Wii U Speculation Thread of Brains Beware: Wii U Re-Unveiling At E3 2012
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AceBandage
Banned
Gianni Merryman said:
Oh, you're talking about this.
Yeah, that's not so different from split screen gaming, really.
walking fiend
Member
Burntpork strikes a home run again, I see
1. Wii U philosophy is exactly the reverse of iPad streaming. It is about making a very cheap and powerful homeconsole and make it stream that high quality to a portable screen, not vice versa
2. It wasn't functional streaming one, NO wireless streaming technology currently on the market is even lagless enough for basic stuff like typing, let alone gaming; I don't see how it would be more functional doing 4 of them now
3. Not everyone owns an iPad, really people don't, and if they do I wonder what percentage are willing to change them annually to have them as functional gaming device.
4. Even less own Apple TV, even less are willing to upgrade the TV to keep up with the iPad upgrades
5. I really wonder what percentage gets iPads for their gaming needs and are willing to swap Dirt or F1 for Real Racing not on the go, but in the house
6. iPad will be always much more expensive than Wii U, let alone 2 or 4 of them.
This is just so wrong in so many accounts.
And on a side note, Real Racing HD is a shitty game, like most of other iPad games, and mostly because of its terrible idea of simplifying racing games to a barely functional wheel; MK Wii has a much better control, dunno what is real about this game.
1. Wii U philosophy is exactly the reverse of iPad streaming. It is about making a very cheap and powerful homeconsole and make it stream that high quality to a portable screen, not vice versa
2. It wasn't functional streaming one, NO wireless streaming technology currently on the market is even lagless enough for basic stuff like typing, let alone gaming; I don't see how it would be more functional doing 4 of them now
3. Not everyone owns an iPad, really people don't, and if they do I wonder what percentage are willing to change them annually to have them as functional gaming device.
4. Even less own Apple TV, even less are willing to upgrade the TV to keep up with the iPad upgrades
5. I really wonder what percentage gets iPads for their gaming needs and are willing to swap Dirt or F1 for Real Racing not on the go, but in the house
6. iPad will be always much more expensive than Wii U, let alone 2 or 4 of them.
This is just so wrong in so many accounts.
And on a side note, Real Racing HD is a shitty game, like most of other iPad games, and mostly because of its terrible idea of simplifying racing games to a barely functional wheel; MK Wii has a much better control, dunno what is real about this game.
BlackNMild2k1
Member
First, I think the Wii U only "needs" local 2 player uMote (support for 4 would be nice though)Gianni Merryman said:
But streaming 1/4 1080p to multiple outputs is not gonna be a problem with the CPU/GPU chips on hand.
AMD's Eyfinity tech can output to 6 different monitors.
All Wii U really need to do is produce 2 1080p images to support 4 controller and a TV.
1 1080p image to the TV and the other split into 4 (4 player splitscreen) and then sent to each corresponding controller.
The problem isn't splitting the image, it's sending it wirelessly to 4 (or even 2) separate controllers.
I'm not sure if it works exactly the way I described (4 player split sent to 4 separate controllers) or if they need to actually render 4 separate screens to send to each controller.
But I think the questions get answered as soon as we find out what the wireless streaming tech is.
SD isn't just "slightly worse than HD", though, and each controller screen is only SD (480p). The total resolution of four controllers combined would still be only about 80% of 1080p.Gianni Merryman said:
Actually, it's slightly less than 1/5 1080p (~19.7%).BlackNMild2k1 said:
1. Casuals won't be able to tell the difference. They'll just think "My iPad can do that and more! Why buy another Wii just for something my iPad can already do?"walking fiend said:
2. Then Wii U will face that same issue
3. The casual audience Nintendo aims for is completely eclipsed by Apple. There's no denying that.
4. I conceded that point.
5. We're talking casuals here.
6. The iPad 3 will sell more than the Wii U. What the Wii U sells in a year will be overtaken by what the iPad sells in a quarter. I hate it, but it's true. Nintendo can't compete against them, so they have to stand out.
