To me it looks like it is mirroring the main screen, in this case it's nothing to get excited for. Like your PC/MAC, it takes no additional processing/rendering power to mirror a display (in this case, just scaling and streaming, however, if it was rendering a different camera angle/view, then it would indicate additional processing power.
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Wii U Community Thread
- Thread starter Metroid Hunter
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To me it looks like it is mirroring the main screen, in this case it's nothing to get excited for. Like your PC/MAC, it takes no additional processing/rendering power to mirror a display (in this case, just scaling and streaming, however, if it was rendering a different camera angle/view, then it would indicate additional processing power.
^^
Isn't it a new itw Harada gave to Nintendo Gamer? The other itws came from other sources/media, even if he says more or less the same thing...
lostinblue
Banned
Because it's unified nature conformed it to the cpu manufacturing process.
You also have some cases like that with AMD Fusion line; but no exceptions beyond cpu/gpu joint manufacturing.
It's true.
Anyway, I did the math before; I'll post in a while since I have to explain what it means and well, it's not written in english right now.
Because they used NEC as a manufacturer before.
I'm betting it's AMD (actually TSMC) manufacturing the GPU this time. But I could be wrong of course.
It means they've developed their GPU to enable DX11 level features, that's all. As I've said before, they aren't creating a GPU by moving to whatever AMD brings out in the PC space. They've taken a particular GPU design (R700) and customised/evolved it to become the GPU they want.
He explains what he means by excessive CPU power. From what he says he means creating a CPU that's powerful enough to run unoptimised code just as fast or faster than current gen console CPU's run highly optimised code. That would require a CPU far more powerful than Xenon or CELL.
Which is pretty much what I've been saying as far as the WiiU's CPU goes. It won't be powerful enough to run code highly optimised for a totally different CPU without any problems (because the code being highly optimised for a CPU like Xenon means its unoptimised for a CPU like WiiU's). But I'd guess that with optimisations it'll be faster than the likes of Xenon.
Fourth Storm
Member
Not to mention IBM's eDRAM is manufactured on 32nm. Dont think it is on 40nm.
Yeah I agree, the Wii U could have the most cutting edge tech and Nintendo still would not release the spec details.
Bamstrokher
Banned
You can talk at him until your face turns blue, like Violet Beauregarde from Willy Wonka chewing on a stick of dessert gum, and it won't matter. This has actually become the "argument with USC-fan thread" to a major degree. Kind of sucks the fun out of discussing other things... Like different game play styles we would like to see.
I, for one, would love to see a followup to XenoBlade Chronicles with the party leader using the DRC and two other players using either Wii U CC pros or Wiimote/ Nunchuck to control their players actions during battle.
I wouldn also love to see a huge Metroid or Castlevania with each player taking a different route in the game and clearing out different areas and subbosses at the same time. They could then join up to take on a bigger challenge together.
Multiplayer mode in Punchout for Wii U never got fully realized either. Now that each player can use a screen they could box the shit out of each other because of better angles.
DocTarHeel
Member
I thought this was interesting: http://www.videogamer.com/news/unreal_engine_4_games_could_be_ported_to_wii_u_epic.html
chertipros
Member
Sadly i don't think that this means anything other than there wont be many UE4 mulitplats on the wii u. IIRC epic said the same thing about UE3 on the wii, and one studio managed to get it to run on the wii but nothing came of that
Bamstrokher
Banned
It is only fair that this be the case, at least to start with. Rockstar could port it over for not that much money. Compared to the amount that each major installment in that franchise makes, they should just commit about 2-5 million dollars to port it over.
Even at five million dollars to port it, how many copies would it have to sell at 60 dollars a pop to make a profit? If it sold even a half milion copies, would that not be about thirty million dollars before taxes, overhead, and expenses?
tkscz
Member
Translation: We have no faith in any game from Epic selling on the Wii U.
Of course they aren't the only 3rd party thinking that.
Bamstrokher
Banned
I hear the chirping crickets from hateville instead of the usual.
bgassassin
Member
That's more than interesting. That's one of the most important things we've needed to hear.
Very good point.
You're probably thinking of Unreal Engine 2.5 (Ubisoft ported this for Red Steel). I think it was mentioned years ago about a third party trying to get Unreal Engine 3 on Wii. But AFAIK we never heard of it actually running on Wii, its feature set is incompatible with the engine so it would take a massive overhaul.
Ya, I had to read that quote a couple times to try and figure out what they were trying to say. So basically he confirmed the Wii-U is capable of UE 4, it's just that Epic themselves don't have any games being made for Nintendo.
Which as far as I'm concerned is actually pretty good news.
I don't see that as particularly good news, honestly. 3rd parties are not going to go out of their way to adapt the engine to Wii U, and the constant referring to UE3 makes it pretty clear to me where Epic thinks Wii U belongs.
If I correctly understand, Epic games doesn't want to bring the engine on Wii U but any 3rd party companies could still use UE4 for Wii U for their multiplatform games.
