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Wii U Speculation Thread 2: Can't take anymore of this!!!

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sfried

Member
As was the case with 3DS, PS3, and PS2, BC will be based partly on hardware similarities and partially on software emulation. For example, the ARM 11s in the 3DS can run ARM 9 and ARM 7 (DS) code natively AFAIK. I expect the OoOE custom POWER processor will be able to run Broadway code with minimal tinkering necessary.

Emulating the GPU should prove fairly easy as an RV770 absolutely spanks Hollywood. PS2 and some PS3 80 gig models also use software emulation for the GPU. This is how the PS2 can run games w/ additional texture smoothing and what not. If it were a straight up hardware job, as w/ Wii and GCN emulation, that would not be possible.

The most tricky part of emulation will be the low latency 1t-SRAM, however as I posted on the previous page, it appears the latency for IBM's eDRAM is even lower than this, so it appears pretty much all bases are covered. The only thing is that it appears to me that the CPU needs direct access to that (reliably rumored 32 MB pool of) eDRAM. This does seem like a strange thing to do at first if the eDRAM is being used primarily as a framebuffer, but I've actually been informed (by blu, was it?) that the GCN and Wii CPU can already access the framebuffer, and combing through the second patent bgassassin posted yesteday, this indeed does seem to be the case. All Wii U would need is a bus with 3.2 GB/s bandwidth from the CPU to the eDRAM (which may sit on a separate chip from the rest of the GPU, as it does in Xbox 360) and then it would seem most of the problems in BC are ironed out without the need for including a miniature version of the Wii chipset.
Quite an interesting analysis. I wonder if Nintendo really did prioritize Wii backwards compatibility when constructing the WiiU, or did they leave some room in for expansion with requests coming from developers to create a more powerful system than "current gen".
 

Plinko

Wildcard berths that can't beat teams without a winning record should have homefield advantage
If the price is right, then the rumors about Wii U being Xbox 360x2 are surely true.

An "Xbox 360x2" that plays games straight to the tablet for $299 will be all kinds of awesome.
 
I'm in the UK, so everyone here is destined to moan about how "fucking 'tendo" is screwing everyone over with the price.

It's going to be over £250 no matter what.

I also live in the UK and would be 'happy as larry' if Wii U launched for £250 (im expecting £300), the fact that PSV is £240 in shops makes the idea of a true next gen console that will last at least 6 or 7 years for £250 sounds like a bargain to me.

I imagine they will bundle a game to show off the the tablet controllers unique abbilities aswell, so £250 would be more than fine with me.

Even if it's £300, the fact that the tablet will let you surf the net, browse the Nintendo Network and prob play all the Nintendo store games from past generations (prob not Gamecube), i feel it would be more than worth the money as it will double up as a very simple Ipad.

The reason i brought up a new version of the 3DS last night for GDC is i was on the verge of buying one and i didnt want to get it and then in the next few months see a better version released, that second analogue stick add on looks truly horrific.

Thanks to what you guys said I took the plunge and picked up a 3DS with Mario bundle, Mario Kart 7 and Starfox 64, looking forward to getting my Nintendo fix when it arrives on Fri morning :).
 

AzaK

Member
Ok, a tiny bit of vague info will be given soon, to nip in the bud some nonconstructive speculations i've seen lately (concerning the ram and some features of the padlet).
keepu rayflayshingou youle paidjou !
Your avatar should be that of Satan you evil, evil man.


No chance OLED is happening.

$299? That's happening.
I god damn hope not - unless it's a loss leader.
 
Quite an interesting analysis. I wonder if Nintendo really did prioritize Wii backwards compatibility when constructing the WiiU, or did they leave some room in for expansion with requests coming from developers to create a more powerful system than "current gen".

