Rumor: Wii U final specs
- Thread starter EatChildren
- Start date
lightchris
Member
Sounds like one hell of a waste to reserve 1 GB entirely for system. Even if it's slower, it can still be useful for games. I hope that later in the lifecycle some of it will be accessible for developers.
MrCunningham
Member
1GB is hefty for a game console OS, I was expecting it to half that at most. But it is nice to see Nintendo not cheap out on the RAM pool.
Nintendo offering two SKU's is an interesting departure for them. This is the first time they have ever done that for a home console.
A GPGPU? I guess this will make up for whatever shortfalls the CPU will have. Interesting... is this the SNES all over again?
But it's the same if you only have 1 gb to "play". I mean it doesn't matter at all. The os memory doesn't change anything.
well, i spilled the beans for yah months ago
Granted, i doubted my own source when they said "1GB for OS" so i added the "at least 512mb" to secure the thing. But they were reliable all along !http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=38580503&postcount=531
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=41676271&postcount=3426
It's pretty sure some of this ram will be unlocked down the road.
see lherre ? you doubted me when i repeated you in private that the wii u will have 2GB total since february
bgassassin
Member
I still feel that it's Nintendo overcompensating. They'll reduce it over time.
The Abominable Snowman
Member
The CPU itself, no.
Considering Nintendo overcharges for nearly every DD game and rarely if not never gives discounts this 10% means nothing.
I would wager that you will see the OS pool shrink overtime. I would expect it not to drop below 512mb though. Nintendo is very intent on Multitasking.
nordique
Member
DonMigs85
Member
Well remember that even the lowly Radeon 5450 can do GPGPU stuff. Not a huge deal unless there's enough stream processors.
Gamer @ Heart
Member
Not in the numbers game obviously but overall capability.
nordique
Member
yes....if what i think you mean is how it also explains why PS3/360 port jobs may be running into trouble, and points in the same direction as PS4/720 architecture
Some people owe you some apologies for all the heat you took over the GPGPU thing.
Also, that OS better be amazing. Hopefully they can optimize a little with an update and cut that back.
Xane
Member
But DAT BLACK!
I bought NSMB2 for the same price as retail on the 3DS. If they keep a steady supply of digital releases of retail titles going that 10% off can quickly make up for the extra 50 dollars.
bgassassin
Member
Hush you! You're not telling me what I didn't already know.
well, i spilled the beans for yah months ago
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=38580503&postcount=531
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=41676271&postcount=3426
It's pretty sure some of this ram will be unlocked down the road.
I'll give you 55% of the credit and 45% to the other person I asked since he didn't say it as a definite.
SolidSnakex
Member
I don't really see myself buying any retail games online. I prefer to have the physical games unless i'm getting really steep discount (like a Steam-type discount). 10% really won't mean much for the digital-only games, and that's all i'd use them on.
It would be very very nice if they free up another half gig down the road. That would be huge.
They're playing it safe. Reserving too much RAM early on is no big deal, reserving too little will lead to problems down the road.
Graphics Horse
Member
Maybe it's secretly using Vista or something.
But yeah freeing up more RAM like Sony did sounds possible.
bgassassin
Member
no actual info confirmed
Haha.
Nah. We have confirmation on at least some of this stuff (probably the best Nintendo will say publicly), so now we can move on from that. Time to go to bed and try to see what games they show!
GPGPU = surprising and good news.
This means that the GPU can be used to perform certain calculations normally left to the CPU. Since GPUs are insanely optimised to perform certain calculations much faster than a CPU, many programs will benefit from using the GPU instead of the CPU for these calculations. This means faster calculations for certain tasks, which takes away some strain from the CPU.
It'll be up to developers to add support for this though, which may explain why some current engines are struggling with ports. The engines are probably not optimised for GPGPUs.
This means that the GPU can be used to perform certain calculations normally left to the CPU. Since GPUs are insanely optimised to perform certain calculations much faster than a CPU, many programs will benefit from using the GPU instead of the CPU for these calculations. This means faster calculations for certain tasks, which takes away some strain from the CPU.
It'll be up to developers to add support for this though, which may explain why some current engines are struggling with ports. The engines are probably not optimised for GPGPUs.
Always-honest
Banned
that would be nice if possible.
I guess I'm just cheap, but even for games that I get at retail at or near launch, I almost always get at least 20+% off, if not more.
I mean, it's very common to get $60 games at or near launch for $40 either through a straight discount or some gift card promo now. Buying a digital copy of a game for $54 doesn't sound enticing to me at all.
Eteric Rice
Member
Wonder why they never released the specs of the GPGPU?
Wonder if this means it will be able to get next gen ports, since it might have a similar architecture?
Wonder if this means it will be able to get next gen ports, since it might have a similar architecture?
