Brad Grenz
Member
No. Literally everything you just said is complete nonsense.
Wii U CPU |Espresso| Die Photo - Courtesy of Chipworks
- Thread starter Fourth Storm
- Start date
No. Literally everything you just said is complete nonsense.
I saw this in another thread earlier, but is there any truth to this? What's the source and how reliable is said source for this type of information?
lostinblue
Banned
It's probably bullshit.
Nintendo would most likely use NST for that kind of grunt work.
yeah, they also bought a couple of unity licences for that... That's basically what the rumor said, but instead of an inhouse studio creating a "free engine for wiiu developers", they just bought one.
I don't see the point in wasting retros ressources in developing a 2nd engine to give away
lostinblue
Banned
That aside, Nintendo should start doing what others aren't willing to, inhouse.
Namely maintain a UE4 build for the Wii U, perhaps publicly offer help to do a Frostbyte 3 one too just to make it so that the ball (and bad rep) for saying no is on the EA side of things and save face that they indeed tried/offered to help.
On the Unreal Engine 4 account, since Epic doesn't sell it every developer that wants it on the Wii will have to port it themselves then they can't sell it for obvious reasons meaning that said port won't be supported nor attainable by any other studio wanting to put a game on the Wii U. If 10 studios want it (and suppose they do port it) then they could have ported it 10 times. It's downright stupid and it's bound to keep some otherwise welcome multiplatform at bay; because devs a lot of the times are relying on middleware just so they don't have to go through that intricate porting (also too much time understanding inner workings, porting and making sure it's appropriately optimized).
Namely maintain a UE4 build for the Wii U, perhaps publicly offer help to do a Frostbyte 3 one too just to make it so that the ball (and bad rep) for saying no is on the EA side of things and save face that they indeed tried/offered to help.
On the Unreal Engine 4 account, since Epic doesn't sell it every developer that wants it on the Wii will have to port it themselves then they can't sell it for obvious reasons meaning that said port won't be supported nor attainable by any other studio wanting to put a game on the Wii U. If 10 studios want it (and suppose they do port it) then they could have ported it 10 times. It's downright stupid and it's bound to keep some otherwise welcome multiplatform at bay; because devs a lot of the times are relying on middleware just so they don't have to go through that intricate porting (also too much time understanding inner workings, porting and making sure it's appropriately optimized).
lightchris
Member
x86 is just an instruction set, it doesn't tell you anything about the processors strengths or weaknesses. You could say that most of AMDs and Intels CPUs are going roughly in the same direction, but espresso isn't that much different either.
Uhh, that is not true at all.
Only non gameplay interacting Physx run on Nvidia GPUs, any effect that interacts with the gameplay runs on the CPU.
Also, Physx never, ever ran on AMD GPUs!
What Nvidia patched away was being able to use an Nvidia card for Physx with an AMD card as your main GPU!
And the consoles never used GPUs for physics.
Nostremitus
Member
That's actually quite a bit worse IMHO... And a fairly dumb business decision.
There is no point. Ue3 already supports the wiiu there is no reason it need ue4. I don't think anyone still believe the wiiu has enough power to run next Gen games. They would have to be ported down and they can just use ue3 for that port.
Trying to shoe horn these next Gen engines on the wiiu would not look pretty....
blu
Wants the largest console games publisher to avoid Nintendo's platforms.
I have news for you: WiiU's power has nothing to do with whether UE4 will or won't show up on the system (read: chances are it will show up eventually, just not necessarily with the typical Epic marketing blitz).
It depends on how scalable the UE4 engine is. Unreal engine traditionally is a both a memory and resource hog, it may not play well with just 1 gig of RAM. There is a reason why Epic are targeting next gen only with UE4, when the rest of the industry are doing the exact opposite, Cry Engine 3 and Frostbite are all full next generation engines which also run on current hardware. I will trust German engineering over anything Epic could code.
blu
Wants the largest console games publisher to avoid Nintendo's platforms.
'They' ported UE3? Who's they? You have no friggin clue how Epic operate, do you? They did not port UE3 to the WiiU - their licensees did. Epic only spend effort on platforms they deem strategic for their product. WiiU is not part of their strategic plans, that much is clear. Epic themselves have stated that nothing is stopping their licensees from porting UE4 to WiiU.
I thought it was reclarified that it run on the Wii U, but just that Epic themselves weren't going to use it for the console?
http://www.nintendolife.com/news/20...pers_can_use_unreal_engine_4_for_wii_u_titles
Cryengine 3 is more advanced, more capable and more system taxing than UE4 has shown itself to be, and Crytek had that running on the Wii U just fine by their own just fine.
