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[Donnie]

Poor article IMO. They're totally ignoring the I/O controller and DSP which will assist the CPU with certain task that take at least a couple of full threads on 360.

Also some clearly hyperbolic comments in there (the Ipad comment which is complete nonsense).

Its good at least to see some more confirmation of the GPUs feature set being more in line with DX11. Though not sure what they're getting at with the DX9 performance though, what exactly is DX9 performance? lol

 

[I Stalk Alone]

There was an unconfirmed rumor that I read on B3D that the CPU was essentially three Wii CPU cores - how well does this rumor gel with that?

Three Wii's taped together? lol

"After the next generation of machines comes out, Wii U will be a performance orphan," one industry insider who is familiar with the specs of the new Nintendo console, told Kotaku. "It will be closer in performance to the next iPad than the next-gen machines. "

Wii 19 GFLOPS (cpu+gpu)
iPad 3 is 64GFLOPS (cpu+gpu) total
iPad 4 will be 128GFLOPS

xbox 360 is around 356GFLOPS (cpu+gpu)
PS3 is around 416GFLOPS (cpu+gpu)

WiiU supposed to be at least 2x current gen 712-832 GFLOPS (cpu+gpu)? and at $299-$349

I guess WiiU will be closer to performance of iPad4 if you look at the ps4 being over 2TFLOPS in performance

I still think Wii-U will be more powerful than 2x current gen but we will see in a few months. Even 4x more raw performance than current gen will still make them profit at $349 but I don't know if Nintendo will go for that, as $299 is such a good price now. in this economic climate. I would hope they can squeeze 3x the power and be only 30-50% the power of next gen MS sand sony systems so that porting will be a lot easier and less jarring visually.

They're totally ignoring the I/O controller and DSP which will assist the CPU with certain task that take at least a couple of full threads on 360.

Also some clearly hyperbolic comments in there ones at that (the Ipad comment which is complete nonsense).

However is good to see some more confirmation of the GPUs feature set being more in line with DX11. Though not sure what they're getting at with the DX9 performance though, what exactly is DX9 performance? lol

Maybe they meant in GLOPS as in the most powerful DX9 only cards at the time which would be the 3870 (single gpu) at 496GLOPS 55nm. Combine that with a CPU in the 200GFLOP range and add the I/O controller and DSP and you have 2X current gen right there. node shrink that down to 32nm and add something like a DX11 feature set and the engineers may squeeze out 3x current gen in the end.

 

[CorrisD]

Except that isn't what the article is saying, at all...

Seems like that is what they are saying to me.

The WiiU is going to end up in the same position the Wii is now, whether it will have the sales the Wii does is another matter.

The Wii was more powerful than last gen but not up to par with PS3/360, and now they have done the same again with the WiiU. it is going to be generally more powerful than the 360/PS3 but just like the Wii was left behind the WiiU will also be ignored by the majority of 3rd parties whose games are aimed a more core audience willing to pick up the titles they put out on more powerful platforms.

 

[test_account]

A couple people(or rather insiders) have posted similar numbers on gaf and b3d I believe. Although I think he is exaggerating the WiiU numbers a bit, since the range is supposed to be like 600-800 or something iirc.

The latter he's based on vague statements from a few GAF posters who claim to have insider knowledge. The former he pulled out of his ass. Both are equally unreliable and in no way contradict the plethora of evidence/statements, including the OP of this thread, which suggests the Wii U will be closer to the 360/PS3/2005

Thanks for the info. I guess we wont know for sure before the actual systems are out.

 

[Coen]

Mario is starting to lose relevance, so I don't see Nintendo surviving without 3rd party in the coming generation. Hardware power is extremely important for gaming consoles, as already shown in the current generation. It's a well known fact that the first thing most customers ask is what kind of a GPU is installed.

Bravo

 

[theBishop]

Lots of would-be Jeff_Ribgys in this thread...

