We don't know a lot about the innards of Nintendo's 3DS, but we know that it's a graphical beast for a portable. I was impressed by the visual output I saw at E3, and I know we only saw early stuff.
It turns out that a company called Digital Media Porfessionals makes the graphics chipset for the 3DS. It's called the Pica200, and it supports per-pixel lighting, procedural textures and antialiasing. At its native 200MHz, it generates 15,3 million polygons. What's all that mean? Well, it means that the 3DS could be able to spit out graphics like in the above tech demo, which Engadget says was rendered directly on said chipset.
I don't know about you, but I'm impressed. Yoshimitsu would be too!
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Wow... I was already set on getting one, just cements it even more. I haven't been this excited for a handheld ever. Even without 3D, the announced games and power of this machine are enough to draw me in.
Not to nay-say or anything, I want to see what the 3DS can do also. But take that pretty video, add some interactivity, then make the "room" bigger than that little platform he was standing on with the well-made (but obvious) billboard backgrounds and then show me what you can do.
Apparently there's a site that compares the 3DS, DS, PSP, and Iphone, and it looks like the 3DS can do 30.6 Million Polygons, compared to what this video shows us. But I could be wrong its not in english.
lol! I thought this guy was like Yoshimits--WAIT......it's a sign...TEKKEN 3DS!!
And really, a lot of you nay-sayers are talking shit, yet you're expecting Nintendo to skip generations of graphics for a PORTABLE SYSTEM. If Nintendo made these graphics the same as a 360/PS3, it would put those companies to shame. How the fuck would you make all of these processing features available in such a small package, while making it efficient at the same time? I'm quite fine with AA, per-pixel lighting, and the 15.3 million polygons on a portable system, tyvm. It's quite a big step from something that was ROUGHLY N64 graphics, and look at how well that did. Besides, the graphics aren't the big focus of the games they make--it's the games themselves. Compare it to Crysis: great looking, but sort of generic in a few ways (except the sequel, I'm STOKED!).
I really want a 3DS, it's the first Nintendo product I've ever really wanted without a doubt. Having said that, I think Syn makes a good point. GPU tech demos are always leaps and bounds above actual games. But even so... if 3DS games are a THIRD as good as this tech demo in terms of graphical quality I don't think anyone could really complain much.
There is no way a 3DS game will come anywhere near that. Unless the rumours are true, and this thing really does run on the souls of sacrificed puppies.
As long as the graphics are PSP standard or better then that's a major improvement.
Actually... there are two versions of the Pica200 GPU: one at 200MHz and another at 400MHz (the 200 in the name Pica200 is not refering to the speed)...
So, we still don't know for sure which version the 3DS is going to use.
If this is gameplay graphics then I'm REALLY impressed. From what I can see, it's a pre-rendered movie so I'm not sold just quite yet. The PSP has graphics of this level if not better, just look at Crisis Core. I'm gonna need to see some of that 3D action for myself to see if the 3DS is as awesome as everyone says it is.
When will we see real footage of someone actually playing these revolutionary games on a 3DS? I don't know about some of you, but I always want to be careful before throwing away $200.
Well, people can do amazing stuff on any tech, when they focus on one specific goal. I am not surprised that the 3DS GPU can do that, but games will not look that good.
Games have to render twice as much, due to the 3D effect (1 frame per eye) and also an extra touch screen, so the rendering power is divided by those 3 screens. Also, in this clip all the 'firepower' is aimed at one little scene, when playing a game, they would have to load a much bigger level and can't focus all the power into a so small area.
It is impressive, but not that amazing. Games on 3DS will look like PS2 games, and I think that is good enough for such a small screen.
I was at Sony's E3 2005 press conference, when Epic was there showing a game with live models engaged in a firefight that they were able to freeze and rotate in real time as a tech demo of the PS3's GPU.
Wanna know what game they were showing? Gears of War. Seriously. It was Marcus shooting up a baddie, only we didn't know about Gears back then. But trust me, sometimes they really do mean what they say. It depends on the source of the graphics.
For reference, everything nVidia showed that day was real-time. That was also the big Killzone 2 bullshot day as well, so ymmv.
The fact that no AI, controls, etc is rolling is largely irrelevant; this is a GPU test, the rest is all CPU stuff. The second screen is most likely irrelevant as well since the 3DS seems to borrow largely from DS design -- closely enough to be backwards compatible. In other words, the other screen is likely to have its own dedicated GPU.
As for performance with 3D vs. a plain render, we don't know if the performance hit was taken into account for this video, so it's hard to say.
it won't look that good, period. That demo is showing the GPU power off which is nice, but it can't look that nice because the screen doesn't have that kind of resolution- take one look at the screenshots from the 3ds and you will see that though it is far better than the last gen it will never be as clean as the demo shown.
