What meltdown exactly?
CPU Wii U just as powerful as PS3, X360, GPU 1,5 times stronger
- Thread starter M°°nblade
- Start date
Death Dealer
Member
being .5 more strong; I think he actually is using the correct english
Although it's obvious what he meant,
".5 more strong" doesn't sound proper. "50 percent stronger" sounds correct.
Price Drop
Member
http://news.punchjump.com/2012/06/08/e3-wii-u-handles-ps3-xbox-360-ports-with-ease/
That it can handle the tail-end lifespan of PS3, Xbox 360 titles is promising. It is a shame that Nintendo didn't demonstrate what the hardware is really capable of, but it's likely that a third-party will do that with an upcoming title - possibly Aliens: Colonial Marines.
That it can handle the tail-end lifespan of PS3, Xbox 360 titles is promising. It is a shame that Nintendo didn't demonstrate what the hardware is really capable of, but it's likely that a third-party will do that with an upcoming title - possibly Aliens: Colonial Marines.
Oppo
Member
I actually think that Patrick Klepek said it best on one of the E3 bombcasts. He mentioned an interview with a Ubisoft developer, who said that the Wii U was indeed more powerful, just "not quite enough to make a big difference". That's really what were talking about here. It has extra horsepower for sure, but it's perhaps not enough for developers to invest the time to squeeze that extra little bit out of it. For ports at least.
Personally I expected stuff to run in 1080p.
Cosmonaut X
Member
I thought that the confirmation was that those were target specs issued along with the first devkits and that they may differ from the final hardware in the V5 devkits that went out recently? Although there were a few comments - one from lherre, IIRC - that indicated some specs were correct (the 32MB framebuffer, I think).
test_account
XP-39C²
Is the "x" factor that what matters the most though? I mean, as you say, the Wii had 88MB RAM and the PS3/Xbox 360 have 512MB RAM. That is a difference of 424MB RAM. But if the PS4/Xbox 720 has twice as much RAM as the WiiU, we can be looking at at least 1GB more RAM. That is alot more than the difference between the Wii and the PS3/Xbox 360.
JoshuaJSlone
Member
Since the games shown at E3 weren't impressive, people are more willing to believe another lowball rumor.
mhayze
Member
Short answer, yes, the "x factor" or ratio of power is what matters. Since we have no idea what the next xbox and playstation will have, hardware-wise, I think speculating on the difference in perceived generational leaps is even further away. But to keep things in perspective, most console generational leaps are by a factor of 10 or more, or an order of magnitude, vs. 2x, 3x, etc. This is because any less than that is not that impressive. If the Wii U is truly only "1.5x" as powerful as a 360 (and I'm not saying that's true), then it should feel like an entire generation old when the next consoles come out - i.e. it will feel as far behind the curve as the Wii did. There's a lot of 'ifs' in there though.
Do you really think MS is willing to wait it out 3 or 4 more years, just because the 360 is selling well now? If anything, the continued selling of the 360 gives them more reason to jump into next-gen, especially to beat Sony to it and reduce the Wii-U's launch advantage.
History repeats itself.
Nothing shocking here.
Too bad Nintendo pissed all their money away.
No. I didn't mean theyre going to wait. I mean that they have no reason to make a super powerful 15x more power console when services are more important to them.
JoshuaJSlone
Member
Well, it would depend on just what a game is doing with that RAM how flexible the situation would be. But the "x" factor is definitely a thing. Consider: the difference between NES and Wii is less than 100 megabytes, for four generations of change. We're not sure yet whether Wii has 1.5 GB or 2 GB of RAM, but that 500 MB difference doesn't mean nearly as much as five times four generations.
I dunno. If Epic is talking up all the UE4 stuff, I don't see MS just going for bare minimum to run it. I feel that they do have a reason to make it more powerful. Nintendo has played their card, Sony is in a strange place right now and MS has a perfect opportunity to make something special.
Will they? No idea! if I did, Pachter would be out of the job.
Looking at the way some of the high end games are going, more powerful tech is needed and Consoles need to provide that. The industry is not suddenly going to jump out of consoles and work just on PC's.
bgassassin
Member
The porting itself shouldn't be an issue, though there are reasons why some may have issues. It's showing that the power is beyond what some want to believe that's going to need more time due to things like optimization and familiarity with hardware. A:CM and NG3 are supposed to be the first steps of that. But whether good or bad future games will improve over them.
If history repeats itself Nintendo will be very happy. Also, pissed their money away?
Glorified G
Member
And who is suggesting they create a super powerful 15x more power console? Where is this notion coming where they have to break the bank and put in ridiculous specs in order to create a full generational leap?
test_account
XP-39C²
But surely you can fit more stuff into i.e 1GB more RAM compared to 424MB of RAM? (this is just an example of one thing though, but assuming that there is a similar situation with the CPU and GPU as well). Going from 1 to 2 is a 100%, or a 2x, increase, but so is going from 1 million to 2 million, yet the latter is a huge increase compared to going from 1 to 2.
