Who is doing GPU for nintendo's 3DS?

[blanketyblank]

http://www.joystiq.com/2010/06/07/reports-3ds-more-powerful-than-wii-doesnt-use-nvidia-chips/

I just saw this article, that now claims nintendo's new hand held is not going to use NV's tegra but something else that will give it power almost on par with an xbox 360.
If that's true who the hell is making that chip and why haven't we seen them yet in the desktop market?

 

[Blurry]

Unless I'm mistaken, I believe its a slightly scaled down, 45nm BitBoys Glaze3D accelerator with 64mb of dedicated ram.

 

[soccerballtux]

LMAO-- "According to IGN, "Several developers that have experienced 3DS in its current form have reported, off the record, that it has processing capabilities that far exceed the Nintendo Wii and bring the device with abilities that are close to HD consoles such as PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.""

bwahahahahaha what a piece of hype journalism. What a joke. I bet that author is laughing his pants off.

 

[ViRGE]

LMAO-- "According to IGN, "Several developers that have experienced 3DS in its current form have reported, off the record, that it has processing capabilities that far exceed the Nintendo Wii and bring the device with abilities that are close to HD consoles such as PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.""

bwahahahahaha what a piece of hype journalism. What a joke. I bet that author is laughing his pants off.

No kidding. You would never be able to fit something as powerful as the Wii in to a handheld with a reasonable battery life. Nintendo's handheld philosophy has always been to skimp on features to keep a long battery life. This is why the Game Boy Advance was basically put on hold for 2 years, and why the DS only came with a GPU that was marginally capable of 3D.

Whatever the GPU is in the 3DS, it won't be all that powerful. Perhaps it will match wits with a Gamecube.

 

[Soleron]

Having a powerful GPU or CPU has not helped any console to achieve sales or profit success.

The Xbox and Gamecube were more powerful than the PS2 and lost.
The N64 was more powerful than the PS1 and lost.
The Xbox 360 and PS3 were more powerful than the Wii and lost.
The PSP was more powerful than the DS and lost.

NSMB Wii selling twice as much as Mario Galaxy in a quarter of the release time shows that most people don't buy games for graphics.

 

[BenSkywalker]

You would never be able to fit something as powerful as the Wii in to a handheld with a reasonable battery life.

I disagree with that, rather strongly actually-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCTWkJRxm5E&feature=related

This isn't so much boasting about the strength of the Tegra2, more it has to do with the Wii being seriously outdated when it appeared 4 years ago. According to this rumor, Nintendo is considering something more powerful then Tegra2 which should very easily compete, at least, with the Wii. From everything I've seen, Tegra2 should be able to best a Wii's GPU fairly easily- let alone something beyond that. As of right now, the Wii's GPU in a cell phone wouldn't be very impressive, it's a very weak platform in terms of graphics power(I waited in line for hours on launch day to buy one and still have it, speaking from rather extensive experience here).

Whatever the GPU is in the 3DS, it won't be all that powerful. Perhaps it will match wits with a Gamecube.

In terms of absolute power the GC and Wii are closer then the GTX 470 and GTX 480(percentage wise it is a much larger gap, but not in terms of absolute performance).

Having a powerful GPU or CPU has not helped any console to achieve sales or profit success.

That is absurdly wrong. You can accurately say with certainty that it won't assure you the top sales spot without question, but there are millions of people who will buy systems based on how powerful they are and millions of people who will buy games based on how good they look. They may not be the majority, but there is a market there. I think that is Sony's market in the handheld space(which is clearly smaller then Nintendo's)- and while the PSP has certainly failed to match up with the DS, it has a ~10Million unit lead over the iPhone(the huge consumer electronics hit by most analysts take). There is money to be made going after the most power hungry consumers, it just isn't the mass market that Nintendo has tried to target.

 

[ArchAngel777]

The hand-held resolution would be quite a bit lower than what the PS3 and 360 run for their output... So it would require less. I do believe that this hand-held could produce better looking games than the Nintendo Wii.

 

[ViRGE]

I disagree with that, rather strongly actually-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCTWkJRxm5E&feature=related

This isn't so much boasting about the strength of the Tegra2, more it has to do with the Wii being seriously outdated when it appeared 4 years ago. According to this rumor, Nintendo is considering something more powerful then Tegra2 which should very easily compete, at least, with the Wii. From everything I've seen, Tegra2 should be able to best a Wii's GPU fairly easily- let alone something beyond that. As of right now, the Wii's GPU in a cell phone wouldn't be very impressive, it's a very weak platform in terms of graphics power(I waited in line for hours on launch day to buy one and still have it, speaking from rather extensive experience here).

