Hardware 3DS CPU

[pachura]

As for not needing a better CPU, with a better CPU you have have smarter games. I want AI that can beat me at Mario Kart.

Yes, but Mario Kart is not a good example, as this is an extremely simple game. You know, just a few characters at the same time, simple map, limited moves (mostly in two dimensions). I believe it would rather be up to developers to create better algorithms or to train their neural networks/decision trees/whatever is used to control enemies. It's not the lack of CPU power that is dumbing down enemies' behaviour in MK.

 

[Squall Leonhart]

One thing I want to add. PS3 originally has PS2 Emtion chip on it. Meaning it is 100% backward compatible. It is only when Sony decided to cut down the cost that they remove the chip. Now is like 90% compatible via software emulation.

Emulation will not achieve 100% compatibility. Even the famous VisualBoyAdvance which convert ARM7 to x86 has 98% compatibility.

vba uses an interpreter, not a recompiler, it does not convert anything to x86.

 

[lostdwarf]

And it would be a bit of a coincidence if the Kinnect chip was an ARM9...

The spokesman didn't say ARM9, he said they would be using one of it's SoC's.

No, he said they would be using an ARMADA Application Processor. Those are ARM9. You know, ARMADA.

it is Sony's MOVE that uses the ARM

"The back side (of the move) is dominated by the ARM processor."
http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/PlayStation...Teardown/3594/2
PS MOVE TEARDOWN!

so not Kinect... MOVE

 

[lostdwarf]

Info came from website IGN

"3DS will come with two 266MHz ARM11 CPUs, 64MB RAM, 4MB of dedicated VRAM, a 133MHz GPU and also 1.5GB flash storage on top of SD card support.

Don’t forget that we previously told you that the graphics capabilities claimed to be on par with the likes of the PS3 and Xbox 360, so whatever happens, this thing is going to fly off the shelves at launch."

http://www.product-reviews.net/2010/09/22/...before-release/

so two arm11 cpu's, not a duel core chip, but 2 individual chips in parallel. VERY PROMISING! and I must add a lot better than all of us have been speculating.
looks like this will not be hacked in "DS MODE" since it is a different chip to whats hacked (arm7)
is 4MB of vram a lot????
seems we guessed correctly about RAM amount too, hope its quality.

underclocked PICA200!! so graphics are not as good as that demo with the ninja dude thing?? or do the 2 cpu's make that better? but it will at least save battery.
Two underclocked cpu's! (lol better than one underclocked cpu)

this is all rumour but it sounds great! PS3 graphics? possibly similar... advanced shaders, per pixel lighting, self shadows, lower resolution so less polygons to push to achieve similar results right?


I WANT A 3DS! screw waiting for a PSP2, sooooooo many games coming out that I want for 3DS. Sorry sony.

 

[Painguy]

4MB VRAM is alot for a handheld. When people think VRAM they ussually think textures, and what not, but thats not the case. That 4MB VRAM is used for storing rendered frames. The Wii had 3mb, and the xbox360 has 10MB. so its actually pretty good. The Ninja Demo was running on the 100mhz version i think. plus devs can overclock these numbers when needed so its not like it will be stuck this way.

 

[DiscostewSM]

4MB VRAM is alot for a handheld. When people think VRAM they ussually think textures, and what not, but thats not the case. That 4MB VRAM is used for storing rendered frames. The Wii had 3mb, and the xbox360 has 10MB. so its actually pretty good. The Ninja Demo was running on the 100mhz version i think. plus devs can overclock these numbers when needed so its not like it will be stuck this way.

I'll say it's there "primarily" for textures and such, as a captured frame on the 3DS's top screen is only about 384KB in size, not even 1/10 of the available VRAM. The 3DS may not even require frame buffers, as it could do the same thing the DS did, which is having a limited scanline buffer (DS could store 48 scanline's worth internally and non-accessible) that begins storing rendered scanlines while in the V-Blank, then display those contents as they are placed on the screen from top to bottom while continually updating the buffer with new rendered lines. They can "capture" those rendered line through a capture unit to generate frame buffers if they wanted to.

