[EuropeOG]

I can't remember if I posted this already, but Dino Dino on 3DS is comparable to the split screen version on GCN. The full screen version has a lot of extra detail that the 3DS misses, like all the crystals inside the cave, and 3D fences instead of a simple fence texture. But in a sense, 3D mode is similar to split screen mode anyway.

Yes there are some small detail differences, but for the most part it's the same. Also take into account that MK7 supports 8 players online which takes away from some of the quality visually (I don't think they add/remove detail for single player/multiplayer like some games; graphics are always the same).

[imjust1n]

I was thinking the 3DS was a bit better then the N64? I dont think its as good as the GC if it is lets get some wind waker up on this thing.

[AceBandage]

I was thinking the 3DS was a bit better then the N64? I dont think its as good as the GC if it is lets get some wind waker up on this thing.

Yup, just a bit better than the N64.




Just a bit better...

[nincompoop]

Which is which? I can't tell.

[AceBandage]

Which is which? I can't tell.

Top is 64.
Bottom is 3DS.
Come on, now.

[phosphor112]

Top is 64. Bottom is 3DS. Come on, now.

It explains the jaggies and muddy textures.

64 had all sorts of smoothing features going on making their games look fantastic. That top pic is just proof of that.

[BurntPork]

I was thinking the 3DS was a bit better then the N64? I dont think its as good as the GC if it is lets get some wind waker up on this thing.

Yup, just a bit better than the N64. http://i.imgur.com/d9Ayy.jpg http://i.imgur.com/B5veQ.jpg Just a bit better...

Which is which? I can't tell.

Top is 64. Bottom is 3DS. Come on, now.

It explains the jaggies and muddy textures. 64 had all sorts of smoothing features going on making their games look fantastic. That top pic is just proof of that.

10/10

[SirIgbyCeaser]

I think a subject this topic has failed to bring up is that hand held gaming is also known to be dying market correct? Maybe the development teams and efforts of the last generation of handhelds games havn't taken the challenge to maxamize a console like the 3ds. Case and point, capcom successfully porting the wii build of monster hunter. But no other publisher has put the funds to reach the same quality bar.

[Ridley327]

I think a subject this topic has failed to bring up is that hand held gaming is also known to be dying market correct? Maybe the development teams and efforts of the last generation of handhelds games havn't taken the challenge to maxamize a console like the 3ds. Case and point, capcom successfully porting the wii build of monster hunter. But no other publisher has put the funds to reach the same quality bar.

To be fair, porting over assets from pre-existing games is a defining feature of the franchise.

[GhostTrick]

For the moment, 3DS showed some really good things, above GameCube. But there's still games to show with huge areas.
I mean, I want to see a Wind Waker on 3DS. I want to see something big like Twilight Princess, or Skyward Sword. I want to see something huge and detailled like Star Fox Adventures.

[MrCunningham]

To be fair, porting over assets from pre-existing games is a defining feature of the franchise.

Capcom's always been a big proponent of recycling art assets. :P

I think a subject this topic has failed to bring up is that hand held gaming is also known to be dying market correct?

Depends on what part of the world you live in. In japan, it seems to be the other way around. Consoles are taking a back seat to handheld gaming. In Westren markets, we seem to be more interested with mobile gaming (see iOS and Android).

[OmegaZero]

Someone should compare Mercenaries 3D to RE4. Mercs 3D had a lot of assets that were originally from RE4 and the gameplay is similar, so perhaps a comparison can be drawn there.

On the village stage, sections were closed off for Mercs 3D. Polygon count was lowered (the trees are a good example) and texture quality was decreased slightly.

The Zealots are lower poly, but take advantage of the 3DS's shader capabilities when it comes to their clothing.

[OldRosa]

RE:R looks better on the 3DS than RE4 does on a HDTV.

[salpa]

No it's not. It's like saying the PS2 can push 70 million polygons while the GC is only capable of 12 million. The numbers don't tell the truth.

Except they do. Playstation hardware has always excelled in polygon performance.

You guys are aimlessly comparing what are first-gen 3DS images to the best the GCN had to offer. Games like RE4 and Rogue Leader look better than most Wii games, yet we know for a fact the Wii is a more capable machine.

The facts are facts, regardless of what current samples show. The 3DS, spec for spec, is multiple times more capable than the GCN.