Cryengine 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMwk2Zi0c3o http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TtgW20IEm0
Unreal Engine 4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dO2rM-l-vdQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfZFwAC7AiI
lostinblue
Banned
This is coming quite from behind! Psysx ran on AMD cards, in fact it still can, if you properly patch it to run.
As for the specifics between gameplay and abstract physics being done by cpu or gpu on physx, I don't think so, for there was a clear rift going on between physx approach and havok fx. But I'm sure you can do whatever you want on cpu if you see fit, seeing it runs (and can even be forced to) run like that
This gen they probably will. Physx announcement wouldn't make sense otherwise.
You're pretty damn clueless aren't you?
You could push PS4 and X720 with UE3 and going from your statement, doing so would be more advantageous than using UE4; because UE4 is clearly more intensive and these platforms are not really all that powerful, I mean they can't even keep up with their PC tech demo. See how your logic got flipped?
Perhaps the whole reason for Epic not wanting to have it on Wii U is because it won't get to PS4/X720 level of leap, and they want to have a leap at all costs for their flagship, but truth is that leap is only enabled by the extra power and UE4 doesn't humiliate say, the Samaritan Demo (UE3.9) and it's supposed to be more scalable than UE3 was (UE3 at first wasn't meant for mobile while this one is).
The real differences for most developers, with this new release is... as always, the development environment:
Source: http://www.unrealengine.com/unreal_engine_4/
Which is the reason this is gonna be used by developers that aren't trying to push the graphical envelope or anything instead of UE3 who "would serve them perfectly" (yeah, and enable extra work). Don't be an idiot. Using UE3 development environment, or going back to them is gonna feel like shit.
Remember how Bioshock 1/2 and Splinter Cell: Conviction kept Unreal Engine 2.5 and are still AAA games? Do you think they kept the aging development environment? Bioshock was considered hybrid at some point because they had UE3 development environment.
Similarly, why do you think some devs tried to put UE3 on the Wii? Hint, it wasn't in order to pull X360/PS3 graphics, it was in order to keep the development environment they were used to; if the development environment is the same as artists and programmers are used to, the platform chosen to put the game on can be more transparent, not having that dev-environment there though, is a disservice, and in this case a disservice by their own admission when they are quick to state it's perfectly doable.
Why do you think Capcom and Square-Enix ported MT Framework and Crystal Tools to the Wii? Same reason! This is not rocket science, houdini.
But they do licence it for the Wii U, right? Outsourcing porting is common for them, they also never touched PS2 or GC environment, but sold builds for them (done by Secret Level).
With UE4 they deliberately don't. But let's not turn this into a Unreal Engine 4 thread.
Yea no FRIGGIN CLUE...
https://twitter.com/MarkRein/status/318415660365529088
Its has nothing to do with anything besides the hardware being powerful enough to run the engine. As he stated in the past.
http://www.joystiq.com/2011/06/14/water-meet-fish-epic-games-mark-rein-on-wii-u-ps-vita-and/
Wow wiiu good enough to run ue3 they port it to it. They being epic as stated by the VP of epic games.
So there goes that crazy theory it has nothing to do with hardware when in fact it only about the hardware. No other reason...
Epic already stated the reason. UE4 was design for next gen console just like UE3 was design for the ps360 and now wiiu level hardware.
Its pretty clear why next gen engines are not coming to the wiiu and Espresso is big part of that reason
blu
Wants the largest console games publisher to avoid Nintendo's platforms.
For the same reason they claim to fully support iOS, even though they did not do the port.
Schnozberry
Member
Why are people so bent out of shape over engines? If EA or an Unreal licensee see a profit in releasing a game on Wii U, I bet engines magically make their way over to the platform. Stories about great feats of technical wizardry will be bandied about to make excuses for why it was technically impossible before.
tkscz
Member
Because NeoGaf
blu
Wants the largest console games publisher to avoid Nintendo's platforms.
Yay for selective quoting! Here's some more where that comes from:
Update 5/1/2013: Speaking the next day with Engadget, Rein characterized his comments as a "stupid gaffe" and reiterated the notion that while Epic won't officially support UE4 on Wii U, "if someone wants to take Unreal Engine 4 and ship a game on Wii U, they can! If they wanna ship an Unreal Engine 4 game on Xbox 360, they could make it happen."