We've all seen the Tegra 2 demo and it's certainly impressive, but that kind of performance would be way out of Nintendo's power budget. Just to give you an idea of how light Nintendo goes, the DS Lite is 15-19 hours on a 1000mAh@3.7v battery. That gives you 3.7Wh to work with over a span of at least 15 hours - you have to keep average total power consumption to under 250mW. Tegra 2 is fancy, but NVIDIA's own PR fluff puts it at 500mW just for the processor, never mind the face that there are screens and other electronics to drive.

The Wii isn't very powerful, that much is true. And I'm sure someone has a mobile GPU that can rival it. But no one has a mobile GPU that can rival it with that kind of power consumption.

I think that is Sony's market in the handheld space(which is clearly smaller then Nintendo's)- and while the PSP has certainly failed to match up with the DS, it has a ~10Million unit lead over the iPhone(the huge consumer electronics hit by most analysts take).

The iPhone platform (iPhone + iPod Touch) has sold over 100mil units. The PSP is at 58mil units. Sony fell behind the iPhone platform back around the middle of 2009, IIRC.

 

[Genx87]

What is ther target this round though? 19 hours is a long ass battery for gaming. It may be they cut it in half for a more powerful GPU? Or put a larger battery in the unit?

 

[ViRGE]

What is ther target this round though? 19 hours is a long ass battery for gaming. It may be they cut it in half for a more powerful GPU? Or put a larger battery in the unit?

It fluctuates some, but Nintendo's bare minimum is 10 hours (GBA SP, DSi), and with everything turned down the average is around 15 hours. Plus I would expect any new Nintendo handheld to do better than 10 hours to help differentiate itself from things like the iPod Touch and PSP (which both get a fraction of that).

They could go with a larger battery, but they've also been rather consistent about size. Even a "big" handheld like the original DS (fat) wouldn't hold too much larger of a battery.

 

[Daedalus685]

We've all seen the Tegra 2 demo and it's certainly impressive, but that kind of performance would be way out of Nintendo's power budget. Just to give you an idea of how light Nintendo goes, the DS Lite is 15-19 hours on a 1000mAh@3.7v battery. That gives you 3.7Wh to work with over a span of at least 15 hours - you have to keep average total power consumption to under 250mW/h. Tegra 2 is fancy, but NVIDIA's own PR fluff puts it at 500mW/h just for the processor, never mind the face that there are screens and other electronics to drive.

The Wii isn't very powerful, that much is true. And I'm sure someone has a mobile GPU that can rival it. But no one has a mobile GPU that can rival it with that kind of power consumption.

The iPhone platform (iPhone + iPod Touch) has sold over 100mil units. The PSP is at 58mil units. Sony fell behind the iPhone platform back around the middle of 2009, IIRC.

Not to nitpick (ok, to nitpick...)... but you mean 250mW... not mW/h. A watt is already a rate.

Otherwise you are entirely correct that the power consumption of most Nintendo hand helds is bordering on the obscenely low.

 

[taserbro]

It fluctuates some, but Nintendo's bare minimum is 10 hours (GBA SP, DSi), and with everything turned down the average is around 15 hours. Plus I would expect any new Nintendo handheld to do better than 10 hours to help differentiate itself from things like the iPod Touch and PSP (which both get a fraction of that).

They could go with a larger battery, but they've also been rather consistent about size. Even a "big" handheld like the original DS (fat) wouldn't hold too much larger of a battery.

Actually, the battery in the nintendo ds is far from being as big as it can fit.
For instance, my smartphone battery is a 1750mAh li-poly (which offers slightly less energy density than li-ion cells albeit being safer) prismatic cell and fits inside a case that's less than half the volume of a ds. And despite the cell phone receiver, qualcomm wireless chip, flash card reader and a pretty bright screen, it's got pretty great battery life even if I hammer it by playing stupid games all day long.

I'd say the technology has simply moved along since the days of the nds and the wii. I honestly wouldn't be surprised to see the nintendo 3ds with a new generation soc with that kind of horsepower.

 

[BenSkywalker]

Just to give you an idea of how light Nintendo goes, the DS Lite is 15-19 hours on a 1000mAh@3.7v battery.

