Some info on the nds.

The nds supports 6 texture formats:

• A3I5: 3 bit alpha 5 bit color index(palette with direct alpha)
• 4 color palette (each texel is 2 bits)
• 16 color palette (each texel is 4 bits)
• 256 color palette (each texel is 8 bits)
• A5I3: 5 bit alpha 3 bit color index (palette with direct alpha)
• 4x4-Texel Compressed (each texel is 32 bits, each independently being a 4x4 palleted image, 2 bits per sub-texel)
• Direct Texture (each texel is 16 bits. last bit is alpha.)

The NDS has a 15 bit color screen as well as 8 VRAM banks which can be repurposed to store texture data or the frame buffer and such. The 3D engine reserves the use of at least 1 128kb VRAM bank (A-B). You may also use more than 1 bank for storage of textures. Keep in mind that you use the texture bank for texture data and pallets.

Geometry supports vertex normals but they override any previously done vertex color commands.
The nds supports directional lights only and when defining the vertex normals, it is equvilant to setting a vertex color, but this time it samples the normal and the directional lights to set the vertex color.

The NDS's 3d engine is very similar to openGL specifications so libraries like devkitpro have adapted to openGL-like functions.

Anyways here is the bank info:

• VRAM A: 128kb
• VRAM B: 128kb
• VRAM C: 128kb
• VRAM D: 128kb
• VRAM E: 64kb
• VRAM F: 16kb
• VRAM G: 16kb
• VRAM H: 32kb
• VRAM I: 16kb

Originally Posted by Lamont

On UDK I got 70~80 skinned meshes on screen chasing the player (1 player 5 bones, NPC 3 bones instanced). Each mesh was about 470 tris. Environment was about 13k. One texture (1024x1024) for the environment, using a UDK made lightmap, one texture for the NPC and one for the character.

With Unity there's so much you have to deal with. Scripting performance is ON YOU. GUI performance as well. So if your GUI is a hog, you will not get much on screen. My latest project in Unity started out with max 20 enemies on screen. This was all scripting performance issues. I knew it. After some changes(I found the issue) I was able to get 240 at 15fps. I cap it at 120 now. That's 120x702 polys. The NPC share a single texture/mesh. The GUI is one texture with boss health and player health bars. Environments range from 8,000~14,000 polys (but not all on screen at once with a single 1024x1024 for everything. Player mesh is 702. New NPC mesh is now 300~ polys. Bullet sprites are 16x16, and each mesh has a shadow blob. 1 sound for shooting (enemy) one sound shooting player/boss. One sound track, no environment sounds.

I would like to add that only certain bosses are skinned, other than that all the other meshes are just animated in code. Personally I don't think there's a hard number for UDK and Unity for iOS, there's too many variables. It's all about "How YOU want to do it".

These numbers are on iPod4G and iPad1.

Thanks for the information! Which, if any, changes can we expect from the iPad2 Hardware-wise?

PSP's texture limit is actually 512x512

http://blog.wolfire.com/2010/06/Aquaria-on-the-PSP

(the GE, presumably "Graphics Engine")

the GE's limits of 512x512 pixels.

The PSP game I made used 512x512 textures, so I know this first hand.

I know no body really develops 3D Games for Windows Phones, but I worked with a tiny development firm and I was leading the bench marking before the project was scraped. We were able to solidify the fact that any windows phones (the newer ones can tremendously exceed these numbers with the new hardware), including the very first of the first generation phones, can view comfortably about 30k Tris on the screen at a time. We know this number can go higher, but we had 30k comfortably with absolutely no lag (at the time they were static meshes). We were using 600 Tri characters with 256 textures, fully rigged and ready to go. I am unable to really give any very specific information regarding Vram and buffering, etc. This information can easily be found online though, via google. Just thought I would share my findings. These bench marks were used to find if our ideas were possible, and might seem unpractical (like the 256 textures, normally we would use 128s max)

Windows Phone (Information gathered via Tech demos/Bench Marks):

- Tris on Screen (comfortably): 30k, these were static meshes, using 256*256 textures
- Max Texture Size: 2056, might be higher, I know this number is shared with the xbox 360, as they share many caps when it comes to game development. Obviously the phones cant handle the same loads (this should obviously be common knowledge... I hope)
- Can support up to 72 bones per character
- No Normal map support, just diffuse (not sure about specular, didn't make it into our benches)

I know this list is incomplete, like I said, and I will update if any more information is pulled from out tech demos and benchmarks. More information, including extensive information and specs on everything I listed can be found online. Just thought I would share our findings

great info!

Hello!

Has anyone found some infos on nintendo 3ds assets specifications?
I googled this :


But it's hard to interpret it for a game artist :P

I'm not sure that's true. Anyone can add to Wikipedia.

I don't think that sounds right either.
15.3M polygons a second sounds like far too much, I mean even the original PSP can't do anything like that, sounds more like the Vita specs honestly, and even then I'd say its probably pushing it. That'd make the 3DS on par with the 360 and the ps3 practically. From what I understand the 3DS is essentially on par with the VITA, running at I believe 30FPS (due to duel screen + 3d effect).

I think, that you are not right. I am assured.

And I think you`re a damn machine...