Wednesday, June 23, 2010

3DS more powerful than Wii?


(3DS is rendering the above trailer in real-time)

In technical terms, no the 3DS is not more powerful than the Wii. What about these amazing graphics it's able to produce seemingly so easily compared to the Wii? Well it was revealed that the 3DS is using a new graphics card called the PICA200 which is using a newer form of OpenGL ES 1.1 being used with mobile devices. What this graphics card can do is use a lot of the same graphically effects of the next-gen consoles with very little power consumption. The PICA200 GPU has "fixed" shaders/normal mapping already built inside so the developer just needs to program what shader they want to use and it will do it on the fly.

With the Wii and Gamecube, Nintendo made them with the developer in mind as well. The TEV was made to give the developer more flexibility to create there own kind of graphics the way they wanted. They could develop their own shading and mapping techniques to really made unique looking games. This was demonstrated much better in the Gamecube's life span since developers in this generation don't seem to care to try to make a game on the Wii that really uses it's power to the full. This is why we still continue to see flat, plain looking games to this day. The Wii can do the shaders and Normal Mapping that we are seeing but it is too late in the lifespan of the Wii for the majority of game developers to give a rat's ass about what it can do and just make games designed to give them a quick buck instead.

Why didn't Nintendo incorporate something like the PICA200 GPU in the Wii instead of the TEV? Well, simply the technology wasn't ready yet by the time the Wii was released. The 3DS graphics card is made to make lazy developers more excited to make games that have great graphics since the system will pretty much do the job for them. It's a shame that this is what game development has come to but at the same time it's good that Nintendo didn't sit back and do nothing to address the problem that has been going on for 4 years on the Wii. I look for Nintendo's next console to have a similar graphics card on a larger scale.

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wait till u see the next RE on wii ive heard its using MT Framework and it will look amazing so lets not forget CAPCOM made MH3 with HDR/AA/MOTION BLUR and that game isnt using MT Framework and its graphics are mid ps3 so ill be more hyped for Graphics using wii version of MT Framework to be honest but i will buy a 3DS on day 1 wow CAPCOM said not long ago that going Multiplat is the way foward so expect very high end graphics on wii games from capcom in near future using MT Framework,Expect wii/360 to be very close in comparison screens of future games.

Metaldave said...

I would love to see your link to the quote where you heard that not only the next RE game was on Wii but that it was using the MT Framework engine too. I know the engine was confirmed for Wii but nothing more.

Anonymous said...

Lets face it Wii's a lost cause with third parties, there has been the odd decent game but multiplats have been needlessly below average through crap budget and developers.
If you check the place the trailer originally appeared here:

http://japan.gamespot.com/videos/story/0,3800076101,20415519,00.htm

Translate the text below it and you will find RE: Revelations is powered by the MT Framework engine.

Also I believe there is a bias against Nintendo and the Wii, firstly Capcom have failed to produce Resident Evil 5 despite interest and demand.

Secondly Madden '10 on Wii sold less thne a quarter what Madden '09 did through the new cartoony visuals, at E3 Madden '11 was previewed with cartoony visuals.

EA were clearly aware of the backlash to Dead Space Extraction and did nothing except counter it with blatent lies.

Transformers Revenge of the Fallen sells poorly on Wii due to it being on rails and not allowing the player to transform at will, Transformers Cybertron Adventures is concealed until near launch and it has been revealed to be on rails, it doesnt let you transform at will either.

Call of Duty games have sold over a million copies each on Wii and Activision did nothing to advertise modern Warfare reflex it took pirates to reveal it near release.

Lucasarts had a rep at 1up practically saying they are passing up motion plus and instead investing in Move, Kinect and Ipad.

Metaldave said...

A Wii bias is something that has been clear since the beginning of the Wii's lifespan. The success of the Wii has been great for Nintendo but the next system they release will most likely be more traditional in terms of programing graphics so developers won't complain that it doesn't have shaders (even though the Wii can do them) and then not even try. Lazy developers are the only developers left doing buisness; Factor 5 is gone and Rare might as well be dead too.

predator said...

