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[brain_stew]

An interesting point to make about the CPU choice. A lot of people are making the comment that this is a keen example of Nintendo "cheaping out" and I think that comment is a little unfair. Just because those two ARM11 cores run at a meagre clockspeed doesn't actually mean that they'll be any cheaper to manufacture, they'll have the the exact same silicon budget as standard ~600mhz AMR11s as featured in most previous generation smartphones.

They're literally the same chip, Nintendo are just clocking them lower to conserve battery life and the fact there's two of them in there actually means they've actually dedicated a fair bit of silicon to CPU resources. They'll be fully capable of running at much higher clockspeeds and that's something we might actually see further down the line just as we did with the PSP. They had plenty of cheaper options than two full ARM11 cores available and if BC really did demand a dual CPU setup then Cortex A8s really were always out of the question imo. That would have meant that Nintendo dedicated two times as much silicon to their CPU solution than even the highest end smartphone currently on the market.

No, this is all about battery life first and foremost, if 266mhz was the highest clockspeed they could get away with while maintaining a 10 hour battery life then so be it. There'd have been much more bitching if the 3DS ended up with PSP or Iphone levels of battery life when playing 3D games.


The one area they definitely did "cheap out" in is the size of the main memory pool. 128MB really wouldn't have made all that much difference to Nintendo's bottom line but if this device really isn't going to offer many "non gaming" functions and Nintendo really don't want to design a nice ingame OS then its understandable why they made the choice they did. I feel it is rather shortsighted personally but if their vision for the device is set in stone then it really isn't a choice that is going to hamper that vision as much as some assume. 64MB of RAM is still quite a lot for a dedicated portable gaming device, Xbox level textures should more than suffice for a 3" screen and I really struggle to believe that this level of hardware could have made any real efficient use of more than 128MB.

 

[Mr_Brit]

Whilst the graphics look fine for now, will they really look fine in 6 years time when its successor is due? The PSP still looks great and its top tier titles still look better than anything on the iphone barring the Unreal engine 3 demo, if Sony had cut corners then to get the price down then we'd have a much bigger need for a successor right now and game dev on the platform would be drying up compared to the situation now where we've still got lots of high prfile Japanese titles coming out for the system. I think that Nintendo cutting corners now is going to hit them hard in a few years time especially if Smartphones get even stronger and Sony once again goes the strong hardware route. If in 2 years time Sony have released a PSP with near HD console level graphics and smartphones continue increasing at the same rate, Nintendo may find themselves losing hardcore support in the same way that they lost it in this generation of consoles. Whilst that wouldn't really lose them too much money, look at how successful the DS and Wii still are, it would be a shame if they were once again relegated to being the 'casual' console whilst the other platforms (PSP and smartphones) were considered the more 'mature' option and thus receive more hardcore gamers and hardcore game development was switched to these other platforms.

 

[Sipowicz]

I don't think it's true that there's fixed pricing, at least not on all the networks

there's fixed pricing with all the download services on console especially the nintendo one. the only time i can think of where they've lowered prices on PSN was their half assed attempts to discount PSP games when the PSP go was released.

At the end of the day the PS3/Xbox consoles aren't exactly ubiquitous and the people with consoles, and internet and the willingness to buy download games presents further limits the market. There's also the fact that PSN/XBLA are irrelevant in japan which is a pretty big market.

PSN/XBLA presents an oppurtunity for more conservatively budgeted games and it's good that it exists. But again it's a pretty small market, it's dominated by a tiny number of heavily hyped/marketed games and the prices dont go down.

 

[Pureauthor]

Whilst the graphics look fine for now, will they really look fine in 6 years time when its successor is due? The PSP still looks great and its top tier titles still look better than anything on the iphone barring the Unreal engine 3 demo, if Sony had cut corners then to get the price down then we'd have a much bigger need for a successor right now and game dev on the platform would be drying up compared to the situation now where we've still got lots of high prfile Japanese titles coming out for the system. I think that Nintendo cutting corners now is going to hit them hard in a few years time especially if Smartphones get even stronger and Sony once again goes the strong hardware route. If in 2 years time Sony have released a PSP with near HD console level graphics and smartphones continue increasing at the same rate, Nintendo may find themselves losing hardcore support in the same way that they lost it in this generation of consoles. Whilst that wouldn't really lose them too much money, look at how successful the DS and Wii still are, it would be a shame if they were once again relegated to being the 'casual' console whilst the other platforms (PSP and smartphones) were considered the more 'mature' option and thus receive more hardcore gamers and hardcore game development was switched to these other platforms.

