Why are handhelds so.......weak?

[Almasy]

Its all about a blance between power (rendering power) and power (battery life) Look we get what 12 hours on a gba on a pair of double a's ? If it was 50% more powerfull we would get alot less. The math would be a pain to do but we'd have to find out how many more watts of power the cpu would use. Then find out how long the batterys would last with that power drain on them .

We all know that´s BS. As Deadmeat stated, Nintendo wanted something with long battery life that would be ultra cheap to make. That just goes to show what companies can get away with then they hold a monopoly.

The second thing going on is screen quality. Does anyone even want to know how crapy 3d games would look on the gba screen ?
The next step up from that are the screens used for the xbox , ps2 and game cube , they are much to big for a hand held and yet the games still look like crap on them. So really even if the psp pushes the same amount of polygons as the ps2 would u really want to play on a screen the size of your fist ? I know i wouldn't . I would rather play the 92 graphics .

Got ya, handheld technology shouldn´t advance, and the more behind it is, the better.

 

[DeadmeatGA]

...

Fox5

And currently, nintendo could take the gecko from the gamecube, add in a simple sound chip and graphics chip, and give it maybe 3 or 4 megs of normal ram(not embedded) and have a monster of a handheld for a low price. It'd probably be larger than a gba by a bit, but that's not such a big deal.

Really, how come scaled down versions of already cheap, small, and old hardware is not being used in handhelds?

Ever checked out the screen resolution of GBA??? 240x160x20 something hz. Not only you cannot see much on such limited screen resolution, a 16-bit era sprite engine is more than enough to max out the tiny screen. Thus it is really pointless to boost the rendering power of a handheld without increasing the screen resolution first.

Suppose you take the Flipper from GC and build a handheld derivative. What is the minimum screen size that can take full advantage of Flipper's rendering power??? 640x480x60hz, or the Flipper rendering power is a waste. Such high-resolution LCD display is much costlier than that $20 display that GBA is currently using and Nintendo would be forced to price its GBA2 at $199 or more, a price point simply unacceptable to consumers. Even $300 PocketPCs come with 320x240 screen.

 

[Tagrineth]

The thing is, GBA itself draws less than one watt of power for ~14 hours on two AA's. That's for the whole system - CPU, video, sound, AND screen.

It'd be neat if Nintendo could adapt Sega's VDP1 from the Saturn into GBA2 - that'd give them what is still the most powerful sprite engine in existence, and offer some potentially VERY good 3D speed (Saturn has a just about full-quality Quake port, but with added lighting effects ) compared to PSP... and I'm sure at this point VDP1 could probably be shrunk and re-scaled to the point of extremely low power draw. The only catch would be convincing devs to use depth-sorted sprite projection for 3D, instead of the triangles everyone's used to (Saturn was crushed by PSX because 1. the coders hated the SH-2's and 2. the artists hated the VDP1's 3D technique - resulting in horrific third-party support and some equally horrific graphics in some games).

OTOH, if they wanted to go the full 3D/Triangles route, they could very easily stick with ARM7 (and add to the BIOS a compatibility mode or something which reduces the clock to GBA's level), and use a PowerVR MBX derivative... though that would have pretty awful sprite power.


Here's an idea: What if for another GBA, Nintendo did this:

1. Keep ARM7, add compat mode as stated, but for GBA2 games, boot at like 30MHz or something like that
2. Keep the original GBA sprite engine, maybe up the clock with another compat mode for GBA games
3. Add a PowerVR MBX for those who want 3D; it could even work in parallel with the GBA's chip for some really cool effects - Saturn does this in some cases, projecting 3D on the VDP1 over a "3D" background generated by VDP2 (take a look at Virtua Figher and VF2).
4. Update the sound chip - PLEASE, NINTENDO, DO THIS ABOVE ALL ELSE!
5. 1MB RAM
6. Keep Z80 for reverse-compatibility; also make it available for side processing, i.e. audio and maybe I/O (IIRC, the Z80 in GBA is only active while in GBC compatibility mode)
7. Native support for high-density Matrix ROM, using very wide address range
8. Direct support for add-on chips in the cartridge, similar to SNES and Genesis but with the capacity to bypass the primary hardware - which SNES and Genesis could not do, and it slowed them down severely

 

[Teasy]

Pretty much because Nintendo doesn´t have any competition, and they can get away with disgusting, 1992 level hardware

But its not 1992 level hardware is it, since when did SNES or Megadrive use less then a single watt of power? GBA is 1992 level visuals (better then 1992 visuals actually) in the console market not the handheld market, they are very different. The PSP, for instance, will be 1995 visuals (PSX).. and it'll be released at the end of 2004. Does that mean Sony are bad for releasing a handheld with 1995 visuals in 2004/5?