Thank you, but again, most of that is just what I remember from the same discussions in this and the previous thread. haha. I once advocated the "shrunken Wii chipset" idea, and others were there to point out that it was unnecessary. Regarding your wondering, I'd say both! Nintendo knew from the start Wii was a highly successful system and BC was a good business move. At the same time, this does not interfere w/ leaving "room for expansion" as alot of that comes down to clocks, SPUs, and RAM. To make a stupid analogy, my picture architecturally of Wii U is if Wii and Xbox 360 got it on and had a kid. You can see alot of both parents in the design. But then again, maybe everyone's been lying to us and we don't know jack. :p
 
I'm standing by my prediction of 349.99 with them taking a loss on the system, and the wii-u tablet not costing them to make as much as people think it will.

I'm also calling most if not all the Demos shown at E3 will end up being pre-installed "games".


*edit*

And yeah, no fucking way the tablet has an OLED screen. Come on people.
 

lednerg

Member
The system obviously has plenty of main RAM, although to run two GameCube/Wii games simultaneously the system would need at least 48 MB of eDRAM. I think it was mentioned more recently that the eDRAM might actually be higher than the rumored 32 MB, so that aspect isn't necessarily an issue either.
He was asking about running two GC games at the same time. While that should technically be possible going by the specs we have, I doubt they would bother trying to get it to work since so few would use it. Same thing goes for running any two VC games at the same time; I would be pretty surprised.
 

Wiz

Member
I'm standing by my prediction of 349.99 with them taking a loss on the system, and the wii-u tablet not costing them to make as much as people think it will.

I'm also calling most if not all the Demos shown at E3 will end up being pre-installed "games".


*edit*

And yeah, no fucking way the tablet has an OLED screen. Come on people.

I think $299 is pretty reasonable for a price. They'd have to be extremely confident like they were with the 3DS at launch to price it anything higher.

If that's the case, some Ambassador Gamecube games don't sound too bad. :p
 
I believe Lherres comments suggested the devkit had more than 2GB but he didnt go any further than that.

Correct.
Which is why he was putting it at 1GB Min.
I personally believe, and have for ages now, that it'll be 1.5GB.

The real question is if it's 1GB main and 512MB video or a shared pool.
 

HylianTom

Banned
I'm standing by my prediction of 349.99 with them taking a loss on the system, and the wii-u tablet not costing them to make as much as people think it will.

$349.99 would be Nintendo telling me, "yeah, it has some power to it, and yeah, we intend on carrying-on the tradition of making profit on hardware."

I'd be surprised and happy about that price point.. but I'd also be a bit nervous about the price making it too high for wide consumer appeal. Especially if (when) Sony & Microsoft have price drops on their systems for the week of launch.
 
Correct.
Which is why he was putting it at 1GB Min.
I personally believe, and have for ages now, that it'll be 1.5GB.

The real question is if it's 1GB main and 512MB video or a shared pool.

I have a feeling it's a shared pool. The question I have is if it's GDDR3 or GDDR5. If it's GDDR3, I'm not sure why they wouldn't just go with 2 GB on a 128-bit bus (and lherre never technically discounted this option - we've just learned to temper our expectations here). Of course, there's the issue of price but that type of RAM is really old at this point.

Someone correct me if I'm off here, but 1.5 GB of GDDR3 on a 96-bit bus could possibly end up being slower than 360's memory. Of course, with 3x the L2 cache and 3x the framebuffer, this might not be an issue.

Hey IdeaMan, you said we're talking at least 2x 360, right? Does that include RAM bandwidth?
 
I have a feeling it's a shared pool. The question I have is if it's GDDR3 or GDDR5. If it's GDDR3, I'm not sure why they wouldn't just go with 2 GB on a 128-bit bus (and lherre never technically discounted this option - we've just learned to temper our expectations here). Of course, there's the issue of price but that type of RAM is really old at this point.

Someone correct me if I'm off here, but 1.5 GB of GDDR3 on a 96-bit bus would probably end up slower than 360's memory. Of course, with 3x the L2 cache and 3x the framebuffer, this might not be an issue.

Hey IdeaMan, you said we're talking at least 2x 360, right? Does that include RAM bandwidth?
He said 2x in visuals on screens.
But that on paper it would be more powerful.
 
