Wii U Speculation Thread of Brains Beware: Wii U Re-Unveiling At E3 2012

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768MBs of EDRAM in the same die as the CPU? Is that even possible? I know fast RAM is awesome, but this is one of those instances where it sounds insane. If this is true, it's no wonder devs got PS360 games playable with little effort on it without any optimizations: the system is almost impervious to code which doesn't optimize CPU cache usage.
 
Anybody here forum-old enough to remember the early rumored "Revolution specs"? My instinct on Nintendo hardware these days is to bet low priced and conservative. The Ram will be 1GB or under, won't be on the CPU die and isn't going to be a exotic/strange architecture. I fully expect to see a souped up 360 performance-wise. But a ethernet port needs to happen as well as changes to the controller button/triggers/sticks imo.
 
TheExplodingHead said:
Anybody here forum-old enough to remember the early rumored "Revolution specs"? My instinct on Nintendo hardware these days is to bet low priced and conservative. The Ram will be 1GB or under, won't be on the CPU die and isn't going to be a exotic/strange architecture. I fully expect to see a souped up 360 performance-wise. But a ethernet port needs to happen as well as changes to the controller button/triggers/sticks imo.
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It needs a fucking optical audio output, for god sake -__________-
 
THE:MILKMAN said:
Just for a laugh, does anyone here know the estimated size the chip would be with 768MB eDRAM?
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At 45nm and using IBM's 1Mb edram macros, at 0.239mm^2 /macro, that'd be 1468.416mm^2. Sans the CPU. For the 768MB version. For reference, an 8-core, 32MB-edram power7 @45nm is 567mm^2.
 
768MB of Ram sounds totally Nintendo-esque. The embedded part is weird but there's someone around these parts who knew where the chip was made(India) and was convinced that it was a SOC.
 
blu said:
At 45nm and using IBM's 1Mb edram macros, at 0.239mm^2 /macro, that'd be 1468.416mm^2. Sans the CPU. For the 768MB version. For reference, an 8-core, 32MB-edram power7 @45nm is 567mm^2.
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Oh shit! the first CPU to be measured in square inches.

Thanks for doing the math :)
 
Does Nintendo have any patents for this ram type? I know they messed around with Mosys and that 1T-SRAM stuff so it wouldn't surprise me if they went for exotic RAM again but 768MB embedded DRAM sounds impossible.
 
FreeMufasa said:
I'v got a feeling this system is going to be terribly underpowered. In between the 360 and PS3.
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Nintendo would have to go out of their way to make such a thing happen, and I doubt that very much. this sounds some crazy arse RAM that Nintendo & IBM have designed together. I mean, why else would they by "testing" the 1GB version....
 
FreeMufasa said:
I'v got a feeling this system is going to be terribly underpowered. In between the 360 and PS3.
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There's really not much room in the middle, their both dead even for 90% of things. But the lack of a dedicated HDD could hurt the Wii U in more ways than one. That said, expect it to at the very least to outperform the 360/PS3 at most tasks, for most types of stuff. Nintendo would have to try really hard to make it less powerful, clutch those pennies tight.

What I'm interested in is how much of a footprint the OS/features will take up, and if Nintendo will allow dev's to demand a HDD.
 
Complete bullshit.

Was a tricore/quadcore PPE (like Xenos) in the original dev kits? More than likely.
The final silicon will be some derivative of Power 7, unless IBM was lying.

And it certainly won't have a 1 gig of embedded dram. That's ludicrous.
 
guek said:
Alright blu, you're a programmer, correct? That's kind of what I was thinking too...
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Sorry, missed it the first time. Yes, I'm a programmer, but you don't need one to tell you such a chip would be fantastical (as in a fairy tale). That said, IBM do have plans for gigabyte-range edram volumes once they switch to 3D litho. So, perhaps next-next gen ; )
 
So you got the CPU and GPU sharing up to a 1 GB of edram.

Does Nintendo still add main memory for the GPU, like 500MB?
Or is this designed in a way that main memory is not needed?
 
blu said:
Sorry, missed it the first time. Yes, I'm a programmer, but you don't need one to tell you such a chip would be fantastical (as in a fairy tale). That said, IBM do have plans for gigabyte-range edram volumes once they switch to 3D litho. So, perhaps next-next gen ; )
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Maybe Nintendo wants to introduce us to that good shit now! :O
 
no way you fit 1GB ram on the same single die as a quad core CPU. Just no way. Either its bullshit or perhaps a bad translation
 
This was probably posted before, but maybe now it has more meaning...

In a press release last fall, IBM said its “…embedded DRAM technology provides the most dense on-chip dynamic memory available today, enabling more than 1Gb of memory on a single chip. IBM eDRAM performance has advanced to a point where it can replace conventional on-chip static memory (SRAM) in many applications, taking up 60% less space on the chip, and consuming up to 90% less power.”
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What gets me is that this whole time IBM has been making a big deal about the WiiU using its edram. Maybe they were trying to point to the fact *wink wink, nudge nudge* it was using ALOT of it.
 