CaptNfantasy
Banned
I like you.
lightchris
Member
Why should it be surprising? Any DX10 compliant chip can do that.
nordique
Member
well, i spilled the beans for yah months ago
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=38580503&postcount=531
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=41676271&postcount=3426
It's pretty sure some of this ram will be unlocked down the road.
see lherre ? you doubted me when i repeated you in private that the wii u will have 2GB total since february
So you knew all along, eh
IdeaMan, one thing I will say, is you ended up being right on a lot of things. It took a while, but I think people who doubted you before can eat some crow
There were like 10 pages of doubters after revealing all this RAM story in february (it was my second leak), "noooo, why the OS will take that much, blablabla"
Man, even lherre doubted me when i insisted that it will be 2GB total.
It's a real good news and confirmation, i'm sure games will have more than 1GB for them now, down the road.
nordique
Member
Exactly that. And as we get a clearer picture of the other two next gen consoles, we can see they seem to be following a similar path with more emphasis on GPGPU functionality...looks to be the architecture of next gen, and I bet once those two systems come out and get some games going, we will see games easier to port to Wii U than they seem to be from 360/ps3 for that reason, even if raw power-wsie there is a gap
It might be surprising to some, because when the idea of the GPU being a GPGPU was originally brought up, it was shot down....you know, the whole "well its Nintendo" straw-man argument
Its a different architecture inherently than what the 360 and PS3 have, so it is simply a confirmation of what many of us have been thinking has played a role in difficulty porting ps3/360 games over
The Abominable Snowman
Member
I wouldnt hold out hope for a huge number of compute units. theyre pretty power hungry themselves
Pimpbaa
Member
This sounds like a very useful feature. Like being able to use the web browser to get hints and stuff while you play.
It's huge? It was a given.
Pretty much any gpu architecture they were going to pick would be gpgpu capable. It's not a magic elixir wrt technically competing with the other consoles...heck, vita is gpgpu capable iirc.
Nintendo reduced the footprint of the 3DS OS so that developers could use some of the extra CPU, so it's possible.
Metal Gear?!
Member
That's still more RAM than an iPhone, and as much as the new iPad!
It'll have a much, much better chance than the Wii did, if nothing else.
gamergirly
Member
Kudos to Ideamon mon mon and bg!
There were like 10 pages of doubters after revealing all this RAM story in february (it was my second leak), "noooo, why the OS will take that much, blablabla"
Man, even lherre doubted me when i insisted that it will be 2GB total.
It's a real good news and confirmation, i'm sure games will have more than 1GB for them now, down the road.
Yep, but I'm only interested in "game memory" not os memory
There were like 10 pages of doubters after revealing all this RAM story in february (it was my second leak), "noooo, why the OS will take that much, blablabla"
Man, even lherre doubted me when i insisted that it will be 2GB total.
It's a real good news and confirmation, i'm sure games will have more than 1GB for them now, down the road.
I think that's because the dev kit probably had 3 GB ram max and they probably knew the OS took up at least 512 MB. Since devs probably didn't have to play with the OS much, they increased it to 1 GB and that wasn't reflected in the devkits (which would have to feature 4 GB).
Yep, but I'm only interested in "game memory" not os memory
It's pretty sure they will have more for games down the road
But when ? ^^
I Stalk Alone
Member
The feature set of Miiverse and Nintendo Network is constantly evolving and will do so for the next couple of years so even though this ram will eventually be freed up with maybe more than half of it eventually being used for games, it will probably not be evident in games for a couple of years.
What is good to hear is that the Drive is equivalent to a 5X Speed Blu Ray Drive though I thought it would be around 6X speed or around 27MB/s maybe 5X is a constant speed and that the drive is capable of more but will probably get very loud when increased at more then 22.5MB/s
Did Iwata say that the TDP of the unit was 75 Watts? That seems interesting if we are indeed getting an enhanced broadway style CPU in there. the GPGPU might be pretty good. maybe in the upper rang of the 600-800 GFLOPS a lot of us have been talking about. I am going with 640 alu's clocked at 607.5MHz then we are probably looking at over 768GFLOPS (comparable to HD7xxx series GFLOP rating not HD4xxx)
The price is very interesting indeed and it looks like either $250 and $299 or $299-$349 depending on conversion rates. but since the japanese price includes sales tax already I am inclined to go with the former.
I think the US and EU will have a third SKU compared to japan's 2 sku strategy.
At least now they have the room to unlock more ram for games further in the lifespan of the system. With only let's say 1,2GB for the system (1GB for games 200MB for system functions) it would have been a lot more difficult !
Let's rejoice
Depends on the os ram ... is not that "easy". You are thinking in the best case scenario that both are the same ram, etc, etc.