Processing power of a system does not make or break it. End of story.

 

[WillyFive]

Whilst the graphics look fine for now, will they really look fine in 6 years time when its successor is due? The PSP still looks great and its top tier titles still look better than anything on the iphone barring the Unreal engine 3 demo, if Sony had cut corners then to get the price down then we'd have a much bigger need for a successor right now and game dev on the platform would be drying up compared to the situation now where we've still got lots of high prfile Japanese titles coming out for the system. I think that Nintendo cutting corners now is going to hit them hard in a few years time especially if Smartphones get even stronger and Sony once again goes the strong hardware route. If in 2 years time Sony have released a PSP with near HD console level graphics and smartphones continue increasing at the same rate, Nintendo may find themselves losing hardcore support in the same way that they lost it in this generation of consoles. Whilst that wouldn't really lose them too much money, look at how successful the DS and Wii still are, it would be a shame if they were once again relegated to being the 'casual' console whilst the other platforms (PSP and smartphones) were considered the more 'mature' option and thus receive more hardcore gamers and hardcore game development was switched to these other platforms.

If Sony goes the same way with the 3DS as they did with the DS, then the graphics will be just as acceptable as the DS graphics are now.

In other words, no one will care.

 

[Router]

Rumored tech specs seem just fine for the resolution of the screen. I would love more internal storage and more RAM than that but it seems just fine looking at the tech demos.

 

[Chris1964]

Whilst the graphics look fine for now, will they really look fine in 6 years time when its successor is due? The PSP still looks great and its top tier titles still look better than anything on the iphone barring the Unreal engine 3 demo, if Sony had cut corners then to get the price down then we'd have a much bigger need for a successor right now and game dev on the platform would be drying up compared to the situation now where we've still got lots of high prfile Japanese titles coming out for the system. I think that Nintendo cutting corners now is going to hit them hard in a few years time especially if Smartphones get even stronger and Sony once again goes the strong hardware route. If in 2 years time Sony have released a PSP with near HD console level graphics and smartphones continue increasing at the same rate, Nintendo may find themselves losing hardcore support in the same way that they lost it in this generation of consoles. Whilst that wouldn't really lose them too much money, look at how successful the DS and Wii still are, it would be a shame if they were once again relegated to being the 'casual' console whilst the other platforms (PSP and smartphones) were considered the more 'mature' option and thus receive more hardcore gamers and hardcore game development was switched to these other platforms.

You will be one of the little who will care for PSP2 if it gets released 2 years from now.

 

[Father_Brain]

Processing power of a system does not make or break it. End of story.

I can't believe people still need to be reminded of this, especially after how DS vs. PSP turned out. :lol

 

[plagiarize]

Whilst the graphics look fine for now, will they really look fine in 6 years time when its successor is due? The PSP still looks great and its top tier titles still look better than anything on the iphone barring the Unreal engine 3 demo, if Sony had cut corners then to get the price down then we'd have a much bigger need for a successor right now and game dev on the platform would be drying up compared to the situation now where we've still got lots of high prfile Japanese titles coming out for the system. I think that Nintendo cutting corners now is going to hit them hard in a few years time especially if Smartphones get even stronger and Sony once again goes the strong hardware route. If in 2 years time Sony have released a PSP with near HD console level graphics and smartphones continue increasing at the same rate, Nintendo may find themselves losing hardcore support in the same way that they lost it in this generation of consoles. Whilst that wouldn't really lose them too much money, look at how successful the DS and Wii still are, it would be a shame if they were once again relegated to being the 'casual' console whilst the other platforms (PSP and smartphones) were considered the more 'mature' option and thus receive more hardcore gamers and hardcore game development was switched to these other platforms.

yes. the graphics will look fine in six years.

