3DS got two ARM11s

[thop]

Well, IGN is not exactly the best source for hardware specs, but I doubt it was made up.

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.

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

[DeadlyNinja]

Two ARM 11? Can it function like a dual core?

[thop]

And 133MHz does confirm the statement made by DMP that the 3DS PICA200 it is based on the 200MHz version, but Nintendo considered this to be excessive still.

[Exophase]

I was expecting 533MHz ARM11 + 67MHz ARM9 and people were saying it was surely going to be faster... this I did not expect. Still unconfirmed, but damn.

I have a good feeling you won't be able to run user code on one of the CPUs, regardless of what they are, since that has been the model both Nintendo and Sony has used thus far.

For ARM11 @ 266MHz I expect 16/16KB L1 cache (with 32/32KB being a maybe) and 0KB of L2 cache. Was expecting CPUs that'd be a little bit more competitive against PSP than this....

[sfried]

I'd take anything on IGN with a huge grain of salt. They were wrong about certain aspects of the Wii. However it's not unconcievable that the flash memory would be 1.5 GB.

If the specs just happen to be true, then judging by RE: Revelations, that's one heck of an efficient system.

[darkblu]

I was expecting 533MHz ARM11 + 67MHz ARM9 and people were saying it was surely going to be faster... this I did not expect. Still unconfirmed, but damn.
And I expected an A8 + ARM11 combo, the ARM11 being a factor in the BC. Dual ARM11 is not that far off, but i wonder if the clocks are not artificial and a subject to official sanctions.

I have a good feeling you won't be able to run user code on one of the CPUs, regardless of what they are, since that has been the model both Nintendo and Sony has used thus far.
I think all bets are off this gen. But yes, chances that one of the cpu's will be in the 'trusted zone' are very high.

For ARM11 @ 266MHz I expect 16/16KB L1 cache (with 32/32KB being a maybe) and 0KB of L2 cache. Was expecting CPUs that'd be a little bit more competitive against PSP than this....
They might not have a pressing need for L2. I would not be surprised if they could get 64MB of sufficiently-high speed pseudo-SRAM in there. For instance, Fujitsu already had 512Mb of their FCRAM back in 2008, featuring burst mode and all.

[Rangers]

I'd take anything on IGN with a huge grain of salt. They were wrong about certain aspects of the Wii. However it's not unconcievable that the flash memory would be 1.5 GB.

If the specs just happen to be true, then judging by RE: Revelations, that's one heck of an efficient system.

Err, actually wasnt Matt Casamassina-whatever from IGN the first source to really blow the lid of Wii's specs? And he was pretty much 100% right too. And he received a ton of violent backlash from Nintendo fanboys who didn't want to believe it, too. But he was right.

I''ve been downplaying the 3DS hardware from day one. It's just not Nintendo's nature anymore to deliver competent or imo decent hardware, but it's a little annoying. I dont know, I just always expected the 3DS to be revealed as underpowered, while people on message boards keep trying to portray it as a beast based on screenshots.

[Rodéric]

The Wii outsells both other consoles, the DS outsells the PSP, why on earth would you waste money on hardware that doesn't make it sell ?

[ToTTenTranz]

133MHz GPU and dual 266MHz ARM11 is.. damn, it's depressingly disapointing...

Unless there's some kind of dedicated vector processing units, Nintendo is launching a hardware that performs lower than 3 year-old cellphones.
Maybe they should know that the exact same formula that worked in 2005 won't work in 2010?

Casual gaming is shifting for cellphones. Lauching another console dedicated to casual gaming will make it obsolete as soon as 3D displays become standard in cellphones.

[Arun]

Unless there's some kind of dedicated vector processing units, Nintendo is launching a hardware that performs lower than 3 year-old cellphones.In terms of CPU, yes. In terms of GPU, not at all: a 133MHz DMP nearly seems excessive compared to a single 266MHz ARM11 (if we assume the second one won't be available to devs, but who knows) - so the one thing you can expect not to see is complex physics or AI. Not a huge deal in Nintendo's market I'd argue, but disappointing indeed.

Casual gaming is shifting for cellphones. Lauching another console dedicated to casual gaming will make it obsolete as soon as 3D displays become standard in cellphones.And when is that exactly? I'd be very surprised if even the 2012 or 2013 iPhones had a 3D display. And there's nothing that prevents Nintendo from refreshing the HW significantly 3-4 years later as long as they maintain backwards compatibility, but we'll see.

[Urian]

I believe that PICA200 was a last minute solution, if I am not wrong original Tegra specs were ARM11MP2 with a GeForce ULP running at 133Mhz. It is possible that Nintendo saw a better cost, performance and power consumption in the DMP chip and decided to abandon Nvidia.

[Exophase]

And I expected an A8 + ARM11 combo, the ARM11 being a factor in the BC. Dual ARM11 is not that far off, but i wonder if the clocks are not artificial and a subject to official sanctions.

We'll see, I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't even have a programmable PLL.

I think all bets are off this gen. But yes, chances that one of the cpu's will be in the 'trusted zone' are very high.

Both being listed as 266MHz is probably evidence that it could be available, since I'd imagine one being used for purposes like the ARM7 on DS could be a weaker core, but who knows. PSP was a big waste of a second core.

They might not have a pressing need for L2. I would not be surprised if they could get 64MB of sufficiently-high speed pseudo-SRAM in there. For instance, Fujitsu already had 512Mb of their FCRAM back in 2008, featuring burst mode and all.

Fujitsu's mobile FCRAM offerings are much smaller and cheaper, also only 16-bits wide.. I don't think you save very much vs LPDDR with solutions like this. I imagine having some L2 would be cheaper and lower consumption than particularly fast RAM, but I personally doubt we'll see anything remotely recent in design in this. I mean, they're using an ARM11, not a Cortex-A5.

[fehu]

I mean, they're using an ARM11, not a Cortex-A5.

i was thinking about it
in almost a year i have not heard about an A5 implementation, maybe its too overfeatured compared to an arm11, and if you want cortex compatibility you go directly to an A8

anyway, why two weak core and not a beefier dual issue A8?
I can't see a so great thermal or W advantage in the dual core solution, and a developer will be strangled by it

[ToTTenTranz]

In terms of CPU, yes. In terms of GPU, not at all: a 133MHz DMP nearly seems excessive compared to a single 266MHz ARM11 (if we assume the second one won't be available to devs, but who knows) - so the one thing you can expect not to see is complex physics or AI. Not a huge deal in Nintendo's market I'd argue, but disappointing indeed.

It really sounds unreasonable. I'd take dual 533MHz ARM11 easily, or even single ~500MHz Cortex A5 with NEON. Or at least having some dedicated hardware for vector processing, like Broadcom's BCM2727 in Nokia N8.

With this kind of hardware, we just know the 3DS games are condemned to scripted physics, AI and even low-quality sound music/effects (please, no more midi sound, really.. it's enough) during their whole lifetime (until 2016?).

The console is coming at the same time as dual-~1GHz A9 smartphones hit the market.. I just can't believe they think they can pull another "it's okay 'cause we're creative" on us, with 5 year-old hardware.


And when is that exactly?

When? How about 3 months ago?
http://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_w960_amoled_3d-3319.php
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRK4DVkdao4&feature=related

It's the same parallax barrier system as the 3DS, same resolution, but in AMOLED flavour (not that a short-lived AMOLED screen should be in a console, though).



I'd be very surprised if even the 2012 or 2013 iPhones had a 3D display. And there's nothing that prevents Nintendo from refreshing the HW significantly 3-4 years later as long as they maintain backwards compatibility, but we'll see.

Probably not Apple phones, they've always been late at adopting all the trends they don't start.
I do see Android, Symbian and MeeGo releasing official support for stereoscopic view and even stereoscopic versions of their UIs in less than 2 years.

[Exophase]

The DMP does have vertex shading hardware. Almost every 3D console released has some kind of specialized hardware functionality to aid vertex transformation, including the DS.. I don't think Nintendo would now expect people to do it on an ARM11.

[sfried]

I believe that PICA200 was a last minute solution, if I am not wrong original Tegra specs were ARM11MP2 with a GeForce ULP running at 133Mhz. It is possible that Nintendo saw a better cost, performance and power consumption in the DMP chip and decided to abandon Nvidia.Wasn't it also because of nVidia was having trouble meeting the performance specifications of the Tegra in terms of power?

[Dr Evil]

Isn't 4MB of vram and 64MB of ram a bit on the low side?

[MfA]

Casual gaming is shifting for cellphones. Lauching another console dedicated to casual gaming will make it obsolete as soon as 3D displays become standard in cellphones.
Handheld consoles aren't about casual gaming ... so how is that relevant?

[BoardBonobo]

I guess that's because two arms are better than one...

[ToTTenTranz]

Handheld consoles aren't about casual gaming ... so how is that relevant?

The DS' worldwide success is all about casual gaming.

[Arun]

It really sounds unreasonable. I'd take dual 533MHz ARM11 easily, or even single ~500MHz Cortex A5 with NEON. Or at least having some dedicated hardware for vector processing, like Broadcom's BCM2727 in Nokia N8.The vector processor in the BCM2727 isn't directly available to 3rd party developers, so how is that relevant? It makes more sense to compare it to the GPU and potential fixed-function accelerators in practice. The fact it's programmable is an (interesting) implementation detail.

With this kind of hardware, we just know the 3DS games are condemned to scripted physics, AI and even low-quality sound music/effects (please, no more midi sound, really.. it's enough) during their whole lifetime (until 2016?).The first two are obvious and I said so myself, but I'm not certain about the last one. It's perfectly possible that there is dedicated hardware for audio, and even if there isn't you seem to be exaggerating the processing cost involved (it's just 20MHz per MP3 and you can do it in advance for the usual small sound effects).

The console is coming at the same time as dual-~1GHz A9 smartphones hit the market.. I just can't believe they think they can pull another "it's okay 'cause we're creative" on us, with 5 year-old hardware.I certainly agree in a general sense, for what it's worth; it's mostly a disagreement about magnitude and important details.

When? How about 3 months ago?And how about not removing the context of the quote? You said 'as soon as 3D displays become standard'. A single model is as far from standard as can be - while I agree OS support will probably come in less than 2 years, the number of features supported by various OSes that never became mainstream is a staggering number. This will nearly certainly become mainstream eventually, but my point is that if it doesn't within 3 years of the 3DS' release, then that's not a big deal for Nintendo - and I assume that's what Nintendo is thinking here too. But if it does happen faster as you seem to believe, then yes I agree it would be a substantial problem for them.

The DS' worldwide success is all about casual gaming.There is a difference between casual gaming and casual games. The DS is all about what many would call casual games, but people who own one used them a lot more than cellphone gaming on average, so it's not casual gaming per-se. That's presumably the distinction MfA wanted to point out.

[Rolf N]

I may be off on my architecture versions, but can't you run single ARM11 cores >500MHz easily? What sense does it make to instead take two at half the clock speed? It's twice the silicon at maybe, possibly, almost the same performance, if you run MP-optimized software.

edit: yep, ARM11 is supposed to do "from 350 MHz in small area designs up to 1 GHz in speed optimized designs in 45 and 65 nm" (http://www.arm.com/products/processors/classic/arm11/index.php). Or with a little love and tweaking, 750MHz at 90nm (http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4135639/ARM11-CPU-and-physical-IP-combo-delivers-750-MHz-at-90-nm).

[Mariner]

The DS' worldwide success is all about casual gaming.

I can assure you that there is nothing casual about my girlfriend's current obsession with playing Zelda Spirit Tracks on her DS! :wink:

[Laurent06]

What sense does it make to instead take two at half the clock speed?
The advantage is power: the power consumption grows more than linearly with the frequency; also when you have two cores, it's easier to shut down one if you don't need it (though if Nintendo runs a kind of OS and/or libraries on one of the cores, then this won't apply).

[Secessionist]

The specs are pretty damn disappointing to say the least, but I believe them.

[Secessionist]

I would go with a triple core ARM11 @ 450MHz (32KB instruction+32KB data L1 cache, 256 KB L2 cache/core), no GPU, MoSys 80MB 1T-SRAM, and bigger game cards.

[Teasy]

I was expecting 533MHz ARM11 + 67MHz ARM9 and people were saying it was surely going to be faster... this I did not expect. Still unconfirmed, but damn.

I have a good feeling you won't be able to run user code on one of the CPUs, regardless of what they are, since that has been the model both Nintendo and Sony has used thus far.

For ARM11 @ 266MHz I expect 16/16KB L1 cache (with 32/32KB being a maybe) and 0KB of L2 cache. Was expecting CPUs that'd be a little bit more competitive against PSP than this....

How do you think dual ARM11@266Mhz + Vertex shader compares to dual MIPS32 R4000 @333Mhz though?

Also you shouldn't assume that their isn't a low clocked ARM9 or something similar in their as well, there's no reason to believe that IGN have all the details. When they got similar details about Wii they didn't find out about the little details (like Starlet ect).

[Teasy]

I would go with a triple core ARM11 @ 450MHz (32KB instruction+32KB data L1 cache, 256 KB L2 cache/core), no GPU, MoSys 80MB 1T-SRAM, and bigger game cards.

Why? Not only would that be more power hungry but it would be unable to come close to the graphical power of the current design.

Incidentally, I must be the only one here who didn't flinch at these specs. Its not as if the games we've seen so far will become less impressive because the specs aren't as glamorous as some would have hoped. Everything we've heard from developers suggests that the system's performance is quite surprising given the main specs, which is why I expected moderate looking specs.

[Exophase]

How do you think dual ARM11@266Mhz + Vertex shader compares to dual MIPS32 R4000 @333Mhz though?

That's not telling the entire story, PSP has both fixed function T&L hardware on the GPU and a powerful VFPU coprocessor on the CPU. I don't know how VFPU based shading compares to the vertex shading on DMP, which we're told is programmable, but I doubt either are going to be lacking. The vector computation capabilities on 3D consoles is rarely the bottleneck.

So the question should be limited to how I think ARM11@266MHz compares to MIPS32@333MHz, and that depends very heavily on the memory hierarchy. In particular, the size and associativity of L1 cache, the presence of L2 cache, and the relative speed of the bus/main RAM. In terms of internal processing throughput the two are probably pretty similar, with AFAIK ARM11 having better branch performance (when predicted) and Allegrex having lower load-use penalty.

Also you shouldn't assume that their isn't a low clocked ARM9 or something similar in their as well, there's no reason to believe that IGN have all the details. When they got similar details about Wii they didn't find out about the little details (like Starlet ect).

It's possible. It might help on power consumption when in DS mode.

I would go with a triple core ARM11 @ 450MHz (32KB instruction+32KB data L1 cache, 256 KB L2 cache/core), no GPU, MoSys 80MB 1T-SRAM, and bigger game cards.