 

[Anth0ny]

Mario is starting to lose relevance, so I don't see Nintendo surviving without 3rd party in the coming generation. Hardware power is extremely important for gaming consoles, as already shown in the current generation. It's a well known fact that the first thing most customers ask is what kind of a GPU is installed.

haha well done

 

[nordique]

This is the opposite of the truth. Chips are soldered on the board to save money. It's cheaper and easier to print them right to the board than to expose sockets.

Your other bit about DDR5 is closer to the mark, and to that I say: We're talking about consoles launching over a year from now.

Over a year from now, that have been in development for 3+ years and already are deep enough into certain parts of development that they can't exactly go back and change intricate parts of motherboard design unless they are willing to spend tens of millions of dollars.


DCKing is right (as it relates to console development)

 

[Oblivion]

Most people here probably knew about it, but this is the first I'm hearing that the Wii-U's CPU is somehow possibly weaker than the 360's.

 

[Always-honest]

This seems what we thought.

I'm fine with this, cause it wil ensure first party games will be incredible. On the other hand, after 2014, Nintendo is fucked when it comes to third party support.

 

[theBishop]

Over a year from now, that have been in development for 3+ years and already are deep enough into certain parts of development that they can't exactly go back and change intricate parts of motherboard design unless they are willing to spend tens of millions of dollars.

DCKing is right.

Quantity of ram is not a huge engineering concern. Those chips are small, require relatively little wattage and generate relatively little heat. CPU and GPU are the big design concerns. Everything else pales in comparison.

Microsoft famously doubled 360's ram late in development on Epic's insistence.

DCKing has an agenda. And so do I, but I'm still right.

 

[theBishop]

Most people here probably knew about it, but this is the first I'm hearing that the Wii-U's CPU is somehow possibly weaker than the 360's.

Do we know if WiiU's CPU is tri-core or quad-core? If it's tri-core and only one thread per core, then performance is likely lower than 360. If it's quad-core and one thread per core, there are tradeoffs and specifics about how the code is structured will make the difference.

 

[tim.mbp]

What have they done so far that gives you such confidence in it rocketing out the gate? Their E3 showing didn't really excite people like it should've. They had a chance to put the third party worries to rest and instead they made people worry even more about what the third party support will look like on the Wii U.

I think their lanch lineup has a pretty good chance of appealing to a wide range of consumers. I know "core" gamers weren't too impressed, but 2D Mario, Wii Fit, Just Dance, and Nintendo Land, should be appealing to a lot of households.

 

[schuelma]

I think their lanch lineup has a pretty good chance of appealing to a wide range of consumers. I know "core" gamers weren't too impressed, but 2D Mario, Wii Fit, Just Dance, and Nintendo Land, should be appealing to a lot of households.

It will do fine at launch. Just like with NSMB Wii, most of gaf is substituting their own taste for that of the larger public.

 

[Lonely1]

Actually, I'm at this point 95% sure this will not be the case. And all rumours point to the same conclusion. What are you basing your statement on?

Closer in an exponential growth space, farther in a linear one.

 

[Gahiggidy]

Is it possible the rumored fixed functions such as lighting are on the CPU and not the GPU?

 

[lunchwithyuzo]

Microsoft famously doubled 360's ram late in development on Epic's insistence.

Uh, define "late". The change happened before 3rd party kits even went out, it happened immediately after Epic got their first hands on, and they were evently the first company outside Microsoft to do so.

 

[LeleSocho]

Next gen will be really nice looking with hella choppy framerate?

just like this gen.

 

[theBishop]

Uh, define "late". The change happened before 3rd party kits even went out, it happened immediately after Epic got their first hands on, and they were evently the first company outside Microsoft to do so.

late = comparable in development to where-ever we are right now.

 

[KageMaru]

One... Wii U is being released in 2012 and the 720/PS4 in 2013, a one year gap, while the previous hardware was released 6-7 years ago.


Two... bgassassin's assessment.

One...lol you can not go by the release dates of the consoles to determine how performance compares to the competition.

Two... No knock against bgassassin, but we don't know who his source is, what's the source for his source, etc.

Gahiggidy is right, at least in terms of the Durango.