And we're talking about the group of people paying for flash-level games.
Dreamwriter
Member
The problem here isn't one of creating or rendering multiple screens, it's one of sending data wirelessly. Sending more than one screen in realtime means it has to reliably send all that data in under 1/60th of a second regardless of what other interference may be in the area (like a few 802.11n wifi setups), which is why Nintendo hadn't even tested it with two controllers before E3. Why Real Racing on iPhone is able to do it with 4 screens is, they cheat: each device is a full game system, so they only need one device to create the single split-screen display for the television and send that wirelessly to the Apple TV, while each device then creates its own local screen and then the game uses normal wireless networking for actual gameplay, sending positions of the cars and stuff.
Eh? It's an awesome racing game. You realize you don't have to play with just steering, right? You can choose to play with both gas pedal and brake, you can turn off the auto-braking and always-on gas. And the steering quality is about the same as Mario Kart Wii, though it's kinda hard to compare them since Real Racing is a sim-style racer, not a Mario Kart game.walking fiend said:
Always-honest
Banned
So when can we expwct actual info?
I'm always amazed at the authority with which people make statements on forums on topics they don't understand. Even if you're not an expert in graphics, taking a rational approach to the topic would avoid a lot of statements along the lines of "oh, they can just do it like this", "it's the same as just that", "they're just being cheap, modern cards can all do this".
To illustrate: a 4-player split screen still renders the same amount of pixels as a single player full-sized image (well, truthfully, even that is simplifying out more complex issues like overdraw). Still, games running on split-screen have been cutting corners in the visual department to implement the feature. With this observation one would at least have to acknowledge that the amount of pixels on the screens is not the only determining factor in figuring out the required performance for split-screen or multiple upad gaming.
To claims that ATI's Eyefinity technology is somehow magic and can output game visuals to 6 different screens wirelessly and with no hick-up: I would like to hear about your hardware setup. Sure they could output your desktop to 6 screens, but your desktop in not utilizing most of your GPU resources.
Now, to get back to the multiple upad topic. To simplify, there are two things that need to happen for a game to produce an image: 1. have the GPU determine which part of your scene is visible, that would typically be the geometry transform part; 2. Depict the visible part of the scene, here you color, shade, etc., the pixel shading part.
To understand 1, let me briefly explain the representation of a typical scene. Simply one can imagine that your virtual scene is made up of a bunch of tiny triangles that approximate the surfaces in the scene. In the same way that the world exists around you independently of what you are currently looking at, in a game the scene also exists in a representation that is independent of your current view. The first phase, figures out where your world triangles are from the perspective of your view. Imagine that your screen is your window into the gaming world, then moving your view around in a game would be equivalent to moving your screen around to see different parts of the virtual world surrounding you. Now, if you consider the center of your screen to be a coordinate (0, 0), you'll accept that as you move your screen around, even non-moving objects in your scene will occupy different locations on your screen when you move the screen around. This process is of course view-dependent and will produce different results for different views. Also note that the process is independent of the resolution of your screen: relative to the center of your screen, the spatial coverage of a scene object will be the same, only that a higher-resolution screen will fill this coverage with more pixels than a lower resolution screen.
This notion of coverage leads to part 2. Indeed, after we know where our triangles are, we have to fill in all the pixels of the screen that it covers with the appropriate color. To simplify, let us say that all visual representations are computed per pixel (as opposed to doing some of the work on the corners of the triangles and then interpolating the results across its surface). In that case, resolution of your screen becomes very important. If you have more pixels covering one object your GPU will have to compute more colors.
