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shinra-bansho · Nov 29, 2012

akmcbroom said:
You don't get it. It's not "making up" for anything. This is how things are trending with the tech today. GPU's are now being used for things that used to be assigned to the CPU. So, in the past, it was not done this way, faster CPU's were needed. Now, especially in the console space, they are not going to need to be as "fast" in comparison to previous generations. The GPU does more of the work now. This is a GOOD thing. The Orbis and the Durango, will be setup the same way. Again, you need to read "slow and horrible" in context of current gen architecture vs the new ones. As long as you ignore this, you will continue to go round and round with everyone who understands what I am saying.

Do yourself a favor and look up GPGPU on Wikipedia.

I'm aware of the general meaning of WUST's new favorite buzzword. Although I'm not a technical person and make no claim to being so.

The sentiment in this thread appears to be that because these current gen ports are built with older design philosophies, they could have run better if they had taken advantage of the Wii U's GPGPU capabilities and audio DSP etc. etc. and wouldn't have been by-and-large worse than the 360 versions - as they have been.

The consequential presumption has been that this means the Wii U will fare better with downports from DurangOrbis, than with up-ports from PS360.

I'm asking how that ends up being the case unless the DurangOrbis have similar CPUs to the Wii U - notwithstanding if they put more emphasis on the GPU.

If DurangOrbis have significantly more powerful CPUs and GPUs, at least double the usable RAM, their own dedicated audio processing units and a game utilizes these well...

...then how does the idea that functions can be offloaded from the CPU to the GPU help.

This is a general query, open to anyone (particularly those that are good a distilling things into lay terms)

Alexios · Nov 29, 2012

I think they're not saying they'll be closer to the durango/orbis versions than the ps360 ports are close to those versions (again, we may reach 100% parity over the next year or two, or even get better looking versions on WiiU, depending on the game and effort), just that it will be capable of actually getting those ports, and they are likely to look better than and impossible for ps360 ports, being next gen and all, even after the downgrades needed for WiiU. So, it will fare better than Wii. I'm sure everyone expects big downgrades.

AdventureRacing · Nov 29, 2012

Log4Girlz said:
Batman Armored edition, Epic Mickey 2, Ninja Gaiden, Tekken, all have serious issues on the Wii U as compared to the Xbox 360.

Did you even read his post? He was comparing launch 360 games to launch wii U games. He wasn't comparing current 360 games to current wii U games.

Your response is nonsensical if you actually read and understood his post.

Thunder Monkey · Nov 29, 2012

It's good to see you're all still sane.

Log4Girlz · Nov 29, 2012

AdventureRacing said:
Did you even read his post? He was comparing launch 360 games to launch wii U games. He wasn't comparing current 360 games to current wii U games.

Your response is nonsensical if you actually read and understood his post.

He was not incredibly clear actually. Though I imagined he may be referring to that hence my comments earlier questioning his rationale for comparing 7 year old launch games to current Wii U launch games, a supposedly next-generation console. Compared to the Gamecube launch, yes Wii U games look quite nice.

Gamer @ Heart · Nov 29, 2012

So do we know anymore details about this ARM that has 1GB all to itself?

Where is it on the teardowns?

Log4Girlz · Nov 29, 2012

On a side-note, has anyone officially answered why Mario Bros. Wii U only runs at 720 p? Its a 2-D game, I would imagine a 1st party title which was not a rushed port would get the most out of the system.

Dreamwriter · Nov 29, 2012

Log4Girlz said:
On a side-note, has anyone officially answered why Mario Bros. Wii U only runs at 720 p? Its a 2-D game, I would imagine a 1st party title which was not a rushed port would get the most out of the system.

I'd bet that Nintendo made the decision so there would be less detail lost when playing on the low-res Gamepad - they are of course really pushing the Gamepad as an awesome new addition, they aren't going to want their own games right out of the bat looking very noticably worse on the Gamepad.

