Meet The Nintendo 3DS Graphics Chip - News
by Gabriel Franco , posted on 21 June 2010 / 13,959 Views
DMP has announced the 3DS will be using the PICA200 GPU chip.
According to DMP, PICA200 is a 3D graphics core that's designed for mobile phones, amusement machines, game consoles and digital appliances. The chip makes use of DMP's proprietary "Maestro Technology," which implements complex shader functionality in hardware, allowing for high quality graphics at the low power dissipation required of portable devices. You can read about the GPU’s abilities below.
“The PICA200 scales with up to four pipelines and processes from up to four programmable vertex units. The 3D core, using their proprietary graphics technology named MAESTRO-2G, the second generation of the Maestro design, implements custom graphics algorithms as hardware for enabling a set of shading features that include per-vertex sub-surface scattering, bidirectional reflectance distribution function, cook-torrance, polygon subdivision, and soft shadowing. Their image post-processing module, the PICA-FBM frame buffer management, can polish the image with anti-aliasing and a set of other 2D functions and can actually be licensed independently as a core for 2D-only devices. In either case, the PICA-FBM can be extended with a PICA-VG vector graphics module.”
You can read more about PICA200 at the DMP official site and below is a tech demo for the chipset:
More Articles
With all those shading mechanics built in, and the relatively low resolution of the 3DS, expect games to look considerably better than they do on Wii, even if the machine has to render two images for the 3D effect!
thats a confusing little chip
I'm getting two...wait three.
With the ability to do 3D graphics, play my favorite Ds, and DSi titles, wifi, motion control, Down load content and built in cameras. Its a day one purchase!!! Even if it cost $300, I'm buying two 3Ds's. Its almost like a Ps3/360/Wii/Ds in my hand....and its only the beginning. Can't imagine what dev's are thinking up for future use...
Some of you people are not to bright, or you just don't research. On Nintendo's E3 website they have some interviews. Watch Kojima and Bala interviews and it's clear that the PSP has no where near the power of the 3DS. Even listen to the head game designer for Capcom, where he says he has been waiting for a system like the 3DS and goes on about how the people at Capcom are Graphics whores, lol. Lastly, SSF4, DOA 3D, RE revelations and Metal Gear solid, clearly shows the inferiority of the PSP to the Nintendo 3DS.
@.jayderyu
2 GPUs? As in two graphics chips? That's gonna cause some headaches to developers...
@Untamoi
I suppose we could see more ram, but I still think Nintendo will be chincee. I stand by that the production costs of the 3DS on release will equal those of the production costs of the DS Phat release. What that will give us I have no idea. Maybe the CPU will be 266mhz twice that of the DSi which is twice the DS. It could have 32/64 or 128 ram. I really don't know what the current costs for tech are. but with having to put in 2 GPU, Vram, 3D screen, accelerometer, gyroscope, 2 Wifi and rumble. I just get the feeling from a power perspective we aren't going to see a major leap over the DSi. We might, i'm just speculating the costs effectiveness.
Though the DS only had 4MB of ram when the PSP had 64MB ram and they were released around the same time period.
@ph4nt
Probably the 2006. They will be cheaper. Then again if DMP isn't producing the 2006 model then Nintendo will have no choice. Nintendo will take the cheaper more cost effective route. They have been since the NGC days. There's not reason they are going to stop now.
I'm more than willing and happy to be wrong and be proven that the cost effectiveness is within the price Nintendo is aiming for, but I'm going to be more conservative in the estimations that Nintendo plans to release the 3DS at DSi competitive price. With all the extra bits for the other non graphical extras needed. I just don't think the power of the 3DS will see the boost, but I'll be happy if i'm wrong and the costs were much lower than I am expecting.
@.jayderyu: I doubt 3DS would only have 16 MB system ram when even current PSP has 64 MB system ram + Video RAM. DSi games haven't used all system ram effectively because most developers have concentrated their efforts on DS games where most of the money comes from.
@Soleron
Ok we had a missed lines of communications. Well at least though hopefully more people will be informed as to what's happening in the 3DS than just hype.
@dirkd2323
No idea, but I bet anything Nintendo is going to chincy on the ram to save on costs. This is why I really don't think it's going to be GC levels. Memory in processing form get's far more expensive as it get's smaller.
