Nintendo 3DS tech spec exploration

By Richard Leadbetter Published 22 September, 2010

Whatever happened to the NVIDIA "DS2"?

Last night's leak of the Nintendo 3DS tech spec reveals a lean, power efficient device assembled from a relatively mediocre set of components. Once again, the platform holder has used a selection of established, cheap, off-the-shelf chips and made it feel fresh and new thanks to the implementation of a game-changing concept: in this case, glasses-free stereo 3D.

According to IGN's anonymous source, 3DS is powered by twin ARM11 CPUs clocked at a relatively meagre 266MHz, while overall system storage (sans SD card) is 1.5GB. Onboard RAM is 64MB, with 4MB of video memory. DMP's PICA-200 graphics chip is said to be running at a relatively lightweight 133MHz.

First things first, let's address the plausibility of the source. IGN has a reputation for outing notoriously secretive Nintendo specs and in its previous stories on DS and Wii, history has proven them to be entirely correct. With a track record like that, it would be unwise to bet against the veracity of this story assuming it comes from the same source. More than that, there are other elements to the spec which clearly corroborate with other little-known, recently unearthed facts about the system - and we'll get to that a bit later. In short, the story appears eminently credible.

Assessing the hardware set-up, it's obvious that the assembled components represent a massive step-up from the existing DSi, while measuring up badly against the latest in smartphone technology. The 64MB of RAM is particularly disappointing, bearing in mind that the PSP has shipped with the exact same amount of memory since the launch of the PSP-2000 (the first "slim" model). On the plus side, there is no smartphone OS required to tax RAM resources, but regardless, it's still a surprisingly low amount.

The 4MB of video RAM may seem particularly appalling (and is equal to the amount found in PlayStation 2), but bearing in mind that the 3DS only has to deal with an 800x240 framebuffer it shouldn't cause undue concern. What the RAM would actually be used for is also a prime concern - is that 4MB for textures only, or is it akin to the 10MB of eDRAM attached to the Xbox 360 graphics chip? The original story is, alas, short of details.

mgs1
mgs2

Graphically impressive, the best of the 3DS titles seen to date show how much can be done with a fairly limited spec. Metal Gear Solid looks remarkably similar to the PS2 original but works beautifully in stereosopic 3D. The PICA-200 GPU is also capable of features like per-pixel lighting and self-shadowing, helping to make games look more modern still.

The ARM11 architecture is rather long in the tooth now, with noted tech site AnandTech likening it to a very highly clocked 486-level CPU, while the new A8 Cortex is more akin to a Pentium. The original iPhone ran a single ARM11 core at 412MHz, so overall CPU capability is probably very similar indeed to the 3DS - the difference being that the full power of the twin cores can be deployed on games without the meaty iOS overhead that the iPhone needs to maintain while running any application.

Nintendo's decision to run the PICA-200 GPU at a mere 133MHz is again surprisingly low. The chip itself can run at up to 400MHz, but the vendor itself quotes specs at 200MHz. Here, PICA-200 maxes out at 800 million pixels per second and 15.3 million polygons per second – so we can most likely expect 66 per cent of that general performance on Nintendo's down-clocked version of the chip.

Despite the lowered clock speed, the chip loses none of its bespoke technology: DMP says that PICA-200 supports per-pixel lighting, procedural textures, refraction mapping and self-shadowing - in the absence of programmable pixel shaders, it's exactly the sort of thing that makes graphically impressive 3DS titles like Resident Evil look as good as they do.

This just leaves the rather curious 1.5GB of on-board flash RAM, and this can be effectively confirmed by analysis of the 3DS development hardware we've seen so far - lending further credibility to IGN's specs.

Regular readers of Digital Foundry will probably recall our story on the Nintendo CTR Target Board - basically this is the development kit for the 3DS, and Nintendo submitted it to the FCC for testing its WiFi component. Recent images of an older CTR Target Board have recently been unearthed by Daniele Brigliadori of Nintendo3DSItalia, who painstakingly searched FCC filings for any use of the Mitsumi antenna used in all the Nintendo DS handhelds thus far.

ctr

Close-ups of the board in the FCC filing clearly show that the development kit possesses a 2GB moviNAND flash chip supplied by Samsung. This suggests that Nintendo is making 1.5GB of that RAM available to the user, while reserving an impressive 25 per cent for the operating system. Reserving a mammoth 512MB suggests that Nintendo has serious plans for the functionality of the unit over and above what we have seen so far.

