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Nintendo 3DS: Nintendo To Unlock Additional Power For Nintendo 3DS Developers?

French publication Gamekyo are reporting that Nintendo will be unlocking a second core for Nintendo 3DS developers to play around with. Apparently developers will soon be able to take advantage of 25% additional power that was previously reserved for the Nintendo 3DS operating system.

Tip: Kenny G. Mercado

114 thoughts on “Nintendo 3DS: Nintendo To Unlock Additional Power For Nintendo 3DS Developers?”

      1. It’s like with the PS3. Devs never really use the full potential of that System but if need be they could use more power for it if required.

        1. TRUE.

          I’ve seen some Wii games with Graphics almost as good as PS3 games, as the Wii game uses full power of the console and the PS3 does not use its full power with a game.

    1. Basically it’s like Windows Vista and Windows 7 Windows Vista was a Ram whore on your computer and they redid it all with Windows 7 they cleaned it up a bit added new features but made it take up less ram. Same scenario

    2. It could be that they could redesign the OS, or maybe they make will take away the ability to pause your game when you press the Home button; in other words, they may take multitasking away. With this I mean, multitasking for games that use the extra power. It doesn’t mean they will remove it from the OS. Keep in mind that this is for devs who want to use it, and it is doubtful that Nintendo will use that.

      1. No it’s just that games will have access to the second core. Like the OS won’t be using the core to it’s full extent, so it’s just freeing that up for the games to use as well. It doesn’t mean they’ll take anything away like multi-tasking. Even if they did have to make compromises, it would only be whilst games that need the extra power to run.

  1. It made sense that they reserved it for the OS but perhaps with the extra 25% of processing power, they can make games run at a smoother framerate and help and with graphics with removing the chance of being able to switch to the OS, while in between your games like with the DS.

    1. It already can, RE Revelations Cartridge is 4GB which is the maximum of a wii game. Not to mention some 3DS games look better than the Wii versions

      1. Wii discs are also dual discs holding over 8GB of data, and there’s no Wii version of Revelations. It looks almost as good a Wii games, but the 3DS allows for more effects to work like shaders and stuff.

  2. I’m guessing they would have to deactivate multitasking on the 3DS while playing a more powerful game. Sucks, regular DS games don’t even have the option :/

    1. It will still work. Note how it is 25% more power, not 50% that it should be. 75% power for games and 25% for OS.

      Right now, it is 50-50, which is too much power just to run a simple OS.

        1. It’s usually best to have some headroom. However, I think they made it too wide on the 3DS or the codes weren’t effieceint and was perhaps too “bulky”.

  3. I hope the developers will be utilizing the additional power! No, do not imitate me developers as a use only two of my tentacles most of the time

    1. *i utilize the power bestowed on you! then start using 4GB carts like RE:R

      I hope Fantasy Life will be benefitting from this.

          1. You MUST be joking. Unless you’re talking about the very first generation one, that’s a lie. My iPod Touch browser is way better than the 3DS’ browser, and it came out over a year ago (4th gen model).

  4. I just realized something.. More power could mean playing two GBA/NES/SNES at the same time! One on the upper screen and the other one on the bottom.. Maybe that’s what you call real multi-tasking

    1. how can a cellphone run N64 games? also if you havent noticed this page isnt about the gaystation vita and no one has named it except of you so GTFO.

      1. “How can a cellphone run N64 games?”

        Like this:

        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M37stHonlz8&t=6s

        Of course, what I like to do is sync my iPod Touch with a Wii remote (or any other bluetooth controller) and use that to play after turning off the GUI on the screen. Then you’ve got physical controls and no ‘on-screen-controller’ blocking the picture. It’s even better if you have an iPad, since it’s a bit larger and more powerful. You can play any console or handheld ever made from the PlayStation and back with an iPod/iPhone/iPad. Pretty nifty stuff, really, and as long as you own physical copies of the games you’ve got ROMs of, it’s completely legal! :-) (At least, in the U.S. it is. I can’t speak for any other countries, so you’ll have to read through your own laws if you don’t live here.)

