How big is the power gap between Wii U and PS3/360?

I'm not very familiar with WiiU yet, but judging by how well Mario Kart runs and how gorgeous it looks, I'm led to believe that the gap is on par with my initial toughts.

PS4/One graphics may not be possible, but a more polished 720p experience alongside with Nintendo's IPs is what I've been expectin when they announced the WiiU and its specs.
 
I don't think the CPU is such a big problem, the WiiU is a more modern machine (GPU with better libraries, better shaders etc), that's where its advantages lie.
Also having more ram helps quite a bit.
 
I dont have exact numbers, but my dev-buddy had a piece of code that was at best 7 and at worst 20 times slower on WiiU compared to PS4. With the PS4 being about two times as slow as a regular i5. Didnt hear him about perfomance compared to PS3/X360.
 
Art said:
Another game that's not 60fps.
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Art said:
Yes, because comparing games with 30fps or lower to 60fps games is silly. Wii U manages to have better looking games than PS360 and with 60fps on top of that, that's not a small difference to my eyes.
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And if I may it's also silly to not consider the resolution and the hardware the game is running on.
720p 60fps is an argument to say Wii U is more powerful than 360 and PS3 (you don't say?), but it's completely pointless to determine how much.
A couple of examples: GoW3 has an average of 45fps IIRC and incredible visual, Wipeout is 60fps with dynamic resolution and great visual, GT6 is 720p/50fps avg or 1080p 30fps avg, dynamic weather and light, tons of great vfx, impressive visual and so on.
720p 60fps means very little in 2014 with recent hardwares and "low complexity" games. It definitely says it's more powerful than 360 and PS3 (again, who says the opposite?) but the question remains: how much?
I'll have my answer with X and Zelda, so far I just say it's in the middle between PS3 and One, whatever this means.
 
ShinUltramanJ said:
I'm just finding it amusing how tactics have changed. Talk fps all you want, but it's not something U owners were bringing up a year ago when defending the system.
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Okay? I don't see how this is relevant to anything, to me framerates are important and that was the same a year ago, so I will certainly talk about framerates.
 
Jaded Alyx said:
Maybe they are annoyed because they expect much more from much more powerful machines than the PS3?
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It's completely logical to have higher standards and want 1080p by the stronger hardware but it's downright hypocrisy when after less than a year your eyes are apparently bleeding by sub-1080p content. And I'm sure that you've seen such comments on the various resolution centric threads.
 
mario_O said:
Games look better on the WiiU if they're not CPU intensive, I think it was Batman that performed pretty bad on the WiiU and if I don't remember incorrectly they were other third- party games that performed worse than on the PS360.
It's also good to remember that we are comparing the WiiU to 10 year old hardware. 'nuff said.
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There are ways to trade CPU performance for GPU performance and vice versa. Most 360/PS3 titles are CPU bound because their CPUs are so beefy compared to their GPUs, which is why ports to the Wii U have suffered.
 
Kurt said:
No game of ps3 or xbox 360 came close to : [pics]

However if we looking it at a global scale, both 3 next gen consoles did not blow me away with next gen gfx. The gap between the wii and wii u is large. but the gap between xbox 360 and ps3 to xbox one and ps4 is verry small.
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I have to agree with you, but this was expected. And I have to say that the next gen consoles will be more based on RAM than graphics, only to show more particles and more accurate physics
 
Shinta said:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiRvRnDHWT4

Just watching this for a few minutes, and it looks good. But I honestly think Bayonetta 2 has a very good shot at being a lot more impressive. And it is 60fps.

http://platinumgames.com/2014/02/14/bayonetta-2-coming-to-wii-u-in-2014/

The 2nd video on this page shows it in 60fps so you can see how smooth it is. It'll look better on the TV of course.
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That looks brilliant.

I guess the art style in God of War allows for different kinds of detail and lighting to shine through that aren't prevalent on Bayonetta. However the framerate jump is important as you pointed out.
 
