Hardware Official 3DS Technical Discussion

[Foxi4]

And there's the possibility that Nintendo could raise the clockspeed of the PICA200 for devs just like Sony upped the PSP clockspeed to 333MHz after a firmware update.

Uhm... The PSP was underclocked stock to save battery life, the only difference later firmwares made was returning the chip to its original values. If the PICA inside the 3DS runs at full speed, it's highly unlikely that they will magically overclock it. And since we don't know the clock speed of the PICA in the 3DS...

You see what I'm getting at.

 

[The Milkman]

OOOHHHHHH, So then that means if the 3DS had AA enabled on most of its games it would make 3D models render without the sharp blocky looking edges and make the 3D effect look smoother, thats pretty win

 

[Deleted_171835]

And there's the possibility that Nintendo could raise the clockspeed of the PICA200 for devs just like Sony upped the PSP clockspeed to 333MHz after a firmware update.

Uhm... The PSP was underclocked stock to save battery life, the only difference later firmwares made was returning the chip to its original values. If the PICA inside the 3DS runs at full speed, it's highly unlikely that they will magically overclock it. And since we don't know the clock speed of the PICA in the 3DS...

You see what I'm getting at.

Yeah, I was assuming that the PICA200 was not at the default clockspeed. If it is indeed, there's still the chance of them restoring it to the default speed. I wouldn't be surprised if they did that to also save the battery life of the 3DS. But we know barely anything about the GPU so I suppose this is all rather pointless.

 

[Foxi4]

And there's the possibility that Nintendo could raise the clockspeed of the PICA200 for devs just like Sony upped the PSP clockspeed to 333MHz after a firmware update.

Uhm... The PSP was underclocked stock to save battery life, the only difference later firmwares made was returning the chip to its original values. If the PICA inside the 3DS runs at full speed, it's highly unlikely that they will magically overclock it. And since we don't know the clock speed of the PICA in the 3DS...

You see what I'm getting at.

Yeah, I was assuming that the PICA200 was not at the default clockspeed. If it is indeed, there's still the chance of them restoring it to the default speed. I wouldn't be surprised if they did that to also save the battery life of the 3DS. But we know barely anything about the GPU so I suppose this is all rather pointless.

I'd assume that since it's a GPU and it's really only used when generating 3D graphics (and could actually be ignored if they're not all that complex) then it probably has fluid stepping and simply changes its clockspeed according to demand, much like smarphone chips do. That'd nullify the need of tinkering with it completely.

 

[Deleted_171835]

"discussion" moved to this thread instead of nsmb thread...

https://www.youtube....h?v=OmHUy2MPTZk

I said similar not the same and indeed they are similar.

Name 10 3DS games with better graphics than these showed

Similar, they are not. PSP games are plagued with dithering, no AA and low poly models (good for its time but not now). It's essentially a PS1.5 while the 3DS is a Gamecube+.

Showing me a shitty video with bullshots (bullvideos?) doesn't prove anything. List some games to prove your point. I've already mentioned Revelations, a game that the PSP couldn't dream of running.

Crysis 2 runs that way,

Crysis 1 runs better than in a PS3 than a PC with same specs, due to using Crisys 2 engine, serious optimizations and other stuff.

You could have a quad-core but PS3 used a octo-core, that was indeed more powerful

Crysis on the consoles is shit (it drops to 12FPS). Better than a PC with same specs? What's your point exactly?
http://www.eurogamer...crysis-face-off

Crysis 2 is a moot point since it was built with consoles in my mind. On the PC, Crysis 2 on max is actually worse than Crysis.

Comparing the PS3 CPU to x86 CPUs on the PC is like comparing apples and oranges. They use different architectures and are quite different from each other.

 

[chavosaur]

It's essentially a PS1.5 while the 3DS is a Gamecube+.

a ps 1.5? WUT?
Yay comparing time!

Spoiler

Ps2

PSP

PS2

PSP

PS2

PSP

PS2

PSP

The psp is as on par with the ps2, as the 3ds is on par with Gamecube.