It amazes me that people keep ignoring obvious examples like MH3G looking better than the Wii version, RE:R absolutely smoking RE4, and 3D Land blowing Sunshine out of the water. When it's a 3DS game, drawing large environments like in KI:Uprising does not equate to the amount of polygons, but Sunshine drawing a large environment somehow puts it above 3D Land?

Conduit on the Wii is the most impressive game on the system technically, yet it looks like shit. What you think you see is often not what is going on in games. The 3DS is much more powerful than the GCN.

That is a fact.

[Hcoregamer00]

Out of curiosity, have we ever hammered out the specs of the 3DS?

For the CPU I see references to ARM 11, which can mean anything for the CPU power. For the GPU I see that there are references to the PICA 200 GPU, but nothing specific from it.

With that said, knowing nothing technical about the 3DS, from my perspective I see its graphical capabilities as Gamceube+ since it has more RAM and a more powerful GPU. We may not see it in the actual games themselves until the second and third generation of 3DS games. Even then, I could imagine that the games would be much more graphically impressive if they had no 3D mode to render.

[GhostTrick]

Except they do. Playstation hardware has always excelled in polygon performance. You guys are aimlessly comparing what are first-gen 3DS images to the best the GCN had to offer. Games like RE4 and Rogue Leader look better than most Wii games, yet we know for a fact the Wii is a more capable machine. The facts are facts, regardless of what current samples show. The 3DS, spec for spec, is multiple times more capable than the GCN. It amazes me that people keep ignoring obvious examples like MH3G looking better than the Wii version, RE:R absolutely smoking RE4, and 3D Land blowing Sunshine out of the water. When it's a 3DS game, drawing large environments like in KI:Uprising does not equate to the amount of polygons, but Sunshine drawing a large environment somehow puts it above 3D Land? Conduit on the Wii is the most impressive game on the system technically, yet it looks like shit. What you think you see is often not what is going on in games. The 3DS is much more powerful than the GCN. That is a fact.

It depends. If I'm sure that 3DS outperform GC in terms of RAM and GPU, I'm still hesitant about the CPU. Not only in terms of the CPU itself (being dual core for 3DS) but also the fact that one core is dedicated to the OS.
3DS still have to prove it can perform CPU intensives games. I mean, I'd like to see a F-Zero like GX, with 30 cars on the track + 60FPS, or even a game like Metroid Prime, with high polycount, and nice lighting effects (should be better on 3DS, due to PICA 200 being more shaders capable)

[Instro]

It depends. If I'm sure that 3DS outperform GC in terms of RAM and GPU, I'm still hesitant about the CPU. Not only in terms of the CPU itself (being dual core for 3DS) but also the fact that one core is dedicated to the OS.

Not anymore.

[GhostTrick]

Not anymore.

Yes it is. The core is still dedicated for the OS, but they can allocate 25% of the second core for games. There's still 75% for the OS...
But I think Nintendo should allow devs to use what they need. I mean, if they want to use the two cores, just allow them to block web browsing with their game, and running minimal features of the OS like brightness change and that's all.

[AceBandage]

Yes it is. The core is still dedicated for the OS, but they can allocate 25% of the second core for games. There's still 75% for the OS... But I think Nintendo should allow devs to use what they need. I mean, if they want to use the two cores, just allow them to block web browsing with their game, and running minimal features of the OS like brightness change and that's all.

Not quite that simple.
There are certain features that have to run in the background. They could open up a bit more, but it honestly wouldn't make much of a different.

[NEO0MJ]

But I think Nintendo should allow devs to use what they need. I mean, if they want to use the two cores, just allow them to block web browsing with their game, and running minimal features of the OS like brightness change and that's all.

Didn't OOT 3D block the ability to access the net?

[AceBandage]

Didn't OOT 3D block the ability to access the net?

Yes, but that was for battery life, not for extra processing.
When the game was running, it shut off Street Pass and Spot Pass.

[GhostTrick]

Didn't OOT 3D block the ability to access the net?

Not really, but I think after a certain time, it's desactivated.

[Ridley327]

Yes, but that was for battery life, not for extra processing. When the game was running, it shut off Street Pass and Spot Pass.

Star Fox 64 3D's single player mode did this as well, IIRC.