Even a "big" handheld like the original DS (fat) wouldn't hold too much larger of a battery

http://www.amazon.com/Seidio-Innocel...6037922&sr=1-4

That is also 3.7V which gives you 12.9W, that gives you 860mW for 15 hours or said another way, you could use Tegra2 and still have more power left over then the entire DS draws. 1000mAh wasn't too bad back when the DS came out, today it isn't very good.

The iPhone platform

Why not throw in iPad and while we are at it why not every Mac ever sold to the total? I have never come remotely close to understanding why people lump a MP3 player in with a phone total, are we going to lump ZuneHD in with Kin? Doesn't make any sense at all to me.

 

[Fox5]

Nintendo handhelds are never cutting edge, but they always have amazing battery life.
The new handheld needs to get at least 10 hours of battery life, and the only way they're going to get that is:
1. Tegra2 or some Snapdragon variant downclocked and insanely good at power management.
2. Going with a low end cell phone chip on a modern process, but low end chips are always weaker than the previous gen high end chips in the cell phone world, so it would be iphone 3g level, not 3gs.
3. A custom SOC.

 

[ViRGE]

http://www.amazon.com/Seidio-Innocel...6037922&sr=1-4

That is also 3.7V which gives you 12.9W, that gives you 860mW for 15 hours or said another way, you could use Tegra2 and still have more power left over then the entire DS draws. 1000mAh wasn't too bad back when the DS came out, today it isn't very good.

That battery is physically huge; you'd never see it in a clamshell device like the DS. And since energy density in batteries hasn't changed much in the last few years, if you wanted a battery with more than 1000mAh, you'd have to get bigger. For the size Nintendo shoots for, there's very likely not going to be room for a significantly larger removable battery. They could go the Apple route an integrate a non-removable battery, but I would be fairly surprised by that.

Why not throw in iPad and while we are at it why not every Mac ever sold to the total? I have never come remotely close to understanding why people lump a MP3 player in with a phone total, are we going to lump ZuneHD in with Kin? Doesn't make any sense at all to me.

Because the iPod Touch is damn near an iPhone without the cellular modem - same processor, same screen, same RAM, etc. Don't let the name "iPod" fool you: it's not a simple MP3 player, it's a PDA to the iPhone's Smartphone. I suppose you could include the iPad too since it can run the same apps, but with a significantly larger screen in a different aspect ratio it's not really targeted at the same use cases that the iPod Touch and iPhone are.

 

[BenSkywalker]

1. Tegra2 or some Snapdragon variant downclocked and insanely good at power management.

Snapdragon certainly wouldn't be in the league of the power they are talking about, is the GPU even a match for the current DS?

2. Going with a low end cell phone chip on a modern process, but low end chips are always weaker than the previous gen high end chips in the cell phone world, so it would be iphone 3g level, not 3gs.

Shut off all communications on a modern smartphone and you would be surprised how long its battery lasts. Without the need for Cell/BlueTooth communications modern cell phones already last longer then the DS does, they wouldn't need to go scaled down.

That battery is physically huge; you'd never see it in a clamshell device like the DS.

It is ~0.5" thick while being quite a bit shorter and narrower then the DS form factor the. Particularly in the XL form factor, a comparable battery would be rather reasonable.

They could go the Apple route an integrate a non-removable battery, but I would be fairly surprised by that.

Why would that surprise you? I know I haven't changed any battery in any GameBoy I've had since the color, neither has anyone else I know IRL.

Because the iPod Touch is damn near an iPhone without the cellular modem - same processor, same screen, same RAM, etc.

So the ZuneHD and Kin should be counted as the same?

Don't let the name "iPod" fool you

I have one in my house right now(one of my kids)- nothing about it fools me. In no way is it a phone. It is the same reason I compared it to Kin and the ZuneHD- completely different devices with common hardware and interfaces.

but with a significantly larger screen in a different aspect ratio it's not really targeted at the same use cases that the iPod Touch and iPhone are.

Who cross shops an iPod Touch and an iPhone? I'm sure there are some people, but I see the iPad as being far more comparable to the iPod touch then the iPhone in terms of perspective buyers. One device is something that pretty much everyone needs on them at all times in today's world- the other is entirely optional and redundant for anyone who has a remotely modern phone.