Art said:
Okay? I don't see how this is relevant to anything, to me framerates are important and that was the same a year ago, so I will certainly talk about framerates.
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Lets use a 60fps game then

cod: ghosts wiiu 880 x 720
cod: ghosts xbox one 720p
cod: ghosts ps4 1080p
 
Carn82 said:
I dont have exact numbers, but my dev-buddy had a piece of code that was at best 7 and at worst 20 times slower on WiiU compared to PS4. With the PS4 being about two times as slow as a regular i5. Didnt hear him about perfomance compared to PS3/X360.
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Between 7 and 20 times, that is a good illustration of how much optimization matters.
 
DevilFox said:
And if I may it's also silly to not consider the resolution and the hardware the game is running on.
720p 60fps is an argument to say Wii U is more powerful than 360 and PS3 (you don't say?), but it's completely pointless to determine how much.
A couple of examples: GoW3 has an average of 45fps IIRC and incredible visual, Wipeout is 60fps with dynamic resolution and great visual, GT6 is 720p/50fps avg or 1080p 30fps avg, dynamic weather and light, tons of great vfx, impressive visual and so on.
720p 60fps means very little in 2014 with recent hardwares and "low complexity" games. It definitely says it's more powerful than 360 and PS3 (again, who says the opposite?) but the question remains: how much?
I'll have my answer with X and Zelda, so far I just say it's in the middle between PS3 and One, whatever this means.
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There have always been people claiming it's on the same level as PS360, which is completely false.

InFamousRaiden said:
before Mario 3D World that's what WiiU had buddy.

Just because it now has Mario Kart/Zelda Remake/Donkey Kong the Wii U was collecting dust in people's home and warehouses across countries.
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Dust collecting has nothing to do with the topic at hand though.
 
I'll tell you this. No techie stuff and whatnot, just observations as a multiplatform gamer.
The difference between PS360 and WiiU (not ports) is bigger than the difference between WiiU and PS4/X1, especially X1.
Take it as you want.
 
I'll just leave this here ..

099lvAc.gif


Now tell me the 360 or the PS3 can do that. Heck, even the PS4 would melt trying to run that.
 
Zee-Row said:
Looking at Zelda for Wii U , it just looks so beautiful and to me beyond what the PS3 and 360 can do. I also think that a game like Smash Bros Wii U wouldn't run on the PS3 and 360 without framerate issues.

I remember people on here saying that the Wii U has more RAM than the PS3 and 360 but its clocked much slower that it doesn't really help it as much, but was that really true now with the games we see coming out for the Wii U?
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You haven't seen in yet. Wait for the final game to be shown.

With that said, WiiU should be a little more capable, but as a system is does way less than both ps360...
 
InFamousRaiden said:
before Mario 3D World that's what WiiU had buddy.

Just because it now has Mario Kart/Zelda Remake/Donkey Kong the Wii U was collecting dust in people's home and warehouses across countries.
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Before 3DW, Wii U had Nintendo Land, NSMBU/NSLU, Lego City Undercover, Game & Wario, Wii Fit U, Sonic: Lost World, Rayman Legends, Wii Party U, The Wonderful 101, and Pikmin 3. None of those are ports.
 
artist said:
I'll just leave this here ..

099lvAc.gif


Now tell me the 360 or the PS3 can do that. Heck, even the PS4 would melt trying to run that.
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The grass moves in response to the explosions later on too. And the shadows on the grass seem to change because of the clouds. And we know he'll be able to cut it all like always. It's definitely very impressive.
 
Lernaean said:
I'll tell you this. No techie stuff and whatnot, just observations as a multiplatform gamer.
The difference between PS360 and WiiU (not ports) is bigger than the difference between WiiU and PS4/X1, especially X1.
Take it as you want.
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I don't think I agree with that, tbh.
 
artist said:
I'll just leave this here ..

