jarrod said:
Why does everyone assume DS will have "bad" sound? Isn't the 33 MHz ARM7 with 16 sound channels going to be fairly robust for handheld audio? Pana 'splain?
I do not think it will have bad sound at all. Considering what they did on the GBA with a relatively bad sound interface and a 16.7 MHz ARM7 split between game logic, graphics (some developers used Software rendered sprites in addition to the 128 HW Sprites) and sound I think the 33 MHz ARM7 in the DS should do quite well.
I do not know if the CPU can be dinamically allocated: WiFi at full bandwidth and Touch-screen management can be a bit hard on the CPU as they would interrupt it moment in and moment out.
If developers decide not to use WiFi in a game for example and do not use the touch screen then the CPU will have quiote a bit of horse-power.
Even if using WiFi and the touch-screen the CPU is left with only the power that the average GBA game left its CPU, still the DS will sound better IMHO.
Why ?
The cart is much bigger, the main RAM of the DS is bigger: the space in the ROM was a big limitation IMHO for graphics, sound and music on the GBA as developers wanted to save money and went for the smallest cart available.