Hardware How powerful IS the 3DS exactly?

[DiscostewSM]

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.

Well, we're talking about experts writing/porting whole game engines, dealing with shaders and 3D transformations on daily basis, I think they can cope with non-square pixel aspect ?
Remember PC games from DOS era ? Very often they were using 320x200 screen mode. Guess what, pixels there were not square, either.
Also, what I've already written in another thread, Amiga had "High Res" mode - 640x256 - using double horizontal resolution. It was really helpful in increasing text readability, although not used that much in games.

Those games ran in that resolution, period. Here, we know that each image will be 400x240 when the 3D is on, so why bother for 800x240?

It is quite obvious that some people can't handle, or don't wish to always run in 3D mode. There is already one game (Cubic Ninja) that won't run in 3D mode at all. Also, we have no idea if while the 3D effect is completely off, it prevents developers from using the screen like 2 separate 400x240 displays to make up the 800x240 single display.

 

[junkerde]

question really is how powerful are they willing to go.

 

[koji2009]

3DS = Visual quality as the Xbox but with a power between PSP and PS2 = Not more powerfull than a GameCube = Not more powerfull than a Wii.

This, my friends, is an example of someone talking out of their ass. Stating things as a fact without having any facts.

 

[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.

Well, we're talking about experts writing/porting whole game engines, dealing with shaders and 3D transformations on daily basis, I think they can cope with non-square pixel aspect ?
Remember PC games from DOS era ? Very often they were using 320x200 screen mode. Guess what, pixels there were not square, either.
Also, what I've already written in another thread, Amiga had "High Res" mode - 640x256 - using double horizontal resolution. It was really helpful in increasing text readability, although not used that much in games.

Those games ran in that resolution, period. Here, we know that each image will be 400x240 when the 3D is on, so why bother for 800x240?

It is quite obvious that some people can't handle, or don't wish to always run in 3D mode. There is already one game (Cubic Ninja) that won't run in 3D mode at all. Also, we have no idea if while the 3D effect is completely off, it prevents developers from using the screen like 2 separate 400x240 displays to make up the 800x240 single display.

For a game that won't run in 3D mode then yeah it's possible, but for anything that'd swap, it'd be an annoyance.

 

[DiscostewSM]

For a game that won't run in 3D mode then yeah it's possible, but for anything that'd swap, it'd be an annoyance.

Not quite an annoyance imo.

NOTE: Not a 3D image!

These two lower sprites come from the same 400x200 sprite above them, with separating each odd and even column to create those 2 sprites. Crossing your eyes together makes those columns overlap each other to form a 200x200 sprite (I blame my bad editing skills for those white dots that show up). The effect itself actually creates a little blending for a bit more detail. If the GPU works like standard OpenGL operations do, then displaying a quad polygon will fit the image (based from 0.0 to 1.0 as width/height values with texture mapping) into the polygon being draw.

For a display with square pixels, displaying a square polygon using the full texture that has a width twice as long as it's height will only render every other column (much like one of the bottom sprites). However, if the same situation applies, but the display has non-square pixels with twice the width in pixels like the 3DS has, then the entire 400x200 sprite would be shown in that same square polygon (which looks square even with double the width of pixels due to the canvas size and aspect ratio chosen).

For something like the 3D mode (which has 2 separate 400x240 buffers), the developer could either have them both display the polygon exactly like how the 3DS handles sprites/menus in 3D (same columns rendered for both), or draw the 2nd one offsetting by one texel (to create what I demonstrated with crossing your eyes). The main downsides to this of course is that the sprite takes up twice as much memory, and if the sprite were to rotate by 90 degrees or 270 degrees, that sharpness in an 800x240 screen would be somewhat lost, which can be corrected by sacrificing more memory to double the sprite's height with extra detail if and when the sprite wer eto rotate to that degree.

 

[Rydian]

I'm not doubting that it's possible.