Or going from 1 to 10 is a 10x increase, yet the 1 million to 2 million increase is still a lot more huge even if it is "just" a 2x increase. Once the numbers get higher, it will be much harder to maintain a higher X factor. That is one reason why i wonder if the X factor isnt that important anymore.
PC gaming in general is saying that. If it cannot match a $500+ GPU, then its old tech.
I'd like to know two things from the techheads (like wsippel). Do you -really- think ps4/720 games will be easily portable? Or will it be an expensive hassle?
And do you think with the tech in Wii U Nintendo is making a huge profit per console sold? As in, is Nintendo using very crappy cheap parts to make profit, or do we get decent tech for a decent price? (which is likely 250-300)
And do you think with the tech in Wii U Nintendo is making a huge profit per console sold? As in, is Nintendo using very crappy cheap parts to make profit, or do we get decent tech for a decent price? (which is likely 250-300)
Nobody will be able to say for sure until those consoles actually exist. It's pure speculation if sony and MS go for an arms race again or if they follow the Nintendo strategy of a reasonable jump up and call it a day
Glorified G
Member
Not sure if your being sarcastic. The rsx was based off an 18 month gpu when the ps3 was released.
Partially sarcastic.
The reason most people want a significant jump in console tech is so the gap between Console's and PC's narrows more. More and more games, especially at E3, get shown off on PC's first, so its understandable that Console gamers want to get closer to that ideal without the trappings linked to PC's.
test_account
XP-39C²
To be fair, there were probably much talk about the hardware stuff in the early PS3 and Xbox 360 days as well, so i think things can easly get mixed up.
"Off the shelf" means any stuff that is already made. In this case, a "off the shelf GPU" would be buying a GPU that is already completely designed. This is usually much cheaper than having to buy and pay for a custom made GPU.
Dictator93
Member
Partially sarcastic.
The reason most people want a significant jump in console tech is so the gap between Console's and PC's narrows more. More and more games, especially at E3, get shown off on PC's first, so its understandable that Console gamers want to get closer to that ideal without the trappings linked to PC's.
I am so confused about these PC trappings, perhaps because I am an elitist.
bgassassin
Member
We need to know more about Wii U's GPU. The power should be fine, but if it's not DX11-equivalent then it can pose problems.
It's possible that Nintendo is setting the price based not only on hardware/manufacturing, but on covering other operating costs tied in with Wii U. Something like this seems to have been done with Wii and it had an estimated operating profit of $6 per console. After all they don't provide other services that can bring in money to give them extra freedom like Sony and MS are able to do.
Ninja Moomin
Banned
the spec issue would go away if the first party games looked compelling.... but they don't, in the least.
Drinky Crow
Banned
the gpu supports a directx 10.1 feature set.
According to Forbes, the Wii was making $6 per console at launch. Take that as you will.
Banned Drinky Crow said:
With the addition of compute shaders, hence the most significant aspect of SM5.0 -right?
bgassassin
Member
He's also not giving enough information and seems to be focusing on one part of the target specs. Though I do believe he has access to the dev kit.
Drinky Crow
Banned
the delusion in this thread is strong.
at the start of the next generation, there may be some room for facile comparison between a few above-average wii u offerings and mid-development up-ports to the durango/ps4, just as many 360/ps3 games looked like upscaled ps2/xbox offerings in the early days.
however, as time passes, and as sdks, processes, patterns, and tools are refined, the wii u will get grossly outpaced for not just visuals, but by technical implementation and execution overall -- meaning fewer and fewer credible downports. it will be a relic by the time the proper next-gen machines hit their stride.
hardware-wise, it is essentially a 360+ -- the cpu is a family up from the 360's ppc (but same architecture), and the gpu is from a later iteration of the amd r-series architecture that spawned xenos. both cpu and gpu are low-power consumption parts. i don't know the PRECISE model of the gpu in the wii u since it has some minor alterations to the die at nintendo's behest, but i SUSPECT it is between the 4670M and the 4850M. that is a good "1.5x" the perf of xenos. (always assume nintendo's cheapass-ness.)
at the END of the wii u's life, presuming it lives as long as the 360, it will have what amounts to more polished 360 visuals -- in 2017/2018.
at the start of the next generation, there may be some room for facile comparison between a few above-average wii u offerings and mid-development up-ports to the durango/ps4, just as many 360/ps3 games looked like upscaled ps2/xbox offerings in the early days.
however, as time passes, and as sdks, processes, patterns, and tools are refined, the wii u will get grossly outpaced for not just visuals, but by technical implementation and execution overall -- meaning fewer and fewer credible downports. it will be a relic by the time the proper next-gen machines hit their stride.
hardware-wise, it is essentially a 360+ -- the cpu is a family up from the 360's ppc (but same architecture), and the gpu is from a later iteration of the amd r-series architecture that spawned xenos. both cpu and gpu are low-power consumption parts. i don't know the PRECISE model of the gpu in the wii u since it has some minor alterations to the die at nintendo's behest, but i SUSPECT it is between the 4670M and the 4850M. that is a good "1.5x" the perf of xenos. (always assume nintendo's cheapass-ness.)
at the END of the wii u's life, presuming it lives as long as the 360, it will have what amounts to more polished 360 visuals -- in 2017/2018.