Epic co-founder Mark Rein telling Videogamer that Epic doesn't intend to bring the engine to Wii U, but that "if a customer decides they want to port an Unreal Engine 4 game to Wii U, they could."
Hey look, UE4 is not as next-gen as it was originally proclaimed! It can actually downscale! The shocking horrors!
Which is why all of a sudden PS4 is good enough to run UE4, even though Epic had to strip down their most hallowed GI feature from it.
Uhu. As much as the reason it's coming to PS4 without its GI system.. Oh, tasty Epic marketing BS and the kbd-smokers of the internet..So there goes that crazy theory it has nothing to do with hardware when in fact it only about the hardware. No other reason...
Epic already stated the reason. UE4 was design for next gen console just like UE3 was design for the ps360 and now wiiu level hardware.
Its pretty clear why next gen engines are not coming to the wiiu and Espresso is big part of that reason
I think it goes back to the WUST thread were certain poster just stated it like fact that because the wiiu support "modern features" it would run any engine. Back then they were like it would be like the pc settings on med or low and the ps4/720 would be high settings. It was just a given the hardware wouldnt hold back the console from getting these engine supported. They would post picture showing that low-med setting really didnt look much different from high settings.
Now engine after engine is not supporting the console because of the hardware. People just dont want to face the facts in front of them. they always looking for a way out to not face it...
So you get these crazy theories about everyone just hate wiiu/Nintendo or whatever else they can come up with.
Selective quoting? lol wow, where is that from my links.
Strange heard that before... i mean about someone can try to get it on a platform.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/79232-Unreal-Engine-3-Coming-to-Wii
Those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it...
ElectricKaibutsu
Member
You're right, probably. Still, I wouldn't bet UE4 never comes to the Wii U.
Schnozberry
Member
I doubt anybody lays awake nights to figure out how to better hate Nintendo, besides maybe Phil Fish, but there are definitely people on this forum that do and revel whenever someone can stick a dagger in them. It seems pretty puerile on both sides.
Also, the hurdles to get UE4 on Wii U probably aren't technical. They have a version of the engine that is being prepared for iOS and Android. Epic likely isn't supporting it directly because the odds of someone licensing UE4 specifically to make Wii U games are pretty slim, and they are a company that wants to make money and not waste their resources. Economic opportunity costs weigh in much heavier than whatever reasons fanboys and trolls have invented to continue their pointless ranting.
Those are future plans for ue4. I think people miss that point as stating phone/tablet today can run ue4. In fact they are talking about years from now when phone hardware will be above ps360.
Like ue3 didnt launch with ios support.
frankie_baby
Member
phones/tablets are still a long way behind ps360 and got ue3 support when even further behind than they are now
Now that is some sound logic.
Now can we put a halt to the constant hardware bias based dissing of the Wii U and get back to discussing Expresso specifically? I want to know exactly what this thing can and cannot do. What are its strong points and what are its weak points. How much more can it bring to gaming than the Wii brought with games like Elebits, Boom Blocks, Mario Galaxy 2 and Zangeki no Reginleiv.
Not in all areas. They already have way more ram. Min specs for UE3 are not ps360 level. Just like min specs for ue4 is not ps4/720 level.
To be fair, if he's selective quoting, so are you.
I understand the point you're trying to make, but it doesn't really change anything. It's true that Epic had to drop their previous GI system, likely due to the lack of power in the PS4 and Durango, but the same thing happened in UE3 when it was moved to the 360 and PS3 as well.
I think what matters most is how much needs to be changed or compromised to bring the engine to a specific platform. It makes no sense to port UE4 to the Wii-U when there is UE3, which is cheaper and likely easier to port. Just like it made no sense to port UE3 to the Wii when UE2 was a viable option.
You are brilliant value, fair play.
Rein "UE4 not coming to Wii U"
You "Hahaha, told you all, the WiiU is not powerful enough for it, end of story"
Rein "It could be put on the WiiU if a developer wants, it's just were are not doing it"
You "What's wrong with you people, why don't you listen, the Wii U isn't powerful enough for the WiiU"
could you list the differences between the two engines? ue3 vs ue4. maybe even just list the feature sets wiiU couldn't handle.
Physx never ran on AMD GPUs!
It (GPU Physx) is written for CUDA, an Nvidia programming platform that is not supported outside nvidia GPUS!