The board is also fascinating as a piece of evidence in the history of the 3DS's development. Last year, rumours circulated that Nintendo was using NVIDIA's Tegra hardware for its upcoming DS replacement. There were even rumours of a sighting at gamescom 2009, behind closed doors.

In November, Digital Foundry upped the ante still further by revealing that the Tegra 2 system-on-chip (SoC) would be powering the "DS2", most likely in a custom flavour designed by Nintendo. Flash forward to June 2009 and suddenly NVIDIA was out of the picture. Bearing in mind that we typically double-source before publishing a rumour (and in this case, the NVIDIA connection was actually triple-sourced), NVIDIA being dumped was a bit of a surprise. Were all of our sources wrong?

teg1
teg2

Just about all the detachable components on the CTR Target Board are labelled TEG2, highlighting the NVIDIA connection. Did Nintendo have two competing 3DS designs on the table, or was NVIDIA dumped relatively recently for Japanese vendor DMP?

The newly discovered FCC filing, dated to December 2009, clearly shows an older version of the Target Board, dubbed CTR-TEG2: firm evidence that Nintendo was indeed closely involved with NVIDIA and that Tegra IP was still being used until relatively recently.

It's clearly still a 3DS - there's the exact same arrangement of widescreen and 4:3 screens, though there are a number of changes, not least of which is just a single external camera, suggesting that the full stereoscopic 3D capabilities of the unit were still being worked on, or remained a closely guarded secret within Nintendo itself at that point in time.

Quite why Nintendo decided to switch suppliers and go with DMP remains something of a mystery, especially bearing in mind just how much more modern and capable the Tegra IP is compared to the much older PICA-200. Perhaps it was a cost issue, perhaps it was a power consumption issue: Nintendo likes cheap parts and lots of battery life. Maybe, similar to the Dreamcast, there were two competing designs using graphical IP from different suppliers.

Bearing in mind how secretive Nintendo is about its technology and its relationships with external IP vendors, the chances are it'll be years until we find out what actually happened...

Picture of Richard.

About Richard Leadbetter

Rich has been a games journalist since the days of 16-bit and specialises in technical analysis. Commonly known around Eurogamer as the Blacksmith of the Future.

Read more articles from Richard by visiting the Richard Leadbetter archive page.

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Comments (61) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • bad #1 2 years ago

    If rumours are to believed, the Tegra hardware has trouble meeting the advertised power specification:

    http://www.semiaccurate.com/2010/04/14/s...

    (I realise I may get flamed for daring to reference Charlie Demerjian in a nVidia related post, but the fact remains that despite many advertised design wins for Tegra, the only portable device you actually buy with one in is the Zune HD).

    It's still in the frame for the PSP2 if other rumours are to be believed though.
    Edited by bad at 22/09/10 @ 15:11

  • streetmagix #2 2 years ago

    I'm very surprised at the rather slow speed of the CPU(s) and the GPU. I know Nintendo has never really been about graphics, but I would expect the 3DS to be significantly faster than the 6 year old PSP.

  • abigsmurf #3 2 years ago

    I'm surprised at the down clocked GPU but happy with the rest of the stats. Hopefully the slower GPU won't affect the polygon pushing power too much.

    if the GPU has access to the 64mb ram as well as the vram, it'll have no problems with textures on the level of an xbox.

    One thing that's well worth noting is that the iphone needs a lot of ram because of slow flash memory speeds. It needs to fill up as much as it can to minimum frequent long pauses. If the 3DS' carts get a bandwidth boost over the DS ones, it doesn't need to put so much into the ram as it can quickly get assets from the cart itself or stream content far more efficiently.

    As for Tegra being dropped, power consumption and the fact the PSP2 is using the (more advanced version of the) tech as well were the main reasons.
    Edited by abigsmurf at 22/09/10 @ 12:47

  • Malek86 #4 2 years ago

    Only 4Mb of VRAM kinda makes me sad. And the resolution of the 3DS is not too smaller than the PS2's, where games were often rendered in lower resolutions than 640x480.

  • J0rdan_KZ #5 2 years ago

    I think people need to realise the amount of power you can get from this type of chip when used in the right situation with the right developers. I mean come on, the even the 9 year old DS can make proper 3D environments with its very technically lacking hardware. As for RAM? 64MB will be more than enough. This is almost the same amount as the Wii has and it doesn't need to store anything in memory like a smart phone does (hence the iPhone 4 has 512mb of RAM).

