown in 2006 apparently, and can push around 15 million polygons @200mhz. There's a newer model from 2008 that was cited to perform at 40million polygons @100mhz. We have no clue whether the 3DS is using one of these two chips, or an entirely different (possibly a heavily customized version) chip. The same flier that had the specs posted also wrote that the chip could push a max resolution of 4095x4095. We have no way of knowing what resolution these benchmarks were run at, meaning they could have been run at the chip's max resolution and all the effects on. So the chip's vertex performance could easily be far greater since the 3DS has a much lower resolution than the one cited in the spec sheet.

Based on the specs we know, we do know the pica200 series supports antialiasing. It's up to developers to program it in though. We know Resident Evil Revelations uses it in 2D mode, so it's possible to do even on high-end games. Some developers just don't care about giving the system a good push as it would take actual EFFORT.

Maybe if you compare some launch games, comparisons are reasonable. You would really have to ignore SSF4 and most upcoming games however, which would be rather ridiculous.

 

[funem]

C'mon, there's no need to get offended...

I own DS Lite and 3DS, never owned any Sony console. But the facts are:
- most of 3DS launch games (excluding Street Fighter) could easily run on PSP graphics-wise
- 3DS's resolution (400x240) is less than PSP's (480×272), and I haven't yet seen a single use of antialiasing. Even in the Home Menu, which displays really simple 3D scenes
- according to leaked specs of Pica200, its triangle throughput is slightly less than PSP (30.6 vs. 33 million)

Let's wait for the release of Resident Evil and Metal Gear Solid to see what's this machine capable of. But for now, comparisons against PSP are perfectly reasonable.

Actually if you compare like for like, if you turn 3D off - as the PSP does not have 3D - the 3DS renders 800x240, so its actually much more than the PSP by some way, Oh and while is doing that its also rendering a 320x240 screen as well, so the pixel counting is definitely a (big) win for the 3DS.

Personally if it renders a decent playable game and it doesent cost the Earth, then its powerul enough in my eyes. Anything else is a pointless discussion.

 

[DiscostewSM]

C'mon, there's no need to get offended...

I own DS Lite and 3DS, never owned any Sony console. But the facts are:
- most of 3DS launch games (excluding Street Fighter) could easily run on PSP graphics-wise
- 3DS's resolution (400x240) is less than PSP's (480×272), and I haven't yet seen a single use of antialiasing. Even in the Home Menu, which displays really simple 3D scenes
- according to leaked specs of Pica200, its triangle throughput is slightly less than PSP (30.6 vs. 33 million)

Let's wait for the release of Resident Evil and Metal Gear Solid to see what's this machine capable of. But for now, comparisons against PSP are perfectly reasonable.

Actually if you compare like for like, if you turn 3D off - as the PSP does not have 3D - the 3DS renders 800x240, so its actually much more than the PSP by some way, Oh and while is doing that its also rendering a 320x240 screen as well, so the pixel counting is definitely a (big) win for the 3DS.

Personally if it renders a decent playable game and it doesent cost the Earth, then its powerul enough in my eyes. Anything else is a pointless discussion.

The 3DS does have an 800x240 screen, but it can only make use of 400x240 images. If developers are capable of using the separate sections to make a true 800x240 display, then it would favor the 3DS in that respect. Until we see that happen, the PSP has the favor in a 2D perspective.

As far as games looking like they could run on a PSP, perhaps, but that is from a standpoint of just polygon count. Those 3DS games may be using features of the GPU that the PSP doesn't have, even if such features aren't displayed in your face where the focus usually is, so if such games were ported, the differences could become apparent when they are left out.

 

[Rydian]

800x240's an odd resolution, 400x240 should be all that's needed, unless you're doing something special like emulating an arcade game that normally uses a wider-top view... but then the aspect ratio would be off.

 

[funem]

C'mon, there's no need to get offended...

I own DS Lite and 3DS, never owned any Sony console. But the facts are:
- most of 3DS launch games (excluding Street Fighter) could easily run on PSP graphics-wise
- 3DS's resolution (400x240) is less than PSP's (480×272), and I haven't yet seen a single use of antialiasing. Even in the Home Menu, which displays really simple 3D scenes
- according to leaked specs of Pica200, its triangle throughput is slightly less than PSP (30.6 vs. 33 million)

Let's wait for the release of Resident Evil and Metal Gear Solid to see what's this machine capable of. But for now, comparisons against PSP are perfectly reasonable.