What you are thinking of is using an Nvidia GPU to do Physx and having an AMD GPU as the card doing the rendering or using the CPU to do the effect Physx (which it can do to GPU Physx being a subset of CPU Physx) with an AMD GPU doing the rendering, both ways do not have the AMD GPU doing it!
The patch you are talking about just disables the nvidia driver's check to see if an other non nvidia GPU is in the system.
And Physx uses the CPU for anything that needs to interact with other game logic (even when you are doing effect Physx on the GPU), it is due to trying to avoid sending data over the PCIE bus!
Unfortunately we don't know enough to even make this comparison.
Why has this thread turned into an Unreal Engine discussion? When did the Unreal Engine suddenly become so important.
There are better ones and more optimal ones for consoles.
The engines that produce the best results on any system will always be the ones made specifically for that system, not middle ware engines like UE. Also, I would think the primary determining fact in something like this would be the "GPU" not the CPU.
Yet here we have individuals insisting on it like they know it for a fact. Is this the fate of all Nintendo hardware related discussions? Will it one day be possible to have a discussion about such hardware without people constantly trying to promote other systems over and play down its value? The gaming community is making me sad, not just by allowing these acts, but their refusal to address.
So can I get at least one thing cleared up? Exactly what can Expresso do that the Xenos/Cell can't and vice versa as far a peak performance goes?
There are better ones and more optimal ones for consoles.
The engines that produce the best results on any system will always be the ones made specifically for that system, not middle ware engines like UE. Also, I would think the primary determining fact in something like this would be the "GPU" not the CPU.
Yet here we have individuals insisting on it like they know it for a fact. Is this the fate of all Nintendo hardware related discussions? Will it one day be possible to have a discussion about such hardware without people constantly trying to promote other systems over and play down its value? The gaming community is making me sad, not just by allowing these acts, but their refusal to address.
So can I get at least one thing cleared up? Exactly what can Expresso do that the Xenos/Cell can't and vice versa as far a peak performance goes?
Thats right. I dont know where I read it, but if a CPU has short pipelines and enough cache, multi-threading can even get into the way. But yeah, the way the WiiU is probably put together was with the thought of not having to rely on multi-threading.
Its funny because Sony is making a big deal about developers being able to access
the shader pipeline in the PS4. This is what we want any developer worth their mustard to do with consoles. Why should we be celebrating middleware?
KB smoker: it's not hardware related. Its business. return on investment.
Edit: I guess in that sense you can say it is hardware related, as in "we don't see the need to directly support UE4 on that piece of hardware because we don't see much or any game licensees purchasing it for that reason, but we will certainly adapt it downward for the high end consoles that have a lower spec than we wanted"
I think maybe lherre should pop by the thread.
Back to the CPU discussion please.
Edit: I guess in that sense you can say it is hardware related, as in "we don't see the need to directly support UE4 on that piece of hardware because we don't see much or any game licensees purchasing it for that reason, but we will certainly adapt it downward for the high end consoles that have a lower spec than we wanted"
I think maybe lherre should pop by the thread.
Back to the CPU discussion please.
becuase not every developer has the chops (or budget/time) to code to the wire. But really, middleware isn't only about pretty graphics, it's about the whole developement pipeline which includes tools and how all the tools work together. I've worked in several 3rd party development teams that created their own engines (UFG/Radical Ent) and as a developer, we would often look at the tools offered by engines like crytek and unreal and drooled over the seemingly seamless development process.
Know what though? That they know the complete feature set of UE4 or that it's not possible to run on the Wii-U?
If it's the latter, I think that's more of a mixed signal issue than anything. Many of the people who say UE4 isn't for the Wii-U are talking about the engine in it's current state, while I imagine many of the more optimistic posters refer to the engine running on the Wii-U, regardless of what needs to be cut for it to fit.
In a way both parties could be reflecting on the same end results but with different definitions on the term "UE4 running on Wii-U".
On forums like GAF? Probably for as long as Nintendo willingly releases hardware that lags behind to this extent.
"My platform is great because of X, Y, and Z. So of course that has to mean your platform is shit because of A, B, and C." <- That is one of the many fucked up ways of thinking for your average fanboy and this place has it's share of them. So again at GAF I think this should be expected unfortunately.
When it's not their platform that is taking the beating, they have no reason to try and address anything. It's the typical behavior for those types of people and an issue that I've brought up a few times recently. Everyone is so concerned or busy to pimp what they believe is the best that they don't care to discuss the merits of anything else.
Well if if developer plans to license UE4... I think they got a bit of a budget.
