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Forums - Nintendo - Wii vs 3DS graphics

Tagged games:

 

Which is better graphically?

Wii 202 76.23%
 
3DS 63 23.77%
 
Total:265
sc94597 on 19 February 2015
curl-6 said:

Prime 1/2 level of textures and polys at 240p sounds about right. Though maybe at 60fps in 2D, 30fps in 3D, like Ironfall.

60fps in 3D with Prime 1/2 graphics may be too much to ask of the hardware.

I don't think it is too much to ask for. At least not with the N3DS. It has more VRAM than the original 3DS, and that should be enough to output the necessary 180k pixels in 3D mode. That seemed to be the biggest bottleneck for the original 3DS and outputting in 3D mode. 



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curl-6 on 19 February 2015
sc94597 said:
curl-6 said:

Prime 1/2 level of textures and polys at 240p sounds about right. Though maybe at 60fps in 2D, 30fps in 3D, like Ironfall.

60fps in 3D with Prime 1/2 graphics may be too much to ask of the hardware.

I don't think it is too much to ask for. At least not with the N3DS. It has more VRAM than the original 3DS, and that should be enough to output the necessary 180k pixels in 3D mode. That seemed to be the biggest bottleneck for the original 3DS and outputting in 3D mode. 

I'm unsure; New 3DS has more RAM and a faster CPU, but I haven't heard of any upgrade to its GPU that would allow it to spit out more polygons. The Prime games were notable for the amount of geometry they pushed at 60fps.



sc94597 on 19 February 2015
curl-6 said:
sc94597 said:

I don't think it is too much to ask for. At least not with the N3DS. It has more VRAM than the original 3DS, and that should be enough to output the necessary 180k pixels in 3D mode. That seemed to be the biggest bottleneck for the original 3DS and outputting in 3D mode. 

I'm unsure; New 3DS has more RAM and a faster CPU, but I haven't heard of any upgrade to its GPU that would allow it to spit out more polygons. The Prime games were notable for the amount of geometry they pushed at 60fps.

Your argument was that at the higher resolution (3d) the 3ds would have trouble and might have to run at 30fps. The higher vram is the crucial factor which will allow it to render the game at the higher resolution (in addition to processing power.) The 3ds GPU supports 15 mil polygons per second and the Gamecube about 20mil/sec. I doubt Metroid Prime did such though, as there are always CPU and memory bottlenecks. If the developer makes a good port that would mean those bottlenecks would be eliminated (due to 3DS's ram and CPU advantages) and the GPU could be used to its max potential. The extra vram would also allow the gpu to maintain higher res textures. 



Natsu on 19 February 2015

I think I like the wii graphics a little better :P



fedfed on 19 February 2015

I don't know.
i like them both!

But Wii is a home console... home consoles always win!



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curl-6 on 19 February 2015
sc94597 said:
curl-6 said:

I'm unsure; New 3DS has more RAM and a faster CPU, but I haven't heard of any upgrade to its GPU that would allow it to spit out more polygons. The Prime games were notable for the amount of geometry they pushed at 60fps.

Your argument was that at the higher resolution (3d) the 3ds would have trouble and might have to run at 30fps. The higher vram is the crucial factor which will allow it to render the game at the higher resolution (in addition to processing power.) The 3ds GPU supports 15 mil polygons per second and the Gamecube about 20mil/sec. I doubt Metroid Prime did such though, as there are always CPU and memory bottlenecks. If the developer makes a good port that would mean those bottlenecks would be eliminated (due to 3DS's ram and CPU advantages) and the GPU could be used to its max potential. The extra vram would also allow the gpu to maintain higher res textures. 

But what if the original game isn't very bottlenecked to begin with? Sure, no game is completely without them, but that would go for the port too. GCN does have a higher polygon ceiling than 3DS.

The CPU is one area where I confess I am stumped. New 3DS is apparently a quad core ARM11 at 268MHz, but with one core reserved for the OS. Wii is a single core PPC750 at 729MHz. It would depend on which was more efficient per clock cycle, the benefits of three slower cores versus one faster one, etc.



Wman1996 on 19 February 2015

The Wii has better graphics for the most part. However, I think I prefer the 3DS graphics because they are pretty impressive for a handheld. The Wii's graphics engine was just a slightly souped up GameCube graphics engine.