 

[Rezist]

I'd say the graphics should get close to the Wii, I mean the iPhone is pretty close the wii.

But nintendo doesn't build cutting edge hardware so I don't expect the next DS to be as powerful as the iphone/ipod touch.

 

[TheMeanestGuest]

Why not throw in iPad and while we are at it why not every Mac ever sold to the total? I have never come remotely close to understanding why people lump a MP3 player in with a phone total, are we going to lump ZuneHD in with Kin? Doesn't make any sense at all to me.

I can entirely see what Virge is getting at lumping the iPhone and iPod touch together. I'm pretty sure he's talking about from more of a gaming perspective, since they run the exact same apps in the exact same way. This would probably be because you compared iPhone sales to that of the PSP in a gaming context (at least, it appeared to be in a gaming context, if it wasn't, my apologies).

I mean, I guess it'd be an entirely different deal when looking at it from a marketysalesthing perspective.

Anyways! It'd be cool if the 3DS were all megas alexandros but I wouldn't be too upset if it weren't. More graphical quality is always a plus in my book, but it seems to me that more actually enjoyable and interesting titles are usually released on consoles and stuff when graphical improvements in games have plateaued to a degree. Of course, that's just my perspective and maybe for other people graphics are what makes a game enjoyable and interesting in the first place.

 

[hawtdawg]

It would only need something on par with an ATI 3650 to match the xbox/ps3. I think people forget that the GPU's in those systems are not very impressive.

 

[zerocool84]

The iPhone platform (iPhone + iPod Touch) has sold over 100mil units. The PSP is at 58mil units. Sony fell behind the iPhone platform back around the middle of 2009, IIRC.

Yes but you cannot compare the two as iPhone gaming is not true gaming and nothing like real games on PSP/DS and people buy iPhones for things other than gaming.

 

[ViRGE]

It is ~0.5" thick while being quite a bit shorter and narrower then the DS form factor the. Particularly in the XL form factor, a comparable battery would be rather reasonable.

The XL is a specialty device for a niche market: old people that want to play Sudoku and can't see well. It's not a very portable handheld and is not Nintendo's mainline form factor. I would not use it as a reference point for future designs.

And just to give you the size of the DS Lite's battery (as measured by me), it's 49mm X 31mm X 7mm. And even then it takes up roughly 30% of the bottom half of the DS Lite. .5" is basically the entire depth of the bottom half of the DS (so it would never work due to the need to overlay buttons and a screen over it).

Why would that surprise you? I know I haven't changed any battery in any GameBoy I've had since the color, neither has anyone else I know IRL.

Nintendo handhelds are long-haul devices. The GameBoy basically had a 13 year shelf life, the DS is 6 and counting. Unreplaceable batteries may work with Apple's "replace early, replace often" strategy, but are more problematic with a long-haul device.

Ultimately Nintendo would have to be willing to be a much more hands-on company if they wanted to do an unreplacable battery, as they currently try to avoid servicing their products as much as possible.

So the ZuneHD and Kin should be counted as the same?

Do they run the same applications from the same app store on the same processor with the same screen? I haven't touched a Kin, so I wouldn't know.

I have one in my house right now(one of my kids)- nothing about it fools me. In no way is it a phone. It is the same reason I compared it to Kin and the ZuneHD- completely different devices with common hardware and interfaces.

Who cross shops an iPod Touch and an iPhone? I'm sure there are some people, but I see the iPad as being far more comparable to the iPod touch then the iPhone in terms of perspective buyers. One device is something that pretty much everyone needs on them at all times in today's world- the other is entirely optional and redundant for anyone who has a remotely modern phone.

You're thinking of the iPhone as a phone. The iPhone is a portable computer with a cellular modem, and Steve threw in voice communications so customers could justify having it by replacing all their other devices. It's actually a very poor phone. If you tried to look at the iPhone as a phone and then tried to see how the iPod Touch is a phone, I could see why that would throw you for a loop.

Ultimately the iPhone/iPod are both mobile computers. One has a cellular modem, one doesn't. But both are intended to be a part of the same software ecosystem.

 

[ViRGE]

Yes but you cannot compare the two as iPhone gaming is not true gaming and nothing like real games on PSP/DS and people buy iPhones for things other than gaming.

Apple has strongly pushed the iPod Touch in particular as a gaming device. I agree that it's a pretty lousy gaming device, but it's definitely taking market share and developers from Sony and Nintendo. This is why both of them have been doing their own spin on things with the DSi and PSP-Go, and their associated stores.