Log4Girlz · Nov 29, 2012

Dreamwriter said:
I'd bet that Nintendo made the decision so there would be less detail lost when playing on the low-res Gamepad - they are of course really pushing the Gamepad as an awesome new addition, they aren't going to want their own games right out of the bat looking very noticably worse on the Gamepad.

That's interesting. Would also apply to any game they make. Do I uncheck the 1080 p box for Nintendo games?

Thunder Monkey · Nov 29, 2012

Log4Girlz said:
That's interesting. Would also apply to any game they make. Do I uncheck the 1080 p box for Nintendo games?

I said months ago that this was likely.

Their games will support 1080p... but none of theirs will be natively 1080p.

Less detail needs to be painted. Which means cheaper dev costs. Which means happy Yamauchi.

Dreamwriter · Nov 29, 2012

Log4Girlz said:
That's interesting. Would also apply to any game they make. Do I uncheck the 1080 p box for Nintendo games?

Probably for the first year while they are trying to implant the "Gamepad = awesome" idea in people's brains.

lherre · Nov 29, 2012

JordanN said:
Maybe. But that game (along with Naughty Dog's other games) are so corridor like it's not funny.

Edit: Nope, no grass.

So last of us is a corridor and nano assault or nintendoland has huge environments to compare ... right?

FyreWulff · Nov 29, 2012

Log4Girlz said:
On a side-note, has anyone officially answered why Mario Bros. Wii U only runs at 720 p? Its a 2-D game, I would imagine a 1st party title which was not a rushed port would get the most out of the system.

Probably because it was more than likely built on old devkits or the Wii first, then moved over.

It's one of those situations where yeah, you could possibly do 1080p, but you're going from 2 x 921,600 pixel buffers to 2 x 2,073,600 pixel buffers. Will it work? Yeah. But if you missed an optimization or edge case that triggers slowdown in 1080p mode, people would bitch about slowdown in a Mario game (really important to avoid) and wouldn't accept the answer of "Set your Wii U to 720p". And when you're geared for MUST HIT LAUNCH it's a feature that's extremely easy to cut when your console is doing the upscaling anyway.

IF they do another New Super Mario Bros on Wii, I'd expect it to be 1080p native. The hardware would be fixed at that point and they wouldn't be in a hurry to meet launch.

It'll probably be 720p

lherre · Nov 29, 2012

FyreWulff said:
Probably because it was more than likely built on old hardware or the Wii first, then moved over.

It's one of those situations where yeah, you could possibly do 1080p, but you're going from 2 x 921,600 pixel buffers to 2 x 2,073,600 pixel buffers. Will it work? Yeah. But if you missed an optimization or edge case that triggers slowdown in 1080p mode, people would bitch about slowdown in a Mario game (really important to avoid) and wouldn't accept the answer of "Set your Wii U to 720p".

But nintendo knows its systems ... is not that they are a third party withouth support/old kits, etc or something else. Rayman is 1080p and in my opinion it's more complex than new super mario wii u.

Maybe nintendo needs to learn how to make HD games properly like sony-ms devs needed in the beginning of this gen.

Thunder Monkey · Nov 29, 2012

lherre said:
But nintendo knows its systems ... is not that they are a third party withouth support/old kits, etc or something else. Rayman is 1080p and in my opinion it's more complex than new super mario wii u.

I still say it's because 720p is "HD enough" for Nintendo's internal teams. With the budgets given.

lherre · Nov 29, 2012

Thunder Monkey said:
I still say it's because 720p is "HD enough" for Nintendo's internal teams. With the budgets given.

It's a possibility of course.

SpoonyBard · Nov 29, 2012

Aren't New Super Mario games 3D, with 2D gameplay? Of course the graphics are still very simple...

Making real 2D games 1080p should be expected from all devs...

FyreWulff · Nov 29, 2012

lherre said:
But nintendo knows its systems ... is not that they are a third party withouth support/old kits, etc or something else. Rayman is 1080p and in my opinion it's more complex than new super mario wii u.

