3DS Internals Sighted/Analysed

A few days ago a teardown of the 3DS was posted on TVGZone, which reveals a few more interesting details about the innards of the system. The unit appears to be a final, production-grade unit. It features the slightly modified aesthetic of the final model displayed at Nintendo’s World Event in Japan; a grey analogue slider is present, along with the now flat, what looks like touch-based ‘Start’, ‘Select’, and ‘Home’ buttons. But far more relavent, the images reaveal some vital info on the internal hardware present in the system.


On to the inside, specifically the motherboard itself, and we can see two distinct pieces of silicon that stand out. The first appears to be a single package containing both ARM CPUs, and one DMP PICA200 GPU. Initial impressions seem to hint that it is a SoC (system-on-a-chip) with the individual components most likely all on one die.

The other, is what looks like a block of memory – possibly the entire 96MB that the system is supposed to have – unified as one single pool, from which, due to the overall hardware configuration, it looks like both the CPU and GPU can use. Markings on the chip indicate that it is FCRAM made by Fujitsu, possible a custom solution just for the 3DS as the company doesn’t make FCRAM chips higher than 64Mb.

The use of a unified memory pool is also interesting. Usually this can be limiting for the system if the GPU cannot access it directly. However, from what is known about the main memory and CPU/GPU configuration at the moment, all things point to this not being the case.

In addition to the main 96MB of memory, sources indicated that the 3DS also contains a separate pool of VRAM dedicated to the GPU (rumoured to be around 4MB), which is believed to be located on the SoC. This is most likely to be fast access eDRAM, used just to hold the framebuffer, with the GPU being able to directly access the system’s main memory pool for other things as and when it needs.


From what we can see, the use of a SoC and a separate large block of memory clearly showcases Nintendo’s cost-centric approach when designing the internals of the 3DS. It also looks like being a tidy, efficient set-up. Having all the main components on two separate packages (well the memory appears to be a single chip) keeps cost down, seeing as there is less in the way of overall silicon being used.

It will be interesting to find out just what process node both chips are on. Usually having individual parts groped together on single dies indicates a low process node in the first place, meaning that cooling and heat dissipation should be easy to achieve. In other words, Nintendo have carefully chosen components that not only provide the best ‘bang for your buck’ where the cost/power ratio is concerned, but also ones that should be easy to make future savings on for later revisions of the hardware.

Hopefully, we should find out more shortly after the 3DS’ Japanese launch, when someone else performs a slightly more in-depth teardown of the system, thus allowing us to get a better look at those two chips and the internal hardware make-up as a whole.

Tech Analysis: RE: Revelations Gameplay Video

Nintendo showcased a small variety of software at its recent World Event in Japan. However, it was the first time that Capcom demonstrated Resident Evil Revelations running in real-time, with a short, but no less impressive live demonstration of the game. A trailer focusing on the title’s in-engine cut-scenes was also shown just before, proving that what we were seeing during gameplay is a match for the detailed cinematics.

Perhaps more importantly, Capcom’s first proper reveal of RE Revelation’s gameplay comes as a relief for anyone expecting a hectic, RE5-like pace, in which horror and tension is subdued with all out violence in a almost fear-less shooting gallery of shorts. Revelations, although sharing the same over-the-shoulder viewpoint, is a far slower affair focusing on unsuspecting scares and fewer, but far tougher enemies. In this respect it faithfully builds upon the original PSX games whilst bringing all the benefits of RE4’s vastly superior control and camera system.

So, lets take a look.



Visually, from what we can see, it looks like the quality of both the character and environment modelling is basically identical across the cut-scenes and gameplay. Almost nothing has been lost in terms of detail and precision, sans a small error in lighting when in targeting mode, but we’ll talk about that a little later. Characters feature a reasonable amount of geometric detail, but mostly, the really fine stuff – like the small elements of clothing, round look of the arms – is accomplished through the use of normal mapping in combination with solid texture work.

Through the use of the 3DS’ fixed-function, multiple texture-layered approach to rendering effects, we can see clear implementation of normal maps, adding finer details to the characters, along with specular reflections to highlight gloss, moisture and other similar properties.

Environments too, benefit from having similar effects. Parts of the walls, floors, and various other objects are normal mapped, with some surfaces – like metal pipes – getting specular, and others simply using the more common diffuse map in order to scatter light across the surface. However, these are used somewhat sparingly, with the majority of the environment using less of a multi-layered approach.