Now to move this whole discussion back to the upad and make it more concrete. For each pad you must compute part 1 if they are to have different view (and that would be the whole point wouldn't it). This means you'd have to transform your entire scene for each pad. This process can be very expensive depending on the fidelity that you attribute to the geometric representation of your scene. And this process is independent of the "lower" resolution of the screen on your pad. Then, you also have to compute all the pixels of each pad. Finally, in our specific case here, the finally image must also be transmitted to the pads. The wireless transmission is certainly not possible at the bandwidth of a wired connection. The more pads you have the more bandwidth you're going to need. As a result you might lower the refresh rate of the images on pad, to give yourself enough time to transmit the images to all the pads. Note that this final step is completely independent of the power of your GPU: even if you could produce all the images in a nano-second, that still doesn't mean you can transmit them that fast.
Hope this helps ground some folks
To illustrate: a 4-player split screen still renders the same amount of pixels as a single player full-sized image (well, truthfully, even that is simplifying out more complex issues like overdraw). Still, games running on split-screen have been cutting corners in the visual department to implement the feature. With this observation one would at least have to acknowledge that the amount of pixels on the screens is not the only determining factor in figuring out the required performance for split-screen or multiple upad gaming.
To claims that ATI's Eyefinity technology is somehow magic and can output game visuals to 6 different screens wirelessly and with no hick-up: I would like to hear about your hardware setup. Sure they could output your desktop to 6 screens, but your desktop in not utilizing most of your GPU resources.
Now, to get back to the multiple upad topic. To simplify, there are two things that need to happen for a game to produce an image: 1. have the GPU determine which part of your scene is visible, that would typically be the geometry transform part; 2. Depict the visible part of the scene, here you color, shade, etc., the pixel shading part.
To understand 1, let me briefly explain the representation of a typical scene. Simply one can imagine that your virtual scene is made up of a bunch of tiny triangles that approximate the surfaces in the scene. In the same way that the world exists around you independently of what you are currently looking at, in a game the scene also exists in a representation that is independent of your current view. The first phase, figures out where your world triangles are from the perspective of your view. Imagine that your screen is your window into the gaming world, then moving your view around in a game would be equivalent to moving your screen around to see different parts of the virtual world surrounding you. Now, if you consider the center of your screen to be a coordinate (0, 0), you'll accept that as you move your screen around, even non-moving objects in your scene will occupy different locations on your screen when you move the screen around. This process is of course view-dependent and will produce different results for different views. Also note that the process is independent of the resolution of your screen: relative to the center of your screen, the spatial coverage of a scene object will be the same, only that a higher-resolution screen will fill this coverage with more pixels than a lower resolution screen.
This notion of coverage leads to part 2. Indeed, after we know where our triangles are, we have to fill in all the pixels of the screen that it covers with the appropriate color. To simplify, let us say that all visual representations are computed per pixel (as opposed to doing some of the work on the corners of the triangles and then interpolating the results across its surface). In that case, resolution of your screen becomes very important. If you have more pixels covering one object your GPU will have to compute more colors.
Now to move this whole discussion back to the upad and make it more concrete. For each pad you must compute part 1 if they are to have different view (and that would be the whole point wouldn't it). This means you'd have to transform your entire scene for each pad. This process can be very expensive depending on the fidelity that you attribute to the geometric representation of your scene. And this process is independent of the "lower" resolution of the screen on your pad. Then, you also have to compute all the pixels of each pad. Finally, in our specific case here, the finally image must also be transmitted to the pads. The wireless transmission is certainly not possible at the bandwidth of a wired connection. The more pads you have the more bandwidth you're going to need. As a result you might lower the refresh rate of the images on pad, to give yourself enough time to transmit the images to all the pads. Note that this final step is completely independent of the power of your GPU: even if you could produce all the images in a nano-second, that still doesn't mean you can transmit them that fast.