I think you greatly overestimate the ability of software rendering. That configuration would struggle to even emulate DS graphics, which is a requirement for 3DS. You wouldn't be able to deliver anything close to what we've seen so far.

[darkblu]

I would go with a triple core ARM11 @ 450MHz (32KB instruction+32KB data L1 cache, 256 KB L2 cache/core), no GPU, MoSys 80MB 1T-SRAM, and bigger game cards.
Sarcasm? I'm really not able to tell here.

I mean, something that would underperform (most generously put) in the graphics department, would very likely draw more power, and would cost an arm and a leg (80MB MoSys, ahoy) - how would that be a viable alternative to the rumored specs?

[Teasy]

Exophase

I didn't know PSP's GPU had hardware T&L, I've never seen that mentioned anywhere (admittedly I've never been very interested in PSP). I thought all T&L was done using the VFPU and main CPU.

[Exophase]

Yeah.. four lights and world + projection matrix transforms (also texture matrix). FP24 format.

[DeadlyNinja]

I would go with a triple core ARM11 @ 450MHz (32KB instruction+32KB data L1 cache, 256 KB L2 cache/core), no GPU, MoSys 80MB 1T-SRAM, and bigger game cards.

No GPU? Why?

[MfA]

The DS' worldwide success is all about casual gaming.
Bull shit.

[Entropy]

I may be off on my architecture versions, but can't you run single ARM11 cores >500MHz easily? What sense does it make to instead take two at half the clock speed? It's twice the silicon at maybe, possibly, almost the same performance, if you run MP-optimized software.

edit: yep, ARM11 is supposed to do "from 350 MHz in small area designs up to 1 GHz in speed optimized designs in 45 and 65 nm" (http://www.arm.com/products/processors/classic/arm11/index.php). Or with a little love and tweaking, 750MHz at 90nm (http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4135639/ARM11-CPU-and-physical-IP-combo-delivers-750-MHz-at-90-nm).

Well to me the implication is rather obvious - the choice of clocks was made based on desired power draw. It would seem likely that they would have no problem clocking their silicon higher, and higher clocks in this range would come for free. For free other than power.

Of course, Nintendo have the power draw data for the device in its entirety. It wouldn't make sense to be overly conservative on silicon clocks if it meant, for instance, that the display consumed 85% of the total power. If it were so, increasing clocks by 50% would still have had an acceptable impact on the overall power draw. I think it is safe to assume that Nintendo has chosen clocks to achieve a reasonably balanced device in terms of power draw. Which, in turn, in this case implies that the overall power draw of the device is quite low, and presumably that battery life will be quite good. Which, for a mobile device, is incredibly important.

To me, this line of reasoning makes a whole lot more sense than assuming that Nintendo engineers don't know what they're doing.

[I.S.T.]

Sarcasm? I'm really not able to tell here.

I mean, something that would underperform (most generously put) in the graphics department, would very likely draw more power, and would cost an arm and a leg (80MB MoSys, ahoy) - how would that be a viable alternative to the rumored specs?

Go through his posting history. You'll see the man is incapable of sarcasm.

[I.S.T.]

I would go with a triple core ARM11 @ 450MHz (32KB instruction+32KB data L1 cache, 256 KB L2 cache/core), no GPU, MoSys 80MB 1T-SRAM, and bigger game cards.

You DO realize the DS has a GPU, right? Why would you go from a design with a GPU to one without?

[sfried]

The DS' worldwide success is all about casual gaming.Etrian Odyssey, SMT, Contra 4, and Dementium beg to differ.
bigger game cards.
You do realize 2GB max is just a starting point, just like 256MB used to be the max for DS until the 512MB ones came out?

[Simon F]

The advantage is power: the power consumption grows more than linearly with the frequency;
I thought any > linear power increase is not strictly due to the frequency increase, but due to using a higher voltage to attain the higher frequencies.

[Secessionist]

I think you greatly overestimate the ability of software rendering. That configuration would struggle to even emulate DS graphics, which is a requirement for 3DS. You wouldn't be able to deliver anything close to what we've seen so far.
I thought the DS used an ARM7 and 9 for graphics? It had a GPU?

I was also thinking mostly about 2d performance, so that may explain some of the stupidity in my post.

[Secessionist]

You DO realize the DS has a GPU, right? Why would you go from a design with a GPU to one without?
I didn't. Sorry about that.

[Entropy]

I thought any > linear power increase is not strictly due to the frequency increase, but due to using a higher voltage to attain the higher frequencies.

This is correct. It is difficult to tell in what region we are from the posted numbers though - it will depend on the specific process technology as well as implementation details. Greater than linear increases are effectively the norm though. Today, desktop silicon seem to be at a point where roughly power=O(f^3). A chip such as this at the rumoured frequencies should luckily be way below that level. Power will be O(f)<true scaling<O(f^3) without knowing more about this chip than I'm likely ever to. I'd guess in the lower part of that scale, but even something as vague as that is going into speculation.

[brain_stew]

Isn't 4MB of vram and 64MB of ram a bit on the low side?

Its more than any previous generation home console and the 3DS also uses a much faster storage medium, so no it seems more than enough to deliver "Xbox+" level visuals which seems to be Nintendo's general aim for the system. This isn't a general computing device with a multitasking OS and slow internal storage like a smartphone is. Its much more RAM than any iOS game (which isn't ES 2.0 exclusive, i.e 95%+ of them, then) game has access to.


I would go with a triple core ARM11 @ 450MHz (32KB instruction+32KB data L1 cache, 256 KB L2 cache/core), no GPU, MoSys 80MB 1T-SRAM, and bigger game cards.

You really think a setup like that is going to be able to deliver something like RE: Revelations that blows away anything produced last generation or on modern smartphones while still lasting for ~10 hours on a small ~800mah battery!?


I think a lot of posters here really can't see the woods for the trees. Dual ARM11s doesn't strike me as the cheapest choice for the CPU and the chips Nintendo are using are clearly capable of much higher clocks but if dual 266mhz ARM11 can deliver similar or better performance than a single ARM11 clocked @ 450mhz+ while consuming less power and possibly aid in BC then it seems like a pretty smart design decision to me.

This thing has to last 10 hours in high end 3D games on a tiny ~800mah battery while also powering dual screens, that's not as trivial as some are making out, far from it. Surely the fact that your iPhone can't even manage 3 hours of battery life in a 3D game while only powering a single screen should tell you that much!? The CPUs will be clocked as highly as they can be while remaining within the desired power budget, Nintendo don't just artifically gimp their hardware for no good reason, they know better than anyone what makes a decent portable gaming device and battery life ranks right at the top of the list, fancy paper specs and high clockspeeds don't even come into it.

At the end of the day theoretical capabilities matter very little, what's important is how good the games look and is there really anyone that is disapointed with what Capcom is managing to pull off in their Resident Evil demo or the fact that in just a few short months Team Ninja have got an iteration of DOA that looks better than DOA3 up and running? The Iphone may have it beat on paper but outside of Epic Citadel I've seen absolutely nothing on that platform that can remotely compete with what even mediocre 3DS developers have cooked up in just a few months with the hardware. Heck, even Epic Citadel isn't packing nearly as much technology as RE: Revelations is, there's no character models in Epic's demo, no dynamic shadow maps, no depth of field, no object based motion blur, no self shadowing and its probably not rendering in HDR either and yet the 3DS iteration of MT Framework can do all of that and more with similar scene complexity and particle/alpha effects. Oh, and what's more, 3DS titles will manage to run for more than 3x as long on a smaller battery, how is that not an impressive piece of engineering?

Nintendo have designed a dedicated portable gaming device that must be able to turn a profit at less than $200 from launch, not a general computing device running a multitasking OS like an $800 smartphone. Its a completely different market with completely different priorities and restraints, so ofcourse the hardware looks completely different, an off the shelf smartphone SOC would have been a horrible fit.

[Exophase]

It doesn't HAVE to be using an 800mAh battery, it could be at least a little bigger. The one in DS Lite was 1000mAh and battery density has improved slightly since then. DSi did decrease it, but they probably decreased power consumption with a process bump (similar to PSP-2000)

I also don't think DS really lasted 10 hours typically, at least not with the backlight set to a normal level.

I think if power consumption is the number one concern then a better CPU could possibly improve it, not worsen it... I don't have actual numbers in front of me but my gut feeling tells me that a Cortex-A9 has better perf/Watt than an ARM11; I know that the Watt/MHz numbers are lower but that's 65nm vs 45nm; still, even if the consumption is much lower between the nodes, the perf/MHz is much better on Cortex-A9. And Nintendo would win a lot more recognition with it.

I also think having L2 cache could improve consumption; the cache itself uses a good amount of power, but it cuts away cycles spent where the CPU is doing nothing waiting on main memory, and it likely decreases consumption for RAM as well. Not that I'm saying Nintendo won't use L2, but I doubt it.

The impressive footage we've seen thus far is really all a credit to the GPU design and has little to do with the CPU choice. The CPU limitations will probably be more apparent in more subtle ways that are hard to see in videos, especially when most of them are with little going on outside of scripted content.

Seems to me that the best solution would have been a sort of "turbo" arrangement where developers have access to higher clocks if they put one of the cores to sleep. That way devs who aren't making good use of threading won't get hit as hard. But I'm still betting on Nintendo running their own code on one of the cores.

Also, $800 smart phone, seriously? Instead compare to iPod Touch which is $229 and still makes a profit, probably a bigger one than any Nintendo handheld would because Apple goes for huge margins and doesn't make as much in software sales (although they get a big cut from the App Store, Nintendo probably still makes a lot more from its tens of millions of first party sales and multitudes of licensing fees from third parties)

[Lazy8s]

The extra 256 MB of RAM not included in the new iPod touch (and any extra battery capacity it lacks compared to iPhone 4) adds marginally to the bill of materials, so the price of the processing-related hardware that it takes to render iPhone 4's Epic Citadel was not outside of the budget of a dedicated gaming portable like the 3DS.

Epic lists shader tech used in Epic Citadel and Unreal Engine 3 for iOS at a page on their website, so some notion that the demo is not computationally intensive and its looks are mostly attributable to pre-baked texture work (as if many high quality texture layers were not extremely expensive on a hardware level anyway) is misguided.

[Grall]

It had a GPU?
Indeed it has! :) ...And it is one described by developers as "bizarre" in the way it is programmed - perhaps because it may have been cooked up in-house by Nintendo R&D, and not being experienced in 3D graphics hardware design... *shrug* I dunno.

Anyway, it's there, and decently fast for what it does too by accounts. It only does point sample texture filtering though (but at least seems to offer perspective correction), which may explain why you thought the DS doesn't have a GPU. All other consumer-level 3D accelerators have offered at least bilinear filtering, so it may be surprising to some when the DS did not.

[Lazy8s]

Designing even a relatively basic GPU core like the DS's would be outside the expertise of Nintendo's hardware engineers, so they definitely brought in somebody's work.

Based on DS's rendering algorithm and the recently sparked possibilty that Stellar Semiconductor was not completely devoured by Broadcom for all these years, the DS might've gotten it's GPU from them -- yes, it's quite a stretch.

[brain_stew]

I think if power consumption is the number one concern then a better CPU could possibly improve it, not worsen it... I don't have actual numbers in front of me but my gut feeling tells me that a Cortex-A9 has better perf/Watt than an ARM11; I know that the Watt/MHz numbers are lower but that's 65nm vs 45nm; still, even if the consumption is much lower between the nodes, the perf/MHz is much better on Cortex-A9. And Nintendo would win a lot more recognition with it.



Is a CortexA9 design really realistic for a device that aims to ship ~5 million units that costs signfiicantly <$200 to build by year end? We still haven't seen a smartphone ship with a CortexA9 core yet and they ship in much lower numbers than the 3DS will and at much higher prices to boot. If the 3DS was a mid/late 2011 product, then it would be a none issue but its going to be hitting store shelves in one or more regions in just a couple of months.

My battery life figures were obviously ballpark estimates but they're inline with previous Nintendo hardware and Nintendo's rhetoric on the subject. I'd be incredibly surprised if it has more than a 1000mah battery and can't last a good 7/8 hours at reasonable brightness, and anyway you shake it, that's well beyond the battery performance of any smartphone running a high end 3D game and not something which can be so easily discounted when looking at 3DS specifications.



Epic lists shader tech used in Epic Citadel and Unreal Engine 3 for iOS at a page on their website, so some notion that the demo is not computationally intensive and its looks are mostly attributable to pre-baked texture work (as if many high quality texture layers were not extremely expensive on a hardware level anyway) is misguided.

I've read all that and I've also read Capcom's article on the 3DS iteration of MT Framwork and despite the fact that Epic Citadel is a very impressive demo (I've never claimed otherwise) it definitely doesn't seem to be doing nearly as much in terms of shaders/lighting/shadows as Capcom's demo is. The quality of the art, lightmap and texture work are absolutely a huge part of what makes Citadel look so impressive imo, that's not to say it isn't using some nice shader effects as well, just not as many as high end 3DS titles are.

[Lazy8s]

Processing cores like the A9 or an SGX take up square millimeters of space and cost literally just a few bucks in silicon, whether they're brand new or not. Their real cost to a mobile system is, of course, their power consumption currently.

[brain_stew]

Processing cores like the A9 or an SGX take up square millimeters of space and cost literally just a few bucks in silicon, whether they're brand new or not. Their true cost to a mobile system currently is, of course, their power consumption.


I realise that but the A9 is still a relatively new CPU design and there's obviously good reasons why we still don't have any shipping smartphones using it yet. If phone manufacturers that refresh every year and often compete on specifications are unable to ship a few 100k units of A9 based hardware then surely its not a stretch to expect that Nintendo would have trouble getting ~5 million units using the same silicon into the marketby year end?

Does the A9 not cost more to license compared to an ARM11 at least? I'm genuinely ignorant about that and perhaps wrongly assumed that licensing a more modern ARM core was more expensive even if the cost of the extra silicon was completely negligible.

[Lazy8s]

The licensing fee may be higher and the royalty rate per unit definitely would be, yet the point about A9 availability within the time frame of a 3DS launch definitely would've been the big obstacle.

[Exophase]

Designing even a relatively basic GPU core like the DS's would be outside the expertise of Nintendo's hardware engineers, so they definitely brought in somebody's work.

Based on DS's rendering algorithm and the recently sparked possibilty that Stellar Semiconductor was not completely devoured by Broadcom for all these years, the DS might've gotten it's GPU from them -- yes, it's quite a stretch.

I think the GPU was done by ARM, same as GBA's 2D renderer. Not sure where I saw the reference to this but I know I saw it somewhere.

A9 costs more but it's a pretty reasonable tradeoff. Chances are most of what I said about A8 would apply too, for what it's worth, A9 would just apply moreso.