[Instro]

Yes it is. The core is still dedicated for the OS, but they can allocate 25% of the second core for games. There's still 75% for the OS... But I think Nintendo should allow devs to use what they need. I mean, if they want to use the two cores, just allow them to block web browsing with their game, and running minimal features of the OS like brightness change and that's all.

Oh I thought you were implying that the core was still completely locked, my mistake. Although I wasn't aware of that 25/75 split, interesting. I suppose that will slowly become more available over the course of the system's life.

[GhostTrick]

Oh I thought you were implying that the core was still completely locked, my mistake. Although I wasn't aware of that 25/75 split, interesting. I suppose that will slowly become more available over the course of the system's life.

Yep. But actually, I think that the think that "limit" the 3DS is the CPU and of course the 3D. But Nintendo unlocking part of second core, and using better use of 3D (means less CPU or GPU intensive) makes me think Resident Evil Revelations is far from being the best 3DS can do. And I think tech demos (Naked Sample, Resident Evil Revelations) we saw at E3 2010 will be easily reachable, or even bested when the second core will be fully unlocked.
(I assume those demos were made on a system with two cores unlocked.)

[SirIgbyCeaser]

Nintendo needs to learn from Sony in OS optimization. I think in 2 years sony unlocked more and more more memory, lowing something like 130mb of allocated memory to 60 something in the end.

Reading about the battery preservation tactics in games sounds like the console was rushed, and that might be a big factor too into why developers are keeping away from it. Nintendo is new to OS software afterall. That might be very damaging to developers who are used to having control on nintendo platforms.

[GhostTrick]

Nintendo needs to learn from Sony in OS optimization. Reading about the battery preservation tactics in games sounds like the console was rushed, and that might be a big factor too into why developers are keeping away from it.

I don't think Sony is better here. Vita OS takes one entire core and 256mb of ram.
Plus Vita also use some weird tactics to preserv battery or the fact that half ram and one core is wasted for OS, for exemple, wifi is disabled on Uncharted, or the game isn't rendered at native resolution.

[Zoramon089]

Nintendo needs to learn from Sony in OS optimization. I think in 2 years sony unlocked more and more more memory, lowing something like 130mb of allocated memory to 60 something in the end. Reading about the battery preservation tactics in games sounds like the console was rushed, and that might be a big factor too into why developers are keeping away from it. Nintendo is new to OS software afterall. That might be very damaging to developers who are used to having control on nintendo platforms.

Your claim that Nintendo needs to learn from Sony and your example don't really go together at all...and the Vita has a number of battery preservation tactics in games as well. Most don't even render at full resolution, some don't allow full brightness and some also disable wireless. I don't know where you got the idea is was a Nintendo problem...

[SirIgbyCeaser]

You're claim that Nintendo needs to learn from Sony and your example don't really go together at all...and the Vita has a number of battery preservation tactics in games as well. Most don't even render at full resolution, some don't allow full brightness and some also disable wireless. I don't know where you got the idea is was a Nintendo problem...

I stand corrected. Still Battery preservation should be a hardware thing, not a game to game thing. So I am shocked to learn that developers even deal with it. The game should be just a game on the hardware. Like in home consoles, but I guess portability does make a huge difference.

Learning this: It means that even polygon count, graphics and performance of titles are dismissive in trying to figure out if the 3ds is capable of outdoing the gamecube. Because developers are noticeably also considering battery draw in the handheld when developeding their games.

I wonder if RE:R turned on and left sitting burns the battery life of the console faster than say: Super Mario Land 3d because one game is interested in graphics over battery longevity.

I think a conclusion to draw is that because the 3DS is a portable handheld it will favor portable optimization's over trying to graphically surpass it's console brethren.

[Zornica]

Im not convinced that the 3DS is on the level of the GCN or even PS2 until we get a game on the same scale as GTA San andreas. 3DS environments just seem tiny.

we allready got something like that... on the ds
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3n62Z4nxAQ
If something like this is possible on the ds, I can't imagine what they could do with 3ds hardware

edit: wait... what?

Your claim that Nintendo needs to learn from Sony and your example don't really go together at all...and the Vita has a number of battery preservation tactics in games as well. Most don't even render at full resolution, some don't allow full brightness and some also disable wireless. I don't know where you got the idea is was a Nintendo problem...

are there any articles about vita games not rendering in nativ resolution? never heard anything about that

[GhostTrick]

we allready got something like that... on the ds http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3n62Z4nxAQ If something like this is possible on the ds, I can't imagine what they could do with 3ds hardware

And PSP too. And it's clearly sure that 3DS is far more powerful than PSP.

