DMP's Pica200 GPU is Behind Nintendo 3DS

[proxy711]

[citation][nom]Euphoria_MK[/nom]It will be a popular product for kids 4 - 10 years old[/citation]

Along with 11-35 year olds you should add.

This has been the first DS(or gameboy since gameboy color) that has grabbed my attention and not because of the 3d effects.

 

[descendency]

[citation][nom]insider3[/nom]That's amazing.[/citation]
No, it's smoke and mirrors. The processor will never be able to produce that in game. They use tricks like pre-rendering the background and not processing it again.

 

[descendency]

[citation][nom]Euphoria_MK[/nom]It will be a popular product for kids 4 - 10 years old[/citation]
That's called a PSP.

 

[descendency]

[citation][nom]miloo[/nom]it looks amazing, but the game "Icarus" that they showed on E3 doesn't have those 3D rendering quality. that's odd ~ I thought just a "slight" improve from the NDSi and i dont really like the design, but probably that's not a final product~[/citation]

That's because this pre-rendered animation isn't a game. Games have to be rendered at run time whereas you can pre-render for things like this. If you really want to be deceitful, you can even render it really really slowly and just 10x the video speed on youtube.

 

[silverblue]

Judging by the basic specs, we're talking something along the lines of a Radeon 9500. So, the GeForce 4 Ti approximation seems about right. Of course, the performance will be better utilised on a console.

 

[jumbocrab]

so would you guys say that this gpu at these resolutions is more or less then capable than the wii at its respective resolution?

 

[nottheking]

[citation][nom]Euphoria_MK[/nom]It will be a popular product for kids 4 - 10 years old[/citation]
...If that's what you claim, then how do you explain the fact that the thing has tons of ADULTS, especially hardware enthusiasts, all drooling? No one here seems to be going "This'll be perfect for my kid!" but rather, looking forward to how much they want to play Metal Gear Solid 3... On a hand-held... In 3D.

[citation][nom]ProDigit80[/nom]almost looks better than a PSP, though I doubt we'll see many games being published, which max out this chip's abilities.[/citation]
On the contrary; Nintendo's already announced an impressive lineup of games for launch, INCLUDING third-party titles... Such as the first-ever port of Metal Gear Solid 3 outside of the PS2. And on top of that, there's already a lineup of new games from a LOT of established, big-name franchises, such as Assassin's Creed, Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts, Ninja Gaiden, Resident Evil, Saint's Row, Sonic, and Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon.

[citation][nom]descendency[/nom]That's because this pre-rendered animation isn't a game. Games have to be rendered at run time whereas you can pre-render for things like this.[/citation]
I'd wager that the trailer was in-engine runtime. Taking a look at a hands-on demonstration of Metal Gear Solid 3D on the thing, it's clear that the machine's no slouch. Spots when it zooms in show that it's clear that the machine is NOT cutting back on detail over the PS2 version.

Overall, I'd not be surprised that Nintendo wouldn't push for an unrealisticly-good-looking pre-rendered trailer; historically, they've shied away from that sort of thing, for some reason, even when it hurt their sales.

[citation][nom]jumbocrab[/nom]so would you guys say that this gpu at these resolutions is more or less then capable than the wii at its respective resolution?[/citation]
I'd have to see it directly, and have hands-on time to be entirely positive, but I'd say that for its resolution, it readily surpasses the Wii's capabilities for details and effects... And actually rivals the Xbox 360 and PS3; I'm seeing examples where they make good use of the fixed-function shaders to slather things with normal- and specular-mapping along with soft-edged stencil shadows; basically, all the graphical effects MOST 360/PS3 games use outside of Bloom/HDR. Plus, it appears that the 3DS also uses anti-aliasing, too. (I might be mistaken on that part, though)

 

[dragonsqrrl]

[citation][nom]descendency[/nom]That's because this pre-rendered animation isn't a game. Games have to be rendered at run time whereas you can pre-render for things like this. If you really want to be deceitful, you can even render it really really slowly and just 10x the video speed on youtube.[/citation]
As far as I know, all the E3 game demos shown were real time in game demonstrations running live on 3DS engineering units. They were not pre-rendered videos. The demos themselves weren't playable, but in many cases attendees could pan the camera around while the demo was running. Yes, so that means Kid Icarus, Resident Evil, MGS and all other demos were running live.

For everyone disappointed in the PICA200... The specs given in this article apply to this particular GPU running at 200MHz. The PICA200 in the 3DS is running at 400MHz. So the capabilities of the 3DS are quite a bit different, and in many ways it does outperform the PSP (at least on paper). I don't know about anyone else, but it wasn't too difficult for me to figure this out on my own just based off the in game demo vids available online. MGS on the 3DS looked on par or even better then the PS2 version, and much better then on the PSP.

The vertex performance of the 3DS is 30.6 million triangles per second, and the pixel performance is 1.6 billion pixels per second. And of course the GPU still includes all the features mentioned above, some of which are not available on the PSP, such as full-scene antialiasing, per-pixel lighting, refraction mapping, shadow, etc...