        I’m actually looking forward to the release of the iPad 3 or 4 within the next couple of years. If the tech keeps increasing as it has been for several years now, one of those two will be powerful enough to run a GameCube emulator. Combine that with the ability to display whatever is on screen to a TV (a feature already present in iOS devices) and I’ll be playing The Wind Waker, F-Zero GX, or Super Smash Bros. Melee again — which I will need to do, since I’ll be selling my Wii to obtain a Wii U, and Nintendo is not including backwards compatibility with physical GameCube titles by default (I’m sure a hacker will solve this in due time, just like the Wii and DVD playback, but still, I shouldn’t have to hack my system to get a function that it was already capable of doing in the first place) since Nintendo wants to make money by selling GameCube games on the virtual console next gen. Unfortunately for Nintendo, I’m not re-buying these games that are already rightfully mine. I’m sure many people will though, just for the convenience of it all though, and that’s fine. I’m willing to do a little extra work to save a lot of money in the long run.

        In any case, I’m sure this is more than you needed (or even wanted) to know, so I’ll just end my comment here. Thanks for reading, Jake. 8]

    2. 3DS can run above Wii games already, so you could say your phone is more powerful than a regular DS. I’m not gonna bother getting the psp1.5

              1. Not really true. That’s only if you consider power “the only thing that determines next gen”. 3DS is just as much of an advancement from DS as Vita is to PSP.

                1. I agree, though only relevant to it’s predecessor. The 3DS went from N64 DS graphics to Wii graphics, so that’s a major improvement.

        1. Psp go was hardly an updates at all. It was the same psp with sliding capabilities. If anything I don’t feel like forming out $250 for a psp with better graphics, an extra analogue stick, and 3G when I have a perfectly good psp right here.. I could say my EVO 4G can do those things already, and it would be mostly true, just slightly lower res, just SLIGHTLY. 3DS gives me something new, and the games they release just keep getting better. If by next gen you mean doing everything we would have expected then yes psvita could be one. There’s just not enough difference between it and the regular psp for levying qualify it as next gen imo. 3DS was a huge jump from DS and since its more powerful than the Wii, thats not something we had last gen. So yes it qualifies. Psvita kind of does. But there’s not much over psp. I’m personally going to go with 3DS. It’s my life. I make my decisions.

          1. Trust me, when you see that thing in person you’ll know it’s not a PSP. I understand you make your own decisions, but really the PS Vita is a HUGE transition over the PSP. It went from PS2 to PS3 graphics. PS3 integrated multiplayer, 2 touch screens (back panel isn’t really a screen though). The PS Vita can play PSP games too, with the second analogue stick to improve controls. It can use android apps and the screen is HD, like a 720p TV.

    1. Like what I’ve said earlier.. More power could mean runnig two GBA games at the same time.. one on the top and the other on the bottom screen.. So you can now finish Ruby and Sapphire at the same time! Haha

      I’m expecting that the additional power will be used to improve multi-tasking like playing GBA/eShop game on the top screen while browsing the web on the lower screen. Improve framerate etc.. Many possibilities.. The only problem is if these possibilities will come to existence

    1. one of the major reasons is so that the games will seem to get better in both size and graphics wise over the course of time. instead of allowing developers to create amazing games AND have to wait longer to get good games out for the system, which would have made things worse, they ease them into it so more games are produced while the newer, better games come out later, but not to long later.

      1. I think you read this article wrong. “nintendo has yet to unlock 25% of the power of the processors” not the battery. I was meaning that if they unlock more power in the core’s of the processors wouldn’t that use more of the battery quicker?

  5. So if I’m not mistaken, the 3DS has two ARM CPUs or was it a single dual core? It’s one of the two. This means that they may have redesigned the OS to work more efficiently. Kind of like new CPUs are faster than previous generations but consume like half the power. So if a whole CPU/core was dedicated to the OS, maybe they are going to cut that in half and the other half will be available to devs. Remember that they will add more features to the 3DS, so it could be that they finally settled on the OS. This 25% boost should allow games to look really good, like Revelations, while still running at 60fps in 3D, which some games are already doing without that boost (MK 7 and Tekken Prime Edition). This should draw in more developers in. Actually, I think that if this happens, then it’ll be primarily to get those devs to work on the 3DS. We’ll see.

      1. I’ll be amazed if it can do that, because Crysis is like the worst optimized game ever! Seriously, you could have a monster PC, yet it wouldn’t run your game right simply because it had poor optimization.

  6. Can people say when the 3D video recording & ST2 is coming out because it says no system updates when im trying to. Thank you please respond

    1. It’s coming on the Super Mario 3D Land game card which releases on Nov. 13th. So I’d expect the downloadable update to release the same day, or soon before then.

  7. Pingback: [Rumor] Nintendo podría desbloquear un 25% más de la potencia de Nintendo 3DS para los desarrolladores

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