Alongside the game’s use of detailed normal mapped characters and enclosed, but also reasonably intricate scenery, the lighting engine is perhaps the most impressive component of the title’s feature-set. RE Revelations takes full advantage of the 3DS’ ability to handle per-pixel based lighting calculations, and as a result sees some key environmental objects casting dynamic lights which actively illuminate and shade both the characters and surrounding environment.



The lamp hanging above the stairwell for example, whilst swinging from side to side, projects a shadow which moves and changes according to the position of the light source itself. The environment also seems to be accurately lit according to where the lightsource is projecting from, the angle, intensity etc. Other elements, such as the texture layer based shader effects – reflections in particular, especially on normal mapping – are affected, with certain surfaces shining as light passes over them, before dimming as levels reduce.





The characters benefit greatly from the real-time, per-pixel lighting implementation, with considerable depth being added to them, and the scene as a whole. This is nicely backed up with subtle use of self-shadowing, which complements the dynamic nature of the lighting and its accuracy.

Occasionally though, there are times when the game’s lighting system perhaps isn’t quite as accurate. When switching to targeting mode there is some noticeable polygon jittering, along with what looks like slightly flatter lighting. Like with the PSP, the reason from this seems to stem from both a lack of precision with geometry co-ordinate calculations, and what looks like a lack of per-pixel lighting when in this mode – on the character’s arm at least, its still present in the environment.



We can also see evidence of low quality shadow filtering, no doubt used to save on bandwidth, and what looks like low-resolution shadows in general. Take a look at Jill’s shadow, paying particular attention to her right hand. The effect looks like PCF, a cheap method of filtering used on some PS3 titles in order to save memory.


Of course, the plentiful use of such an advanced feature-set comes at the cost of environmental size and scope. From what we’ve seen so far, RE Revelations mainly takes place in tight, enclosed spaces with little in the way of distant, horizon-based scenery. The enemies we’ve seen so far, also rely a lot more on being normal mapped than constructed via lots of geometry.

Having the game set in mostly enclosed environments not only allows Capcom to bring a foreboding amount of atmosphere to the proceedings, but also to carefully budget the engine’s graphical load. High levels of bump-mapping and shader-like effects have a large memory and processing cost, so by restricting the draw distance and sheer overall complexity of any given scene, more of that budget can be spent on these effects whilst retaining that target 30fps performance.


In its current state, Revelations frequently runs at 30fps in areas which doesn’t tax the engine too greatly – usually in sparse corridors or when there are no enemies around. In more complex scenes, ones which currently add in a human-size foe into the mix, framerate dips below 30fps and down to around 20fps for brief periods. No visible screen tearing seems to be present (although the poor video encoding makes it hard to tell) so the game appears to be running with v-sync enabled. This would explain the drop to 20fps when the engine is pushing a heavier load – drop to 20fps rather than tear frames when the engine cannot render them in time.

Although, with nearly a year to go and at only 20% complete at this stage, such performance issues are likely to be sorted out by the time of release. Regardless, RE Revelations is still a mightily impressive display of the 3DS’ capabilities. Here you’ve got some nice precision lighting not seen in any iPhone title to date, and plentiful supply of shader-like effects being generated by the system’s fixed-function hardware. There’s nothing else that is quite on the same level currently on competing mobile devices, and this is effectively first generation software.


Beyond the visuals, it’s great to finally have what looks like a classically inspired instalment in the Resident Evil franchise, based on fear rather than adrenaline-centric action. Resident Evil 4 was a great leap forward, with arguably the right balance of action and atmosphere in order to generate horror. RE5 however, was a huge disappointment. Focusing purely on shooting… lots and lots of shooting, it massively diminished the series trademark tone. With Revelations, Capcom appear to be putting this right.

Uncharted 3 Tech Update

We’ve already taken an in-depth technical look at Uncharted 3, analysing both the original teaser trailer and subsequent gameplay demo. However, an extended version of the teaser has surfaced at CES, briefly highlighting some of the heavily edited, chopped up gameplay footage contained within. These segments have now been presented as full-size clips, interwoven with the rest of the trailer and show more clearly some of the stuff we were talking about.

In addition, the extended trailer also contains some short additional footage right at the very end, depicting a desert-based, hand-to-hand fight scene between Drake and an enemy assailant.



The main purpose of this report was to highlight the way certain visual effects have been created in the game. Some of the things talked about before, like water, fire, and particles, can be seen in much more detail for the first time.



With the water in particular, you can see how the main body is constructed from volume rather than individual particles, with particles simply making up the front, sides, and overall extended splashes of the effect. Use of blended normal mapping and multi-layered texturing add detail and extra animation with the inclusion of ripples and surface changes.