 

[Deleted_171835]

It's essentially a PS1.5 while the 3DS is a Gamecube+.

a ps 1.5? WUT?
Yay comparing time!

Spoiler

Ps2

PSP

PS2

PSP

PS2

PSP

PS2

PSP

The psp is as on par with the ps2, as the 3ds is on par with Gamecube.

The PSP is most definitely not on par with the PS2 (most of your images are bullshots).

PeaceWalker:

PS2:

Socom US Navy Seals Tactical Strike

Socom III: US Navy Seals

No matter how you cut it, the PSP is inferior to the PS2 (in specs, look at it yourself). The level of polygons it pushes are almost PS1-level.

 

[Rydian]

~

You do know the PSP's resolution is 480x272, right?

Yet most of the "PSP" screenshots are higher...

 

[VMM]

"discussion" moved to this thread instead of nsmb thread...

https://www.youtube....h?v=OmHUy2MPTZk

I said similar not the same and indeed they are similar.

Name 10 3DS games with better graphics than these showed

Similar, they are not. PSP games are plagued with dithering, no AA and low poly models (good for its time but not now). It's essentially a PS1.5 while the 3DS is a Gamecube+.

Showing me a shitty video with bullshots (bullvideos?) doesn't prove anything. List some games to prove your point. I've already mentioned Revelations, a game that the PSP couldn't dream of running.

Dissidia Duodecim, Monster Hunter, Kingdom Hearts, GTA Vice City Stories, Little Big Plannet, both God of War, Gran Turismo...
It's hard to find 3DS games with comparable graphics to these.

You made a comparisson with the best game in terms of graphic, but 3DS games are not that much better in graphic terms than PSP titles now.

3DS potential is lower than gamecube, not higher, a middle term between the fith and the sixth generation, a little bit better than PSP but still away from a Gamecube

Mario Kart Double Dash

Mario Kart 7

Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep (PSP)

Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance(3DS)

 

[Deleted_171835]

~snip

Since you seem to want one more example of the 3DS's superiority, look at Tri G vs. Freedom Unite. There's a clear difference between the two.

Monster Hunter: Tri G


Monster Hunter: Freedom Unite


Monster Hunter: Tri G

Monster Hunter: Freedom Unite

The differences go beyond simply visuals too. It has performance much better than the PSP version. It runs at 60FPS with antialiasing, HDR lighting and proper shadows.

If the 3DS truly isn't as powerful as the Gamecube, explain Tri G. How does it run a Wii game in 3D (rendered twice) at 60FPS with anti-aliasing? Witchcraft?

Over at Neogaf, some member did the math and got the fillrate and geometry capability of the 3DS GPU.

Spoiler

Come on guys! Just do some maths.

Our best guess is that the 3DS has a PICA200 running at 268MHz. This comes from the homebrew scene, so take it as you will.

It has two ARM11 CPUs each running at the same speed - 268MHz.

6MB of VRAM. 128MB of FCRAM.

Taken from the PICA200 wikipedia page:

pixel performance: 800 Mpixel/s

- 400 Mpixel/s @100 MHz
- 1600 Mpixel/s @400 MHz

vertex performance: 15.3 Mpolygon/s

- 40Mtriangle/s @100 MHz
- 160Mtriangle/s @400 MHz

100MHz is the bottom here. 268MHz / 100MHz = 2.68. That is our multiplier.

400 Mpixels/s * 2.68 = 1072 Mpixels/s.
40M Triangles/s * 2.68 = 107.2M Triangles/s.

Gamecube performance (from the Wikipedia. If you have a better source, share it):

648 Mpixels/s.
20M Triangles/s.

According to this data, the fillrate of the 3DS GPU is almost double, and the geometry capability is 5 times greater. This is all based on Wikipedia data though, so take it as you will.

GCN had 43MB of RAM.

24MB of it was system RAM.
3MB of it was VRAM.
16MB was used for the optical drive and other functions.

3DS has about 5x more system RAM, and twice as much VRAM.

Can't find much about ARM11 CPUs, so I'll end here.

With almost double the fillrate and a much greater geometry capability, I don't know how you could argue that it's less powerful. The only bit that might make its parity/superiority to the Gamecube questionable is the CPU.