As far as availability goes, I don't think volume really makes that much of a difference. The catching point is that most of the leading edge cell phone manufacturers have been relying on third party SoCs which adds an extra layer of time for production. Even Samsung, who is selling phones with their first party SoC, still are making said SoC available to the public and only offered phones after that point. What I'm getting at is that it's a different scenario when Nintendo has a chip manufactured specifically for them, and have much more specific and less complex needs than what a typical cell phone SoC these days provides.

It's pretty widely believed that Nintendo switched to DMP quite late in the game (as little as less than a year ago), so it's not as if they can't accommodate technology that's effectively new to them, without a long amount of transition time.

[darkblu]

Epic lists shader tech used in Epic Citadel and Unreal Engine 3 for iOS at a page on their website, so some notion that the demo is not computationally intensive and its looks are mostly attributable to pre-baked texture work (as if many high quality texture layers were not extremely expensive on a hardware level anyway) is misguided.
I spent more than a few moments closely observing the demo on an iPad - there it has *zero* dynamic per-pixel lighting. It's so apparent at places it's not even funny (diffuse highlights and shadows in disagreement with light sources, non-existent or blatantly pre-baked specular components, etc). It does seem to have a (rather shallow) parallax mapping effect on a portion of the surfaces though. Perhaps the demo does do everything the brochure claims on the iPhone4 (higher relative fillrate, etc). On the iPad though it's essentially a static world with two textures (albedo and GI map), with a subtle bloom filter as a post-effect.

[ToTTenTranz]

The vector processor in the BCM2727 isn't directly available to 3rd party developers, so how is that relevant?
I never heard that.. are you sure? That's truly a big waste of potential.
I'd say the most impressive performance features of the N8 (like editing 12MPix photos in realtime very fast) are due to those vector processors.


It's perfectly possible that there is dedicated hardware for audio, and even if there isn't you seem to be exaggerating the processing cost involved (it's just 20MHz per MP3 and you can do it in advance for the usual small sound effects).
Of course that simply playing some sound files won't tax even a low-end CPU. But if a developer would like to do 3D positional audio with ~32 voices of ~128kbps MP3 quality and with some reverb effects to the boot... well, he won't.
Not unless there's some dedicated audio dsp hardware, like you said.



And how about not removing the context of the quote? You said 'as soon as 3D displays become standard'. A single model is as far from standard as can be - while I agree OS support will probably come in less than 2 years, the number of features supported by various OSes that never became mainstream is a staggering number.
Sorry, didn't mean to. My point was just to show that there's already a real product in the market using a parallax barrier screen and that's a huge step from showing early prototypes in a tech conference.




There is a difference between casual gaming and casual games. The DS is all about what many would call casual games, but people who own one used them a lot more than cellphone gaming on average, so it's not casual gaming per-se. That's presumably the distinction MfA wanted to point out.
Bull shit.
Etrian Odyssey, SMT, Contra 4, and Dementium beg to differ.

The commercial success of some DS titles doesn't really belong to the discussion. I was talking about platform's success.
Check out the list of best-selling games for the DS:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_Nintendo_DS_video_games

Now take away all the imaginative low-budget, depth-less and simple games (all the brain-trainings, pet, puzzles and more). What would you get, in terms of console sales and market relevance? A portable Gamecube..

What I'm saying is that I don't think Nintendo will be able pull a stunt like that in 2011->2015.
In 2005 there was no unified gaming platform in cellphones (except for ngage, which was terribly executed). Now there iOS, Android and even Symbian^3+Qt.
Developing low cost and simple games to sell them in a cellphone platform is now very accessible for both big and indie developers.
Why would I carry a DS to play simple and fast games if I can do the exact same thing with a device that I have to carry with me all the time?

The only selling points that a 3DS could offer above smartphones with a 3D screen is more battery life, better controls and AAA games.
With such low-end computing capabilities, AAA games will be limited to weak AIs and scripted events. That could become very troublesome for the 3DS, especially if faced against a 3D PSP2 with much higher performance.


The licensing fee may be higher and the royalty rate per unit definitely would be, yet the point about A9 availability within the time frame of a 3DS launch definitely would've been the big obstacle.
I wouldn't even go to A9s, even a single 600-720MHz Cortex A8 would make a big difference from 2*266MHz ARM11.

And there would definitely be no problem in availability for getting A8s ready for the 3DS launch.

[brain_stew]

The licensing fee may be higher and the royalty rate per unit definitely would be, yet the point about A9 availability within the time frame of a 3DS launch definitely would've been the big obstacle.

In that case even if the difference is only a few $ then it can hardly go down as an insignificant cost. Even conservative estimates would put the 3DSes eventual LTD sales in the 100 million region, so a $3/$4 increase could easily end up costing Nintendo a cool half a billion $ when all is said and done. That's just not a cost you can easily write off unless you can genuinely justify a tangible advantage/benefit and I'm unsure Nintendo can.

[brain_stew]

Of course that simply playing some sound files won't tax even a low-end CPU. But if a developer would like to do 3D positional audio with ~32 voices of ~128kbps MP3 quality and with some reverb effects to the boot... well, he won't.
Not unless there's some dedicated audio dsp hardware, like you said.




That's cool and all but what 3DS title is really going to need those audio characteristics? Most gamers will be hearing the audio through the awfully tinny internal speakers or some cheap $5 stereo earphones, this isn't a device that's going to be hooked into a $5000+ home theatre. Perfect 3D positional audio seems a complete waste given that.

I never had or heard any complaints about the quality of ingame audio on the NDS and at the very least its going to be a significant step above that. The more audio a developer packs in, the more expensive the game cards they have to use will be as well (and 2GB is the current maximum even if they're willing to swallow significant fixed costs), so it has much bigger tradeoffs besides processing costs. It just seems like a case of seriously misplaced priorities to me. This isn't something that is all that crucial for the target market, so it makes perfect sense to compromise in this area, especially if it affords better Graphics hardware and increased battery life.

Again, designing low cost dedicated portable gaming hardware is all about making tradeoffs and compromises, its simply impossible to offer something that is all things to all men without compromising on the things that are utterly crucial to success (like a small BOM, small formfactor and excellent battery life).


I

I wouldn't even go to A9s, even a single 600-720MHz Cortex A8 would make a big difference from 2*266MHz ARM11. .

Does a 720mhz A8 really have the same (or lower) power draw than dual 266mhz ARM11s? I'm somewhat doubtful and if it doesn't then it was never an option open to Nintendo. What about BC as well? Its quite possible that this dual ARM11 setup has been chosen as its allowed Nintendo to offer full BC without legacy hardware and if that is the case would a single A8 be able to offer this feature?

All of these potential alternatives have to be discussed under those qualifiers, truth is we'll probably never know whether Nintendo got it right but I think its naive to doubt that their engineers don't have some pretty solid justifications for going with the hardware they did. They've designed some utterly fantastic systems over the years, the GCN and NDS were both perfect examples of supremely efficient designs for their target market.


I
Sorry, didn't mean to. My point was just to show that there's already a real product in the market using a parallax barrier screen and that's a huge step from showing early prototypes in a tech conference.
.

Not exactly, a S3D display is worthless without any worhtwile content that takes advantage of it, and that's one area where Nintendo are going to be several years ahead of anyone else. The device you linked doesn't even have a S3D camera, I honestly don't understand the practical use for the S3D on that particular device, its nothing more than a silly marketing gimmick without the content to back it up.

At launch the 3DS will have more S3D content than any other device on the market. It packs a stereo3D camera (a first for an affordable consumer device), will ahve dozens of S3D games available and even several S3D movies.

An Android or iOS device may be able to offer a S3D screen within the next 12 months but how long is it going to be before it has anything like the amount of S3D content that the 3DS will have at launch? I'd say 3 years would be a rather ambitious estimate.


I


The commercial success of some DS titles doesn't really belong to the discussion. I was talking about platform's success.
Check out the list of best-selling games for the DS:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_Nintendo_DS_video_games

Now take away all the imaginative low-budget, depth-less and simple games (all the brain-trainings, pet, puzzles and more). What would you get, in terms of console sales and market relevance? A portable Gamecube..
.

This can't be serious, surely? The NDS has one of the most fantastic lineups in history, and has an immense amount of excellent content for just about every demographic, only the PS2 could ever really hope to compare. The third party "core" output from Japan is simply fantastic, and lightyears above any modern home console in terms of worthwile Japanese support. Heck, the JRPG genre is pretty much exclusive to the NDS these days (although the PSP is getting some decent games in this area recently, admittedly), what worthwile JRPGs did the GCN have!? :lol:

We're talking about the most successful gaming device in history here, I didn't see any mainline Dragon Quest games launching exclusively on the GCN.




The only selling points that a 3DS could offer above smartphones with a 3D screen is more battery life, better controls and AAA games.
.

Its as if you're suggesting these are meaningless side benefits, when in reality, time and again these have been proven to be the 3 of the most important, if not the most important, facets of what goes into making a successful portable gaming device. We've been here before with both the GB and NDS, uncompetitive graphics technology didn't seem to do the success of those two systems any harm at all.

This is forgetting the fact that the graphics in 3DS games compare much more favorably to their contemporaries than the graphics in GB and NDS games ever did. Heck, the single most impressive demonstration of mobile graphics technology atm is on the 3DS (RE:R) and even the ugly 3DS games are still lightyears ahead of your average iOS game which struggles to manage a stable 30fps with barely better than PS1 ear 3D. Epic Citadel is not the norm, its the exception and even then there's nothing in that demo outside of texture and rendering resolution that isn't being demonstrated in any number of 3DS titles.

[Lazy8s]

The difference is measured in dimes, not dollars, between the royalty on a new and/or lower volume IP core and an old and/or high volume one. Indeed, the entire royalty per unit for a single core is under a buck.

[Exophase]

Does a 720mhz A8 really have the same (or lower) power draw than dual 266mhz ARM11s? I'm somewhat doubtful and if it doesn't then it was never an option open to Nintendo.

Probably not - a better argument would be a dual Cortex-A8 at 266MHz not using more power than dual 266MHz ARM11s but offering superior performance. ARM doesn't actually offer dual Cortex-A8s and does offer MPCore ARM11s, but that didn't stop Nintendo from rolling out an ARM9 + ARM7 for DS. When you aren't sharing L2 there isn't that much to it, and I don't even expect the 3DS CPUs to be MPCore, just two ARM11s and without L2 cache. We'll see if I'm proven wrong; this is pretty bold speculation based more on gut feeling than anything, so don't hold me to it too much.

What about BC as well? Its quite possible that this dual ARM11 setup has been chosen as its allowed Nintendo to offer full BC without legacy hardware and if that is the case would a single A8 be able to offer this feature?

I don't see a 266MHz ARM11 being better at backwards compatibility for a 67MHz ARM9 than a Cortex-A8. All three have different timing characteristics and are for the most part ISA backwards compatible. I expected Nintendo to include a 67MHz ARM9 verbatim, which they still might be doing; one that's perhaps inaccessible during 3DS operation. That wouldn't take up that much die space.

All of these potential alternatives have to be discussed under those qualifiers, truth is we'll probably never know whether Nintendo got it right but I think its naive to doubt that their engineers don't have some pretty solid justifications for going with the hardware they did. They've designed some utterly fantastic systems over the years, the GCN and NDS were both perfect examples of supremely efficient designs for their target market.

I'm not going with the ends justifying the means on this one. Just because Nintendo has reigned supreme on gaming handhelds since their inception it doesn't justify every decision they've made. Okay, for Nintendo's short term bottom line it does, but as far as the userbase is concerned it's in our better interests for companies to be pushing technology forward and not just getting away with what they can get away with.

Cost and power consumption are good justifications for shooting lower on mobile devices, but IMO Nintendo shoots too low, because they can. And while other devices are pushing the technology forward but don't have the software to match Nintendo continues to hold things back. Gameboy Color is a perfect example of Nintendo doing the absolute bare minimum to generate fresh revenue. Things have gotten better since then. Have they gotten "good enough"? That much is debatable.

At launch the 3DS will have more S3D content than any other device on the market. It packs a stereo3D camera (a first for an affordable consumer device), will ahve dozens of S3D games available and even several S3D movies.

Yep, Nintendo has something here and it's pretty exciting.

Let's hope their CPU decisions don't end up crippling them.

An Android or iOS device may be able to offer a S3D screen within the next 12 months but how long is it going to be before it has anything like the amount of S3D content that the 3DS will have at launch? I'd say 3 years would be a rather ambitious estimate.

There won't be much in the way of games, but I think S3D is going to hit in a much bigger way in terms of non-interactive content (movies) and that's going to be relevant on any device that can run it. And the Android phones will probably be able to run more thanks to having better hardware. Let's hope Nintendo is at least equipping this thing with some video decoders. Oh, and video encoders would be nice, for recording 3D movies.

The difference is measured in dimes, not dollars, between the royalty on a new and/or lower volume IP core and an old and/or high volume one. Indeed, the entire royalty per unit for a single core is under a buck.

Maybe Nintendo could sell the device for $199.99 instead of $199 ;)

[Rolf N]

NIntendo has a long history of squeezing every penny, especially in their handhelds. Their feature bullet lists always look aggressive, but everything they do include has been and is going to be offensively cheap. Microphone in the DS anyone? When I think about what they passed as audio DACs in the GBA I still want to punch the whole lot in their faces. Multiple times. Or how they saved literally half a penny per unit by removing S-Video capability from EU Wiis.

It's not surprising at all that they go cheap on the CPUs. They always have done so.

What's surprising to me (still) is that two CPU cores come out cheaper than one CPU core, especially at such low clock speeds. Maybe it really is about security, running one of them locked down for system libraries. Piracy has to be a big concern for them right now.

[Teasy]

NIntendo has a long history of squeezing every penny, especially in their handhelds. Their feature bullet lists always look aggressive, but everything they do include has been and is going to be offensively cheap. Microphone in the DS anyone? When I think about what they passed as audio DACs in the GBA I still want to punch the whole lot in their faces. Multiple times. Or how they saved literally half a penny per unit by removing S-Video capability from EU Wiis.

It's not surprising at all that they go cheap on the CPUs. They always have done so.

What's surprising to me (still) is that two CPU cores come out cheaper than one CPU core, especially at such low clock speeds. Maybe it really is about security, running one of them locked down for system libraries. Piracy has to be a big concern for them right now.

Two ARM11's at 266Mhz won't be cheaper then one ARM11 at 530Mhz would have been (these two CPU's are probably meant to run at 400Mhz + anyway), they'll be more expensive, however they'll use less power. I also don't think they'll use only one for gaming and the other for the system. I think we'll probably find out that there's a lower clocked ARM9 in their for those tasks,

[DeadlyNinja]

With such low-end computing capabilities, AAA games will be limited to weak AIs and scripted events. That could become very troublesome for the 3DS, especially if faced against a 3D PSP2 with much higher performance.

