How much processing power does the GBA really have?

[thop]

Not graphics power, but pure processing power. I just got myself Virtual Kasparov (Chess), found it in the bargain bin. The fully unlocked engine is really good i must say! I'm not the best player in the world but anyway.

So i found that the GBA has a 25Mhz ARM processor and ~300kB RAM(?). How does the CPU compare to say a Pentium?

 

[Guden Oden]

How does the CPU compare to say a Pentium?

Not at all actually. It's a toy CPU for a toy product.

 

[thop]

That's not the answer i was looking for :? Surely someone must've tried a homebrew prime calculation program or sth. on the GBA to determine the mathematical power?

 

[akira888]

16.7 Mhz ARM7TDMI (32 bit RISC). So in other words it's about an order of magnitude weaker than a Pentium.

I don;t think you need an uber-CPU to run a decent chess engine. I had one of the Chessmasters on a 386 20 MHz and it actually was alright.

 

[Megadrive1988]

umm, GBA has a 16 Mhz 32-Bit ARM (ARM7?) processor. it's better than the 3.58 Mhz SNES processor, but much weaker than PS1's 33 Mhz R3000A. maybe the GBA processor is roughly comparable to the ARM CPU in 3DO which was like 12 Mhz.

 

[thop]

So it's ~486ish? :?

 

[Megadrive1988]

I would think that it was 386ish or lowend 486ish...no wait..make that just lowend 386ish going by clockspeed. though that's not a good indication of performance. if ARM7 is a RISC processor (almost certainly is) then it might very well be in the same class as a highend 486 DX 66 Mhz CPU. but I can't say for sure.


note that Nintendo's eariler project for a 32-Bit GameBoy, known as Atlantis, circa 1996-1997, reportedly called for a 100~160 Mhz StrongARM processor. now that's far more powerful than what GBA got.

 

[Lazy8s]

Chessmaster and Sargon Chess for my Commodore 64 were pretty smart.

 

[Gollum]

I find most chess programms pretty smart, buy maybe I just suck at chess...

 

[thop]

That's the thing: http://www.arm.com/products/CPUs/ARM7TDMI.html
No benchmarks to be found anywhere

486-DX66 is not so bad really. I guess chess engines also progressed quite a bit since then so that in combination probably makes is Pentium60ish

I'd really like to see some debug information, especially how many plys (half moves) deep the engine calculates. I guess 4 plys should be instant even on the GBA, and 6 could be average.

Chessmaster and Sargon Chess for my Commodore 64 were pretty smart.

Or you were quite ... young I don't thing the C64 could do more than 3 plys in a reasonable time.

 

[London Geezer]

That's the thing: http://www.arm.com/products/CPUs/ARM7TDMI.html
No benchmarks to be found anywhere

486-DX66 is not so bad really. I guess chess engines also progressed quite a bit since then so that in combination probably makes is Pentium60ish

I'd really like to see some debug information, especially how many plys (half moves) deep the engine calculates. I guess 4 plys should be instant even on the GBA, and 6 could be average.

Chessmaster and Sargon Chess for my Commodore 64 were pretty smart.

Or you were quite ... young I don't thing the C64 could do more than 3 plys in a reasonable time.

Plys?? What's that? :?

 

[kopio0]

i'm think the gba is 5-10% faster than a snes+sfx but it's sad that nintendo. stingy retains a 1k palatte from snes. the gba seriously lacks alpha blending sprites.. its a bare min standards nowadays. look at those flash games.. wonder ds has it in hardware?

 

[VNZ]

The ARM ISA is very a clever one indeed, so it's no use to go by clock speed and say it's 386:ish. That said, the GBA hasn't much to put up against even those 10-15 year old stationary machines -- I believe the CPU delivers around 15 MIPS and there's no float unit.

 

[London Geezer]

How much processing power does the GBA really have?

Because GBA has processing power....?



*ducks*

 

[thop]

I will pit the little GBA against my 2400Mhz XP this weekend to see what it can do

On the ply: black moves, white moves, black moves - that's 3 plys.

 

[Lazy8s]

Ply: the immediate-mode rendering of move calculation in chess.

 

[Clashman]

Not sure about Chess computations, but in terms of graphics I would put it about on par with 3do, with the obvious limitations on storage. If you compare the GBA version of Wing Commander Prophecy with the 3DO Wing Commander III, I'd say they look about equal in terms of scene complexity, although the 3DO's extra ram probably puts it ahead in things like texturing ability.

 

[Colourless]

Compare Doom GBA to Doom PC on a 386. I would say the 386 has more processing power.

 

[Clashman]

You know, maybe this was just me, but I always thought Doom sucked the life out of anything less than a 486 dx 33 and 8 mb or RAM.

 

[Lazy8s]

Ply: the immediate-mode rendering of move calculation in chess.

So, what you need is a system with a high sort depth. Something around 25 would be great!