It doesn't deter me from buying the 3ds when it comes out- but just a warning, it will be good but not that good
@KingSigy
the PS2 has a CPU that runs at 297Mhz while it GPU ran at 147MHZ at this time we don't now what the CPU specs are for the 3DS and if the GPU is clock at 200Mhz or 400Mhz
Demo looks great but let's not get everyone's hopes up. Like Syn posted earlier, this only shows 1 "character" in a small space. Detail will drop once bigger environments and more characters are onscreen.(assuming this demo is maxed out)
Not that I'm putting down the 3ds... Nintendo has never needed a graphical advantage to completely own the portable space, and I don't think that will change with the 3DS
This looks really nice, but keep in mind that the demo is throwing all of the GPUs weight into rendering this one character and a very small environment surrounded by a pretty-but-low-resolution sky box. In the real world, most of the polys that the character and dojo are made up of will have to go towards rendering full environments in 3D, meaning in-game models would never look this good other than possibly in cinematics that just focus on one or two characters in small low-detail environments. That said, real world performance still looks better than the PSP, so uh, yay Nintendo.
@YoctoYotta Ya in addition to that, this only represents one aspect what it is POTENTIALLY capable of, and not what will be available. For example you can a $1000 graphics card and 126mb of ram. It ain't going very far. So this demonstration really means nothing, we need the final specs.
@bassbeast
Pretty sure that was Unreal 3, dude. And it definitely wasn't Marcus. If I remember correctly, it was that dude with the dreads wearing some red armor that looked a bit like the Gears armor, fighting a robot.
Maybe an early design, but that definitely was a Gears prototype at the Sony conference. Yeah, it was about the as-yet-unseen Unreal 3 engine. Most important point, though, is that it was real-time, with as much detail (less now, in fact) than we saw in a final product.
Both nVidia and Epic were true to their demos. We can only hope and pray that this other company is just as honest.
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Contest:
4:20 PM on 06.25.2010 | 
Puts my PSP graphics to shame it does and that interests me a LOT.
Damn This shit it's going to be expensive.
maybe iphone/pad/ped
So it will never look as good as this render...
BUT, it will still look very good for a handheld though. Kid Icarus is proof of that.
Apparently there's a site that compares the 3DS, DS, PSP, and Iphone, and it looks like the 3DS can do 30.6 Million Polygons, compared to what this video shows us. But I could be wrong its not in english.
And really, a lot of you nay-sayers are talking shit, yet you're expecting Nintendo to skip generations of graphics for a PORTABLE SYSTEM. If Nintendo made these graphics the same as a 360/PS3, it would put those companies to shame. How the fuck would you make all of these processing features available in such a small package, while making it efficient at the same time? I'm quite fine with AA, per-pixel lighting, and the 15.3 million polygons on a portable system, tyvm. It's quite a big step from something that was ROUGHLY N64 graphics, and look at how well that did. Besides, the graphics aren't the big focus of the games they make--it's the games themselves. Compare it to Crysis: great looking, but sort of generic in a few ways (except the sequel, I'm STOKED!).
Well, that kicks the holy hell out of the PSP, doesn't it?
As long as the graphics are PSP standard or better then that's a major improvement.
Signed, Assie.
So, we still don't know for sure which version the 3DS is going to use.
PS. The video is running in the 200MHz GPU.
Games have to render twice as much, due to the 3D effect (1 frame per eye) and also an extra touch screen, so the rendering power is divided by those 3 screens. Also, in this clip all the 'firepower' is aimed at one little scene, when playing a game, they would have to load a much bigger level and can't focus all the power into a so small area.
It is impressive, but not that amazing. Games on 3DS will look like PS2 games, and I think that is good enough for such a small screen.
imagine if they got something from 2007 :O
I was at Sony's E3 2005 press conference, when Epic was there showing a game with live models engaged in a firefight that they were able to freeze and rotate in real time as a tech demo of the PS3's GPU.
Wanna know what game they were showing? Gears of War. Seriously. It was Marcus shooting up a baddie, only we didn't know about Gears back then. But trust me, sometimes they really do mean what they say. It depends on the source of the graphics.
For reference, everything nVidia showed that day was real-time. That was also the big Killzone 2 bullshot day as well, so ymmv.
As for performance with 3D vs. a plain render, we don't know if the performance hit was taken into account for this video, so it's hard to say.
It doesn't deter me from buying the 3ds when it comes out- but just a warning, it will be good but not that good
Gears of War? So you meant to say Microsoft press conference?
the PS2 has a CPU that runs at 297Mhz while it GPU ran at 147MHZ at this time we don't now what the CPU specs are for the 3DS and if the GPU is clock at 200Mhz or 400Mhz
Not that I'm putting down the 3ds... Nintendo has never needed a graphical advantage to completely own the portable space, and I don't think that will change with the 3DS
Pretty sure that was Unreal 3, dude. And it definitely wasn't Marcus. If I remember correctly, it was that dude with the dreads wearing some red armor that looked a bit like the Gears armor, fighting a robot.
Maybe an early design, but that definitely was a Gears prototype at the Sony conference. Yeah, it was about the as-yet-unseen Unreal 3 engine. Most important point, though, is that it was real-time, with as much detail (less now, in fact) than we saw in a final product.
Both nVidia and Epic were true to their demos. We can only hope and pray that this other company is just as honest.