GOt my nintendo ds today

[Teasy]

Quincy

Yeah Asphalt Urban GT is a DS launch title from UbiSoft (developed by Gameloft). Here are some pics of the game on both systems at there normal resolution:

Asphalt Urban GT on N-Gage at 20-30fps:

Asphalt Urban GT pic on DS at 60fps:

BTW I wasn't aware there was more then one N-Gage version as far as performance is concerned. I know there is the first N-Gage and also a newer version. But I thought the newer version still had the same 3D performance as the original?

 

[hey69]

ngage and ngage QD are exactly the same cpu and power wise

 

[Phil]

Aren't there any theoretical specs available from the ngage?

Just like PS2 can do 66 million polygons ey?

Of course, just visit the ps2-linux site for some high polygon demos!

 

[darkblu]

Aren't there any theoretical specs available from the ngage?

vanilla nokia series60 platform (104Mhz arm-something, 12bit 200x176 display w/o any accel whatsoever) running symbian6 (or 7s, don't remember) - the specs are at the nokia dev site.

 

[Blade]

I got my DS, and I like it in general. My only real qualm is the lack of an analog stick.. although..

A. The PSP has one, and reportedly it sucks. Would the DS be any different?

B. The touch-pad works well for analog, it's just difficult to get used to and not as quick.

 

[V3]

My only real qualm is the lack of an analog stick.

SM64DS controls fine with the digital pad IMO. And most games will be fine with digital pad too IMO.

My only qualm is that the screens suck. Beside that SM64DS, is a very nice rehash, I wish they've release this on Gamecube instead.

 

[PC-Engine]

Version, why did you post that? Quincy (QRoach) didn't say a word about PSP..

Probably because he's very frustrated from all the programming effort he's put into getting fake bumpmapping to work on PS2 outside of a tech demo...


Anyhow...I just got my NDS at around 7pm a couple of hours ago. I was quite suprised to find out that my local Target already sold out of their supply of NDSs when I got there. I guess when all the other electronics stores ran out people started coming to low-key department stores. So after leaving Target I went to Circuit City and they were also out, then I went to TRU and miraculously they had 3 left. One was already reserved and paid for but hadn't been picked up so there were 2 available for purchase. Needless to say I snatched one up but not without a warning from the sales clerk that I could only buy ONE. One interesting thing I noticed while waiting in line was that the family in front of me purchased an Xbox while the guy behind me was lucky enough to get the last NDS available.

When I get home I open up the package and find 2 wrist straps, 2 slyluses, a tiny little NDS cart about the size of a postage stamp with a small clear plastic sleeve like the kind that comes with flash cards inside a cardboard MP:H sleeve, AC adaptor, and the main NDS unit. The NDS feels quite solid and well balanced even with the screen open and fairly light weight too. People always wonder if the weight includes battery, but I really couldn't understand this because the GBA SP comes with the internal battery so why would NDS be any different? Also NDS cart slot is spring loaded so when you want to remove them you just push the cart in and the spring pushes/ejects the cart out. This is quite clever since the tiny carts would be difficult to grip and pull out due to their size.

Anyway the first thing I noticed were the screens. They're very nice indeed especially the top screen, nice color, dark black, and both are very shiny too. The top screen has slightly better image quality than the bottom one. It's a tiny bit brighter. This is probably due to the lower screen being a touch screen. The screen lights could be turned off from the menu and the backlighting is A LOT better than the GBA SPs front/side lighting. The LCD panels themselves are almost flush with the case unlike on the SP where it's set further back inside the case.

During the setup process I used the slylus to enter nickname, time, DOB, etc. though you could use your fingers or buttons if you wanted to. The keyboard where you enter your nick is the same one used for PictoChat. I had expected that using your fingers on this tiny little keyboard to enter letters would be quite difficult because of the size of the individual keys, but after actually trying it, I realized that it's quite accurate and usable, but I prefer the stylus to keep the screen free from grime.

So I pop in both MP:H and R-Type III, the latter to see if GBA games see dramatic visual improvement. To my amazing R-Type III looked amazing. None of that washed out color from the GBA SP and the blacks are very nice. R-Type III is a perfect game for checking black levels since the first level starts off in black space. Next is MP:H which looks very good as expected looking like a mini version of MP for GCN. Also I can tell you that filtering is a none issue with respect to this game. There's little to no shimmering at all and the framerate is top notch. I haven't tried the thumb strap yet or stylus so I can't comment on that right now but from playing the games and having the NDS in hand, I can say that I'm very impressed and very happy that I got mine. 8)

Edit: For those who think the screens are still too small, all you have to do is hold the NDS a little closer to your eyes...it makes a BIG difference pun intended.

 

[rabidrabbit]

Edit: For those who think the screens are still too small, all you have to do is hold the NDS a little closer to your eyes...it makes a BIG difference pun intended.

hmmm.. you got me worried there, are the screens really hard to read from normal viewing distance?
How does that affect the ergonomics? It would probably not be as big an issue if you used just the butons, but using the stylus while holding the DS in an awkward position like if you need to hold it 20-30 cm from your eyes would be difficult :?

 

[PC-Engine]

Edit: For those who think the screens are still too small, all you have to do is hold the NDS a little closer to your eyes...it makes a BIG difference pun intended.

hmmm.. you got me worried there, are the screens really hard to read from normal viewing distance?
How does that affect the ergonomics? It would probably not be as big an issue if you used just the butons, but using the stylus while holding the DS in an awkward position like if you need to hold it 20-30 cm from your eyes would be difficult :?

