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New Nintendo 3DS Hardware Info (Conference At 10 PST/1 EST Today)

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Chaplain

Chaplain

Member
http://gear.ign.com/articles/112/1122613p1.html

New Nintendo 3DS Hardware Info

IGN has learned that the Nintendo 3DS will pack not one, but two 266MHz ARM11 CPUs, along with a 133MHz GPU, 4MBs of dedicated VRAM, 64MBs of RAM, and 1.5GBs of flash storage. The information comes from persons familiar with the hardware who spoke to us under the condition of anonymity.

While we were unable to determine which variation of the ARM11 processors the 3DS will feature, we now have a better sense of the system's capabilities. Currently there are a number of devices being powered by the ARM11, including the Zune HD, a variety of Android smartphones, and prior to the introduction of Apple's A4 processor, the iPhone and iPod touch.

"Numerous developers working on software for the platform have likened its graphical capabilities to current-generation consoles like the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, albeit on smaller, lower-resolution screens.

The handheld will also have substantially larger storage capacity than preceding models, jumping from only 256MBs on the DSi to 1.5GBs of flash memory on the 3DS. The total drive space can, of course, be expanded using the 3DS' SD card slot.
Click to expand...
 
H

Hot Coldman

Banned
1.5 GB? Kinda hoping for double that, but whatevs, it beats fucking 256MB :lol

Someone translate the rest into layman's terms please.
 
K

KAL2006

Banned
can someone who has no tech knowledge tell me what the fuck all that mean, is it powerful, how is it compared to PSP, PS2, iPhone, Dreamcast, GameCube.
 
S

seady

Member
1.5 GB? it's ok, as it's relying on external memory anyway. The internal storage is more for firmware.
 
G

gofreak

GAF's Bob Woodward
Hmmm. The GPU clock seems a bit lower than I might have expected, it almost seemed like 200Mhz was some baseline from the slides in the other thread. But I guess it might not have been reasonable to expect them to clock it upwards of that.
 
M

Mashing

Member
Does ARM have a dual core processor--would be more feasible than two physical processor chips? What happens when mobile devices have to start requiring more than passive cooling? Obviously mobile processors are designed from the start for low power consumption (thereby reducing heat), but at some point we are going to reach a threshold where that is just impossible with current technology.
 
1

1-D_FTW

Member
Green Scar said:
1.5 GB? Kinda hoping for double that, but whatevs, it beats fucking 256MB :lol

Someone translate the rest into layman's terms please.
Click to expand...

As long as they don't unnecessarily limit the capacity of the SD cards (I want at least 32GB), then it doesn't bother me one bit. This is one area they can ghetto it, cause SD slots are where it's at anyways.
 
W

Why would you do that?

Member
I always figured it would have 64 MB RAM. It made sense, considering how systems like the Xbox had it, and also for various other reasons.

64 MB is a lot. It's almost as much as the Wii.
 
MrMephistoX

MrMephistoX

Member
I NEED SCISSORS said:
1.5gb is fine. I would rather they just left it up to the consumer (via the SD card slot) than bloat the price of the hardware.
Click to expand...


Me too, works for me on PSP so I'm glad Nintendo is including an SD slot for sure.
 
Slayer-33

Slayer-33

Liverpool-2
BlazingDarkness said:
In English, please?
Click to expand...


"Numerous developers working on software for the platform have likened its graphical capabilities to current-generation consoles like the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, albeit on smaller, lower-resolution screens."
Click to expand...

Go batshit insane now.


(god damn)
 
I

ILikeFeet

Banned
1 and a half gig is odd. I wonder what will the sizes of the 3DSware games be. and also the thing will have to hold movies. at least there is SD card support.

with 2 ARM11 processors, what does than mean for performance?
 
M

Mashing

Member
What the largest MEMORY card made for PSP? I know it's off topic but I'd like to get one as large as I can download and install games off PSN on my PSP-1000 model.

Edit: I knew there was something fishy about my post.
 
