When you say the Wii U is basically a 360 what is the context? Is data being streamed to the control pad or not?
Wii U Speculation Thread The Third: Casting Dreams in The Castle of Miyamoto
- Thread starter AceBandage
- Start date
When you say the Wii U is basically a 360 what is the context? Is data being streamed to the control pad or not?
All graphic effects are done in real-time by a pre-installed version of photoshop. It's the only explanation.
bgassassin
Member
To be fair you were only attacked because of your approach. The attitude came out first and the attacks followed. Like I've said, I believe you and based on how you feel, I would say again to just wait till you have had time with final hardware.
Could you please respond to my question:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=36321535&postcount=8694
bgassassin
Member
I can answer that as what's been in the kits for awhile hadn't been 1 TFLOP.
Arkam
Member
Yep that bout sums it up. Im not an engineer so i cannot explain the details... they are above me. But look at it this way. The New Ipad has a more modern GPU, more ram and it is much weaker than the Xbox360. New just means more features and Usually more effect. It doesn't mean more "powerful".
AceBandage
Banned
Really?
Shame I have zero interest in the title.
=/
Ok, so you're saying the GPU is weaker? Since that is the only thing I said was "modern".
Again, that flies in the face of everything we've heard.
Yeah possibly. I wasn't wanting to be too specific with a suggestion, but when all the insanity over the circle-pads on the Subscreen was going on I remember thinking "Why don't those people just wait for a 3rd party to make an alternative" but I never posted it and never saw anyone else post that suggestion. The recent meltdown over the Vigil statements sort of reminded me about it for some reason.
Now, depending on price and quality of course, I would probably like an alternative Subscreen with some sticks, black, and more sleeker and stylish than what Nintendo have been showing. I'm not really a fan of white shiny plastic and I don't need my stuff to look so sterile like the audience they seem to be catering too seems to like (Or Nintendo thinks they like).
MadOdorMachine
No additional functions
I'm more curious on what effect use of the controller screen has on performance. For instance if using it means a game is roughly equal to PS3/360 graphics and not using it results in a clear upgrade. If that's the case, Nintendo could allow third parties to opt out of using it all together once the next Xbox/PS4 comes out to be more competitive. That would either mean using the Wii Remote, classic controller or just having the screen be off.
lwilliams3
Member
Since Arkam is posting here now, just a heads up that he posted in that Vigil Wii U thread as well. I thought it was rather assuring.
He is not as pessimistic about the Wii U as it seems, he believes that the Wii U should be powerful enough (or at least has the feature set) handle ports from the other next-gen consoles unless Microsoft and/or Sony will completely go all out, which is probably not likely.
He is not as pessimistic about the Wii U as it seems, he believes that the Wii U should be powerful enough (or at least has the feature set) handle ports from the other next-gen consoles unless Microsoft and/or Sony will completely go all out, which is probably not likely.
herzogzwei1989
Banned
andthebeatgoeson
Junior Member
Wait, did you say it was equivalent to 360 and that accounts for the power of the controller streaming, or that it's just equivalent to 360?
Either way, people get attacked, not because of their info but how they present it. Many have enjoyed reading ideaman's posts but it's a little unnerving. But what does anyone expect on GAF? Critiques on vague info with no concrete sources shouldn't be taken as bashing but seen as a part of modern internet sociology.
Cerebral Assassin
Member
This is the reason people have an issue with what you are saying, it is contradicted by all the reports of extremely easy porting from 360 to Wii U, if it was as problematic as you are painting it to be(i.e it requires a lot of effort), why would those quotes exist?
TheExplodingHead
Banned
It also has to do with power put in practice too, including resources to utilize the tablet. And it's more than possible to have a "more modern GPU" and "better processor" and still be barely more powerful. We see it in PC tech all the time, efficiently/cooling and features also measure into new chips regardless if the end power is roughly the same as older revisions. And considering this is a Nintendo console, I wouldn't be surprised to see it be based on a more feature rich, cooler and more efficient architecture yet still be roughly the same power in practice compared to current gen.
