Nintendo DS GPU

[Arwin]

Yes they have
I hate to say it but that actually looks like they have anti-aliasing of the supersampled variety. Nuts! And beautiful!

Yes, I also thought they are doing an impressive job, when I saw that video. Have to admit though that it has me wondering about what they'll be able to pull off on the PSP.

 

[Corwin_B]

Yes, I also thought they are doing an impressive job, when I saw that video. Have to admit though that it has me wondering about what they'll be able to pull off on the PSP.

Because of course, a technical thread on the DS GPU would not be complete without mentioning the PSP.

And IIRC, FSAA is a feature of the DS GPU.

 

[Arwin]

Because of course, a technical thread on the DS GPU would not be complete without mentioning the PSP.

And IIRC, FSAA is a feature of the DS GPU.

Ok, I got thrown off by the post I replied to, which also just said company x did a fine job with game y, without mentioning anything on the DS GPU, sorry about that.

Anyway, to me, the DS GPU is certainly a lot more advanced that I initially thought it would be (though admittedly I haven't had the highest of regards for Nintendo's handheld hardware, so my expectations were low). And 2000 polys per frame is quite a lot for such a small screen - does this also translate to 1000 per screen if you use both? And then you can use textures quite liberally I understand.

 

[Corwin_B]

Ok, I got thrown off by the post I replied to, which also just said company x did a fine job with game y, without mentioning anything on the DS GPU, sorry about that.

Anyway, to me, the DS GPU is certainly a lot more advanced that I initially thought it would be (though admittedly I haven't had the highest of regards for Nintendo's handheld hardware, so my expectations were low). And 2000 polys per frame is quite a lot for such a small screen - does this also translate to 1000 per screen if you use both? And then you can use textures quite liberally I understand.

IIRC, you can't split 3D rendering power between both screens on the DS. To do 3D on both screens, you need to alternatively assign the more powerful processor of the DS (the ARM9) to one screen, then the other one. Or you can get away with GBA-looking "3D" stuff on one of the screens (like the sky in Animal Crossing, which looks very bad when compared to the lower screen).

Concerning the display limitation, I think (not sure) that it's a limit after every other 3D operation in the pipeline has been done (culling...) so the theorical figure could be (much) higher.

Texturing can be ok, because the DS can directly stream texture data from the cartridge (that's what Mech Assault is doing), and the GPU features texture compression.

My feeling is that if Nintendo had not gone the very cheap way and had implemented a decent texture filtering on the DS, the graphics would not be so decried and the PS1-comparisons would not have occured.

Also, considering how bad many 3D games look on the DS whereas it can provide such cool graphics (FF3, Mario Kart, Viewtiful Joe, Mario Basket, Nanostray, even Nintendogs and Animal Crossing...), it looks like either the GPU is very hard to use properly, or that many companies just don't care.

 

[darkblu]

My feeling is that if Nintendo had not gone the very cheap way and had implemented a decent texture filtering on the DS, the graphics would not be so decried and the PS1-comparisons would not have occured.

i would not be surpirsed if some of the next revisions of the ds has better filtering modes.

Also, considering how bad many 3D games look on the DS whereas it can provide such cool graphics (FF3, Mario Kart, Viewtiful Joe, Mario Basket, Nanostray, even Nintendogs and Animal Crossing...), it looks like either the GPU is very hard to use properly, or that many companies just don't care.

i believe it's not so much a matter of not caring as a matter of skills - to produce nice graphics in low-res and nice graphics in high-res are not necesserily the same skillset. which is more valid with 3d graphics than with 2d graphics. stylizing a nice 2d graphic into a few pixels is generally easier than doing simialr in 3d within the same pixel limitations. look at castlevania - the art assets in that game are superb - they have a very high 'pixel-efficiency' ratio - basically every single pixel fulfills its artistic purpose. you can never achieve such an efficiency ratio with 3d if you're to follow similar screen estate limitations - simply because in 3d your means of control over each individual pixel are much looser.

anyway, what i'm trying to say with all that is that not so many dev houses out there have the skills to do good 3d graphics at these resolutions. shin'en, the nanostray guys, are veterans from the gba shooter scene, and you can immediately tell that by looking at their ds shooter. then the vj team did a nice job with the ds version, but here and there you can tell they were going astray toward their hi-res 'thinking'. nintendogs, oth, is a freaking-well done lo-res 3d game, i mean brillinat - you'd hardly see a single attempt there to cram more info than what the ds res can present.

