Support NeoGAF

[Vieo]

You know how GBA whoops SNES in terms of graphics, but SNES' soundchip really leaves GBA's shins bloody and swollen from a lot of kicks?
Is DS more powerful than N64 in every catagory, including sound? What about that situation where you had to add in a memory upgrade to N64?(I think it was for Turok?). Whatever memory catagory that was, does the DS have N64 beat in that area?

 

[Sho Nuff]

Add filtering and perspective-correct texturing and we'll talk

 

[Scrow]

You know how GBA whoops SNES in terms of graphics...

ah... it doesn't.

 

[Vieo]

ah... it doesn't.

Well, IMO and that's good enough for me.

Anyway, post on topic please.

 

[border]

Much like the relationship between the GBA and the SNES, the handheld is stronger in some areas and weaker in others.

 

[Lord Error]

First of all, I don't think GBA really whoops SNES in graphics. Maybe a stock SNES (even that's debatable - see DKC port), but games that used those special chips on SNES were not faithfully ported to GBA. Yoshi's Island is what I have in mind.

I was actually quite surprised at how inferior DKC looks on GBA. On paper GBA should be better than stock SNES, but that game sure looks a lot better on SNES.


As for the DS, it's graphics chip is inferior to N64 at least when it comes to bilinear filtering. N64 had a bit botched bilinear filtering solution (it looked nice, though), DS doesn't have it at all. I also think (can't confirm that though) that N64 has more advanced blending modes compared to DS. DS definitely has an upper hand in polygon counts, and probably in texture resolution too.

Sho Nuff, DS has perspective correction, I'm pretty sure about it.

 

[Scrow]

Well, IMO and that's good enough for me.

Anyway, post on topic please.

it was a response to something you said in your post, so it was on topic. and besides, i do as I wish.

oh yeah, and i agree with Marconelly ^^^

 

[Vieo]

Well that takes care of polys and textures, but still what about memory(which one has more and which one has faster memory?)? (What was that memory upgrade for N64. What did that do and what if you tried to play Turok without it?=P)

 

[Lord Error]

N64 memory:
4.5 MB Rambus DRAM (36 megabits)
Custom 9-bit Rambus Bus (to the DRAM)

Expansion RAM adds 4MB so the total would be 8.5MB.

I think NDS has 8MB of RAM. No idea about the speed.

 

[jarrod]

First of all, I don't think GBA really whoops SNES in graphics. Maybe a stock SNES (even that's debatable - see DKC port), but games that used those special chips on SNES were not faithfully ported to GBA. Yoshi's Island is what I have in mind.

I was actually quite surprised at how inferior DKC looks on GBA. On paper GBA should be better than stock SNES, but that game sure looks a lot better on SNES.

DKC was a software decision. GBA is capable of a perfect port (outside resolution) but color fields were reduced anyway to make the game more visible on GBA's screen. It was Rare's decision actually.

More visually intensive GBA games like Golden Sun or Drome Racers couldn't be handled by a stock SNES without some noticable concessions. GBA can generally handle more onscreen colors, sprites and scrolls, plus more complex FX (textured polygons, dual Mode 7, sprite scaling, etc) but the lack of a dedicated sound chip majorly cuts into performance (like N64). DS seems to alleviate this somewhat by dedicating the ARM7 to audio/wireless.

Nintendo really should've dedicated the Z80 in GBA to audio, it would've allowed for general performance closer to NeoGeo than SNES overall. As is, the Z80 isn't even active in GBA mode (it's used only for GB/GBC legacy compatibility).

 

[bigNman]

Im pretty sure DS has only 4MB of RAM which is a shame (majoras mask, dk64, perfect dark all needed the expansion pak) Anyone know for sure?

 

[SlickWilly223]

It would be amazing to play those Zelda games on DS. Doubt it will ever happen, though.

 

[tenchir]

According to the leaked spec sheets, it looks like it will have 4MB( development units have 8MB)
http://www.gizmodo.com/archives/images/nintendo_nitro_specsheet.jpg

You don't have to run the game exactly the same way in order for it to look as good. So I don't think you need 8MB to run MM or PD because you aren't going to play the game on large television.

 

[GamerDiva]

Anyway, post on topic please.

He was. It doesn't.

 

[Red Dolphin]

I was actually quite surprised at how inferior DKC looks on GBA. On paper GBA should be better than stock SNES, but that game sure looks a lot better on SNES.

Yeah I was really disapointed by DKC's graphics on the GBA. How does DKC2 look like? I haven't seen it. Is it much the same?

 

[Mejilan]

Yeah, but aren't the DKC games looking like that on the GBA primarily due to the differences in LCD lighting and resolution? I'm pretty sure that if the graphics were rerendered for the GBA, they'd look at least as good as the SNES version's, no? I could be wrong, but I thought it had more to do with reusing prerendered assets intended for regular TV resolution rather than any diffenciency with the GBA hardware itself.

 

[GSG Flash]

ah... it doesn't.

All on GBA (looks a lot better on the little screen)