    This will eventually be a win/win situation. Cheaper hardware that's (hopefully) easy for developers to get the juice out of and with any luck a decent amount of battery life.

  • fknetwork #6 2 years ago

    "You cannot fairly compare to an iphone on pure specs."

    You can as they both play games, I have an iphone 4 which is jailbroken, even with the iOS running and all required services (phone, messaging etc) it still has 368mb of ram free (512mb total) for apps and games, epic citadel uses 256mb of ram on that game and looks stunning, I honestly have no idea how the 3DS will be able to handle decent graphics and textures with so little ram and cpu power specially in 3D, seems like a huge oversight?

    And wow at the low resolution of the 3d screen, 800x240!?, ouch...



    P.S, the person who said the iphone 4 drains its batteries in 90 minutes under load seriously has no idea, I get 4 and a half hours running epic citadel with brightness on full when i tested it for touch arcade, on less demanding games I get up to 9 hours gaming per charge
    Edited by fknetwork at 22/09/10 @ 13:03

  • Bremenacht #7 2 years ago

    @bad: You beat me to it. I was going to quote this S|A Nvidia-bashing story.

    Given the theme of the S|A article, you have to wonder if the most significant of DF's sources was... Nvidia.
    Edited by Bremenacht at 22/09/10 @ 13:23

  • drxym #8 2 years ago

    So the 3DS is gimped. This does not surprise me seeing as Nintendo have the habit of selling devices with underpowered components and relying on a novel (gimmicky) selling point. I still think it will sell by the metric shit ton though.

  • light&shadow #9 2 years ago

    This may eventually make people realise how good the psp actually is for a handheld. Strange enough there was no reaction to the fact the 3ds has only ONE analog stick either...

    Well enough rant, I like it, I find it very well balanced overall, and I'm looking forward to see the 3d screen in action.

    PS: gpu doesn't need to have acess to vram to use more texture, much like the psp you can probably dma them to vram on demand without much perf hit. On chip cache is there to hide latency.

  • Old_Books #10 2 years ago

    @drxym

    I think you need to check your gaming history...

  • TheTrueSpin #11 2 years ago

    Wait, why are you so surprised? This is the same company that re-released the GameCube with a new controller and managed to win the console war. Nintendo do not care about technology, they care about MASS APPEAL.

  • TonyHarrison #12 2 years ago

    As a comparison, the PS2 had a 300MHz Cpu, the GC had 486MHz, and the XBox had 733MHz. So 2x266MHz would put you pretty much in the middle of that range, which is where I always expected it to be.

  • Lalaland #13 2 years ago

    It does seem careless of nVidia to keep losing these customers, so far the only customer of note was MS and their 'Cinderella' phone that upped and ran off after 60 days. Charlie at S|A does love to beat up on them but in the last 24 months or so I'd be hard pushed to say he's been wrong so I'd be willing to accept his diagnosis of bad power leakage on Tegra 2.

    Nintendo have never really relied on a technical lead and haven't enjoyed one since the SNES so the tech specs don't bother me much as the higher DPI and 3Dness will probably make up for it to some degree. Very interested to see what Sony comes up with in the PSP2, here's hoping at least part of that answer is 'ergonomics that don't cause your hands to fall off after an hour'

  • JohnnyWashnGo #14 2 years ago

    One analogue stick on the 3DS makes sense - I don't know how many Nintendo games make use of 2 analogue sticks. Certainly the Nintendo consoles haven't needed two sticks until just recently with the classic controller on the Wii. Sony, on the other hand, had a home console pedigree which had joypads with two analogue sticks making the PSP a bit cack for games that were ported from the PS2.

    Back to the 3DS though and I don't see it as being underpowered at all. As long as developers have time to understand the hardware architecture properly and optimise their games for the hardware, the machine should allow the devs to produce some pretty good looking games. People get so focussed on CPU clock speeds, size of memory, bus bandwidths, screen resolutions these days and forget that the only thing that matters is the games.

  • drxym #15 2 years ago

    @Old_Books why would I need to do that? I own a DS Lite (and I have a GBA and DS Color sitting around somewhere), so why shouldn't I comment on its successor?
    Edited by drxym at 22/09/10 @ 13:39

  • Old_Books #16 2 years ago

    @drxym

    My point is that saying Nintendo have a history of releasing underpowered hardware is incorrect. Up to this gen of gaming they have always released machines that were more capable, (tech wise), than the competition, (not including the Xbox and with the exception of the original Gameboy). And the only time they have used a gimmick was R.O.B. (IMO, motion control on the Wii is not a gimmick at all).