Heck, now that I think about it, SNES was 2 years younger than Genesis if I recall correctly, and it certainly didn´t look like it. That´s why Nintendo shouldn´t be the market leader of anything IMO.

So in your opinion its hardware power that should define the market leader in the games industry.. not game quality?

We all know that´s BS. As Deadmeat stated, Nintendo wanted something with long battery life that would be ultra cheap to make. That just goes to show what companies can get away with then they hold a monopoly.

Why would having great battery life on there handhelds be caused by lack of competition.. and since when is long better life a bad thing? Nintendo has always put battery life very high on there list of priorities for there handhelds. Much higher then graphics. From the very first GB to the GBA-SP. GB was up against GameGear and Lynx and destroyed them despite being nowhere near those two handhelds as far as graphical power was concerned. The main reasons why it destroyed those two handhelds was because it was small and had very long battery life. Vs the other two which where big and sucked batteries to death in hours.

 

[Fox5]

So what is the gba has a low resolution? Early psx games ran in a similar low resolution, though I wouldn't expect much better looking 3d gba games than we currently have, but there is certainly improvement for 2d in that res.

BTW, I don't understand the whole"most powerful sprite engine" thing about the saturn.....I know the saturn had powerful 2d for the time, but except for a major limitation in memory to store sprites, I thought the n64 had it beat in that, and basically any technology afterwards.

And tagrineth, if the gba2 is goign to have actual 3d hardware, I'd expect at least 3 or 4 megs of ram, 2 at the least.(assuming we're talking about at least psx quality, and hopefully higher)

 

[Goldni]

the PSP wont be a huge leap over GBA imo. It's a 32 bit cpu. so is GBA. But the cpu does the sound for the GBA so right there it's at a disadvantage. There are several games on the GBA that approach PSX quality and even better. In fact the GBA is'nt 1992 hardware.. it's 1995. Look at what Madden GBA is...Madden '95. Look at Rayman 3 for GBA. It looks a hellulot better than Rayman PSX. In fact Rayman PSX was ported (perfectly) to the GBA at it's launch. And this lil thing is running all of this on 2AA's! It's amazing when you sit and think about it.

Sure PSP will be more advanced (pardon the pun). But should'nt it be? I will say it's not gonna be as small as the pocket sized GBA. The diskdrive. The screen. The flash card port. It's got to be at least bigger than the old 'brick' GB. Maybe thinner than that one but I'd bet $$ that Sony wont have a true 'pocket' portable like the GBASP. There was a reason Sony did'nt have any pictures at the presentation the other day

 

[DeadmeatGA]

....

So what is the gba has a low resolution?

Because high-resolution displays are expensive. GBA sells for $60 each and Nintendo makes money on it.

Early psx games ran in a similar low resolution

The lowest resolution possible on PSX is 320x240.

BTW, I don't understand the whole"most powerful sprite engine" thing about the saturn.....

Saturn's sprite engine was so powerful that it could distort sprites to simulate texture mapped polygons, a feature it was not designed for.

I thought the n64 had it beat in that, and basically any technology afterwards.

Nothing beats Saturn's 2D capability.

 

[Teasy]

So what is the gba has a low resolution? Early psx games ran in a similar low resolution

I wouldn't say they where similar resolutions. Early PSX games where 320x240 while GBA's resolution is 240x160. So GBA's resolution is half that of early PSX games.

 

[Tagrineth]

So what is the gba has a low resolution? Early psx games ran in a similar low resolution, though I wouldn't expect much better looking 3d gba games than we currently have, but there is certainly improvement for 2d in that res.

PSX runs as a standard at either 320x200 or 320x240.

GBA's SCREEN is 240x160 pixels.

BTW, I don't understand the whole"most powerful sprite engine" thing about the saturn.....I know the saturn had powerful 2d for the time, but except for a major limitation in memory to store sprites, I thought the n64 had it beat in that, and basically any technology afterwards.

N64 didn't even HAVE a dedicated sprite engine. It was 3D only.

"2D" games on N64 mapped animated textures to small clusters of coplanar triangles, same as the best-performing "2D" games on PSX (Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, for example).

After Saturn, nothing ever tried to have powerful 2D, anyway.

Hell, let's use a quick example: Street Fighter Zero 3 has a 100% arcade-perfect (some say better than arcade) Saturn port (using the 4MB RAM cartridge - similar to N64's expansion pack). The Dreamcast port (same company!) was reduced to run properly.

