Wii U clock speeds are found by marcan

I'm not sure 1) why this a surprise to anybody or 2) why it matters.

Considering the direction Nintendo went, the Wii U has always looked like the console version of a DS. The Wii U design philosophy mirrored their portable strategy more than it ever did the original Wii. Besides that, the MSRP should have been a clear indicator of what was in the box. The Wii U is only $100 more than the 3DS is currently, and it has a completely new touchscreen controller that adds to the extra-console cost far more than any other standard controller ever has. If people thought Nintendo was trying to run parallel to Sony and MS, that said more about the competition's plans than it did about the Wii U's capabilities.

But let's say Nintendo had something that was a step above a PS360 (the potential for something a bit extra is still there, I suppose). What difference would it make? You'd get gimped ports of the next generation of games, and none of them would be designed around the entire cost-inflating premise of a dual-screen console. This was an performance improvement more in like to the gain from iPad 2 to the iPad Retina, putting Nintendo's DS gameplay ideas in HD.
 
lherre said:
My question about it is comparing with games that are out there. There is nothing that couldn't be achieved in ps360 systems, this is why I ask why is so special, not that the game is irrelevant or not interesting for me. I'm speaking strictly about the tech involved in that demo. I saw a lot of claims that it is the best "thing" they saw and that it is not posible in ps3/x360. My question was about this.

If the fact that it's good only because is zelda is another question that is not tech related.
Click to expand...

Agreed.

On a related note how can some people claim that it is an achievement for Wii U to achieve graphical parity with PS3/Xbox 360 in 2012. We are talking about 2012 system compared to 2005/2006 systems.
 
DonMigs85 said:
It very likely could be, and it's still powerful enough to beat RSX easily with the PC games I've seen. The eDRAM should also give it a boost over Xenos.
That said, having to render another framebuffer to the Gamepad will definitely sap some juice.
Click to expand...
Not to mention that it's also supposed to handle a lot of the CPU workload.

4650 would be an absolutely terrible choice.
 
oatmeal said:
Remember when IGN made their own PROJECT CAFE?

http://www.ign.com/articles/2011/05/14/we-built-nintendos-project-cafe

They used a 3.2GHZ CPU.

CPU: 3.2GHz Triple Core AMD Athlon II X3 450
GPU: XFX Radeon HD 4850 GPU with 1GBs of VRAM
Motherboard: BIOSTAR A780L3L Micro ATX
RAM: 2GBs of Kingston DDR3
Power Supply: Rosewill RV350 ATX 1.3
Hard Drive: 80GB WD Caviar Blue 7200RPM

WRONG.
Click to expand...
Just for the fuck of it, whats the rough estimate of what these parts would cost?
 
dollartaco said:
I'm not sure 1) why this a surprise to anybody or 2) why it matters.

Considering the direction Nintendo went, the Wii U has always looked like the console version of a DS. The Wii U design philosophy mirrored their portable strategy more than it ever did the original Wii. Besides that, the MSRP should have been a clear indicator of what was in the box. The Wii U is only $100 more than the 3DS is currently, and it has a completely new touchscreen controller that adds to the extra-console cost far more than any other standard controller ever has. If people thought Nintendo was trying to run parallel to Sony and MS, that said more about the competition's plans than it did about the Wii U's capabilities.

But let's say Nintendo had something that was a step above a PS360 (the potential for something a bit extra is still there, I suppose). What difference would it make? You'd get gimped ports of the next generation of games, and none of them would be designed around the entire cost-inflating premise of a dual-screen console. This was an performance improvement more in like to the gain from iPad 2 to the iPad Retina, putting Nintendo's DS gameplay ideas in HD.
Click to expand...

Most people will up playing on the game pad any way !
 
I think the PS3 and 360 alone are a testament to how basic specs like cores and clock speeds aren't the whole story since the PS3 obliterates the 360 in that (loads more physical cores, not just threads, faster GPU too). And the WiiU at times matches (going by some, surpasses, but it's not like I've checked in detail so I dunno) its output even at launch. I think we all expected a CPU on par with the current systems by everything revealed previously, so I see no reason for the anguish over the exact GHz. All the other bits of info are still standing, ie, offloading certain CPU work to the GPU, sound processor, etc...
 
