Okay the shear process power of the 3DS is likely worse than the Wii. But almost exclusively because the 3DS has shader support, it has better graphics than Wii. The Wii only had TEV and the only people that used that thing was Factor 5, Rare, and Nintendo. So you should expect excellent graphics on 3DS.

Shader support is HUGE. It is.

Wow, those comparisons are AMAZING.

This. Never underestimate smoothing and texture effects. The GC andd Wii's graphical problems primarily come from the TEV pipelines being so underused. A good part of that is 3 years after the Wii was introduced, companies are still doing the same port for PS2 and Wii.

As for the resolution, the Wii has to render 640x480 while the 3DS does 400x240 per eye. That works out to 307K pixels for the Wii and only 192K pixels for the 3DS. Toss in the bottom screen and you get another 76K pixels for a grand total of 268K pixels. So even in the worst case,the 3DS doesn't have to work nearly as hard as the Wii.

Yikes, I totaly forgot how ugly Mario Kart DS was...I actually popped it in my DS a few minutes ago and I think it was a big mistake going with 3D graphics. imagine how beautiful it could of looked in 2D. That was my main gripe with MKDS, it lacked the charm, vibe and look of some of the previous Mario Kart games. But the controls were top notch and overall it was a great game. Yet I still suprisingly prefered the 2D visual style of Super Mario Kart and Mario Kart Super Circuit.

Now after seeing some of the Mario Kart 3D screen shots it does look very impressive. From a polygon perspective I'd say it's close with Mario Kart Wii, but those Shaders, wow! Take a look at the clouds, the sun, the beautiful bright shine and lighting coming from the sun and the shading on the tree leaves for example. I don't recall anything looking this good in Mario Kart Wii . But if you take away those beautiful shaders and effects some of the environments are looking alittle Dreamcast-y, cearly lacking the polygon power of the Wii. I could even tell by Pits model in Kid Icarus: Uprising that it wasn't quite on par with Pit's model in SSB Brawl Polygon wise. Anyways with Mario Kart 3DS's gorgeous shader effects and lighting topped off by the 3D technology and on small high resolution screens it's definitly going to wow everydbody!

• DS Vs 3DS - Cleary the 3DS's graphics blow away the DS's, there's no question.
  
• Wii Vs 3DS - Pretty damn close, I think the Wii may have a bit of an edge regarding environment polygon power, but the 3DS has superior shaders.
  

Here's another example based on Pit's Wii model in SSB Bros Vs his 3DS model in Kid Icarus: Uprising

Wii - Pit's model clearly is rockin more polygons in SSB, and overall looks more impressive

3DS - While he still looks great, not up to snuff. But again the shaders, holy crap. Look at those enemies at the bottum, pretty damn impressive. What an interesting breed of technology. 360/PS3-like shaders sugar coated over Wii-like graphics.

ign had an article that actually answered a few of these questions-

"Developers working on the system say that if they were developing a 3DS game that didn't use 3D, they could theoretically use the extra processing power for additional texture passes and more complex object and environment geometry, or even up a framerate from 30 frames per second to 60."

that means the 3DS is capable of looking even better than what we've seen so far, but at the cost of 3D. the real question is how much it matters; of course the 3DS is capable of producing much better 2D shots than the ones we've been seeing, but the benefits of 3D almost certainly outweigh the extra power you'd get by disabling the effect, so it's kind of irrelevant.

"Several developers that have experienced 3DS in its current form have reported, off the record, that it has processing capabilities that exceed the Nintendo Wii, and with 3D shaders they can make games that look close to current generation visuals on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 on the lower resolution screens."

no arguing with that one. it's pretty clear that in most regards the 3DS is miles ahead of the wii. it seems to be lacking polygons and what not, but if the shots we've seen so far are anything to go on, the 3DS has the greater abilities overall.

http://ds.ign.com/articles/109/1094930p1.html

Mario Kart 3DS and Metal Gear Solid 3DS looks pretty close to Wii standards.

As for the Mario Kart 3DS and Mario Kart Wii compairison, Mario Kart 3DS looks cleaner then Mario Kart Wii. Just my two cents.

What I'm really interested in is compairing Super Street Fighter IV for the PS3/360 and the Nintendo 3DS.

Several DS games I know of have a framerate of 60.
Such as Dementium I, and II.

The last time I played Mario Kart Wii i'm pretty sure it wasn't as sharp as it could of been, or maybe there was some sort of blur-like fuzzy coating over the whole thing kind of like Little King's story. But I could be wrong since it's been a while since I've played it. Also alot of Wii Screenshots of games tend to look inferior to how they look in person. You can bet 3DS games will look a tad better in person, and obviously alot more amazing when seeing the 3D technology and all of it in motion

And I wonder if some developers will actually develop NONE 3D 3DS games just to 'use' the extra power it really has. Expect to see some amazing stuff if that's the case.