What are the advantages of having a split pool over a shared pool and vise versa?

From what I understand, have a shared pool means you can dedicate more memory to the GPU if needed, but it's slower.
While having dedicated VRAM is faster but a fixed amount.
 

IdeaMan

My source is my ass!
So, as promised, i'll give you an information concerning the Wii U ram.

This is heavily linked to my initial post

In the specific context where i gathered this information (read the Warning part here), i can say that the retail version of Wii U will absolutely not have less than 1 GB of ram. You can ditch this 760mb of ram rumor and never look back.

The exciting bonus: From what i know, i'm also pretty sure that it will not have just 1 GB.

This is reported in a Rev4 dev kit frame, so maybe the later versions will change even more the ram situation. But whatever the amount of memory current dev kits have, i'm talking of the retail version*

*Yes, dev kits often have a different amount of ram for debugging and other things, but even if it may be the case for Wii U, my sources are able to know how much ram the real Wii U is expected to have, for the moment ! You can guess how.

Edit: more hints a few posts below :p

More to come about the padlet, before the end of the week :)
 

Azure J

Member
The system obviously has plenty of main RAM, although to run two GameCube/Wii games simultaneously the system would need at least 48 MB of eDRAM. I think it was mentioned more recently that the eDRAM might actually be higher than the rumored 32 MB, so that aspect isn't necessarily an issue either.

Wait, seriously? :D

That's exceptionally good news imo. The closer we get to good free MSAA @ 1080p, the better. Of course, that's if this is all true.

Edit: Greater than 1GB. Thank you based IdeaMan. :lol
 
So, as promised, i'll give you an information concerning the Wii U ram.

This is heavily linked to my initial post

In the specific context where i gathered this information (read the Warning part here), i can say that the retail version of Wii U will absolutely not have less than 1 GB of ram. You can ditch this 760mb of ram rumor and never look back.

The exciting bonus: From what i know, i'm also pretty sure that it will not have just 1 GB.

This is reported in a Rev4 dev kit frame, so maybe the later versions will change even more the ram situation. But whatever the amount of memory current dev kits have, i'm talking of the retail version*

*Yes, dev kits often have a different amount of ram for debugging and other things, but even if it may be the case for Wii U, my sources are able to know how much ram the real Wii U is expected to have, for the moment ! You can guess how.

More to come about the padlet, before the end of the week :)

Yeah, nothing ground breaking.
1.5GB is what I've been expecting and that is definitely good news.
 
So, as promised, i'll give you an information concerning the Wii U ram.

This is heavily linked to my initial post

In the specific context where i gathered this information (read the Warning part here), i can say that the retail version of Wii U will absolutely not have less than 1 GB of ram. You can ditch this 760mb of ram rumor and never look back.

The exciting bonus: From what i know, i'm also pretty sure that it will not have just 1 GB.

This is reported in a Rev4 dev kit frame, so maybe the later versions will change even more the ram situation. But whatever the amount of memory current dev kits have, i'm talking of the retail version*

*Yes, dev kits often have a different amount of ram for debugging and other things, but even if it may be the case for Wii U, my sources are able to know how much ram the real Wii U is expected to have, for the moment ! You can guess how.

More to come about the padlet, before the end of the week :)
pretty much what we've been thinking all along, but confirmation doesn't hurt. Keep on digging sir!
 

IdeaMan

My source is my ass!
To be more precise, i was quite surprised by the amount of ram expected in the retail version.

I think this message is a bigger hint that the previous one :p
 
From what I understand, have a shared pool means you can dedicate more memory to the GPU if needed, but it's slower.
While having dedicated VRAM is faster but a fixed amount.

I've read Skyrim's "performance issues" on PS3 are a result of the split pool, so I doubt Nintendo would go this route. It's also possible that Nintendo go w/ different bus widths from RAM to CPU and RAM to GPU. That second patent bg posted seems to indicate that the original plan for GCN was to have a 128-bit bus to the GPU and a 64-bit bus to the CPU. AFAIK, the end configuration ended up being 64-bit buses for all, but they may have revisited the original plan in designing Wii U.
 