In the previous trailer, this could only be seen very briefly. Despite the rather poor quality footage, with lots of artefacting hiding some of the finer details, now it is overly apparent how the flow of water is built and animated.



The second gameplay clip shows Drake waist-deep, and displays a perfect example of how the volume-based effect has been animated to flow naturally, like how it would in a real life approximation of flowing water. If you think about how liquid is largely stuck together, usually only separating when impacted upon, then Naughty Dog’s solution not only caters to the PS3’s limited bandwidth requirements (by reducing the amount of individual particles used) but also in replicating water as organically as possible.


The final part of the new trailer also shows some more interesting technical observations. The footage here, like with the majority of the trailer, is pre-rendered using in-engine assets before being supersampled down to 720p. Character modelling is more detailed than in-game, and like we’ve already touched upon, shadows and lighting are far more precise – with no obvious rendering errors – than what is possible in real-time on the hardware.

Interestingly, we can see that Naughty Dog have implemented some secondary surface lighting reflections, whereby the sunlight bounces off of the ground and onto the characters. Look at the base of the enemy’s arms - or rather under - and you can see it. It’s not the light source from the sun that’s having this effect, as the light is being directed from below at an angle.

Single bounce global illumination? Well, that’s highly unlikely since it isn’t supported in Uncharted 3’s advanced lighting engine, and would be too performance intensive to use in-game as it were, without optimisation. Instead, it looks like it could be some kind of baked GI solution, perhaps some kind of occlusion mapped onto the environment. As Naughty Dog already use plenty of pre-baked techniques in combination with real-time lighting and AO in screen space (SSAO) then this seems like the most obvious conclusion.

The other conceivable way this could also be done, is via the use of some simple shader algorithms, thus saving on even more performance. Without seeing the effect for extend periods of time, it is simply well informed guesswork on how this is being accomplished, and either way needs to be clearly seen in actual gameplay footage to be of any real significance. Though, I suspect that it may well find itself entering the game’s in-engine, but not real-time cut scenes. There are a number of low-tech, performance saving ways this could be implemented; like UE3’s Lightmass GI solution for example, used in Gears 3.

The rest of the trailer is exactly the same as before, so there’s no need to go into further details here. The gameplay footage still looks like its being rendered in 720p compared to the rest of the footage, before also having its image quality decimated by GameTrailers poor video encoding.


Outside of the CES updated version of the original teaser trailer, there have also been two extended gameplay videos of the Chateau stage released a few weeks back. The beginning of the first video shows some crisp, white HDR lighting, intermittently complemented by the implementation of bloom. Bloom appears in some scenes clearly, whilst being completely absent in others. Like in Uncharted 2, its use appears to be more artistically controlled than simply being an early rendering bug.

HDR also looks very similar to both Uncharted 2, and in turn God Of War 3, meaning that it is likely that ND are using a similar if not the very same RGBM version of the technique. In any case HDR appears to be a tad subtler on first impressions, although that could well be down to the environment and artistic use, than anything else. UC2 had areas in which both HDR and bloom were highly prominent, and areas where neither seemed to have much of a noticeable presence.

You can also see solid evidence of MLAA in the works too. There’s very little in the way of edge-based shimmering in the higher contrast areas of the scene, only the usual sub-pixel artefacts not covered by the technique. But overall, it’s a noticeable improvement over the second game’s solid use of MSAA.


In terms of Uncharted 3, I think that about covers it for now. The range of screenshots and videos showcase what appears to be a range of subtle, and quite substancial – in some areas – improvements to the core technology powering the game. On the whole it’s not drastically different to Uncharted 2, but more an evolution of the engine than a complete revolution. Although, you could easily argue that is all the game really requires.

Up next... a few 3DS bits and pieces to cover.

3DS Battery Life: Unsurprisingly As Expected

Nintendo has been showing off much of its new 3DS system at their World Event in Japan, with confirmed date and full launch line-up for the system’s Japanese release – February 26th – along with a small barrage of impressive video demonstrations of this year’s biggest games for the platform. We may be taking a small, updated tech-themed look at some of these later on in the week, but for now our attention has been turned to the console’s confirmed battery specifications.


Using a 1,300 mAh rated battery, Nintendo has revealed that 3DS games running on the system would give the user around 3-5 hrs of playtime, while original DS games would yield an average of between 5-8 hours before charging is required - noticeably less than the 9 to 14 hours possible on the DSi and 15 to 19 hours on the DSL. Charging itself will require around 3.5 hours.

