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nVidia Tegra wins contract for next-gen Nintendo DS (Unconfirmed?)
- Thread starter NinjaFromTheFuture
- Start date
silverbullet1080
Banned
clashfan said:
KittenMaster
Member
Playstation 2 was actually on par/less powerful (depending on how much weight is put on RE4) than the Gamecube. A lot of the better looking Gamecube games had very clean graphics and often ran at 60 FPS.
Saint Gregory
Member
Rebel Strike still somehow looks better than 90% of Wii third party games.Black Rainbow said:
Shogmaster
Sloppy seconds
CTLance said:ARM9+MBX confirmed.
Black Rainbow
Member
Saint Gregory said:
Sad but true.
I have a hard time imagining something with at least 2-3 orders of magnitude less bandwith competing in copying data around. That said, I don't know about semi-modern mobile solutions...blu said:
IMO the better question should be what we can do with 2d(in an actual application) that can't be done with power of semi-modern GPU, even if we do have a more powerful alternative. In PS2 era we could already do things like a 50-100 simultaneous paralax levels and hundreds of thousands of sprites per frame - is there any sense to go higher?
Caesar III
Member
<3 want! a bit smaller thoughGCX said:
Believe!
Baron Doggystyle von Woof
Member
I would buy a new DS day one. I hope that this doesn't kill 2D gaming.. DS has some of the best 2D games ever made.
Flying_Phoenix
Banned
Black Rainbow said:
Yeah that's true... in 2001. I'm exaggerating? Are you honestly going to argue that the Gamecube wasn't weaker than the Xbox?
KittenMaster said:
I'm talking about comparing the system to the other consoles of that generation. And while the Gamecube was good, it was no Xbox.
shaft said:
I wouldn't worry too much. I mean the PSP has its fair share of 2D games. 2D gaming died off more so due to the changing focus of the industry which seems much different to the one that's currently having now and that Nintendo is offering (hence why some 2D games on retail are starting to appear on the Wii).
Flying_Phoenix said:
Well, as far as I know, Game Cube's CPU, which was a PowerPC, was quite often refered to as the most advanced piece of hardware last-gen. Quite frankly, I don't know if it was better than the Intel Pentium III wraped into the Xbox but that's no more relevant today.
Fafalada said:IMO the better question should be what we can do with 2d(in an actual application) that can't be done with power of semi-modern GPU, even if we do have a more powerful alternative. In PS2 era we could already do things like a 50-100 simultaneous paralax levels and hundreds of thousands of sprites per frame - is there any sense to go higher?
The answer is HD, pixel shaders, and vector art, imo. look at games like Braid and Pixeljunk Eden. Those would have been completely different experiences if they'd been made on the last generation of hardware. Also, the upcoming Pixeljunk game, Shooter, has gameplay built around a physics engine that doesn't look like anything I remember on the PS2.
charlequin
Banned
Flying_Phoenix said:
It's drastically closer to the Xbox than the PS2 was to it. The Gamecube is actually a pretty impressive little machine, given how close it came to the Xbox's power at a fraction of the cost.
lastendconductor
Put your snobby liquids into my mouth!
Why would Nintendo change its current design philosophy when it's doing so well? while I can perfectly believe Nvidia may be doing the next DS chip, I'm sure it won't be anything fancy. I expect them to aim for the bare minimum. I'd prefer bleeding edge tech, but this approach has its advantages too (price?).
Flying_Phoenix
Banned
charlequin said:
Well the fraction of the cost was due to no DVD drive and very crafted architecture (I.E. buying old cutting edge and efficient components cheap instead of just going with the latest available).