 

[brain_stew]

Underwhelming specs. Isn't the GPU they're using only capable of 15M raw polygons/second at 200MHz? So at 133 it'll only be capable of 10M. That's less than a third of what the 6-year-old PSP is capable of BTW. I don't give a shit about what shaders they're using if everything looks as blocky as a Dreamcast game.

We have no idea how many pipelines the version Nintendo chose has and we can also be damn sure its modified somewhat. The clockspeed really doesn't tell us all that much, the raw performance could still vary by as much as ~4x even if Nintendo is using the stock design.

Since Nintendo choose to use multiple low clocked CPUs in order to preserve battery life it wouldn't surprise me one bit if they used the same philosiphy with the GPU. Clock it lower but pack in more pipelines, so that it can deliver more performance at any given power budget. Its a very Nintendo approach.

The one bit of concrete evideence we do have about the GPU is that it has a nice big chunk of fast dedicated memory, something which no modern SOC design uses and that's something which should really help performance with stuff like particles and alpha effects. The thick clouds in Kid Icarus is one thing that has impressed many and having lots of dedicated GPU bandwidth will certainly have helped make them a reality.

Anyway, talking about raw polygon throughput seems a little silly anyway. We already know this isn't the strength of the PICA200 design. It may not be able to compete with the PS2 in this area but even te Xbox can't hope to compete with the shaders and lighting effects that this little chip can pull off. The best PS2 games pushed way more vertices than the most impressive Xbox games and yet I can't remember many people claiming the PS2 wiped the floor with the Xbox. Add a nice proficinecy at alpha effects to that mix (something which made the best PS2 games really stand out) and I doubt many are going to notice the low vertex count all that much. The importance of the raw vertex count in the makeup of quality visuals has been emphasised less and less with each new GPU design and modern game engine. The old PS2 and PSP approach to GPU design where pushing the most polygons possible at the expense of absolutely everything else jus isn't a very smart design choice for a modern mobile gaming platform.

 

[Sipowicz]

Whilst the graphics look fine for now, will they really look fine in 6 years time when its successor is due? The PSP still looks great and its top tier titles still look better than anything on the iphone barring the Unreal engine 3 demo

yeah they will. that's like asking if high end PS2 games will be unplayable in 6 years, which is retarded. The 3ds will have apaprently have better graphics than that on a tiny screen with 3d effects

so yeah retarded

if Sony had cut corners then to get the price down then we'd have a much bigger need for a successor right now

I dont think you know anything about handhelds or have ever owned one. you just came into the thread to tell us how much you love sony

the DS and the PSP both get/got high profile and "hardcore" titles. The ones for the DS obviously started drying up a bit once the 3DS was announced. The PSP is great, but the hardware is far from perfect. There is more to a handheld then graphics or raw poer which you'd know if you'd owned one before

 

[JADS]

I can't believe people still need to be reminded of this, especially after how DS vs. PSP turned out. :lol

Or 360 vs PS3 vs Wii
Or PS2 vs Xbox vs Gamecube
Or N64 vs Saturn vs PS1
Or Gameboy vs Sega Game Gear vs TurboExpress
Or ... vs ... vs ...

 

[NewFresh]

Whilst the graphics look fine for now, will they really look fine in 6 years time when its successor is due? The PSP still looks great and its top tier titles still look better than anything on the iphone barring the Unreal engine 3 demo, if Sony had cut corners then to get the price down then we'd have a much bigger need for a successor right now and game dev on the platform would be drying up compared to the situation now where we've still got lots of high prfile Japanese titles coming out for the system. I think that Nintendo cutting corners now is going to hit them hard in a few years time especially if Smartphones get even stronger and Sony once again goes the strong hardware route. If in 2 years time Sony have released a PSP with near HD console level graphics and smartphones continue increasing at the same rate, Nintendo may find themselves losing hardcore support in the same way that they lost it in this generation of consoles. Whilst that wouldn't really lose them too much money, look at how successful the DS and Wii still are, it would be a shame if they were once again relegated to being the 'casual' console whilst the other platforms (PSP and smartphones) were considered the more 'mature' option and thus receive more hardcore gamers and hardcore game development was switched to these other platforms.