And tagrineth, if the gba2 is goign to have actual 3d hardware, I'd expect at least 3 or 4 megs of ram, 2 at the least.(assuming we're talking about at least psx quality, and hopefully higher)

Depends on the screen resolution. Keep in mind, PSX has 1MB usable RAM (the other 1MB is reserved for sound and frame buffer)... and GBA2, barring some wonderful feat of engineering, probably won't have a screen resolution much higher than GBA's.

 

[jvd]

Its all about a blance between power (rendering power) and power (battery life) Look we get what 12 hours on a gba on a pair of double a's ? If it was 50% more powerfull we would get alot less. The math would be a pain to do but we'd have to find out how many more watts of power the cpu would use. Then find out how long the batterys would last with that power drain on them .

We all know that´s BS. As Deadmeat stated, Nintendo wanted something with long battery life that would be ultra cheap to make. That just goes to show what companies can get away with then they hold a monopoly.

The second thing going on is screen quality. Does anyone even want to know how crapy 3d games would look on the gba screen ?
The next step up from that are the screens used for the xbox , ps2 and game cube , they are much to big for a hand held and yet the games still look like crap on them. So really even if the psp pushes the same amount of polygons as the ps2 would u really want to play on a screen the size of your fist ? I know i wouldn't . I would rather play the 92 graphics .

Got ya, handheld technology shouldn´t advance, and the more behind it is, the better.

Dude i have so many names i would love to call u right now but i will mind my maners. My mother taught me maners unlike others on this board.

I never said handheld technology shuldn't advance. But it shouldn't advance to 3d when the screens avalible for use are not able to display 3d correctly. Its like hooking up an xbox to a black and white tv. Whats the point ?

 

[Tagrineth]

For those who want to see some GBA 3D lovin': Pocketeers

 

[Fox5]

Wow, I never knew the saturn has such powerful 2d, though is it more powerful than modern computers?(it'd have to be really really powerful to outdo a 3 ghz cpu in anything, plus a modern graphics card if that can be used for anything in 2d) Hmm....guess that explains why there are still no decent saturn emulators, but there is nearly a good one for dreamcast.(I always thought there was none because it was too complicated, not too powerful)

And goldni, come on, even I know that bits don't matter that much. Your computer is most likely 32 bits(with 64 bit parts or something, blah blah blah), yet it is a heck of a lot more powerful than gba.

 

[Tagrineth]

fox5: It isn't Saturn's power or complexity... as much as it is sheer weirdness that prevents its effective emulation.

Main thing is, Saturn doesn't use triangle primitives, which means the 3D engine has to be nearly pure software and low-level. Then there's the dual SH-2's, AND the SH-1, AND the Motorola 68k... it all adds up to one weird, somewhat haphazard system.

By the way. Google and look up GiriGiri. =)

Saturn could be emulated pretty easily by ~1.5GHz with effective programming, I'd guess.

 

[DeanoC]

N64 didn't even HAVE a dedicated sprite engine. It was 3D only.

"2D" games on N64 mapped animated textures to small clusters of coplanar triangles, same as the best-performing "2D" games on PSX (Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, for example).

N64 microcode could do a sprite engine and the PSX has hardware sprite features (as does the Xbox, Dreamcast and PS2 and I suspect the Gamecube). Most hardware has quad rendering features, 2D people call them sprites, 3D people call them particles.

IIRC PSX gets double fill-rate for sprite quads (screen aligned).

Its allows been an interesting urban legend that the use of quads caused the Saturn's death, but most 3D engines for PSX used quads as well. We had convertors that turned 2 triangles (which the artist built with) into a quad (if possible) on the PSX.

After Saturn, nothing ever tried to have powerful 2D, anyway.

Hell, let's use a quick example: Street Fighter Zero 3 has a 100% arcade-perfect (some say better than arcade) Saturn port (using the 4MB RAM cartridge - similar to N64's expansion pack). The Dreamcast port (same company!) was reduced to run properly.

Then they converted it badly, the Dreamcast has ~5x the 2D capability of the Saturn. It was trivial the get the Dreamcast doing lots of backgrounds with thousands of sprites at full frame rate. Indeed anybody who's seen the Dreamcast dev-kit test mode will know how good a 2D machine the Dreamcast was (it allows made me feel a bit sick, so much was moving at once).

 

[Fox5]

Ah, I forgot about girigiri, but I still believe dreamcast emulation(though it hasn't been released) is further along than saturn emulation.