While the vertex performance of the 3DS is slightly below that of the PSP, the pixel fillrate is 2.5x that of the PSP. This is probably where most of the visual discrepancies between the two systems come from. Think also about how much games have advanced visually over the past 5 to 6 years, and consider that the vast majority of those visual advances were born out of expanded pixel horsepower and not vertex.

 

[dragonsqrrl]

[citation][nom]miloo[/nom]it looks amazing, but the game "Icarus" that they showed on E3 doesn't have those 3D rendering quality. that's odd ~ I thought just a "slight" improve from the NDSi and i dont really like the design, but probably that's not a final product~[/citation]
Tech Demos will almost always look better then actual in game graphics for a particular piece of hardware, and it's not because they're "pre-rendered" animations as descendency claims...lol. It's because tech demos usually feature far fewer assets then actual games. Because there are fewer assets, and you're view is usually limited to a set defined area, more detail (more polygons, higher resolution textures) can be packed into that limited scene. But rest assured, the 3DS is capable of rendering such graphics in real time, it's just that you'll probably never see it in a game with huge expansive environments for the reasons mentioned above.

 

[dragonsqrrl]

[citation][nom]Tindytim[/nom]IS THIS A NEW CONSOLE OR NOT!?!?!?My only issue with this damn thing is, with all the other DSes' (whatever) is that they pack all these new features, but they still play the same DS games, except for those handful of games that take advantage of those few new features.Seriously Nintendo, just call it something else. This thing looking like it has some potential, don't **** it up like the other DS "revisions".[/citation]
I never really understood this problem of not being able to distinguish between product generations. I mean, is it really that difficult? If the internal hardware gets a complete overhaul, and specs are vastly improved, it's probably a next gen product. This is in contrast to product revisions like the DSi or PS3 Slim, which have the same basic capabilities as their predecessors. Oh well, it's probably the same people who get confused by ATI/Nvidia's naming schemes. Shouldn't 'any' Radeon HD5000 series card be faster then a HD4000 series card?...lol

 

[Guest]

these specs are from the 2006 model of the Pica200 according to a document I saw recently, the Pica200 from 2008 is capable of 40M Triangles per second and 400M pixels second per 100MHz. Of course if dragonsqrrl comment is accurate we are talking about 160M triangles per second and 1.6 Billion pixels per second. Thats 2.6 Million triangles per frame in ordinary 2D and 1.3 Million triangles in 3D at 60FPS with anti-aliasing. Quite the powerful little console

Source: img.hardcoreware.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/pica-200-2008-specs.jpg

 

[Guest]

I can't wait to get this.

 

[Guest]

What I find interesting is what the DMP proprietary "Maestro" functions are, already on the Pica200, and what might be added to it by Nintendo if anything.

I know very little about graphics hardware, as I mainly use software rendering (via mr in softimage). However, some things on the DMP extensions, like support for sub-division surfaces, if animatable/programmable in the sense that you can effect LOD with it, would probably be a nice addition to any game esp. if it has quite a draw distance (racers etc.).

I think right now things, such a on the wii, could only do this in software, and instead rely on swapping in and out models. Using sub-divisions in hardware would probably save on memory and bandwidth.

It also raises an interesting question in that, does this also contain extensions that allow models, in game, to be made up of quads that are divided at render time? Otherwise, in my experience with software render engines, often shading errors occur when the model is divided at render time if it's made of triangles. Maybe there is some way around this though. I'd also like to see how this function works on deformed models- it would be great for developers if it works on deformations instead of just static/hard objects.

Additionally, if it does have even some useful procedural textures that can run with little over head in hardware (and how many at a time without a hit?) that will greatly save on memory overhead esp. if it can be combined with bump/normal mapping. In a software render engine, the savings are the same (along with resolution independence) for procedural textures, but given that they are fairly computationally intensive in certain situations and using certain procedural texture models, it can mean taking quite a hit. However...I also noticed that there is some kind of in engine texture baking?! That could be a VERY impressive combination IMHO, but again- I have no idea of developers can use those together.

Anyway- what do I know? Just wondering about some things from a software rendering perspective. Will be interesting to see if the 3DS ends up having a few additional custom "Maestro" shaders made for it (such as AO) or if it is identical to the standard Pica200 chip.

 

[Guest]

"...if dragonsqrrl comment is accurate we are talking about 160M triangles per second and 1.6 Billion pixels per second. Thats 2.6 Million triangles per frame in ordinary 2D and 1.3 Million triangles in 3D at 60FPS with anti-aliasing. Quite the powerful little console"

Indubitably.

My weird need to interject the word "Indubitably" into random things aside, 3DS looks effigy awesome. And assuming dragonsqrrl is right, that is a crazy powerful little thing. I'd gladly pay $300 for one; maybe even as high as $400. Just to get my grubby paws on one.

 

[Guest]

they say the 3ds on the picca website that it does 15 millionn polygons at 100mhz there saying 200mhz it 100mhz the system does 60 million and also the site says 160 million triangles the ps3 does only a few more and ive seen the 3ds picca patent and it clearly says 2 picca gpu's and a dual core cpu on the patent so expect 120 million polygons fully textures in the future thats more than ps3