As to be expected, how long each charge lasts will be dictated by both the screen’s brightness setting and the software being played. Nintendo themselves have stated that screen brightness will have the most affect, although we know that other factors also regularly come into play.

Titles that use up more of the GPU’s capabilities – to push either more geometry on screen, or with additional effects – will drain more power from the device. You also have to consider the additional power requirements of using a parallax barrier, auto-stereoscopic display, which is likely to use up more juice than a regular LCD screen.

While 3-5 hours may not seem like much, given the visuals being pushed on screen by the GPU, and when comparing it to the iPhone 4’s 4-6 hour mark playing games such as Infinity Blade, then this seems well in line with other handheld devices out there. By contrast, some Android smartphones last a mere 2-3 hours when playing high-end games, and that’s with many unessential features turned off.

The 3DS then, should provide ample playtime for most gamers out there, with only the most dedicated of the hardcore crowd likely playing games for the maximum 5 hours straight. That said, a back-up battery-powered recharging station, supplementing the system's usual power supply, looks like an essential add-on for all those looking to regularly travel on long commutes.

PSP Phone Specs Revealed

The PSP Phone may have been a no-show at Sony’s CES press conference, but that didn’t prevent further details surrounding the machine being posted on yet another Chinese website. Earlier today, IT186 posted – then reported at Engadget - what can only be described as a full run down of the device’s specifications, outing tasty internal info such as GPU/CPU type and clock frequencies, along with details on the system’s memory make-up and LCD display.


Looking at the baseline internal specs for a moment, the PSP Phone is powered by a Snapdragon QSD8255 system-on-a-chip (SoC), which contains both the main processor and the system graphics chip. Onboard the SoC we have a Qualcomm Scorpian CPU, based on ARMv7 tech, which is running at 1GHz, and a Adreno 205 GPU, both of which can also be found powering the Samsung HTC Desire HD.

In addition to the SoC responsible for processing data on the device, we also see that the PSP Phone has 512MB of RAM. Currently, it isn’t clear if this is the total amount of memory available to the device, or if a separate pool of VRAM is available exclusively for the Adreno 205 GPU. In any case, 512MB is far more than the 64MB present in the PSP Go, and should be enough to suffice.

In terms of overall performance, that overall configuration puts Sony’s device almost on par with the iPhone 4, and almost certainly at the high-end of the spectrum when it comes to smartphone technology, but behind the rumoured specs of the PSP2. Surprisngly the system appears to be far more powerful than what previous sources led us to believe.

Here we have graphics hardware that supports OpenGL 2.0, along with shader model 4, which puts it firmly above that of the 3DS, and allowing it to handle similar visuals to that of Infinity Blade running on an iPhone 4 – that is to say, capable of producing 1st gen 360-esque graphics.


The familiar architecture, and use of the Android 2.3 OS, should also allow the device to play current games powered by the Android platform, along with titles designed purely around the system’s specific hardware, running only on the PSP Phone. Unlike with games tailored to run in the confines of the Android OS and its API’s – which have to maintain compatibility with a range of different devices – PSP Phone specific titles could be developed to take full advantage of the hardware, delivering better visuals and higher levels of performance.

That said, some of the best looking Android compatible titles already look stunning - A version of the Epic Citadel demo, running on Android plus NVIDIA Tegra hardware, and Infinity Blade on the iPhone 4, are both a good indication of what software is expected to look like on the platform.

Compared to the 3DS, custom, fully programmable pixel shaders allow for a more precise, diverse range of effects, along with fully customisable lighting and shading routines over and above what fixed-function hardware can do – the 3DS supports only programmable vertex shaders – no pixel shaders - and fixed-function, per-pixel lighting. However, its per-pixel, fixed-function set-up can yield similar, if less accurate, results compared to programmable shader hardware.

Moving on, and the device also features a a 4” 854x480 resolution LCD display, which compares favourably to the iPhone 4’s 960x640 Retina screen, and provides around double the vertical and horizontal resolution of the PSP Go’s a 3.8-inch 480 x 272 display. You’ll also find a 5 megapixel autofocus camera complete with LED flash, and a range of slots including a microSD slot, SIM slot, and a micro-USB input.


Software-wise, the PSP Phone will be using something described as the ‘PlayStation Pocket’, which sounds very similar to earlier leaked info surrounding a network hub for downloading PS specific games – either PSone titles or ported PSP games and PSP Phone exclusives.

