Nintendo 3DS hardware thread

[tongue_of_colicab]

Maybe you need to take a look at the MGS or RE videos. They look great, certainly much better than anything the psp or a iphone will do. Well, maybe a 4g has better gfx but than again it costs 3 times as much, doesn't have 3d, the battery is dead before you know it and if you want to do any half decent gaming you wouldn't want to be found dead with a 4g (or any other phone) because it just lacks any for of decent control input with only a touchscreen.

 

[Xmas]

The fact that it's not compatible with SM4.0 cards has to mean something.

No, it's a simple coincidence. OpenGL ES 2.0 compatibility could have been added to OpenGL much earlier.

Both AMD and Nvidia have OpenGL ES 2.0 conformant drivers for their DX10 desktop GPUs (see http://www.khronos.org/adopters/conformant-products/#topengles), and several OpenGL ES 2.0 wrappers run on most OpenGL 2.1 implementations.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

This thread is really for analysis and consideration of the technology of 3DS, and not its future business prospects. In fact I'll spawn off that discussion...

 

[DeadlyNinja]

Hey there's a new Iwata Asks that talks about the 3DS and some interesting things about Nintendo's experiments into 3D. They talked about the Virtual Boy and they've even experimented on the GBA SP. We've heard about the Gamecube having 3D built in, but turns out Luigi's Mansion was originally meant to be 3D. Check it out, it's pretty interesting.

http://iwataasks.nintendo.com/interview.html#/how-nintendo-3ds-made/0/0

Iwata: We couldn’t have done it without selling it for a price far above that of the Nintendo GameCube system, itself! We already had a game for it, though—Luigi’s Mansion13, simultaneously released with Nintendo GameCube.

Itoi: The one in which Luigi shoulders a vacuum cleaner?

Iwata: Yeah, that one. We had a functional version of that in 3D.

Itoi: That was 3D?

Miyamoto: It would jump out at you pretty nicely.

Iwata: Even without special glasses, the 3D looked pretty good. But we considered how much the liquid crystal would cost, and it was just too expensive. We figured the market just wasn’t there for it.

 

[Teasy]

Game play demonstrations of Resident Evil: Revelations and Mercenaries here: http://zh-tw.justin.tv/puchi_/b/277193642 (game play demo starts at about the 45 second mark).

 

[DeadlyNinja]

Am I crazy or did I see the polygons shaking like a PS1 game?

 

[Teasy]

More like a less extreme version of the problem you'd see on a PSP rather then a PS1. Anyway I noticed a bit, but only on the main characters hands in close up. But common, that's one fantastic looking game and its not even near complete yet. Imagine how good that's going to look on a 3.5" screen

 

[Exophase]

The shaking on her hands could be deliberate, I really didn't notice it anywhere else. I doubt it has coordinate precision problems.

 

[DeadlyNinja]

Yeah, I'm just talking about her hands. When they switched to that, it looks really ugly. Like the hand's not using per-pixel lighting. I'm not saying it's a bad looking game, not at all, just the switch was very jarring. I couldn't help but notice the flaws.

 

[lwill]

Yeah, I'm just talking about her hands. When they switched to that, it looks really ugly. Like the hand's not using per-pixel lighting. I'm not saying it's a bad looking game, not at all, just the switch was very jarring. I couldn't help but notice the flaws.

I see what you are talking about. Considering that the game engine should be pushed less in fps view than in 3rd person mode (Jill's model looks very impressive), I think the problem has less to do with a hardware limitation, and more due to the game only being 20% complete as of December.

 

[Brad Grenz]

So, Resident Evil: Mercenaries got ugly fast:

http://www.eurogamer.net/gallery.php?game_id=14139&article_id=1316539#anchor

 

[Brad Grenz]

Oh, and there is not a hardware breakdown posted here: http://www.tvgzone.com/thread-4818-1-1.html

A shot of the 3DS CPU:

Looks like a single chip for the CPU/GPU plus a memory chip.

 

[RaolinDarksbane]

So, Resident Evil: Mercenaries got ugly fast:

http://www.eurogamer.net/gallery.php?game_id=14139&article_id=1316539#anchor

It looks like an iphone version, look at the touch interface.

 

[Brad Grenz]

It looks like an iphone version, look at the touch interface.

Good point, didn't realize there was an iPhone version.

 

[jlippo]

The shaking on her hands could be deliberate, I really didn't notice it anywhere else. I doubt it has coordinate precision problems.

It's the whole animated object and quite visible on a shoulder as well.
The machine has sub-pixel accuracy so the precision problem is in character animation.

 

[sfried]

Oh, and there is not a hardware breakdown posted here: http://www.tvgzone.com/thread-4818-1-1.html

A shot of the 3DS CPU:

Looks like a single chip for the CPU/GPU plus a memory chip.

So is it an SOC?

 

[Teasy]

Does that article tell us any details about the memory chip?

 

[Xenus]

It's the whole animated object and quite visible on a shoulder as well.
The machine has sub-pixel accuracy so the precision problem is in character animation.

Indeed I noticed it happening quite badly on the shoulders of the suit as well. Hopefully it is a bug in the code and not really a hardware limitation like the PS1. It would be sad to see such a hardware limitation in this day and age.

 

[wsippel]

Does that article tell us any details about the memory chip?

No details, but judging by the markings, it's definitely made by Fujitsu. The square package is weird, though. Doesn't look like off-the-shelf FCRAM, and I'm not aware of any other type of memory manufactured by Fujitsu.

 

[Kaotik]

What's the Toshiba chip here?
edit:
link doesn't work, 3rd to last pic