The DS series had 4MB of ram and 658 video ram.(http://dev-scene.com/NDS_Specifications)
The DSi has 16MB of system ram(that's 4x the DS) and ??? on the video ram.
Since we haven't seen a DSi game make use of the 16Mb system ram effectivly or the increase in the video ram. It is very likely that the 3DS will continue to use the DSi system ram, but will have to double the video ram to support the parallel chips.
With price reductions always going down as time passes. I suspect that the DSi is cheaper to produce today than the DS Phat on release. More than likely the 3DS is a DSi with a few extra bits to it. I suspect around the same price as the DSi at launch. Maybe a few dollars more.
The PICA200 is a series of chips if i'm not mistaken. It seems we don't know which one it uses yet, heres hoping it's the 2008 version (400 MhZ clock).
@jayderyu
That's what I intended to mean. It renders twice, but on a scene of only 400 pixels. So hardware load is less but the resolution isn't that good.
How much will this unit cost ?
... no you would still need to render the scene twice. Any object that for example sits in the center would require 2 renders. One for for the left and right eye. I understand what your saying, but an objects seen in space are seen by both eye with only a small angle change. Cutting the scene in half down the center then render half the scene for each eye would not create the 3D effect. What would happen is that you would end up with only 2D image scene but a slight angle cut in the center..
I suppose I cannot solidly verify resolution specs at this date, but
http://www.gamefreaks365.com/newsarticle.php?sid=3784 3DS resolution screen
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-sharp-3d-screen-blog-entry sharps 3d mobile screen
(hope the links work)
They are pretty much the same. If this data is somewhat correct. the Resolution on the 3DS as a single screen is amazing,but in perspective to what we would expect Nintendo to do and that Nintendo is building a hardware slider for 3D control. It's likely that 3DS games are built around 400 resolution. I think I remember someone complaining about the lack of 3DS game resolution on a topic somewhere.
The screen at this resolution is split to each eye as we know with a parallax barrier. Wich means that the scene needs to render in 400width pixels for each eye. So in processing the machine still needs to render the scene twice, just for half the screen each not scene.
I'm still inclined to believe that there will be 2 chips in the 3DS. This patent http://www.gamepro.com/article/news/214746/patent-filing-suggests-vibrating-3ds-screen/ also indicates 2 Vram, 2 Vvchips setup to a single LCD source which is then split to 2 display.s
Also looking at the patent more we see the odd 2 Wireless connections? remeber the press conference stated that a 3DS will be able to connect for Tag mode and Internet while be able to do anything else. This patent seems more feasible true towards the 3DS as time goes by.
I had to do more research to see if what you said would work. I was wondering if the way you described how it would work could work that way. I'm positive it can't.
@jayderyu
Half the pixels go to each eye. So it only has to render half the scene per eye. So you only need to do one render but maybe detail will suffer.
It's an impressive chip. From a raw power point of view it stands above the PSP and below the PS2. It's real strength and I can't stress this enough. Is it's other processing features. This chip is really a marvel in technical capability.
per-vertex sub-surface scattering - Light displacement through objects.
bidirectional reflectance distribution function - Light reflection on opaque surfaces
cook-torrance - specular highlighting(visual depth cues for objects, sphere reflection)
polygon subdivision - Level of Detail, object polies can be reduced if needed by HW
soft shadowing - HW shadows, but not pure black so they look real
I can't find anything on the FBM or the VG potential extions. Also the listed tech does not cover ability to do 3D. So either the graphics are going to take a big hit on the CPU by having to process a scene 2 times for each render or more than likely this chip will be built in parralel and the 3DS will have 2.
Keep in mind that video ram, data transfer speed and data bandwidth are also extremely important to processing. This magnificent tech demo likey has optimized everything to pull this off. It's unlikely the 3DS will have ram, width and speed to make this detail of games. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3A-xxUyJvQQ
Secondly what makes the tech demo looks good is the effects on the 3d processing not the raw power.
My original comment has disappeared, so I'll repost it.
This Neogaf thread has a lot of useful discussion on the specs, a 400MHz updated Pica200 released in 2008, it's hardware capabilities (like AA and comparing it to the Gamecube's Flipper chip), and what shadow and particle effects it is capable of.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=398994
If my comment was removed, can I be informed by PM that this was the case?
Man, PICA is a slang for cock in my language!
I don't want a PICA inside my DS
AA FTW