 

[Corwin_B]

i would not be surpirsed if some of the next revisions of the ds has better filtering modes.

I really hope. OTOH, that would make me buy a 3rd DS (after the Brick and the Lite).

i believe it's not so much a matter of not caring as a matter of skills - to produce nice graphics in low-res and nice graphics in high-res are not necesserily the same skillset. which is more valid with 3d graphics than with 2d graphics. stylizing a nice 2d graphic into a few pixels is generally easier than doing simialr in 3d within the same pixel limitations. look at castlevania - the art assets in that game are superb - they have a very high 'pixel-efficiency' ratio - basically every single pixel fulfills its artistic purpose. you can never achieve such an efficiency ratio with 3d if you're to follow similar screen estate limitations - simply because in 3d your means of control over each individual pixel are much looser.

Interesting point about artistic skills. It seems that cell-shaded games are pretty well-suited to the DS hardware and screens, considering how many good-looking cell-shaded games there are : in addition to Viewtiful Joe, both Tony Hawk and Ultimate Spiderman look great, and there are several superb upcoming games, such as Tales of Tempest, the Dragon Quest spinoff by SE, Zelda Phantom Hourglass...

 

[Murakami]

i would not be surpirsed if some of the next revisions of the ds has better filtering modes.

I wuold be very surprised: it would be the very first time in consoles' history.

 

[Guden Oden]

i would not be surpirsed if some of the next revisions of the ds has better filtering modes.

I would be. Majorly so even. Besides, bilinear on non-mipmapped, low-res textures on a low-res screen looks ASSY AS HELL. Hardly any better at all than point sampling in the distance, and simply a blurry mess up close. I much prefer things the way they are, especially as some textures absolutely would not be suited to filtering.

 

[fearsomepirate]

I really don't think the DS needs it. The screen is so small that filtering wouldn't result in a massive increase in image quality. What looks kinda nasty in screenies on the web doesn't look so bad on a 2.5" screen.

 

[darkblu]

I wuold be very surprised: it would be the very first time in consoles' history.

well, depends, if you consider playstation backward compatibility on the ps2, which offered bilinear over old ps1 titles.

I would be. Majorly so even. Besides, bilinear on non-mipmapped, low-res textures on a low-res screen looks ASSY AS HELL. Hardly any better at all than point sampling in the distance, and simply a blurry mess up close. I much prefer things the way they are, especially as some textures absolutely would not be suited to filtering.

well, non-mipmaped point-sampled textues do not look less assy at minification. your concern about texture magnification, though, is not without reason - it's usually at big magnification (which could be anisotropic, too) when bilinear starts to look worse than point-sampling. but i would not be so sure that bilinear has no place at DS resolutions. just that it may be overall less justified than at higher res. but not totally out of place.

 

[Fox5]

I would be. Majorly so even. Besides, bilinear on non-mipmapped, low-res textures on a low-res screen looks ASSY AS HELL. Hardly any better at all than point sampling in the distance, and simply a blurry mess up close. I much prefer things the way they are, especially as some textures absolutely would not be suited to filtering.

For its size, I wouldn't consider the DS screen to be low res.

 

[Squeak]

I really don't think the DS needs it. The screen is so small that filtering wouldn't result in a massive increase in image quality. What looks kinda nasty in screenies on the web doesn't look so bad on a 2.5" screen.

What's more the extra logic that bilinear would need would most likely come out of the transistor budget of the texturecache. Maybe that's what happened with N64?
When it comes to pure resolution DS actually has really good textures IMO, if not surpassing the PSP, then equalling it in the best games.
Anyone remember the demos at E3 three years ago, some of the stuff they showed in those is actually quite impressive for a handheld of DS caliber.

