How similar is the DS hardware to the N64 hardware?

[Fox5]

Launch titles seemed to be ready for the DS fairly quickly, and it had a decent amount of N64 ports(or games that looked like they were), so I was wondering if coding for the DS is very similar to the n64.

 

[Farid]

Launch titles seemed to be ready for the DS fairly quickly, and it had a decent amount of N64 ports(or games that looked like they were), so I was wondering if coding for the DS is very similar to the n64.

From the little info available about the DS hardware for the moment, i would say that they have very little in common. The CPU(s) is(are) different, the RAM is different, the GPU seems different (Especially if this "framebuffer-less" rumor was true), therefore the coding might be quite different.

And about the games, AFAIK only MarioDS and the RRDS are some sort of ports from N64 counterparts. We also don't have any informations about the amount of work thoses "ports" required, nor if they run under the same engine, or if they simply share some art asset and some game code, but runs on totally different engines.

We still can't rule out the possibility, though, that Nintendo include some layer of compatibility, with the N64, in the DS devkit, which would simplify the process of porting N64 games to the DS (Which might not be Nintendo primary ambition with the DS, though)...

 

[darkblu]

Especially if this "framebuffer-less" rumor was true

would you elaborate?

 

[Megadrive1988]

they don't appear to be very similar at all. only somewhat similar in 3D performance.


N64 CPU: ~93 MHZ MIPs R4xxx
DS CPUs: 67 MHZ ARM9, plus ARM7

N64 GPU: ~60 MHZ SGI Reality Co Processor. 100k to 160k tectured polys with all effects/features on. north of 500k raw polys

DS GPU: ???????? ~120k textured polys with all features on. no filtering or AA. ~4million raw polys (why is this so high?)

 

[see colon]

DS GPU: ???????? ~120k textured polys with all features on. no filtering or AA. ~4million raw polys (why is this so high?)

from what i hear the ds can transform ~4million polly's/sec but the ds' gpu can only display 120k.

would you elaborate?

wrt the ds being framebufferless...
at lest a few sources have stated that the ds' gpu renders driectly into screen space, not into a buffer. "normal" 3d accellerators render the entire frame to a buffer before it is displayed. i'm not sure what advantages are to each method, but it would make sense that without buffering render to texture would be broken.

 

[Farid]

would you elaborate?

In an old topic about the DS someone posted some sort of "leaked infos" about the DS and its 3D capabilities.
And one of thoses rumors was that the GPU lacked any sort of framebuffer when rendering 3D frames. Meaning you'd have to rasterize your picture only once your scene is "complete".
I'll try to google the "leaked" specs, if possible.

edit: forget google, a simple forum search did the trick.
link

 

[Megadrive1988]

DS GPU: ???????? ~120k textured polys with all features on. no filtering or AA. ~4million raw polys (why is this so high?)

from what i hear the ds can transform ~4million polly's/sec but the ds' gpu can only display 120k.

yeah that's basicly what I said,

 

[see colon]

i figured you knew what you were talking about megadrive, i just wanted to clarify for other people. the way it was worded (especialy after the n64 poly throughput specs) it sounded like you were saying the ds could do 4mp/s with no effects on.

 

[Fox5]

Wouldn't the lack of a framebuffer be a major drawback for the system?

 

[VNZ]

I don't know according to what definition of 'framebuffer' that the DS hasn't got one. It's perfectly able to alternate between two buffers for rendering and display.

 

[London Geezer]

How similar is the DS hardware to the N64 hardware?

It isn't. The only similar thing is that they both run with electricity. And they have buttons. And Mario. It has somewhat similar performance, without the Bilinear Filtering and the blur filter (AA). But architecture-wise, totally different.