Hardware So how powerful IS the 3DS?

[Feels Good Man]

I asked this before but im asking it again.

Ridge Racer is worse looking than the PSP launch Ridge Racer and experiences framerate problems, Metal Gear Solid seems to be it's going to be worse than its PS2 counterpart (worse framerate, worse textures, etc), Luigi's Mansion, judging from the gameplay videos from E3 seems to have framerate problems in certain areas. Possibly more but I forgot them.

So what is it? How strong is the 3DS? And don't just go "stronger than the Wii!" without any concrete evidence. I am quite aware of the advance shader effects compared to the Wii and the Conduit assets brought to the 3DS and actually working on the hardware.

 

[Centrix]

Well the simple answer would be powerful enough but the real question is how will the games play? will the game play be solid? will they have solid graphics? these are more important then power in my books. Though if I had to compare it to anything it would be what developers are comparing it to, the current gen consoles 360, PS3 and Wii. Its said to be able to render graphics that are just as stunning as the consoles and from what we've seen I fully agree with it.

Simply put the 3DS is just and amazing next-gen hand held!

 

[Feels Good Man]

Well the simple answer would be powerful enough but the real question is how will the games play? will the game play be solid? will they have solid graphics? these are more important then power in my books. Though if I had to compare it to anything it would be what developers are comparing it to, the current gen consoles 360, PS3 and Wii. Its said to be able to render graphics that are just as stunning as the consoles and from what we've seen I fully agree with it.

This topic isn't to discuss gameplay vs. graphics. It's to discuss how powerful the 3DS is in terms of graphical capabilities and how well it could run on the system.

I know gameplay is important but this isn't the topic to debate that.

 

[DiscostewSM]

Then you've got games like Resident Evil: Revelations, and even Super Street Fight IV which seem to suggest that the device does have some oomph. The Wii has been out for a good number of years, with developers having figured out good ways to work with the hardware, while the 3DS is only recently out and developers are still learning.

 

[vincentx77]

I'm not sure what answer you're hoping to get here. To my knowledge, no one other than Nintendo employees and 3rd party developers know for sure what that actual hardware in the 3DS actually is. The CPU has been speculated upon many times but remains unconfirmed. Until actual details emerge, we cannot know this.

Now if you want to debate the rumors, that's another issue. If the 2x Arm11@266MHz is true, then no, it's not as powerful as the Wii, CPU wise.

The GPU is much more modern. It doesn't have as many Mpixel/sec as the Wii (unless the clock speed of the chip is variable to 400MHz in situations when need, then it has more). It's triangle throughput is slightly higher. Under the right conditions, given the screen size of the 3DS, it could probably do more.

But that is all speculation. I think it's safe to say that it's something we will all have to wait and see, either by watching what happens as developers make better games for it or as hackers get their hooks into it and start dissecting it.

 

[Traversal]

Well, from what I've seen from the games I own, around launch I see it like this...

In terms of polygons, it's around Wii. While games for the most part look nice, you can still easily see jagged models and such. In terms of textures, it's around Gamecube. From far away textures look nice, but from what I've noticed in some games, especially DOA: Dimensions, close up, textures look really blurry, but only in certain games. However, in terms of shaders, it's around Xbox 360. While the shaders are fixed and for the most part will never improve, there seems to be a good amount of high quality shaders built into the system.

However, this just from what I've seen at launch. So in terms of polygons and textures it will definitely improve, while shaders will for the most part stay the same.

 

[chris888222]

You need games which showcase the 3DS capabilities. Ridge Racer isn't a special DS title (it was a launch title for both though), but more of a PSP title (in fact there's one coming for PSV), hence we can't really use that.