Aizu_Itsuko
Member
There's no sudden pessimism.
Those specs are old and they lack some much needed basic details (not even clockspeeds).
There's some regular pessimism though due to the actual software shown so far and all the other details about the machine.
Drinky, you know as well as others that ports are the responsibility of the publisher. If the market isn't htere for them, there won't be any. If there is, then the publisher will make it happen. There is a similar gulf between hardware required to make Witcher 2 look amazing on my PC at maximum setting (and BF3 and others) and yet there are ports for consoles that are orders of magnitude weaker. Why? Because there is a flourishing market there to support most of these ports. The pubs/devs made it happen. Whether that happens for Wii U has yet to be seen.
I personally doubt it will happen, but it's not like it's completely impossible. Even from Microsoft's console.
Thunder Monkey
Banned
Sounds good to me.
If I want to see realtime GI and intricate tessellation techniques I'm sure there will be other hardware out there capable.
By 2018 we'll all be gaming in the Cloud with our Wii U Gamepads.
When will they hit their stride? 3 years into their cycle? Which is 4 years after the Wii U is released, minimum. So maybe 1 year before Wii Everyone comes out.
Using your reasoning I won't be worrying.
Eteric Rice
Member
I suppose this is possible. Engines these days are pretty flexible.
But Nintendo had better make good use of it's year head start.
Thunder Monkey
Banned
If NSMBWU still has appeal they could very easily have 15-20 million owners before either system from Sony or MS has a firm launch date.
Drinky Crow
Banned
*shrug*. the wii was a gamecube+. you aren't going to REALLY see what the next gen of hardware is capable of until next year, and i KNOW you're going to be surprised. the new aaa ips for the next-gen are NOT going to be designed with the wii u architecture in mind.
It's so hard to predict. With the right marketing the tablet controller could be such a huge hit. Or not.
Thunder Monkey
Banned
Right now I don't see the differences being that stark on pure output.
Development side though? Differences could be quite huge. "Next-gen" lighting systems alone could severely limit WiiU output.
I doubt poly counts are going to change much (still have limitations on polygons per pixel). Texture limitations shouldn't be that stark. Currently at least we seem to be running under the assumption that the WiiU and PS4 won't have massive RAM differences.
So precision of effects and variety of them will definitely swing in those other two consoles favor.
I don't know man. To those in the know the differences might be stark, but overall I don't see how it amounts to any more than "The same, but better."
Aside from the lighting changes of course.
Both the Wiimote and Upad are worthless chunks of plastic without the software to prove their worth.
NSMBWii was one of the largest successes of the generation. If that appeal for more 2Dish multiplayer Mario platforming is still there the platform could sail to early success based on that alone.
Why would I be surprised? I game on all kinds of devices, including a high end PC. I know what "next gen consoles" are already because I already have a hardware-superior device to play games on.
Ignorance is bliss, apparently.
Drinky Crow
Banned
i can't think of a single current pc game that isn't DESIGNED with much lower-end hardware in mind than what your performance pc can ACTUALLY do. (in fact, the baseline playable spec for most pc games is probably very similar to a wii u). most current games are designed with a DX9 feature set and pipeline in mind.
Thunder Monkey
Banned
I think aside from some overlap by the harder of the Nintendo core, there isn't much overlap between the two platforms. That might change with WiiU, but I doubt it.
Besides if CoD launching yearly hasn't caused franchise fatigue I doubt two separate Mario platformers launching on two separate platforms can cause it. Given how long between each it's been.
Yeah, Wii U one has 4 player multiplayer, better art direction (from what we've seen), and the cool tablet stuff (which i'll barely get to use, but still). I mean, I'll get NSMB2 eventually because I love handheld gaming, but it'll be a while.
There are lots of PC games that are PC games, and to top it all off the fact that you need orders of magnitude more powerful hardware to max many of them out (even some console ports) should tell you more than "poor optimization". And the Wii U's SM4.1/SM5.0 puts it in a favourable position *IF* a publisher decides it wants content on there.
As I said, I'm a pessimist so I don't expect it based on demographics and all that jazz. But that's a different story.
Drinky Crow
Banned
ha ha, it's sm4.1.
bigtroyjon
Member
lol, Nintendo won't even have made 15-20 million WiiU's before the next consoles have launch dates.
Apparently.