Nintendo World Report Forums

Gaming Forums => Nintendo Gaming => Topic started by: Crono on May 13, 2004, 05:17:10 AM

Title: how much memory?
Post by: Crono on May 13, 2004, 05:17:10 AM: i was wondering how much ram it has and how much the cartridges will hold im mega bytes well thanks
Title: RE:how much memory?
Post by: kilohertz on May 13, 2004, 06:19:37 AM: Well, I don't think that an official spec sheet from Nintendo has been released yet but the cartridges can hold up to
1 Gigabit(128 MB) of data.
Title: RE: how much memory?
Post by: Rhoq on May 14, 2004, 01:20:23 AM: 128MB is much smaller than 1GB
Title: RE: how much memory?
Post by: KDR_11k on May 14, 2004, 06:46:09 AM: Rhoq: Obviously, yes. Were you trying to imply something with that?

RAM is 4 MB, AFAIK. Since the DS can load pretty fast that should be sufficient.
Title: RE:how much memory?
Post by: Rhoq on May 14, 2004, 06:59:31 AM: Not at all. I was just commenting on kilohertz's statement of "the cartridges can hold up to 1 Gigabit(128 MB) of data". Pointing out that 128MB is defintely not equal to 1GB. That's all. No harm, no foul.
Title: RE:how much memory?
Post by: Koopa Troopa on May 14, 2004, 09:15:01 AM: a GigaBIT (not BYTE) is 128MB.
Title: RE:how much memory?
Post by: Rhoq on May 14, 2004, 10:02:37 AM: Oh sh*t. You are absolutely right. I really should pay attention to things more carefully. Everytime I read it, I could have sworn he wrote GigaBYTE. It's been a llooonnnnggggg week.
Title: RE: how much memory?
Post by: ruby_onix on May 14, 2004, 12:31:06 PM: Here's the specs that were leaked out in that "Nitro" document a while back.

BTW, just to add, nintendo.com seems to be saying that the DS cards can hold more than one gigabit of storage space.

And that the DS doesn't have a microphone, but has a "microphone input" port. I guess you'd probably have to buy some sort of microphone/headphones headset for the microphone feature to work, which would be cooler than some NGage-ish side-talking anyways.
Title: RE: how much memory?
Post by: Ian Sane on May 14, 2004, 12:33:58 PM: "And that the DS doesn't have a microphone, but has a 'microphone input' port. I guess you'd probably have to buy some sort of microphone/headphones headset for the microphone feature to work, which would be cooler than some NGage-ish side-talking anyways."

Aw that sucks. I was hoping it was built-in so I wouldn't have to buy extra stuff.
Title: RE:how much memory?
Post by: Koopa Troopa on May 14, 2004, 02:17:06 PM: Quote
Oh sh*t. You are absolutely right. I really should pay attention to things more carefully. Everytime I read it, I could have sworn he wrote GigaBYTE. It's been a llooonnnnggggg week.

Hehe, it is to be expected... what with Nintendo blowing everyone's mind []

Quote
BTW, just to add, nintendo.com seems to be saying that the DS cards can hold more than one gigabit of storage space.

Yeah, the official word is "One Gigabit and beyond."
Title: RE: how much memory?
Post by: King of Twitch on May 14, 2004, 02:51:44 PM: Couldn't Miyamoto's joke about recording your own voice for the Zelda game be done with the DS?
Title: RE:how much memory?
Post by: kilohertz on May 14, 2004, 03:00:29 PM: I'am really sad that E3 is over, I remember on Tuesday before the DS was unvield, I rushed home from school to see if any thing had happend. Later on at 7:00pm I listened to Nintendo's E3 press conference live vire Gamespot, around 7:45 is when Reggie took the DS out of his blazer pocket and showed it to the world, I had no visuals but it was still very exciting.

Rhoq your right about the long week, with school and E3 I havent had much sleep.
Title: RE: how much memory?
Post by: Caustic Saint on May 14, 2004, 03:24:25 PM: I wonder about the microphone thing. In the pics that show a close-up view of the lower screen, there's a small hole below the lower left corner of it. I thing that might be an internal mic. It'd be nice if it were. I mean, they've included a normal headphone jack (so there's no need for a GBASP-style headphone adapter), so why not give you everything you need to be fully functional right out of the box?