Hey Metaldave I did hear there was a new Resident Evil game coming to wii about a month ago. Its onrails like Darkside Chronicles but also has third person parts in it. But is was a rumour.

Metaldave said...

On-rails eh? Sounds like another must have game.....

Here's hoping you're right about the third person part and wrong about the on-rails part.

Biohazard said...

I think E3 2011 will be about next-gen consoles. It's a shame that developers haven't taken advantage of the Wii, as well, barely handful of them. If only Factor 5 stuck around, we would have seen what they contributed.

Recent developers have been conditioned to develop games like PC's, have the tools already do just about everything for them, like mapping and shading. This is why Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 tend to get graphically intense games. They were built like PC's. I read on the Unity forum that the Unity Engine lead designer said the Wii doesn't have adequate shader memory to execute some of the effects the engine provides, even though it is compatible. The Wii just wasn't designed like that. Nintendo needed to cut costs on the console so that it could be easily reach a broader audience in just a short span, and they were successful.

We fully know why most developers aren't eager to take advantage of the Wii because they depend on certain tools to get it done. They don't want to work on designing new shaders and mapping techniques. Until we get a Wii successor that has a graphics chip that will provide all the shading and mapping tools they need, at least we'll enjoy some 3DS games that look even more close to 360/PS3 games.

Biohazard said...

Speaking of MT Framework...

http://www.andriasang.com/e/blog/2010/06/22/3ds_resident_evil_mt_framework/

The upcoming 3DS Resident Evil game will use the MT Framework engine. Can you fucking believe it?! I guess having a GPU with pre-worked shader and mapping tools does go a long way. I'm dumbfounded as the next person. With news like this, many graphics whores are probably saying "screw the Wii."

Travis Hendricks said...

I know nothing about MT Framework or cell shaders or anything like that but I can confirm this game was the best looking on the show floor. I literally went back in the line a second time with this trailer as one of the reasons.

I own RE5 on Xbox 360 in 720p and this literally comes close. Granted this is a small room with only 3 characters and it's on a smaller screen but it was also in freakin' 3D. Let's see the 360 do that.

Anonymous said...

they say wii has a long way to run, but I don't want to wait for another console, I wish RE 5 for Wii !!right now!!, besides, remember after RE Darkside chronicles release, Capcom said it's possible after all, now, on the other hand, it's different if they don't want (¿got it?), want

Anonymous said...

What are u guys on about i heard there is a RE coming on wii so its only natural that it would use MT Framework ect or it wouldnt sell well because you will have 3DS with games like this that new devil kings 3 is using it and if u notice the wii/ps3 versions look identical explain that oh and when devs use S3 texture compression then u will get detailed textures that go beyond 360 fact

Anonymous said...

wii has no bottle necks yet devs wont invest to get the best out of the machine these demos u see for 3DS we should have seen slightly better ones for wii well maybe they will start now with nintendo giving them the oppotunity to do cross platform 3DS/Wii 1 with 3D other version with motion controls ect.

Anonymous said...

i love how this thing is supposedly fixed function it isnt its clearly programmable and flexible hot wired effects that are flexible are not fixed function like olden days gpus this is anti nintendo bs again just like wii gpu is not fixed its flexible and programmable asa factor 5 stated

the way the effects are hotwired is very efficent and theres added progamming ability too i bet wii 2 will be like that

its ok saying OMG TECH PROGRAMMABLE TECH GOOORRRD ITS SHADERS OMG POWER but programminbg never matches hotwired a sound processor is better than a cpu atr sound a gpu is better than a cpu at graphics a cpu is better than a gpu and a sound processor at gerneral purpose programmes THATS COMMON SENSE this thing wil push out effects briliantly on a 3.5 inch screen the fill rate bandwidth and effects are there and this time at last 3rd partys have no choice but to back it OR THEY DIE its that simple they cannot ignore nintendo anymore it will lead to doom

i wouldnt be suprised if nintendo went this way with wii 2 there next gen gpu is capable of dualcore all the way upto 24 core

imagine a 24 core high clocked next gen version of a 3ds gpu it will be amassing

i think 3ds is about wii power give or take but on small screen and lower native resolution it will look near ps3 with all the shaders etc and 3d and solid framerate and the cheating because the screen is small its basically resident evil 5 in ur pocket WOW

Anonymous said...

