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[StevieP]

Don't know if that's in any way related, but some guys usually working on console CPUs at IBM started working on a chip called "Z7" some time in 2008 (seemingly not related to the IBM Z7 mainframe processor). Couldn't find much, except that it's a multi core CPU clocked at 5.3GHz.

Too hot for a console in that form. It would have to be downclocked. Do you think the number 7 indicates it's based on the Power7 server core?

In the same way that Power5 was severely stripped down to create the PPE CPU inside the PS3/360, perhaps IBM did something similar with Power7 for the WiiU... but this time had the smarts to keep out-of-order for backwards compatibility or something.

 

[wsippel]

Too hot for a console in that form. It would have to be downclocked. Do you think the number 7 indicates it's based on the Power7 server core?

In the same way that Power5 was severely stripped down to create the PPE CPU inside the PS3/360, perhaps IBM did something similar with Power7 for the WiiU... but this time had the smarts to keep out-of-order for backwards compatibility or something.

There only seems to be a single variant of the CPU, and that's the 5.3GHz one. And I don't think it's necessarily too hot - it depends on how many transistors run at a certain clock speed after all. In this case, while the core is running at 5.3GHz, cache is clocked at 2.65GHz, and IO at 2.4GHz, so only a part of the chip is clocked that high.

But yes, the name made me think it might be a customized (massively stripped down) POWER7. Development starting in 2008 also seems to make sense.

 

[herzogzwei1989]

I cannot wait to be able to find out and understand the inner workings of Wii U's CPU & GPU circuitry.

 

[Penguin]

“I’ve got a 3DS game in the pipeline right now, and I’ve got another game that we haven’t decided the platform on, but which I am hoping to bring to Wii U.”

http://www.officialnintendomagazine.co.uk/29002/harvest-moon-creator-working-on-3ds-and-wii-u-games/

Harvest Moon creator.

 

[Truth101]

http://www.officialnintendomagazine.co.uk/29002/harvest-moon-creator-working-on-3ds-and-wii-u-games/

Harvest Moon creator.

Yes!, I hope to get Harvest Moon Wii U early in its life. I hope we get some info on the new 3DS Harvest Moon soon. ><

 

[blu]

Don't know if that's in any way related, but some guys usually working on console CPUs at IBM started working on a chip called "Z7" some time in 2008 (seemingly not related to the IBM Z7 mainframe processor). Couldn't find much, except that it's a multi core CPU clocked at 5.3GHz.

The chances that IBM designed a Z-moniker CPU which is actually a POWER/PPC are nil.

In the same way that Power5 was severely stripped down to create the PPE CPU inside the PS3/360, perhaps IBM did something similar with Power7 for the WiiU... but this time had the smarts to keep out-of-order for backwards compatibility or something.

POWER6 was an in-order, super-scalar architecture. It was not 'severely stripped down' for the console variants, it was logically stripped down, e.g. of its decimal fp units, same units which wsippel seems to think make POWER7 unsuitable for a console ; )

ed: corrected brainfart on my part, SteveP can correct the same on his.

 

[wsippel]

The chances that IBM designed a Z-moniker CPU which is actually a POWER/PPC are nil.

IBM is so very weird with code names that nothing would surprise me anymore. They have at least three projects called "Z7", two of which are CPUs - "z8" and "Z8" seem to be completely different chips.

 

[blu]

IBM is so very weird with code names that nothing would surprise me anymore. They have at least three projects called "Z7", two of which are CPUs.

IBM have a Z architecture line of CPUs. It's not POWER/PPC-related in any shape of form.

 

[wsippel]

IBM have a Z architecture line of CPUs. It's not POWER/PPC-related in any shape of form.

I'm well aware of the z/Architecture line of chips. But those use a lower case "z", while the chip I was talking about uses a capital "Z". Also, z9 is a 2005 design. z10 is 2008, and Z7 is even newer than that.


