Nintendo 3DS Thread

[plazma]

[Jarrod]

For the techies out there, the 3DS GPU has been confirmed.



And a benchmark demo of the GPU.

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[plazma]

Cool, now if i knew what that meant i'm sure i'd be surprised/dissapointed/excited/amazed

The demo looks pretty awesome to me anyway.

Also do you have a source for this?
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"If at first you don't succeed, then skydiving is not for you."

[Jarrod]

Press release in Japanese.
Press release in English.

Basically its a pretty good GPU all things considered. Low power consumption which is typical of Nintendo and a handheld, but also pretty versatile in its shader functionality, which is a good thing as it will help make games look that extra bit better.
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[Bish]

Yeah, apparently it's from 2006, but the low power consumption and the alleged cheapness wins out.
I'm pretty terrible at examining fine detail, so personally, I think it's looking good. Seems to be just a tech demo, but it's looking better than, say, the Source engine from '04, and it's going to be in a handheld.

I do want some numbers on the 3DS though. Like processor power, or resolution or amount of internal storage.
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[Jarrod]

It probably wont make games looking as good as Source, mostly due to the additional shader effects, and because being a handheld its never going to be able to push the same poly count and texture resolution.

The downside of the GPU is that it doesnt support programmable shaders, but on the plus side has shaders built into its archectecture anyway that will give us bump mapping, shadows, etc etc.

As for resolution, we know the top screen is 400x240 (for each eye), and the touch screen is 320x240. Comparitively, the DS has 256x192 for both screens. The PSP has 480x272.
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[Gamesta]

This will probably be the first non-Playstation games machine that I will have bought on launch.
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Welcome to the internet. Where any joke can turn into WWIII.

[Shnryu]

Interesting read on kotaku

http://kotaku.com/5568573/nintendo-3ds-vs-psp-vs-iphone

not sure what it all means.. but the article seems to say the psp and iphone are a little better graphic wise? i dont know lol.. i just want to know if the visuals will be on par with the gamecube/wii like people have been saying.

[Jarrod]

Its impossible to say at this point.

Its definitely not going to be on par with the GCN or the Wii. It wont be pushing the same geometry complexity or texture resolution, nor will it have the texture rendering or anti-aliasing capabilities. Thats just one of the unfortunate aspects of it being a handheld.

That being said, the GPU sounds pretty interesting, and has built into it a number of shaders that are similar to modern shading. Less complex of course, but they're there. For example, the Mario Kart 3DS demo;



There appears to be bump mapping on the tires of the karts, which is something not even the Wii has. There also appears to be bump mapping on the wall in the background. Metal Gear Solid 3DS also has some bump/normal mapping;



Then there's Nintendogs + Cats, which has a fur shader on the animals;



And then you've got what appears to be self shadowing, as well as cel-shading style effects from Street Fighter IV;



In the end, its very difficult to judge the system's performance outside of the actual games. The PSP on paper is a lot tougher than it is in real world performance.

Personally the 3DS looks to me to be similar to the PSP, with potentially some extra bells and whistles for shader effects thanks to how the GPU operates. Its important to remember that a lot of its flair will go towards its 3D rendering too, which itself theoretically sets it far higher higher than the PSP or iPhone.
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[BurnZ]

[Kyle Clarthy]

I had a glance through the thread to make sure that no one else has posted this, but if someone else has anywhere, I'm sorry.

Here's a video showing a scene of Resident Evil: Revelations ... for those who want to see something in action. I guess it doesn't show any gameplay footage, though, and it might contain Spoilers for some.

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[Shnryu]

I hope we see pure gameplay soon.

[BIG DWIFTER]

This looks awesome.

I reckon I will be there at launch for first time in my life for a console.

[teyut88]

I can't wait to play The 3DS. I want to play Dead or Alive and Street Fighter.

[Dare]

If anyone's interested, Kotaku have an article and video of how the 3D on the 3DS actually works, yes we know about the parallax barrier, but its still worth watching in my opinion
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(details: Wifi for Wii & DS + a fantastically crafted old sig {by döppel} are in my profile)

[LeonJ]

Specs are slightly dissapointing but then I think about how awesome the DS was with it's 'poor' graphics processing.

The tech demos were very impressive though and did look much better then what the PSP can do.

Anyway, I want one. Hurry up March 2011.
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Shin J Leon.

XBL - LeonJ
PSN - LeonJ

[Smurf80]

I think I will pick one up on release. I havent had a Nintendo handheld since the original gameboy as I dont game using handhelds much anymore (PSP has gathered dust for acouple of years now) But this might be the console that changes my view of them again.
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Thanks to segax for the sig!

[Stevorooni]

I really want a Mario or Zelda game to appear with this on release because from what I've seen so far there's not a "me wantee" game I want to buy the system for.

I'll probably still get one at launch though.
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PIXELHUNT - It gets you chicks

[Jedi_Amara]

[BurnZ]

[ManeKast]

^^
That DPAD better be BIGGER and more sturdy this time. If they do a 3DSXL, make the dpad bigger please gods of gaming!
Those of us with ape hands wanna play street fighter 3d, properly.
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PSN/XBL/Steam: ManeKast
Kudos to Fetidchimp for the sig.

[Jarrod]

Capcom recently did an interview in Japan for their MT Framework engine, particularly MT Framework Mobile which is powering Resident Evil: Revelations and Super Street Fighter IV 3DS.

The below summary was copied from user miladesn on NeoGAF, so props to him.

Very interesting!

MT Framework Mobile on 3DS

- Resident Evil Revelations
Revelations started for 3DS,it's not a project that was on another hardware and then moved to 3DS.
Takuechi says that at first people couldn't believe the results they were getting.
The game utilizes all the common rendering techniques on 360/PS3 like HDR rendering, surface shaders and normal maps, there are a lot more details in there and picture comparisons. Depth of field, gamma correction etc all are used.
In 3D mode it's 30fps (for each eye)

I don't know if these pics are new or not!!

Left without HDR, right with HDR


Left without color correction, right with it.


Motion Blur, apparently it's not compatible with 3D and is only used in 2D mode.

Left without motion blur, right with it.


Depth of Field


Normal maps


Surface shaders, self shadowing


Anti-Aliasing, it seems that there is up to 2xAA in 2D mode and it's off in 3D mode.

they say that although polygon count and resolution is lower than RE5 but Revelations has similar expression, or something around this.

Street Fighter IV 3DS, apparently it uses MTFM too.

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[Benza]

from the screens they look similar to gamecube.

The Street fighter ones I notice arn't use cloth simulation on the cloths and have lots of clipping through it that I don't really remember on the console version (I haven't looked that hard though)

I wonder about street fighter though, they've said they're not making it for 3D on the PS3 cause they can't get it to run at 60fps while displaying the two pictures so I wonder how this will work.
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[admeister]

Street Fighter looks pretty nasty...
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