No, seriously, don't do WM. Let MS adapt to the rest of the world instead of us adapting to them. C#, XNA, that's twice the headache porting your code over just to live in their ecosystem (WM7, Zune (do people even own these?), XBLIG, "some" Windows). Them at least finishing XNA by adding managed C++ would be a step in the right direction.
Oh the irony. THe camera is capable of 640x480, but neither screen can display it, unless they do a lame split-screen of 1 photo! Top Screen: 3.53-inch widescreen LCD display, enabling 3D view without the need for special glasses; with 800x240 pixel resolution (400 pixels are allocated for each eye to enable 3D viewing). Touch Screen: 3.02-inch LCD with 320x240 pixel resolution with a touch screen. Cameras: One inner camera and two outer cameras with 640x480 (0.3 Mega) pixel resolution. I am wondering though if the dual eye visuals would cause a sort of "interlacing" illusion of higher resolution??
Yeah, we've already milked that one to death at work. I seriously don't know what these guys are playing at.
The GPU has been revealed: http://www.dmprof.com/release/20100621_3DS_EN.html http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3180008 It looks like a significant improvement over the DS. What do you think?
Looks like they went with another solution (interpret that frown however you like, hehehe). It was probably a cost consideration, as is usual. Oh well, it's still a big improvement over the DS, I guess.
No poxy pixelshaders Seems like they've gone for a Wii style "throw everything you can think of into a fixed function TEV and hope for the best. Should be able to tease some shadows out with that, though bump-mapping is next to impossible without a tangent basis in the vertices. Don't read DOT3BUMP and expect to get useable bumps outside of a demo cube. Still, I have to say it's not as bad as I actually feared. Might get some version of our tanks game on this after all.
Yeah, very annoying that there is a lack of pixel shaders, as fixed function is such a damn hassle and it's not like we don't already have low-cost, low-power, shader-capable chips in the mobile market. Now that I've thought about it more, I'm wondering if the 3DS is, in part, just an effort to kill PSP in Japan. The DS always gets its ass kicked for a month or two over there any time the PSP has a big product launch (e.g. Monster Hunter, Metal Gear, etc.). These specs position the 3DS as a great PSP alternative, and the similar features/performance should (in theory) ease the transition. Ruh roh, Sony!
I'd say there's some merit in that. But don't forget that PSP2 is around the corner. Now that I am really looking forward to, especially for the laugh at the pricetag!
Yes, this sounds just like another PowerVR MBX (another fixed function GPU that does dot-3 bump-mapping, 1st and 2nd gen iPhones), but from a Japanese company. Here's the spec sheet PDF for the core. http://www.dmprof.com/release/leaflet_PICA200_en.pdf Okay, so if the sheet says @ 200 MHz, then the system wont run it that fast. I'm pretty sure some similar doc I read regarding the PowerVR MBX said 1.5 M Poly's at whatever clock rate it ran at, and the 1st gen iPhone's ended up getting about half that. Still, even half those numbers isn't too bad, especially given the screen size. Two 400x240's, 96000 pixels each, enough "theoretical" performance for more than 60 complete overdraws per screen per frame at 60fps. But that tells nothing of actual textured and lit pixel performance, or alpha blending. Turn on textures, and it could drop ten-fold for all we know. I worked with a Samsung GPU (FIMG 1.5) some time ago that literally did exactly that. It supported shaders, but turn on texturing and it crawled along. But I guess, you'd expect Nintendo to pick something good, since it is their life on the line thanks to intense competition on the Apple front. Meh.
I'm expecting realistic numbers of about 20k-30k per frame... Which should be good enough to compete with PSP and iPhone visuals. And PSP2 had better be tits
THe GPU specs have been released and it has 4 shader channels. Word is 3DS slightly more capable than the Wii. I'm sold. I take back my earlier cynicism. This is a demo of what the chip can do: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3A-xxUyJvQQ
The wii was capable? Both have a lot of catching up to do with the latest iPhone. Quite sad really that nintendo's hardware is a load of bollocks and always has been.
Yes, the iDevices may be all shader fancy and capable, but still lack the raw fill rate power of other devices. Part of their secret sauce is the TBDR, which potentially eliminates a good chunk of fill rate need with 3D objects. But raw 2D stuff on the GPU without any occlusion pits you versus the fill rate, which can be disastrous for some games. The Pica200 sounds like a device you will do lots of rendering passes with.