I still play my NES, SNES, PS1, and Dreamcast.
There will always be something that looks better in the future, just enjoy it now.

 

[Sickboy007]

An interesting point to make about the CPU choice. A lot of people are making the comment that this is a keen example of Nintendo "cheaping out" and I think that comment is a little unfair. Just because those two ARM11 cores run at a meagre clockspeed doesn't actually mean that they'll be any cheaper to manufacture, they'll have the the exact same silicon budget as standard ~600mhz AMR11s as featured in most previous generation smartphones.

They're literally the same chip, Nintendo are just clocking them lower to conserve battery life and the fact there's two of them in there actually means they've actually dedicated a fair bit of silicon to CPU resources. They'll be fully capable of running at much higher clockspeeds and that's something we might actually see further down the line just as we did with the PSP. They had plenty of cheaper options than two full ARM11 cores available and if BC really did demand a dual CPU setup then Cortex A8s really were always out of the question imo. That would have meant that Nintendo dedicated two times as much silicon to their CPU solution than even the highest end smartphone currently on the market.

I'm completely illiterate hardware-wise, but will it be possible to overclock it simply with a firmware update?

 

[Sipowicz]

Close-ups of the board in the FCC filing clearly show that the development kit possesses a 2GB moviNAND flash chip supplied by Samsung. This suggests that Nintendo is making 1.5GB of that RAM available to the user, while reserving an impressive 25 per cent for the operating system. Reserving a mammoth 512MB suggests that Nintendo has serious plans for the functionality of the unit over and above what we have seen so far.

does anyone know what this would mean for games?

 

[gamingeek]

So I hear that the 3DS has to render everything twice to get the 3D effect?

If a developer chose to ignore 3D and put all the processing power into the top screen in 2D, theoretically they could do much better visuals? Sort of like how some DS games only render visuals on one screen and use the second for a 2D map or inventory?

 

[Somnid]

You people, this thread.

64MB of RAM, that's not a lot

This is a basic test of hardware competence. If you compared it to Xbox, you win. If you compared it to a modern smartphone you lose. 3DS is not going to be running a full operating system. Also the speed of RAM might be pertinent but we don't have that.

2 ARM11s, what's up with that?

Undoubtedly to keep backward compatibility. DS uses an ARM9 and an ARM7, they need to be able to reproduce that. If you thought they would use a different CPU you haven't been paying attention.

266MHz seems a little slow.

Depends on what you are doing. In the context of gaming you will pretty much always bottleneck the GPU before the CPU.

4MB is a bit big for a framebuffer.

It's likely more than that. 3DS needs around 1MB to render to both screens in 32-bit color. The additional RAM is likely just for some textures or a holding space for special rendering. The rest is shared with the 64 main RAM.

1.5 GB of Flash RAM is a weird number

It is. But that's likely because they bought a 2GB chip and are reserving 512MB, or somehow got a 1.5GB chip and will reserve 512MB for system functions and channels.

You can't store many installs on that

This was just a rumor floating around. 3DS carts initially will max at 2GB in size. Of course you couldn't install that.

 

[brain_stew]

Normal mapping can be used to fake polygonal detail on character models (though it's still pretty obvious that the models are poly-starved when you see them up close), but they can't be used to fake geometrically complex enviornments. The 3DS doesn't even have enough raw polygon power to run the original Jak & Daxter in wireframe mode with all textures and effects turned off.

Neither did the Xbox, not at 60fps anyway. So are you going to argue that the PS2 had better gaming hardware than the Xbox as well? Really?

And the PS2 doesn't have the raw specs to run RE:Revelations at even a dozen frames per second, so what exactly is your point? If you design 3DS games around pushing as many single textured polygons as possible of course they're not going to look great. If you port a high end PS2 game as is and don't add any nice lighting/shaders and you don't increase the texture resolution then its absolutely going to look worse than its original incaranation, but I have to ask why in the fuck would any sane developer do that? Kojima ported some scenes from MGS3 in a few months and despite compromising the raw vertex count somewhat the game looks lightyears better on the 3DS because the texture, the lighting and the general level of effects are prettty much an entire generation ahead.