Oh, right. Money....
Title: RE: how much memory?
Post by: KDR_11k on May 14, 2004, 07:52:10 PM: A microphone peripherial is more useful because you don't have to move the device close to your mouth. Means you can give voice commands and still see the result onscreen.
Title: RE: how much memory?
Post by: Caustic Saint on May 14, 2004, 08:04:36 PM: True. From the look of the headphone jack (and the extra holes adjacent to it) there will be a mic/headphone headset deal availablle. Handy, but not essential. I've had no problems using the built-in mic on my laptop for voice chatting, so I don't think a built-in mic on the DS would be too problematic. (Well, except when playing somewhere with too much background noise.)
Title: RE:how much memory?
Post by: Griffin on May 19, 2004, 12:40:22 AM: If it really isn't built-in, I think Nintendo would do well to include a headset w/ mic with the system instead of selling it seperately.
Title: RE: how much memory?
Post by: KDR_11k on May 19, 2004, 08:14:22 AM: You remember how they complained about not being able to sell the device at a profit at first? Do you think they'll throw in a headset for free?

If the thing uses a standard jack (likely) you can just use a cheap microphone if you absolutely need voice (remember that you likely won't give voice commands while on the move).
Title: RE: how much memory?
Post by: ruby_onix on August 01, 2004, 11:45:05 PM: Aha! Here's where this thread went. I had lost it.

Anyways, Nintendo.com had said at one point that the DS has a "microphone input port", but last month's Nintendo Power (Aug 04, volume 182, page 33) says that Miyamoto said at E3...
Quote
"We're calling it our 'third pillar' because we're able to create software that we haven't been able to create on any GameBoy or the Nintendo GameCube. We've taken ideas that we've had about connectivity and brought them into the hardware. And we've been researching wireless games and games that link to other systems for a long time. We saw with Game Boy that people would have to buy a cable to link their games. And people would need to buy our peripherals and cables to link everything together, which can be complicated. With the DS, we're bringing everything together, like the microphone that we've built into the hardware. You'll get all of this functionality right out of the box."

Also, if you look at PGC's hi-res pic of the re-styled DS, you can see a little oval hole in the hard casing of the unit, like most things with built-in microphones have, with the letters "mic." written next to it.

So, I guess it's still possible that the DS has a seperate microphone port on it (like how the DS has a headphone port, but it still has speakers), or maybe it was just a mistake somewhere. But the DS really does appear to be coming with a built-in microphone.
Title: RE: how much memory?
Post by: Blackknight131 on August 02, 2004, 12:31:42 AM: I actually took this point for granted.
The microphone is indeed built-in to the unit. All statements circa E3 and after (not to mention the pictures as was pointed out) back this up.
Title: RE: how much memory?
Post by: SuperMario35 on August 09, 2004, 08:03:34 AM: Also how much DRAM or RAM does the DS have? Is more than PSone,N64,or Sega Saturn? Is ram the main memory?
Title: RE: how much memory?
Post by: ruby_onix on August 09, 2004, 02:56:48 PM: RAM is the "main memory", and is used like a computer's "working space". Disk-based systems typically need more RAM than cart-based systems, because they load slower, and can't just "grab what they need" from the storage device at a whim. They need everything they think they might need, all laid out beforehand.

The PlayStation and Saturn each had 2 megabytes of RAM.

The N64 had 4 megabytes of RAM, and if you got the Expansion Pak (for games like Majora's Mask or Perfect Dark), it added another 4 megabytes of RAM (making it 8MB).

The DS supposedly has 4MB of RAM, but Nintendo could always potentially increase that for later DS games, with an expansion pak you could plug into the GBA's cart slot (like Sega did with the Genesis's cart slot when they came out with the Sega CD). Of course, "add-ons" are never as popularly supported as the main unit (it's just not possible).

For a bit more reference (even though they're not really comparable systems, but whatever), the PlayStation Portable initially was announced to have 8MB of RAM, which Sony specifically claimed was a "massive" amount of RAM, but the third parties said it was horribly inadequate for what Sony wants the PSP to do (considering that Sony says it's more powerful than the PS2, and the PS2 has 32MB of RAM), so Sony said "okay, we'll make the PSP have 32MB too".
Title: RE:how much memory?
Post by: SuperMario35 on August 09, 2004, 06:38:30 PM: I was wondering is the DS better than the N64 in its tech specs? PSP is definitly better than PSone so I was wondering if the DS is going to be better than the N64? Also people in other forums are saying that the DS will have a main menu when you turn it on like gameplay, chat functons, clock, and options? I dont know if this is true but I really wanted to know if it was going to have a clock because people keep telling that it is going to have a clock?
Title: RE:how much memory?
Post by: Chongman on August 09, 2004, 06:59:46 PM: yes, it will have better-than-64-graphics, but it's graphical prowess is nothing compared to the psp. Personally, I think on such a small screen though, it wont matter too terribly.