[Hcoregamer00]

I stand corrected. Still Battery preservation should be a hardware thing, not a game to game thing. So I am shocked to learn that developers even deal with it. The game should be just a game on the hardware. Like in home consoles, but I guess portability does make a huge difference. Learning this: It means that even polygon count, graphics and performance of titles are dismissive in trying to figure out if the 3ds is capable of outdoing the gamecube. Because developers are noticeably also considering battery draw in the handheld when developeding their games. I wonder if RE:R turned on and left sitting burns the battery life of the console faster than say: Super Mario Land 3d because one game is interested in graphics over battery longevity. I think a conclusion to draw is that because the 3DS is a portable handheld it will favor portable optimization's over trying to graphically surpass it's console brethren.

That is a REALLY good point.

Not maxing out the hardware is definitely a balance between battery life and providing great graphics. Home consoles don't have this issue since they are perpetually plugged in, but handheld consoles have this issue due to battery life. The only thing I can think of is running a game at a certain level on battery mode, and completely maxing out the hardware when it is plugged in, but that completely destroys the notion of portable gaming if the portable experience is not the same across the board.

[Ecotic]

For someone who doesn't own a 3DS this thread is depressing. I remember before release when it was thought the 3DS might be equivalent to the 360.

[GhostTrick]

That is a REALLY good point. Not maxing out the hardware is definitely a balance between battery life and providing great graphics. Home consoles don't have this issue since they are perpetually plugged in, but handheld consoles have this issue due to battery life. The only thing I can think of is running a game at a certain level on battery mode, and completely maxing out the hardware when it is plugged in, but that completely destroys the notion of portable gaming if the portable experience is not the same across the board.

Yep, that's right. But it depends, I mean, is battery consumption depends of the CPU charge, or the frequencies ? I mean, will battery consumption will always be the same at 268Mhz, or it will depend of the game ?

For someone who doesn't own a 3DS this thread is depressing. I remember before release when it was thought the 3DS might be equivalent to the 360.

I thought it was more about shading capabilities or rendering (which should be right, about shaders or rendering (Street Fighter IV 3D for exemple). But I'm sure power capabilities was always supposed to be Gamecube level if not more. (EA claims)

[Ridley327]

Yep, that's right. But it depends, I mean, is battery consumption depends of the CPU charge, or the frequencies ? I mean, will battery consumption will always be the same at 268Mhz, or it will depend of the game ?

We actually saw this in action with the PSP; initially, the firmware limited the CPU from 333 MHz to 222 MHz, due to fears that it would dramatically impact battery life. Once homebrew/CFW entered the picture, you could force the system to run at 333 MHz all the time and the impact on the battery life was not as crazy as many feared. More importantly, there were games like Wipeout Pure, GTA:LCS and Gurumin ran immensely better with 333 MHz.

It'd be interesting to see if homebrew/CFW ever happens on the 3DS if only to see if it can force the use of the second core and what happens when it's available.

[TemplaerDude]

Just give me Wind Waker 3DS and all will be good.

Fuck, I would buy a 3DS for this.

[Lonely1]

For someone who doesn't own a 3DS this thread is depressing. I remember before release when it was thought the 3DS might be equivalent to the 360.

That was never realistic. It always has been positioned as GC+Modern effects. Not even Vita is equivalent to the 360.

It'd be interesting to see if homebrew/CFW ever happens on the 3DS if only to see if it can force the use of the second core and what happens when it's available.

Games that aren't programmed from the beginning for its use won't be able to use the second core. However, is possible that we might remove the clock limit on the ARM11s to 400-500ish which should be their native clock.

[Gospel]

For someone who doesn't own a 3DS this thread is depressing. I remember before release when it was thought the 3DS might be equivalent to the 360.

Yea, that's what a single IGN article can do.

[Hcoregamer00]

That was never realistic. It always has been positioned as GC+Modern effects. Not even Vita is equivalent to the 360.