EDIT: It seems IBM uses a very confusing nomenclature for zSeries. The z10 microprocessor was called z6 during development, so it's actually quite possible that z7 is the development codename for what will eventually become the z11 microprocessor. z/Architecture and POWER are developed in tandem and share several design traits (they are actually very similar), which seems to be reflected by their development code names: z6 and POWER6, z7 and POWER7, z8 and POWER8 and so on. So that's probably it. Kinda weird that it's spelled differently and developed by the console guys, but yeah... It seems to be IBMs next generation mainframe processor.

 

[Hiltz]

http://www.officialnintendomagazine.co.uk/29002/harvest-moon-creator-working-on-3ds-and-wii-u-games/

Harvest Moon creator.

Grasshopper Manufacture sure knows how to keep busy:

- Frog Minutes iphone game was released back in March
- Shadows of the Damned was released last month
- Announced Sine Mora for XBLA & PSN in August 2010 w/ co-developer Digital Reality
- Still working on Codename D for Xbox 360 Kinect exclusive (announced Sept. 2010)
- Announced Evangelion: Sound Impact last month for PSP
- Announced Lollipop Chainsaw this month for 360 & PS3
- Unofficially teases No More Heroes 3 for Wii U last month
- I think Grasshopper may have said that it wanted to make another iphone game
- Yasuhiro Wada working on 3DS title and another title for unknown platform

 

[blu]

z/Architecture and POWER are developed in tandem and share several design traits (they are actually very similar), which seems to be reflected by their development code names: z6 and POWER6, z7 and POWER7, z8 and POWER8 and so on. So that's probably it. Kinda weird that it's spelled differently and developed by the console guys, but yeah... It seems to be IBMs next generation mainframe processor.

The Z and POWER architectures have nothing in common.

 

[bgassassin]

Don't know if that's in any way related, but some guys usually working on console CPUs at IBM started working on a chip called "Z7" some time in 2008 (seemingly not related to the IBM Z7 mainframe processor). Couldn't find much, except that it's a multi core CPU clocked at 5.3GHz.

I did a search to see was would come up for IBM Z7 and look what I found.

http://www.linkedin.com/in/syednhyder

Syed Hyder's Summary

Products: Xbox 360, Sony PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii and IBM Z7 microprocessor design

...

-Designed clock distribution network for multi-core multi-domain IBM ‘Z7’ microprocessor. Core, cash and I/O frequencies were 5.3, 2.65 and 2.4 GHz respectively.

Still doesn't totally mean anything, but his line of products indicate a pattern. There's some more stuff on his profile talking about his involvement with the current consoles. In fact it almost sounds like his specialty.

 

[TheExplodingHead]

I personally don't see the CPU being clocked any higher than 2.66, if being a PPC Quad. The chances that it's based on the P7 architecture is pretty high given the supposed amount of edram. But I suppose it possible for it's lineage to be earlier.

I'm also really interested to see if Nintendo keeps the general prototype dimensions from E3. Because it just doesn't seem practical for a Power 7 (@2.33-2.66) and a R700 (500-650MHz) even if we're talking super conservative clocks. It seems it'd need better ventilation or wizardry in heat dissipation.

 

[bgassassin]

I personally don't see the CPU being clocked any higher than 2.66, if being a PPC Quad. The chances that it's based on the P7 architecture is pretty high given the supposed amount of edram. But I suppose it possible for it's lineage to be earlier.

I'm also really interested to see if Nintendo keeps the general prototype dimensions from E3. Because it just doesn't seem practical for a Power 7 (@2.33-2.66) and a R700 (500-650MHz) even if we're talking super conservative clocks. It seems it'd need better ventilation or wizardry in heat dissipation.

Nintendium and magic are Nintendo's specialties. They just skimped on it with Wii. Percentage-wise they should be going back to Gamecube levels.

 

[[Nintex]]

A 5.3 Ghz CPU in a Nintendo system would be highly unlikely and I can see Microsoft go with AMD for both the GPU and CPU so my guess would the PS4 cpu(?)

 

[Azure J]

5.3GHz? What the hell kinda computations do you have to be doing in a console to warrant such a high and hot frequency?

 

[Vinci]

Nintendium and magic are Nintendo's specialties. They just skimped on it with Wii. Percentage-wise they should be going back to Gamecube levels.