SSFIV, DOA, both RE games and maybe even MGS are some examples of games showing the power of the 3DS. Take a look... SSFIV runs with capcom's own MT framework engine (correct me if I'm wrong) which cannot be done on previous DSes (it was tested, I heard) and in fact it ran very well... You didn't notice any noticeable lagging or choppy gameplay, did you? (apart from online). DOA in 2D simply looks impressive as well, and by online reviewers 'the best graphics they've seen so far on the 3DS'

RE... download the revelations trailer from the eShop (if your region has it, mine has) and see for yourself. Not caring about bad compression (that's what I've heard about the EUR eShop), the actual gameplay actually looks really solid, and the 3D really adds on to quite a lot of depth. Japanese reviewers also gave their review on the Mercenaries 3D and all said that it was 'amazing', no lags and whatever problems in gameplay. It was one of the highest rated games together with SSFIV and DOA.

MGS may be a huge graphic disappointment, but think about it... A game which used to be on a console (hey the PS2 is also quite powerful!) remastered in 3D together with certain functionalities from the 3DS... The old DS systems couldn't even do that!

Hence, these are some of the games which can prove how powerful the 3DS is... Great graphics =/= How powerful a system is. Remember that.

 

[Snailface]

The graphics, to me, look similar to the PSP . . . until you add the 3D effect and shaders. Then it looks almost like the 360. (on certain games)

 

[Feels Good Man]

You need games which showcase the 3DS capabilities. Ridge Racer isn't a special DS title (it was a launch title for both though), but more of a PSP title (in fact there's one coming for PSV), hence we can't really use that.

Oh, but we certainly can compare Ridge Racer 3DS to Ridge Racer for PSP. Both made by the same company, both from the same series and both launch titles. What I still don't understand is how Ridge Racer PSP looks and runs better than Ridge Racer for 3DS. Although, granted, the PSP one feels a lot different from the 3DS version in terms of the driving mechanics (I only played the first few races on the PSP just to compare).

 

[m3rox]

The graphics, to me, look similar to the PSP . . . until you add the 3D effect and shaders. Then it looks almost like the 360. (on certain games)

Which games? I haven't seen that on any 3DS game.

 

[chris888222]

You need games which showcase the 3DS capabilities. Ridge Racer isn't a special DS title (it was a launch title for both though), but more of a PSP title (in fact there's one coming for PSV), hence we can't really use that.

Oh, but we certainly can compare Ridge Racer 3DS to Ridge Racer for PSP. Both made by the same company, both from the same series and both launch titles. What I still don't understand is how Ridge Racer PSP looks and runs better than Ridge Racer for 3DS. Although, granted, the PSP one feels a lot different from the 3DS version in terms of the driving mechanics (I only played the first few races on the PSP just to compare).

I believed RR3D looks horrible cuz it was simply rushed.

But the gameplay mechanics were very good I must say.

 

[Valwin]

First generation games are never the best looking lest wait for games that use the 3DS at it fullest

 

[Centrix]

Well the simple answer would be powerful enough but the real question is how will the games play? will the game play be solid? will they have solid graphics? these are more important then power in my books. Though if I had to compare it to anything it would be what developers are comparing it to, the current gen consoles 360, PS3 and Wii. Its said to be able to render graphics that are just as stunning as the consoles and from what we've seen I fully agree with it.

This topic isn't to discuss gameplay vs. graphics. It's to discuss how powerful the 3DS is in terms of graphical capabilities and how well it could run on the system.

I know gameplay is important but this isn't the topic to debate that.

Everything in his post talks about graphics, reread I'm sure you'll agree and now metal gear hardly looks worse then the PS2 not sure what videos you've been watching bud but try going to game trailers to watch them in HD. Metal gear for 3ds looks 100 times better then the PS2 counter part...

 

[Joe88]

Metal gear for 3ds looks 100 times better then the PS2 counter part...

were you high when you were watching those trailers?

 

[granville]

We've very little information in terms of raw specs. Someone mentioned an ARM11 being in header info on 3DS game dumps. Possible, but useless without knowing the clock speed or whether it's a multicore chip. We know a Pica200 powers the graphics, but we don't know WHICH version of the chip this uses. What that means is that we can't say what sort of polygon power the 3DS has.