I know right. Just look at how badly the DS got beaten the the technologically superior PSP. Before that, the GBA got its ass kicked by N-Gauge and Gizmondo. Back in the GBC days, they got beaten by the Neo Geo Pocket and Wonder Swan because of their more powerful processor and more colors. Let's not forget the original Gameboy. Man, that black and white piece of crap got murdered by the Game Gear. I think the Game Gear out sold it 10000 to 1. Nintendo just doesn't learn. Their only success in the portable sector was the Virtual Boy due to the lack of competition. I'll bet when the superior specs of the PSP2 comes out, everyone will abandon the 3DS just like they did with the DS.

Cost and power consumption are good justifications for shooting lower on mobile devices, but IMO Nintendo shoots too low, because they can. And while other devices are pushing the technology forward but don't have the software to match Nintendo continues to hold things back. Gameboy Color is a perfect example of Nintendo doing the absolute bare minimum to generate fresh revenue. Things have gotten better since then. Have they gotten "good enough"? That much is debatable.

Shooting for better tech and shorter battery life defeats the whole purpose of a portable. I was constantly worried the 3DS's battery life would be horrible after seeing how advanced the graphics were, because I've been very disappointed in the progress being made for portable battery life for 3D gaming.

[darkblu]

I also don't think DS really lasted 10 hours typically, at least not with the backlight set to a normal level.

According to Nintendo's DSL facts sheet:


Brightness Approximated Continuous Play
1st level 15-19 hours
2nd level 10-15 hours
3rd level 7-11 hours
4th level 5-8 hours


Also, $800 smart phone, seriously? Instead compare to iPod Touch which is $229 and still makes a profit, probably a bigger one than any Nintendo handheld would because Apple goes for huge margins and doesn't make as much in software sales (although they get a big cut from the App Store, Nintendo probably still makes a lot more from its tens of millions of first party sales and multitudes of licensing fees from third parties)
What does the iPod touch give in terms of batter life, though? Until we answer that question, it's still apples to oranges. I can give an answer to a similar question re iPod Touch 1st gen, and it's not favorable, at all.

[Teasy]

The only selling points that a 3DS could offer above smartphones with a 3D screen is more battery life, better controls and AAA games.
With such low-end computing capabilities, AAA games will be limited to weak AIs and scripted events. That could become very troublesome for the 3DS, especially if faced against a 3D PSP2 with much higher performance.

The physics and AI should be no worse then GameCube was capable of. Can't believe that first sentence by the way, only?, you've just listed everything that makes or breaks a handheld games system!

[Entropy]

Okay, for Nintendo's short term bottom line it does, but as far as the userbase is concerned it's in our better interests for companies to be pushing technology forward and not just getting away with what they can get away with.

There is an interesting discussion hiding in the above statement. Has it really been in the best interest of PC gamers that nVidia and ATI pushed technology in such a way that power draw had to be increased enormously from the 25W limit of AGP? Has it really been in the best interest of developers to have anything but the most technologically advanced games get panned for non-cutting edge graphics, at the same time as shooting higher means alienating major parts of the installed base? Has the impression that continuos upgrades is necessary to be able to play new games really helped PC gaming?

You make an absolute statement about how it is in our best interests that companies push technology forward. I have a feeling that you are pushing a personal ideology a bit too far.

Cost and power consumption are good justifications for shooting lower on mobile devices, but IMO Nintendo shoots too low, because they can. And while other devices are pushing the technology forward but don't have the software to match Nintendo continues to hold things back. Gameboy Color is a perfect example of Nintendo doing the absolute bare minimum to generate fresh revenue. Things have gotten better since then. Have they gotten "good enough"? That much is debatable.

At least you recognize that there is a tradeoff. Many PC oriented people (and sites) seem to miss the importance of power draw and how it influences usage patterns and device design. You argue as if Nintendo represented a monopoly, but Nintendo doesn't operate in a vacuum. They compete for consumer mindshare and money with a lot of players, cell phones most notably, but it really is wider than that. Also, I don't think lack of Nintendo titles is much of a problem for other platforms. Lack of Mario didn't stop the PS2 one whit, nor does lack of Zelda mean much for Apples iOS devices.
Simply put - if Nintendo do not offer consumer value, they'll fail in the marketplace. But they don't measure "value offered" with the singlemindedness of the most diehard technology enthusiasts on these message boards. Nor do their customers obviously. Small surprise there. What's on offer, and at what price-point? Nintendo, to the best of their ability, tries to hit the spot.

I find it ironic to see old PC figures of merit back from the desktop days being paraded once again by tech sites. MHz? That's so 1998. :)

[Exophase]

Shooting for better tech and shorter battery life defeats the whole purpose of a portable. I was constantly worried the 3DS's battery life would be horrible after seeing how advanced the graphics were, because I've been very disappointed in the progress being made for portable battery life for 3D gaming.

"Better tech" and "shorter battery life" don't always go hand in hand. For instance, I don't believe Nintendo has been known to use latest process nodes. Of course, taking your comment to the logical extreme would mean we should still be using Gameboys (or worse), so obviously there's a favorable middle ground where battery life is "good enough." GBC was much weaker than that point, IMO.

According to Nintendo's DSL facts sheet:

Sorry, I don't really trust first party figures. Or should we go with the 10 hours of video playback figure for iPhone 3GS too?

What does the iPod touch give in terms of batter life, though? Until we answer that question, it's still apples to oranges. I can give an answer to a similar question re iPod Touch 1st gen, and it's not favorable, at all.

He was using price, don't eschew it with a power argument. Let's not compare it to an iPod Touch 1st Gen, quite old hardware - instead how about an iPod Touch 4th Gen, only clocked down immensely to match 3DS's capabilities.

Which brings me to..

There is an interesting discussion hiding in the above statement. Has it really been in the best interest of PC gamers that nVidia and ATI pushed technology in such a way that power draw had to be increased enormously from the 25W limit of AGP? Has it really been in the best interest of developers to have anything but the most technologically advanced games get panned for non-cutting edge graphics, at the same time as shooting higher means alienating major parts of the installed base? Has the impression that continuos upgrades is necessary to be able to play new games really helped PC gaming?

You make an absolute statement about how it is in our best interests that companies push technology forward. I have a feeling that you are pushing a personal ideology a bit too far.

This isn't about "pushing power envelope forward." Let's put it another way, do you not consider Intel's work on Core 2/Nehalem/etc to be a technological advancement over Pentium 4, despite consuming less power? Nintendo isn't just using low power tech, they're using old tech, probably cheap tech. I'm not at all convinced that they're maximizing perf/Watt on the CPU this way.

Yes, it's in our best interests that companies push technology forward, that's pretty much tautological; however not for a distorted view of "forward" that you have presented.

[darkblu]

Sorry, I don't really trust first party figures. Or should we go with the 10 hours of video playback figure for iPhone 3GS too?
Sorry. Would you have preferred a 'Yes, DS can last for 10h of normal use, on non-dimmest screen setting?', which practically any DS owner could tell you?

He was using price, don't eschew it with a power argument. Let's not compare it to an iPod Touch 1st Gen, quite old hardware - instead how about an iPod Touch 4th Gen, only clocked down immensely to match 3DS's capabilities.
Power comes at a price. The iPods Touch have always had smaller, cheaper batteries. You don't think the traditional price difference between the iPhones and the iPods Touch has been solely form the baseband modem, do you?

Also, I'll pretend I did not read the "match 3DS capabilities when clocked down immensely" part, particularly coming from you. Unless of course you have performance figures for the CPUs & GPUs of the devices involved.

I brought up iPod Touch 1st gen because:

a. We actually have charged-to-depletion battery data for it from a synthetic graphics workload, and until an A4 owner cares to provide us with the results from a similar test, I have no other sound figures to rely upon (running a test on the iPad myself would make for a very poor comparison - there the batteries and screen power parameters are totally different).

b. iPod Touch 1st gen is very close features and performance-wise to 2nd gen, which has been Apple's =<$200 device for the past year - 2nd Gen 8GB was sold in the store brand new for $180 up until very recently. Talking about Apple's 'huge margins' is hardly serious - where are the A4-competing Droids at half the price? Or the cheap-yet-high-end Android tables that prove your point? For all we know, Apple has been pricing their entry-level iDevices very competitively, and when claiming otherwise you need to show some evidence in support of your claim.

[Exophase]

Sorry. Would you have preferred a 'Yes, DS can last for 10h of normal use, on non-dimmest screen setting?', which practically any DS owner could tell you?

No, I'd prefer actual test reports, because I've heard DS owners reporting figures closer to 8 hours. I haven't sat down and measured it myself, but 10 hours seems like more than I've ever gotten (don't remember brightness though). I'm not saying 10 hours is false, I just want to see real test numbers.

Power comes at a price. The iPods Touch have always had smaller, cheaper batteries. You don't think the traditional price difference between the iPhones and the iPods Touch has been solely form the baseband modem, do you?

I don't think it's enough to make a $600 difference. On the other hand, I don't think iPhones cost $800 to begin with. You bring up an interesting point though. If battery life is more important than anything for Nintendo handhelds then why do they get the cheapest batteries they can?

Also, I'll pretend I did not read the "match 3DS capabilities when clocked down immensely" part, particularly coming from you. Unless of course you have performance figures for the CPUs & GPUs of the devices involved.

I was speaking purely regarding CPU capabilities. No, I don't have performance figures for the CPU, but ARM11 is not exactly an unknown uarch, but I guess we'll see what the memory hierarchy is like. Yes, I know that GPU is much more pivotal for this platform but that isn't the point of this thread. The point I'm trying to make is very simple, but everyone wants to argue around it: Cortex-A8 and A9 have better perf/Watt than ARM11.

By the way, I'd like to know where this notion that 2x ARM11 @ 266MHz = Gecko @ 485MHz. Even pretending you got perfecting load balancing between the two CPUs (we all know you won't, especially if they're sharing memory bandwidth, especially if they don't have L2 cache) you can't pretend that ARM11 and PowerPC 750CX have similar level of throughput/IPC, nor can you pretend that ARM11 is available with SIMD.

[Teasy]

By the way, I'd like to know where this notion that 2x ARM11 @ 266MHz = Gecko @ 485MHz. Even pretending you got perfecting load balancing between the two CPUs (we all know you won't, especially if they're sharing memory bandwidth, especially if they don't have L2 cache) you can't pretend that ARM11 and PowerPC 750CX have similar level of throughput/IPC, nor can you pretend that ARM11 is available with SIMD.

No the ARM11 x2 @ 266Mhz won't match Gecko. However Gecko had to handle quite a bit of T&L, while the ARM11's won't, that should even things out quite a bit.

[darkblu]

No, I'd prefer actual test reports, because I've heard DS owners reporting figures closer to 8 hours. I haven't sat down and measured it myself, but 10 hours seems like more than I've ever gotten (don't remember brightness though). I'm not saying 10 hours is false, I just want to see real test numbers.
Fair enough. The best I can offer you is an actual test from a DSi I ran today over the course of my business day, on a freshly-charged unit.

10:30 - Pop Island (http://dsiware.nintendolife.com/reviews/2009/12/pop_island_dsiware) DSiWare launched in demo/attraction mode (game video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKL1hnhNCAA)).
17:30 - Noiticed the power LED was red.
18:09 - Power LED went blinking, at which stage I shut down the system.

Total run time from fully-charged to 'shut-down-now!' indication - 7h 39min. Let's go see what Nintendo's fact sheet has to say about that (my DSi's brigness level bolded):


Brightness Approximated Continuous Play
1st level 9-14 hours
2nd level 8-12 hours
3rd level 6-9 hours
4th level 4-6 hours
5th level 3-4 hours


You bring up an interesting point though. If battery life is more important than anything for Nintendo handhelds then why do they get the cheapest batteries they can?
Because Nintendo's battery-times lead in front of the competition is so huge that it makes not sense for them to push even further, just for the sake of competing with themselves, I'd guess. Also, how is Nintendo's 840mAh Li-Ion battey (in the DSi) so much cheaper than PSP Go's 930 mAh (given the battery size is comparable), let alone 'the cheapest battery they can get'?

I was speaking purely regarding CPU capabilities. No, I don't have performance figures for the CPU, but ARM11 is not exactly an unknown uarch, but I guess we'll see what the memory hierarchy is like. Yes, I know that GPU is much more pivotal for this platform but that isn't the point of this thread. The point I'm trying to make is very simple, but everyone wants to argue around it: Cortex-A8 and A9 have better perf/Watt than ARM11.
Your point stands. What I don't understand is why you think that perf/Watt is Nintendo's leading decision factor for their handhelds? Why are you not factoring absolute watt too? I'd venture to guess nintendo's combined criteria scale is something along:


right consumer pricerange (by far the most important factor for such a product)
.
.
absolute power draw (determining the battery life)
perf/Watt (determining the processing power of the device, namely the best for the intended battery life)



By the way, I'd like to know where this notion that 2x ARM11 @ 266MHz = Gecko @ 485MHz. Even pretending you got perfecting load balancing between the two CPUs (we all know you won't, especially if they're sharing memory bandwidth, especially if they don't have L2 cache) you can't pretend that ARM11 and PowerPC 750CX have similar level of throughput/IPC, nor can you pretend that ARM11 is available with SIMD.
Aside from the fact I think we should take that 'ARM11' rumor with a grain of salt (people tend to call everything v6 by the 'ARM11' moniker; it could be one of Marvel's v6 hybrids just as well, which, apropos, have SIMD), I don't think anybody seriously has made any '2x ARM11 @ 266MHz = Gecko @ 485MHz' claims in the context of sheer CPU performance. Unless I missed something earlier.

[Exophase]

Fair enough. The best I can offer you is an actual test from a DSi I ran today over the course of my business day, on a freshly-charged unit.

10:30 - Pop Island (http://dsiware.nintendolife.com/reviews/2009/12/pop_island_dsiware) DSiWare launched in demo/attraction mode (game video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKL1hnhNCAA)).
17:30 - Noiticed the power LED was red.
18:09 - Power LED went blinking, at which stage I shut down the system.

Total run time from fully-charged to 'shut-down-now!' indication - 7h 39min. Let's go see what Nintendo's fact sheet has to say about that (my DSi's brigness level bolded):


Brightness Approximated Continuous Play
1st level 9-14 hours
2nd level 8-12 hours
3rd level 6-9 hours
4th level 4-6 hours
5th level 3-4 hours


The problem I have with this is that it's giving Nintendo benefit of the doubt that the screen brightness really eats away so much, this is not an exhaustive verification. It's pretty important because the figure you got is in the range of "good, not amazing", unless at the low level (and I wonder what conditions are necessary for that level). Anyway, don't you think those levels are quite a lot lower for something that only lost 18% of battery life? The ranges went down way more than that, and I fully expect DSi to be made on a smaller and therefore more energy efficient process. I doubt this is incorporating anything that uses the higher clock speeds, at least not for the high end figures. So something doesn't add up - unless Nintendo is revising their original claims.