And in regards to the whole chat/clock/waffle iron question, we just don't know yet. At least...I dont think we do...
Title: RE:how much memory?
Post by: nickmitch on August 09, 2004, 07:14:11 PM: I hope it has a waffle iron. I likes me some waffles.
Title: RE: how much memory?
Post by: seen33 on August 10, 2004, 07:28:45 AM: 1 GigaBit is not very much. I mean the PSP has 1.8 GigaBYTES..... that 14 GigaBITS and is bigger then a gamecube disc. Im very dissapointed now. I was assuming nintendos disks would hold AT LEAST 1 GB...not 128MB
Title: RE:how much memory?
Post by: Jale on August 10, 2004, 07:49:58 AM: Hey, seen33, its not the size, its how you use it. Also thereare problems with CDs. Many CDs have been rendered unplayable because they were encoded with games made by sony . But seriously, DS games don't neet too much space and a Gigabyte is just the starting point.
Title: RE: how much memory?
Post by: Renny on August 10, 2004, 12:22:44 PM: The DS will have a clock. 'Cause I said so.
Title: RE:how much memory?
Post by: Chongman on August 10, 2004, 02:30:37 PM: Quote
1 GigaBit is not very much. I mean the PSP has 1.8 GigaBYTES..... that 14 GigaBITS and is bigger then a gamecube disc. Im very dissapointed now. I was assuming nintendos disks would hold AT LEAST 1 GB...not 128MB

128 MB is comparable to N64 sized cartridges if not bigger than many. Did Ocarina of Time have "too little space?" Didn't think so, and this is just a starting point. It just gets bigger from here.
Title: RE: how much memory?
Post by: ActorJ on August 10, 2004, 04:09:33 PM: the absolute largest N64 games was 64 megabytes, and there was only ONE game that size. DS smallest size is 128mbytes, and it only gets bigger from there.

Nothing to worry about. Heck, there were MANY PC games in the mid 90's that had full voice acting and still were under 200mbytes in size.
Title: RE:how much memory?
Post by: Draygaia on August 10, 2004, 05:08:53 PM: About the mic thing couldn't they make it like a computer monitor mic where it can be easy to hear voices. I don't get off my chair to put my mouth on top of it so it looks like I'm kissing it or something.
Title: RE: how much memory?
Post by: Blackknight131 on August 10, 2004, 05:24:52 PM: Seen33...ever hear the saying "Size isn't everything"?
...
Well, sometimes thats flat out wrong, BUT OTHER TIMES, well that statement has real merit.
Consider what exactly that amount of storage is used for....it is mainly for three things: 1) rendered movies, 2) redbook audio and/or voice acting and 3) increasingy higher resolution texture game art.
Looking at that, considering that this is a portable system, is it really that important to have FMV intros and outros? Hell, was it ever really that important? Recorded music and voice-acting, they can be a nice little extra but again not really that important. (High quality music in particular is attainable with the right programming and compositional talent and amount of effort). And finally, high-res textures and background art....meaningless on the DS's screen.

In short, dont sweat it. What we have here is an N64 like system with decidely larger-than-N64 game capacities right off the bat. If anything, be worried that the 4 MB of RAM may end up limiting developers, but don't sweat this size contest when it comes to media.
Title: RE:how much memory?
Post by: SuperMario35 on August 12, 2004, 08:44:54 AM: I just heard one of the editors at IGN that the DS may need a memory card? He said that it will be hard and expensive for Nintendo to make games save on the game card but he's not quite sure of of this what do you think?
Title: RE:how much memory?
Post by: Crono on August 12, 2004, 10:57:14 AM: well i would be very pissed because the reason i like cartridge systems is because i dont have to use a memory card i mean the N64 did need 1 with some games, but there wasnt that many games that needed it in fact the only game i had that needed a memory card was offroad challenge. heck if this happens maybe ill just get a psp it'll have better graphics and tales of eternia,but maybe im just being to drastic.
Title: RE: how much memory?
Post by: Blackknight131 on August 12, 2004, 11:43:27 AM: You guys seen the preview for the Shin'en DS game NANOSTRAY?
Well, among its features it lists battery backup....not sure what that entails tho.
Title: RE: how much memory?
Post by: Renny on August 12, 2004, 12:05:01 PM: That is odd. It obviously won't literally be a battery-fed, volatile memory. So presumably they mean that it will have writable memory similar to the vast majority of GBA games.
Title: RE: how much memory?
Post by: Blackknight131 on August 12, 2004, 12:07:34 PM: Yea, honestly it doesnt say one thing or the other in terms of using memory cards or what....I actually think its mentioned moreso because Shin'en was criticized with using password saves for their two Iridion games (Nanostray is along the lines of Irdion) on the GBA.