Seems to me western 3rd party developers won't develop on Wii U anytime soon.
tkscz
Member
Pretty much. Epic would rather use the UE4 engine not so scaled down. I think the lighting and particles would be possible on Wii-U (as that's really all there was to UE4), just not on as high a scale as it would be on PS4/NeXtbox. If games like Mass Effect 3 do well on the WiiU, I could see EA being the first to do it.
Bamstrokher
Banned
It's funny really. This particular topic has been the source of angst, caterwaling, and tongue gnashing for the better part of a year in these threads. A few people have literally been ready to jump off a bridge because they thought Wii U could not run UE4.
Aaaagh No UE4 equals no buy for me!
Now we find out from one remark from Mark Rein that people were being despondent for nothing.
BTW, what ever happened to the rumor about Epic games and Metroid?
Aaaagh No UE4 equals no buy for me!
Now we find out from one remark from Mark Rein that people were being despondent for nothing.
BTW, what ever happened to the rumor about Epic games and Metroid?
I'm sure some people will take this as confirmation that it cannot run UE4. Things like this get taken out of context all the time.
bgassassin
Member
If UE4 is as scalable as Epic touts it, that's not a good excuse for them. At the same time like I mentioned in your thread, Epic has a certain idea of how they want UE4-based games to look. And we've all known that if Wii U could handle a UE4-based game it wouldn't be reduced. And people wanting to own one console are probably not going to be too concerned about fewer particles and less tessellation.
The "Wii U isn't the right market" is the only "legit" bullet devs have left IMO.
Bamstrokher
Banned
How anyone could interpret that as bad news is beyond me. He says right there Wii U is capable of running UE4 if the customer needs it.
chertipros
Member
Ah your right. The most i could find was this
http://archive.videogamesdaily.com/features/markrein_ut3_iv_p1.asp
In an old interview from vgdaily from 2007. Actually it sounds alot like epics statement today in regards to UE4 on the wii u
bgassassin
Member
Silas Lang
Member
Yup a lot of strange responses in that thread. It doesn't guarantee that anyone will actually port UE4 games to the Wii U but it certainly means there is a chance. A much better chance than the Wii ever had.
Bamstrokher
Banned
Where do you guys get this stuff from? All he said was
1) It can run UE4 if the customer wants it to.
2) We (Epic) don't have anything UE4 coming to the system.
How do read into that what you read?
And yet it's happening. The Internet is full of fun people, isn't it?
DocTarHeel
Member
In that interview, Rein basically says trying to bring UE3 wouldn't be worth the effort. I usually hate over-analyzing small snippets of quotes, but it seems like Rein is more optimistic about UE4 on Wii U than he was about UE3 on Wii.
GiantEnemyGoomba
Member
"The way Wii U outputs UE4 is not representative of how we want the engine's performance to be perceived. For this reason, we are not supporting the Wii U."
Bamstrokher
Banned
Oh man, you got that right! I am going to venture into some other threads for a while. This is like interacting with people's ids all day long.
Nintendo has never been one to brag about specs or over-inflate performance numbers.
But Mark Rein has never said that Epic will not support WiiU??
Even if they dont have a game (or work together with Ninty) for Wii U in the works he didnt say at all that Epic wont support WiiU.
Only thing he said is that the UE4 is running on WiiU and Epic themself has no game in the works with that engine. But anyone who wants should feel free cos it WORKS!!!
Bamstrokher
Banned
Where did you get that quote? Do you have a link for that?
It sounds to me like he is talking specifically about Epic's own games not coming to the Wii U from that quote, and also the other interview. And if that is the case, of course Epic is not going to put GOW4 or Unreal tournament on Wii U. They have deals already in place with Microsoft don't they?
The fact that the Wii U is capable of running UE4 almost guarantees that some one will put the engine on the system. It just won't be Epic at this time.
I'm staying far away from that thread. I still have that 'new account smell', and I don't want to ruin it with a perma ban.
Is that what that is? I thought the dog farted.
Silas Lang
Member
Yeah definitely won't be Epic. I wonder what 3rd party publisher would most likely end up porting UE4? Ubisoft maybe? I mean they seem to be supporting the system more than most at the moment.
My guess would be EA.
lostinblue
Banned
Ok, first off, Let me lay the basics for this, measuring how much an image weights is pure math and it's like this:
1280x720x32 = 29491200 bits = 3.5156 MB/frame (x30fps=105.47 MB/s; x60fps=210.94 MB/s)
1920x1080x32 = 66355200 bits = 7.9102 MB/frame (x30fps=237.31 MB/s; x60fps=474.61 MB/s)
(the 32 in the end is relating to the bit depth for the image; in this case 32 bits)
But it's not just this, it's an additive process; Z-Buffer is typically 32 bits as well (but can also be reduced to 24 bits) which effectively doubles the pixels being sampled and X360's "free AA" adds 24 bits per passage; because passages come in pairs 2xMSAA and 4xMSAA on X360 costs an extra 48 or 96 bits respectively.