At present, it’s not yet known what games will be heading onto the device - speculation hints at PSone and PSP games, although PSP games would have to be ported, seeing as full-speed emulation isn’t really possible on the hardware. PSone on the other hand, would be easy to do. The obvious downside would be that most titles are rendered in 240p vertical resolution, with only a few using a 480p framebuffer, which would mean they would have to be upscaled to fit the PSP Phone’s screen. However, as we’ve seen on the PS3, this doesn’t always result in poor image quality.

But how does this ‘PlayStation Pocket’ fit into things in general? Over the last few months we’ve heard reports stating that a new Google ecosystem will be largely powering software and content distribution across the device, in-line with other new Sony Ericsson products. However, Sony themselves have also stated their intention in branching out the PlayStation Network brand across to other devices, such as MP3 players, TV’s, and smartphones.

While the PSP Phone seems to the perfect container in order to finally unify the brand across platforms, different strategies between SCE and Sony Ericsson may well prevent this from going ahead quite so soon. Both divisions are looking to trial and expand different concepts into the market. At present, it very much looks like the PSP Phone may well be a compromise of sorts – using a separate PlayStation branded area for games alongside the main Google ecosystem delivering content to the device.


All in all, the PSP Phone is certainly an interesting piece of kit. It is considerably more powerful than previous leaks had suggested, almost matching the iPhone 4 in terms of raw performance – going by the specs of the main SoC and RAM configuration – and has all the features of a regular multimedia smartphone.

It is then, perhaps a little surprising to see Sony pushing for two separate devices: a largely PS-less branded PSP Experia phone, and a bleeding edge, high-end PSP2. Considering the power of the PSP Phone, it would make far more sense to sell a device that both plays games, while also doubles up as a phone. Why not simply keep the phone integration, but for gamers who don’t want it, exclude the sim card package needed for its use. This makes far more sense than having two differering PS handheld products on the market, each further splitting it further.

Apple has shown that convergence between multiple devices – especially higher-end – is by far the way to go. Some analysts have already described the PSP2 as ‘dead on arrival’ admittedly along with the PSP Phone. However, Sony could use this Xperia/PS branded device as a natural successor to the PSP (ditching the PSP2), whilst also reaching out to the mainstream iPhone 4 consumer in general, thus avoiding all the pitfalls of having an expensive ‘gaming centric’ device that doesn’t completely rival its more mainstream competitors.

How the PSP Phone will fare is anyone’s guess, especially in a crowded market in which even Sony’s plans for full support are in question/unknown. With the PSP2 all but confirmed, and certainly in the pipeline, Sony’s gaming/cellular crossover may well not be quite the iPhone rival some of us hoped it would be. That said, it will be interesting to see just how the company positions this device alongside the PSP2, and in direct competition to Apple’s leading smartphone.

New PSP Phone Pics Emerge

On Monday we saw the first leaked images of a production grade 3DS, and now today there has been a leak of what looks like late stage prototype images of not one, but two models of Sony’s PSP phone. The photos on this page were first posted on a Chinese forum, HKGolden, and confirm much of what we already know about the device.


The PSP phone now looks like being mainly branded as an Xperia device, rather than a proper entry in the PSP series of gaming-based handhelds, with only a small PlayStation brand logo appearing on both units. Interestingly, the PS logo is in itself new, different to anything seen on current PS products, which also ties in with earlier reports stating that the device wasn’t meant to be an official successor to the current PSP, but instead a sideline to that particular brand. However, by the look of things, the design, and indeed planned support for a cross platform PSN, Sony are clearly looking to expand their gaming presence firmly outside the main PS line of products.


As previously revealed in early pre-production prototypes, both models of the PSP phone feature a similar slider containing the controls for gaming, much like on the PSP Go. Here we can see the familiar PS d-pad, along with the standard four face buttons iconic to the platform. Replacing the analogue slider found on all models of the PSP, is two separate touch sensitive panels, each performing the task of a regular analogue stick.


On another photo - this one showing a unit actually running – we can see that the system is powered by the Google Android 2.3 OS, with a familiar interface. There’s currently no sign of the Cross Media Bar (XMB) as of yet, although we imagine it will probably feature as an addition to the standard OS look as an alternative multimedia/games hub. But we’ll have to wait and see.

Sony’s CES press conference starts tomorrow evening, so hopefully more will be revealed, albeit officially this time around. Reports originally stated that a late 2010/early 2011 announcement was on the cards, so a CES unveiling would make sense.