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[Chittagong]

Having played now extensively Nintendo DS, it seems that the machine pushes polygons in a very solid framerate. I'm thinking that because of this, there must be HW acceleration.

Anybody know where this is? A custom ARM9 with 3D accleration? Whose technology it's using? I don't see any mentions of ATI ect. on the packaging or PR.

 

[ourumov]

Apparently I read in an other thread here @ GA that the T&L is performed by the GPU and not the ARM9/ARM7. What other features are implemented by this GPU are facts that I think are still unclear.

 

[Chittagong]

Apparently I read in an other thread here @ GA that the T&L is performed by the GPU and not the ARM9/ARM7. What other features are implemented by this GPU are facts that I think are still unclear.

Hmm... any idea who did the GPU and what is the spec? I'm also wondering how is the development on DS - IS has probably delivered a robust solution, and there must be great APIs for utilizing the new HW elements. Must be somewhat odd to design and prototype for the DS, visualizing both screens on PC and using mouse to touch.

 

[cybamerc]

Some say it's an in-house job.

 

[Panajev2001a]

Some say it's an in-house job.

Quite probable, they still have the help of the ex-N64 guys, the same people who designed the iQue.

 

[Chittagong]

Quite probable, they still have the help of the ex-N64 guys, the same people who designed the iQue.

WHAT?! Of all people, even you don't know? Damn Nintendo is secretive. I find it unlikely, however, that Nintendo would have chip designers inhouse. Project managers for outsourcing the task into some poor little subcontractor, maybe.

 

[cybamerc]

Nintendo has former SGI engineers on its payroll, most notably Howard Cheng who was the man behind N64 while at SGI and later GameCube as Technical Director at Nintendo Technology Development.

 

[PanopticBlue]

Can someone post the known full specs of the machine? Polygon count, fill rate etc.

Hell, I still don't even know how much memory the damn thing has. Anybody?

 

[Panajev2001a]

Nintendo has former SGI engineers on its payroll, most notably Howard Cheng who was the man behind N64 while at SGI and later GameCube as Technical Director at Nintendo Technology Development.

Exactly, I was thinking of those guys, but I did not remember the exact names.
I still wonder who did the manufacturing and back-end design.

 

[btrboyev]

Can someone post the known full specs of the machine? Polygon count, fill rate etc.

Hell, I still don't even know how much memory the damn thing has. Anybody?

No one knows for sure, but nintendo's own estimates were around 120,000 pps. I think it has 4 MB of memory.

 

[lexi]

Who were those guys that developed that 3D tech the 3D GBA games use? They could probably push some nice graphics on the DS.

 

[3phemeral]

Nintendo has former SGI engineers on its payroll, most notably Howard Cheng who was the man behind N64 while at SGI and later GameCube as Technical Director at Nintendo Technology Development.

I thought he was one of the heads at ArtX?

 

[cybamerc]

I thought he was one of the heads at ArtX?

Nope. He went directly to Nintendo from SGI.

 

[mosaic]

Who were those guys that developed that 3D tech the 3D GBA games use? They could probably push some nice graphics on the DS.

Raylight Studios? Makers of Drome Racers and Smashing Drive. Awesome 3D engine in a way, although they cut huge corners by making it so you can't see behind you (or turn around) in those games. That cheat lets 'em display all the polys up ahead and none behind.

I honestly don't think they'd fare any better than any other decent developer on the DS.
Using the same engine wouldn't help because they wouldn't be using the custom DS GPU... If they rely on the CPU entirely, it'd just be the same engine beefed up by twice the processor speed and more memory.

Now, what I'd like to see is a company like Sega resurrect games like Virtua Fighter 2 or Virtua Racing (or even Daytona USA) on the DS. If done with care, they could look and play way better than those crappy Ages PS2 titles... can you imagine wireless Daytona USA? While I'm waxing fantastic, how about a Virtual On game for DS? Or rework and finally release Propeller Arena. Mmmm.

Also, when is Capcom going to announce the inevitable Street Fighter Alpha 3 for DS or PSP? I've bought that game like four times for various systems; I see no reason to break the trend.

 

[Kai Dracon]

It'd be very interesting to see the on-paper DS specs, to try and theorize if in fact -any- of the intial software is utilizing many or most HW functions. Even Mario, while improved over N64 in a lot of ways - is it possible the final DS hardware does support stuff like bilinear filtering? I wonder if -anyone- including the Mario team had access to final hardware during the bulk of development time.

 

[cja]

Can someone post the known full specs of the machine? Polygon count, fill rate etc.

Hell, I still don't even know how much memory the damn thing has. Anybody?

Publicly released specs:
http://www.gamespot.com/ds/puzzle/dspictochat/printable_6108019.html

Nitro leaked specs (TNL reporting what old GAF forum said):
http://www.the-nextlevel.com/board/showthread.php?t=27766

Nintendo seem to be especially reticent about the machines technical abilities for some reason. Odd, they usually share a good deal of information about their hardware, not usually hyperboling it to the extent they did with N64 but publicly releasing the specs nonetheless. A hazardous guess on my part would be Nintendo being fed up at Microsoft's continual use of charts comparing GameCube's stated 12m poly performance to Sony's and Microsoft's hypotheticals. Nonsensical the comparison may be but Microsoft have used it in their marketing for a long time so it must have made an impression.

 

[xexex]

iirc, the amount of transformed polygons or verts / sec is quite large. 4 million / sec

but the amount of rendered / displayed polys is quite low, just 120,000 /sec, which is less than PS1 or N64. but the low res small screen makes up for that difference I suppose.

still, DS 3D capabilities are in the PS1/N64 range. nowhere near Dreamcast, let alone PSP. but then, DS is not about 3D graphics. it's all about the combination of dual screen, touch control, wireless, internet, voice, gba compatibility, battery life, etc.


Sega's Model 2 and Model 3 arcade games are not suitable for DS, imho. more like PSP and the next GameBoy.