Maybe nintendo needs to learn how to make HD games properly like sony-ms devs needed in the beginning of this gen.

Even if you're familiar with the system, if you've devving at 720p max and suddenly 1080p shows up, you have to weigh the problems adding a 1080p native rendering mode versus the gains from doing so. This isn't like PC where you can assume the user will drop their resolution or turn down effects, the game has the run the same way at 480p, 720p, and 1080p out of the box. It's a practical versus possible problem.

It's like how some games on 360 could have technically been 720p native, but they wanted to avoid tiling and the performance cost it had, so they went below it to avoid having to do so.

And statistically? The vast majority of your HD users are going to be at 720p. You're going to see a lot of games on the 720 and PS4 trade away 1080p for more effects and framerate, even if the consoles are capable of just taking a 360/PS3 build and porting it directly over into native 60fps/1080p (which you might see a few instances of at their launches).

Oblivion · Nov 29, 2012

Log4Girlz said:
On a side-note, has anyone officially answered why Mario Bros. Wii U only runs at 720 p? Its a 2-D game, I would imagine a 1st party title which was not a rushed port would get the most out of the system.

The NSMB games for whatever reason were never really system pushers. The graphics for the most part are basic, with a few special effects/higher res. textures here and there.

Having said that, I would be surprised if even the wizards at EAD Tokyo will be able to make the next 3D Mario in 1080p.

Durante · Nov 29, 2012

FyreWulff said:
And statistically? The vast majority of your HD users are going to be at 720p.

Really? It seems to me like since HD hit the mainstream the majority of TVs sold is full HD. (And almost none are 720p, the low-end products are 1366x768)

Rolf NB said:
There's 6 SPEs in the PS3. What exactly do you think that WiiU DSP at a purported 121MHz is able to do that even single SPE can't do ten times over with its hands tied to its back?

There's now six years+ of history full of forumites trolling every single idea behind Cell. "Impossible to program for". And now I'm supposed to believe that either a DSP, and/or a "GPGPU", the former with no hope of competing on performance, and both of them with far more restrictive programming models and memory models, are A Good Thing all of a sudden? A viable replacment for fast, benign CPU cores? How come?

Yeah, "Cell is hard" was apparently a viable complaint about the system, but GPGPU is even "harder" for many purposes.

lherre · Nov 29, 2012

FyreWulff said:
Even if you're familiar with the system, if you've devving at 720p max and suddenly 1080p shows up, you have to weigh the problems adding a 1080p native rendering mode versus the gains from doing so. This isn't like PC where you can assume the user will drop their resolution or turn down effects, the game has the run the same way at 480p, 720p, and 1080p out of the box. It's a practical versus possible problem.

It's like how some games on 360 could have technically been 720p native, but they wanted to avoid tiling and the performance cost it had, so they went below it to avoid having to do so.

And statistically? The vast majority of your HD users are going to be at 720p. You're going to see a lot of games on the 720 and PS4 trade away 1080p for more effects and framerate, even if the consoles are capable of just taking a 360/PS3 build and porting it directly over into native 60fps/1080p (which you might see a few instances of at their launches).

My commentaries were made to notice that all the devs (nintendo too) have launched games at launch that can be better than they are. We are blaming mostly to 3rd party devs for its ports but I think nintendo could do things better too. And their launch games could be better in many ways.

phosphor112 · Nov 29, 2012

JordanN said:
Maybe. But that game (along with Naughty Dog's other games) are so corridor like it's not funny.

Edit: Nope, no grass.

Are you serious? Lol, aren't you comparing Nano Assault to this? Or am I mistaken?

Grass doesn't seem to show shadows in the game (though this is "beta" footage) so it might be added later. But with all the polygons and shaders they are pushing the lighting effects (umbra/penumbra/soft shadowing) cannot be ignored.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qguDnY0C_Sg

QaaQer · Nov 29, 2012

lherre said:
My commentaries were made to notice that all the devs (nintendo too) have launched games at launch that can be better than they are. We are blaming mostly to 3rd party devs for its ports but I think nintendo could do things better too. And their launch games could be better in many ways.

