3DS is a Friggin’ Graphical Powerhouse

Just in case there were any of you who were still doubting the 3DS and what it can do (in which case, I really must ask you: how?), we’ve got final proof that the successor to the world conquering Nintendo DS will be something more special than Nintendo has ever done for its handhelds so far.

While Nintendo has been predictably coy about the 3DS’s innards, some heavy research by EndGadget reveals that a company called Digital Media Professionals designed the graphics chipset for the 3DS, way back in 2006. It’s called the Pica200, and it supports per-pixel lighting, procedural textures and antialiasing. At its native 200MHz, it generates 15,3 million polygons, essentially putting its raw graphics processing capabilities way above the Wii, and squarely into the territory of the HD consoles (though the stupid thing still isn’t as powerful).

Right there is a tech demonstration video for the chipset, made back in 2006. It’s worth noting that the video is rendered directly on the chip itself, which means this is some seriously impressive stuff.

And before anybody says so, no, the graphics quality will not take a hit because the 3DS has to process each image twice to produce the 3D effect- that is just a misconception. The 3DS will only need to render each image once, and the in game camera has to display the same image via two slightly different angles, which will produce the effect. This really doesn’t tax the processor all that much, or at least, not much more than split screen multiplayer does. With a processor this powerful, you don’t need to worry about it at all.