Relaxed Muscle
Member
I see nintendo going cheap again in the RAM department...
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New Nintendo 3DS Hardware Info (Conference At 10 PST/1 EST Today)
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XPE said:
But isn't the resolution this thing as to produce actually higher than on the Gamecube?
The 3DS has to produce 2 400x240 pictures plus whatever goes on on the bottome screen. Does nott seem like a power house. Of course it will look beter than anything we got now on handhelds, but it will probably be pretty easy for Sony to outdo Nintendo in terms of graphics power.
Fantastical
Death Prophet
Someone put up the Brain Stew signal.
Cow Mengde
Banned
Fantastical said:
We need to make a Brain Stew signal first.
grap3fruitman
Banned
Is... this thing more powerful than a Wii? I'm not familiar with the processor but I think it might be and I find that extremely hilarious.
brain_stew
Member
seady said:
Probably .5GB reserved for OS functions/formatting etc.
Those specs seem eerily realistic, so yeah I'm quite happy to believe they're real.
The CPU setup is interesting but perhaps not surprising, two low clocked CPUs can often mean a lower powerdraw than one higher clocked CPUs (both Intel and AMD use this approach in their netbook chips and ARM themselves are going this way with the Cortex A9 and Eagle) and it should make BC with the NDS (which is a dual CPU system as well) a lot easier.
266mhz is a super low clockspeed for an ARM11 chip but two of them together should be more than sufficient I would think. I never expected an A8 and was kinda worried they'd go with something even simpler so two modestly clocked ARM11 is decent news in my book. Loading just two CPU cores really isn't all that difficult these days, most developers have plenty experience loading 6+ threads now and its even a skill NDS developers had to learn. The amount of L2 cache will have a big say in just how well those ARM11s perform.
64MB always seemed the most likely from what we'd seen so far but I was still hoping for 128MB.
We knew about the dedicated memory but a dedicated 4MB framebuffer is pretty damn roomy considering the modest rendering resolution.
The 133mhz GPU clockspeed tells us little really without knowing how many pipelines the chip has but its certainly not discouraging news. A 100mhz or lower clockspeed didn't seem out of the question previously
I really like the design, it seems to take all the good points of the various previous generation systems without any of the drawbacks and it should deliver fantastic battery life. I'd definitely take this design over a PS2 and GCN and probably even an Xbox as well because of the dedicated framebuffer which overcomes one of the major bottlenecks of that system.
One things clear, its certainly a gaming focused design. This really wouldn't be very good at all for a smartphone but for a machine that only has to worry about pumping out great looking games it seems to be terrifically balanced. Its not cutting edge but its a smart use of the available technology to deliver a system that should deliver the best gaming experience for the given cost and power constraints. Pretty much precisely what you'd expect from a Nintendo system.
Solid warrior
Banned
so the 3DS would be some where between the Dreamcast and PS2?
Fantastical
Death Prophet
I sense moon screens from Majora's Mask quickly approaching.Bizzyb said:
Dawn of the 7th day.
That may not be the exact phrasing
Xater said:
You're rendering a single 400*240 image at two different perspectives. I'm not sure that's a lot of overhead over a single 400*240 image. It's probably been designed for maximum efficiency there.
As for outdoing, understand battery technology has been pretty stagnant. Some sacrifices are acceptable for decent battery life. It really is a balancing act there.
EatChildren
Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
grap3fruitman said:
Raw numbers dont give a full idea of system capabilities. If true, the 3DS GPU clock speed is nearly half that of the Wii, yet the architecture is far more flexible and modern when it comes to current-gen shaders.
Look at games that were announced. Many of them are using bump/normal maps, yet many Wii developers still struggle to get those effects running on the system.
black_vegeta
Member
brain_stew said:
Nice breakdown.
Bizzyb said:
So, it's coming out the 29th? In Japan?
All of the "Dreamcast, PS2, Gamecube, Xbox" talk is pointless because of the modern shaders. I'm no tech expert, but these shaders can potentially make games look 360/PS3 level. As far as polygons, yes, it would be "last-gen"...but I don't think that really matters. Or does it? Help, Tech-GAF!
Thunder Monkey
Banned
The system is a weird fusion between last gen hardware and 360/PS3 gen. Modern shader capabilities and last gen poly and texture capabilities.
I expected more than 64MB of RAM though.
I expected more than 64MB of RAM though.
Fantastical
Death Prophet
IIRC, apparently not too much. The major drawback is motion blur. Capcom said motion blur and 3D don't mix well.Nintendo-4Life said:
Nintendo-4Life said:
Do you mean if 3D will mena a hit in graphical quality? Judging by the information Cpacom put out on their MT Framework Mobile engine I would assume to some extent. They showed that in 3D you could not have motion blur for example. But I am not sure if it is just a performance issue or if the tech jsut doesn't work in 3D.
black_vegeta
Member
ILikeFeet said:
Ahhh, i c
Relaxed Muscle
Member
brain_stew said:
Thanks again for the tech info.
So being a robust but not expensive hardware we should expect a 200$ pricepoint? Dosn't an iPhone 4 cost like 200$ to produce? I can see Nintendo having a nice margin with those specs....