I'm not saying that the system wasn't powerful for its time, just that not as much as the other consoles were during their console generations. The Super Nintendo and Nintendo 64 were by far and wide the most powerful consumer consoles during their time and really stood head over shoulders against their competition. I'm not comparing how "well" it was architected but more so comparing each console against what was available during the time.
blu
Wants the largest console games publisher to avoid Nintendo's platforms.
i don't need to look at game lineups - the MD is the more powerful and conteporary system of the two, albeit somewhat short on memory. heck, its cpu is a generation ahead of the one in the snes. the snes had good-looking games because of its decent video subsystem (better color pipeline), with access to more memory overall. also, don't bring up the xbox as an example of a good hw console design - a half-baked, castrated-pc design that people call a console just because one mammoth corporation had billions to burn, does not sit high on my hw excellence charts.Flying_Phoenix said:
bandwidth is only one side of the coin. latency is the other.Fafalada said:
wram on the millenium sits in the 50ns random-access margins, DDR2 DRAM - at 40-60ns for a random access. this is before we factor in the fact that wram is multi-ported. millenium has 64bit, 66MHz, engine & memory bus, locally. a 'semi-modern' intel GMA9xx sits over a pheripheral bus. all the bandwidth in the world cannot compensate for the gargantuan latencies the latter would experience over any memory access op. even if you try to be really smart with the blit access patterns.
Flying_Phoenix
Banned
blu said:
:lol
Flying_Phoenix
Banned
blu said:
I'm sorry but saying that the Genesis's CPU was "a generation ahead" of the SNES (despite the SNES having far superior ports than the Genesis in like every way possible) and bringing up hardware design when I've already confirmed my stance was nothing more than raw power, doesn't really pursue me to give a detail comment.
brain_stew
Member
Michan said:
Not at all. The GBA was way more capable than the SNES and the NDS couldn't actually match up to an N64, so the leap was much smaller than you're letting on.
Flying_Phoenix
Banned
brain_stew said:
Pretty much. Didn't the SNES use a CPU that was similar to the one in the 3DO (this is from what I've heard)
Also the only reason many DS games look so good is due to the fact that its so easy to develop for and by having such improved tools since 3D's toddler years.
Megadragon15
Member
Wasn't the SNES CPU similar to the one in the Apple IIGS?Flying_Phoenix said:
MadOdorMachine
No additional functions
That rotating screen is actually a really good idea. I've never been a fan of the two screen on DS. It's impossible for me to look at both of them at the same time, so I think this is a good solution. I would much rather have one big screen that two little screens. With regard to the SD card, it would be cool if you load up VC games on it.Shogmaster said:
As far as people being concerned about 2D graphics, I don't see them going anywhere. They may not be as abundant, but I could certainly see a demand, particularly for downloadable games (MM9, Contra Rebirth, etc.) especially if they were made compatible for both the console and handheld. That to me is the ultimate connectivity that both Sony & Nintendo have dropped the ball on excluding original PS1 games. I would like to see a lot more games follow that format in the future. I also think people will be more likely to buy downloadable games when they have more options in how they can use them.
blu
Wants the largest console games publisher to avoid Nintendo's platforms.
a motorolla 68k is not a generation ahead of a 65c816? what's your background, again? i understand you have no view on these things, but let me try to bring it to you in a familiar perspective: a mc68k@7.5MHz is so much more powerful (and flexible) than 65c816@3.5MHz, that it would be like comparing a p4 to a core2d - a generational gap, and then some. heh, the MD's coprocessor is more akin to the snes' central cpu in performance.Flying_Phoenix said:
Flying_Phoenix
Banned
blu said:
Then why did the Genesis always receive the inferior muliplats?
EDIT - I admit that I'm probably taking the CPU thing a bit too far, but the point is that the SNES was far more powerful than the Genesis as a whole.
Flying_Phoenix said:
The SNES had a better graphics co-processor.
It should be noted however, the Genesis did not always receive 'inferior muliplats'. There were plenty SNES titles that had more slow down, etc ... due to the inferior CPU.
The main area where SNES beat Genesis graphics (disregarding effects like Mode7 and alpha), was color. Genesis could only display 64 colors on-screen iirc, which obviously hurt the look quite a bit. Had it displayed more colors, there would be few differences in graphics between the two systems.
DKnight said:
When I saw SM64 running on DS that last thing I thought was "Bare minimum". Sure it's not on the same level as PSP but it was a MAJOR jump from Super Mario World 3 on GBA.