Now nintendo need to get julian from Factor 5 to show devs his Lair engine and even licence it god dam whats wrong with ninty all they need to do is tell 3rd partys now the wii can produce better graphics through a different method TEV,If RE4/ROGUE S 3 was gamecube then why are we not getting games 3-4 times better looking than them on wii,MH3 is twice RE4 in my opinion real HDR/AA/M BLUR ect in a massive game,I would say wii is no where near maxed out with 3DS titles on there way devs on 360/ps3/wii will need to up the quality because 3DS games will have realistic graphics in full 3D something them systems cant do efficiently well with out glasses anyway and non glasses HD lcd tvs will be in force by 2013-2015 so expect wii2 in 2013 minimum as ninty are waiting for 30% adoption rate before releasing wii2 but the wii graphics are light years away from whats possible on that platform EA have 360/ps3/wii horror game 2011 using Unreal engine for all versions cant wait to see wii graphics pushed its my favourite console

Anonymous said...

How do u think Kirbys epic yarn has textures that look like real wool/cloth/cotton/material ect its S3 texture compression that the wii has but only this game has used it u can basically make metal,wood,ect look like the real deal but no one uses it DEVS could use this for car games,ect but even factor 5 said these games are coming in 2010-2011 so there it is

Anonymous said...

kirby and donky kong will be graphically great all that power and development time 3D graphics on 2d gameplay as will other M

Gregory Weagle said...

I know this belongs at the top; but here is more information on the MT Mobile Framework Capcom is using for 3DS:

http://www.andriasang.com/e/blog/2010/09/13/3ds_mt_framework_detailed/

Draw your own conclusions.

Creaks said...

Well, this is weird... finding something so old. But I guess sort of topical with the new 3ds coming out.

The Wii's gpu, is ALSO, completely fixed function. The tev is a fixed function stage combiner, in other words you can mix together fixed function effects.

The 3ds can also do this, except with far, far far, more modern and infinitely superior effects.

On top of that, the 3ds gpu has more fixed functions available than hollywood, far superior functions than hollywood, is clocked higher than wii's hollywood, has 2x more video ram than wii's hollywood (6Mb vs 3Mb), and more system ram as the Wii (128Mb Fcram (just main ram) vs 88Mb: all wii ram pools combined)

GPU wise, 3ds curb stomps wii.

3ds's downfall, comes with its anemic dual core arm cpu, which horribly bottlenecks the system, even the gpu, particularly in the important area of draw calls, very important to 3ds.

While the gpu handles the graphics, its up to the cpu to make the draw calls for the graphics, and when in 3d mode, that doubles the load on the cpu (Although not really on the gpu...) crippling the 3ds's graphical output and geometrical complexity the gpu can actually do.

The wii's custom ppc750 curb stomps the 3ds's cpu.

Thats soon going to change, as the new 3ds beefs up the cpu considerably, with not just higher clocked cores, but double the cores, and since the 3ds had one core reserved for the system, this results in a tripling of the systems usable cores, as the system now has 3 cores for games, and 1 for system, as opposed to 1 for each.

Its also increasing the vram to 10Mb, compared to the wii's am, to 256Mb compared to the wii's 88Mb (All ram pools combined)

This is why the new 3ds is recieving an asset identical port of the wii's biggest, most demanding game, while doubling the draw calls of the original wii version (For the 3d effect)3, and doubling the main fcr