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Forums - Nintendo - RUMOR: nVidia wins Next Gen DS chip deal

zarx said:
the back light for the screen is the biggest drain on a battery for handhelds like the DS that is why when you compair the battery life of the DS on the brightest setting and on the lowest the battery life is almost double.

Your comment is anecdotal for the DS, bud.  The DS's backlight is a good chunk of the power, but the same is not true for the PSP, nor will it be for these handhelds, which may even have OLED screens (which don't use a backlight at all).

The PSP, by comparison, has a much larger portion of its power drain from the 333 MHz CPU and 160 MHz GPU, as well as the much larger memory (64 MB), etc.  The backlight cost is about the same as the backlight(s) of the DS, but the CPU cost is radically different.  The backlight cost doesn't go up, in line with the CPU.  Your test would even show that a DSi, running DSiWare (as opposed to a DS game, which downclocks the CPU), gets less savings from the backlight redux than the DS does while playing DS games.



 

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"Your comment is anecdotal for the DS, bud. The DS's backlight is a good chunk of the power, but the same is not true for the PSP, nor will it be for these handhelds, which may even have OLED screens (which don't use a backlight at all).

The PSP, by comparison, has a much larger portion of its power drain from the 333 MHz CPU and 160 MHz GPU, as well as the much larger memory (64 MB), etc. The backlight cost is about the same as the backlight(s) of the DS, but the CPU cost is radically different. The backlight cost doesn't go up, in line with the CPU. Your test would even show that a DSi, running DSiWare (as opposed to a DS game, which downclocks the CPU), gets less savings from the backlight redux than the DS does while playing DS games."

Okay, it won't be the biggest battery drain, but that is not what "anecdotal" means.



A flashy-first game is awesome when it comes out. A great-first game is awesome forever.

Plus, just for the hell of it: Kelly Brook at the 2008 BAFTAs

LordTheNightKnight said:
"Your comment is anecdotal for the DS, bud. The DS's backlight is a good chunk of the power, but the same is not true for the PSP, nor will it be for these handhelds, which may even have OLED screens (which don't use a backlight at all).

The PSP, by comparison, has a much larger portion of its power drain from the 333 MHz CPU and 160 MHz GPU, as well as the much larger memory (64 MB), etc. The backlight cost is about the same as the backlight(s) of the DS, but the CPU cost is radically different. The backlight cost doesn't go up, in line with the CPU. Your test would even show that a DSi, running DSiWare (as opposed to a DS game, which downclocks the CPU), gets less savings from the backlight redux than the DS does while playing DS games."

Okay, it won't be the biggest battery drain, but that is not what "anecdotal" means.

Generalizing that the the power drain on handhelds is "the backlight", based on observations of the DS, fits the defination of the word "anecdotal" almost to the letter.

anecdotal: "based on personal observation, case study reports, or random investigations rather than systematic scientific evaluation: anecdotal evidence."

 

 

 

 



 

But if the DS objectively does it, it's not personal or random, so it's still not anecdotal. It's just misapplication of a fact to another fact. It's still wrong though, I do agree with that (I get really annoyed when people compare games that don't properly compare).



A flashy-first game is awesome when it comes out. A great-first game is awesome forever.

Plus, just for the hell of it: Kelly Brook at the 2008 BAFTAs