I would really love to see another Gamecube design from them, hardware-wise. The more I read up on that, the more beautiful it seems. And I'm not even a hardware guy.

 

[bgassassin]

^ The more I hear about Wii U the more I think about GC. Seems like they are repeating an efficient design like they did with GC, just with more current hardware.



Not saying this as fact since we don't know for sure, but that could explain the overheating dev kits.

 

[MrBelmontvedere]

it doesn't have to be running at 5.3 GHz all the time. many processors these days dynamically change their clock frequencies.

 

[Azure J]

I would really love to see another Gamecube design from them, hardware-wise. The more I read up on that, the more beautiful it seems. And I'm not even a hardware guy.

Precisely, it also should be mandatory reading for other designers on how to make a kick ass console that doesn't blow up on use, doesn't cost a ton to make or manufacture and makes a good profit at launch, thus making things good on both ends (consumer and business).

 

[AceBandage]

http://twitter.com/#!/SuperMeatBoy

SuperMeatBoy Team Meat
we are deving it for wii U
10 hours ago
Team Meat
SuperMeatBoy Team Meat
the next game is actually hidden somewhere in that video...
10 hours ago
Team Meat
SuperMeatBoy Team Meat
its a bit of a minecraft clone sorry @notch
10 hours ago
Team Meat
SuperMeatBoy Team Meat
here is the 1st vid of Team Meat working on game 2 vimeo.com/26909371
11 hours ago

 

[Azure J]

http://twitter.com/#!/SuperMeatBoy

Awesome news. I think at this point, I'm really more interested in the games coming to the system's early life than anything else and Nintendo's really keeping that card to their chest.

 

[wsippel]

The Z and POWER architectures have nothing in common.

They have a lot in common if Wikipedia is to be believed, including pipeline and execution unit design. Reading the Linux on zSeries documentation would be rather enlightening I guess, but I'm not bored enough to do so right now...

 

[herzogzwei1989]

it doesn't have to be running at 5.3 GHz all the time. many processors these days dynamically change their clock frequencies.

Of course 5.3 GHz is not happening in a console, epecially with Nintendo being conservative with their designs.

 

[ShellyDeKiller]

http://twitter.com/#!/SuperMeatBoy

*Remembers Super Meat Boy*

Nope, won't trust them till I see it...

 

[blu]

They have a lot in common if Wikipedia is to be believed, including pipeline and execution unit design. Reading the Linux on zSeries documentation would be rather enlightening I guess, but I'm not bored enough to do so right now...

Let me quote myself for emphasis, and expand a tad:

The Z and POWER architectures have nothing in common.

One of them is a system360-compatible CISC architecture from the heyday of CISC (1960's), with all the fluff that goes along with that (the obligatory variable instruction length, mem-mem ops, etc). The other is a RISC load/store architecture that started life in rs6k, and is still considered to be one of the epitomes of RISC. It does not matter whether they share the same gate tech, barrel shifters or clock gating know-how. They are fundamentally different architectures. If you think x86 and PPC are different architectures, Z and POWER are even more so.

And no need to read linux documentation (it's not particularly good as an architecture overview) - read this: z/Architecture Reference Summary.

 

[bgassassin]

http://twitter.com/#!/SuperMeatBoy

Since I'm not doing anything (even though I should) I took these three pics as having the clue mentioned.

Only thing I can think of is that it's some kind of ninja game based on what drawn on the box, and then the following pic that is on the door in #3.

 

[AceBandage]

Well, it's some kind of sandbox world creation ninja game. That much is certain.

 

[Daschysta]

"At the launch event at E3, some of the products that you saw running on Wii U were based on Unreal Engine technology. So that kind of gives you an idea of where we are in that space. You can certainly use our engine on that platform – it's a natural fit from a technology perspective," Capps added. "It opens up some doors that weren't open before on current generation consoles because it is going to be a powerful box. I'm sure [Epic VP] Mark Rein would love anyone who's interested to know how official our support is to get in touch with him!”

Is pretty encouraging coming from Epic, who have previously not developed on nintendo consoles on technological grounds. And no, i'm quite sure they aren't referring to the fact that this has a screen and the others do not.