This seems to confirm my previous suspicions that the Pad is way more expensive to manufacture than they initially thought. I feel like Nintendo had to specifically go out of its way to find a CPU with clock speeds like that in only 3 cores. I'm willing to bet that the system was initially more powerful and the CPU and RAM got downgraded to accommodate the price point they wanted to hit. Nintendo usually does a pretty good job of pairing up parts and with the RAM being slow, which is out of character for how they usually build systems, and the CPU clocks it seems like they weren't able to hit their original goals for price and performance so it had to be pared back.
 
acm2000 said:
direct ps4/720>wiiu wont be possible, they would have to downgrade them hugely
Click to expand...
Considering that I expect multiplat games to be developed for the PS360 combo in addition to the PS4/720 for at least the first couple of years I wouldn't be so sure of that.

The only question as I said is will publishers/devs care enough about the WiiU userbase to make the effort to port their games if it will require massive redevelopment of their engines.
 
Saint Gregory said:
The only question as I said is will publishers/devs care enough about the WiiU userbase to make the effort to port their games if it will require massive redevelopment of their engines.
Click to expand...

Why ask when a majority of those said publishers/devs have been the same towards nintendo largely since the n64. Most will not unless a situation warrants and there is more than enough places on the net to vet out a game's development.
 
acm2000 said:
direct ps4/720>wiiu wont be possible, they would have to downgrade them hugely
Click to expand...

Nobody said they would look the same as PS4/720 games. I don't think anybody ever expected that from day one. What's being suggested here is that the Wii U may be more compatible with PS4/720 than the Wii was with PS3/360 due to more similarities in architecture. You couldn't port most PS3/360 games to the Wii no matter how much you downgraded the graphics because of fundamental features the Wii's architecture didn't have. The next console cycle will likely not be the same situation.

What will really determine the viability of ports, where ports go, and what system is the lead SKU is if Nintendo can convince 3rd parties their games can sell on Wii U next gen. And looking back, the more powerful console with better-looking versions of multiplatform games has almost never won market share victory. In my opinion, the Wii U's hardware and software sales over the next 12 months may very well determine whether it'll be a Dreamcast or a Genesis situation in terms of 3rd party support going forward.

Saint Gregory said:
The only question as I said is will publishers/devs care enough about the WiiU userbase to make the effort to port their games if it will require massive redevelopment of their engines.
Click to expand...

One of the points of Tharktor's post suggested that devs wouldn't have to re-develop their engines (at least not anymore than they'd already be re-developing them for smartphones). If next gen console architecture is going where we think it is, there would still be significance visual differences from the Wii U, but the way the engines work on all the consoles would be relatively similar.
 
dollartaco said:
I'm not sure 1) why this a surprise to anybody
Click to expand...
Seriously now? Go back in time a few months and post that the Wii U CPU runs at 1.2 GHz in one of the speculation threads. I dare you.

tapedeck said:
Just for the fuck of it, whats the rough estimate of what these parts would cost?
Click to expand...
Choosing a different but functionally equivalent mainboard and HDD gets me to 169€ (without a case, just the components). Note that this thing has 1GB of GDDR5 in addition to its main 2GB GDDR3 pool though, and the CPU is much (much) faster.
 
Kaijima said:
The problem Nintendo has is their market aims. It seems to be a conscious choice.

To the enthusiast gamer, everything that's not as powerful as current technology allows is "gimped". It's a bit like an auto enthusiast who rails that a mass market consumer minivan is a piece of crap because somewhere in the world, there are Ferraris. It's true that the minivan is no Ferrari, so the enthusiast has a point - but he's also missing the point that the minivan's job is not to be a Ferrari. And in some ways, it's better... like cargo capacity, fuel efficiency, etc.

It's hard for me even with this news to see the Wii U's hardware as "Nintendo cheeps out on j00 suckers". Because Nintendo's goal was not to make a $500 console that was way more powerful than PS360 plus included an iPad. Again, their self-chosen path and problem is that they deal with the mass market. A $300 console (the base model) sounds like their absolute upper limit for MSRP, to not scare away the authentic mainstream audience. Within that price, their concept for the system included an expensive to develop, and not cheap to produce touch screen / motion sensing interface device.