+1. If ninty had released a single game, or even a single game preview that showed something really nice, all of this negativity would disappear. Which makes many people conclude that the system cannot deliver, and that isn't being a hater, just a realist.

Backfoggen · Nov 29, 2012

JordanN said:
Like motion blur, depth of field and shadow maps.

Is this 2006?

Log4Girlz · Nov 29, 2012

Backfoggen said:
Is this 2006?

If it were then you would see how Wii U launch games look fantastic!

DrWong · Nov 29, 2012

Some people/next-gen console mujahidin need to relax. This thread, and others, became really annoying to follow lately. Bye.

wsippel · Nov 29, 2012

phosphor112 said:
Are you serious? Lol, aren't you comparing Nano Assault to this? Or am I mistaken?

Grass doesn't seem to show shadows in the game (though this is "beta" footage) so it might be added later. But with all the polygons and shaders they are pushing the lighting effects (umbra/penumbra/soft shadowing) cannot be ignored.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qguDnY0C_Sg

Of course not. Thing is: Shin'en said they used features in Nano Assault that are simply not available on PS3 and 360 hardware. And there's really no reason not to believe them. It's not about how the game looks, it does things previous consoles couldn't do. But we don't really see it. Because 3D graphics is largely smoke and mirrors to begin with, and almost everything can be at least faked with varying levels of success and efficiency on almost any hardware. It just tends to take more effort to fake stuff - which isn't a problem for a multimillion dollar AAA game with a team of several hundred developers and years of development time.

AzaK · Nov 29, 2012

Untalkative_Bunny said:
+1. If ninty had released a single game, or even a single game preview that showed something really nice, all of this negativity would disappear. Which makes many people conclude that the system cannot deliver, and that isn't being a hater, just a realist.

Yup. They should have had a graphical showcase if for nothing more than marketing. Lots of negativity and/or indifference amongst gamers and gaming press. NOT what a console launch should be.

Panajev2001a · Nov 29, 2012

AzaK said:
Yup. They should have had a graphical showcase if for nothing more than marketing. Lots of negativity and/or indifference amongst gamers and gaming press. NOT what a console launch should be.

You know what could have been easy?

Ship the E3 2011 nature demo pre-installed on every Wii U similarly to what Sony did with the T-Rex Demo inside a CD bundled with demos along with the original PlayStation.

Realtime tech demo --> it runs on the HW --> it is pretty to see --> easy to wow your family group with something cool your new console can do.

Red UFO · Nov 29, 2012

Panajev2001a said:
You know what could have been easy?

Ship the E3 2011 nature demo pre-installed on every Wii U similarly to what Sony did with the T-Rex Demo inside a CD bundled with demos along with the original PlayStation.

Realtime tech demo --> it runs on the HW --> it is pretty to see --> easy to wow your family group with something cool your new console can do.

I agree, but I think something like that goes against their ethos.

Log4Girlz · Nov 29, 2012

Panajev2001a said:
You know what could have been easy?

Ship the E3 2011 nature demo pre-installed on every Wii U similarly to what Sony did with the T-Rex Demo inside a CD bundled with demos along with the original PlayStation.

Realtime tech demo --> it runs on the HW --> it is pretty to see --> easy to wow your family group with something cool your new console can do.

Throw in the Zelda demo to boot.

Panajev2001a · Nov 29, 2012

Ethos... I do not know about that, Iwata also said that they should also re-examine roads that they have not taken before and not fossilize on an already-taken-path-is-the-safest kind of attitude without ever re-assessing things.

Panajev2001a · Nov 29, 2012

Log4Girlz said:
Throw in the Zelda demo to boot.