In short, you do this… I'll do three case test scenarios here, first off the simple no-AA solution 32+32=64 bits (frame+z-buffer), second 32+32+48=112 bits (frame+z-buffer+2xMSAA), third: 32+32+96=160 bits (frame+z-buffer+4xMSAA)
1280x720x64 = 7.0313 MB/frame (x30fps=210.94 MB/s; x60fps=421.88 MB/s)
1280x720x112 = 12.3047 MB/frame (x30fps= 369.14 MB/s; x60fps= 738.28 MB/s)
1280x720x160 = 17.5781 MB/frame (x30fps= 527.34 MB/s; x60fps= 1054.69 MB/s)
No-AA, 2xMSAA and 4x MSAA respectively.
As I'm sure you understand, you'll be doing tiling from 2xMSAA and up. (and no, in 2xMSAA even reducing the z-buffer to 24 bits would still land us on 11.5 MB/frame field and rendering the frame and z-buffer on 24 bits would fall on 10.5 MB/frame range; leaving no quick fix other than tiling and/or sub 720p). I also left the MB/s math in as a means to help establish a relation of why 60 frames had a hit on framebuffer bandwidth and could act as a bottleneck; there's no 3D game at 1080p achieving 60 frames this gen (wipeout hd dynamic framebuffer doesn't count, as it adjusts frame size; closest game to doing it is Ridge Racer 7). On top of it I'm sure you know this, but framebuffer acts as a scratchpad of sorts, so you can add even more layers/passages to whatever you're doing on top; it's not uncommon for full frame distortion effects to be applied on top for example. On a side-note, on 1280x720 Wii U could do 8xMSAA without tiling, taking roughly 28 MB per frame.
With this explained I can get on to 1080p, 1920 is:
1920x1080x64 = 132710400 bits = 15.8203 MB/frame (x30fps=474.60 MB/s; x60fps=949.22 MB/s)
1920x1080x112 = 232243200 bits = 27.6855 MB/frame (x30fps=830.57 MB/s; x60fps=1661.13 MB/s) ⬅ Wii U could do 1920x1080p with 2xMSAA without tiling.
1920x1080x160 = 331776000 bits = 39.5508 MB/frame (x30fps=1186.52 MB/s; x60fps=2373.05 MB/s)
Again, No-AA, 2xMSAA and 4x MSAA respectively.
A 40 MB framebuffer seems tempting (albeit a little overkill on a platform we haven't seen pulling 1080p yet), but still the 32 MB of eDRAM on Wii-U seem very generous, should be way more straightforward than X360's eDRAM to work with; of course this is just a part of the puzzle, the rest depends on this part bandwidth and clock speed as well as console fillrate; probably why we aren't seeing more (have we seen any?) 1080p games too; still, should be way more easy to pull on it than on this gen, but I suspect most devs will prefer to spice up the graphics and/or throw in more effects/anti aliasing.
Also there's MLAA now which could spare the framebuffer a little but would erode the available fillrate (and a few stream processors along the way) so time will tell how often it'll get used on the platform with less GFlops this upcoming gen.
I hope it shed some light into the matter.
IsntChrisL
Member
I dunno about that. Take-Two's CEO pretty much said the company is taking a wait and see approach with porting "mature" titles to the Wii U. Which is a damn shame, imo.
For the UE4, I don't think the engine will be as popular than UE3. Why?
Because most developers have now their own engine. EA has Frosbyte, Crytek has CryEngine, Konami has Foxengine, Capcom has still Framework, ...
Why would they licence something when you make something yourself? I think UE3 will still be popular even when Xbox 3/PS4 will come.
But I can see some western 3rd party still going for UE4 and not porting their stuff to Wii U even if it's possible.
Because most developers have now their own engine. EA has Frosbyte, Crytek has CryEngine, Konami has Foxengine, Capcom has still Framework, ...
Why would they licence something when you make something yourself? I think UE3 will still be popular even when Xbox 3/PS4 will come.
But I can see some western 3rd party still going for UE4 and not porting their stuff to Wii U even if it's possible.
Mithos
Member
This is why "mature" games and 3rd parties will fail on the Wii U, "WHEN" they show up it's to late.
IsntChrisL
Member
Yeah, I think establishing some good mature IPs at a console launch would benefit both Nintendo and the third parties releasing the games. If the demographic is ignored early on, the likelihood of attaching that audience to the console shrinks significantly. At least the Wii U is getting some of these games from the start: Assassin's Creed III, Aliens, Zombi U, and possibly Black Ops 2. That's more than the Wii got at launch, at least.
lostinblue
Banned
Very good point, if that is embedded on the GPU it could force them to go 32 nm's (or make that as a conscious design choice).
But it didn't on X360:
Original X360 GPU core - 90 nm
Original X360 GPU eDRAM - 90 nm
Jasper X360 GPU core - 65 nm
Jasper X360 GPU eDRAM - 80 nm
Trinity X360 GPU core - 45 nm
Trinity X360 GPU eDRAM - 65 nm
I think the difference is that from his comments in that interview he has no doubt UE4 will be able to run on WiiU. As opposed to talking about a third party "giving UE3 a shot" on Wii. Its a pretty big difference IMO.
The eDRAM on Xenos was a daughter die, so it could be fabbed at a different process, right? That doesn't apply to the WiiU since it appears to be on the same die as the GPU. They would have to be the same process.
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