The screens are fine with respect to text etc., but in MP:H the enemies specifically the sea urchin critters are very small especially from a distance so you would either have to get closer to them in the game to see them OR you would have to hold the NDS a little closer if you prefer to kill from far away. Add the fact their color blends in with the backgrounds given them a clamouflage effect doesn't help matters either. Using the stylus is not a probem from a normal 90 degree elbow or from a closer 45 degree. The keyboard can be read confortably from either distance. It's trying to shoot the small enemies in MP:H when they first appear on the screen that I was having problems with requiring me to hold the NDS a littler closer. I prefer to shoot the enemies as soon as they appear on the screen from a distance, however, if you're the kind of player that likes to get close and strafe around then you won't have a problem.

 

[Cryect]

For those who think the screens are still too small, all you have to do is hold the NDS a little closer to your eyes...it makes a BIG difference pun intended.

Reminding me of the episode in Red Dwarf where Kryten becomes a human and asks Lister where's the zoom feature for his eyes. Lister responds well humans don't have that and they have to move their head closer to the object

 

[Qroach]

Probably because he's very frustrated from all the programming effort he's put into getting fake bumpmapping to work on PS2 outside of a tech demo...

dude, what are you talking about?? do you mean when I mentioned mip mapping on PS2?

 

[Qroach]

DS and N-Gage definitely aren't the same in 3D performance. Check out Asphalt Urban GT for both systems. On N-Gage it runs at 20-30fps. On DS it looks noticably better (higher resolution and more polys) and runs at a constant 60fps. Both games were developed by the same team as well. So DS must be quite a bit more powerful then N-Gage. But how its more powerful is what interests me. Hopefully you can find out something from your friend.

Ok I looked into this further, and the DS has a perfformance advantage over ngage due to the combination of two processors. The Arm 7 handles everything (including working as a GBA), but 3D is completely left to the ARM 9. I'd guess that the Ngage has everything handled by the arm 9, and this degrades performance.

BTW I also heard about the 30fps 3D being possible on both screens at once. By rendering at 60fps and alternating the frames between screens.

I checked into this too, what you said is correct. A big problem with 3D on both screens, is if your game can't run at 60fps. You can render two totally different scenes at 30hz.

 

[Evil_Cloud]

I guess N-Gage is more close to PSOne's 3D graphics, while NDS is more close to N64 3D graphics + GBA's 2D graphics.

 

[Teasy]

Quincy

I think PC-Engine was referring to "Version" not you.

Ok I looked into this further, and the DS has a perfformance advantage over ngage due to the combination of two processors.

But wouldn't a single ARM9 104Mhz (in N-Gage) actually be a bit faster then the ARM9 66Mhz and ARM7 33Mhz in DS? Yet DS apears to have well over twice the 3D performance of N-Gage. I don't think a phone OS could account for that sort of difference. Are you sure the DS's ARM9 doesn't have ARM's additional co processor built in or something? (as that may go some way to explaining the difference).

 

[ector]

The DS has 3D hardware perspective correct texture mapped rasterization (but with no filtering) and even a T&L engine supporting four lights. The shakiness in some games comes from the fact that all math (including that done by the T&L engine) is fixed point, there is no fpu.
You _can_ get fixed point 3d to look smooth and non-shaky (speaking generally here, I don't have DS development experience) but it takes skill to manage the bits of precision well enough to avoid any shaking.

 

[Goldni]

We dont' have kits but one of our guys told me the DS has an Arm9E CPU. As it's got a few touches over the reg ARM9. This may be true or not though. Maybe someone can post some info from some spec docs.

Overall, I'm very impressed with my DS. When I first opened it there was a dead pixel right in the middle of the touch screen. I took it back to Wal Mart and they were out. I got my money back and lucked up to find one at Best Buy. MP Hunters First Hunt is impressive..but a little to dark. Mario is amazing looking imo. Spiderman 2 looks freaking great as well. It was only in development for 5 months. Five months! As impressed with the DS as I am , I can't wait to see the 2nd wave of games early 2005.

 

[PC-Engine]

Yeah I agree, MP:H is pretty dark, a result of color choices that mimic MP on GCN, then again it's only a demo so there are still many levels that we haven't yet seen. There is one pretty bright section in the demo where you jump on the platforms though.

 

[PC-Engine]

Ok I'm back with impressions using the thumb strap nob.

The thumb strap works quite well ,but you need to get used to it first since it has a little nob that sits between your thumb and the screen so it creates a distance between your thumb and screen which might not feel too natural at first causing you to put more pressure on the screen than necessary. It kinda interferes with the natural feedback that your skin provides. Also the thumb strap nob has to be aligned on your thumb fairly strategically because it only covers a small area of the thumb. Using only your thumb without the strap would be a lot better except for the fact your skin oils don't allow very smooth gliding unless you're barely skimming your thumb across the surface which adds another problem ie sensitivity.

What I've found to be a better solution for myself is to use a finger stocking. I had a bunch of soft thin cloth gloves laying around when I used to work with film negatives and found that to be a superior solution. Those familior with these film negative gloves will know what I'm talking about. I just cut the fingers off the gloves and used that instead of the thumb strap. I would expect 3rd parties would come out with this idea eventually because it works really well because your thumb is directly over the surface so it feel much more natural. Also the cloth allows smooth gliding without worries about applying too much pressure on the screen. People tend to press on buttons harder when in the heat of battle etc. so they'll do the same with the thumb nob which probably isn't to healthy for the screen after repeated use.

Also keep in mind that using your thumb in MP:H is only for looking/aiming. The best comparison to this configuration is using a trackball with your thumb while firing with the shoulder button that's opposite of the thumb hand. It works really well and is REALLY fast and accurate for aiming after a little practice.