800 gigaflops (Wii) vesus 1.0 teraflops (Durango).

lol just no.

 

[Oblivion]

Do we know if WiiU's CPU is tri-core or quad-core? If it's tri-core and only one thread per core, then performance is likely lower than 360. If it's quad-core and one thread per core, there are tradeoffs and specifics about how the code is structured will make the difference.

All the rumors I've read so far are pretty much unanimous on it being tri-core.

 

[Fess]

As for "Killzone-level detail", while I'm sure the hardware is capable of such performance I'm skeptical that Nintendo will attempt it any time soon.

Retro Studios, if given the opportunity, is probably capable of surpassing Killzone visually, but I'll take 60fps over details anytime so personally I hope they keep on doing what they do best.

Uncharted on the other hand, I honestly think it'll take a new Naughty Dog game on PS4 before Uncharted and Last of Us are surpassed by next gen.

 

[lunchwithyuzo]

late = comparable in development to where-ever we are right now.

Looking at the timelines, I think we're already past that point (ie: we're less than 18 months from launch).

 

[Lonely1]

Do we know if WiiU's CPU is tri-core or quad-core? If it's tri-core and only one thread per core, then performance is likely lower than 360. If it's quad-core and one thread per core, there are tradeoffs and specifics about how the code is structured will make the difference.

Performance isn't as cut-and-dry as you make it out to be.

One...lol you can not go by the release dates of the consoles to determine how performance compares to the competition.

Two... No knock against bgassassin, but we don't know who his source is, what's the source for his source, etc.



lol just no.

Share your info plz.

 

[TAS]

I love it when "efficient" enters the technical discussions on GAF. Unless you're talking about power-efficiency, what the hell could you possibly be talking about

Woah..easy there tiger! Who pissed in your Frosted Flakes? The original Xbox had almost 3 times more RAM and a superior CPU and GPU. Yet GameCube produced visuals that could stand toe to toe with MS' best offerings. How do you suppose that was accomplished? Magic fairy dust? The system was incredibly efficient and they were able to squeeze every last drop out of it--that's how. WiiU will be the same because Nintendo is very methodical when it comes to hardware design. And I find it utterly hilarious that you insult my intelligence when you don't know diddly squat about me. Consequently, it makes you look like an idiot.

 

[Plinko]

That's what some people have been saying since the very first "next-gen" speculation threads. And now it seems like MS will ship a system with tons of DDR3 memory. I wonder what's "ludicrous" now.

Hey genius--I'm talking about him bringing up the laptop RAM argument which is, YES, ludicrous. Nobody said RAM wasn't important, it is just that you can't compare laptop RAM and console for a multitude of reasons as DCKing pointed out.

 

[Neo C.]

We'll see how it works out. Consoles are always compromises, and Nintendo has its fair share of bottlenecked consoles. The Gamecube had possibly the smartest design, but personally I like the SNES, DS and the Wii the most. I'm excited to see if Nintendo makes the right bet.

But honestly, I think the innard of the console doesn't matter as much as the time schedule, pricing and software (output) strategy. If the Wii U can't capitalize the headstart, things are going to be ugly.
On the bright side, the conservative approach also means the next Nintendo console after Wii U could be released in 2017/18 if the plan doesn't work out.

 

[Gahiggidy]

One...lol you can not go by the release dates of the consoles to determine how performance compares to the competition.

Two... No knock against bgassassin, but we don't know who his source is, what's the source for his source, etc.



lol just no.

bgassassin's source is himself. We just play along so as to not draw attention from lurking ninjas.

 

[Boss Man]

I can't believe how many people seem to think Star Wars 1313 and Watch Dogs are the epitome of what we can expect next gen.

 

[Plinko]

I can't believe how many people seem to think Star Wars 1313 and Watch Dogs are the epitome of what we can expect next gen.

I'm surprised at that as well considering it's not that impressive to begin with. I don't find the Star Wars demo much more impressive than Uncharted 3.