And why would dreamcast be a good 2d machine? From what I understand, its cpu was a pocketpc cpu, and I would assume it to be not very powerful. Also, I think most 2d(and simple 3d) dreamcast games used windows ce.(bleh, worms world party should have been ported a lot better than it was, no flame weapons? no broadband support? a framerate that craps out? no excuses for that)

 

[DeanoC]

Ah, I forgot about girigiri, but I still believe dreamcast emulation(though it hasn't been released) is further along than saturn emulation.

And why would dreamcast be a good 2d machine? From what I understand, its cpu was a pocketpc cpu, and I would assume it to be not very powerful. Also, I think most 2d(and simple 3d) dreamcast games used windows ce.(bleh, worms world party should have been ported a lot better than it was, no flame weapons? no broadband support? a framerate that craps out? no excuses for that)

It had a customized 200Mhz SH-4 CPU. Quite nice, fairly fast (single cycle dotproduct and matrix registers). It had a good PowerVR based graphics subsystem, 8 Mb VRAM with texture compression and high fillrate (For opaque texels ~1 GigaTexel). So excluding alpha, it could render dozens of layers quickly, just what you need for parallax scrolling. Sprite are just polygons and its tile HSR helped here as well. A Dreamcast was capable of several million tris per second, that works out at over 40,000 sprites per frame (depth was free as well).

Windows CE wasn't that bad but it was used as an excuse for bad ports, I had an engine that was fairly close to the Kamui version (the native Kamui version was faster though). As most games that used Windows CE were PC ports they were often hastily done and it showed. If you used it correctly it was o.k.

 

[Tagrineth]

Ah, I forgot about girigiri, but I still believe dreamcast emulation(though it hasn't been released) is further along than saturn emulation.

Consider that GiriGiri runs many commercial games acceptably and Icarus doesn't (acceptably, I mean - the devs have it at like ~15fps on a 2GHz P4 + GF4Ti, IIRC).

So excluding alpha, it could render dozens of layers quickly, just what you need for parallax scrolling. Sprite are just polygons and its tile HSR helped here as well. A Dreamcast was capable of several million tris per second, that works out at over 40,000 sprites per frame (depth was free as well).

Yes, but that isn't sprites. As I said, PSX for example used its 3D engine to accelerate 2D. How else would you explain Symphony of the Night PSX vs. Saturn? The PSX version has transparencies, great performance, and 320x240 resolution (PSX standard 3D res), while the Saturn version has the same res, huge slowdown in some areas, and no transparency whatsoever? Keep in mind, in 2D mode VDP1 can handle sprite transparency but it takes very careful sorting and a bit of CPU trickery to get VDP1 to project transparencies.

Also:

Its allows been an interesting urban legend that the use of quads caused the Saturn's death, but most 3D engines for PSX used quads as well. We had convertors that turned 2 triangles (which the artist built with) into a quad (if possible) on the PSX.

People still use quads today, but they're different kinds of quads. Saturn's are sprites projected into depth-sorted 3D space - as in REAL QUADS - whereas PSX uses pairs of triangles for "quads". PSX doesn't use quads natively - it's the same as today's 3D hardware. Or can PSX's raster setup engine pass full quads directly and I'm just not aware of it?

 

[Simon F]

So excluding alpha, it could render dozens of layers quickly, just what you need for parallax scrolling. Sprite are just polygons and its tile HSR helped here as well. A Dreamcast was capable of several million tris per second, that works out at over 40,000 sprites per frame (depth was free as well).

Yes, but that isn't sprites.

So, by your definition, what "are" sprites?
For example, DC will give you arbitrary scaling, rotation, etc with (almost?) as many depths as you can get in a float. That must come a long way to doing all that the best 2D HW.

Do you want variable levels of alpha or are you happy with punch-through? If the latter, then the DC could automatically get close the full opaque fill rate. (Of course it also could also per-pixel sort variable translucency correctly)

BTW, if you wanted to do better you could always pre-analyse the sprite textures to identify the largest fully opaque rectangle/triangle sections and send those first - that way you will guarantee to get the full benefit of the very high opaque overdraw.

 

[chaphack]

It's a 32 bit cpu. so is GBA. But the cpu does the sound for the GBA so right there it's at a disadvantage.

PSP is doing the same thing iirc. 1 mips cpu for all.

 

[rabidrabbit]

It's a 32 bit cpu. so is GBA. But the cpu does the sound for the GBA so right there it's at a disadvantage.

PSP is doing the same thing iirc. 1 mips cpu for all.

Please, do not start another Sony bashing.
PSP is not doing anything yet, I don't think it has even been officially announced what processor(s) will be inside.