Maybe I'll test on my DS Lite sometime...

Because Nintendo's battery-times lead in front of the competition is so huge that it makes not sense for them to push even further, just for the sake of competing with themselves, I'd guess. Also, how is Nintendo's 840mAh Li-Ion battey (in the DSi) so much cheaper than PSP Go's 930 mAh (given the battery size is comparable), let alone 'the cheapest battery they can get'?

PSP Go was just dumb in a lot of ways, everyone knows this, probably including Sony.. I hope you won't mind me avoiding a comparison.. I'd rather look at the original PSP-1000 at 1800mAh or PSP-2000 at 1200mAh. They also sell higher capacity ones, but I digress. Bear in mind that battery capacity DOES improve per unit cost, just slowly. 1500mAh is pretty standard for small form factor phones.

Anyway, I'm finding this a little uncomfortable because I feel like I'm basically fending off a circular argument that's coming from two different people at the opposite ends and I'm kind of getting crushed. You ask "why improve battery capacity if it doesn't need it", DeadlyNinja asks "why improve performance if it hurts battery life"; obviously both can be done at the expense of price. I'm not saying that Nintendo needs to extend its bottom line, but I am making the point that that's where the decisions are lying.

Your point stands. What I don't understand is why you think that perf/Watt is Nintendo's leading decision factor for their handhelds? Why are you not factoring absolute watt too?

For the performance ranges we're talking about they're the same thing. Unless the device needs to run at < 100MHz or > 1GHz (rough numbers, lots more margin than what we're talking about, don't hold me to them exactly please) it'll get better battery life out of better perf/Watt by clocking the faster architecture at the lower clock.

I'd venture to guess nintendo's combined criteria scale is something along:


right consumer pricerange (by far the most important factor for such a product)
.
.
absolute power draw (determining the battery life)
perf/Watt (determining the processing power of the device, namely the best for the intended battery life)

Yes, price is king. And as far as I'm concerned Nintendo doesn't price aggressively, not in the slightest. I give MS and Sony far more credit for that. They sell hardware at huge margins and they don't drop the price until they really have to. This is on top of their extremely successful software sales. Obviously they'll be defended as doing nothing wrong, or even praised for maximizing their profits; I'm not going to criticize them, instead I'm just going to yearn for more competition to force them into chasing lower margins. It's not that I'm cheap, I just want better hardware.

But I'm not really representative of what Nintendo wants - hardware that's good for the games they want to do - or what their market wants - said games. I'm pretty interested in what the machine can do outside of commercial games, and it's here where the weak CPU is most limiting. Fortunately, Nintendo probably has little intentions of making it very available to common folks for such purposes in the first place, leaving us to inevitably hack around on it like usual.

Aside from the fact I think we should take that 'ARM11' rumor with a grain of salt (people tend to call everything v6 by the 'ARM11' moniker; it could be one of Marvel's v6 hybrids just as well, which, apropos, have SIMD),

I've never, ever seen someone call something an ARM11 for being ARMv6. I've heard about a million people call Scorpion a Cortex-A8 though. I'm sure whoever dropped the rumor, IF credible, also knows better.

I don't think anybody seriously has made any '2x ARM11 @ 266MHz = Gecko @ 485MHz' claims in the context of sheer CPU performance. Unless I missed something earlier.

"The physics and AI should be no worse then GameCube was capable of."

I imagine you don't think physics and AI to be non-CPU problems, at least not for Gamecube or 3DS. Regarding his later response, GameCube did have fixed function T&L and I'm sure games used it. So it's pretty apples to apples.

[Aeoniss]

Yes, price is king. And as far as I'm concerned Nintendo doesn't price aggressively, not in the slightest. I give MS and Sony far more credit for that. They sell hardware at huge margins and they don't drop the price until they really have to. This is on top of their extremely successful software sales. Obviously they'll be defended as doing nothing wrong, or even praised for maximizing their profits; I'm not going to criticize them, instead I'm just going to yearn for more competition to force them into chasing lower margins. It's not that I'm cheap, I just want better hardware.


I find this quote to be amusing considering we're pretty sure what the 3DS is packing and Nintendo is charging japan 25,000 yen (298$) for it*.

I also call into question the validity of this on the ground that Nintendo also charged a pretty high price for the Wii hardware- despite it being little more than a slightly souped up GCN.

Sony and Microsoft have sold their consoles at a loss day 1 and it took them a few years to get their die size shrunk and streamline production to make the machines profitable on their own. Sony only just recently accomplished this- they had huge initial losses for the PS3.


If anything Nintendo is (now) a company that knows it can make a huge profit simply by slapping their namebrand on the device and promising Mario to appear on it. There is literally not much impressive about either of their past two products but they sure charged a fairly high rate for them all things considered.

To put this into perspective, this is 80$ more (give or take) than a 4th Gen iTouch and all that it entails.


*http://www.1up.com/news/3ds-launching-february-26-japan
http://www.product-reviews.net/2010/09/29/nintendo-3ds-official-release-date-and-price-for-japan/

[sfried]

If anything Nintendo is (now) a company that knows it can make a huge profit simply by slapping their namebrand on the device and promising Mario to appear on it. There is literally not much impressive about either of their past two products but they sure charged a fairly high rate for them all things considered.

To put this into perspective, this is 80$ more (give or take) than a 4th Gen iTouch and all that it entails.You do realize that it's the pricing for Japan, right? And in the demo reel they presented at the press conference was more than just "slapping Mario". There's already hefty amount of third party support.

[Aeoniss]

You do realize that it's the pricing for Japan, right? And in the demo reel they presented at the press conference was more than just "slapping Mario". There's already hefty amount of third party support.

People are still anticipating a 250$ price tag.

My quip about Mario was simply to say that Nintendo has realized it can basically charge very high prices and simply sell through its namebrand alone. It doesn't matter how the machine actually performs, all that matters is that Nintendo made it. Developers flocked to the 3DS because they knew this too.

Don't get me wrong! The games that are to be released on the 3DS look pretty cool to me (RE and Splinter Cell in particular) but I just cannot swallow the asking price.. I just can't get over that it will cost more than the newest iTouches.

From a hardware point of view this makes me sad is all.

[Xenus]

Yes but his point still stands even the GC days they made money basically on that principle. They like apple have a cult like following that are willing pay much more than what a product is worth from a BOM strandpoint to play their games. Now on some level it's commendable that they have this following on others it's not bad that someone wishes they push the envelope a little more cutting into their margins. Let's be honest here Nintendo has shown the past they are not wiling to push the envelope unless challenged. No one wants to go back to the days of the gameboy and gameboy color. However this is all completely beside the point as the 3DS they have pushed the envelope somewhat even if they are charging too much for it still if it comes out to $299 USD.

[tongue_of_colicab]

People are still anticipating a 250$ price tag.

My quip about Mario was simply to say that Nintendo has realized it can basically charge very high prices and simply sell through its namebrand alone. It doesn't matter how the machine actually performs, all that matters is that Nintendo made it. Developers flocked to the 3DS because they knew this too.

Don't get me wrong! The games that are to be released on the 3DS look pretty cool to me (RE and Splinter Cell in particular) but I just cannot swallow the asking price.. I just can't get over that it will cost more than the newest iTouches.

From a hardware point of view this makes me sad is all.

Funny you name Apple because if there is one company that likes to ripoff their customers as much as they can it's Apple. They ask tripple the price for some mac's of what they are even close to begin worth, a iPhone for is costs like 900 euro's while a comparable smartphone will cost you about 500 etc.

Still, I agree that the price is high.

[liolio]

Does the fact that the 3DS as the previous DS has to power two screens could be responsible of Nintendo choices to aim for lowest power consumption?

[brain_stew]

I don't know why people are bringing up machines built on the broken razor blade model. That stupidity won't ever return to the console/handheld market after it managed to put MS some ~$6 billion in the hole and Sony to lose just as much on the PS3 as they ever made througout their entire successful PS1/PS2 reign.

Nintendo have always made a profit on hardware because they don't have dozens of other divisions to soak up the costs. Its the only strategy that ever made any sense, their might have been argument for the razor blade model back in the PS1 days where functional 3D graphics were a genuine USP but its been a fool's pursuit ever since then.

Back to the hardware itself and the new trailers for DOA:D, RE:Revelation, RE:Mercenaries, MGS3 and SSFIV convince me this system is capable of some fantastic 3D graphics. All of those titles are more than a match for absolutely anything produced last generation and they blow away any launch title we saw last generation which bodes seriously well. One thing that really has got me a little worried is the general image quality. Texture filtering and mip mapping in particular look pretty much borked just as they were on the PSP. :/ It looks like AA may be restricted to 2D mode judging by that MT Framework feature and if the texture aliasing is as bad as it is in most PSP games (and it looks like it might be) then I guess I'll be giving up the S3D support in most games. Its the only major issue I have with Nintendo's choice of GPU, the lack of full ES 2.0 support looks to be a total none issue judging by the amount of nice lighting and shader effects most high end 3DS games are packing (which is way more than even the best ES 2.0 exclusive iOS games).

I just don't buy that mediocre general purpose and FP CPU performance is such a big deal. What games last generation ran any sort of complex physics model? There was Half Life 2 but that game really wasn't in anything like a shippable state, it'd straight up freeze when any physics intensive scenes were initiated. Where are all these GCN, PSP and PS2 games with complex physics and A.I? Because I sure as hell haven't played them.

You can't look at the CPU in isolation either, the PICA200 has some very capable vertex shader hardware by all accounts and that should account for most usage cases of the FPUs we saw last generation. Sure the GCN and Wii have hardware T & L but any developer that wanted to do something as simple as a decent approximation of per-pixel dot 3 bump mapping had to use the CPU and that would utterly tank performance.On the 3DS we have titles like MGS3D where the entire environment and all character models have correct per pixel normal mapping and specular highlights despite their being thousands of flowers in the scene which all react to character interaction.

Here's some of those videos I'm talking about:

DOA: http://www.gamecity.ne.jp/doad/
MGS3: http://www.konami.jp/mgs_se/
RE: Revelations: http://www.nintendo.co.jp/n10/conference2010/3ds/lineupMovHigh.html

I understand the concerns with the paper specs but these issues just don't seem to be hampering the quality of games from top tier developers at all.

P.S. I'm as disapointed with the launch date & price as anybody, Nintendo claerly dropped the ball there and have given their competitors a small opening to take advantage of when in reality a $200 2010 launch could have had the market sewn up before Christmas.

I wonder what is delaying the launch? Supply of the autosterescopic screens perhaps? They've never been produced in anything like this sort of mass scale before and we've already seen how supply of high end mobile displays has held back devices from both Apple and Samsung.

[DennisK4]

The price is about what I expected given how determined Nintendo is to make good profit on hardware itself. US launch will be around $249 I think. They will sell a lot at this price and can then comfortably lower price as necessary to maintain sales. I am absolutely convinced that it wll sell like hot cakes.
The PSP2? Likely just as expensive or priced even higher. PSP launched at US$249 if I recall correctly, so PSP2 could easily be higher.
I am convinced the PSP2 will outspec the 3DS - perhaps even by a great deal. I simply cannot see a PSP2 trying to be a cheaper alternative to the 3DS.

About the graphical capability of the 3DS: The hardware is obviously very impressive for a handheld. Seeing something like RE:Revelation on a handheld device is amazing. Dem shaders! :cool:
However, outside of RE and MGS I haven't been all that impressed with the line up but that is no fault of the 3DS.

And I don't think Nintendo is worried at all. No Christmas? Thats just too bad but Sony is not launching any time soon, so no worries. Price? Let the hardcore eat the initial price (I will!) and lower as needed. The profit margin will allow it and PSP2 will not launch at $199 anyways.

Edit 1: I can't help but notice that Nintendo haven't released any battery life info....Not something I care about myself but a lot of people assume this is big issue.

Edit 2: Nintendo didn't have enough Wiis at launch which left a lot of money on the table. They are not going to want to repeat that mistake so this may be behind the delayed launch - of course this may be linked to the screens more than anything else.

Edit 3: I wonder how far the PSP2 plans are? Everything finalized and just waiting for Nintedo to release price and date, before their own reveal. Or are major hardware changes still possible?

[brain_stew]

We've had multiple confirmations of developers already receiving PSP2 devkits so the system must be pretty close to launching and the hardware locked down in al the key areas. It'll definitely be arriving sometime in 2011.

[Exophase]

I don't know why people are bringing up machines built on the broken razor blade model. That stupidity won't ever return to the console/handheld market after it managed to put MS some ~$6 billion in the hole and Sony to lose just as much on the PS3 as they ever made througout their entire successful PS1/PS2 reign.

Nintendo have always made a profit on hardware because they don't have dozens of other divisions to soak up the costs. Its the only strategy that ever made any sense, their might have been argument for the razor blade model back in the PS1 days where functional 3D graphics were a genuine USP but its been a fool's pursuit ever since then.

There's no fine line between the extremes Sony and Microsoft have taken with under-pricing XBox and PS3 respectively and the extremes Nintendo has taken with over-pricing Wii. Their successful PS2 reign (and the PSP run which I wouldn't call a failure) was certainly backed by a gradual earning strategy that made sense. They didn't retain the market during the PS2 era by selling it with current-Nintendo-like margins; the pricing went a long way towards making DVDs more accessible, for instance. On the other hand, look at how Nintendo dumped the Gamecube's price, pushing it all the way down to $99 in 2003, long before its successor was out.

Nintendo does have another division to soak up costs, their gaming division, where they sell hundreds of millions - they probably make far more in profit from their first party sales than they make in third party licensing fees, which would certainly support the "broken razor blade" approach. Of course, there's no indications that Nintendo would sell substantially more at lower margins, so there isn't enough incentive for them to do this. This is why they need more viable competition, particularly in the handheld space.

I find this quote to be amusing considering we're pretty sure what the 3DS is packing and Nintendo is charging japan 25,000 yen (298$) for it*.

I also call into question the validity of this on the ground that Nintendo also charged a pretty high price for the Wii hardware- despite it being little more than a slightly souped up GCN.

Why do you find the quote amusing when we're saying exactly the same thing? This is exactly what I meant by Nintendo "not pricing aggressively." Maybe you were thrown off by my saying "price is king" for them; what I really mean is "profit is king." That translates to them saving as much money as possible on the BOM and charging as high margins as possible.

But I honestly didn't anticipate a launch price this high for 3DS. Let's say it is $250 in the US. That'll be $100 more than a DSi costs and nearly twice what a DS Lite costs. It might be easy to justify that to the public with the new 3D display and better graphics but I think we know what it's going to really cost Nintendo to make 3DS compared to DS. Even if we're not talking launch prices, Nintendo has a recent history of taking much longer to drop prices than Sony or MS.