Nintendo doesn't seem to have "gimped" on anything within the price range they had to remain within, considering the total components that make up the system. If the Xbox 360 had ha a cheaper CPU, it could have had more ram, for example. But there were specific priorities and they were followed. Wii U was designed with specific priorities and this is what we got.

The joke with the FUD being spread is that you still have ports like ACIII at launch, made in a rush, that effectively look and run about like the PS3 version of the same game. If people stopped and thought for a moment, they'd see that clearly, something in Nintendo's design strategy for the console is working. Otherwise that game would not exist on Wii U and if it did, never with that kind of port parity.

Edit: I would add that the most questionable thing in the entire matter IMO is Nintendo's very obvious entreaties to 3rd parties about Wii U being friendly towards them from a development and power standpoint. Obviously, working on the console involves some major strategic shifts and while that doesn't mean the hardware is bad, it probably does make Nintendo's official PR line sound like damage control. But then we have all those months and months of some 3rd parties saying the hardware is great, some griping it sucks, etc etc. Opinions, woohah!
Click to expand...

Good post.

As for the third parties, I've theorized that the more Nintendo heard what third parties wanted, the more they realized it was wrong way to go for their company. I mean, we already saw the so-called "unprecedented partnership" between EA and Nintendo when it comes to online somehow disappear with no mention of it.
 
tapedeck said:
Just for the fuck of it, whats the rough estimate of what these parts would cost?
Click to expand...

i would say about $250 to build a PC like that yourself

Durante said:
Seriously now? Go back in time a few months and post that the Wii U CPU runs at 1.2 GHz in one of the speculation threads. I dare you.
Click to expand...

i really don't think it'd come as much of a shock. i've always felt that people were really open to things like that back in those threads.
 
RoboPlato said:
This seems to confirm my previous suspicions that the Pad is way more expensive to manufacture than they initially thought. I feel like Nintendo had to specifically go out of its way to find a CPU with clock speeds like that in only 3 cores. I'm willing to bet that the system was initially more powerful and the CPU and RAM got downgraded to accommodate the price point they wanted to hit. Nintendo usually does a pretty good job of pairing up parts and with the RAM being slow, which is out of character for how they usually build systems, and the CPU clocks it seems like they weren't able to hit their original goals for price and performance so it had to be pared back.
Click to expand...
I doubt that this had anything to do with the cost of the CPU. It's probably entirely about the heat budget and costs of powering/additional cooling if a beefier CPU was included.

I believe that others in the thread have already alluded to this in that the heat budget was better spent on the GPU and it is clocked higher than I expected.
 
ColdBlooder said:
Awesome how everyone actively avoids the tweet from the SAME guy telling you the CPU is not much worse than Xenon!
Click to expand...

But how would this thread keep exploding if that information wasn't ignored?
 
Kaijima said:
The problem Nintendo has is their market aims. It seems to be a conscious choice.

To the enthusiast gamer, everything that's not as powerful as current technology allows is "gimped". It's a bit like an auto enthusiast who rails that a mass market consumer minivan is a piece of crap because somewhere in the world, there are Ferraris. It's true that the minivan is no Ferrari, so the enthusiast has a point - but he's also missing the point that the minivan's job is not to be a Ferrari. And in some ways, it's better... like cargo capacity, fuel efficiency, etc.

It's hard for me even with this news to see the Wii U's hardware as "Nintendo cheeps out on j00 suckers". Because Nintendo's goal was not to make a $500 console that was way more powerful than PS360 plus included an iPad. Again, their self-chosen path and problem is that they deal with the mass market. A $300 console (the base model) sounds like their absolute upper limit for MSRP, to not scare away the authentic mainstream audience. Within that price, their concept for the system included an expensive to develop, and not cheap to produce touch screen / motion sensing interface device.

Nintendo doesn't seem to have "gimped" on anything within the price range they had to remain within, considering the total components that make up the system. If the Xbox 360 had ha a cheaper CPU, it could have had more ram, for example. But there were specific priorities and they were followed. Wii U was designed with specific priorities and this is what we got.

