Demon Lizardman
Banned
This topic makes me want to punch something.
CPU Wii U just as powerful as PS3, X360, GPU 1,5 times stronger
- Thread starter M°°nblade
- Start date
Yes, I did wonder about this myself. Someone needs to steal one and rip it open, ASAP.
Even if we take Uncharted as an extremely well done game showing there's some room for improvement for other games as well - that's completely missing the point. If you showed modern 3rd party games back in November 2005 people would go nuts. If PS360 remained mainstream hardware in 2019, I don't think we'd see nearly as dramatic improvements as we've seen in the last 7 years.
It might be the case that WiiU launch games severely underutilize WiiU hardware - 3rd parties have no interest in improving their multiplatform games specifically for Nintendo's console, Nintendo themselves aren't interested in games with high production values, at least not initially. In that case we could see some titles after some time that appear to be a tremendous leap as they'd tap entire 1.5GB RAM and other advancements WiiU offers over PS360. But after that I don't expect any dramatic evolution, that's all.
Sho_Nuff82
Member
In light of these startling revelations, I can think of a handful of posters who have been stunningly full of it for the past 6 months. Which is why I make a habit of never listening to internet insiders.
Normal maps convey geometry, flat textures, are well flat. Flat like the ground texture here:
Compare that to a modern game:
on a technical level, the second pic does much more with the ground textures. But artistically, imo the Pikmin shot is nicer. The sharp line between the over detailed ground and the rock on the left side makes the whole screen look bad for me. The transition from the flat ground texture to the rocks and little gras in the background of the Pikmin pic looks much nicer.
edit:
I would like to see if an anonymous source (lets say EA employee as only information) says the WiiU is 5 times PS360, I'm sure everyone would scream bullshit. In my opinion the specs aren't so important, the games are and on that side I have faith in Nintendo.
Gahiggidy
My aunt & uncle run a Mom & Pop store, "The Gamecube Hut", and sold 80k WiiU within minutes of opening.
That... or the Wii U is a finished product and is ready for retail?
Eteric Rice
Member
One thing that is different though, is that engines being made these days are way more flexible than engines from the PS2 era.
The Wii U still might be able to get ports regardless.
Sho_Nuff82
Member
You have to be joking.
Although there will be an appreciable difference, more RAM alone really won't make for a generational leap in graphics or even close to it. Sharper textures aren't a given either: the Wii U needs to have a GPU that can cope with high-res textures better than the 360 too.
What could also make a difference is a larger (32MB) EDRAM die on the GPU. That should lead to much fewer sub-HD games and hopefully some better AA. In addition to that, I really hope Nintendo has had their GPU equipped with a modern tesselator. A 2012 GPU might not possess much more raw power than some 2005 beasts, but it sure as hell should have some more tricks up its sleeve.
shinobi602
Member
No one's talking about opinions of art here. They're talking about tech.
Souldriver
Member
Yes, you might be right about that. I'm by no means an expert on the actual developing of games. I'm just noticing the general trend that's very similar between the Wii and WiiU.
Perhaps, hopefully, there are indeed substantial differences this time that give the WiiU a better chance of life compared to the Wii.
mugurumakensei
Member
There is a substantial difference in WiiU vs Xbox 720 and PS4 as compared to Wii vs 360/PS3. The WiiU GPU has a modern and comparable feature set in the case.
gamergirly
Member
This is a great point. Let's not forget all of the studios that went under or cancelled games trying to plz hardcore gamers. There will be a place for Wii U with PS4 and Xbox720. Also, there are games that just don't appeal to the masses on the other consoles like they did on wii
nope, there are small stones cutted of by the rock, and it doesn't semm so be lying on them. Crysis (this is Crysis, isn't it?) wants to look like photorealism, but this particular unnatural error kills the whole screen for me. I'm not saying Pikmin is superior, but for me it loooks better because everything seems out of a cast.
Of course on a technical level, the flat texture looks far worse, but my point is tech is not everything.
Shinobi602 said:
I know, but is see no reason to point out that although something has superior tech, a screen can look bad to persons.
ecosse_011172
Junior Member
What would be the point in having a machine with 1.5GB RAM that can't handle hi-res textures? Just for less loading?
shinobi602
Member
Do you guys think Nintendo artists are so behind on tech that they just aren't great at using shaders yet? You'd think that a company with so much money for R&D would have the foresight to invest in super powerful workstations and practice these techniques to prepare them for the future.