Designing hardware with incredibly strict cost, size and power constraints is all about smart compromises. You can't make a machine that is all things to all men, that offers ridiculous throughput, all the fixed function hardware under the sun as well as incredibly flexible shaders on top of all that. You have to make a choice on which areas the system excels at and compromise those that are of lesser importance lest you make this thing cost $400+ to manufacture, be physically huge and run down a chunky battery in under 2 hours. There's no magic here, its all about smart compromise.

 

[Lance Bone Path]

Funny enough, I've been getting the itch to actually get into LBP and really mess around with it.

Regardless, the point would be to teach people that good ideas don't come from technology or your tools, but from your head, and that you can make a good idea work even when you don't have the tools you want.

This is probably a little off-topic since I don't think that the 3DS sounds that bad in terms of its processing power.

With LBP, there are a lot of neat ideas that I'm not sure are possible to implement in ways that work in all cases, but arguably those ideas, because they can't be implemented (by me), aren't really good ideas. There are limits to how much time and energy people can spend to get things to work. Tools expand what constitutes a good idea.

 

[Father_Brain]

Kojima ported some scenes from MGS3 in a few months and despite compromising the raw vertex count somewhat the game looks lightyears better on the 3DS because the texture, the lighting and the general level of effects are prettty much an entire generation ahead.

Didn't Kojima say that he increased the polygon count for MGS3 3DS? I'm skeptical too, mind you...

 

[brain_stew]

Curiously, if this rumour is true, then the one that stated that the 3DS was using a Marvell ARMADA based SoC isn't, since Marvell has its own custom ARM core and doesn't license the ARM11. But if that's the case, then who the hell is the Marvell partner that's buying up all those ARMADA chips to launch a new gaming device?

The Marvell design win was for Kinnect's system controller, not the 3DS.

I know that no Iphone has ever had more than ~3hours battery life when running a real high end 3D game.

 

[Eteric Rice]

Question.

Can they clock the CPUs up via firmware if they want to in the future?

I know Sony did something like this for the PSP.

 

[brain_stew]

Yeah. The ipad can last as long as a DSi in games, but the battery in that thing is huge.

In high end 3D games like Epic Citadel? I highly doubt that, the iPad has 10 hours of battery life for web browsing and high end 3D games consume a hell of a lot more system resources than simple web browsing does.

 

[Jackano]

You people, this thread.

64MB of RAM, that's not a lot

This is a basic test of hardware competence. If you compared it to Xbox, you win. If you compared it to a modern smartphone you lose. 3DS is not going to be running a full operating system. Also the speed of RAM might be pertinent but we don't have that.

2 ARM11s, what's up with that?

Undoubtedly to keep backward compatibility. DS uses an ARM9 and an ARM7, they need to be able to reproduce that. If you thought they would use a different CPU you haven't been paying attention.

266MHz seems a little slow.

Depends on what you are doing. In the context of gaming you will pretty much always bottleneck the GPU before the CPU.

4MB is a bit big for a framebuffer.

It's likely more than that. 3DS needs around 1MB to render to both screens in 32-bit color. The additional RAM is likely just for some textures or a holding space for special rendering. The rest is shared with the 64 main RAM.

1.5 GB of Flash RAM is a weird number

It is. But that's likely because they bought a 2GB chip and are reserving 512MB, or somehow got a 1.5GB chip and will reserve 512MB for system functions and channels.

You can't store many installs on that

This was just a rumor floating around. 3DS carts initially will max at 2GB in size. Of course you couldn't install that.

Interesting post and hints, thank you.

I wanted to add, a lot of people seems to forget one thing: Nintendo build consoles, not PC or smartphones!

 

[heringer]

So I hear that the 3DS has to render everything twice to get the 3D effect?

If a developer chose to ignore 3D and put all the processing power into the top screen in 2D, theoretically they could do much better visuals? Sort of like how some DS games only render visuals on one screen and use the second for a 2D map or inventory?

I wonder how the market will react regarding this trade off. Will people want prettier games or slightly uglier games with 3D effect?

 

[H_Prestige]

Is there any reason why there is no second analog stick? Seems there is enough room.