Hope this helps ground some folks
walking fiend
Member
I don't understand what you talk about, but I believe you know Nintendo has very clearly implied that the technological barrier isn't the reason they are not releasing multiple upads?sarusama said:
At this point, if four Wii U controllers isn't possible, then the Wii U isn't a viable console and Nintendo should try something else. How do you think people would have reacted if Microsoft had said "you can only use one XBox 360 controller per system; the rest must be Controller S"? They'd have been fucking pissed. Nintendo has to either find a solution or go back to the drawing board and create some other main gimmick.Dreamwriter said:
Jorok Goldblade
Member
BurntPork said:
Wait- people play local multiplayer on the X-Box? (I kid)
Nintendo seems fairly confident that the system will support at least 2 pads. What they seem less confident in is their ability to release a standalone pad at a consumer friendly price.
walking fiend said:
Hmm... I guess I can't express myself properly. Of course, it's possible, the same way it's possible to hook-up 6 monitors to your desktop. Does that mean you'll be playing a game on a 3x2 array of 30' monitors? My whole point was to give posters an idea of what is involved in rendering an image, so that they could better understand what would be feasible. E.g., if you have static image for display on the upad, you can totally do 4 upads on wiiU. The question really is: what do you need to show on the upad and at what refresh rate do you need to show it.
blu
Wants the largest console games publisher to avoid Nintendo's platforms.
sarusama tried to explain how split-screen taxes the game engine/GPU system through the sheer multiplicity of different views, namely, that it's not merely a function of the combined pixel estate. But I think most gaffers already (instinctively) knew it. The bigger question is how many streams can the umote transmitter encode and send out, and at what refresh rate, e.g. 1/2 at 60hz, 3/4 at 30hz, etc.walking fiend said:
Zoramon089
Banned
BurntPork said:
LOL. Two controllers is enough
jump_button
Banned
Jorok Goldblade said:
what happen if we need a new pad? I like to get a new pad every two years or so, they have to have new pads you can buy what happen if somthing happen to your old one?
they a big screen on the thing drop that and bye bye?
JoshuaJSlone
Member
They do sell replacement parts that aren't regularly shipped to stores. If they choose not to push it as a multiplayer thing, they might just sit alongside the bunches of Wii Remote battery covers and GB Micro AC adapters.jump_button said:
The real question is.. Do we know yet if there will be a wiimote with the console or not ??
I guess no, cause it would be expensive, but we have to realize that means Nintendo officially drop the ball on motion control.
That means they release a new WII for the excited world who associate WII name with Wii Sport and waving arms like a crazy. The console is named WiiU, which is worse cause it doesn't seem like an advance or a sequel to the wii, but more some kind of new iteration...
BUT it's not based on what defined the Wii AT ALL!! That's brilliant marketing as usual big N. People will love it.
I guess no, cause it would be expensive, but we have to realize that means Nintendo officially drop the ball on motion control.
That means they release a new WII for the excited world who associate WII name with Wii Sport and waving arms like a crazy. The console is named WiiU, which is worse cause it doesn't seem like an advance or a sequel to the wii, but more some kind of new iteration...
BUT it's not based on what defined the Wii AT ALL!! That's brilliant marketing as usual big N. People will love it.
walking fiend
Member
1. Because playing 4 player games like Real Racing is the least incentives for casual gamers to buy a system to begin with? At home, they want to play Zumba and Just Dance and Mario. They won't even want to get their ipads and go to their rooms and play Angry Birds.BurntPork said:
2. As I said, Wii U technology is currently not available on the market.
3. Not true, I'll get to this.
4. Then they won't say "Why buy another Wii just for something my iPad can already do?", because they don't have an Apple TV to do so.
t
5. Are we? Then Real Racing means very little to them to begin with, racing games do to begin with.
6. No, it won't. iPad has sold less than 30m till July 2011. And as playing a 4 player game requires 4 iPads, actually at most 15m family may experience any form of multiplayer, less than 6m if they want to enjoy 5p multi games of the Wii U, that is if you get lucky and all 2-5 people in the same family/friend circle happen to have an iPad AND an Apple TV.
