3DS GPU announced- DMP's Pica200 GPU

[TM2-Megatron]

There's a thread going at Neogaf about the 3DS and this GPU, and this slide was posted:

On page 7 of this thread:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php...8994&page=7

Now those specs seem different than what we've already heard... maybe that 40M polygon figure is at the chip's maximum of 400MHz? The slide is from 2008 as opposed to the 2006 information that's elsewhere... maybe the 3DS is using an even more powerful iteration of the Pica200. It seems to be defined as a "series" of GPUs for use on SoC's, as opposed to a chip with a single set of specs.

 

[tk_saturn]

Check out this article

http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?t=32326

The DMP company is another small graphics firm, staffed by 29, which started as a university research project and turned into a business a few years ago through funding initiatives. Shinichi Okamoto, former Sony executive who headed up development of the PlayStation2, sits on the board of directors.

 

[TM2-Megatron]

Well, the PS2 was a success that the PS3 will never achieve... he's better off involved with Nintendo, at this point.

 

[meikiyou]

the triangle per sec and fill rate of pixels is much better in the 2008 model of pica200

 

[Rydian]

The 3DS may have lower clock speeds in order to save on battery life and heat creation. For example the PSP can reach 333mhz, but most games run at 222.

 

[ryan90]

yes and there's no way Nintendo is gonna use a 65nm GPU, i guess it will be 30nm to 45nm because of power consumption.

Also i think the shaders will probably be more powerful and i also feel that it could be worse

look at the press release press release PDF
press release html

Edit: now that i read more and visited the website, im pretty sure its this one pdf gpu specs

the pdf was edited the same day as the press release what more proof is needed!

 

[TM2-Megatron]

There seem to be three PICA200 chips listed on DMP's website, the full one, a "Lite" model and an FPGA model. The most likely does seem to be the first, as it's entry specifically mentions "game consoles", etc.

http://www.dmprof.com/en/en_product_graphi...re.html#PICA200

Would be cool if the 3DS were using their SMAPH-S chip, as it seems more powerful still.

 

[Maedhros]

I read somewhere that this GPU is comparable to PSP's and Ipod 3G ones, so it's a damn good thing, a great evolution from the DS.

Still, it's not about the specs, but how you use it. For example, God of War: Ghost of Sparta looks AMAZING on PSP. For 3DS, I can point the Resident Evil and the Kid Icarus.

@TM2-Megatron

And having bad battery time and high price? No, thanks.

I think Nintendo will make a system that lasts playing for at least like DSi, and for what it offers, the PICA200 is already a damn good thing.
Nintendo always use these relatively old technologies to make their consoles cheap. Which is what I hope 3DS will be.

 

[T3GZdev]

There's a thread going at Neogaf about the 3DS and this GPU, and this slide was posted:

On page 7 of this thread:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php...8994&page=7

Now those specs seem different than what we've already heard... maybe that 40M polygon figure is at the chip's maximum of 400MHz? The slide is from 2008 as opposed to the 2006 information that's elsewhere... maybe the 3DS is using an even more powerful iteration of the Pica200. It seems to be defined as a "series" of GPUs for use on SoC's, as opposed to a chip with a single set of specs.

hmm according to that pic, clock freq is 400 MHz
the wiis GPU = 243 MHz

 

[ryan90]

I read somewhere that this GPU is comparable to PSP's and Ipod 3G ones, so it's a damn good thing, a great evolution from the DS.

Still, it's not about the specs, but how you use it. For example, God of War: Ghost of Sparta looks AMAZING on PSP. For 3DS, I can point the Resident Evil and the Kid Icarus.

@TM2-Megatron

And having bad battery time and high price? No, thanks.

I think Nintendo will make a system that lasts playing for at least like DSi, and for what it offers, the PICA200 is already a damn good thing.
Nintendo always use these relatively old technologies to make their consoles cheap. Which is what I hope 3DS will be.

The Ghost of Sparta screenshots are rendered at a higher resolution than the psp can produce, so i know there's trickery involved, but either way i have the original God of war on psp and it really is the psp's best looking game with Daxter coming a close second which was also made by ready at dawn studios, if ready at dawn make any DS games you can be sure they will rival and possible beat even square enix quality, if they port there engine to 3ds they will allow other companies to use it aswell

 

[Hadrian]

While Kid Icarus at first looks less than the best looking PSP game, there are stuff going on in backgrounds and scenary that I've yet to be seen on the PSP.

 

[TM2-Megatron]

@TM2-Megatron

And having bad battery time and high price? No, thanks.