The joke with the FUD being spread is that you still have ports like ACIII at launch, made in a rush, that effectively look and run about like the PS3 version of the same game. If people stopped and thought for a moment, they'd see that clearly, something in Nintendo's design strategy for the console is working. Otherwise that game would not exist on Wii U and if it did, never with that kind of port parity.

Edit: I would add that the most questionable thing in the entire matter IMO is Nintendo's very obvious entreaties to 3rd parties about Wii U being friendly towards them from a development and power standpoint. Obviously, working on the console involves some major strategic shifts and while that doesn't mean the hardware is bad, it probably does make Nintendo's official PR line sound like damage control. But then we have all those months and months of some 3rd parties saying the hardware is great, some griping it sucks, etc etc. Opinions, woohah!
Click to expand...

Good post. Sums up my thoughts as well.
 
I'm officially not spending more than $200 on the Wii U when I finally snag one. The specs are god awful and the "tablet" isn't really a tablet at all. It's a controller with a touch screen. You can't use it without the system so what's the point of calling it some revolutionary thing when its not? Vita may have more potential coupled with orbis and I hope that's in Sony's plans.
 
ColdBlooder said:
Awesome how everyone actively avoids the tweet from the SAME guy telling you the CPU is not much worse than Xenon!
Click to expand...
That was always guaranteed to happen either way. Good/decent news is always ignored in favor of the juicy stuff like "WiiU CPU weaker than Smartphone CPU!".

It applies to everyone in every situation.
 
metalslimer said:
I think his point was that we knew the CPU was worse, so why is everyone acting surprised.
Click to expand...
Presumably it's the sense that there's something of a revisionist history going on. The phrase "on par" was once considered a blasphemy, "enhanced Broadway" was roundly dismissed and "Espresso" the user was just a coincidence and not everyone follows everything as closely.

At what point did we know the CPU was worse though.
 
The problem Nintendo has is their market aims. It seems to be a conscious choice.

To the enthusiast gamer, everything that's not as powerful as current technology allows is "gimped". It's a bit like an auto enthusiast who rails that a mass market consumer minivan is a piece of crap because somewhere in the world, there are Ferraris. It's true that the minivan is no Ferrari, so the enthusiast has a point - but he's also missing the point that the minivan's job is not to be a Ferrari. And in some ways, it's better... like cargo capacity, fuel efficiency, etc.

It's hard for me even with this news to see the Wii U's hardware as "Nintendo cheeps out on j00 suckers". Because Nintendo's goal was not to make a $500 console that was way more powerful than PS360 plus included an iPad. Again, their self-chosen path and problem is that they deal with the mass market. A $300 console (the base model) sounds like their absolute upper limit for MSRP, to not scare away the authentic mainstream audience. Within that price, their concept for the system included an expensive to develop, and not cheap to produce touch screen / motion sensing interface device.
Click to expand...

Great post and you're completely correct, but I think the fear arises that this will not be a Wii repeat and so Nintendo made a mistake going for a wider audience that they won't get
Presumably it's the sense that there's something of a revisionist history going on. The phrase "on par" was once considered a blasphemy, "enhanced Broadway" was roundly dismissed and "Espresso" the user was just a coincidence and not everyone follows everything as closely.

At what point did we know the CPU was worse though.
Click to expand...

Oh I know this info would have been thrown out of those Wii U speculation threads, but from the info we've been getting from developers and leaks people pretty much accepted over the last few week it was slower. The only reason this thread blew up was because people seem to think it's actually 3x slower than the 360's CPU
 
shinra-bansho said:
Presumably it's the sense that there's something of a revisionist history going on. The phrase "on par" was once considered a blasphemy, "enhanced Broadway" was roundly dismissed and "Espresso" the user was just a coincidence and not everyone follows everything as closely.

At what point did we know the CPU was worse though.
Click to expand...

Nothing to worry about. BG and Ideaman ate still "optimistic".

I need to go read the WUSTs for some laughs.
 
Perkel said:
Are you fucking kidding me ? 1,25 GHz ?

I change my statement.

Devs were not lazy with ports on WiiU they were fucking wizards to achieve that on WiiU.
Click to expand...

