Mark Rein: Unreal's 'focus is all devices'

@Vidaluko

Epic believes the iPad is more of a game machine than the 3DS unfortunately.

@ItsameMatt03

No...Nintendo decided to handicap the 3DS Pica 200 with two relatively ancient, downclocked ARM 11 processors. If Epic could get some iteration of UE3 on that device. they'd be on it quicker than vultures are with a fresh piece of carrion.

@jackal Having talked to Dr. Capps personally, and considering Rein's consistent downing of the DS and Wii, there is zero doubt that Epic runs under a general distaste for Nintendo.

Capcom somehow got Street Fighter on the 3DS to look almost as good as on the 360. It blows the iOS version out-of-the-water completely, graphically and in every other way. You can bring out all the specs you want and try to compare and speculate, but at the end of the day even the shitty launch titles for the 3DS outshine 99% of iPhone games.

The one thing that will NEVER be true is that they "can't do it". "Too costly", "too much time", "not enough expected profit"...any other excuse is completely acceptable and probably somewhat realistic. "Hardware isn't good enough" though is just straight-up false.

Capps said to me before the Wii release he didn't feel Nintendo's strategy and Epic's really lined up, that they were going in different directions. So why can't they just man-up and say that, instead of exaggerating hardware limitations?

@Nmaster64

"So why can't they just man-up and say that, instead of exaggerating hardware limitations?"

Capps' comments aside, the company makes the vast majority of its money from selling middleware. Anyone who says, "Eh...pass" and makes a decision to keep his company's engine off of a platform that has sold 75,000,000 units worldwide as well as an upcoming hand held that looks to be a 100,000,000 unit seller due to some petty personal issue is going to lose his job in nigh record time. The reason UE3 isn't coming to the 3DS is precisely the same reason it never came to the Wii; the hardware simply does not meet the engine's minimum hardware requirements.

And before someone cries foul, let's consider the following: the 3DS uses dual ARM 11 processors clocked at 266 MHz each paired with a PICA200 GPU clocked at 200 MHz. An ARM 11 processor is, at the same clockspeed and with every other variable equal, at least 3x slower than an ARM Cortex 8; the mobile iteration of UE3 requires, at the minimum, an ARM Cortex 8 clocked at 600 MHz. Assuming both of the 3DS's CPUs were used to run game related code, their aggregate processing power is still lower than one ARM Cortex 8 and they are still below the UE3's minimum requirements. The situation is, unfortunately for Nintendo, a bit more dire than that in reality since only one of those CPUs is actually used to run game related code; the second ARM11 is dedicated to running all of the system's background, audio, and IO related tasks. As far as the PICA200 is concerned...it's a five year old mobile GPU competing in a world where mobile GPUs routinely double or triple in power every 6 months; the PowerVR SGX 530 in the iPhone 3GS is generations ahead of the Pica200 in both performance and features. The part *might* be able up to the task of running UE3 after some finessing but the crippled CPU subsystem will bottleneck it to the point of being unable to do so. It's analogous to taking a Geforce 8800 GTS and jamming it into an old Pentium III workstation; you wouldn't be able to get anything even remotely close to what's considered poor performance using modern middleware despite having a capable GPU.

IF the 3DS could run UE3, Epic would be seizing that opportunity regardless of what Mike Capps thinks; a handheld that's anticipated to break the 100,000,000 unit mark within 4 years presents an opportunity that's almost unfathomably huge to a middleware developer. Unfortunately, the system PHYSICALLY CAN'T run the latest iteration of Epic's engine (it can, however, run the same UE2.5 used to make the Bioshock games) and people need to start accepting it.

@jackal

It's not publicly known what sort of CPU the 3DS uses, there is only a now ancient rumor from a single source so don't mistake that as fact.

@Raffi256

Whether the 3DS uses two ARM 11 processors or a single dual core design based off of the ARM 11 architecture is ultimately pointless; the hardware is still not fast enough to run the mobile iteration of UE3. Given that one of the key aspects to Nintendo's current business strategy is to use older hardware (5 year old hardware is trivially easy to produce on modern manufacturing nodes in large quantities and the profit margins are extremely high) and given what we DO KNOW about the 3DS hardware, it is all but a certainty that the 3DS does not use a CPU/CPUs derived from the ARM Cortex family. After all, the Nintendo DS used ARM9 and ARM7 CPUs which were years old by the time it was released.

@HybridPara

Mmmmmm unreal toast.

@Mr Khan
Jolly good discussion, sir.

@Co
So, you're trying to say that... he mad?

@Co I bet Epic hates the PC even more than Nintendo. : (

@BoBsS I agree. For those of us who have extensive experience with the engine, things like this make us that much more valuable in the market.

You have an engine which is not only one of the most widely used and accessible in the console market, but is now viable on mobile platforms as well.

I hope that more engine developers follow their lead and take notice.

@Tezz

Would you honestly believe that UE3 cannot run on the Wii or 3DS, but it's running on an iPhone?

Mark Rein is a jerk-off.

@ItsameMatt03 Mark Rein hates the PC most of all. And Cliffy B is a total douche-bag.

@ItsameMatt03

I'd believe they made an engine that can only be scaled down/back so much. I believe they could get it to run on the Wii if they truly wanted to, but probably feel like it wouldn't be worth all the sacrifices.

As for the 3DS, he could probably also get it running on there. I mean, he's gotten it onto the iPhone 4, which, while it has some superior hardware (compared to 3DS), is not designed as a dedicated gaming device where it counts (such as the GPU).

