Nintendo 3DS

[davek22]

I went and pre ordered at my local Gamestation. It's a tiny one in suburban Manchester town. When the guy got the pre order sheet out I could see he had at least 15 names down before me. This is going to sell pretty well I reckon

[hush]

Think i'll wait till i have the moneyto buy it

[yesteryeargames]

some nice footage here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2Nxf...ayer_embedded#!

[The Mole]

Just found out retailers are paying only ?173 for this, nice profit at ?230 then

[Mayhem]

*sigh* see the previous page please Mole, it's like the furore over the comparison to the US price again...

[Tig]

apparently the web browser and eStore will, in fact, be ready at launch.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-01-21-3ds-estore-will-be-ready-on-day-one

Contrary to speculation, the 3DS's digital download store and internet browser will be up and running from launch, Nintendo has confirmed.

A Wired report earlier this week claimed that the new handheld's eStore would not be ready on the day of release and would be added in later via a firmware update.

However, a spokesperson for Nintendo told Eurogamer today that although neither an internet browser nor the eStore would be included in the console's "initial firmware" they will be "updated on day one"

in other news, I am hovering over Shopto's purchase button like a fly over ****.

[JSR]

Not quite. When 3D is enabled, it's rendering at half the resolution than 2D.

Huh? Then why does some games get twice the framerate in 2D mode?

[Dogg Thang]

In 3D mode, it's rendering half the resolution in one direction only. So there is a difference in what's required in 3D. But it's not twice what's needed in 2D.

[gizmo1990]

in other news, I am hovering over Shopto's purchase button like a fly over ****.

Me too! What are their returns like though? I'm getting worried about the dreaded dead pixels...

[Psyduck]

In 3d it has to render from 2 different perspectives, right? So twice the geometry.

[abigsmurf]

you can do optimisations so there aren't as much geometry calculations taking place. I believe you can get it doesn to something like 10% overhead.

[Dogg Thang]

Yeah it's twice the geometry but at half the horizontal resolution.

[Matt]

you can do optimisations so there aren't as much geometry calculations taking place. I believe you can get it doesn to something like 10% overhead.

I'm quite interested to find out more about how some firms are doing 3D, like in Crysis 2. I suspect they simply split all individual elements (ie each character) into planes to give them "depth", rather than rendering each viewport.

[Dogg Thang]

Really? But wouldn't that end up looking like Parappa the Rapper or something? I'm surprised Crysis could get away with that.

[Matt]

I'm not sure how "far" into the screen you have to go before you'd get away not rendering things twice. They'll be some point when you'd not be able to see the "sides" of something rendered in complete 3D. If you know what I mean.

I could well be wrong, but I can't think of another way of doing 3D rendering where you're not effectively rendering the whole screen twice. Hopefully there's an article out there explaining a better way