Not lazy, just inexperienced. One of the guys over in the tech thread stated that the new info shows a console that is heavily geard towards offloading processes to the GPU. Like, to the point where on of the only things the CPU does in game is AI while the GPU handles physics and other processes normally on the CPU. Remember how nobody knew how to make good PS3 ports back in the day because of the weak GPU? Same thing, just reversed.

Some of the technical problems with Wii U games are starting to make more sense now, like how BLOPS2 has issues in SP (with AI) but runs silky smooth in MP (no AI).
 
Kaijima said:
The joke with the FUD being spread is that you still have ports like ACIII at launch, made in a rush, that effectively look and run about like the PS3 version of the same game. If people stopped and thought for a moment, they'd see that clearly, something in Nintendo's design strategy for the console is working. Otherwise that game would not exist on Wii U and if it did, never with that kind of port parity.
Click to expand...

I don't disagree to any extent, but I think people were hoping the power (not in Watts) was significantly more than 6-7 year old consoles such that rushed ports would be slightly better, that the non-optimized port would be overcome by raw power. If this raw power did exist then dedicated development would produce exclusives significantly ahead of PS360 games. This would also give hope that future PC/PS4/720 games could be ported with some amount of work.

That dream may be dead now. Ports are limping along. Dedicated exclusives may match exclusives on the PS360, but what about PS4/720 games? Will they bother to try and port them? I guess that depends on the their specs and sales, but it may be a repeat of this gen with the Wii ports, or lack of them.


evangd007 said:
Not lazy, just inexperienced. One of the guys over in the tech thread stated that the new info shows a console that is heavily geard towards offloading processes to the GPU. Like, to the point where on of the only things the CPU does in game is AI while the GPU handles physics and other processes normally on the CPU. Remember how nobody knew how to make good PS3 ports back in the day because of the weak GPU? Same thing, just reversed.

Some of the technical problems with Wii U games are starting to make more sense now, like how BLOPS2 has issues in SP (with AI) but runs silky smooth in MP (no AI).
Click to expand...

But the GPU is not idly standing by waiting for GPGPU calls, it is doing the rendering. There is not a second GPU either, so t batter have a bunch of spare cycles if devs expect to tap it for non-rendering work.. The SPUs in the Cell were doing nothing until developers got a handle of them.
 
thirty said:
I'm officially not spending more than $200 on the Wii U when I finally snag one. The specs are god awful and the "tablet" isn't really a tablet at all. It's a controller with a touch screen. You can't use it without the system so what's the point of calling it some revolutionary thing when its not? Vita may have more potential coupled with orbis and I hope that's in Sony's plans.
Click to expand...

Maybe because that's what it was designed to be?
 
thirty said:
I'm officially not spending more than $200 on the Wii U when I finally snag one. The specs are god awful and the "tablet" isn't really a tablet at all. It's a controller with a touch screen. You can't use it without the system so what's the point of calling it some revolutionary thing when its not? Vita may have more potential coupled with orbis and I hope that's in Sony's plans.
Click to expand...

I have a Vita. I love the Vita. Vita + Orbis is like Move + PS3 -- DOA.
 
Maybe one of the tech oriented posters can answer this for me?

Does this mean we're not getting our favorite Nintendo franchises in HD?

:-P

Why do people constantly talk about Nintendo and third-parties? Third-party support hasn't been there since N64. Their last "on-par" console did nothing (except be awesome :-). Any talk from Nintendo about third party support is just PR and/or hope.

The Wii U is blue ocean, just like the Wii. It offers disruptive technology - the Gamepad. It also expands some of the non-game positives that came from the Wii, namely, media streaming.

I love posts that bemoan "it's the Wii all over again." I promise you that is what Nintendo is hoping for.
 
Kaijima said:
The problem Nintendo has is their market aims. It seems to be a conscious choice.

To the enthusiast gamer, everything that's not as powerful as current technology allows is "gimped". It's a bit like an auto enthusiast who rails that a mass market consumer minivan is a piece of crap because somewhere in the world, there are Ferraris. It's true that the minivan is no Ferrari, so the enthusiast has a point - but he's also missing the point that the minivan's job is not to be a Ferrari. And in some ways, it's better... like cargo capacity, fuel efficiency, etc.