Arkam
Member
Streaming to the controller is relatively free. STREAMING, not rendering. So if you have the same image on both the tv and the controller its easy. But if you want two DIFFERENT 3d scenes, that will be taxing on the console. As the console will have to render two different 3d scenes at once.
bgassassin
Member
Your honesty, for better or worse, has been one of the things I've appreciated about your posts. And while I understand your intent with this post, the Ipad analogy doesn't work here.
I'm with you. We've heard it's comfortable, but we don't know yet how that translates to holding it for two to three hours.
Someone from Nintendo did say after E3 that devs shouldn't feel obligated to use the screen. They could still use the Upad as a normal, motion controller.
Arkam has been fine IMO. He was just overly aggressive at his "introduction" and things went downhill from there.
To be honest I'm quite disappointed about this news as well as the recurring updates in the last couple of months that the console isn't really all that powerful. Rumours of hardware and pricepoints definitely seemed to indicate that the Wii U was going to be a respectable leap (my definition of respectable may be different from others) over the other consoles. I still think that leap could have been facilitated in a ~80W console with a ~$299 pricepoint.
Let me first say this. The Wii U will definitely take advantage over the other consoles with a huge amount of EDRAM (way easier to keep up actual 720p graphics), an amount of RAM that is much less of a bottleneck, likely modern DX11 features, as well as a still-undefined-yet-seemingly-rather-modest raw power boost. Portability is probably not going to be much of an issue either, as Nintendo hopefully won't have the GPU 'underfeatured' as well as 'underpowered'. In this sense, a console that many will consider a 360+ is probably going to cut it for a lot of people, and definitely will not going to be a 'Wii all over again'.
The thing that disappoints me, and the reason I get involved in these hardware discussions, is that Nintendo games were always the cutting edge of what could be done before the Wii was made. With the Wii, Nintendo still made some beautiful games. The Super Mario Galaxies were two of the best games of all time, and both MP3 and Skyward Sword to me rank as some of the best in their series' histories. But I feel all of those games and many other Wii games were held back by hardware that simply couldn't pull off anything (well, barely) we hadn't seen before from Nintendo. The thought of what games we could have had if Nintendo went beyond overclocking a GameCube last generation blows my mind. Now the Wii U will probably be far from the situation the Wii was in but it still pains me to see how Nintendo nowadays seems to be lacking in ambition when it comes to hardware, at least to my tastes. For some time last year we had reason to believe that the Wii U had a GPU somewhat comparable to this and it blows my mind to think what Retro, EAD and Monolith could do with that kind of hardware. I think the Nintendo hardware guys are a limit upon the Nintendo game development teams, which is such a shame because I consider them to be the best game studios in the entire world. Of course Nintendo has valid business reasons for doing so, but I personally always wish that Nintendo's games deserve all the power that is reasonably possible.
That's not to say I'm not excited about the Wii U games. Nintendo will make them awesome if not legendary as always. I just feel they're bottlenecking their awesomeness.
So yeah. I'm curious to see what the final specs are going to be. Nintendo kind of had me excited over the last year, but recent news makes the Wii U seem disappointing in contrast. Although recent rumours seem to be disappointing, combining them all still produces as confused mess so I'm going to hope for some positive surprises this year.
Let me first say this. The Wii U will definitely take advantage over the other consoles with a huge amount of EDRAM (way easier to keep up actual 720p graphics), an amount of RAM that is much less of a bottleneck, likely modern DX11 features, as well as a still-undefined-yet-seemingly-rather-modest raw power boost. Portability is probably not going to be much of an issue either, as Nintendo hopefully won't have the GPU 'underfeatured' as well as 'underpowered'. In this sense, a console that many will consider a 360+ is probably going to cut it for a lot of people, and definitely will not going to be a 'Wii all over again'.