  • djed #17 2 years ago

    Until bad decides to make his link work, here's the article about Nvidia's "design wins with no product launches" he was referencing,

    Samsung dumps nvidia tegra

  • bad #18 2 years ago

    Cheers djed - I corrected a typo and it helpfully inserted a line break in my link.

  • Bagpuss #19 2 years ago

    "Once again, the platform holder has used a selection of established, cheap, off-the-shelf chips"

    And once again the dumb sheep will flock to buy it at a stupid price......

    Christ, i despise Nintendo and their technological conservatism......

  • swissorc #20 2 years ago

    I've said it before and I'll say it again the only thing I want changed in the 3DS design is to move the d pad below the buttons not the analogue stick.

  • Bagpuss #21 2 years ago

    "Quite why Nintendo decided to switch suppliers and go with DMP remains something of a mystery"

    I'll tell you why, Nintendo is and always has been a fiercly nationalistic Japanese company, and will always use Japanese technology if available.

  • Golgo #22 2 years ago

    ...so the tech-fetishists rage at low specs, while the games-players feel quite pleased.

  • Floppy #23 2 years ago

    @swissorc

    So when you're playing legacy DS/DSi titles using the d-pad, you can have a hand each side of the console, rather than having both hands on the right controlling the game. Not everyone will want to use the analog nub as a replacement for the direct d-pad controls on standard DS/DSi games.

  • drxym #24 2 years ago

    @Golgo actually it's more the point that for the price Nintendo charges for its hardware that the components such as the CPU, GPU etc. could and should be more powerful. Instead they let sales coast on the hype of some gimmick, be it touch screen, 3D or whatever and put minimal effort into other things that arguably matter just as much or more. I do not accept for a second that gamers should feel quite pleased to be short changed when the platform's life is 5 years or more. The 3DS specs are barely better than today's smart phones, so how underpowered are they going to look in a few years from now? You might not appreciate the issue right now but you sure as hell will down the line.
    Edited by drxym at 22/09/10 @ 16:51

  • Zaiz #25 2 years ago

    @Bagpuss

    Ummm. I have yet to see any indication that Nintendo is fiercely nationalistic, considering they've been using ATI GPUs for two generations now.

    @dxyrm

    The current console generation launched with nearly obsolete GPUs. I don't see you complaining.
    Edited by Zaiz at 22/09/10 @ 16:58

  • hy4000uk #26 2 years ago

    i think bagpuss may be retarded

    for starters nintendo is no more or less nationalistic than sony.

    and what you see as "technological conservatism" is a company developing a system with a view to minimising power consumption while still aiming for profitability. a system that provides ps2/wii level graphics on a handheld with 3D effects built in

    if they listened to dumb cunts like you they'd go bust within a week

  • Golgo #27 2 years ago

    @drxym. In a few years the 3DS lite/i, etc. will be out. Nintendo always update hardware incrementally, on basis of affordability. I think you know that?

  • SHDR #28 2 years ago

    Well worth noting that clock frequency does not really indicate processing capability. I think my i5 2.66GHz is quite a lot faster than my old C2D 2.4GHz, despite the small increase in clock frequency.

    The old Tegra rumours might stem from confusion or speculation concerning the twin ARM11s that power the 3DS, since that's the same chip used in Tegra.

    "The reason for the relatively slow clock speeds could also be the hardware pipeline support for effects traditionally attained using programmable pipelines, such as shadowing, refraction, etc."

    Edit: Doh, noticed the fragment shader remarks made further down. Scratch this, then.

    Why are people comparing this to the iPhone, by the way? The hardware, OS and applications are completely dissimilar. The iPhone was never designed for games, rather web browsing and video/audio decoding, which warrants a completely different architectural approach compared to real-time 3d rendering.
    Edited by SHDR at 22/09/10 @ 19:25

  • drxym #29 2 years ago

    @Golgo, yes they will be out and guess what - they'll be constrained by the platform specifications as they're set now. Even if some "enhanced" spec appeared you need only look at how many DSi games there are now compared to DS games to see how that will pan out.

    The only way I see it being acceptable for Nintendo to cap the GPU clock rate so low is if its done in software with a commitment to loosen it up later through firmware updates. Assuming the 3DS allows for firmware updates.