I get the feeling that they don't know HD development, since they have never had to use it. They will have to learn really quickly or let 3rd Parties do all the graphically impressive games.
You're not serious.
Wii tech was outdated in 2006. Wii U tech probably isn't. It doesn't seem to be very powerful but it should be able to support all features modern engines (and those in the near future) require. The Wii wasn't very powerful and lacked modern features.
Besides, the Wii was less capable than the Xbox in many ways. The Wii U seems to best the 360 and PS3 in all areas. As a Nintendo fan it's frustrating to see Nintendo holding back in this area so much, but at least the situation seems to be somewhat better compared to last generation.
Besides, the Wii was less capable than the Xbox in many ways. The Wii U seems to best the 360 and PS3 in all areas. As a Nintendo fan it's frustrating to see Nintendo holding back in this area so much, but at least the situation seems to be somewhat better compared to last generation.
Sho_Nuff82
Member
People keep saying this, but the "modern and comparable" baseline is always moving. We will have 3 demos by the end of this week - UE4 by Epic, FF Luminous by Square, and Star Wars 1313 by Lucas Arts - that can't be reasonably duplicated on PS3 or 360. If that's the case, it's dangerously naive to believe the Wii U will be up to task for all games going forward.
The fact is that these people, as stated by EDarkness with what he heard from another Ubisoft rep, don't know probably so much about these things. Saying it has x GPU / CPU ( I don't remember now) than both X360 and PS3 is not correct, since they' re different in that contest.
So, we can't take these words as something so "confirmed". Moreover, the sole fact Wii U is built with much more recent components makes obvious this will not be a Wii/PS360 gap situation...if third parties will desire to develop on it.
So, we can't take these words as something so "confirmed". Moreover, the sole fact Wii U is built with much more recent components makes obvious this will not be a Wii/PS360 gap situation...if third parties will desire to develop on it.
Always-honest
Banned
because realism is boring you mean?
Star Wars 1313 is on UE...3.
Heavily modified UE3. Rumours suggest it has features current tech cannot do.
mugurumakensei
Member
Star Wars 1313 uses UE3, and all the shader computations can be replicated on the WiiU given what we know about the GPUs shader model.
Considering that games struggle now to do things, having a system that gives a consistent look is all I care about. That to me is a world of difference how you define generation and how I do especially when it comes to tech is different.
I don't get how someone can use Edram specs but ignore the other specs given that clearly show it has juice in certain areas. If you looked at you wouldn't be hoping about a tesselator or certain other features they have added to to r700 gpu base to make it more modern. The fact that WiiU does SM4 like graphics vs SM3 is a generational difference go ahead and mince words but that's what we know.
The same argument could have been used for the N64. "They don't know how to work in 3D".
I'm personally expecting another pass on graphics for Pikmin. Nintendo published games usually hit polish late for graphics, and I've always seen the final version look better than the E3 version, ever since we've had E3 versions to compare.
Now, Pikmin might not look as good as the system can potentially do, since it was a Wii project that was bumped up. But I'm expecting this to be like first gen 360 games. Nintendo projects that didn't start on Wii will look much better. Compare Mario 64 to Majora's Mask. Same company, worlds apart in usage of the tech.
I'm not saying it can't handle it, just that it isn't a given. Less loading and OS integration seem to tick Nintendo's boxes too so those could be valid reasons.
However, the 360 seems to have a definite memory bottleneck so even if the GPU is the same as the one in the 360 textures could probably still improve with the available memory.
Gahiggidy
My aunt & uncle run a Mom & Pop store, "The Gamecube Hut", and sold 80k WiiU within minutes of opening.
Absolutely, I'm serious. Once the tech advances to leapfrog a game like Watch Dogs, it won't look impressive nor attractive to people anymore. Cartoony, stylized games age much better.
What is more attractive today? Super Mario 64 or Quake?
What is more attractive today? Super Mario 64 or Quake?
Souldriver
Member
That's something that I've said back in 2006 when the Wii launched. Other developers have had 8 years of practice on making better looking games, while Nintendo has stood still for over 10 years in that department. Even if Nintendo is a master of their own hardware, there has to be certain know-how in game development that Nintendo doesn't have compared to the others. It's a competitive advantage being lost by Nintendo.