 

[Michan]

So I hear that the 3DS has to render everything twice to get the 3D effect?

If a developer chose to ignore 3D and put all the processing power into the top screen in 2D, theoretically they could do much better visuals? Sort of like how some DS games only render visuals on one screen and use the second for a 2D map or inventory?

Rendering the image is one of the last things that's done; first it has to build everything behind that scene, and that's what consumes most of the processing power. Sure, if it didn't have to render the image twice it would free up some processing power for other things, but not really enough to make a mind-blowing difference to visuals.

Is there any reason why there is no second analog stick? Seems there is enough room.

Firstly, there's already the touch screen, which can be used in place of analogue control. Secondly, Nintendo's core demographic (the Brain Age, Wii Fit, Sports, etc crowd) cares very little for dual-analogue control.

 

[NewFresh]

You people, this thread.

64MB of RAM, that's not a lot

This is a basic test of hardware competence. If you compared it to Xbox, you win. If you compared it to a modern smartphone you lose. 3DS is not going to be running a full operating system. Also the speed of RAM might be pertinent but we don't have that.

Thank you. I am sick of hearing people all over the internet saying that the Iphone has more RAM and now the 3DS sucks.

ps: this was my 300th post

 

[Akai]

I wonder how the market will react regarding this trade off. Will people want prettier games or slightly uglier games with 3D effect?

For every generation now people have chosen slightly uglier games WITHOUT a 3D effect, so yeah...

 

[plagiarize]

I wonder how the market will react regarding this trade off. Will people want prettier games or slightly uglier games with 3D effect?

based on responses to the Motorstorm 3D Sampler thing, they'll want slightly uglier games with 3D effects.

i know that factually the 2D version is superior in certain ways, but the 3D version is the one that impresses me more.

 

[Somnid]

Is there any reason why there is no second analog stick? Seems there is enough room.

Interface clutter. Still one of the more persistent problems in hardware design. You want to keep it light and friendly looking. This is the reason Apple hates buttons and why their audience is so large. Nintendo too.

 

[Starchasing]

I'd like to go an entire generation where developers are "handicapped" and see which ones come out with some games that have good or great design. It'd be like taking adobe creative suite away from someone designing movie posters, I'm sure.

amen bro

 

[Father_Brain]

Firstly, there's already the touch screen, which can be used in place of analogue control.

But not by left-handed people.

 

[plagiarize]

ps: this was my 300th post

ps: neogaf doesn't display post counts outside your profile for a reason.

 

[heringer]

based on responses to the Motorstorm 3D Sampler thing, they'll want slightly uglier games with 3D effects.

i know that factually the 2D version is superior in certain ways, but the 3D version is the one that impresses me more.

I also wonder if games will offer the option to make the graphics better by turning the 3D off.

 

[gofreak]

With the iOS et al, how much memory would a client application - a game - on iPhone have to play with? People are saying that an iPhone has to deal with a big OS and all that, but does it really eat that much memory that 64MB in a dedicated device would be comparably accommodating?

(Note that this is a subtly different question to whether 64MB is 'enough' or not.)

 

[Sickboy007]

I wonder how the market will react regarding this trade off. Will people want prettier games or slightly uglier games with 3D effect?

That's an interesting question, we might even have games that are both 3D and 2D (cut-scenes in 3D, gameplay in 2D, or different gameplay types with the 3d effect on or off).

 

[H_Prestige]

Firstly, there's already the touch screen, which can be used in place of analogue control. Secondly, Nintendo's core demographic (the Brain Age, Wii Fit, Sports, etc crowd) cares very little for dual-analogue control.

Using the touch screen for camera controls?

 

[plagiarize]

But not by left-handed people.

can we stop overstating this.

of course left handed people can use a touch screen with their right hand.

it might be harder for them. it might take some adjusting... but they can absolutely use the thing.

 

[Michan]

Using the touch screen for camera controls?

Or aiming/shooting?

 

[brain_stew]

Touchscreen can neither be a proper replacement for an analogue stick or a mouse (which it actively tries to emulate). It needs a second stick if it was to compliment the touch-screen properly, which Ninty seems to be subduing due to having the touchscreen be both smaller and lower res than the top screen. I wouldn't be surprise if the successor returns to being a single screen device.