  • Eoin #30 2 years ago

    I think this is a very clever move by Nintendo. Those specs are a good leap over their previous handheld, establish technical superiority over the PSP, and, probably most importantly, seem to be deliberately targeted at just above the PS2, allowing and probably encouraging developers to create ports of their old PS2 games in 3D. So, good battery life, decent graphics, 3D, and probably a very large library of well-known games quite quickly, at low development costs. It's almost unfair.

  • mkreku #31 2 years ago

    Idon't understand when people write "it's a win-win situation since the hardware is cheaper and developers will get used to it quickly".

    I see it as a lose-lose situation. Developers will get used to it quickly alright, but there's not many places to go with hardware this crippled. And it's a lose for consumers too, as Nintendo haven't exactly been known for selling their outdated hardware cheap. The Wii is more expensive than an Xbox 360!

  • Syneisha #32 2 years ago

    3DS is backwards comp, right? Maybe this had more bearing on thing CPU/GPU wise than anything else.

  • vizzini #33 2 years ago

    Eurogamer DF: Despite the lowered clock speed, the chip loses none of its bespoke technology: DMP says that PICA-200 supports per-pixel lighting, procedural textures, refraction mapping and self-shadowing - in the absence of programmable pixel shaders, it's exactly the sort of thing that makes graphically impressive 3DS titles like Resident Evil look as good as they do.

    Please get a 3D programmer to read the technical specs for you before you write an article like this.

    The Pica 200 specification states that it does contain fragment shading(programmable pixel shaders in Microsoft's world) as part of the DMP maestro technology.

    Per-pixel lighting actually refers to programmable fragment shading and the ARB_Vertex_program extension will be matched by an DMP vendor extension e.g DMP_fragment_program that does Pixel shading, and will possibly support a DMP_geometry_program extension also as part of fully featured programmable Graphics pipeline

    Vertex shader -> geometry shader -> fragment shader

    [link url=http://www.dmprof.com/english/e_products/e_technology/
    ]http://www.dmprof.com/english/e_products...[/link]
    [link url=http://www.dmprof.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/leaflet_PICA200_en.pdf
    ]http://www.dmprof.com/wp-content/uploads...[/link]

    So please remove or correct this line in the article Eurogamer DF: in the absence of programmable pixel shaders,.

    The rumoured technical specs for the 3DS are actually a lot closer to the Gamecube than I thought they would be, including the 4MB vram.

  • smelly #34 2 years ago

    These articles make me laugh.

    So much ill-educated garbage being talked by someone who obviously has no f-ing clue what he's talking about.. But is doing it in such a way that he sounds like he does.

    Brilliant.
    Edited by smelly at 22/09/10 @ 19:18

  • smelly #35 2 years ago

    As for the low resolution of the screen.. You guys ARE aware there's a difference between a screen which is 3 inches wide and one which is 52inches wide? I cant be arsed to do math, but i can pretty much guarantee the pixels are smaller on this than they are on a widescreen tv running 720p.

    Also the 3d effect will give "free" anti-aliasing so you wont notice the lower resolution anyhow.

    As per usual, a complete bullshit article with bullshit conclusions has started bullshit comments from dumbass fanboys.

    Give me battery performance over a high definition i cant even see any day.

  • smelly #36 2 years ago

    Actually,anyone know the background of this richard leadbetter guy? He likes to write tech articles, but he sure as hell is clueless.

    I presume he's never been a games programmer, or if he has, then that explains why he's now in journalism instead...

  • SHDR #37 2 years ago

    Isn't that the point, though? DF puts graphs over gameplay footage and repeats buzzwords in an attempt to capitalize on the graphics fetish? Particularly enjoyed the "comparison shots" from the Halo Reach article, where game space was compared with skyboxes and incidental detail.

    Edit: It actually struck me that far from being informative, these articles are actually quite damaging, as they propagate completely erroneous ideas about how games and hardware works, how they should work and what's important about them. They fuel troll battles and risk becoming conventional wisdom that harm developers and platforms holders alike.

    Very speculative of EG in any case. Reminds me of certain other parts of the press ...
    Edited by SHDR at 22/09/10 @ 19:29

  • Sunworship #38 2 years ago

    "Nintendo gimmicks"...like quality software, yeah i hate that so much!

  • hy4000uk #39 2 years ago

    i think it's clear at this point that the people at Digital Foundry are fucking retards

    they've been lauding the PS Move as the second coming for months now, while doing everything they can to shit on the 3DS. They seriously have to be the stupidest cunts covering the 3DS right now

  • smelly #40 2 years ago

    @SHDR - my point exactly.