What we've seen so far is a wide range of scattered info. But we do know it CAN support superior graphics to the Wii when the right developers actually put effort into it. The issue is that some don't care.

We know it CAN handle a lot though. Resident Evil Revelations pushes the system a lot. Super Street Fighter IV is another. And even RE Mercs. High Voltage got the Conduit engine to run on 3DS with apparently no downgrades besides resolution. Mario 3D looks to use similar assets and effects based on Mario Galaxy. There are more games i could mention that look great as well.

Luigi's Mansion looks very much the same as the GC game, except the frame rate. Developers have made it very clear it's not finished. They mentioned optimizing the game to support more than three ghosts simultaneously, they want more.

Snake Eater looks like it's a lazy port. Early on, the tech demo looked far better and indicated that it was going to be a full blown remake. Turns out it's a basic (and downgraded port) of the PS2 version. This coming off comments that they could have pushed the 3DS even harder than the Naked Sample had they tried. It looks like they decided to take the easy way out and port it, maybe even sold it out to another company to do the coding. Ridge Racer is just a lazy rushed attempt by Ubisoft, they made it quick and dirty for launch.

@Centrix

I'd say you're blind. Metal Gear Solid looks 98% the exact same as the PS2 version. The downside is that the game runs much worse than the PS2 port in terms of framerate according to videos and impressions. The textures are lower resolution, and the character models are built with slightly fewer polygons. The only improvement is some minor shader effects added (you can see it in the skydiving cutscene). And i guess it's noteworthy that the game has to be rendered twice for the 3D effect. The game IS unfinished though, plenty of time for improvements.

 

[Feels Good Man]

Whoops. Thanks for the topic move. I didn't notice I put it in the wrong place

 

[chris888222]

MGS may look like s**t for now... but remember it isn't complete. The Naked Sample is just a video... Not representing any game.

 

[Feels Good Man]

MGS may look like s**t for now... but remember it isn't complete. The Naked Sample is just a video... Not representing any game.

It's not a video. It was running real-time.

 

[granville]

MGS may look like s**t for now... but remember it isn't complete. The Naked Sample is just a video... Not representing any game.

Naked Sample was a tech demo running in real time on the 3DS. It was not a video. You couldn't control it as a game, but you could see it was real time because you could control the camera angle with the analog slider. On top of that, Kojima said that he could have easily made an actual game that looked better, that he wasn't even trying when they made the tech demo (it was rushed for E3).

Very true about the game being not complete though. A lot can happen in a half a year, often optimizations and improvements in graphics come later.

 

[marcus134]

We've very little information in terms of raw specs. Someone mentioned an ARM11 being in header info on 3DS game dumps. Possible, but useless without knowing the clock speed or whether it's a multicore chip. We know a Pica200 powers the graphics, but we don't know WHICH version of the chip this uses. What that means is that we can't say what sort of polygon power the 3DS has.

Here is what I could gather on the 3ds

CPU
RISC ARM 11 x2 @ 266Mhz (? flops)
128 MB ram
GPU
3DS: PICA 200 @ 133 Mhz
4 MB VRAM 800 Mpixels/second 15 Mpolygons/second ( performance rated at 200Mhz)

For the gpu performances, we have to keep in mind that the 3ds has to render 2 different frame simultaneously which should halves the apparent performance.

for the comparison:
GPU:
PSP
111-166 mhz, 2MB vram 664 Mpixels/second 33 Mpolygons/second
PS2
Graphics Synthesizer @ 147 Mhz
4 MB VRAM 2 350 Mpixels/second 75 Mpolygons/second


Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PICA200
http://www.crunchgear.com/2010/09/22/ninte...s-specs-leaked/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_2
http://www.kickoffworld.net/wikickoff/inde...e=PlayStation_2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psp