I'm pretty confident that this console will be a healthy jump power wise from current gen. when people like miyamoto say they cannot promise the system will "blow away" the graphics on current gen they are, imo, referring to the fact that graphics have a sense of diminishing returns at the moment. The average person will not look at something like Uncharted 3 or killzone two, and then something like crysis or even battlefield and say that one "blows the other away" in the same way that you would going from last gen to this gen, or any other gen to any other previous gen. HD has moderated that and no cost effective machine will produce such a leap at the moment. even high end ps360 to samaritan doesn't touch other generational gaps, and the cost in exponentially higher to achieve even that difference in graphical fidelity. The average person won't be blown away by the difference between current gen and wii-u, heck maybe not even between wii-u and "next gen" (though wii-u IS next gen), but that doesn't mean that those of us on gaf who appreciate those things won't be able to tell the superiority of games on the wii-u.

 

[sfried]

Don't know if this has been posted yet: http://www.industrygamers.com/news/epic-confirms-theyre-very-interested-in-wii-u/ There ya go laddies, the president imself. Has Cliffy shown interest yet? There is no way this console won't succed.......atleast PS3 levels at bear mininmum

All I know is that I want Cliffy B to make Dare to Dream U.

 

[herzogzwei1989]

Well July is almost over and still no word on the newer dev kits. Not that i'm worried or anything, it's just that I'd like (we'd all like) some sort of news on how powerful Wii U might be.

 

[Penguin]

Well July is almost over and still no word on the newer dev kits. Not that i'm worried or anything, it's just that I'd like (we'd all like) some sort of news on how powerful Wii U might be.

Speak for yourself.

Were you really expecting all the details to be spilled though?

 

[sfried]

Well July is almost over and still no word on the newer dev kits.

They probably have it. They're just bound by NDA.

 

[Cmd. Pishad'aç]

Probably we'll only get new info about the power of it near TGS...

 

[ShockingAlberto]

Nintendo (and Yves Guillemot) likely plugged the super-obvious leaks after E3.

 

[herzogzwei1989]

Speak for yourself.

Were you really expecting all the details to be spilled though?

No, not ALL the details, just some word, is all.

 

[Luigiv]

Let me quote myself for emphasis, and expand a tad:

The Z and POWER architectures have nothing in common.

You can say that all you want but it's not going to mean anything to a gamer that's never done computer science/engineering. Whilst a lot of gamers are familiar with the term Architecture, very few know it's actual definition (most think architecture is synonymous with hardware). So here's a diagram that came up during one of my past units to help with your argument.

 

[wsippel]

Let me quote myself for emphasis, and expand a tad:

The Z and POWER architectures have nothing in common.

One of them is a system360-compatible CISC architecture from the heyday of CISC (1960's), with all the fluff that goes along with that (the obligatory variable instruction length, mem-mem ops, etc). The other is a RISC load/store architecture that started life in rs6k, and is still considered to be one of the epitomes of RISC. It does not matter whether they share the same gate tech, barrel shifters or clock gating know-how. They are fundamentally different architectures. If you think x86 and PPC are different architectures, Z and POWER are even more so.

And no need to read linux documentation (it's not particularly good as an architecture overview) - read this: z/Architecture Reference Summary.

Yes, missed that bit. The architectures are completely different of course, but the chips share many design traits, as reflected by their code names.

 

[bgassassin]

You can say that all you want but it's not going to mean anything to a gamer that's never done computer science/engineering. Whilst a lot of gamers are familiar with the term Architecture, very few know it's actual definition (most think architecture is synonymous with hardware). So here's a diagram that came up during one of my past units to help with your argument.

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b263/Luigi_V/ComputerHirachy.jpg

Technically the term isn't limited to what that picture shows.


After reading more about the z196, I can see it being an influence/foundation for Wii U's CPU. After all the only true confirmation we have is lots of eDRAM and that's what helped power Watson.

 

[wsippel]

Technically the term isn't limited to what that picture shows.


After reading more about the z196, I can see it being an influence/foundation for Wii U's CPU. After all the only true confirmation we have is lots of eDRAM and that's what helped power Watson.