    IF you're going to have technical analysis of hardware, get someone who knows what the flying fuck they're talking about. Someone who is used to programming for these chipsets (for example) and know what they are and are not capable of.

    Not some wannabe fanboy journalist who seems to be absolutely fucking clueless. That does more harm than good.. And I personally am fed up of reading forum posts by people who've read articles like this then go off misquoting stuff which was complete crap in the first place.

    And lets not forget that this entire article, ignoring all the technical wrongness, is based on something which was just a rumour and not official in the fucking first place!!!

  • Stratix #41 2 years ago

    I would happily pay an extra £50-£100 for a slightly higher spec, although I very much doubt I am the 3DS' target audience.

    A cheaper (than PSP) more casual oriented console is what they are aiming for here, and although they have the technology in it to produce some impressive looking games, I wont imagine that it will be long before developers start to reach the limits of what they can do with the system.

  • Kinkster #42 2 years ago

    I only logged in so I could mark a lot of the tech-heads down. If you want hi-spec, go buy Apple or Sony products that run out of batteries in 3 hours.

  • KDR_11k #43 2 years ago

    Power consumption is critical. My iPod Touch barely goes for 2 hours when gaming. That is downright pathetic. While I expect people to berate Nintendo for having lower specs than an iPhone I can really see why they'd do that and appreciate it.

  • Nithron #44 2 years ago

    An iPod touch 4G costs £240 and has a 1ghz processor, a 200mhz GPU, 256meg RAM and 32 gigs of storage space. And a waaaayyy better screen.

    So how much is the 3DS going to cost?

    Edit: Better as in higher resolution. It's not 3D, obviously. Yes i'm aware that adds to the cost as well.
    Edited by Nithron at 22/09/10 @ 22:17

  • Kinkster #45 2 years ago

    I'm betting £179, even factoring VAT of 20% by the time it's released. Any more and we are beyond the realm of the casual and too close to the much more tech happy iPod Touch, which itself has sh*tloads of casual gaming content.
    Edited by Kinkster at 22/09/10 @ 22:00

  • smelly #46 2 years ago

    As a consumer the Specs of the hardware shouldnt matter to you. All that should matter is:

    1. is it a good price?
    2. Does it have good games? And do they look good?
    3. Do the batteries last?

    No point in having something like the ipod 4 if it runs out of battery power within a couple of hrs of game playing.

  • rprince #47 2 years ago

    £180? When has a Nintendo handheld ever cost that much? It'll be no more than £150, I'm sure. Probably £120.

  • Bander #48 2 years ago

    The DS Lite goes for about £120 now, with the DSi and XL closer to £150. Instead of dropping in price, they've been creeping upwards! I doubt the 3DS will give much change from £200. If any.

  • Joedeg #49 2 years ago

    Good Article. Richard likes to use the phrase "bearing in mind" quite a bit. I counted 5 :)

  • electrolite #50 2 years ago

    Oooh tech specs, I want to er.....oh no wait I don't care.

    I generally trust Nintendo they're pretty good at console design-though the N64 had a few issues even aside from the carts and the SNES a very slow CPU, they generally judge it pretty well in terms of it doing what they want and them not having to take a risk on selling hardware at a loss.

  • bradgrenz #51 2 years ago

    @vizzini - The DMP gpu supports "configurable fragment shaders". IE, it supports, in hardware, several common fragment shading effects. You select which ones you want and adjust some variables, but Leadbetter is absolutely correct to say it does not support programmable pixel shaders. You can't write your own shaders and execute them on this thing.

  • Lalaland #52 2 years ago

    @vizzini Big words for a man with no clue of the difference between several presets and a programmable pixel chain.

    @bradgrenz Damn you beat me to it, the shrill text of a Nintendo-fanboi is hard on the eyes and mind

    What DMP are offering are preset paths rather than a truly programmable pipeline, somewhat equivalent to the difference between 3dfx GLiDE and OpenGL, they're almost the same but one is far less flexible. It's not like this handheld rests on these capabilities anyway, Nintendo don't care about absolute graphical fidelity they focus on other USPs (touch on DS, motion control on Wii, being the only place to buy Mario titles, etc)

  • vizzini #53 2 years ago

    * Configurable fragment shader: A fragment shader pipeline that can be configured with flexible settings.

    I would say there is a grey area, where making a distinction between a programmable fragment pipeline and a configurable fragment pipeline(with flexible settings) doesn't actually mean anything beyond implementation.