Yes, why not. I spent so much time in awe of the Manta-Ray and T-Rex demos back in those days.

shinra-bansho · Nov 29, 2012

Alextended said:
I think they're not saying they'll be closer to the durango/orbis versions than the ps360 ports are close to those versions (again, we may reach 100% parity over the next year or two, or even get better looking versions on WiiU, depending on the game and effort), just that it will be capable of actually getting those ports, and they are likely to look better than and impossible for ps360 ports, being next gen and all, even after the downgrades needed for WiiU. So, it will fare better than Wii. I'm sure everyone expects big downgrades.

That interpretation makes more sense. It should presumably be easier and therefore fare better than the Wii (ignoring market drivers of platform choice).

But I'm still skeptical of how easy some people make it sound to downport in the future.

If a complex blockbuster game, the inevitable GTAVI or the next Elder Scrolls etc. etc. heavily utilizes the Durango/Orbis CPUs and GPUs then realistically how easy is that really to translate?

Apophis2036 · Nov 29, 2012

Log4Girlz said:
That's interesting. Would also apply to any game they make. Do I uncheck the 1080 p box for Nintendo games?

No sane person ever thought WiiU games would run at 1080p native and im not so sure PS4 / 720 games will either beyond the first year.

NSMBU was a Wii game by the way, they could have probably gotten it to run at 1080p but what exactly would be the point when they would have to run every other game at 720p.

To the vast majority of gamers, esp casual Nintendo gamers HD is HD whether thats 720p native upscaled to 1080p or 1080p native.

lherre · Nov 29, 2012

shinra-bansho said:
That interpretation makes more sense. It should presumably be easier and therefore fare better than the Wii (ignoring market drivers of platform choice).

But I'm still skeptical of how easy some people make it sound to downport in the future.

If a complex blockbuster game, the inevitable GTAVI or the next Elder Scrolls etc. etc. heavily utilizes the Durango/Orbis CPUs and GPUs then realistically how easy is that really to translate?

I think people believes that downport is like press a magic button in the engine workflow that magically converts your game with less resolution, less graphic effects, etc (besides physics, AI, number of objects in the screen, etc, etc).

test_account · Nov 29, 2012

MDX said:
Thats right, my point was that you dont need airplane power to travel short distances.
Regarding the amount of information that needs to be taken to the location, is something else. But I believe Nintendo has taken care of this with specialized memory controllers.

Ah ok, i understand

That is true, hardware power isnt necessarily what tell how good the latency between computer chips are.

Apophis2036 · Nov 29, 2012

This thread just seems to go in circles.

WiiU pro posters -

'WiiU does not run current gen ports well because those game engines are designed for CPU centric console hardware and WiiU is a GPU centric console with the ports being fast, cheap with in most cases out of house developers not taking advantage of the Audio chip, extra eDRAM or offloading more of the code onto the GPU'.

WiiU con posters -

'Lol next gen, look at the Last of Us and Halo 4 that cost $70 million and took 2-3 years to develop lolololol'.

Pathetic...

One thing the trolls do have a point on is that Nintendo should have had a graphically impressive game for launch though, NSMB U and Pikmin 3 which were originally Wii games do not cut it imo. Even if it was one of the lower tier first party games like Starfox or F Zero it would have been much better, no one was asking for 3D Mario / Zelda / Metroid on day one.

shinra-bansho · Nov 29, 2012

Apophis2036 said:
This thread just seems to go in circles.

WiiU pro posters -

'WiiU does not run current gen ports well because those game engines are designed for CPU centric console hardware and WiiU is a GPU centric console with the ports being fast, cheap with in most cases out of house developers not taking advantage of the Audio chip, extra eDRAM or offloading more of the code onto the GPU'.

WiiU con posters -

'Lol next gen, look at the Last of Us and Halo 4 that cost $70 million and took 2-3 years to develop lolololol'.

Pathetic...