Yeah, I think most people (correctly) assumed that the 3DS would be somewhere between the Gamecube and the Wii, and the PS Vita somewhere between the PS2 and PS3. Anything other than those expectations were pretty unreasonable.

[beril]

edit: wait... what? are there any articles about vita games not rendering in nativ resolution? never heard anything about that

There's been quite a lot of talk about it in the Vita threads. Most of the more graphically demanding games (Uncharted, Gravity Daze, Unit 13 etc) renders at subnative resolution, but also some less impressive games like Hotshot Golf, Mortal Kombat and even the MGS ports. I really doubt it's to save battery though. Personally I think Sony might have overshot with the screen resolution a bit and it's just too highres for its own good

[dark10x]

Come on guys! Just do some maths. Our best guess is that the 3DS has a PICA200 running at 268MHz. This comes from the homebrew scene, so take it as you will. It has two ARM11 CPUs each running at the same speed - 268MHz. 6MB of VRAM. 128MB of FCRAM. Taken from the PICA200 wikipedia page: 100MHz is the bottom here. 268MHz / 100MHz = 2.68. That is our multiplier. 400 Mpixels/s * 2.68 = 1072 Mpixels/s. 40M Triangles/s * 2.68 = 107.2M Triangles/s. Gamecube performance (from the Wikipedia. If you have a better source, share it): 648 Mpixels/s. 20M Triangles/s. According to this data, the fillrate of the 3DS GPU is almost double, and the geometry capability is 5 times greater. This is all based on Wikipedia data though, so take it as you will. GCN had 43MB of RAM. 24MB of it was system RAM. 3MB of it was VRAM. 16MB was used for the optical drive and other functions. 3DS has about 5x more system RAM, and twice as much VRAM. Can't find much about ARM11 CPUs, so I'll end here.

It seems to me that numbers don't tell the whole story, however. There seems to be a bottleneck with the 3DS that is holding it back. Thus far it simply hasn't produced anything on par with the most impressive Gamecube titles (at least in terms of performance and geometry). The 3DS clearly offers more up to date shading capabilities and more memory (how much is used for multitasking?), but I've yet to see real world results that can match Gamecube. If you look at what the Gamecube had on offer in the same time frame as the 3DS that would include things such as Metroid Prime, Star Fox Adventures, Rogue Squadron 2, Mario Sunshine, Smash Brothers Brawl, and more. Outside of Mario, all of those operated at 640x480@60fps in progressive scan and generally featured much more complex geometry along with that faster performance. The 3DS is basically rendering at 800x240 which is comparable to 640x480, I suppose, and rarely does so at 60 fps.

We'll see, I suppose, but it seems to be in a similar position to the Vita in how it compares to console hardware. Vita definitely can't match up to the PS3 just as the 3DS doesn't seem to be able to match up to Gamecube despite both of them featuring superior specs in some areas.

The facts are facts, regardless of what current samples show. The 3DS, spec for spec, is multiple times more capable than the GCN. It amazes me that people keep ignoring obvious examples like MH3G looking better than the Wii version, RE:R absolutely smoking RE4

We'll see about this over time.

I disagree heavily about RE:R "smoking" Resident Evil 4, though. RE4 offers much much larger environment with many more enemies on screen at once along with more geometrically dense environments with a lot of clutter. RE:Mercs tried to emulate some of those areas in RE4 and looked much worse (yes, I realize it was early). RE:R throws around better shaders and lighting at the cost of large encounters and open areas. They focus on very different things.

[GhostTrick]

For someone who doesn't own a 3DS this thread is depressing. I remember before release when it was thought the 3DS might be equivalent to the 360.

It seems to me that numbers don't tell the whole story, however. There seems to be a bottleneck with the 3DS that is holding it back. Thus far it simply hasn't produced anything on par with the most impressive Gamecube titles (at least in terms of performance and geometry). The 3DS clearly offers more up to date shading capabilities and more memory (how much is used for multitasking?), but I've yet to see real world results that can match Gamecube. If you look at what the Gamecube had on offer in the same time frame as the 3DS that would include things such as Metroid Prime, Star Fox Adventures, Rogue Squadron 2, Mario Sunshine, Smash Brothers Brawl, and more. Outside of Mario, all of those operated at 640x480@60fps in progressive scan and generally featured much more complex geometry along with that faster performance. The 3DS is basically rendering at 800x240 which is comparable to 640x480, I suppose, and rarely does so at 60 fps. We'll see, I suppose, but it seems to be in a similar position to the Vita in how it compares to console hardware. Vita definitely can't match up to the PS3 just as the 3DS doesn't seem to be able to match up to Gamecube despite both of them featuring superior specs in some areas.