Sure, it can be done. And and it will run at 5 FPS.
Zelda Wii U tech demo made by EAD 3. And SMG2 looks amazing in Dolphin and uses all kinds of shaders. I think Nintendo will be fine. But of course I don't expect all Nintendo teams to have the same experience with graphics as EAD 3.
Sho_Nuff82
Member
So is Samaritan. You're still talking 1.1 to 2.5 Tflops just to get it to run in HD. It's not going to scale to your iPhone.
Edit: it's Gahiggidy guys, really.
Edit: it's Gahiggidy guys, really.
Opus Angelorum
Member
In the same way Windmaker is still lauded for its art style? I agree.
They did not know how to work in 3D efficiently. Banjo looks way better than Mario64 did, so it usually takes time for the system to progress. Usually it is the Platform holders that throw in some launch titles and its usually the 3rd parties that actually push the machine.
For a launch title, Pikmin 3 looks lovely. Could it look much better? Sure it could but then you have to think about who Nintendo are aiming at. Apart from a few more tweaks, that looks exactly like the product you will buy on launch day.
Zelda Wii U tech demo made by EAD 3. And SMG2 looks amazing in Dolphin and uses all kinds of shaders. I think Nintendo will be fine. But of course I don't expect all Nintendo teams to have the same experience with graphics as EAD 3.
This is part of the reason I wish Nintendo had gone a bit higher, so they can use an Emulator of sorts to improve their Wii games.
As for the Zelda tech demo...WHERE THE HELL WAS THAT THIS E3?!?!
In the past, Iwata, when talking about the Wii, has said it's very important to have a machine that runs cool, quiet and doesn't use up much space. He talked about Japanese homes being small. I think that's still their number one design goal with the Wii U hardware. It had to be small.
The desktop variant of the rumoured WiiU GPU would only be 1.5x Xenos if it was either aggressively under clocked or worse lost huge chunks of silicon. I don't think cost cutting is a factor because we haven't heard of any yield issues with these chips. And they're not exactly state of the art.
Looks like more a case of Nintendo chopping down performance to reduce heat and avoid obtrusive fan noise. The case looks small - I'm willing to bet they had thermal issues and that had an effect on clock speeds.
Personally I don't think form factor matters much for consoles. Once you have it connected to your setup, it's out of sight and you just forget about it. I'm beginning to question Mr Iwata's priorities. There was no shame in using a larger less elegant case.
The desktop variant of the rumoured WiiU GPU would only be 1.5x Xenos if it was either aggressively under clocked or worse lost huge chunks of silicon. I don't think cost cutting is a factor because we haven't heard of any yield issues with these chips. And they're not exactly state of the art.
Looks like more a case of Nintendo chopping down performance to reduce heat and avoid obtrusive fan noise. The case looks small - I'm willing to bet they had thermal issues and that had an effect on clock speeds.
Personally I don't think form factor matters much for consoles. Once you have it connected to your setup, it's out of sight and you just forget about it. I'm beginning to question Mr Iwata's priorities. There was no shame in using a larger less elegant case.
ecosse_011172
Junior Member
It would seem a really dumb imbalance in the system's architecture, I would hope that they know better.
Felix Lighter
Member
How much of the GPU will be dedicated to the tablet? It's hard to take a "this GPU is X times faster that GPU" statement completely seriously but if there is truth to this, I can imagine multiplatform games that take advantage of the tablet will actually run worse than the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions.
Mario 64 looked better than everything else before. The game was ground breaking.
It also had a better frame rate than Banjo!
Early PS3 and 360 games looked like PS2 and Xbox games which is why these early Wii U games look like PS360 titles.
Nah, it's just poor hardware. I'm over it though. Will likely get U for 1st party titles only like their last 2 consoles.
Someone should remake that Dreamcast vs PS2 video. "what a disappointment!
Nah, it's just poor hardware. I'm over it though. Will likely get U for 1st party titles only like their last 2 consoles.
Someone should remake that Dreamcast vs PS2 video. "what a disappointment!
Now we are comparing a launch title with a title way later in the life cycle of the console? Don't all Rare games have major framerate issues?
popsicle_sundays
Member
I really wish the Wii U launched with the PS3 and 360, it's just a little too late now.