The DS appears to be capable of pushing more polygons at a higher frame rate than the N64. It's tough to judge on the small screen, but Mario 64 DS certainly has sharper textures and more geometry than the N64 version. It has a hard limit of I think 2048 polygons per frame, something that the developers of Mech Assault DS didn't seem to have any trouble reaching while still maintaining a smooth frame rate. Also, judging by the textures, it doesn't have the 4 KB limit, either. Odds of them using RDRAM are about zero, which is probably why the frame rates tend to be smoother. Another little-known fact: DS has AA. It was first really obvious in the Sims, but I haven't really looked for it in other games. But since it doesn't have bilinear filtering, it's an asymmetric comparison.
DS's main advantages over the PS1 are perspective-correct texturing and z-buffering. Its fillrate is half that of the PS1, and its target resolution is about 1/3 the PS1's, so that's one disadvantage. The fact that it can actually hit its max 120K polys/sec is probably worth mentioning, too.
DS's main advantages over the PS1 are perspective-correct texturing and z-buffering. Its fillrate is half that of the PS1, and its target resolution is about 1/3 the PS1's, so that's one disadvantage. The fact that it can actually hit its max 120K polys/sec is probably worth mentioning, too.