I could be wrong, but all this engine & directX talk has come because
Microsoft wooed PC developers to make console games. These developers
have their own ways of working and they have influenced the console space.
This is why Gamecube and Wii were left behind with ports, as western developers
were not interested in doing it the "Nintendo" way.
What's the "Nintendo" way though and how did that affect the GC?
The GC was left behind with ports because software sales lagged behind the ps2 and xbox.
The Wii was left behind because most assumed Sony would keep their domination, or at least be popular enough to support. So that's where much of the early investment went this gen, into new engines for these HD systems. It's Nintendo that went the complete opposite direction as the rest of the industry here, not the other way around.
No strange conspiracy there. I'd blame Nintendo and the image/market they build around their systems, not the rest of the world.
The Nintendo way was for developers to use TEV.
Something Factor5 understood.
No, the GC had a good start. I think XBOX was a bit sluggish for some time.
And, developers have to make bets on consoles even before they launch.
Games drive sales. In the end, sales between Xbox and GC were very close.
And this does not explain the Wii.
Whose sales were very strong for two, possibly three full years, if not more.
By the end of its life, it should have been dominated by third party games.
So you think developers ignored the GC because of TEV units? It was an architecture similar to DX7 class hardware, not something that developers were unaware of.
What you're saying here makes no sense.
Are we talking about hardware sales or software sales, because IIRC software sales on the GC generally lagged behind software sales of the xbox and ps2. The GC version was also the version to have missing features for online since Nintendo didn't support online play to the same level of Sony and MS. EA even specifically cited poor software sales as the reason they dropped GC support IIRC.
I know hardware sales were only a few million consoles apart, but software sales is what matters to publishers. You're correct that publishers have to make bets early on, and from what I recall, they bet on the GC as much as the xbox.
No, it shouldn't have been dominated by third party sales. Just like I said in the previous post, many people thought Sony was going to continue their domination. Even if this wasn't a common assumption, most of the early rumors indicated that these systems would be moving to multi-core CPUs, and HD support. Even early Revolution rumors speculated a dual core CPU and more power than we ended up with in the Wii.
Point is all these studios began investing in engines to take advantage of multiple core, pixel shaders, normal mapping, etc. You don't spend millions in R&D just to drop it all because one of the three platforms doesn't support your technology. The video game industry was already invested in the PS3 and/or 360, how does it make sense in your head to drop this investment in favor of the Wii?
This is no different than the previous generation where most of the studios were already deeply invested in the PS2 and kept building on that investment even though the GC and xbox were both easier to work with.
NERD is apparently doing engine R&D, though I don't think they or NST were involved in Unity for example.
That's strange, have they hired more people for NERD? I figured they'd continue on with video/audio compression and soforth given the background of Mobiclip.
From most account's people say UE3.0 costs from 500k-1M, which is expensive, but really not that expensive when you consider you would be up and running with great robust and refined tools from the start. Epic has 200-300 developers working on the Unreal Engine alone, over how many years? How many employees would it take for other studios to get the equivalent?
You could pay to get a in house engine up and running, and attempt to get the tools to your developers to actually start making the game, how much will that cost and how long would it take? As I've said, I've seen this side of development, and it's a huge tradeoff. The tools made in house can be great, but they can also be really pathetic in comparison to what you get out of the box with UE and the like. And really, when you try to develop an engine while at the same time developing a game, sometimes that in its self can be a huge cost since often it requires a lot of redundant work from scriptors, artist, and the like as they adjust to a changing game engine. The benefit you get is potentially lower cost, "instant" support, and the (pie in the sky) hopes that your engine can be licensed by other studios, which can be a revenue generator (Radical had the Titanium Engine which it was hoping would do that).
Now, the results of an in house engine (even in smaller studios) can be pretty great (sleeping dogs for example), but working with them can be a pain, as the tools will never have as much investment sunk into it as a solution like Cry Engine or UE.
*edit* oh and typically the previous UE version will get cheaper when the new one comes out
frankie_baby
Member
there were job ads a while ago
JohnnySasaki86
Member
The point is no one would ever do that. It would be extremely costly. The dev would have to fundamentally change UE4 for the game to be ported, it would no longer be UE4. Cause Wii U isn't powerful enough, or doesn't have enough memory, to support the engine as it is. This statement doesn't change anything. UE4 still doesn't support Wii U. This is further support by his statement that you could do the same thing with 360. Any game can be "ported".
They've already fundamentally changed UE4 to fit within the console spec. An engine is an engine. The game you run on the engine is what matters.