I'm saying it's an annoyance for very little (if any) noticeable benefit.

 

[Snailface]

How would an 800X240 image look on the 3ds?

Perhaps this image that I made will clear things up. I took an 800X480 pic of a crysis screenshot that I found on the internet, shrunk it to 800X240, then blew it up back to 800X480* to show what an 800X240 image could look like on the 3ds. Notice the more pronounced aliasing on the horizontal lines as compared to vertical lines. It's especially noticeable on the crosshairs part of the HUD.
(click on the image to zoom in)

*this creates a 240 pixel vertical resolution due to loss of resolution when I resized vertically. The 800 horizontal resolution is maintained.

BTW--I'm not suggesting the 3ds can run crysis! I just thought this would make a decent sample image to show my point.
(there's no 800X480 3ds screenshots out there)

 

[pachura]

Internet Browser would benefit GREATLY from 800x240 mode.

 

[Rydian]

Internet Browser would benefit GREATLY from 800x240 mode.

Yeah, and that's something static, so if 800x240 is possible I'm willing to bet it'd be used (or an option) there (perhaps just for text rendering, since they could have bitmaps stretched to compensate so site layouts aren't adjusted).

 

[Nollog]

I'm confused by the fact nobody linked the specs from 3dsbrew yet.
http://3dbrew.org/wiki/Hardware
Claims ARM 11 266MHz x2, 1GB NAND, 128Mb(16MB) RAM.

 

[koji2009]

I'm confused by the fact nobody linked the specs from 3dsbrew yet.
http://3dbrew.org/wiki/Hardware
Claims ARM 11 266MHz x2, 1GB NAND, 128MB RAM.

No one linked to that because it's speculation based on the early document leak. Notice no link to either a datasheet or a source for the processor.

The GPU and RAM have been confirmed by the company (GPU) and serial number/data sheet (RAM)

The simple fact of the matter is, without confirmed official documentation or an SDK, we aren't going to know what the chip's features are... Well, short of desoldering the chip, using acid to clean off the metal on the top of the chip, then scanning it with an electron microscope. Even then you'd still be unable to tell the exact clock speed, only some feature sets.

 

[funem]

You all seem to be caught up in resizing and resizing to make the 800 res screen. If a game was written from scratch to use that res, and was not a 3D game ( I never said it had to be a 3D game that used 800 pixels when 3D was turned off ) then it would look as good as the developer wanted. The crosshair in the picture in a previous post is not how it would be rendered if the 800 pixels was the games native resolution. Mobiles have a myriad of resolutions that need to be catered for QVGA VGA WVGA SQVGA WQVGA Square etc etc the aspect ratios are all different and games can be made to look fine on all resolutions

 

[DiscostewSM]

The crosshair in the picture in a previous post is not how it would be rendered if the 800 pixels was the games native resolution.

Um, yes it would, because the 3DS has an 800x240 top screen that has a 5:3 aspect ratio and uses 1:2 ratio pixels. All those resolutions in that picture you posted are based on 1:1 ratio pixels.

 

[Rydian]

We're not talking about stuff that'd be just 2D (like I mentioned things like the web browser will most likely use it for text legibility), we're talking if swapping back and forth is feasible.

 

[funem]

The crosshair in the picture in a previous post is not how it would be rendered if the 800 pixels was the games native resolution.

Um, yes it would, because the 3DS has an 800x240 top screen that has a 5:3 aspect ratio and uses 1:2 ratio pixels. All those resolutions in that picture you posted are based on 1:1 ratio pixels.

take an 800x240 grid and draw a circle on it, it will be a circle, if I take an 800x600 grid and draw a circle on it, it will still be a circle, the aspect ration of hight to width does not matter. you are still assuming that even though it has an 800x240 screen it cant be accessed as individual pixels. I am questioning the validity of this statement as no-one has come up with any proof that the individual pixels on the 800x240 grid are not renderable as individual 192000 pixels.