It has enough tech in it to put generic FPSes on it. Whether you like it or not, there will be alotta shooters on it and they'll play poorly, especially without a second stick. Just ask PSP owners.

Metroid Prime: Hunters controlled much smoother than any dual analog FPS I've ever played (with the thumb strap of course) the only real issue was the lack of free buttons, but the dpad should sort that out. I could actually play that game without any aim assist, could I fuck do that with any console FPS.

Dual analogs have never been a particularly high watermark for FPS control, I don't know why people are now pretending they are. A touch screen is a much better alternative than a thumbstick for precision first person aiming.

 

[plagiarize]

With the iOS et al, how much memory would a client application - a game - on iPhone have to play with? People are saying that an iPhone has to deal with a big OS and all that, but does it really eat that much memory that 64MB in a dedicated device would be comparably accommodating?

(Note that this is a subtly different question to whether 64MB is 'enough' or not.)

remember the games that could fit in memory last gen. that should be your point of reference not what the iphone can and can't do.

it's not just about having a large OS, it's about multitasking too. consider all the stuff the iphone can do in the background while you are playing a game.

 

[Rezbit]

Haven't we already seen evidence of visually impressive 3DS games? Regardless of what each individual component is, it seems like all the components together are creating some pretty nice looking games, in 3D to boot.

Disclaimer: I am pretty much a techno-retard at this point in time, I don't know what I'm talking about.

 

[NewFresh]

Using the touch screen for camera controls?

In the style of FPS games on the ds: Moon, Dementium I&II, COD.

It can be done, it just takes some getting used to

 

[heringer]

I'm more worried about games like Monster Hunter, really. They need the buttons too. I don't want my hand to get raped.

 

[H_Prestige]

In the style of FPS games on the ds: Moon, Dementium I&II, COD.

It can be done, it just takes some getting used to

I was thinking about third person games. Camera rotation is really easy with a right stick. I'm not sure how a touch screen is just as good.

 

[apana]

So just how easy is it for devlopers to port their N64 games onto this thing? Forgive me for my ignorance but wouldnt they have to remake the game from the ground up in order to get the best 3D effect?

 

[gofreak]

remember the games that could fit in memory last gen. that should be your point of reference not what the iphone can and can't do.

it's not just about having a large OS, it's about multitasking too. consider all the stuff the iphone can do in the background while you are playing a game.

Again, I'm not asking if it's enough, but wrt the comparisons going back and forth with iPhone, I'm asking what kind of room a client app has to work with on iPhone after you take out what the OS is consuming. I guess it's a variable thing as the OS may reserve and free memory while an app executes, but I'm wondering if there's a ballpark.

What I'm saying is, I'm wondering if you can really defend 64MB against the iPhone's RAM on the grounds that the OS takes up a fair chunk memory while a game is running on there...does the OS really only leave that little memory over for a game?

Whether it's enough or not I don't know. Obviously it compares favorably to home consoles of ten years ago, and obviously they'll have to make do with it anyway. I would guess devs now would probably hope for more though.

So just how easy is it for devlopers to port their N64 games onto this thing? Forgive me for my ignorance but wouldnt they have to remake the game from the ground up in order to get the best 3D effect?

There should be more than enough power to bolt 3D onto N64 games after the fact.

It won't be efficient vs a ground-up approach, but you don't need efficiency if the power is there to give good performance with an inefficient solution

 

[Dreamwriter]

In high end 3D games like Epic Citadel? I highly doubt that, the iPad has 10 hours of battery life for web browsing and high end 3D games consume a hell of a lot more system resources than simple web browsing does.

No, the iPad has 10 hours battery life showing high resolution movies. If all you are doing is browsing the web, it lasts a LOT longer. But the iPad is meaningless in this conversation, because the entire space inside the iPad is taken up by two HUGE batteries, neither one would fit in the 3DS.

 

[Michan]

I'm more worried about games like Monster Hunter, really. They need the buttons too. I don't want my hand to get raped.

The 3DS has just as many buttons as the PSP, plus a touch screen and several other input methods. A game like Monster Hunter would work well on it.