Even iPhone has sold less than 25% more than Wii (as of the last official data we have which I believe is for June), and that includes those who just have replaced their outdated models with newer ones, whi
And you are also ignoring that the most popular casual games at home are games that are not possible to be played with an iPad to begin with.
tbh, I didn't know as I only played it for like an hour on my friends iPad2, and believe it was more than what he had played it himself ever. However, I don't see that making any difference, as braking in that mode was so unresponsive, that I can fairly easily say that I would hate the game even more using manual input; It is true that I like sim racing games much more than arcade ones, but if I don't have the benefit of using responsive controls, I prefer to play arcade games, as the mechanics match much better to the unresponsive control method. I believe Wii's reliance on motion control for steering was one of the main reasons that it didn't get sim style racers at all.
bgassassin
Member
sarusama said:
Informative post and I see the teacher in you is still going strong. But we have discussed in the past about how it would be streamed so from the sound of it you might have missed that part.
I'm of the belief it uses ViVu's MXTP combined with Eyefinity.
http://www.slashgear.com/amd-wireless-tv-takes-on-intel-widi-video-17134334/
The link has both a press release describing it and has a video showing how it works. The streams in the demo are 720p and we know Wii U won't be pushing for that.
Zoramon089 said:
Exactly. That would cover what you need for sports and fighting games.
walking fiend
Member
I guess I get what you mean. You say even if they do, it will show its toll somewhere, like the fact that a lot of games look worse in 4p split screen or run worse that way. Well, I think as Blu said, I should have instinctively got what you meant.sarusama said:
However, I still have a reservation with the part that concerns refresh rate and data transfer. I believe since there's a central unit that does all the processing, as long as the receiver and transmitter only on this central unit are capable, to the rest of uPads it wouldn't make any difference if they are the only ones, or if they are in fact cooperating with another 3. As they just send and receive their own data, but it is the central unit that does all the processing and it is the only unit that needs to receive all the data.
That is, unlike the technology that iPad uses to make 4p possible, Wii U only needs a star connection, instead of probably a fully connected mesh that iPad needs.
for real, or are you saying that I am so ignorant that you even don't want to get into a discussion with me?
Dreamwriter
Member
Where is this coming from? Miyamoto saying they would have to test with two controllers to see if it would be possible, on the off chance that a third-part developer might want to someday make a game that would use that for people who wanted to take their controller to a friend's house, that doesn't sound confident at all.Jorok Goldblade said:
bgassassin
Member
Dreamwriter said:
I think the problem you are having is that you focus only on Miyamoto said and take it in a context that has no support. We have nothing to tell us why they've only used one controller to this point. Iwata said multiple controllers were possible. That's too big of a disjoint between two of the faces of Nintendo when you take Miyamoto's comment that way. I could just as easily take Miyamoto's comment to imply cost is the issue as well.
BlackNMild2k1
Member
I feel that sarusama's post was sort of directed at me so let me respond by saying that what I was saying really had nothing to do with how a GPU process pixels to make images on the screen. It's more about if the WiiU can actually stream those images to multiple devices.
We know the AMD tech can support multiple screens, but can the streaming tech actually support multiple streams of different images to different screens.
It's assumed that the Wii U can handle a 4 player split screen image @ 1080p. So it would be assumed that if the WiiU was hooked up to several monitors with wires, so technically it could spread those images, that the GPU has already rendered, across those monitors as it's setup to do.
I've seen the Vivu tech & the Widi tech, and the problem that both of those may present(based on what was shown of the tech), is that when they are being shown off, they are sending the same single video to multiple devices wirelessly. I question if the host machine can send a different videos to each of those devices using the single transmitter, or would multiple transmitters be needed. But of course no one would be able to answer that question without first knowing what tech is being used in the WiiU.
We know the AMD tech can support multiple screens, but can the streaming tech actually support multiple streams of different images to different screens.
It's assumed that the Wii U can handle a 4 player split screen image @ 1080p. So it would be assumed that if the WiiU was hooked up to several monitors with wires, so technically it could spread those images, that the GPU has already rendered, across those monitors as it's setup to do.