The thing that disappoints me, and the reason I get involved in these hardware discussions, is that Nintendo games were always the cutting edge of what could be done before the Wii was made. With the Wii, Nintendo still made some beautiful games. The Super Mario Galaxies were two of the best games of all time, and both MP3 and Skyward Sword to me rank as some of the best in their series' histories. But I feel all of those games and many other Wii games were held back by hardware that simply couldn't pull off anything (well, barely) we hadn't seen before from Nintendo. The thought of what games we could have had if Nintendo went beyond overclocking a GameCube last generation blows my mind. Now the Wii U will probably be far from the situation the Wii was in but it still pains me to see how Nintendo nowadays seems to be lacking in ambition when it comes to hardware, at least to my tastes. For some time last year we had reason to believe that the Wii U had a GPU somewhat comparable to this and it blows my mind to think what Retro, EAD and Monolith could do with that kind of hardware. I think the Nintendo hardware guys are a limit upon the Nintendo game development teams, which is such a shame because I consider them to be the best game studios in the entire world. Of course Nintendo has valid business reasons for doing so, but I personally always wish that Nintendo's games deserve all the power that is reasonably possible.
That's not to say I'm not excited about the Wii U games. Nintendo will make them awesome if not legendary as always. I just feel they're bottlenecking their awesomeness.
So yeah. I'm curious to see what the final specs are going to be. Nintendo kind of had me excited over the last year, but recent news makes the Wii U seem disappointing in contrast. Although recent rumours seem to be disappointing, combining them all still produces as confused mess so I'm going to hope for some positive surprises this year.
Arkam
Member
As a gamer thats how i feel. I think nintendo will make the console well worth a purchase with their great content and amazing art direction.
As a game maker its just frustrating that nintendo tends to do their own thing that makes putting games on their platform harder than it has to be.
bgassassin
Member
lwilliams3
Member
If you don't mind me asking, are you able to elaborate more on Wii U's additional graphical features? If the Wii U has an efficient way to handle tessellation, for example, it will have a good advantage over the 360/PS3 rather or not it may not be much more powerful.
herzogzwei1989
Banned
Interesting stuff, I cannot wait to see Eagle Vision in action on the Wii U controller.
herzogzwei1989
Banned
Any guesses now as to how many ALUs/Sream Processors will be in the GPU?
Xbox 360 has 48 which translates into roughly something like 240 Stream Processors.
Xbox 360 has 48 which translates into roughly something like 240 Stream Processors.
bgassassin
Member
I think you missed the "not an engineer" part.
Still sticking with the final having between 640 and 800 till they (or whoever leaks it) shows otherwise.
Well if Ideaman is to be believed/deciphered correctly, Wii U can render a screen on the TV that looks a bit better than P60 AND a separate render to the Subscreen that looks as good.
And this is without adding many bells and whistles and optimisations that may be specific to the Wii U.
herzogzwei1989
Banned
If all this 'similar to last gen' stuff it's true, I think the best analogues for the Wii U GPU are going to be Redwoord (400SPUs) and Turks (480SPUs). Both have slightly more TMUs than Xenos and the same amount of ROPs. It could still be what bgassassin has said, although that should be capable of doing more than what Ideaman, Arkham and the Vigil rumour has indicated.
For the record, the Turks in my laptop is capable of running Skyrim (with some framedrop) and ME3 (smoothly with whatever AA they use on PC enabled and 2x AF) in 1080p.
Because underclocked...? I still don't get how Nintendo underclocks a devkit GPU when that does not correlate with their target spec, and the devkit GPU is not based on the retail model (edit: i meant the other way around). What's the use?