High price, maybe... but the description of the SMAPH-S claims that it offers "industry lowest power consumption", and it's also obviously intended for portable devices.

 

[Maedhros]

I read somewhere that this GPU is comparable to PSP's and Ipod 3G ones, so it's a damn good thing, a great evolution from the DS.

Still, it's not about the specs, but how you use it. For example, God of War: Ghost of Sparta looks AMAZING on PSP. For 3DS, I can point the Resident Evil and the Kid Icarus.

@TM2-Megatron

And having bad battery time and high price? No, thanks.

I think Nintendo will make a system that lasts playing for at least like DSi, and for what it offers, the PICA200 is already a damn good thing.
Nintendo always use these relatively old technologies to make their consoles cheap. Which is what I hope 3DS will be.

The Ghost of Sparta screenshots are rendered at a higher resolution than the psp can produce, so i know there's trickery involved, but either way i have the original God of war on psp and it really is the psp's best looking game with Daxter coming a close second which was also made by ready at dawn studios, if ready at dawn make any DS games you can be sure they will rival and possible beat even square enix quality, if they port there engine to 3ds they will allow other companies to use it aswell

I'm talking about videos.
There are videos of the game running.

EDIT:

QUOTE(granville @ Jun 23 2010, 11:42 PM)

First of all, those specs are not taking into account all the advanced shaders and antialiasing that the 3DS can handle. Secondly, the people who reported those specs are using information they picked up from engadget, which falsely reported something they didn't actually know. This information is based on the 2006 model of the Pica200. The newer model from 2008 is much more powerful at just one 1/4 the clock speed than any system of last generation. Those specs are not to be trusted as they are based off old technology. They jumped the gun and made a hasty assumption about what specific specs the GPU was. The screens we've seen of games such as Resident Evil already dictate that this is likely using the model from 2008 or later. Those specs were hasty assumptions, and are likely far more powerful in the 3DS.

Honestly though, go comment about it in the front page article about the GPU being announced. This is not the place for that. There's all sorts of information about it there... Post here about what you think about the GPU and keep this topic on KH from now on-
http://gbatemp.net/t236444-3ds-gpu-announc...p-s-pica200-gpu

Ok, what evidence do you have they're using the 2008 version? I'm not seeing something (besides being something on a portable platform) that amazing to make this statement, based just on the video.
When you have some concrete evidence taht they're using a newer version of PICA200, I'll agree with you.

On other news, I saw somewhere that this GPU has support to pixel shader 2.0... that's true?

 

[granville]

I never said there was any concrete evidence. But the odds are more likely to be a newer model than an older one. Firstly, common sense would dictate that they would use the newer, more powerful, and more efficient model. Secondly, the screens and videos we've seen really show off what the system is capable of, which is a lot more than anything PSP has managed to do even when they pushed the system to its limits.

What threw people off here was when these news sites reported something that just wasn't announced- the specific model and specs of the GPU itself. It's using "Pica200 with Maestro technology". Right...and? Then began the hasty assumptions that they had actually announced the specific clock speed, year's model, and all the other specs that go with it.

The original source was from engadget-
http://www.engadget.com/2010/06/20/dmps-pi...endo-3ds-video/

And the source they got it from (the hardware manufacturer themselves)-
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=e...100621_3DS.html

You'll notice nothing about the clock speed, polygons per second, or really anything but the fact that it has some advanced shader techniques seen in next gen games (which already make the system far more capable than PSP or any other last gen console btw). They jumped the gun here, and assumed it was from their 2006 model, which was a very bad move seeing as the "news" has now become widespread. There is actually no word on the specs of the GPU or what generation it is from. It is not unwise to assume it is from at least the 2008 version though. Just judging from common sense, Nintendo would use the most up to date and advanced version they can find. They may be using an even newer version as well, customized for the 3DS.

Wanted to add that even if they were using the 2006 model (again, unlikely), the GPU is still capable of far more detail than the PSP due to all the advanced shader effects. Anti aliasing is a good feature too, means we'll not be seeing as many jaggies. Other than that though, polygon count is not so important when judging a GPU's capability. It's like clock speed, just because it's clocked higher doesn't mean it is faster. Architecture matters a lot here. I'll cite the SNES vs Genesis here. SNES had only half the clock speed of the Genesis, yet it had much better graphics and effects (transparency, rotating and scaling, much higher color palette, etc). So being inferior in just one specific way does not mean it is inherently inferior in every way. But again, the odds of the 3DS purposefully using an older model of the GPU when a newer one is available are extremely low, laughably so.