So z7 ended up as z196. Makes a ton of sense, after z6 became z10. Honestly, fuck IBM and their weird naming schemes... lol

Anyway, Nintendo uses a Power CPU, not a z/Architecture CPU. blu was absolutely correct, the architectures are nothing alike. At a lower level, the chips are very similar though. If Nintendo's CPU is in any way related to POWER7, it will obviously also share some similarities with z196, but I wouldn't call z196 the foundation.

 

[bgassassin]

So z7 ended up as z196. Makes a ton of sense, after z6 became z10. Honestly, fuck IBM and their weird naming schemes... lol

Anyway, Nintendo uses a Power CPU, not a z/Architecture CPU. blu was absolutely correct, the architectures are nothing alike. At a lower level, the chips are very similar though. If Nintendo's CPU is in any way related to POWER7, it will obviously also share some similarities with z196, but I wouldn't call z196 the foundation.

LOL.

That's fine since we're just taking what we know and doing the best we can with it. That's why I added influence in there (cya).

And I say influence based on looking strictly at the physical layout of the z196 die.

Although I did see things about the z196 being a hybrid capable of handling various software and hardware types. Don't know if that means anything though.

 

[herzogzwei1989]

So is the current thinking is that this z196 CPU will be the basis for the Wii U CPU ?

 

[pillarofdawn]

2 things I want to see on and I can see happening on the WiiU is a dungeons and dragons game, where you can use the pad as a map and character sheet thingy. Also this SCREAMS Final Fantasy Tactics

 

[wsippel]

So is the current thinking is that this z196 CPU will be the basis for the Wii U CPU ?

No. If anything, z196 and Nintendo's CPU share a common basis: POWER7. It would be a lot closer to POWER7, though.

 

[bgassassin]

2 things I want to see on and I can see happening on the WiiU is a dungeons and dragons game, where you can use the pad as a map and character sheet thingy. Also this SCREAMS Final Fantasy Tactics

If I understand you right, you mean like the person with the Upad is the dungeon master? That's what I see in a D&D game that was suggested awhile back.

No. If anything, z196 and Nintendo's CPU share a common basis: POWER7. It would be a lot closer to POWER7, though.

You're saying that based on the instruction set right?

Physically I saw that the z196 is a four-core processor (unlike POWER7 that just turns four off), supports sizable amounts of edram (more L1 and L2 than POWER7 with less L3), and had L4 cache off-die. Although obviously it will be modified and IBM states their new process can put a whole lot of edram on a chip so it's probably all moot points anyway.

 

[herzogzwei1989]

No. If anything, z196 and Nintendo's CPU share a common basis: POWER7. It would be a lot closer to POWER7, though.

interesting, thanks.

 

[Luigiv]

Technically the term isn't limited to what that picture shows.

Well, the stuff on the right are only examples, not everything included under each tier but the point still remains; the Architechture is the hardware as the programmer sees it, which is mainly comprised of the instruction set, the register count and bus width. Anything lower level then that is completely invisible to the programmer and therefore irelevent in a discussion about architechture.

 

[Fou-Lu]

I hope Nintendo releases something new on Wii U soon, usually I'm so excited for a new console I think about it every day. Not with Wii U.

Don't get me wrong, I expect it to have amazing games and I'll be there day one, but something is just missing so far.

Oh wait, gameplay footage. Duh.

 

[freddy]

Subscribing

 

[wsippel]

You're saying that based on the instruction set right?

Physically I saw that the z196 is a four-core processor (unlike POWER7 that just turns four off), supports sizable amounts of edram (more L1 and L2 than POWER7 with less L3), and had L4 cache off-die. Although obviously it will be modified and IBM states their new process can put a whole lot of edram on a chip so it's probably all moot points anyway.

Not just the instruction set. z196 and POWER7 share decimal floating point units, something Nintendo would have removed. On the other hand, z196 seems to lack SIMD units, a feature Nintendo would certainly want to keep. Nintendo also wouldn't need a RAID capable memory controller or L4 cache, which seem to be z196 specific features.