And to address your comparisons,

Nice job finding super-compressed pics at an improper resolution to represent each 3DS game. The PSP's resolution is 480x272, the 3DS's is 400x240 and the Gamecube's is 640x480. Remember that now.

Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance does not look as blurry as that. In fact, it looks largely similar to the PSP version (SE must have reused the same engine).

Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance

Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep

It's hard to compare MK7 to Double Dash. Best way is to use the remade tracks.

3DS is more powerful than the PSP and in some aspects more powerful than the Gamecube.

 

[JulietStMoon]

Nice job finding super-compressed pics at an improper resolution to represent each 3DS game. The PSP's resolution is 480x272, the 3DS's is 400x240 and the Gamecube's is 640x480. Remember that now.

I was about to say something like that. It's not fair to compare images between the 3DS and GameCube just based on the visual "jaggies" of the graphics when they have different resolutions

 

[chris888222]

I have been wondering this for a looong time... But what exactly is DS/3DS local wireless? Surely it can't have a name of just "wireless"!

 

[aalokishere]

i think its a wireless replacement for the gameboy's linkcable

 

[chris888222]

i think its a wireless replacement for the gameboy's linkcable

Bluetooth is wireless, IR is wireless, as well as NFC.

I just don't get why Nintendo calls it "wireless"
Isn't there a specific?

 

[RodrigoDavy]

i think its a wireless replacement for the gameboy's linkcable

Bluetooth is wireless, IR is wireless, as well as NFC.

I just don't get why Nintendo calls it "wireless"
Isn't there a specific?

I don't think calling it 802.11b/g/n would be very user friendly It's the same as wireless used in Wi-fi spots.

EDIT: I think sometimes it's called "Local Wireless" too but it's not an official name

 

[aalokishere]

i think its a wireless replacement for the gameboy's linkcable

Bluetooth is wireless, IR is wireless, as well as NFC.

I just don't get why Nintendo calls it "wireless"
Isn't there a specific?

I don't think calling it 802.11b/g/n would be very user friendly It's the same as wireless used in Wi-fi spots.

EDIT: I think sometimes it's called "Local Wireless" too but it's not an official name

I dont think there is a specific name(not sure about this) and like rodrigo said other might quite seem odd to some users or kids

 

[VMM]

~snip

Since you seem to want one more example of the 3DS's superiority, look at Tri G vs. Freedom Unite. There's a clear difference between the two.

Monster Hunter: Tri G
[media]http://www.youtube.c...h?v=bbXay9-i4JA[/media]

Monster Hunter: Freedom Unite
[media]http://www.youtube.c...h?v=_kymnMLkAqE[/media]

Monster Hunter: Tri G

Monster Hunter: Freedom Unite

The differences go beyond simply visuals too. It has performance much better than the PSP version. It runs at 60FPS with antialiasing, HDR lighting and proper shadows.

If the 3DS truly isn't as powerful as the Gamecube, explain Tri G. How does it run a Wii game in 3D (rendered twice) at 60FPS with anti-aliasing? Witchcraft?

Over at Neogaf, some member did the math and got the fillrate and geometry capability of the 3DS GPU.

Spoiler

Come on guys! Just do some maths.

Our best guess is that the 3DS has a PICA200 running at 268MHz. This comes from the homebrew scene, so take it as you will.

It has two ARM11 CPUs each running at the same speed - 268MHz.

6MB of VRAM. 128MB of FCRAM.

Taken from the PICA200 wikipedia page:

pixel performance: 800 Mpixel/s

- 400 Mpixel/s @100 MHz
- 1600 Mpixel/s @400 MHz

vertex performance: 15.3 Mpolygon/s

- 40Mtriangle/s @100 MHz
- 160Mtriangle/s @400 MHz

100MHz is the bottom here. 268MHz / 100MHz = 2.68. That is our multiplier.