099lvAc.gif


Now tell me the 360 or the PS3 can do that. Heck, even the PS4 would melt trying to run that.
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Please don't open up a new can of worms. It's an impressive game yes but to say the most powerful of the 3 current gen consoles couldn't run it makes no sense.
 
lightchris said:
Not a good comparison imo. First, Bayonetta is "60 fps" on 360 too, but it drops below that quite frequently. We should just wait for the release and analysis of Bayonetta(2) for Wii U to see if it's better. Second, Bayonetta 1 is probably ported to a much more recent version of their engine which might handle things more efficiently (or even allow for better lighting).
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Yeah, I was just joking around.
 
Kurt said:
Something that was good back then doesn't mean that it aged well

[IM]http://ps3media.ign.com/ps3/image/article/938/938834/god-of-war-iii-20081216005632383.jpg[/IMG]

It's clearly not that good anymore. Nintendo has superior lightning besides that it could run games in 1080p or (even) in 60fps.

There is a reason why bayonetta port is 60fps instead of 30fps.
Let me be clear that this is a port, not a remake. So it would only be better if this wat develop from the beginning like bayonetta 2 (which is by far better).

It's better to compare next gen games with wii u. I'm talking about multiplatform games.
(we know that xbox one & ps4 are a lot better in specs, but i like to see this visually)
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As pointed out already, that was a very early build of GoW3. This is what the final game ended up looking like

god-of-war-iii-hades-leub7.jpg


god-of-war-iii-201003bxuix.jpg


god-of-war-3-gdc-screcuuya.jpg


1aouab.jpg
 
Art said:
I don't recall stating that the Wii U is more powerful than the PS4 and Xbone, I'm fully aware of the fact that they are more powerful.
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Ah sorry read your comment and the one before wrong, just its hard to compare framerate when wiiu got the older ps3/360 engines for cod and fifa.

For the Zelda pic above, really should check out Dragon Age Inquisition or Witcher 3
 
artist said:
I'll just leave this here ..

099lvAc.gif


Now tell me the 360 or the PS3 can do that. Heck, even the PS4 would melt trying to run that.
Click to expand...

Is this supposed to be a bait post, a drive-by troll post or is it just another awful post? because I'm sure that you can do better than that.
 
Art said:
Another game that's not 60fps.
Click to expand...

As compared to what? It's kinda annoying looking through this thread how many people are reaching for arguments whenever somebody says "Wii U has not impressed me morr than PS3"

And in case you were refering to Mario Kart 8, it's 59fps not 60, I'm not even making that up lol.


As for my own take in all of this... I'm glad to have both a PS4 and a Wii U but i cannot deny that Wii U has yet to impress me on the technical raw specs side. I was not impressed by the technical side of the Zelda U reveal trailer but I do think it looks quite good but if there is anything Nintendo is doing wrong with graphics then it's the atrocious use of "Bloom" fx. They seriously shoot themselves in the foot everytime.

I ended up not getting WWHD in favor of playing the original on GC instead because what they have done woth the bloom makes it look worse IMO. It's not glowing like it's the rays of the sun that blinds you vision, instead it looks like some sort of venomous gas that's entangling its way around the edge of every visible substance. It looks sickening and the same problem is found a couple of places in MK8, SM3DW and Nintendo Land.

Fix that, have proper use of motion blur and Nintendo might impress me.
 
artist said:
Heck, even the PS4 would melt trying to run that.
Click to expand...

Dude, that opens a whole new argument that you really don't want to get involved in. Because you will lose.

The WiiU is more powerful than the 360/PS3, and not by an insignificant margin, but it is absolutely nowhere near the other two current gen consoles.

EDIT: Oh, a meme. Okay then.
 
Whenever someone posts that pic of Zelda U as if it speaks for itself as to why Wii U has impressive graphics i can't stop cringing. Look at Skyrim for PS3 or 360. Zelda U has the exact same limitations. Look at those barren hills in the distance for instance. They have no grass on them because the render distance for foilage is about as short as it was in Skyrim. I think it looks slightly better than Skyrim because the art style simplifies details and it looks prettier, but that's about it. I can't deny that if this was developed for a PS3 it would probably just get a slight downgrade.
 
nephilimdj said:
Ah sorry read your comment and the one before wrong, just its hard to compare framerate when wiiu got the older ps3/360 engines for cod and fifa.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I'm just saying it's more powerful than PS360, I'm not bonkers =P.