So far I have to admit that the 3DS looks really gorgeous screen-wise, but I heard reports that the characters and environments in 3DS games look a lot sharper with the 3D effect on, with some even claiming that the graphics were on par with the PlayStation 3! Could you imagine that? Nintendo using Sony's own technology or some illusion of it to gain the upper-hand!

WOO! Go Nintendo! The 3DS is almost as good as finally getting to try some of Peach's delicious cake!

Yeah, no. If you put a 3DS title up on a 1080p TV it wouldn't look as good as a PS3 game, at all.

People forget that the PS3 is a powerhouse because it's designed for really, really huge TVs. The 3DS' chipset is just not capable of matching that. Nor should it - it's a handheld. Why anyone would want to compare 3DS to a TV console baffles me - better off comparing it to the PSP2 if that is ever formally announced.

My point is that people are saying that the 3DS' visuals provide the illusion that they are as good as a PS3's visuals when the 3D effect is on. I myself think that they have been greatly improved over the Wii's graphics, but they're not the same as a PS3's graphics, illusory or otherwise. Nintendo's graphics have their own distinct charm, isolated from every other console manufacturer's machine's graphics in every way. The graphics of PlayStation and Xbox systems are designed for the most part to be realistic, whereas Nintendo's are in a class of their own, designed to be enjoyed in a different way. Nobody wants to play a Mario game in which the star plumber appears as a normal, everyday person with a moustache, red cap and blue overalls - it would destroy the magic and charm that Nintendo put into the game. There's a reason Nintendo is top of the console leaderboard at this point in time, and it's not photo-realistic graphics. It's fun, charming gameplay with gorgeous, imaginative visuals and charming characters with whom everybody can relate.

In conclusion, Nintendo's graphics totally pwn Sony's and Microsoft's by a wide margin! GO NINTENDO!

No, they don't. Both the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 are significantly more powerful graphical tools than the Wii, and 3DS too, for that matter.

You almost seem to be saying it's the console that's creating the "charm" in the graphics. Let me explain this to you - what is inside the Wii has nothing whatsoever to do with "charming" graphics. That's up to the creative decisions a developer makes. There is no reason a Playstation 3 or Xbox 360 game cannot be just as charming visually as a game on a Nintendo console, in fact, the additional power both consoles have would, if anything, make it easier for a developer to do such a thing than on the Wii.

For any number of reasons, the majority (but not all) of PS3/ Xbox 360 games do shoot for visual realism, but again, that's not because the hardware inside either console forces the graphics to be realistic. Its not like if you could somehow chip the PS3 to play Wii games, and stuck Mario into it, the game would suddenly become an R-rated gorefest.

Lets simplify this. Polygon wise the 3DS is a bit weaker than the Wii. Shader wise however it's superior and gives 3DS games a PS3/360-like look to them which is the main reason why everybody is going bananas over the graphics. Yet RE Revelations and MGS Snake Eater look freaking fantastic polygon wise.

All in all it's seems like a very smart and interesting mixed breed of technology

That's the point I'm trying to make!

How can anyone seriously care about the 3DS's processing power? Just look at Kid Icarus. Just look at Resi and MGS. Whatever the exact numbers, it can do that. For announcement games. Which are almost always substantially weaker than games released towards the end of its life when they've learnt to squeeze all the power out of it. The numbers don't matter.

Besides which, it has Paper Mario. Figures be damned.

in 01-02 I worked for Midway before it went downhill, since then off/on in the gaming media, and currently out but my brother is a producer for a branch of THQ so I get little tidbits of info still. I was told to expect this system to be on the level of the Wii in output potential, but obviously sporting the whole 3D thing. But, the twist was that parts of the hardware allow the system to do visual tricks the Wii lacks but 360/PS3 do with shaders, lighting, and a few other little gems which can boost the clarity obviously over Wii in that regard.

Take that as you will and you can choose to or not to believe me on it, but I'd say your worst looking 3DS games should look like the most badass of the PS2 (MGS3 3D demo) releases put to market, and the high end I could only guess considering people haven't been making games on the hardware for a few years yet to learn more little tricks and loopholes.

When you slide the depth slider from off to 3D you'll see a MAMMOTH jump in visual clarity and quality. It's like smoothing all of the jagged edges out completely. I can't wait for people to see it in action on the 3DS. And as fantastic as these games looked in action, you also have to remember that many were early demo versions. As developers figure out how to use this hardware, visuals will get even better.

Like I said once before, to me the 3DS looks like its around the GCN and/or PS2 visually. From what I've seen so far it doesn't even come close to PS3 or whatever, maybe close to the Wii's but I dunno. Rather wait till I'm holding the thing in my hand till I say something, lol.