So at only 16/32-bit pixel depths, and a max buffer size of 4k*4k... That means it can access 32MB of frame buffer memory. That's not TERRIBLE, but I do hope that the 3DS winds up with more total memory than that.
As far as capabilities go... DMP is kinda opaque about the thing, offering not a whole lot more than the canned copy-paste that Toms' has here... (along with every other friggin' site on the Internet) Though they HAVE all missed a few details. Apparently, the Pica-200 does NOT actually have a large array of dedicated programmable pixel shader units; it may have one or more, but a lot of it relies on hard-coded "fixed-purpose" shaders built into the GPU. So, to sum it up, this appears to be the sort of graphics horsepower we're looking at:
-4 ROPs
-4 texturing units (assumed)
-Fixed-function hardware T&L unit (approximately 1 vertex per 3 clock cycles)
-32MB+ of RAM
-Fixed-function pixel shaders, capable of a few standard effects (phong shading+normal maps, shadow-maps, reflection/refraction shaders
The above is all a big step up from the DS, and definitely leapfrogs well beyond the capabilities of the PSP, but more specifics are quite up in the air; the figures being given are for a 200MHz version of the GPU, while no information on the clock rate used in the 3DS is given. Similarly, the amount of RAM remains unknown, as does the CPU itself.
[citation][nom]rmmil978[/nom]Or is the design too different to tell?[/citation]
WAY too much difference in design. Cards like that rely heavily on programmability; that's the whole thing that DirectX does. Plus, we're not talking anything remotely that new; after all, the PS3's GPU is based on the GeForce 7x00 series.
It's better to roughly compare it to consoles, and/or what sort of games it could do. The original DS was closer to roughly the level of what the PS1 could do, or a game like Quake on the PC, (albeit at a low resolution) while the PSP was more akin to the N64 (albeit with a lot more RAM) and gaming capabilities more akin to, say, Half-Life.
Provided the capabilities of the GPU, this looks something somewhere between the power of the Game Cube, to as much as the original Xbox; so we could possibly see games as advanced as, say, the original Halo: Combat Evolved. If Nintendo does give it at least 32MB of RAM and a clock rate near 200 MHz, then it'd definitely put the original GC to shame.