I don't think you could compare like this. Let the 3DS have his Smash Brothers, Metroid Prime or others to see if it compare. For the moment, 3DS also pulled impressive games like Resident Evil: Revelations... which is in 3D, so two scenes to render. We can also talk about Dead or Alive Dimensions, which runs at 60FPS, have a great polycount and large stages.

[EuropeOG]

For someone who doesn't own a 3DS this thread is depressing. I remember before release when it was thought the 3DS might be equivalent to the 360.

Does this news now make the games you already own look like crap?

Lol, yeah funny how Capcom said 3DS was like a 360, now Wii U coming and some even say it's less powerful than a 360. Don't trust anyone, only the end product (i.e. Resident Evil Revelations)

[Mr Swine]

Are poeple forgetting that Resident Evil 4 runs at 320x240 most of the time so it can keep a steady frame rate at 30 fps...

[hardcastlemccormick]

Are poeple forgetting that Resident Evil 4 runs at 320x240 most of the time so it can keep a steady frame rate at 30 fps...

I don't think it goes that low. Citation?

[LCGeek]

It depends. If I'm sure that 3DS outperform GC in terms of RAM and GPU, I'm still hesitant about the CPU. Not only in terms of the CPU itself (being dual core for 3DS) but also the fact that one core is dedicated to the OS. 3DS still have to prove it can perform CPU intensives games. I mean, I'd like to see a F-Zero like GX, with 30 cars on the track + 60FPS, or even a game like Metroid Prime, with high polycount, and nice lighting effects (should be better on 3DS, due to PICA 200 being more shaders capable)

I doubt 3ds could take a MP or Rogue Leader game as is they are the poly pushers of the whole architecture and nothing comes close in doing as many polys and high end fx on top of it. Anyone making such a claim better have something to back up that a 3ds is even getting close to what the mentioned titles did.

RE4 on gc runs slightly higher than that it has stupid ratio/resolution for the exact reason you mentioned. RE4 Wii has a max framebuffer so it's a moot point to bring up in the larger context of things.

[GhostTrick]

I doubt 3ds could take a MP or Rogue Leader game as is they are the poly pushers of the whole architecture and nothing comes close in doing as many polys and high end fx on top of it. Anyone making such a claim better have something to back up that a 3ds is even getting close to what the mentioned titles did. RE4 on gc runs slightly higher than that it has stupid ratio/resolution for the exact reason you mentioned. RE4 Wii has a max framebuffer so it's a moot point to bring up in the larger context of things.

I think Metroid Prime would be possible. Where I still have dubts is about the framerate.
Also about polycounts, there's nice tech demos.with 3DS, you know the unlockable puzzles which are in fact the tech demos Nintendo showed at E3 2010.

[edible_candle]

Are poeple forgetting that Resident Evil 4 runs at 320x240 most of the time so it can keep a steady frame rate at 30 fps...

It runs at 640x360, I believe. A definite drop in resolution from the usual 640x480, sure, but it is still more pixels than the 3DS pushes on its top screen.

[LCGeek]

I think Metroid Prime would be possible. Where I still have dubts is about the framerate. Also about polycounts, there's nice tech demos.with 3DS, you know the unlockable puzzles which are in fact the tech demos Nintendo showed at E3 2010.

60fps plus all the polys that is pushing it to me considering how good the game game is in other areas. If you dropped the frames to 30fps sure you can do 1to1 for the rest.

I only compare tech demos to tech demos actual products get different considerations.

[Mr Swine]

I don't think it goes that low. Citation?

I don't have any citation, but you notice a big difference in the first area where everything looks sharp and highres till you come to the village and then everything is blursville and lots of jaggies which you notice since the game runs at a lower resolution

It runs at 640x360, I believe. A definite drop in resolution from the usual 640x480, sure, but it is still more pixels than the 3DS pushes on its top screen.

The game looks sharp in areas where there aren't many enemies but as soon you enter an area where there are lots of enemies the game looks blurry and jaggie because it runs at a lower resolution