Several developers have assured IGN64 that the Dolphin graphics hardware will have on board T&L, otherwise known as transformation and lighting effects. This may be a serious advantage for Nintendo as Sony's Playstaion 2 does not have this feature on hardware but has to calculate these effects via the systems main processor, whereas on the other hand with the Dolphin, the processor would be free to handle things like game physics more efficiently. By having all the features that most developers today are looking for Nintendo is right on track with making the Dolphin a very attractive system to develop for.

"Quite simply, T&L is the best feature that you can add to a graphics accelerator. Developers are setting new standards for physics and procedural animation, for this you need CPU bandwidth and a lot of polys. Offloading geometry to the accelerator allows you to draw smoother, more detailed meshes in addition to leaving more CPU bandwidth to spend on physics and game play." -- David Wu, 3D programmer, Pseudo Interactive