Anth0ny

Member
To be more precise, i was quite surprised by the amount of ram expected in the retail version.

I think this message is a bigger hint that the previous one :p

conan_head_spin1i7ts.gif
 
To be more precise, i was quite surprised by the amount of ram expected in the retail version.

I think this message is a bigger hint that the previous one :p
I think 2gb would be QUITE surprising....so I'll assume that's what you mean, and if so that would be amazing.
 

ozfunghi

Member
To be more precise, i was quite surprised by the amount of ram expected in the retail version.

I think this message is a bigger hint that the previous one :p

Look man, i know where you live (France)! It's only a 2 hour drive away from where i live! I suggest you spill the beans!

*shakes fist in the direction of France*
 

EloquentM

aka Mannny
2 gigs. It seems that maybe Nintendo isn't exactly half-stepping the console like originally thought. Little by little everything seems to be leaning farther and farther away from current gen.
 
To be more precise, i was quite surprised by the amount of ram expected in the retail version.

I think this message is a bigger hint that the previous one :p

lol, no, not THAT surprised :D

My guesstimates were in the 1GB, maybe a bit more, range. And it's more than that, for the moment.

So 2GB confirmed? :p

This is the Nintendo that slapped an even 128MB in 3DS when everyone on these boards was saying there was no chance. Part of me says they'd go w/ an even 2GB on a 128-bit bus over 1.5 GB on a 96-bit bus - especially if they're sticking w/ the GDDR3 (which has a lower latency than GDDR5, something Nintendo has been fanatical about in their hardware design, especially now with having to stream to the pad).
 
So 2GB confirmed? :p

This is the Nintendo that slapped an even 128MB in 3DS when everyone on these boards was saying there was no chance. Part of me says they'd go w/ an even 2GB on a 128-bit bus over 1.5 GB on a 96-bit bus - especially if they're sticking w/ the GDDR3 (which has a lower latency than GDDR5, something Nintendo has been fanatical about in their hardware design, especially now with having to stream to the pad).

Wait, the 3DS has more RAM than the Wii?

Oh my jesus.
 
So 2GB confirmed? :p

This is the Nintendo that slapped an even 128MB in 3DS when everyone on these boards was saying there was no chance. Part of me says they'd go w/ an even 2GB on a 128-bit bus over 1.5 GB on a 96-bit bus - especially if they're sticking w/ the GDDR3 (which has a lower latency than GDDR5, something Nintendo has been fanatical about in their hardware design, especially now with having to stream to the pad).

I agree except that the latency is only an issue when GDDR5 is clocked the around the same as GDDR3. So the choice would depend on the clock speed Nintendo is going for.
 
I agree except that the latency is only an issue when GDDR5 is clocked the around the same as GDDR3. So the choice would depend on the clock speed Nintendo is going for.

Gotcha. Thanks for the clarification. It's hard to find info on latency online...although IBM's eDRAM does seem to have the 1t-SRAM used in GCN/Wii handily beat, which is exciting.
 

Azure J

Member
To be more precise, i was quite surprised by the amount of ram expected in the retail version.

I think this message is a bigger hint that the previous one :p

Oh wow, it's even better than expected. 2GB optimistic goal seems that much closer now.

@ StreetsAhead: Yup, it has 40MB up on it. I'm wondering if in theory it's possible to put out some awesome GCN+ stuff on it with consideration of its dual core CPU nearing 300MHz and that amount of RAM.
 

Luigiv

Member
Correct.
Which is why he was putting it at 1GB Min.
I personally believe, and have for ages now, that it'll be 1.5GB.

The real question is if it's 1GB main and 512MB video or a shared pool.

It'll be a shared pool with pool with eDRAM dedicated to the GPU. That's how Nintendo's always rolled. I don't see them changing course now.
 
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