| jarrod said: I'm a little curious where those specs come from, given Nintendo's never revealed comparable peak theoreticals for 3DS hardware? Are they just using "off the shelf" Pica200 specs for the comparison? Even still, it's pretty clear from the games we've seen that actual polycounts are at the very least comparable in game between PSP and 3DS, which means the actual 3DS polygon maximum must be significantly higher given it needs to draw everything twice for stereoscopic 3D. Sony's architecture efficiency must be absolute shit on PSP given that, so where's the bottleneck? The info on 3DS cards going to 8GB comes directly from the manufacturer (Macronix). Actually, if 3DS cards scale at the same rate DS cards did, then their ceiling may hit 128GB by the time the platform's done. |
A 128GB 3DS card. That would be impressive. The chart came from IGN, part of a feature they did comparing the DS, 3DS, PSP, and iPad or iPhone. As I recall, it was based on rough estimate hardware specs from developers who'd played with 3DS dev kits/hardware.
The main thing is that while some hardware numbers change, actual hardware grows more powerful what with all the tweaks to energy and effeciency, etc. A modern 32-bit engine would be vastly more impressive than a 32-bit engine from the heyday of the Playstation. Computers get more and more powerful, but for the most part, still use 32-bit operating systems--they're just newer, and to dumb it down a lot, "made better."
So, while the hardware tech of the 3DS may not be, on paper, huge leaps over the PSP--and yes, I know I noted this as a kind of "step backward" for Nintendo, at the very least, it's pretty much all new hardware (something that even the Wii can't boast since it was just a Supercharged GameCube). As the Unreal 3 engine is showing, the X360 and PS3 likely have untold levels of graphical show-off power buried within that we haven't seen yet. With any luck, the 3DS will get the support it deserves, and we'll be delivered some truly phenomenal pieces of software. If the new RE games are any sign, that system has immense potential.
This might sound somewhat ironic, or contradictory of my earlier posts. I've got high hopes for the 3DS, and have had mine reserved for a few weeks. I hope the raw, generalized, hardware specs have more power than they appear to on paper. This doesn't change my view that Nintendo always takes bizarre, sometimes awkward steps backward (seriously, still a single-input touch screen??), but I'm really looking forward to the 3DS.