    DMP describe the feature as flexible, show most of the important techniques in the original Orange book and also state the Pica 200 can generate procedural textures, making it very similar in functionality to an OpenGL 1.5 compliant GPU (with the fragment_program extension) and making the whole comment about the card unable to do pixel shaders pointless and snippy for a GPU that can only push 15million polygons per second.

    We could apply the snippy logic for all ageing GPUs that aren't capable of running OpenCL 1.0 and say they aren't programmable because they don't support general purpose computing on the GPU and are therefore just configurable.

  • ibbibby #54 2 years ago

    @vizzini

    That's funny. You didn't seem to think it was a "grey area" when you were (erroneously) condemning Leadbetter for supposedly getting it wrong, and (erroneously) demanding that he remove the offending sentence from the article.

  • vizzini #55 2 years ago

    It is still an offending sentence imo and I'm still saying they are programmable. Just that the feature doesn't meet the OpenGL criteria of official fragment shading language. Will it allow Nintendo to rework Metroid Prime with Gamecube fragment shader visuals on 3DS? You bet it will.

    The Pica 200 does do controllable per-pixel-lighting and procedural texturing.
    Procedural texture generation is a programmable fragment shader working in 2D, which I assume is why Kirby's Epic yarn had the visuals it did at E3 this year.

    in the absence of programmable pixel shaders

    If the comment used the word fragment instead of pixel to use the correct terminology, and was talking about a PC graphics card that could push hundreds of millions of polygons per second (instead of 15M) then it might have some meaning to the final real-time visuals. But as the comment stands, it is still looks like an incorrect comment made by someone who doesn't understand the sentence.

  • bradgrenz #56 2 years ago

    @vizzini: The operative word is programmable. The PICA 200 doesn't allow you to run your own shader programs. It's not that gray an area. Granted, it can produce some "pixel shader" style effects, but Leadbetter's writeup is completely accurate.

  • augustofretes #57 2 years ago

    Digital Foundry, please, PLEASE, stop spreading wrong information, wrong analysis of hardware.

    STOP TALKING ABOUT THE FUCKING CHIPSET WITHOUT KNOWING HOW MANY FUCKING PIPELINES IT HAS. The 4 MB of VRAM are absolutely outstanding, the rendition of Metal Solid 3 is quite beyond the PS2 version.

    We only know the clock speed of the damn thing, that it's an OpenGL 1.1 + Maestro Extensions (which virtually allow all the things that matter from OpenGL 2.0) and nothing more; we know there are two revisions (I can't recall the years), one was a 90nm chipset, while the newer one was 65nm, so it's more likely Nintendo will opt for the 65nm version, which also has a an enormous improvement on the tria/s. It could also range from 1 pipeline to 4.

    STOP TALKING like ignorants pieces of cheap "experts": Judging everything from clock speed. It would be a hell lot more wiser for Nintendo to use a low clock speed GPU with 4 pipelines, than a 400 Mhz 1 pipeline GPU.

    The Nintendo 3DS 64 MB of RAM is more than enough, if it had 512 MB of RAM it wouldn't make a shit of a difference. I was expecting 128 MB of RAM, for non-gaming tasks, like web-browsing, but specially, for some kind of "home dashboard", sadly, that can safely ruled out now.

    Judging by the real time demos and in-development games and the little we know about the GPU, this little thing is going to get games with a lot better graphical features than any xbox, PS2, Wii, PSP or Gamecube game, so please, stop the crap.

    Also the CPU isn't nearly as important for gaming as you try to make it look.

    I have yet to see an iPhone 4 game that looks nearly as good as Resident Evil Revelations or Metal Solid, AND DON'T even try to mention Citadel, or I would need to crush your pathetic assumptions, with facts, because Citadel is running at a higher resolution, and that's it, it doesn't use nearly as many advanced graphical features as RE:R.

    PLEASE, stop spreading FUD about Nintendo. Thank you.

  • NeoTechni #58 2 years ago

    "I would expect the 3DS to be significantly faster than the 6 year old PSP."

    It's not.

    For comparisons sake:

    CPU
    PSP: 2 x 333 MHz
    3DS: 2 x 266 MHz

    RAM
    PSP: 32 MB (64 MB in the Slims and later models)
    3DS: 64 MB

    GPU
    PSP: 166 MHz
    3DS: 133 MHz

    VRAM
    PSP: 2 MB (4 MB in the Slims and later models)
    3DS: 4 MB

    Flash
    PSP Go: 16 GB
    3DS: 2 GB

    PSP source:
    [link url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psp#Technical_specifications
    ]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psp#Technic...[/link]
    http://www.edepot.com/reviews_sony_psp.h...