It will be nice if it gets released at 179 here....:lol :lol
Why would you do that?
Member
Here are other system's RAM usage and specs. Note that just because one system has a faster processor than another, doesn't mean it's better.
Comparison of Nintendo Handhelds:
GBA: RAM - 1/4 MB... CPU - 16.8 MHz ARM 7 TDMI
NDS: RAM - 4 MB...... CPU - 67 MHz ARM 9, 33 MHz ARM 7 TDMI
3DS: RAM - 64 MB..... CPU - 266 MHz ARM 11 x2
Comparison of last-gen systems:
Dreamcast: RAM - 16 MB.... CPU - 200 MHz SH-4
Gamecube: RAM - 43 MB.... CPU - 486 MHz Gekko (PowerPC)
Orig. XBOX: RAM - 64 MB.... CPU - 733 MHz Intel Pentium III (x86)
Playstation2: RAM - 32 MB... CPU - 295 MB Emotion Engine (based on MIPS IV)
Other systems:
The Wii: RAM - 88 MB.... CPU - 729 MHz Broadway (PowerPC)
Old PSP: RAM - 32 MB... CPU - 222/333 MHz SONY CPU (based on MIPS R4000 32-bit)
Note that new PSPs use 64 MB RAM, but games only use 32 MB RAM for compatibility with the old models. Also note that most games run at 222 MHz.
I pulled this from various Wikipedia articles. I may have read one or two of the things wrong.
Comparison of Nintendo Handhelds:
GBA: RAM - 1/4 MB... CPU - 16.8 MHz ARM 7 TDMI
NDS: RAM - 4 MB...... CPU - 67 MHz ARM 9, 33 MHz ARM 7 TDMI
3DS: RAM - 64 MB..... CPU - 266 MHz ARM 11 x2
Comparison of last-gen systems:
Dreamcast: RAM - 16 MB.... CPU - 200 MHz SH-4
Gamecube: RAM - 43 MB.... CPU - 486 MHz Gekko (PowerPC)
Orig. XBOX: RAM - 64 MB.... CPU - 733 MHz Intel Pentium III (x86)
Playstation2: RAM - 32 MB... CPU - 295 MB Emotion Engine (based on MIPS IV)
Other systems:
The Wii: RAM - 88 MB.... CPU - 729 MHz Broadway (PowerPC)
Old PSP: RAM - 32 MB... CPU - 222/333 MHz SONY CPU (based on MIPS R4000 32-bit)
Note that new PSPs use 64 MB RAM, but games only use 32 MB RAM for compatibility with the old models. Also note that most games run at 222 MHz.
I pulled this from various Wikipedia articles. I may have read one or two of the things wrong.
Hcoregamer00
The 'H' stands for hentai.
To be honest I was expecting it to smash the PSP's power with the thing clocking it with a single cpu of 700 Mhz and 128 MB of RAM. With that said, it is plenty powerful enough to render amazing games. I am actually happier with the jump in cartridge size because that alone will improve the gaming experience with better voice acting and larger stages.
I also agree with the people who say that Sony doesn't need to aim too high in making the PSP2 more powerful than the 3DS (assuming this is remotely true).
I also agree with the people who say that Sony doesn't need to aim too high in making the PSP2 more powerful than the 3DS (assuming this is remotely true).
brain_stew said:
Yep. For a portable that's going to fit in your pocket, these are pretty awesome specs. I'm glad Nintendo didn't try to overdo it. You can definitely tell they were keeping things like battery life and heat output in mind.
Even though the 4MB framebuffer seems like a lot, do you think color banding is going to be an issue?
Flying_Phoenix
Banned
Solid warrior said:
It blows both of those away.
brain_stew said:
Great to hear. Ever since the GBA Nintendo has been making some very well balanced, cheap, and effective hardware. Truly masters in hardware design.
But I have to ask, what is a "framebuffer"?
brain_stew said:
Does this mean it is unlikely that the 3DS will have a good OS similar to PS3 and 360. I would have liked a web browser, video player, in game menu and etc.
Also, if you had to guess, how would you compare this to other consoles such as GameCube, PS2, iPhone and etc.
brain_stew
Member
The Faceless Master said:
Was there anyone who honestly believed Nintendo were going to use a Cortex A8/A9 (let alone two of them)? ARM11 always looked most likely to me and something more modest seemed more likely than anything more advanced than that.
It is a little lacking in general CPU performance (especially if you're only writing purely single threaded code) but I'm not sure it really matters all that much for gaming in the end. The strength of the GPU is what really matters and Nintendo don't seem to have held back here. Certainly that huge (considering the resolution) dedicated framebuffer is going to be a much bigger deal for gaming than having a ~600mhz A8 ever would be.
This thing isn't going to excel at non-gaming stuff, that's not in any doubt now. It isn't going to try and compete with the Iphone by offering a similar featureset "for free" and browsing will be a pretty miserable experience still but it should perform pretty damn well where it really matters.
So if anyone was unsure about Nintendo's vision for the 3DS, that is now pretty damn clear. This is a purely gaming focused design and how well the platform adapts to other tasks were never a serious consideration.
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