Actually if you compare like for like, if you turn 3D off - as the PSP does not have 3D - the 3DS renders 800x240, so its actually much more than the PSP by some way, Oh and while is doing that its also rendering a 320x240 screen as well, so the pixel counting is definitely a (big) win for the 3DS.

Personally if it renders a decent playable game and it doesent cost the Earth, then its powerul enough in my eyes. Anything else is a pointless discussion.

The 3DS does have an 800x240 screen, but it can only make use of 400x240 images. If developers are capable of using the separate sections to make a true 800x240 display, then it would favor the 3DS in that respect. Until we see that happen, the PSP has the favor in a 2D perspective.

As far as games looking like they could run on a PSP, perhaps, but that is from a standpoint of just polygon count. Those 3DS games may be using features of the GPU that the PSP doesn't have, even if such features aren't displayed in your face where the focus usually is, so if such games were ported, the differences could become apparent when they are left out.

Where did you read that, I have never seen that stated, and I have never seen it stated that it cant render the whole 800 pixels as one image.

 

[Pippin666]

C'mon, there's no need to get offended...

I own DS Lite and 3DS, never owned any Sony console. But the facts are:
- most of 3DS launch games (excluding Street Fighter) could easily run on PSP graphics-wise
- 3DS's resolution (400x240) is less than PSP's (480×272), ngand I haven't yet seen a single use of antialiasi. Even in the Home Menu, which displays really simple 3D scenes
- according to leaked specs of Pica200, its triangle throughput is slightly less than PSP (30.6 vs. 33 million)

Let's wait for the release of Resident Evil and Metal Gear Solid to see what's this machine capable of. But for now, comparisons against PSP are perfectly reasonable.

There is some AA in SSFIV3DE. Right after vs screen, right before the battle start, the short animation for the 2 fighters are using AA.

Pip'

 

[DiscostewSM]

C'mon, there's no need to get offended...

I own DS Lite and 3DS, never owned any Sony console. But the facts are:
- most of 3DS launch games (excluding Street Fighter) could easily run on PSP graphics-wise
- 3DS's resolution (400x240) is less than PSP's (480×272), and I haven't yet seen a single use of antialiasing. Even in the Home Menu, which displays really simple 3D scenes
- according to leaked specs of Pica200, its triangle throughput is slightly less than PSP (30.6 vs. 33 million)

Let's wait for the release of Resident Evil and Metal Gear Solid to see what's this machine capable of. But for now, comparisons against PSP are perfectly reasonable.

Actually if you compare like for like, if you turn 3D off - as the PSP does not have 3D - the 3DS renders 800x240, so its actually much more than the PSP by some way, Oh and while is doing that its also rendering a 320x240 screen as well, so the pixel counting is definitely a (big) win for the 3DS.

Personally if it renders a decent playable game and it doesent cost the Earth, then its powerul enough in my eyes. Anything else is a pointless discussion.

The 3DS does have an 800x240 screen, but it can only make use of 400x240 images. If developers are capable of using the separate sections to make a true 800x240 display, then it would favor the 3DS in that respect. Until we see that happen, the PSP has the favor in a 2D perspective.

As far as games looking like they could run on a PSP, perhaps, but that is from a standpoint of just polygon count. Those 3DS games may be using features of the GPU that the PSP doesn't have, even if such features aren't displayed in your face where the focus usually is, so if such games were ported, the differences could become apparent when they are left out.

Where did you read that, I have never seen that stated, and I have never seen it stated that it cant render the whole 800 pixels as one image.

In all honesty, if it could rendered an actual 800x240 image as simply as it can with a 400x240 image, then why isn't that done with games that don't have 3D enabled? That is why it is my assumption that the 800x240 display is simply a merging of 2 400x240 displays, that have no actual reference to each other, but can take a frame buffer for themselves, whether that be separate buffers, or the same one. It makes it simpler for the GPU to just render 2 images and let the displays run through them than to have some special interleaving method with either the GPU or Display. The DS had 2 displays that were in sync with each other, though not combined, so it wouldn't be a longshot to have 3 synced displays with 2 of them merged into 1 in the 3DS.

 

[Rydian]

An 800x240 resolution would have a different aspect ratio, which would be a minor annoyance to program around (mostly with HUD/GUI stuff), giving almost no benefit since it's in only one direction.