Nintendo 3DS hardware thread

[Teasy]

Where did you come to the 'roughly the same power' conclusion? Power consumption is likely one of Nintendo's larger concerns.

Its based on nothing as far as I can see, there's no power consumption numbers for Tegra 2 AFAIK. I'd also question the idea that we should expect a fully programmable GPU to be consuming roughly the same as a similarly performing fixed function (or semi fixed function in Pica200's case) GPU.

 

[Svensk Viking]

Is it possible for the developers to make DS games, that display 3D when played on the 3DS?

I remember that some Gameboy Color games worked on the original Gameboy

 

[DeadlyNinja]

People are speculating Pokemon Black & White might do that. This is purely speculation of course. The graphical style is very different from normal Pokemon and seems to be aimed at being seen in 3D.

 

[Exophase]

Is it possible for the developers to make DS games, that display 3D when played on the 3DS?

I remember that some Gameboy Color games worked on the original Gameboy

I doubt it. In order for the 3DS effect to work the game has to render to two separate frame buffers which are then switched synchronously so they're both present at the same time. DS isn't framebuffer based, so the rendering goes straight to the screen. Even if you use the capture unit like dual screen 3D games do you still wouldn't be able to get the screens to flip at the same time.

The only way I see it working is if the 3D operation is higher level and more abstracted than I realize, and the 3DS was designed to perform this abstraction over both the 3DS GPU and the DS one (I don't believe that the 3DS GPU is itself implementing the DS one). I don't think Nintendo would do this since it's less flexible, and would require more logic for making it work with DS games in addition to 3DS ones.

 

[sfried]

I doubt it. In order for the 3DS effect to work the game has to render to two separate frame buffers which are then switched synchronously so they're both present at the same time. DS isn't framebuffer based, so the rendering goes straight to the screen. Even if you use the capture unit like dual screen 3D games do you still wouldn't be able to get the screens to flip at the same time.

The only way I see it working is if the 3D operation is higher level and more abstracted than I realize, and the 3DS was designed to perform this abstraction over both the 3DS GPU and the DS one (I don't believe that the 3DS GPU is itself implementing the DS one). I don't think Nintendo would do this since it's less flexible, and would require more logic for making it work with DS games in addition to 3DS ones.

Not to mention many DS games use some level of 2D trickery to mimic the illusion of having a 3D object in the space (i.e. sprites, masking effects etc.). It would be a nightmare to program an algorithm that would accurately predict where to place these effects on a 3D plane to work for each and every game.

 

[Exophase]

Not to mention many DS games use some level of 2D trickery to mimic the illusion of having a 3D object in the space (i.e. sprites, masking effects etc.). It would be a nightmare to program an algorithm that would accurately predict where to place these effects on a 3D plane to work for each and every game.

Svensk Viking was asking if it were possible to make DS games that used the 3D features of the 3DS when ran on one, not if the 3DS can be made to display existing DS games in 3D (we already know it won't)

It might be possible to flat out include separate DS and 3DS program binaries on a gamecard, but this seems like a lot of trouble to go through and a lot of wasted space.

 

[sfried]

It might be possible to flat out include separate DS and 3DS program binaries on a gamecard, but this seems like a lot of trouble to go through and a lot of wasted space.

Didn't they do something similar with the GBC, though?

 

[Exophase]

Didn't they do something similar with the GBC, though?

Not really. GBC was such a simple enhancement to GB that it was almost forward compatible. Graphics were colorized by adding a second tile attribute map and palettes. Games just had to detect if they were ran on a monochrome GB and if so not write out the colorization/priority and palette data. Of course, games could also not use the extra 192 tiles, 32KB of RAM, double clock speed mode, or infared port which were only available on GBC. But the point is that there was very little code variation between the two modes.

3DS, on the other hand, is not an enhanced DS, the GPU is a totally different design and you'd probably need some pretty different code paths in the backend of your 3D engine to make code run on both.

 

[DeadlyNinja]

Out of curiosity, did any 360/PS3 game use sub-surface scattering?

 

[sfried]

Of course, games could also not use the extra 192 tiles, 32KB of RAM, double clock speed mode, or infared port...