 

[jimi_dini]

Mario is starting to lose relevance, so I don't see Nintendo surviving without 3rd party in the coming generation. Hardware power is extremely important for gaming consoles, as already shown in the current generation. It's a well known fact that the first thing most customers ask is what kind of a GPU is installed.

True, we saw that the last few generations. The console with the most power wins every time. I don't understand why Nintendo doesn't get this fact. We also need many more shooters on the market. Those mario games just don't sell anymore. Nintendo is really doomed, they should create shooters and dump all those irrelevant games like Mario, Zelda, Pikmin, etc. They should create a Smash Brothers Warfare series.

They also need to put more RAM in. 2GB is so 2005. They should go with at least 16GB. Because customers also ask about the RAM amount before buying. Desktop computers come with that amount, so should all those consoles, because RAM is RAM. And don't anyone tell me about techno-babble DDR. I know DDR, I played it on PS2. Last time I was at a Gamestop, a mother came in and asked how much RAM the Wii got inside. And when she was told, that it was just a tiny 88MB, she went with a 360 instead.

 

[Forsaken82]

late = comparable in development to where-ever we are right now.

Pretty sure that change was around a year in advance(late 04) rather than 6 months out.

 

[HeySeuss]

Wasn't the GPU designed to handle things that normally put a lot of strain on the CPU? I thought I read that the sound and lighting engines were offloaded to the GPU so a gimped CPU wouldn't be a huge deal once developers got the optimizations down.

Is that not the case anymore or is it just conveniently left out in these discussions so we can just post "lol Nintendo"?

 

[AndrewDean84xX]

I can't believe how many people seem to think Star Wars 1313 and Watch Dogs are the epitome of what we can expect next gen.

Some people were wowed at the 360 launch as well. We have come a ways from there.

 

[fabricated backlash]

Still, it was pretty obvious to anyone that even threw a cursory glance at the case design.

Yet the new Ipad will appearantly tie with the WiiU with passive cooling according to this.

This article, while pretty much solidifying what most speculations provided allready, goes to quite some conclusions that are just outlandish.

 

[MrCunningham]

The CPU bottleneck makes no sense. When's the last time a Nintendo console was bottlenecked by a single component? When?

The SNES was bottlenecked by a slow CPU. Though this was somewhat rectified by including various coprocessors in the cartridges, like the DSP chips, SA1, Super FX chip and such.

The N64 was Bottlenecked by various RAM limitations, as far as I know.

3DS CPU was underclocked, as some has mentioned. In order to keep battery life up.

That's three. But maybe there's others I am forgetting too?

 

[lunchwithyuzo]

Pretty sure that change was around a year in advance(late 04) rather than 6 months out.

Way earlier than that. 3rd parties had kits starting around mid 04, and the change happened earlier.

 

[Lonely1]

The SNES was bottlenecked by a slow CPU. Though this was somewhat rectified by including various coprocessors in the cartridges, like the DSP chips, SA1, Super FX chip and such.

The N64 was Bottlenecked by various RAM limitations, as far as I know.

3DS CPU was underclocked, as some has mentioned. In order to keep battery life up.

That's three. But maybe there's others I am forgetting too?

The Cube by it's lunch box handle.

 

[Mithos]

Wasn't the GPU designed to handle things that normally put a lot of strain on the CPU? I thought I read that the sound and lighting engines were offloaded to the GPU so a gimped CPU wouldn't be a huge deal once developers got the optimizations down.

Poor article IMO. They're totally ignoring the I/O controller and DSP which will assist the CPU with certain task that take at least a couple of full threads on 360.

Yes, and MORE then that, as Donnie pointed out.

 

[richiek]

The SNES was bottlenecked by a slow CPU. Though this was somewhat rectified by including various coprocessors in the cartridges, like the DSP chips, SA1, Super FX chip and such.

Yeah, I remember Genesis advocates touting that their console had the faster CPU compared to the SNES, hence the "Blast Processing" marketing campaign.

Lots of early SNES titles suffered from slowdown when too many sprites appeared onscreen.

 

[Instro]

Most people here probably knew about it, but this is the first I'm hearing that the Wii-U's CPU is somehow possibly weaker than the 360's.

