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Nintendo 3DS GPU Revealed
An anonymous reader writes "The GPU for the Nintendo 3DS has just been revealed, and it's not made by Nvidia, ATI, or even Imagination Technologies. Instead, Nintendo has signed up Japanese startup Digital Media Professionals (DMP) in a deal that sees the company's PICA200 chip churning out the 3-D visuals. For the first time in Nintendo's history, the 3DS will feature a GPU with programmable shaders, rather than a fixed-function pipeline, meaning the 3DS is more graphically versatile than the Wii. Among the PICA200's features are 2x anti-aliasing, per-pixel lighting, subdivision primitives, and soft shadows. As well as featuring DMP's own 'Maestro' extensions, the PICA200 also fully supports OpenGL ES 1.1. The architecture supports four programmable vertex units and up to four pixel pipelines."
Looking at just the gfx chip features would draw the conclusion that the PowerVR chips found in a good number of portables is more powerful. It seems to provide ammunition to Apple for them to say the iphone is more powerful.
The demo vids shown are inconclusive though. The Metal Gear Solid demo vids is better than anything on the iphone. As is the suspicious Resident Evil demo. However Kid Icarus is on par with the best iphone games graphically and Star Fox and Mario kart in their current form wouldn't exactly max out the iphone.
Depending on the trickery on display in the MGS and RE demos, the power of the 3DS seems to range from PS2 level to slightly above GC level. Although those two demos are likely not well optimised for the console, they also don't have the gameplay/AI overhead you'd get from a full game.
It's probably safe to assume that the main CPU will be similar to that in the DSi and XL, probably at a higher clock (maybe with a few new instructions).
The main advantage of the 3DS will likely be the battery life. Despite Apple's claims about how amazing the battery life for their devices are, they only ever do benchmarks for tasks offloaded from the main CPU or that aren't taxing. The second you start playing an intensive game, you're looking at a 2 hour battery life. This is something that almost every tech site ignores when talking about idevices as gaming machines.
I live there.
If you read some of the other articles that compare capabilities you'd see that though this chip is a little dated, it blows away both iPhone 4 and PSP in pixel fill rate. It may be that this factor is important for good 3D performance. It really stands out in pixel fill rate, like double the competition.
Everything else though yeah... it's old. But also, this is Nintendo, they have to sell cheap and they won't sell for a loss like their competition, which isn't profiting, so I can't really knock their strategy.
I read the script, and I think it would help my character's motivation if he was on fire. -Bender
Uncompetitive? How so? They've sold way more consoles than their competition. What is wrong with mass appeal? It keeps them in business!
Demo video
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Shouldn't that be "I live here"? Suspicious!
which is totally what she said
Yes i it does. He was asked if he knows anything about Japan.
Clearly one thing he knows about Japan is that he lives there.
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You forgot the part where they make some of the greatest video games in the world. But don't let that fact get in the way of your argument.
The name of this chip is the "PICA200".
One day, the DMP guys invited the Nintendo suits in for a product demo. As soon as the Nintendo suits saw the promo posters scattered around the room with the demo board on the table, they all sprouted enormous anime-style eyes and shouted "PICA200, I choose you!".
That's how it went down. True Facts.
Just look at all the nearly empty boxes at supermarket, that are way too large for their content, or look larger in volume than they are. Same strategy.
Bullshit. Where is Nintendo lying about the capabilities of their hardware? Where are they selling something that doesn't do what it says on the box?
It always takes two. The fault lies just as much on the idots who buy it, as it lies on the fraudulent (in my eyes) companies.
How is the fact that Nintendo isn't putting the emphasis on graphics performance to the exclusion of other factors somehow dishonest? And how is basing the decision to buy a videogame system on something other than graphics performance stupid? And finally, what is the great crime here for which "fault" needs to be assigned? Marketing a product that you don't want to buy? What a grievous sin that is.
I just love it how technoclowns brow-beat the Wii for being low power hardware. Out of the XBox 360, the PS3 and the Wii, which one has the most lowly hardware. Right. Now tell me, which one was the most profitable for its manufacturer?
Yea, that's what I thought.
I hate printers.
How is it a bad thing to focus on the mass-market instead of focusing on graphics abilities alone? The Wii and DS have been astounding successes, showing that the market doesn't really need superb graphics.
When you call Wii "uncompetitive", how do you combine that with the fact that it sells more than the "competitive" consoles combined?
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