I think the complacency or sheer apathy of most DS developers when it comes to the technical side of things, has much to do with DS for a long time being perceived as an interim Game Boy 3, making learning all the ins and outs of the hardware seemingly pointless in the long run Only recently has developers started to at least try.

 

[Teasy]

I really don't think the DS needs it. The screen is so small that filtering wouldn't result in a massive increase in image quality. What looks kinda nasty in screenies on the web doesn't look so bad on a 2.5" screen.

3" screen, but I agree. The biggest problem often seen in DS games is jittering polygons (caused by the fixed point T&L I think?). Lack of filtering just isn't a problem IMO.

 

[Murakami]

well, depends, if you consider playstation backward compatibility on the ps2, which offered bilinear over old ps1 titles.

PS2 is a PS2, not a PS1: we're talking about another revision of DS, not a DS2.

 

[Guden Oden]

For its size, I wouldn't consider the DS screen to be low res.

Wether talking for its size or not, 256x192 is pretty friggin low res. If we make a screen that is 70*50 pixels but only the size of a stamp, I bet you wouldn't call it high-res.

Dot pitch is one thing, resolution is something completely different.

 

[Squeak]

But the nGage was only 170x200 IIRC and the magnificent C64s highcolour mode only 160x200.
256x192 definitely isn't highres but it's not ridiculously low for the screen size either.
The second screen should also be considered because a lot of the screen real estate in a videogame is used for maps and meters, which can be moved to the touchscreen.

 

[darkblu]

But the nGage was only 170x200 IIRC and the magnificent C64s highcolour mode only 160x200.
256x192 definitely isn't highres but it's not ridiculously low for the screen size either.

i don't think anybody said it was ridiculously low. fact is, though, if you want to cram certain amount of visual data on it that would otherwise be totally normal for both dektop machines and tv consoles from the past decade, you'll discover certain difficulties. so if you were a game dev/artist, unless you had been in this industry for quite long, or have had expeience with other simliar devices, chances are you'll have to pass some learing curve before producing good visuals at this res.

The second screen should also be considered because a lot of the screen real estate in a videogame is used for maps and meters, which can be moved to the touchscreen.

yes, of course, but the essence of the discussion was about 3d pixel quality, iirc. basically could the ds benefit from something more than what it has and would it be reasonable? e.g. one thing that surely helps at such modest reolutions is FSAA.

 

[Fafalada]

Which one?

Priority/ID buffer.
It's one of those features that were later superceeded by programmable hardware, so they weren't around for very long as fixed hw implementation.

I would be. Majorly so even. Besides, bilinear on non-mipmapped, low-res textures on a low-res screen looks ASSY AS HELL.

It looks much better then point sampling nonetheless, especially with texel reduction.
Problem is more that even with a DS1.1 bilinear model out, devs would still have to develop for point filtering, and arbitrarily filtering art that was optimized for point filtered renderer can in fact make things look worse (or at least not quite right / off).

3" screen, but I agree. The biggest problem often seen in DS games is jittering polygons (caused by the fixed point T&L I think?). Lack of filtering just isn't a problem IMO.

IIRC the major contributors to polygon/pixel jitter are rasterizer's subpixel precision (or lack of thereof) and texture sampling. So bilinear should help, but I wouldn't expect miracles.
I doubt geometry transforms are a major factor - fixed point gets a bad rep from old days where we used short formats, but with 32bit ints you have Plenty of precision, and can actually have more accuracy in odd few situations then you would with SP floats.

 

[swaaye]

IIRC the major contributors to polygon/pixel jitter are rasterizer's subpixel precision (or lack of thereof) and texture sampling.

The Matrox G200 used to have that issue with Unreal. It was annoying as hell, watching the ground beneath you wobble around. If I recall correctly it was botched subpixel precision.

 

[Magnum PI]

an "enhanced" mode for the DS games in a future DS ? games then wouldn't look like they were intended. baad.

for example if a dev carefully tuned the appearance of the two screens to look like the same despite only one of them being 3D. if you enhance the 3D screen and the other one stay unchanged..

and for commercial reason i don't see nintendo doing this, it would somewhat make the new games developped for the new hardware look less spectacular.