This is another thing that surprised me about the 3DS announcement: The inclusion of the infrared port. Could it be forshadowing something of a Virtual console for GBC games?

I'm not certain as to what the advantages of having an IR interface on the handheld are given the latest standards in wireless tech (bluetooth, etc.).

 

[Squilliam]

Out of curiosity, did any 360/PS3 game use sub-surface scattering?

Mass Effect 2 IIRC.

 

[DeadlyNinja]

This is another thing that surprised me about the 3DS announcement: The inclusion of the infrared port. Could it be forshadowing something of a Virtual console for GBC games?

I'm not certain as to what the advantages of having an IR interface on the handheld are given the latest standards in wireless tech (bluetooth, etc.).

Honestly, I can only think of 2 games that actually used the IR ports in the original GBC.

 

[Colourless]

Mass Effect 2 IIRC.

That probably means any recent UE3 engine game will probably have it, or at least could have it.

 

[doug1820]

This is a powerful chip but little will it show it because it has to drive 3 screens ! Left eye, Right eye and Bottom, the GPU may look powerful on paper but remember Nintendo has a habit of lowering clock speeds so it maybe underclocked for battery life. They only put this GPU in so they can get similar graphics to the N64 and a half. This chip is going to be tied up during gaming. It must do the work of 3. Don't get me wrong it still can add AA and kind of modern OpenGL ES 1.1 but don't expect better than PS2 or PSP Graphics, it just isn't happening !

 

[Exophase]

This is a powerful chip but little will it show it because it has to drive 3 screens ! Left eye, Right eye and Bottom, the GPU may look powerful on paper but remember Nintendo has a habit of lowering clock speeds so it maybe underclocked for battery life. They only put this GPU in so they can get similar graphics to the N64 and a half. This chip is going to be tied up during gaming. It must do the work of 3. Don't get me wrong it still can add AA and kind of modern OpenGL ES 1.1 but don't expect better than PS2 or PSP Graphics, it just isn't happening !

The 3DS has to include the DS's 3D and 2D capabilities for backwards compatibility. I doubt the PICA chip is capable of delivering this directly, so the functions are most likely supplied by separate logic. It's entirely possible that the DS 2D/3D can then drive the second screen, instead of taxing the primary 3D. This would be pretty consistent with how the DS worked and I don't think we've seen any screenshots that suggest higher fidelity than this on the second screen.

I don't know why anyone wouldn't expect better than PSP graphics when we're already seeing better than PSP graphics. Calling it "N64 and a half" level is just slanderous.

 

[DeadlyNinja]

I don't know why anyone wouldn't expect better than PSP graphics when we're already seeing better than PSP graphics. Calling it "N64 and a half" level is just slanderous.

What, your N64 games didn't have normal mapping, per-pixel lighting, and dynamic shadows?

 

[Arwin]

The PSP is from 2004! Even in 3D I have a hard time believing the 3DS will not outperform it!

 

[Exophase]

What, your N64 games didn't have normal mapping, per-pixel lighting, and dynamic shadows?

On the contrary, my N64 games have exactly two thirds of each.

 

[sfried]

On the contrary, my N64 games have exactly two thirds of each.

I don't recall Rogue Squadron/Battle for Naboo having per-pixel lighting, normal mapping, and dynamic shadows. What I do recall is "hi-resolution graphics" (640x480), real-time lighting, and maybe some gouraud shading to simulate huge draw distances. Pretty impressive if you ask me (Factor 5 did do their own microcode, though).

 

[Exophase]

I don't recall Rogue Squadron/Battle for Naboo having per-pixel lighting, normal mapping, and dynamic shadows. What I do recall is "hi-resolution graphics" (640x480), real-time lighting, and maybe some gouraud shading to simulate huge draw distances. Pretty impressive if you ask me (Factor 5 did do their own microcode, though).

I guess you didn't get the joke ;p

N64 was a pretty well featured system, could do a lot if you were willing to hurt the framerate a bit (quite unlike DS), but nothing close to what a 3DS game can do. Except for render at higher than 400x240x2, of course.