I think that in people's minds the $200 price point is still critical for handhelds, and going over that hurt PSP's initial sales vs DS's. If Sony releases a PSP2 any time soon for the $200 point (which they probably can't afford to do, but if they do happen to..) they'll have at least one tangible advantage.

[wco81]

Funny you name Apple because if there is one company that likes to ripoff their customers as much as they can it's Apple. They ask tripple the price for some mac's of what they are even close to begin worth, a iPhone for is costs like 900 euro's while a comparable smartphone will cost you about 500 etc.

Still, I agree that the price is high.

How typically are iPhones sold for the unsubsidized (and maybe unlocked price) in Europe?

Don't people get on some contract to lower the upfront costs?

In the US, everyone pays $200 or $300 upfront and sign a 2-year contract, the same as Android phones and probably the same as Windows 7 Phones will be.

There's competition in the smart phone market but there really isn't competition in handhelds and maybe Nintendo is counting on the uniqueness of the 3D screen to charge a premium for awhile.

Then again, who knows if this doesn't turn out to be another Virtua Boy.

[Teasy]

Then again, who knows if this doesn't turn out to be another Virtua Boy.

You can't be serious :lol:

[Aeoniss]

Funny you name Apple because if there is one company that likes to ripoff their customers as much as they can it's Apple. They ask tripple the price for some mac's of what they are even close to begin worth, a iPhone for is costs like 900 euro's while a comparable smartphone will cost you about 500 etc.

Still, I agree that the price is high.

I'm not a huge apple fan either, trust me. :???:

@Exophase:

Whoops, yep sorry I misread you then if that is what you meant. I've found that Nintendo charges way too high with their products of late and people just gobble it up.

[brain_stew]

How typically are iPhones sold for the unsubsidized (and maybe unlocked price) in Europe?

Don't people get on some contract to lower the upfront costs?

In the US, everyone pays $200 or $300 upfront and sign a 2-year contract, the same as Android phones and probably the same as Windows 7 Phones will be.

There's competition in the smart phone market but there really isn't competition in handhelds and maybe Nintendo is counting on the uniqueness of the 3D screen to charge a premium for awhile.

Then again, who knows if this doesn't turn out to be another Virtua Boy.

An iPhone 4 is still a £600/800 Euro device whether you spread the cost over 24 months or pay it all upfront. That's a much bigger premium than Nintndo charge for any of their products, no matter how high end the hardware in the iPhone. The Ipod is a bit of an anomaly, it may be cost reduced in a lot of areas but its very aggressively priced.

[wco81]

So do you pay more for iPhone service than for other phones?

Over here, they charge the same for all smart phones, which require a data plan.

If you buy the phone unlocked somewhere else, they will not reduce your monthly price. You won't be bound to a 2-year contract but you're paying the same price as if they're subsidizing the cost of the phone.

[Lazy8s]

Epic saw that the greatest visual impact for their graphics engine came from a more detailed recreation and display of their assets, so they spent the balance of processing resources on rendering a higher definition.

Rendering a super-sized back buffer for supersampling AA on an IMR or compositing a more detailed image over multiple renders in order to achieve that level of definition was probably prohibitive in performance for the 3DS games, so they had the balance of fillrate and processing resoucres to spend on the myriad of other effects.

[brain_stew]

So do you pay more for iPhone service than for other phones?
.


Yes, its consistently been just about the most expensive phone available since launch. On plans where a high end android phone will be free, you'll often have to cough up an extra £100+ upfront to secure an iPhone.

Here in the UK you can get a really fantastic midrange android (2.1) smartphone with a 3.5" 800x480 capacitive touch AMOLED screen, ~440MB RAM and 600mhz ARM11 for just £100 without any contract tied to it all. With that you're free to use a SIM only plan which offer much, much better inclusive minutes/texts/data at the same pricepoints (£10 is about equivalent to a £30 contract plan, data and all) which you can cancel any time you want. So yes, the iPhone does come with a huge premium here.

E.g. I can buy this midrange Android Smartphone for £100:

http://shop.orange.co.uk/mobile-phones/San-Francisco-from-Orange-in-grey

Then signup for one of these super cheap calls+text+ 1GB data packages from as little as £10 per month:

http://threestore.three.co.uk/simonly.aspx

And then I'm never tied to a lengthy contract and can upgrade/downgrade/cancel my call package whenever I like. I'd have to pay £30 a month for a minimum of 24 months (even if I can't afford it later on) with an iPhone and still pay roughly an extra £100 upfront. The iPhone would end up costing me at least £600 extra by the end of the contract and I'd be screwed if my circumstances changed mid contract, yeah, I'll stick with a PAYG Android handset, thanks.

[Aeoniss]

Query: The parallax screen tech being used by the 3DS. Is this perhaps somehow driving up the cost of production? How advanced\expensive if this?

[brain_stew]

Query: The parallax screen tech being used by the 3DS. Is this perhaps somehow driving up the cost of production? How advanced\expensive if this?

I believe its the equivalent of including an extra low end LCD display from a manufacturing perspective.So definitely not a trivial cost considering the 3DS has two screens already, and the upper screen is a pretty high resolution panel (its likely a standard 800x480 panel, the parallax barrier is what cuts down the resolution) to boot.

[Aeoniss]

Hrm..

Well the top screen is 800x240

[brain_stew]

Hrm..

Well the top screen is 800x240

With the parralax barrier on top it is. The actual LCD panel used is most likely just a standard 800x480 LCD panel and even if it isn't, an 800x240 screen is hardly low end for a ~3.5" inch screen and its sheer obscurity will make it more expensive. Regardless of its makeup, the screen setup on the 3DS is hardly a low cost option, its probably the most expensive part of the device.

[Aeoniss]

But does the sum of its parts really warrant a 250-300$ price tag? Especially compared to similar products in the mobile market?
(changed my wording here)

I mean the cheaper iTouch Gen4's aside from 256MB of RAM and significantly better CPU\GPUs (iTouch's are apparently packing A8-Cortex @ 1Ghz right?) have 960×640 screens.

[DennisK4]

But does the sum of its parts really warrant a 250-300$ price tag? Especially compared to similar products in the mobile market?
(changed my wording here)

I mean the cheaper iTouch Gen4's aside from 256MB of RAM and significantly better CPU\GPUs (iTouch's are apparently packing A8-Cortex @ 1Ghz right?) have 960×640 screens.
Well, Nintendo likes to make good profit on hardware - no razor blade stategy from them - so I guess that depends on what you mean by 'warrant'. If Nintendo can get away with charging $250-300 and not lose a signifcant amount of early sales, why wouldn't they?

[brain_stew]

But does the sum of its parts really warrant a 250-300$ price tag? Especially compared to the competition?

I mean the cheaper iTouch Gen4's aside from 256MB of RAM and significantly better CPU\GPUs (iTouch's are apparently packing A8-Cortex @ 1Ghz right?) have 960×640 screens.

I wouldn't say the iPod has a "significantly better GPU" the results speak for themselves and the PICA200 in the 3DS is no slouch, heck including dual ARM11s probably isn't any less expensive than a single cortexA8 (it isn't 1ghz in the iPod but clockspeeds are irrelevant to costing).

The screen in in the iPod is a low end TN panel as well, the resolution is great but every other aspect is pretty dire. The screens setup in the 3DS is almost certainly more expensive to produce.

The iPod probably does have a higher BOM than the 3DS (but not by the huge degree some seem to suggest, its a device that is cost reduced in damn near every area compared to the iPhone) and with that you could say its $230 pricepoint is a much better deal but at the end of the day all of this is academic anyway. Consumers don't just value by raw specs and how expensive the BOM of any given device is. If the 3DS can offer $250 worth of portable entertainment then it'll be successful. The perfect example of this is Apples other portable device, the iPhone. That thing has more than a 300% margin yet it sells by the bucketload because it offers something that consumers want.

[Aeoniss]

Gotcha.

By the way, I'm assuming software emulation isn't happening with the 3DS- so does is it include the DS hardware? ( would that be powering the lower screen?)

[Exophase]

The actual LCD panel used is most likely just a standard 800x480 LCD panel and even if it isn't, an 800x240 screen is hardly low end for a ~3.5" inch screen and its sheer obscurity will make it more expensive.

If it's 800x480 then Nintendo is ripping people off by not adding a mode to let games actually use the full resolution. I could see them doing that for a previous handheld where the GPU is closely coupled to scanline generation but not here.

Nothing being used in the 3DS is obscure by virtue of it being in the 3DS. That's an expected order of at least tens of millions, that's probably more than enough to offset obscurity tax.

I wouldn't say the iPod has a "significantly better GPU" the results speak for themselves and the PICA200 in the 3DS is no slouch, heck including dual ARM11s probably isn't any less expensive than a single cortexA8 (it isn't 1ghz in the iPod but clockspeeds are irrelevant to costing).

It's going to be less expensive if they didn't include L2 cache. Not including L2 would be another good reason to go with 2x266MHz instead of one of something with a much higher clock, because mobile CPUs don't scale well into those ranges without L2, at least for typical mobile RAM latencies.

The GPUs seem pretty different and hard to compare. Here Nintendo is getting an extreme benefit of having game developers trying much harder on it, and have less platform overhead going about.

The iPod probably does have a higher BOM than the 3DS (but not by the huge degree some seem to suggest, its a device that is cost reduced in damn near every area compared to the iPhone) and with that you could say its $230 pricepoint is a much better deal but at the end of the day all of this is academic anyway.

I too think that it's exaggerated how much they're saving vs Apple - Nintendo is likely paying premiums on the screen and is shaving smaller amounts in areas they could probably afford not to in (for their asking price). Namely CPU, RAM, and on-board flash.

But I don't think Apple is pricing nearly as "aggressively" as you do either; why would they? The perceived cost of iPhone w/o contract is misleading. What is iPod Touch really competing against that forces low margins? It's making App Store revenue, but probably not nearly as much as Nintendo makes from software and otherwise it's just stealing iPhone sales. Apple has probably got this stuff down cheaper than we realize, but I imagine Nintendo does as well.

Consumers don't just value by raw specs and how expensive the BOM of any given device is. If the 3DS can offer $250 worth of portable entertainment then it'll be successful.

Maybe. There's a threshold for how much people are willing to pay for gaming platforms. Correlate PS3 sales vs PS3 price. This is especially true for Nintendo handhelds which have a much lower average target audience age, meaning a lot of them are being bought by parents. If it costs too much the parents just aren't going to buy it, period, no matter how amazing it looks.

The perfect example of this is Apples other portable device, the iPhone. That thing has more than a 300% margin yet it sells by the bucketload because it offers something that consumers want.

The comparisons with iPhone's "price" seem totally unfair to me. Most people are buying it as subsidized through a carrier; we could argue what the equivalent value is here but the real point is that I don't think Apple is selling to carriers at prices nearly as high as they're being sold standalone. These prices are probably marked up artificially to get people to buy subsidized.

Gotcha.

By the way, I'm assuming software emulation isn't happening with the 3DS- so does is it include the DS hardware? ( would that be powering the lower screen?)

It's possible, or it could be something in between. I imagine that it has to at least have the entire DS 2D and 3D hardware, maybe with some RAM blocks reused from somewhere else for the VRAM. That stuff can't be done very accurately on a GPU like PICA200 and the CPUs aren't powerful enough to do it in software.

The DS ARM9 code could be running directly on one of the ARM11s, likely with some glue logic supplying the DS address space and ARM9 visible peripherals. ARM7 code could be ran on the other ARM11, possibly with some code modifications making less glue logic necessary. DS games only used a few different ARM7 binaries, which the 3DS could store modified versions of on its flash without taking up too much space.

[OICAspork]

If it's 800x480 then Nintendo is ripping people off by not adding a mode to let games actually use the full resolution. I could see them doing that for a previous handheld where the GPU is closely coupled to scanline generation but not here.

Actually I'm pretty sure developers do have this option. They can choose to make a full resolution 2D game. I read that on IGN, but I'm not sure if it was verified.

[Aeoniss]

To my mind why not develop the games so that it can be switched on and off completely? Like you select a mode and it scales accordingly?

I know that some of the smaller dev houses may not have time to implement such a feature but surely Konami\Capcom\etc would be able to add that.

[Exophase]

Actually I'm pretty sure developers do have this option. They can choose to make a full resolution 2D game. I read that on IGN, but I'm not sure if it was verified.

If they can do anything "full resolution" it'd be 800x240, not 800x480. I have never heard anything about 800x480, and there'd be no reason why the 3D mode couldn't support 400x480 then.

I doubt the display has 480 lines.

[brain_stew]

To my mind why not develop the games so that it can be switched on and off completely? Like you select a mode and it scales accordingly?

I know that some of the smaller dev houses may not have time to implement such a feature but surely Konami\Capcom\etc would be able to add that.

All games have to be designed around working with the S3D mode switched both on and off. We have only seen one developer comment about performance in 2D mode so far but in that case (RE: Revelations), you're going to benefit from at least AA and motion blur if you disengage the S3D effect.


If they can do anything "full resolution" it'd be 800x240, not 800x480. I have never heard anything about 800x480, and there'd be no reason why the 3D mode couldn't support 400x480 then.

I doubt the display has 480 lines.

My suspicion is that the parallax barrier is always in place. So enabling 2D mode simply sends the same image to both eyes. Requiring developers to target two separate resolutions is just an extra unnecessary headache.

[MfA]

My suspicion is that the parallax barrier is always in place. So enabling 2D mode simply sends the same image to both eyes. Requiring developers to target two separate resolutions is just an extra unnecessary headache.
Highly unlikely.

[Exophase]

My suspicion is that the parallax barrier is always in place. So enabling 2D mode simply sends the same image to both eyes. Requiring developers to target two separate resolutions is just an extra unnecessary headache.

What does that have to do with vertical resolution? If they're using 800x480 it'd be bad not to let developers use the 480 under any circumstances.

Putting in some pixel doubling hardware in either direction is probably not that much work for Nintendo, so they could make it optional. Otherwise, supporting two different resolutions isn't very much work at all, just multiply all the coordinates by two (could probably be done in the viewport setup); the extra framebuffer space you'd need would come for free from consolidating the two field framebuffers.

Tweaking assets to best fit two resolutions would be work, but designing for the lower resolution and allowing for the higher w/o any tweaking is a lot better than just being stuck at the lower.

[brain_stew]

Highly unlikely.

Why is that? Capcom have demonstrated images from the 2D mode of their game (the shots with motion blur which is currently not working in S3D mode) and they were the same 400x240 resolution as all the rest.


What does that have to do with vertical resolution? If they're using 800x480 it'd be bad not to let developers use the 480 under any circumstances.
.