MDX said:
This was probably posted before, but maybe now it has more meaning...



What gets me is that this whole time IBM has been making a big deal about the WiiU using its edram. Maybe they were trying to point to the fact *wink wink, nudge nudge* it was using ALOT of it.
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There was that rumor around E3 that said the Wii U was going to have a "ton" of eDRAM, so maybe this is what they were talking about. When they said a ton nobody thought they meant this much though.
 
MDX said:
This was probably posted before, but maybe now it has more meaning...

In a press release last fall, IBM said its “…embedded DRAM technology provides the most dense on-chip dynamic memory available today, enabling more than 1Gb of memory on a single chip. IBM eDRAM performance has advanced to a point where it can replace conventional on-chip static memory (SRAM) in many applications, taking up 60% less space on the chip, and consuming up to 90% less power.”

What gets me is that this whole time IBM has been making a big deal about the WiiU using its edram. Maybe they were trying to point to the fact *wink wink, nudge nudge* it was using ALOT of it.
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And back to the E3 IBM statements: "The all-new, Power-based microprocessor will pack some of IBM's most advanced technology into an energy-saving silicon package that will power Nintendo's brand new entertainment experience for consumers worldwide. IBM's unique embedded DRAM, for example, is capable of feeding the multi-core processor large chunks of data to make for a smooth entertainment experience." (Thanks Nintex)

Seems logical to me... crazy, but logical considering the parallels.
 
If I were Nintendo, I'd really try to put some effort into the non-gaming functions of the controller, in a way that they have never done before.

Apparantly most tablets are being used in front of televisions. There's a perfect opportunity to capture that space if they put a decent browser + app store on it.

I know this doesn't sound like Nintendo... but it wouldn't be rocket science, and would do them a lot of good in promoting this to non-hardcore gamers. It would actually be a path back into the "family/blue ocean" space: the permanent living room tablet. Something to fiddle with while you watch TV.

I really wish it were capacitive multitouch, though...
 
FreeMufasa said:
I'v got a feeling this system is going to be terribly underpowered. In between the 360 and PS3.
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We've already had the Darksider II devs, and others say the system is more powerful than the PS360, so I'm not quite sure why you would think that.

bgassassin said:
Like I mentioned in the other thread. Those specs don't even lineup with the leaked Project Cafe specs from April.
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Didn't the spec sheet from E3 even say 3 core IBM processor etc etc. That alone should debunk these. Though maybe I'm remembering wrong.
 
Shin Johnpv said:
Didn't the spec sheet from E3 even say 3 core IBM processor etc etc. That alone should debunk these. Though maybe I'm remembering wrong.
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The original Cafe leak said it was a tri-core and the lherre said it was a tri-core with two thread per core.

Another problem with the rumor is that it gives an actual clock speed. Both lherre and the article about working on two Upads confirmed Nintendo has not decided on clock speeds. And lherre said the clock speeds weren't even given to them.
 
BurntPork said:
I've got a feeling that this was confirmed not to be the case like 50 times and that this post will turn out to be a hit and run...
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Na. The revo was confirmed to be 3x the Gamecube. We even had publishers saying they were very satisfied with the specs and Ubisoft said it was far beyond the OG Xbox. Still didn't stop the Wii from being GC 1.3.

I want it to be beyond but my gut feeling tells me Nintendo just want those 360/PS3 ports and that level will be enough.
 
FreeMufasa said:
Na. The revo was confirmed to be 3x the Gamecube. We even had publishers saying they were very satisfied with the specs and Ubisoft said it was far beyond the OG Xbox. Still didn't stop the Wii from being GC 1.3.

I want it to be beyond but my gut feeling tells me Nintendo just want those 360/PS3 ports and that level will be enough.
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Shin Johnpv said:
We've already had the Darksider II devs, and others say the system is more powerful than the PS360, so I'm not quite sure why you would think that.
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Not to mention that the Zelda demo, and the bird demo confirm that as well.
 
royalan said:
Can the techies help get me up to speed on the RAM thing? What does this mean?

Because it seems like 768mb is a lot lower than 1 - 1.5Gb even the pessimistic people were guessing at...but is dram faster or something? is it better that it's embedded?
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Sorry I didn't see this sooner. If this were to believed, then they seem to be talking about 768 megabits of eDRAM (96MB) while those of us saying 1-1.5 gigabytes are talking about system memory. If it had that much eDRAM, we wouldn't be having debates about Wii U's power vs PS360. With it being shared you could have an amount that gives a very nice sized buffer (beyond what we know now), while allowing the CPU to further reduce it's need for the slower system memory.
 
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