I've seen the Vivu tech & the Widi tech, and the problem that both of those may present(based on what was shown of the tech), is that when they are being shown off, they are sending the same single video to multiple devices wirelessly. I question if the host machine can send a different videos to each of those devices using the single transmitter, or would multiple transmitters be needed. But of course no one would be able to answer that question without first knowing what tech is being used in the WiiU.
bgassassin
Member
BlackNMild2k1 said:
That's why I said it would be used with Eyefinity.
walking fiend
Member
thx, not that you ever do this type of stuff, but I thought if I had made even you to do that, then something really should be amissBurntPork said:
though, what was funny about that part?
Doubtful based on what?Luckyman said:
You didn't finish the sentence. In fact, you stopped mid-word.walking fiend said:thx, not that you ever do this type of stuff, but I thought if I had made even you to do that, then something really should be amiss
though, what was funny about that part?
bgassassin
Member
Luckyman said:
None of my posts said Eyefinity does that or else I wouldn't have proposed a solution to be used with Eyefinity that could handle that. I don't even know how you got that from my posts. Since we're being technical, Vivu is a company not a software encoding solution. MXTP is what you are referring to and the software uses Vivu's MXTP technology. And I would really like to hear the reasoning for your last sentence.
Dreamwriter
Member
I don't think there's any disjoint. Miyamoto said they'd look into supporting two controllers, and Iwata said it was theoretically possible, but they weren't planning on doing anything with that due to the cost. Neither one sounds like Nintendo is "confident" that the system will support two controllers.bgassassin said:
BurntPork said:
Performance. Software encoders use GPU/CPU time and memory. They could maybe do software encoding if they only intend to ever support one controller. Four is dreaming..
Wlans too big gamble because they are getting crowded. It just can't have a fail anywhere. For multiple controllers even bigger problem. They should go for higher frequency. They already said it pretty much needs line of sight which points to something similar to WirelessHD
I don't think they ever intended for these pads to be used for local multiplayer. Just multiple people using one pad. Why can't they just sell regular controllers?
bgassassin
Member
Dreamwriter said:
I guess the thing for me in all these debates about this would be to understand your view on the context of "supporting multiple controllers". Is that technical or cost? This post is making it sound differently from past posts.
For me nothing I've seen would say it's both or technical alone. Miyamoto said their "basic premise" was that it would use one controller. Saying basic to me indicated that he knew it was always possible to use multiple controllers or else he wouldn't have also suggested using a 3DS as an alternative. (Which is inconsiderate of people like me who don't buy handhelds.) And looking back at what Iwata talking about having enough value in a game to justify buying a second controller undermines the value of just being able to use a second one, let alone thinking a game should be good enough to justify having a second one.
I just want to know what retail cost they have in mind to feel the way they do about not selling them. I think they could easily get away with selling them for $99.
It's hard to say without knowing the tech they're using... My guess, given the resolution of the WiiU tablet, would be that they system will transmit a single signal and then the controller displays its designated portion of that signal. To me, that seems like the easiest solution within the known technologies.BlackNMild2k1 said:
I don't see why Nintendo would include a Wii MotionPlus controller for Wii U. All of Nintendo's previous home consoles only came with controls for 1 player, so why would Nintendo change that for Wii U ? Secondly, since Wii U is compatible with all types of Wii controllers, it can still use the original Wii remote that's in most Wii owner households. As for Motionplus, it's been made available since June 2009 as a peripheraland as a full controller replacement for the original Wii remote since May 2010. Both controllers have been included in various hardware and software bundles with the Mario Kart Wii hardware bundle, new Wii Slim model (announced for Europe), and Skyward Sword being the most recent additions.
So Pachter thinks that MS and Sony are willing to give the WiiU a two year head start.
And probably during those two years will promise that their new consoles will be the second coming.
http://www.gametrailers.com/video/digital-trade-pach-attack/721913
Every time I see the WiiU controller, I dig it more.
And probably during those two years will promise that their new consoles will be the second coming.
http://www.gametrailers.com/video/digital-trade-pach-attack/721913
Every time I see the WiiU controller, I dig it more.
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