DMP's Pica200 GPU is Behind Nintendo 3DS

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Tindytim

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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".
 

rmmil978

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Based on the information that's given, I guess I don't completely understand how those specs compare to PC graphics cards. Can anyone say what it compares to? Say a Radeon 4xxx / 5xxx card, etc. Or is the design too different to tell?
 

ikefu

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@Tindytim

Yes, this is a complete new console. The only relationship to DS games it has is backwards compatibility. New 3DS games will not run on a DS and actually come on a whole new card format.

3DS is to DS as PS3 is to PS2


As far as specs go for the GPU, you also have to remember that the screen has an effective resolution of 400x240 which is only 96000 pixels. A computer GPU has to scale up to 2560x1600 which is over 4 million pixels. So you can do a LOT with these hardware specs at the 3DS resolution.
 

r0x0r

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[citation][nom]rmmil978[/nom]Based on the information that's given, I guess I don't completely understand how those specs compare to PC graphics cards. Can anyone say what it compares to? Say a Radeon 4xxx / 5xxx card, etc. Or is the design too different to tell?[/citation]

Judging by the video, I would say it looks like Xbox-1 level graphics, so maybe a Geforce 4 Ti.
 

nottheking

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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.
 

rmmil978

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If it does have around 32 MB of GPU RAM then, based on what I see on Wikipedia, it would be significantly better than the PSP (which looked to have 2 MB of VRAM). I do remember reading something about which GPU the PS3 and Xbox 360 were based on, and thinking "Wow, that's really far behind," but then again they were designed in 2004/2005, so it wasn't too surprising, I guess.
 

eklipz330

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[citation][nom]ikefu[/nom]@TindytimYes, this is a complete new console. The only relationship to DS games it has is backwards compatibility. New 3DS games will not run on a DS and actually come on a whole new card format.3DS is to DS as PS3 is to PS2As far as specs go for the GPU, you also have to remember that the screen has an effective resolution of 400x240 which is only 96000 pixels. A computer GPU has to scale up to 2560x1600 which is over 4 million pixels. So you can do a LOT with these hardware specs at the 3DS resolution.[/citation]

that is a terrible analogy... most ps3's DON'T play ps2 games, where the 3ds will play ALL ds games =]
 

eklipz330

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[citation][nom]anamaniac[/nom]Hey, Nintendo finally making something worth looking at since the N64?Nah, still dominated by kiddy games...[/citation]
...if you recall the n64 was pretty much dominated by kiddy games too... they were good kiddy games though
 

Shadow703793

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[citation][nom]rmmil978[/nom]Based on the information that's given, I guess I don't completely understand how those specs compare to PC graphics cards. Can anyone say what it compares to? Say a Radeon 4xxx / 5xxx card, etc. Or is the design too different to tell?[/citation]
This would be similar to an old ATI X800. Then again, you can't really compare them.
 

uncfan_2563

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So this is stupid, no? Instead of wasting the extra power on stereo 3d, why don't they try to attain pc/console 3d rendering first? I'm sure most people would prefer that over just some 2d images popping out..
 

WheelsOfConfusion

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[citation][nom]uncfan_2563[/nom]So this is stupid, no? Instead of wasting the extra power on stereo 3d, why don't they try to attain pc/console 3d rendering first? I'm sure most people would prefer that over just some 2d images popping out..[/citation]
On a small screen, I'll wager the illusion of depth is more impressive than 720p resolution with bloom effects.
 
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almost looks better than a PSP, though I doubt we'll see many games being published, which max out this chip's abilities.
 

miloo

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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~
 
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