Asbear said:
As compared to what? It's kinda annoying looking through this thread how many people are reaching for arguments whenever somebody says "Wii U has not impressed me morr than PS3"

And in case you were refering to Mario Kart 8, it's 59fps not 60, I'm not even making that up lol.
Click to expand...

As opposed to the games they are mentioning. It's not reaching, people are posting gifs of Puppeteer and have been comparing Sonic Transformed to MK8, but they completely disregard resolution and framerate.

And that's a glitch with the CPU that will hopefully be patched, it's still 60fps online/without cpus.
 
Well... as expected this thread turned sour quick.

What we know is, that 3rd party ports at launch (the platform has since barely got those anymore so it's hard to compare at this point) were made in many cases by small teams on a budget/clock and still they managed to perform comparably (some worse, few better) as the other consoles (which were lead platform) but the WiiU versions had V-sync on. So devs with 7 years of experience on the lead development consoles had comparable results as small port teams on unknown and largely undocumented hardware at launch, with zero experience. Knowing how much games can improve from a platform over its lifecycle, one should expect Wii U to be more potent. The problem is, 3rd party devs aren't making games for it anymore, so they won't be honing their skills either. All we can do is see what first party games look like in 3 years.
 
Shinta said:
The grass moves in response to the explosions later on too. And the shadows on the grass seem to change because of the clouds. And we know he'll be able to cut it all like always. It's definitely very impressive.
Click to expand...

fwiw we don't know that we'll be able to cut it, I think most just assume that because it's a Zelda game
 
Mario Kart 8 and DK:TF could not have been possible on last gen hardware.

Wii U is without a doubt the most powerful of the three - and by a decent margin.
 
(Thinks: Do I jump into this one?) Oh, what the hey.

I spent way too much time looking into this issue leading up to and after the release of the CPU and GPU die shots. In essence, what some have already said are true:

CPU is 3 Wii CPU cores with alot more cache. There is other easily accessible for those really interested, so I'll just leave it at that. Easier to use than Xbox 360 CPU and Cell but less peak performance. Devs got quite good at working around the PS3/360 CPU weaknesses last gen as well.

RAM is twice as much (accessible) but slower. It has eDRAM as well, kind of like Xenos in the 360 and it seems to have similar bandwidth to the GPU (32 GB/s), but no high speed connection to the ROPs (units used for many things including anti-aliasing, which reduces jaggies).

GPU is a more modern architecture, but not as modern as some people think. It is based on the Radeon HD4000 series, but Nintendo's custom tools make for some differences. There is no indication of significant tweaks to the shader architecture. It has 160 shaders vs Xenos' 240, and with architecture and clockspeed difs that adds up to 176 GFLOPS vs Xenos' 216 GFLOPS (theoretical).

Audio DSP is the same as in Wii at around ~120 Mhz. ARM security processor is also the same as in Wii (ARM926 something).

I think that covers the major points...
 
Feindflug said:
Is this supposed to be a bait post, a drive-by troll post or is it just another awful post? because I'm sure that you can do better than that.
Click to expand...
It is a sarcastic post if you didnt get the last bit about the melting part.

I just find it funny that people use screenshot of a certain game to prove that there is either a gap or no gap or the Wii U is much better. It's just like an opinion and hardly scientific.
 
Asbear said:
Whenever someone posts that pic of Zelda U as if it speaks for itself as to why Wii U has impressive graphics i can't stop cringing. Look at Skyrim for PS3 or 360. Zelda U has the exact same limitations. Look at those barren hills in the distance for instance. They have no grass on them because the render distance for foilage is about as short as it was in Skyrim. I think it looks slightly better than Skyrim because the art style simplifies details and it looks prettier, but that's about it. I can't deny that if this was developed for a PS3 it would probably just get a slight downgrade.
Click to expand...

What's the excuse for Xenoblade Chronicles X then?
 
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