S

swerve

Member
Yeah, so long as they make transfers from SD -> System and back simple and give it a nice interface, then 1.5gig is fine.

Pretty big if, though, seeing as DSi didn't exactly make great strides over the Wii situation.
 
R

rezuth

Member
Mashing said:
Does ARM have a dual core processor--would be more feasible than two physical processor chips? What happens when mobile devices have to start requiring more than passive cooling? Obviously mobile processors are designed from the start for low power consumption (thereby reducing heat), but at some point we are going to reach a threshold where that is just impossible with current technology.
Click to expand...
No
 
K

KAL2006

Banned
ILikeFeet said:
1 and a half gig is odd. I wonder what will the sizes of the 3DSware games be. and also the thing will have to hold movies. at least there is SD card support.

with 2 ARM11 processors, what does than mean for performance?
Click to expand...

I am guessing people would be required to have SD cards for all the storage. 1.5GB will probably be used for firmware updates, apps (such as internet browser), cache, system memory and etc.
 
E

EatChildren

Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
Is another case of Nintendo, as usual, being deep pocketed on the amount of RAM like they seem to be with every single bloody system they release?

It seems I'm always hearing from developers, when asked "So, what would you change about *INSERT NINTENDO SYSTEM*", "We'll, it could do with more RAM".

Where's the stewy brain?
 
V

vazel

Banned
Wario64 said:
1.5 GB seems small if 3DS has game installations
Click to expand...
Why would it need game installs when game cards are lightning fast.

Edit: I see that's a rumored feature. That is weird.
 
X

XPE

Member
If those numbers are to be believe the cpu will be faster than the gamecube, yet the gpu will be a little slower than the gamecube, i don’t think that will matter to much because the gpu is a lot more advance.
 
I

ILikeFeet

Banned
KAL2006 said:
I am guessing people would be required to have SD cards for all the storage. 1.5GB will probably be used for firmware updates, apps (such as internet browser), cache, system memory and etc.
Click to expand...

this is what I was thinking. since SD cards are so cheap, the storage space is a non-issue

I want comparisions now. off to wikipedia
 
W

wrowa

Member
I don't have any clue about such things, but doesn't that sound considerably worse than what TechGAF expected?

ShockingAlberto said:
1.5 sounds like the smallest they could probably get from their whoever is supplying the flash memory.
Click to expand...
That seems really unlikely considering that the DSi uses 256MB RAM and is still being produced today ;p
 
A

antonz

Member
Wouldnt it make more sense to have a dual core cpu rather than 2 seperate cpu as IGN seems to be saying. ARM11 are made in 1-4 core CPUs
 
M

Mafro

Member
64MB RAM? Sounds like Nintendo, alright.

1.5GB storage space seems like a bizarre amount, though. Weren't IGN's "sources" vastly wrong about the Wii's specs at one point?
 
X

Xun

Member
Slayer-33 said:
Go batshit insane now.
Click to expand...
We already knew this, but it's awesome anyway.

It's because of the modern shaders.

black_vegeta said:
Defintely not the powerhouse I thought it would be, but I'm sure the games will da shit!
Click to expand...
It's on a "small" screen, so it's plenty of power.
 
C

Cow Mengde

Banned
I don't see why anyone would be disappointed at the CPU. It's in range of the PS2/GC era systems but now there's two of them running at half the resolution!

The RAM is a bit small though. I figured Nintendo would somehow manage to find 64MB chips that are cheap to produce that no one knows about.
 
G

gofreak

GAF's Bob Woodward
antonz said:
Wouldnt it make more sense to have a dual core cpu rather than 2 seperate cpu as IGN seems to be saying. ARM11 are made in 1-4 core CPUs
Click to expand...

Maybe there's a power consumption saving in using two of whatever arm11 they're using vs 1 dual-core? Or maybe cost benefit?
 
G

GaussTek

Member
Sounds good, I expected a Cortex-level ARM CPU, but I guess ARM11 is still fine. A lot more powerful than PSP for sure.
 
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