One thing the trolls do have a point on is that Nintendo should have had a graphically impressive game for launch though, NSMB U and Pikmin 3 which were originally Wii games do not cut it imo. Even if it was one of the lower tier first party games like Starfox or F Zero it would have been much better, no one was asking for 3D Mario / Zelda / Metroid on day one.

Your world must be very pretty in pink.

StreetsAhead · Nov 29, 2012

lherre said:
I think people believes that downport is like press a magic button in the engine workflow that magically converts your game with less resolution, less graphic effects, etc (besides physics, AI, number of objects in the screen, etc, etc).

Isn't that one of the features of UE4?

lherre · Nov 29, 2012

StreetsAhead said:
Isn't that one of the features of UE4?

All the engines are scalable yes, but depends on the game and the things you want to compromise/downport.

UE3 is scalable too in the same way and you won't see UE3 ps3-x360 comparable games on an ipad/iphone based only in performance/capabilities. And is not because you can't do it.

It requires work, a lot of work if the difference is noticeable. Some devs/publishers will do it and others don't. And the devs will see if the result of the downport is really the same game/experience or not.

wsippel · Nov 29, 2012

lherre said:
I think people believes that downport is like press a magic button in the engine workflow that magically converts your game with less resolution, less graphic effects, etc (besides physics, AI, number of objects in the screen, etc, etc).

Unity kinda does that, actually. And it works... Sometimes.

QaaQer · Nov 29, 2012

AzaK said:
Yup. They should have had a graphical showcase if for nothing more than marketing. Lots of negativity and/or indifference amongst gamers and gaming press. NOT what a console launch should be.

I've noticed this too. The last giantbombcast was really harsh on the wiiu. The other gaming forum I visit, nobody talks about the wiiu.

And then there are all the derisive jokes about the original wii which makes me wonder about the logic behind keeping the 'wii' in the new console's name. Like on the giantbombcast when one of the guys was talking about his wife's reaction to his contemplation of a wii u purchase. She just pointed at their dusty unplugged wii and said 'no'.

I'm having a hard time finding a whole lot positive to say about this launch, which makes me a little sad. But one of my faults is being overly critical and pessimistic, I try to keep that in check, so I'm still hopeful.

Apophis2036 · Nov 29, 2012

shinra-bansho said:
Your world must be very pretty in pink.

Says the guy thats been trolling WiiU threads for the post 6 months...

Do one will you.

Apophis2036 · Nov 29, 2012

wsippel said:
Unity kinda does that, actually. And it works... Sometimes.

And CryEngine 3, basically every next gen engine is highly scalable (no one said it was easy), like i said before third party publishers want their games out on as many different platforms that can run them for maximum profit.

Pooya · Nov 29, 2012

from marcan.

https://twitter.com/marcan42

Wii U codenames worth knowing: system Cafe, CPU Espresso, GPU/SoC/etc. Latte, ARM secure processor Starbuck (we made that one up).

1.243125GHz, exactly. 3 PowerPC 750 type cores (similar to Wii's Broadway, but more cache). GPU core at 549.999755MHz.

we're calling the WiiU security processor the Starbuck (vs. Starlet on Wii). And it seems to be about equally vulnerable, too

lherre · Nov 29, 2012

Apophis2036 said:
And CryEngine 3, basically every next gen engine is highly scalable (no one said it was easy), like i said before third party publishers want their games out on as many different platforms that can run them for maximum profit.

Depends on the resources, is not that easy either, if not wii should have almost every ps3-x360 game on it. Yes, is hard to downgrade to wii, but is possible, you have the call of duties games as a perfect example. Not all the publishers can do that.

shinra-bansho · Nov 29, 2012

miladesn said:
from marcan.

https://twitter.com/marcan42

If true this may warrant a new thread for new news.

TunaLover · Nov 29, 2012

shinra-bansho said:
If true this may warrant a new thread for new news.

Marcan is not the kind of person that make-up stuff.

QaaQer · Nov 29, 2012

miladesn said:
from marcan.

https://twitter.com/marcan42

who is Marcan?

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