Rumor: Wii U final specs
- Thread starter EatChildren
- Start date
blu
Wants the largest console games publisher to avoid Nintendo's platforms.
It's also the most likely scenario. Fragmenting your RAM chip supplies does not affect positively your BOM. Unless that 1GB for apps is some ultra exotic memory, of course (which I bet it is not).
lightchris
Member
At least the 1 GB "game RAM" needs to be faster than DDR3, because it is also used as VRAM for the GPU, and that needs to be fast. The system RAM could be DDR3 of course.
MadeInBeats
Banned
My Windows 7 PC has 2GB RAM and runs fine. And that's Win7 OS. Wii U should be doing some sweet things. Feel sorry for the haters who'll probably have to keep it a secret when they WILL get one ;p
blu
Wants the largest console games publisher to avoid Nintendo's platforms.
The 'VRAM for the GPU' in this case is for texture reads alone.
I Stalk Alone
Member
Isn't the Xbox 360 DDR3? Also, Wii U has the 32 MB Embedded RAM.
This seems like Nintendo being conservative with how much they reserve at launch, perhaps since they have a good deal of time before devs will need to use that RAM for games. You can look at the 3DS for example and see that the amount they reserved for the OS there was chopped in half or so iirc within a few months and devs were given access to that extra amount. Barring some oddity with the RAM itself, like each GB being 2 different types of RAM, it shouldn't be an issue of getting that amount lowered significantly over time I would think.
SolarPowered
Member
Nan, the Gamecube wasn't hampered by the Gamepad like the Wii U is. That thing must cost an arm and a leg to Nintendo. They'd make a hell of a next gen machine for just $300 if it weren't for the tablet.
Edit: Read your last post. I can see how you'd call it a successor now. I guess it would apply when looking at it from that angle.
Terbinator
Member
360 is GDDR3.
lightchris
Member
Well, the pad is the reason for this system really, the rest is kinda extra stuff in their eyes. Also, the 40 watt envelope is still a limiting factor. But if somehow Nintendo only ever designed it to use a traditional controller and upped the thermal envelope to say, 80 watts, which is still extremely reasonable....then you would get something that would really stand up well to the HD twins. I don't give a fuck what they turn out to be.
Whoops forgot the G. Basically, they would both be using the same ram.
Coppertracks
Member
I wonder if developers will be able to 'turn off' the streaming capabilities and use the extra ram for games? Similar to how developers can with the 3DS and 3D.
I believe the 1 GB is for games and everything related to them, including the streaming to the pad.
Terbinator
Member
There's no reason to believe the streaming takes any significant amount of RAM.
Meshes take up a fair amount of space to.
Just because the framebuffer is resolved to eDRAM does not mean you can get lazy with the rest of the RAM.
Combichristoffersen
Combovers don't work when there is no hair
1 GB RAM for the OS? What is it that makes the OS hog so much memory?
Charoncaori
Member
If the system ends up having to render 3 different screens in different areas at the same time... it sounds like devs would have to come up with clever ways around this. Or maybe 1 GB is more than I think it is.
Or would that be the GPU doing most of the work? Argh, nevermind, this is why I don't talk hardware.
No different from split screen on any other system really. Also, I'm willing to bet the VAST majority of games will not display a fully rendered second screen. Either the main focus is the TV or gamepad (with the gamepad being used as a map, inventory etc) and if you have two gamepads then yes, you have to split resources while the TV is used again for arbitrary information.
IrishNinja
Member
simultaneous Friendster/AOL chat support
I Stalk Alone
Member
Which is slower than ddr3.
It would be cool if they used GDDR5 then they can clock the GPU to over 600Mhz
Espresso Tri core clocked at 2.187Ghz (3:1 broadway)
"Enhanced Broadway" similar to PowerPC 476FP architecture.
3MB L2 Cache
core 0: 512 KB
core 1: 2048 KB
core 2: 512 KB
OoOE
5 instructions per cycle
GPGPU
32MB Edram (4x AA 720p or 1080p no AA)
1024 MB Video GDDR5 128bit bus GDDR5 (2GB total)
607.5MHz (2.5:1 Hollywood)
640 ALU
still might be too high for the power draw but I am not sure if iwata meant that the tdp was 75 watts or the power supply is only 75 watts.
blu
Wants the largest console games publisher to avoid Nintendo's platforms.
Ohh, somebody is clueless about the mem ratio of textures/meshes.
Combichristoffersen
Combovers don't work when there is no hair
CambriaRising
Member
No MySpace support?
Geocities only, sorry.
specialguy
Banned
dude you are spreading so much baloney.
Also didn't somebody already get a look at the Wii U PSU? What were the results I had forgot...
Aha found it http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=39306355&postcount=4531
Max draw is 75 watts.
GrotesqueBeauty
Banned
Wow, those features are awesome. And the 10% off on pogs only sweetens the deal!