 

[Midna]

What I'm still wondering about is if Nintendo is using the Pica200 ('06 model), the Pica200 ('08 model) or the Pica200 lite.

I still think the '08 model makes the most sense though, given the time frame for the finalization of the devkit.

 

[pachura]

What I'm still wondering about is if Nintendo is using the Pica200 ('06 model), the Pica200 ('08 model) or the Pica200 lite.

I still think the '08 model makes the most sense though, given the time frame for the finalization of the devkit.

I think Pica200 Lite does not have fixed shaders, without which the RE demo wouldn't be possible.

 

[Okami Wolfen]

so two arm11 cpu's, not a duel core chip, but 2 individual chips in parallel.

What's the main difference between dual core and two chips working with eachother?

 

[Rydian]

so two arm11 cpu's, not a duel core chip, but 2 individual chips in parallel.

What's the main difference between dual core and two chips working with eachother?

Dual Core
+Smaller
-Weaker

Dual Chips
-Bigger
+Stronger.

There's also cost, battery use, and heat, but those greatly vary depending on the chip model in question.

 

[Okami Wolfen]

Huh. I always thought they were the same thing.

So how reliable does everyone think the IGN info is?

 

[granville]

IGN has made some wrong statements in the past. Recently, they initially reported that the DSi had two touch screens. They supported the Tegra rumor for 3DS for quite a long time. And they claim to have industry insider sources that the processing power of the 3DS is very close to an Xbox 360 and PS3. The latter report is definitely not right. 3DS may be on par with systems of last gen, but it certainly doesn't have PS3 power. And their newest tech specs leaking contradict that power statement. ARM11 processors aren't anywhere near next gen power, even with the Pica200. Also, they disregard the fact that there are numerous models of the Pica200. They are making the hasty assumption that there's only a single Pica200 and are using the processing power from the 2006 versions shown by most sites. There's a newer Pica200 from 2008 that runs at half the speed of the 2006 one but has almost 3 times the polygon pushing power.

I'm generally of the opinion that you can't spell ignorant without IGN. They could be right here, but it's just kind of 50/50 at the moment until we get confirmation otherwise.

 

[Rydian]

A dual-core processor is a single processor with two cores.

There's more to a processor than just the core, just like there's more to a car than the engine.

Posts merged

you can't spell ignorant without IGN.

I lol'd.

GRANVILLE WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN!?

 

[DiscostewSM]

Dual core is literally two processors on the same chip. Probably creates a little more heat, but it has an advantage of being on one chip, which saves space and money when dealing with motherboards.

 

[Midna]

Except to run DS games, we still need twin processors. It's very hard to emulate a dual processor game on a single processor.

 

[TyRaNtM]

I'm thinking that with the IGN's 3DS specs, is nearly impossible to do multitask.
Needs a lot of power and a lot of RAM (specially using internet browser).

 

[Midna]

You could be right. Internet browser and frozen game running at once... PSP has issues running more than one tab or a few images in the web browser. Without running anything besides.

 

[Rydian]

Maybe it's using some of the internal memory as cache for the RAM of the backgrounded game?

 

[DiscostewSM]

If we took the DSi as an example, the 3DS would require at LEAST 16MB for web browsing to match what the DSi could store, meaning if the 3DS had only 64MB of RAM, only 48MB could be used for games if they wanted multi-tasking to happen. That's still more than that early PSP revisions had, but it's less than what current ones have. Flash storage is not fast enough to handle the quick transitioning we've seen in videos, so copying to flash memory to clear memory and then copying back really isn't an option, especially when memory is fragmented, requiring a "full" copy vs only the amount the game actually used. Also, to limit the amount the web browser could use to 16MB just doesn't seem like enough, as the 3DS would be bogged down by RAM capacity, even if it can process things faster. Not sure how much RAM the PSP web browser would use, since Sony put a limit on it, but homebrew allowed it to use all remaining space of the 32/64 MBs they had.

 

[fgghjjkll]

Dual core is literally two processors on the same chip. Probably creates a little more heat, but it has an advantage of being on one chip, which saves space and money when dealing with motherboards.

Does Dual Core mean they share the Cache and stuff like that built in the CPU?
I'm not entirely sure. Rydian! Help me out pl0x