At 200Mhz, so its weaker than Xenos, right? Arkam, don't take this as being hostile, but I can't see any plausible scenario in which the Wii U is weaker in any front to the 360. Other than AMD sold, for some reason, a totally horrible GPU to Nintendo.
herzogzwei1989
Banned
Only 8 ROPs would be disappointing, I'm hoping for 16, double that of Xenos and RSX. Yet that (8 ROPs) would explain why most Wii U games are 720p and not 1080p. However, ROPs aren't just good for fillrate & resolution, they add to the rendering power of the machine AFAIK. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.
Christberg
Member
Here's a question for you, would actually like everyone in this thread to chime in if they feel like it:
Bearing in mind that Nintendo's entire existence is video games and they'd be insane to do what MS and Sony did with the last generation (600 dollar consoles with a monster operating loss)
What do YOU think they should be aiming for, cost and performance wise?
Personally the best case scenario I foresee is a .5X generation leapfrog at a $350 price point, and a slight loss(say 40-50 dollars at most.)
Arkam
Member
i hope not! E3 is going to be super exciting! We will get to finally see what Nintendo has in store for us on the WiiU. Luckily ill be there to play it hands on! I have very very high hopes for them on delivering great content for the WiiU. All I can do is smile when thinking about teh next mario. Galaxy 1/2 and 3d land were so damned good!
Nintendo fans the supporting pillars of GAF confirmed
Eh.. we'll be fine. Enjoy the fireworks.. it's all part of the pagentry of a fun-filled Nintendo console launch year.
Much as people reminisce to the time period immediately before the Wii, they'll also look back at this, The Great Nintendo Juicy Information Drought of 2012 (*ducks punch*), and they'll debate what long-term effects can be attributed to how Nintendo handled information releases, rumor-mills, NDAs, etc.
Considering it's an all new chip, I do think that Nintendo will not limit it to 8 ROPs. The ROP count is a bottleneck on the 360 and PS3 already and the tablet screen will be taxing on fillrate as well if it's used for 3D graphics. If AMD's graphics architecture allows it, they could probably go for 12 ROPS. 16 ROPs would already put it in a competely different league when compared to the PS3/360.
There's no way to really tell at this point though. The 32 MB EDRAM does indicate that Nintendo is accommodating the extra pixels this thing has to draw however.
Arkam
Member
Ok bear in mind I have NO KNOWLEDGE of their pricing plan. Most of the people I work with think they are going to bring it in at $249.99 - $299.99. which is why they are not going super aggressive with the hardware. But again that is just our assumption.
herzogzwei1989
Banned
It's just that now we're going to see a new thread for each quote that says if the Wii U is more powerful than the PS3/360 or not.
A war is coming.
Iwata flat out told his investors the console will cost more than $250.00. So expect at least $250.99+
jump_button
Banned
should make a list of them that think it will be a 360
what more sad is it was a mod that started it it just asking to feed the trolls and let them try and put a label on that it not next gen -_- this is 2 xbox duck tape all over
what more sad is it was a mod that started it it just asking to feed the trolls and let them try and put a label on that it not next gen -_- this is 2 xbox duck tape all over
I don't doubt it, but when was this?
bgassassin
Member
First I forgot to respond to a post that mentioned this, but someone said it was an AMD engineer that made the claim, but the person where the info supposedly came from is a marketer.
Second and following up on that, Nintendo apparently never gave an actual target to devs. Just a codename from what I know.
Devs essentially found out on their own what gpu-equivalent was in the kit, and consensus seems to point to something specifically in the RV770 group of the R700 line.
This leaves a couple things IMO on this. Either the final will achieve this "beyond 1 TFLOP" metric and be on a smaller process to keep it cooler, or they may have realized what they wanted wasn't as obtainable as they may have thought and since they never locked themselves into anything "officially" with devs, the comment from the AMD marketer becomes moot.
Seriously, bg ideamanize himself
And i understand him
If he wrote the same sentence without emphasizing on some parts, it would be overlooked by 99% of the readers
Barack Lesnar
Banned
Unless he edited and I missed it, how was that post offensive in any way? Because he said "I told y'all"? that's lacking tact?