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sc94597 on 19 February 2015
curl-6 said:
sc94597 said:

Your argument was that at the higher resolution (3d) the 3ds would have trouble and might have to run at 30fps. The higher vram is the crucial factor which will allow it to render the game at the higher resolution (in addition to processing power.) The 3ds GPU supports 15 mil polygons per second and the Gamecube about 20mil/sec. I doubt Metroid Prime did such though, as there are always CPU and memory bottlenecks. If the developer makes a good port that would mean those bottlenecks would be eliminated (due to 3DS's ram and CPU advantages) and the GPU could be used to its max potential. The extra vram would also allow the gpu to maintain higher res textures. 

But what if the original game isn't very bottlenecked to begin with? Sure, no game is completely without them, but that would go for the port too. GCN does have a higher polygon ceiling than 3DS.

The CPU is one area where I confess I am stumped. New 3DS is apparently a quad core ARM11 at 268MHz, but with one core reserved for the OS. Wii is a single core PPC750 at 729MHz. It would depend on which was more efficient per clock cycle, the benefits of three slower cores versus one faster one, etc.

We both agree that there are always bottlenecks: memory size, memory bandwidth, or cpu bottlenecks will hinder the advancement of certain games. Now a port will likely have many more bottlenecks than the original, so that is a point against the New 3DS running the game ( a good port can have fewer if the system is capable though.) The major point I'm getting across is that we don't know if Metroid Prime maxed the GC's polygon capablities. Nevertheless, the game should run at the higher resolution (if it can run at the lower resolution at 60fps) just because the New 3DS has more video ram than the original 3DS. Likely in Ironfall's case the game could run at something like 50fps-60fps in 3D, and they chose to lock it at 30 fps to reduce artifacts (frame doubling and stuttering.) 

Here is what I found from Wikipedia on the MIPS.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instructions_per_second 

IBM-Motorola PowerPC 750

525 MIPS at 233 MHz, so about 1575 MIPS at 700 mhz. 

ARM11

515 MIPS at 412 MHz 

Now I asume the ARM is for a single core. Three cores will not give a 100% boost per core. If we assumed 100% though, that would be 804 Mhz, or something around 1,000 MIPS. 

Of course this is a very rough estimate. I also found another estimate for a 4 core ARM11 at about 3200 MIPS for 700mhz, which seems to go with this 1000 MIPS estimate. I think it is safe to say the Wii CPU > New 3DS CPU > GC CPU >/= 3DS CPU though, if we ignore certain other factors. 




curl-6 on 19 February 2015
sc94597 said:
curl-6 said:

But what if the original game isn't very bottlenecked to begin with? Sure, no game is completely without them, but that would go for the port too. GCN does have a higher polygon ceiling than 3DS.

The CPU is one area where I confess I am stumped. New 3DS is apparently a quad core ARM11 at 268MHz, but with one core reserved for the OS. Wii is a single core PPC750 at 729MHz. It would depend on which was more efficient per clock cycle, the benefits of three slower cores versus one faster one, etc.

We both agree that there are always bottlenecks: memory size, memory bandwidth, or cpu bottlenecks will hinder the advancement of certain games. Now a port will likely have many more bottlenecks than the original, so that is a point against the New 3DS running the game ( a good port can have fewer if the system is capable though.) The major point I'm getting across is that we don't know if Metroid Prime maxed the GC's polygon capablities. Nevertheless, the game should run at the higher resolution (if it can run at the lower resolution at 60fps) just because the New 3DS has more video ram than the original 3DS. Likely in Ironfall's case the game could run at something like 50fps-60fps in 3D, and they chose to lock it at 30 fps to reduce artifacts (frame doubling and stuttering.) 

Here is what I found from Wikipedia on the MIPS.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instructions_per_second 

IBM-Motorola PowerPC 750

525 MIPS at 233 MHz, so about 1575 MIPS at 700 mhz. 

ARM11

515 MIPS at 412 MHz 

Now I asume the ARM is for a single core. Three cores will not give a 100% boost per core. If we assumed 100% though, that would be 804 Mhz, or something around 1,000 MIPS. 

Of course this is a very rough estimate. I also found another estimate for a 4 core ARM11 at about 3200 MIPS for 700mhz, which seems to go with this 1000 MIPS estimate. I think it is safe to say the Wii CPU > New 3DS CPU > GC CPU >/= 3DS CPU though, if we ignore certain other factors. 

I doubt Prime maxed out GC's polygon counts, but it might still be above the lower ceiling of the 3DS.

And ports from GC/Wii to 3DS so far have seen some trimming, like Xenoblade and DKCR.

What baffles me is that 3DS has 3 times the RAM of GC, yet in just about every game I've seen, it's textures are more PS2/Dreamcast calibre. Maybe it's just that they don't deem high res textures necessary on a small screen...



TiagoCosta on 19 February 2015

Wii.