@sonicspike41 Are you serious? The GPU on the iPhone is a monster! The A4 is running a PowerVR SGX 535, which is quite a bit more powerful than the 3DS's

I don't understand why people can't believe that iPhone4's THAT POWERFUL! Modern SmartPhones are incredibly powerful. The combination CPU-GPU in them are flexable and are made to run games. Just because Nintendo based their hardware off of last year's CPU/GPU design..

The 3DS is made to be cheap.. despite what nintendo is selling it at.

@Tezz So.. then why does the Unreal Engine need to be on the 3DS if it's not for delivering fancy graphics?!? I think people need to think about what they are asking. They get all pissy that Unreal Engine 3 won't run on their hardware.. but agree it can't run the graphics.. when that's the reason they want it on their console of choice. UE3 wasn't on the Wii because UE2 did everything the Wii Needed to do.

Secondly.. Mark Rein isn't even the programmer. He's not the one making the decisions on where UE3 goes.. that's the guys doing the coding.. He's just the guy getting asked all the questions..

@Duscrom

I guess I just always assumed they designed the GPU to be a sort of "all around" thing instead of a graphical beast. There's also the fact that, as far as I'm aware, the GPU was part of the CPU instead of being on it's own dedicated chip.

I knew it was a powerful beast, I guess I just underestimated quite how powerful it truly could be. Ignorance on my part.

@(Unverified)

Envy does not suit you to well. Although your ignorance did give me a chuckle so thanks for that. It's time to move on in life young child. I'll be praying for you.

@HaVoK308

When people point out the hardware constraints of console development IS handicapping the development PC games and hindering the of adoption of the more advanced features offered by it, they're whiners and apparently ignorant. When a company releases a "next generation" tech demo that does indeed run off of contemporary PC hardware (that monstrous tri-SLI GTX 580 solution will be slower than a single chip card within two years at the most) and it does make use of the more advanced features offered, it would seem the "whiners" were actually correct in their assessment; a console-centric focus does hurt PC gaming. When said developer says, "Oh...it's aimed at console devs so they can release the kind of hardware we want 3-5 years from now" instead of actually...ya know...making a game for the hardware that can run such a demanding title in the present, I'd say there's a legitimate reason to be feeling sour grapes. Developers don't give people a compelling reason to be a PC gamer when your hardware is at least 10 faster than the positively ancient kit found in the Xbox 360 or PS3 but their titles were created around the obvious deficiencies of console hardware and, 9 times out of 10, performance of those games is mediocre for no outwardly apparently reason. Nor does it help the situation that developers like Epic seem to have the attitude, "Look at what we've made! Oh...it's not aimed at you guys nor are we remotely interested in your business." For an industry that "sees the value in PC gaming", it really does seem hell bent on killing it in whatever capacity it can. If you found the previous poster's "ignorance" on the subject chuckle worthy, yours is an absolute laugh riot.

@(Unverified)

Pretty sure the majority isn't ready for a new generation...and I sure as hell am not. I wanna see THIS generation pushed to it's limits so we get the really awesome generation defining titles you really begin to see towards the end of the lifespan when the developers know the systems inside and out.

@(Unverified)

they are waiting until PS3 and 360 sell as much or more total than nintendo did :) so it is going to take some time before they can claim their machines were not commercial flops but sold as good or better than the competition.

@BP CEO Tony Hayward
People will think it only displays that resolution though.

@Typhonic True, never thought of that.

@eilegz Better or worse is subjective but a 4th gen iPhone or pod is stupidly stronger than the 3DS. Nintendo chose cheap hardware and that means some things just can't be achieved on it.

@JCDoe

The memory on the 3DS and Wii has lower latency, and higher throughput than the cheaper RAM used on iPhone/iPads. And 3DS also uses a SoC design, in fact no one publicly knows what's inside of the chip yet, only some rumors. Also games on the Nintendo platforms run on bare metal and there is no processing overhead from bloated operating systems like on an iOS device. No virtual memory, multitasking, etc.

Your point about the Wii and 3DS using fixed function rendering is pretty valid though. This is likely the main reason you don't see an engine like UE3 running on these platforms. It means there is no way feasible way to port the engine's rendering code. And most of its toolset (material editor, animation, etc) would be useless or very limited.

@Raffi256

Not entirely sure why I got downrated for speaking the truth.

True, Nintendo's systems use low latency RAM (they have since the 'cube). But when you consider the fact that their consoles are designed to output in 480p, and the small res of their handhelds, it kinda becomes a moot point (they aren't pounding out ultra-high res textures or anything).

While it is true that the 3ds is more of a dedicated gaming system, you're still looking at a night-and-day diff on the raw power of the hardware. The 1 GHz A4 ARM Cortex-A8 CPU of the Apple product dwarfs the two 266 MHz ARM 11's of the 3DS. And the PICA200 vs. the PowerVR SGX Series 5 is also a big diff.

There's no need for anyone to be defensive about their favorite system. I'm sure the 3ds will hold its own. I'll probably get one eventually for the 1st party games alone. But it just doesn't have the get up and go for UE3.

@JCDoe

Yeah but again, you really have no idea what CPU the 3DS has. There is only an old rumor from a single source. We won't know until someone x-rays the SoC or whatever. But it's really irrelevant, it's not like raw performance is going to stop you from porting an engine. Like I said, it's because the graphics are fixed-function and there's no point in porting a graphics engine that revolves around a programmable GPU pipeline. It would render many of the features of the engine totally moot.