People are gaming on the iPhone platform, even if the games are lousy.:|

 

[Fox5]

Snapdragon certainly wouldn't be in the league of the power they are talking about, is the GPU even a match for the current DS?

1. There are more powerful variants of snapdragon. I think the top end has 4x the gpu power of the current one.
2. Yes, the current GPU is more than a match for the DS.

 

[BenSkywalker]

The XL is a specialty device for a niche market: old people that want to play Sudoku and can't see well.

I do have a family member with an XL that is always talking about his age.... he's 4, but age is very important to him. Honestly, it had never once crossed my mind that it was aimed at elderly people- my kids loved playing with my nephews XL and were trying to talk me into getting them one(not a chance with the 3DS so close). Bigger screens- better for them.

And just to give you the size of the DS Lite's battery (as measured by me), it's 49mm X 31mm X 7mm.

45.7mm, 45.7mm, 12.7mm- 10,663mm cubed vs 26,523 or 258% volume for 350% power. I'm not saying they need to go to that extreme, but clearly performance for a given area has shown some rather impressive gains(as far as batteries go at least). Also, the level of power that gave us was rather absurd using a 15 hour guideline(Tegra2 + an entire DS with power to spare).

Unreplaceable batteries may work with Apple's "replace early, replace often" strategy, but are more problematic with a long-haul device.

Is that a joke? As a gamer myself and a parent to several other gamers- the iPhone model roll out reminded me very much of Nintendo's handheld strategy. DS, DS Lite, DSi, DS XL- it isn't like Nintendo doesn't do almost exactly what Apple is doing with the iPhone models. Also, when have you had an internal battery fail on you? My GBA SP is still working fine.

Do they run the same applications from the same app store on the same processor with the same screen?

They have a different screen, not sure about the app 'store'(anyone who owns a ZuneHD knows what I mean putting that in quotes). Still two very different devices.

You're thinking of the iPhone as a phone.

Funny thing, I call houses houses too

The iPhone is a portable computer with a cellular modem

You could say that about a Razr. Not splitting the hair that far, the iPhone is a smart phone, but smart in that phrase is the adjective, not the noun. The iPod touch is a mediocre MP3 player with a lot of features added on. The iPhone is a fairly basic smartphone in today's market. Also- where do you buy iPhones? What kind of contract do you need to sign to get your iPod Touch at the advertised price? I make a very clear distinction between them because they are very distinct devices.

But both are intended to be a part of the same software ecosystem.

Oh, you are one of those type. If you would have used that phrase earlier it would have helped explain things. I can't argue with the word of Jobs, only point out the reality that I live in. I have never once seen someone go shopping for a phone and buy a MP3 player instead, I've never even heard of it happening. I know a lot of people who used their smartphone to replace their MP3 player, but that is because of additional abilities, not reduced.

I agree that it's a pretty lousy gaming device, but it's definitely taking market share and developers from Sony and Nintendo.

Yikes. So far total developer payout for every app available is just over $1Billion(according to Jobs yesterday)- far less then Pokemon alone has made on the DS. That isn't gaming revenue- that is every single app. Let's try and be realistic here, Apple is in no way a serious factor in the gaming market at all.

2. Yes, the current GPU is more than a match for the DS.

What product is it shipping in? The one in my phone isn't close

 

[Lonyo]

Oh, you are one of those type. If you would have used that phrase earlier it would have helped explain things. I can't argue with the word of Jobs, only point out the reality that I live in. I have never once seen someone go shopping for a phone and buy a MP3 player instead, I've never even heard of it happening. I know a lot of people who used their smartphone to replace their MP3 player, but that is because of additional abilities, not reduced.

What if you have a phone and go out shopping for a new mp3 player?
"Oh, I'll get one of these iPod touch things, then I don't need to take my PSP or DS around anymore because I can use my mp3 player as my portable gaming device".
As well as the people who buy an iPhone so they can use it as an mp3 player, portable gaming device and a phone.

Both the iPod touch and iPhone can run the same games, if one is a viable gaming platform, then the other must be too since they are both equal at gaming. It doesn't matter whether you wouldn't buy an iPod touch when shopping for a phone. They both serve as potential mobile gaming platforms which would run the same games, hence they can be grouped together. At least as much as the Nintendo DS and Nintendo DSi can.