400 Mpixels/s * 2.68 = 1072 Mpixels/s.
40M Triangles/s * 2.68 = 107.2M Triangles/s.

Gamecube performance (from the Wikipedia. If you have a better source, share it):

648 Mpixels/s.
20M Triangles/s.

According to this data, the fillrate of the 3DS GPU is almost double, and the geometry capability is 5 times greater. This is all based on Wikipedia data though, so take it as you will.

GCN had 43MB of RAM.

24MB of it was system RAM.
3MB of it was VRAM.
16MB was used for the optical drive and other functions.

3DS has about 5x more system RAM, and twice as much VRAM.

Can't find much about ARM11 CPUs, so I'll end here.

With almost double the fillrate and a much greater geometry capability, I don't know how you could argue that it's less powerful. The only bit that might make its parity/superiority to the Gamecube questionable is the CPU.

And to address your comparisons,

Nice job finding super-compressed pics at an improper resolution to represent each 3DS game. The PSP's resolution is 480x272, the 3DS's is 400x240 and the Gamecube's is 640x480. Remember that now.

Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance does not look as blurry as that. In fact, it looks largely similar to the PSP version (SE must have reused the same engine).

Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance

Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep

It's hard to compare MK7 to Double Dash. Best way is to use the remade tracks.

3DS is more powerful than the PSP and in some aspects more powerful than the Gamecube.

If you want exact sized screenshots the look at those:

Mario Kart 7:

Mario Kart Double Dash:

Monster Hunter 4(3DS)

Monster Hunter Freedom United(PSP)

Needless to say Gamecube's Mario Kart look much better

I never said 3DS was less powerful than PSP.
It's indeed more powerful, but not that much, that's why I say they have similar graphics.

Although 3DS is more powerful in some specs than Gamecube,
it's games looks worse than in GC.

 

[Rydian]

3D rendering 101, please?

Resolution plays a big part. Rendering a 320x240 image takes ONE FOURTH the power as rendering a 640x480 image. That's because there's only 25% as many pixels to render.

So it won't be uncommon to see newer handhelds with visuals as good as or better than some older consoles because they're rendering them at a much lower resolution, so they can do the same level of graphics while being weaker.

 

[Deleted_171835]

Spoiler

If you want exact sized screenshots the look at those:

Mario Kart 7:

Mario Kart Double Dash:

Monster Hunter 4(3DS)

Monster Hunter Freedom United(PSP)

Needless to say Gamecube's Mario Kart look much better

I never said 3DS was less powerful than PSP.
It's indeed more powerful, but not that much, that's why I say they have similar graphics.

Although 3DS is more powerful in some specs than Gamecube,
it's games looks worse than in GC.

Once again, those screenshots are flawed. Monster Hunter 4 is still early in development and the Mario Kart 7 screenshot is from E3 2010.

I have already proved that the 3DS is significantly more powerful than the PSP. It takes a large amount of processing grunt over the PSP to render Tri G twice with 3D, then again with 60FPS (and anti-aliasing if you turn off 3D).

Freedom Unite looks much worse than Monster Hunter: Tri G which I've already proven with the previous screenshots.

Monster Hunter: Tri G

Monster Hunter: Freedom Unite

You're cherry picking the worst 3DS games visually and ignoring all the games I've mentioned. Resident Evil: Revelations shows a large gap over the PSP. Monster Hunter: Tri G shows a large gap over the PSP. Heck, even Super Mario 3D Land does.


(go to 6:41 for bump-mapping on the castle)

Super Mario 3D Land shows another large gap over the PSP featuring effects such as bump-mapping. It looks really good, too.

3D rendering 101, please?

Resolution plays a big part. Rendering a 320x240 image takes ONE FOURTH the power as rendering a 640x480 image. That's because there's only 25% as many pixels to render.

So it won't be uncommon to see newer handhelds with visuals as good as or better than some older consoles because they're rendering them at a much lower resolution, so they can do the same level of graphics while being weaker.

You're right with this but it isn't 320x240 (400x240 for top-screen). It actually renders at 800x240 because of 3D (1.6x more pixels for the Gamecube).

 

[Rydian]

None of the resolutions involved directly relate so I chose an example to note the whole double-resolution-is-quadruple-pixels thing.