Articulate the reasons for your opinion. Use numbers. Charts if necessary.
The OS almost certainly doesn't, at least yet. The reason why they've *reserved* so much for it can be found when you look at why the PS3 struggled to do cross-game chat; they had used up all the RAM space allocated to the OS and couldn't take any away from games which would assume that the full RAM pool would be available.. Leaving a buffer space to expand the OS into means that they can add features freely without affecting the memory allocated to games. And maybe, in a few years, once they're comfortable with the OS and don't see it expanding further, they can perhaps free up some of that extra ram for dev usage.
Charoncaori
Member
The Wii U will have a max power draw of 75 watts, and an average of 45, from what the conference said.
Combichristoffersen
Combovers don't work when there is no hair
Damn, that sucks. I'd love to have some sparkly kitten gifs all over the WiiU UI.
blu
Wants the largest console games publisher to avoid Nintendo's platforms.
Erm, bullshit.
300K worth of vertices (as in 10M vert/s @ 30fps), at an average of 42Byes/vertex (pos + normal + tangent + uv) amount to the 'whooping' 12MB of storage, and the 'mindboggling' 420MB/s. That's literally statistical noise in comparison to the texture assets footprint and corresponding BW requirements.
specialguy
Banned
Right well, the 360 Slim's newest brick is rated for 115w but the system pulls 90.
And so on. I think it means WII U's real power cap is 45w.
IrishNinja
Member
you guys act like we won't get firmware patches. tripod's already confirmed, @ to my sources
MadeInBeats
Banned
I was going to ask him to imagine he's sat down with a Cafe in front of him about to start coding his new U game; what's the first RAM related issue you run into?
Combichristoffersen
Combovers don't work when there is no hair
Sweet. Or maybe Nintendo will sell sparkly kitten gifs as premium themes/wallpapers.
Not AFAIK.
Goddamn, this thing is reaching pineapple levels of uselessness!
CambriaRising
Member
No gif support either. Sorry.
Doesn't use a Blu Ray drive, so no.
Charoncaori
Member
Looking at the wii's lack of DVD playback (eventually), the fact that Nintendo hates paying for licenses, and the fact that they're using proprietary discs, doubt it. They haven't said it supports it, either.
Edit: Lol I have to sleep or type faster.
brochiller
Member
Iwata was specifically talking about the amount of power the system can draw though, not what the brick is rated for. I thought he made that pretty clear.
chertipros
Member
1GB is kinda low......
MadeInBeats
Banned
AFAIK it uses a blue laser so it could play Blu-rays, software/licence/codec permitting.
@Blu Won't (as in quite possible) the Wii U's API more than likely offer better texture compression methods and de-compression over the PS360? I remember the Cube was said to have shit-hot on-the-fly decompression.
CambriaRising
Member
Sort of kind of not the same thing, sort of.
Its all wishy washy until someone gets their hands on the thing and takes it apart.
The Wii had slightly over double the amount of RAM that the GC did, yet I can't really think of any games games that provided significantly better quality textures and such.
Will most likely be the case for the Wii-U. :/
Bluemercury
Member
Its 2.
Well, for certain games, I did see quite a bit more detail going on. IMO Sin and Punishment looked boss, Galaxy and Galaxy 2 were boss.
But your fears are founded though...but I think this time around you will see a bigger improvement in textures as so many games see PC ports which already display them...the assets are there.
Its 1 for where it really counts...for games. You can see it as a 1 GB console. I mean, do you really care about the OS mang?
Come on now. You know what he meant.
Teletraan1
Banned
Current gen devs shit out some embarrassing broken ports (PS3 Skyrim) with what amounts to less than 30Mb of difference between PS3 and 360 ram. Having 1.5-2Gb accessible for games would have been nice if this machine is to expect any ports past the first year. Windows 7 on startup only takes around 216Mb. Why does this game console need 1Gb? To run screens? That sounds horribly conceived to allocate half your ram to run a low res screen or 2 and a console OS.
GrotesqueBeauty
Banned
Honestly, in spite of all the debate over the horsepower of the system I am glad Nintendo is making it fairly compact and energy efficient. Hopefully it'll run cool and be quiet as a result. Those sorts of things tend to get overlooked in these hardware discussions, but as a gamer they make a big difference in my day to day use of a system. As much as I like my slim PS3's software library, I've been underwhelmed by the loud drive, cracking noises as the case changes temperature, and overall amount of heat it puts off. Even though the Wii is one of Nintendo's lesser hardware designs imo, it still beats the hell out of the competition when it comes to being quiet and unobtrusive.
blu
Wants the largest console games publisher to avoid Nintendo's platforms.
Perhaps it will. That just means people will start using more textures, not that the average mesh/texture ratio will move toward meshes. Actually, with the wider adoption of displacement mapping the meshes/textures ratio will move further and further into textures territory.