    "Also the CPU isn't nearly as important for gaming as you try to make it look. "

    What are you talking about? It's EXTREMELY important. It's what handles the game engine.

    "PLEASE, stop spreading FUD about Nintendo. Thank you. "

    It wasn't fud. Calling it such doesnt make it so.
    Edited by NeoTechni at 27/09/10 @ 21:16

  • augustofretes #59 2 years ago

    For comparisons sake:

    "CPU
    PSP: 2 x 333 MHz
    3DS: 2 x 266 MHz"

    You see, you don't have the sightless clue about what you're talking about. YOU CAN'T FUCKING COMPARE TWO DIFFERENT CPUS WITH DIFFERENT ARCHITECTURES BY USING THE FUCKING CLOCK SPEED, it's doesn't mean absolutely anything, the ARM11 architecture of the 3DS is SUBSTANTIALLY to a MIPS32 based-one. End of the story.

    "RAM
    PSP: 32 MB (64 MB in the Slims and later models)
    3DS: 64 MB"

    Yep, but only 32 MB are used for games regardless of the model pumpkin.

    "GPU
    PSP: 166 MHz
    3DS: 133 MHz"

    Read above again, replace every instance of CPU, by GPU, and you're done. The PICA200 is a lot more advanced than the GPU found on the PSP, I won't bother telling you why, since you're comparing everything by clock speed, there no damn point, you won't understand anyway.

    "VRAM
    PSP: 2 MB (4 MB in the Slims and later models)
    3DS: 4 MB"

    The PSP has 2 MB of VRAM regardless of the version (you're just confusing it with DRAM, but for some reason it doesn't seem strange that you did it). x2 bump on VRAM is a hell lot.

    "Flash
    PSP Go: 16 GB
    3DS: 2 GB"

    Completely irrelevant, specially since the PSP Go is the most overpriced gadget in the market.

    "PSP source:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psp#Technic...
    http://www.edepot.com/reviews_sony_psp.h...

    Haha, yeah, you read the data (wrongly, sometimes), but you can't understand what you're reading, can you?

    What are you talking about? It's EXTREMELY important. It's what handles the game engine.

    Ok, little piece of ignorant crap, go ahead, and buy a Core i7, then, use a rather simple GPU, it will suck. Now, go to your store, buy a decent CPU, and a good GPU, it will be good.

    For games, the GPU is what really matters (the CPU can be a bottleneck for the GPU, but this is certainly not the case), for general purpose tasks, the CPU matters. PLEASE STOP TALKING ABOUT THINGS YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND.

    "It wasn't fud. Calling it such doesnt make it so."

    Reading data your current knowledge can't process and/or understand is not a counter-argument, you're talking about things you don't understand, you don't even know what a pipeline is, if you did, you would know that Digital Foundry article is pure crap at best, the possible difference varying because of this ranges from up to 3x.

  • SHDR #60 2 years ago

    Listen to AugostoFretes. Despite swearing and occasional typos, he's the one making the most sense here.

  • NeoTechni #61 2 years ago

    "You see, you don't have the sightless clue about what you're talking about. "

    You could have made your point politely, why didn't you?
    I agree with your point, but you came off like a total ass.

    "Yep, but only 32 MB are used for games regardless of the model pumpkin"

    And a lot of 3DS's 64 MB wont be used due to it having a web browser.

    "there no damn point, you won't understand anyway. "

    Again, you resorted to being a douche. Why? I do understand. Gees.

    "The PSP has 2 MB of VRAM regardless of the version"

    That's what I thought too, but sources say otherwise

    [link url=http://www.edepot.com/reviews_sony_psp.html#PSP_Hardware
    ]http://www.edepot.com/reviews_sony_psp.h...[/link]
    Embedded Graphics Core

    * 166 MHz (Maximum). 111 MHz (Preset Default)
    * Fat: 2MB embedded eDRAM (Video Memory)
    * Slim: 4MB embedded eDRAM (Video Memory)

    "Ok, little piece of ignorant crap"

    I'm a game developer and programmer. Processing power matters. A lot. It runs the physics, the AI, even some of the graphics (PS3 uses the CPU to handle some for example) the OS. To say the CPU doesnt matter is full of ignorant crap.

    I never said the GPU didnt matter.

    "Reading data your current knowledge can't process and/or understand is not a counter-argument"

    Oh but your insults are? Hypocrite. Try again, with manners.