Then you have games like Kingdom Hearts on DS pushing it even further. DS can produce some very nice graphics when devs try. Definitely not "bare minimum" tech
For the lazy, can someone post all the specs of the absolute lowest end, cheapest Tegra chip? Also, anyone have any clue what Nvidia charges in bulk? (Usually chips are sold in batches of 10k and are prices in relation to this right?).
Anyway, any sort of decent graphics on a Nintendo handheld will make it a must buy. Nintendo could seriously sell 6 million without a single game available (if it was bc) lol, take that Sony.
Anyway, any sort of decent graphics on a Nintendo handheld will make it a must buy. Nintendo could seriously sell 6 million without a single game available (if it was bc) lol, take that Sony.
entremet
Member
I don't know why it's so unfathomable that Nintendo would use the Tegra chipset for the next portable. It's not super expensive and has great battery management. Buy the time the DS successor is released, Nintendo would probably be using one of the first generation Tegra chipsets, not the cutting edge versions.
NES - About the same as SMS
SNES - Looked better in most cases than Genesis or TG16
N64 - Did textures better than PS1, also output at higher resolution IIRC, PS1 was faster. General concensus seems to be N64 aged better.
GCN - Better than PS2 nearly all of the time, not quite up to Xbox.
Some extra notes: PS1 and PS2 launched at $300, GCN and N64 were $200. Clearly that extra $100 didn't make the difference in power. Xbox was also $300 and sold at significant loss.
DS was $100 cheaper than PSP, Wii was $150 less than 360 (we won't count the tard-pack which incures extra cost) and $250-350 less than PS3. Currently DSi is $80 less than PSP Go.
Nintendo has always had very efficient hardware for the price. It's not an R&D issue, it's a price point issue. Of course an extra $100 would buy you more. But for graphics I personally don't really want to pay it.
SNES - Looked better in most cases than Genesis or TG16
N64 - Did textures better than PS1, also output at higher resolution IIRC, PS1 was faster. General concensus seems to be N64 aged better.
GCN - Better than PS2 nearly all of the time, not quite up to Xbox.
Some extra notes: PS1 and PS2 launched at $300, GCN and N64 were $200. Clearly that extra $100 didn't make the difference in power. Xbox was also $300 and sold at significant loss.
DS was $100 cheaper than PSP, Wii was $150 less than 360 (we won't count the tard-pack which incures extra cost) and $250-350 less than PS3. Currently DSi is $80 less than PSP Go.
Nintendo has always had very efficient hardware for the price. It's not an R&D issue, it's a price point issue. Of course an extra $100 would buy you more. But for graphics I personally don't really want to pay it.
manueldelalas
Time Traveler
Is it so hard to understand that the things Nintendo is looking in the next handheld are price, battery life and performance? (in that order).
It's like every other competitor falls in the same hole. For years we've had other handhelds that fail in one or more of those three categories... The PSP is the only decent competitor in those areas (although battery life is not that good).
It's like people are thinking that Nintendo looks for low tech hardware because they hate us.
It's like every other competitor falls in the same hole. For years we've had other handhelds that fail in one or more of those three categories... The PSP is the only decent competitor in those areas (although battery life is not that good).
It's like people are thinking that Nintendo looks for low tech hardware because they hate us.
iamaustrian
Member
FoxSpirit said:
most of them were lazy ports. also the GBA ports suffered mostly from the poor screen resolution(240x160 pixel) and PQ.
The GBA was/is in almost every aspect(graphic wise) more capable than the SNES.
The GBA CPU and co-CPU kills the SNES ones.
the best 2D games of the GBA clearly show that.
gamergirly
Member
GCX said:
Believe!
That might not be as far off as you think.....
That's because the GBA's sound capabilities weren't great. The SNES had a dedicated sound processor and the GBA didn't. To get something close to the SNES, you had to do a bunch of software mixing.FoxSpirit said:
Besides the sound stuff and the GBA missing an X and Y button, it could smoke the SNES. I'm not sure how a 33mhz processor is below a 3mhz processor in power...