Well not weaker than the 360, but the issues about the raw power of the cpu have been floating around for some time now, but we didn't really find out why until recently. The problem appears to be Nintendo going lower on the cpu because the system is designed for GPGPU. Essentially certain types of code are significantly more efficient when run through the GPU instead of CPU(Physics maybe? I'm not quite sure), thus freeing up the CPU to do other things. However, no current multiplats are built for GPGPU capabilities and it requires major engine reworking to do so. It will be a standard design in next gen consoles, but not so much right now. This also explains the comments about it being harder to develop for, and why some devs are not porting their current games. More recently Nintendo allegedly have bumped the cpu clock speeds up a bit to deal with these issues, but who knows.

As donnie mentioned the DSP for audio alone should free up a lot of extra cpu power as well, but who knows if that is being taken advantage of either.

 

[Haint]

Some people were wowed at the 360 launch as well. We have come a ways from there.

Kameo and PDZ were damn amazing in 2005. Some aspects (notably parallax mapping) are still unsurpassed on consoles IMO.

 

[Durante]

Hey genius--I'm talking about him bringing up the laptop RAM argument which is, YES, ludicrous. Nobody said RAM wasn't important, it is just that you can't compare laptop RAM and console for a multitude of reasons as DCKing pointed out.

You can't compare DDR3 to consoles when one of the upcoming consoles will likely ship with DDR3? Interesting.

Really, bringing up mythical "laptop ram" or "console ram" helps no one. Why can't we just talk in exact terms. For all 3 of them, it's either DDR3, GDDR5 or a mixture of those, with XDR and FCRAM in the "out-there but somewhat possible" group.

 

[Plinko]

You can't compare DDR3 to consoles when one of the upcoming consoles will likely ship with DDR3? Interesting.

Really, bringing up mythical "console ram" helps no one. Why can't we just talk in exact terms. It's either DDR3, GDDR5 or a mixture of those, with XDR and FCRAM in the "out-there but somewhat possible" group.

I think we're not arguing the same thing here.

TheBishop brought up laptop RAM, which most uninformed people do when thinking cost is the only matter for putting RAM in console, which it isn't.

 

[DCKing]

This is the opposite of the truth. Chips are soldered on the board to save money. It's cheaper and easier to print them right to the board than to expose sockets.

I never claimed the opposite. It's just that the costs of an entire mainboard with 8 memory chips soldered on versus one with 12 soldered on is a pretty big difference. Memory sockets would be more complex/expensive/etc. still.

DCKing has an agenda.

Please tell me more about the agenda I have and how I am professing it.

 

[Durante]

I think we're not arguing the same thing here.

TheBishop brought up laptop RAM, which most uninformed people do when thinking cost is the only matter for putting RAM in console, which it isn't.

What I'm saying is that "laptop ram" these days is DDR3. Durango is rumored to run at least partially on DDR3. So it's not so straightforward to dismiss its relevance when discussing consoles as some may have previously claimed.

By the way, does anyone know the current maximum per-chip bandwidth for DDR3?

 

[AlStrong]

Microsoft famously doubled 360's ram late in development on Epic's insistence.

Well, it was "easy" because they actually designed the motherboard so they could reuse it for the devkit. Note how the devkits still had 512MB (8x512Mbit) until 1Gbit chips showed up 4-5 years later.

 

[BruceLeeRoy]

Not surprising but not really a big deal imo either.

I really feel this generation of consoles will see Nintendo firmly in 3rd place, which is ironic since I imagine I will play the Wii-U far more than I have my Wii.

 

[Plinko]

What I'm saying is that "laptop ram" these days is DDR3. Durango is rumored to run at least partially on DDR3. So it's not so straightforward to dismiss its relevance when discussing consoles as some may have previously claimed.

And what I'm saying is that putting RAM in a laptop isn't the same thing as putting RAM in a console, as DCKing hinted at above.

 

[RPG_Fanatic]

Only third party I care about is from Japan. I have a PC for western games.

This is exactly how I feel as well.