If the GPU's performance is utterly crippled when trying to push that amount of pixels, I don't think that's the case at all. 800x480 LCD panels are cheap and plentiful but 800x240 panels with rectangular pixels are something I've never seen on any spec. sheet and Sharp's parallax barrier display is indeed listed as a 800x480 screen in 2D mode which is capable of halving both the vertical and horizontal resolution in order to support stereo3D.

If using a higher resolution panel is cheaper and less prone to supply issues then I don't see why Nintendo would be averse to using one even if the hardware doesn't make use of every pixel the display has to offer.

Either way, I don't see any game targeting any resolution other than 400x240 whether its exclusively 2D or not, Nintendo will encourage developers to use the excess throughput for stuff like AA which they're already doing.

[darkblu]

Why is that? Capcom have demonstrated images from the 2D mode of their game (the shots with motion blur which is currently not working in S3D mode) and they were the same 400x240 resolution as all the rest.
I doubt that's the explanation for those images. It is somply not justified for games that normally run in stereoscopic mode to switch to true 2D mode just when somebody moved the 3D slider all the way down. That would imply an arbitrary-complex GPU and VRAM re-initialisation across frames, etc. And this is before any ergonomic considertations of whether or not the user would actually want to see a switch of resolution mid-game just because they moved the slider a mm futher than they intended.

[brain_stew]

I doubt that's the explanation for those images. It is somply not justified for games that normally run in stereoscopic mode to switch to true 2D mode just when somebody moved the 3D slider all the way down. That would imply an arbitrary-complex GPU and VRAM re-initialisation across frames, etc. And this is before any ergonomic considertations of whether or not the user would actually want to see a switch of resolution mid-game just because they moved the slider a mm futher than they intended.

Well they're going to get increased AA and effects if they move it that extra mm, whether they want it or not. I don't see how changing the resolution with that final click is any different.

[Rys]

It'd interrupt rendering in both cases, which is bad.

[darkblu]

Well they're going to get increased AA and effects if they move it that extra mm, whether they want it or not.
That's not how properly designed human interfaces work. Continuous (i.e. analogue) controllers provide continuous effects. How many sound systems do you know that change from mono, to stereo, to surround, on an analogue input?

I don't see how changing the resolution with that final click is any different.
The difference is in the disruptive effect. While in practice that slider is most likely just another anaologue input meant for the games to act upon, I'd be really surprised if nintendo's game certification process allowed devs to use it any other way but as a smooth level-of-stereoscopy controller, at least for steresocopic titles.

[brain_stew]

That's not how properly designed human interfaces work. Continuous (i.e. analogue) controllers provide continuous effects. How many sound systems do you know that change from mono, to stereo, to surround, on an analogue input?

.


Well its how the 3D slider on the 3DS works, whether its logical or not. Its not as if Nintendo have never designed an analog interface with a digital component before (not remember the GCN's shoulder buttons?)

Sliding it all the way down enables 2D mode and in 2D mode Resident Evil: Revelations enables extra effects including AA and motion blur as confirmed by Capcom themselves. It may appear jarring, but it doensn't appear as though Nintendo are discouraging it at all. Personally I don't give a crap if someone finds the transition "jarring." That's not enough justification to keep developers from throwing the gamer a few extra goodies "for free" if they don't want to use the S3D effect.

[wco81]

Yes, its consistently been just about the most expensive phone available since launch. On plans where a high end android phone will be free, you'll often have to cough up an extra £100+ upfront to secure an iPhone.

Here in the UK you can get a really fantastic midrange android (2.1) smartphone with a 3.5" 800x480 capacitive touch AMOLED screen, ~440MB RAM and 600mhz ARM11 for just £100 without any contract tied to it all. With that you're free to use a SIM only plan which offer much, much better inclusive minutes/texts/data at the same pricepoints (£10 is about equivalent to a £30 contract plan, data and all) which you can cancel any time you want. So yes, the iPhone does come with a huge premium here.

E.g. I can buy this midrange Android Smartphone for £100:

http://shop.orange.co.uk/mobile-phones/San-Francisco-from-Orange-in-grey

Then signup for one of these super cheap calls+text+ 1GB data packages from as little as £10 per month:

http://threestore.three.co.uk/simonly.aspx

And then I'm never tied to a lengthy contract and can upgrade/downgrade/cancel my call package whenever I like. I'd have to pay £30 a month for a minimum of 24 months (even if I can't afford it later on) with an iPhone and still pay roughly an extra £100 upfront. The iPhone would end up costing me at least £600 extra by the end of the contract and I'd be screwed if my circumstances changed mid contract, yeah, I'll stick with a PAYG Android handset, thanks.

Interesting, that Orange-branded Android phone is completely unlocked?

I could walk in and just buy that for 99 Pounds, probably root it and run some kind of Wifi hotspot software and it will be around the price of a Mifi.

Doesn't list the processor speed or battery capacity.

Would be nice if an HTC or some other known brands get down to that level.

[Exophase]

Sliding it all the way down enables 2D mode and in 2D mode Resident Evil: Revelations enables extra effects including AA and motion blur as confirmed by Capcom themselves. It may appear jarring, but it doensn't appear as though Nintendo are discouraging it at all. Personally I don't give a crap if someone finds the transition "jarring." That's not enough justification to keep developers from throwing the gamer a few extra goodies "for free" if they don't want to use the S3D effect.

Did Capcom actually say that "2D mode" on their titles was activated by moving the slider all the way down instead of picking an option from a menu? Because they easily could have done that. Talking about the inclusion of "2D mode only extras" when speaking of the slider's functionality is missing the point.

[Entropy]

Yes, it's in our best interests that companies push technology forward, that's pretty much tautological

The way you and Darkblu put it, it is an absolute statement. A statement of faith, if you wish.

It is only in our best interests if
A, we reap tangible benefits
B, there are no drawbacks or (hidden) costs involved.

If any one or both of the above two points aren't fulfilled, advancing technology is at best debatable, or worse, a negative.
In the specific case of Nintendos choice of CPUs, as far as I can see, both items are open to question.

[darkblu]

The way you and Darkblu put it, it is an absolute statement. A statement of faith, if you wish.
I don't know how my posts in this thread came out as techno-absolutist, as I actually agree with the rest of your post.


It is only in our best interests if
A, we reap tangible benefits
B, there are no drawbacks or (hidden) costs involved.

If any one or both of the above two points aren't fulfilled, advancing technology is at best debatable, or worse, a negative.
In the specific case of Nintendos choice of CPUs, as far as I can see, both items are open to question.

[Teasy]

"The physics and AI should be no worse then GameCube was capable of."

I imagine you don't think physics and AI to be non-CPU problems, at least not for Gamecube or 3DS. Regarding his later response, GameCube did have fixed function T&L and I'm sure games used it. So it's pretty apples to apples.

Plenty (if not most) GC games used both the GPU and CPU (to varying degrees) to handle T&L. I remember IBM/Nintendo talking about how the CPU's ability to help with the task of T&L was an important factor in its design.

You know, it would have been so easy for you to simply ask me "Do you think that two ARM11 CPU's at 266Mhz are as powerful as Gekko", instead of making assumptions and running with them.

[Exophase]

The way you and Darkblu put it, it is an absolute statement. A statement of faith, if you wish.

It is only in our best interests if
A, we reap tangible benefits
B, there are no drawbacks or (hidden) costs involved.

If any one or both of the above two points aren't fulfilled, advancing technology is at best debatable, or worse, a negative.
In the specific case of Nintendos choice of CPUs, as far as I can see, both items are open to question.

The phrase "advancing technology" isn't the least bit self-defining. We're taking it to mean two different things. You take it to mean "improving" some aspect such as raising clock speed, possibly to the detriment of other aspects. I'm talking about making the technology all around "better", which by definition would incorporate both a and b.

Now, we can talk about what the actual effective tradeoffs are (as we have been in this thread), but let's not get lost in semantics.

Plenty (if not most) GC games used both the GPU and CPU (to varying degrees) to handle T&L. I remember IBM/Nintendo talking about how the CPU's ability to help with the task of T&L was an important factor in its design.

That probably goes for most systems with vertex shading too. At the very least, tasks such as model matrix multiplication (which can be considered part of transformation) is usually done on the CPU, as well as high order culling. It remains to be seen how it'll be done in 3DS games.

You know, it would have been so easy for you to simply ask me "Do you think that two ARM11 CPU's at 266Mhz are as powerful as Gekko", instead of making assumptions and running with them.

I'm sorry, did I offend you? Maybe you should have clarified more what you meant when you said it..?

[Teasy]

That probably goes for most systems with vertex shading too. At the very least, tasks such as model matrix multiplication (which can be considered part of transformation) is usually done on the CPU, as well as high order culling. It remains to be seen how it'll be done in 3DS games.

Gekko had to support Flipper more then the ARM11's will have to support PICA200, surely we can agree on that.

I'm sorry, did I offend you? Maybe you should have clarified more what you meant when you said it..?

Offended?, no I'd just rather not have to correct a glib assumption when it was so easy to ask me to explain my meaning in the first place.

[darkblu]

That probably goes for most systems with vertex shading too. At the very least, tasks such as model matrix multiplication (which can be considered part of transformation) is usually done on the CPU, as well as high order culling. It remains to be seen how it'll be done in 3DS games.
I think Teasy was talking of something else here: per vertex work.

Building any kind of per-drawcall matirces is hardly comparable to per-vertex workloads. And indeed, Gekko does have facilities for alleviating CPU->GPU vertex pipelines, so a conclusion that by design Gekko was meant to help with per-vertex workloads is not unfounded.

Clearly, this is me talking without having seen the source codes of a single Cube commercial game.

[Teasy]

I think Teasy was talking of something else here: per vertex work.

Building any kind of per-drawcall matirces is hardly comparable to per-vertex workloads. And indeed, Gekko does have facilities for alleviating CPU->GPU vertex pipelines, so a conclusion that by design Gekko was meant to help with per-vertex workloads is not unfounded.

Clearly, this is me talking without having seen the source codes of a single Cube commercial game.

Yeah its actually something that IBM made clear in early interviews regarding the chip. Can't find them now but I remember reading some back in 2001/2. I think IBM mentioned Luigi's Mansion in particular as one game that used Gekko quite heavily.

[brain_stew]

Interesting, that Orange-branded Android phone is completely unlocked?

I could walk in and just buy that for 99 Pounds, probably root it and run some kind of Wifi hotspot software and it will be around the price of a Mifi.

Doesn't list the processor speed or battery capacity.

Would be nice if an HTC or some other known brands get down to that level.


No but it can be unlocked for for like £3.

The phone is already rooted, serious progress is being made on custom roms and the 2.2 kernal is available so its just a matter of time before that update is available.

The SOC is a Qualcomm MSM7227 with a 600mhz ARM11 and the GPU isn't completely awful like a lot of earlier Android phones. The huge 512MB of RAM should make a big differnce for general speed/responsiveness. Battery is 1250mah and I've heard no complaints about poor battery life so far.

Anything else you'll want to know can be found in the review and forum here:

http://android.modaco.com/content/zte-blade-blade-modaco-com/318802/paul-reviews-the-orange-san-francisco/

http://android.modaco.com/category/453/zte-blade-blade-modaco-com/

The OEM is ZTE and they're not exactly new to the smartphone market, their products just tend to be rebranded in the west. The T Mobile Pulse was the previous budget Android phone of choice but this thing seems to blow it away, the crappy camera is the only real sore point. It really is incredible what you can get for your money these days. I'll be picking one up soon! :grin:

P.S. Sorry for the offtopic posts, mods!!

[Xmas]

Here's some of those videos I'm talking about:

MGS3: http://www.konami.jp/mgs_se/
I know this is something I'm way more sensitive to than most, but the aliasing in that video almost ruins it for me.

Why is that? Capcom have demonstrated images from the 2D mode of their game (the shots with motion blur which is currently not working in S3D mode) and they were the same 400x240 resolution as all the rest.
That's because 800x240 screenshots would look stretched to double width on any screen with square pixels.

According to all reports so far the screen is true 800x240, 400x240 for each eye in 3D mode. And if 3D is meant to be the usual mode of operation that makes a lot of sense, as it means you get "square" pixels (not really tiny squares – which is never the case anyway – but with equal pixel density in both dimensions).

I doubt that's the explanation for those images. It is somply not justified for games that normally run in stereoscopic mode to switch to true 2D mode just when somebody moved the 3D slider all the way down. That would imply an arbitrary-complex GPU and VRAM re-initialisation across frames, etc.
I'd be surprised if changing the viewport and a couple of pointers in the display pipeline would require "arbitrary-complex GPU and VRAM re-initialisation".

That's not how properly designed human interfaces work. Continuous (i.e. analogue) controllers provide continuous effects. How many sound systems do you know that change from mono, to stereo, to surround, on an analogue input?

The difference is in the disruptive effect. While in practice that slider is most likely just another anaologue input meant for the games to act upon, I'd be really surprised if nintendo's game certification process allowed devs to use it any other way but as a smooth level-of-stereoscopy controller, at least for steresocopic titles.
Nintendo's images show that the slider is pretty clearly labelled "OFF" at the bottom. I'd expect it to actually be a switch in that position, i.e. it won't just slide to the off position, you'll have to push a bit harder and it will lock in place.

[Aeoniss]

So with 3D mode disabled is the game merely rendered at 800x240 in 2D with added effects right?

[Exophase]

So with 3D mode disabled is the game merely rendered at 800x240 in 2D with added effects right?

Nobody actually knows if 800x240 is available or if it's stuck at 400x240. Everything in this thread is speculation.

We do know some features are only available with 3D off, but naturally those will be optional.

[darkblu]

I'd be surprised if changing the viewport and a couple of pointers in the display pipeline would require "arbitrary-complex GPU and VRAM re-initialisation".
That'd be a best case scenario. We have no idea what facilities PICA features for optimised stereoscopy, and what it takes to reconfigure them into 'classic' 2D mode, and back again. It could be anything from negligible on the HW level, as you point out, but still requiring as a minimum a new set of shader assets better suitable for the new mode (thus subject to app's asset paths), to some sort of reset cycle on the HW, equivalent to a GL context reinit. For all we know, such a switch can be arbitrary complex.

Nintendo's images show that the slider is pretty clearly labelled "OFF" at the bottom. I'd expect it to actually be a switch in that position, i.e. it won't just slide to the off position, you'll have to push a bit harder and it will lock in place.
Could be. Somebody who's actually touched the thing could enlighten us here.

[sfried]

So do we guys really know the final spec of the 3DS? All we have are the claims from IGN and Engadget's analysy of those claims.