It's hard for me even with this news to see the Wii U's hardware as "Nintendo cheeps out on j00 suckers". Because Nintendo's goal was not to make a $500 console that was way more powerful than PS360 plus included an iPad. Again, their self-chosen path and problem is that they deal with the mass market. A $300 console (the base model) sounds like their absolute upper limit for MSRP, to not scare away the authentic mainstream audience. Within that price, their concept for the system included an expensive to develop, and not cheap to produce touch screen / motion sensing interface device.

Nintendo doesn't seem to have "gimped" on anything within the price range they had to remain within, considering the total components that make up the system. If the Xbox 360 had ha a cheaper CPU, it could have had more ram, for example. But there were specific priorities and they were followed. Wii U was designed with specific priorities and this is what we got.

The joke with the FUD being spread is that you still have ports like ACIII at launch, made in a rush, that effectively look and run about like the PS3 version of the same game. If people stopped and thought for a moment, they'd see that clearly, something in Nintendo's design strategy for the console is working. Otherwise that game would not exist on Wii U and if it did, never with that kind of port parity.

Edit: I would add that the most questionable thing in the entire matter IMO is Nintendo's very obvious entreaties to 3rd parties about Wii U being friendly towards them from a development and power standpoint. Obviously, working on the console involves some major strategic shifts and while that doesn't mean the hardware is bad, it probably does make Nintendo's official PR line sound like damage control. But then we have all those months and months of some 3rd parties saying the hardware is great, some griping it sucks, etc etc. Opinions, woohah!
Click to expand...

Great post and I was thinking the same thing. I own AC3 on Wii U and like I said in a earlier post. Anything that might be missing from the Wii U version isnt because of the hardware and more to do with time constraints.
 
shinra-bansho said:
Presumably it's the sense that there's something of a revisionist history going on. The phrase "on par" was once considered a blasphemy, "enhanced Broadway" was roundly dismissed and "Espresso" the user was just a coincidence and not everyone follows everything as closely.

At what point did we know the CPU was worse though.
Click to expand...

No some were more pissed that clueless users were thinking that because it was enhanced broadway it has nothing to really offer. My idea or statement was simple if we applied the statement to pentium chips and merely called it's advanceas mere enhancements most people would laugh them off considering the gains we have seen.
 
If we take the sane approach, WiiU = VW Golf in Nintendo's mind.

VW-Golf-7-GTI.2.jpg



=



71573-wiiu-620x0-1.jpg
Click to expand...

Moderately powerful, accessible to all, low consumption, likeable by everyone.
I insist on the word "sane".
 
The Wii U is blue ocean, just like the Wii. It offers disruptive technology - the Gamepad. It also expands some of the non-game positives that came from the Wii, namely, media streaming.

I love posts that bemoan "it's the Wii all over again." I promise you that is what Nintendo is hoping for.
Click to expand...

True, Nintendo would love another Wii. Is the Gamepad disruptive though? For the first time in years Nintendo seems to be jumping on the bandwagon that already exists.
 
Kenka said:
If we take the sane approach, WiiU = VW Golf in Nintendo's mind.



Moderately powerful, accessible to all, low consumption, likeable by everyone.
I insist on the word "sane".
Click to expand...

I definetly don't consider a Golf accesible to anyone...not when there are more feasible alternatives in the market that would reflect way better Nintendo strategy.
 
shinra-bansho said:
Presumably it's the sense that there's something of a revisionist history going on. The phrase "on par" was once considered a blasphemy, "enhanced Broadway" was roundly dismissed and "Espresso" the user was just a coincidence and not everyone follows everything as closely.
Click to expand...
Exactly this. Trying to present this (or the RAM bandwidth for that matter) as something everyone "expected" is completely surreal to anyone who followed the pre-release speculation. As you say, "on par" was once considered blasphemous, and now it's being used in some of the components' defense.

thelongdarkriversofhell said:
Why do people constantly talk about Nintendo and third-parties?
Click to expand...
You answer that question yourself: because Nintendo talked about third parties and Wii U, and implied that getting them on board is an important goal for them (compared to Wii).
 
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