[Xmas]

That'd be a best case scenario. We have no idea what facilities PICA features for optimised stereoscopy, and what it takes to reconfigure them into 'classic' 2D mode, and back again. It could be anything from negligible on the HW level, as you point out, but still requiring as a minimum a new set of shader assets better suitable for the new mode (thus subject to app's asset paths), to some sort of reset cycle on the HW, equivalent to a GL context reinit. For all we know, such a switch can be arbitrary complex.
Sure, software could decide to use different assets which could take some time, but surely this isn't more complex for the hardware than any other ordinary viewport or rendertarget change.


Brightness Approximated Continuous Play
1st level 15-19 hours
2nd level 10-15 hours
3rd level 7-11 hours
4th level 5-8 hours

An interesting thing to note here is that the parallax barrier display effectively cuts the screen brightness in half - after all it's designed to block half the pixels as seen from each eye.

[Exophase]

I saw an article where someone believes Nintendo to be more likely to be using PICA200 Lite instead of PICA200. Here's the product page:

http://www.dmprof.com/english/e_products/e_pica200_lite/

It looks like it only has one TMU/ROP instead of the 4 the normal PICA200 appear to have. My question is, with this level of performance at 133MHz (with no mentioned bandwidth saving or overdraw eliminating technology) do the screenshots we've seen thus far seem feasible?

EDIT: Eh, nevermind, the feature set is clearly deficient.

[tongue_of_colicab]

Unless you want to believe all the trailers we've seen so far are also fake than yes, they are real.

[Exophase]

Unless you want to believe all the trailers we've seen so far are also fake than yes, they are real.

.... okay...?

[tongue_of_colicab]

Lol what maybe I didn't understand your post right?

[brain_stew]

I saw an article where someone believes Nintendo to be more likely to be using PICA200 Lite instead of PICA200. Here's the product page:

http://www.dmprof.com/english/e_products/e_pica200_lite/

It looks like it only has one TMU/ROP instead of the 4 the normal PICA200 appear to have. My question is, with this level of performance at 133MHz (with no mentioned bandwidth saving or overdraw eliminating technology) do the screenshots we've seen thus far seem feasible?

EDIT: Eh, nevermind, the feature set is clearly deficient.

A few things:

The DMP press release specifically mentioned the PICA200 not the PICA200 Lite.

The PICA200 doesn't seem to support any of the proprietary Maestro extensions and I don't think so many games could be making such liberal use of normal maps and per pixel lighting etc. without those.

We've seen a lot of comments from developers that are pleasantly surprised with the horsepower of the GPU, (and the results from the likes of Capcom, Team Ninja and Konami speak for themselves) I can't imagine too many jumping for joy if it was using the PICA200 Lite.

Whatever GPU Nintendo is using its probably customised from the stock version in some none trivial way, if only to help aid BC.

[Exophase]

When I post an "EDIT" to say I posted impulsively and was clearly wrong no one reads them, I should just edit out my whole posts ;D

I personally doubt they customized the PICA200 to aid backwards compatibility because that's really fitting a round peg in a square hole. They probably just did what they always do and included the old hardware verbatim. This will make GBA emulation a lot easier for them too. Customized for something else is within the realm of possibility.

We haven't seen any comparable 3D on the second screen (or have we??), maybe Nintendo is only allowing a DS compatibility graphics chip to access it.

[brain_stew]

When I post an "EDIT" to say I posted impulsively and was clearly wrong no one reads them, I should just edit out my whole posts ;D

I personally doubt they customized the PICA200 to aid backwards compatibility because that's really fitting a round peg in a square hole. They probably just did what they always do and included the old hardware verbatim. This will make GBA emulation a lot easier for them too. Customized for something else is within the realm of possibility.

We haven't seen any comparable 3D on the second screen (or have we??), maybe Nintendo is only allowing a DS compatibility graphics chip to access it.

Oh but we have, the Sims 3 is one title that certainly does this. That's a full 320x240 3D framebuffer running on the bottom screen with texture filtering and 3D that is more complex than anything we saw in any NDS title, so yes, the PICA200 can render to that screen just fine.

As for modifying the hardware for BC, I'd say its clear they'd done something. Surely they plan to re-use that 4MB framebuffer for NDS mode (which eerily enough is the same size as the entire NDS memory pool, surely not a total coincidence) and is GBA emulation really a problem worth tackling with hardware? The system doesn't actually support GBA BC at all (neither did the DSi), there's only the possability of them being sold over the virtual handheld service but only GB and GBC titles have actually been conformed for that service so far, not GBA games. Software emulation will more than suffice for a few DD releases.

I didn't ignore your edit, I was just expanding on it, that's all. No harm in further backing up a point someone else has made.

[Exophase]

Can you link me to Sims 3 screenshots demonstrating this?

GBA has been confirmed to be supported on the Virtual Console service. GBA emulation can probably be done w/o hardware, but they need the hardware for DS support anyway (DS 2D hardware is close to compatible with GBA, the differences are probably nothing that will break anything). Getting GBA emulation in full software on 266MHz ARM11 without skipping frames is at least difficult.

I'm sure RAM will be reused somewhere, but I'm talking about logic.

[brain_stew]

Can you link me to Sims 3 screenshots demonstrating this?

GBA has been confirmed to be supported on the Virtual Console service. GBA emulation can probably be done w/o hardware, but they need the hardware for DS support anyway (DS 2D hardware is close to compatible with GBA, the differences are probably nothing that will break anything). Getting GBA emulation in full software on 266MHz ARM11 without skipping frames is at least difficult.

I'm sure RAM will be reused somewhere, but I'm talking about logic.

I've neever seen any direct confirmation of that, just that it is likely to come down the road. Support seems to be limited to GC/GBC at launch.

GBA emulation on a 266mhz ARM11 may not be "easy" but when you've got every last ounce of hardware documentation, only need to support a tiny fraction of the system's library, can tailor the emulator to each and every software release and have some of the best emulation engineers in the industry working on the task, I don't think its anything close to insurmountable. Certainly not something that should influence hardware design.

Some Sims 3 shots here:

http://uk.media.ds.ign.com/media/077/077768/imgs_1.html

Its hardly demonstrating the most complex 3D graphics of course, but the textures are filtered and the game is rendered at 320x240. It seems to give a top down view of the same scenes displayed on the primary display, with no loss in quality. Clearly not running on NDS hardware, imo.

[tongue_of_colicab]

But they got 2 cpu's right? I assume they won't waste a whole cpu on security tasks. Besides that, even on the DS you got snes emu's that run games like donkey kong pretty well so I guess with the 3DS being a fair bit faster and nintendo having all the docs and manpower nintendo has like you said I suppose they could, if they wanted, emulate most gba/snes games pretty good if they wanted.

[Exophase]

GBA emulation on a 266mhz ARM11 may not be "easy" but when you've got every last ounce of hardware documentation, only need to support a tiny fraction of the system's library, can tailor the emulator to each and every software release and have some of the best emulation engineers in the industry working on the task, I don't think its anything close to insurmountable. Certainly not something that should influence hardware design.

We have every ounce of hardware documentation too, essentially ;p At least everything that matters for sufficient emulation. Being able to tailor definitely helps, you can do all sorts of hacks to make things work better/faster. But that also means much work on their end.

I definitely don't think that they would do hardware for GBA emulation, I'm just reiterating that if they include the DS 2D/3D hardware they won't have to.

Some Sims 3 shots here:

http://uk.media.ds.ign.com/media/077/077768/imgs_1.html

Its hardly demonstrating the most complex 3D graphics of course, but the textures are filtered and the game is rendered at 320x240. It seems to give a top down view of the same scenes displayed on the primary display, with no loss in quality. Clearly not running on NDS hardware, imo.

Thanks. I'm not really convinced. In the top-down shots everything is at a far distance where I can't confirm filtering at all, and nothing about it looks beyond what DS can handle. Sometimes textures appear filtered when in reality they're just higher resolution than they look (and were filtered beforehand). Maybe some others can give their opinion.

[Mariner]

The SOC is a Qualcomm MSM7227 with a 600mhz ARM11 and the GPU isn't completely awful like a lot of earlier Android phones. The huge 512MB of RAM should make a big differnce for general speed/responsiveness. Battery is 1250mah and I've heard no complaints about poor battery life so far.


[OT] After seeing your posts I popped into the local Orange shop at the weekend and bought one of these. Got 20 quid off it as well as my girlfriend works as a teacher and they offer 'perks' to public sector workers.

An unbelievable amount of phone for the money - great screen, good performance. Now just need to find someone to buy my old TouchHD. :grin:

[/OT and apologies]

[tongue_of_colicab]

Well the DS could show proper 3d on both screens at the same time so I don't see why the 3DS wouldn't be able to do the same. I just think that we won't be seeing it much as the whole 3D vision is one of the important parts of the handheld so I think most devs will only use the top screen to try and get the best gfx possible and just use the bottom screen for a map or inventory.

[Exophase]

Well the DS could show proper 3d on both screens at the same time so I don't see why the 3DS wouldn't be able to do the same. I just think that we won't be seeing it much as the whole 3D vision is one of the important parts of the handheld so I think most devs will only use the top screen to try and get the best gfx possible and just use the bottom screen for a map or inventory.

Doing 3D on both screens at the same time was sort of a hack on DS, it didn't really support it natively and you had to give up a lot of VRAM to do it. Even then it wasn't actually rendering to both in the same frame, it alternated them, so you only got 30 FPS (which seems to be the target some devs are striving for on 3DS anyway)

Of course I'm not saying it isn't this way on the 3DS, it's just that they'd have to add another port on the VRAM in order to get two framebuffers to get 60 FPS on both, or accesses would have to be interleaved or something.

Even then it may still be the case that you can attach a DS-like rendering engine to the bottom screen, that's there for the purposes of BC but also available to 3DS games so they don't have to spend some of the PICA200's fillrate on filling that screen. This would follow pretty similarly to how two 2D engines were available on DS, and most games dedicated one of them to the second screen.

[tangey]

Epic says 3DS not powerful enough for the unreal engine.

"You couldn't do a game that looks like [Epic Citadel] on it, for example."
"....but I think if they considered that our engine would be good on it, they would have probably talked to us about it," Rein said."

To come out this early so negative, he's either very sure even though they havn't seen a device yet, or suggests epic has been somehow snubbed.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.237007-Nintendos-3DS-Specs-Too-Low-for-Epics-Unreal-Engine

[tongue_of_colicab]

Epic is always bitching on Nintendo hardware so nothing new there. Probably this time they are just sad they spend all their time doing EC for the failphone while they could have made a fortune if they released such a engine for the 3DS I think.

[wsippel]

Epic says 3DS not powerful enough for the unreal engine.

"You couldn't do a game that looks like [Epic Citadel] on it, for example."
"....but I think if they considered that our engine would be good on it, they would have probably talked to us about it," Rein said."

To come out this early so negative, he's either very sure even though they havn't seen a device yet, or suggests epic has been somehow snubbed.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.237007-Nintendos-3DS-Specs-Too-Low-for-Epics-Unreal-Engine
Very selective quoting. Rein assumes that the device is not powerful enough (which might or might not be correct - judging by Capcoms 3DS stuff, I have my doubts). They don't have devkits, they don't know the specs, and they haven't even talked to Nintendo.

[tangey]

Probably this time they are just sad they spend all their time doing EC for the failphone


You have an interesting definition of failure :)


Very selective quoting.

Quotes by definition are always selective, unless you quote the entire article.

[Teasy]

Yeah right.. that was VERY selective.

[sfried]

This is what he actually says:

“It’s below our [minimum specs], from what we can tell. We don’t have a 3DS, so there’s no way for us to verify that, but everything we’ve been led to believe is that it’s below our min-spec. You couldn’t do a game that looks like [Epic Citadel for iPhone] on it, for example.”

“We really don’t know enough about it to make a formal comment, but I think if they considered that our engine would be good on it, they would have probably talked to us about it.”

Epic simply hasn't received any devkits, and are probably going by what IGN said in their article.

[Teasy]

Basically the GPU doesn't support OpenGL ES 2.0 so it doesn't fit their engine as is, which we all knew anyway. The only new bit of info there is that Nintendo aren't actively looking to get UE3 ported on to 3DS at the moment, which isn't exactly surprising.

[sfried]

Basically the GPU doesn't support OpenGL ES 2.0 so it doesn't fit their engine as is, which we all knew anyway. The only new bit of info there is that Nintendo aren't actively looking to get UE3 ported on to 3DS at the moment, which isn't exactly surprising.Are you talking about the PICA200 fixed function pipeline? Aren't there programable vertex shaders?

[wsippel]

Are you talking about the PICA200 fixed function pipeline? Aren't there programable vertex shaders?
Yes, there are programmable vertex shaders (and geo shaders, which is a D3D10.1 feature as far as I know). There are no programmable pixel shaders, though. Not in a traditional sense. But DMP does offer software to "translate" pixel shaders to Maestro code. And a simple point and click software suite to create real Maestro shaders on PCs, complete with emulation of those effects.

[Brad Grenz]

Does UE3 have any memory requirements? That could be a stumbling block as well.

[NeoTechni]

If they can do anything "full resolution" it'd be 800x240, not 800x480. I have never heard anything about 800x480, and there'd be no reason why the 3D mode couldn't support 400x480 then.

I doubt the display has 480 lines.

I've heard 240 lines too. I even googled it.

And the devs wouldnt be able to access a full 800*240 in 2D mode, the screen itself sends every other vertical strip of pixels to the other eye.

They'd still have 400*240, with both eyes getting the same image. Which explains why Capcom said RE on it would get AA in 2D mode, it has double the GPU power to use.

I'm not going with the ends justifying the means on this one. Just because Nintendo has reigned supreme on gaming handhelds since their inception it doesn't justify every decision they've made. Okay, for Nintendo's short term bottom line it does, but as far as the userbase is concerned it's in our better interests for companies to be pushing technology forward and not just getting away with what they can get away with.

Agreed completely.

[darkblu]

And the devs wouldnt be able to access a full 800*240 in 2D mode, the screen itself sends every other vertical strip of pixels to the other eye.
Source?

[NeoTechni]

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/multimedia/display/20100929222915_Nintendo_Reveals_Final_Specs_and_La unch_Dates_for_Nintendo_3DS.html

Nintendo 3DS features a 3.53” autostereoscopic 3D top screen with 800x240 resolution (400 pixels for each eye) and a 3.02” bottom touch screen with 320x240 resolution

[darkblu]

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/multimedia/display/20100929222915_Nintendo_Reveals_Final_Specs_and_La unch_Dates_for_Nintendo_3DS.html
That does not say anything whether the full resolution of 800x240 will or will not be available in 2D mode.

[NeoTechni]

That was more to prove it's 240 lines, not 480

[darkblu]

That was more to prove it's 240 lines, not 480
That's not what I was asking, though. I'm curious about where you got that other information from (the one I quoted), as that's the first time I hear it, let alone stated in such a confident form.