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Rumor: Wii U final specs

The transition shouldn't be as gradual this time as it was last. Back when 360 and PS3 launched the industry was incredibly inexperienced with unified shader or multithreading especially. And since both the PS4 and 720 are rumored to be AMD x86 CPUs with DX11+ GPUs, there should be plenty of institutional knowledge from the PC side to rely on.
 

Linkup

Member
Still one of the best looking titles on consoles.

At least technically (since the artstyle is highly subjective).


At least technically, what exactly does that even mean? The artstyle is the look of the game, it includes lighting, textures, and shaders. If you are speaking technically then it would included how advanced everything is and how high the res and framerate no?

I mean if someone told me the artstyle is the most advanced technically I wouldn't know what to say.
 

Thrakier

Member
As a fellow that works at a retail video game store, you'd be surprised how many people are happy that Nintendo is going back to buttons primarily. One of the biggest dislikes about the Wii (from core gamers that I've talked to), was the moving around aspect of the system.

I do think that there are some core gamers and Nintendo Fans who are happy about that. But is the Wii U capable of catching the casuals attention like the Wii did?
 
OK, and is this info easily obtainable or can we derivate it from other specs ?

I would be curious to see in what bit-generation the WiiU is. Simple nostalgia.

Well going by the old system, the Wii U is kicking off the 512-bit generation. Yes I know that makes no sense as bits long ago lost any relationship to power (heck PC CPU's were mainly 32-bit from at least the 386 until not too long ago).

I do think that there are some core gamers and Nintendo Fans who are happy about that. But is the Wii U capable of catching the casuals attention like the Wii did?

To some extent sure, casuals love them their tablets these days. To a greater extent I doubt it's possible since as with handhelds the blue ocean is a lot smaller these days. So like with the 3DS I think Nintendo's best bet is to hold onto whatever casuals it can, keep its lock on the kid market, and move back into a more core gamer oriented set up. Sure it's a smaller market than the Wii, like the 3DS's market will be smaller than the DS, but still profitable. It seems to me the Wii U is pretty well designed to gain the best possible market at the highest profit.
 

Eideka

Banned
At least technically, what exactly does that even mean? The artstyle is the look of the game, it includes lighting, textures, and shaders. If you are speaking technically then it would included how advanced everything is and how high the res and framerate no?

I mean if someone told me the artstyle is the most advanced technically I wouldn't know what to say.
I can separate the technical side of a game and its aesthetic one. To produce a beautiful looking game those two must work together but it is still possible to isolate a given component.

http://www.guerrilla-games.com/publications/dr_kz2_rsx_dev07.pdf
http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?t=41998

Here you go. Whether or not you dig the artstyle you can't deny that the game is an impressive piece of programming skills.
 

Thrakier

Member
To some extent sure, casuals love them their tablets these days. To a greater extent I doubt it's possible since as with handhelds the blue ocean is a lot smaller these days. So like with the 3DS I think Nintendo's best bet is to hold onto whatever casuals it can, keep its lock on the kid market, and move back into a more core gamer oriented set up. Sure it's a smaller market than the Wii, like the 3DS's market will be smaller than the DS, but still profitable. It seems to me the Wii U is pretty well designed to gain the best possible market at the highest profit.

To be honest, I find the compariosns with tablets a bit far fetched. It's a very very different device. In a worst case scenario Nintendo may get stuck with thouse who bought and loved the Gamecube. We'll see.
 
To be honest, I find the compariosns with tablets a bit far fetched. It's a very very different device. In a worst case scenario Nintendo may get stuck with thouse who bought and loved the Gamecube. We'll see.

I agree that it's not really a tablet, which it one reason I'm very interested in it, but to the average consumer it has a big screen you write on so it's a tablet. Of course yeah none of us know for sure how it will turn out, and I could definitely see the possibility of it ending up with the GCN base had MS and Sony not given Nintendo a 1 to 2 year head start and if Nintendo had the pathetic mindshare it had in 2000. As it is I would expect at worst N64 numbers relative to the US (where it didn't do all that badly) with a somewhat different userbase. It'll definitely do better in Japan where it has a real shot at being the One Console and Nintendo isn't a rotting dead corpse in Europe anymore.
 
R

Rösti

Unconfirmed Member
I have not seen this posted, it's documentation of Cri Middleware's CRI ADX2 solution for Wii U. In it there are some remarks on CPU. It's nothing spectacular and tells little of any specs, but could help further our discussion. It's from two days ago.

Note: I don't know Japanese very well, and thus this is translated using Google Translate. I tried to improve the gibberish, but if anyone can provide a better translation, that'd be swell.

Anyway:

Features of CRI A DX2 for Wii U

1. Codec "HCA" - New voice of high-quality and low load
Codec "HCA (High C ompression A udio" its own high-quality, high compression (stereo
If the BGM, codec while being 6 4 ~ 25 6 kbps), with a compression ratio of equivalent
To achieve a very low CPU load compared with (such as MP3, A AC). It is a sudden load change
Less dynamic, built-in to the game is easy. In addition, the load during simultaneous playback of multiple sounds
Algorithm "HCA-MX" that depleted, high-spec machine is the sound several hundred,
We achieve simultaneous playback of sound at low loads such as in dozens of portable game machine.

2. Easily achieve interactive sound (AISAC)
"Cheer the stadium according to the climax of the game" or "engine sound corresponding to the rotational speed". And "sound changes depending on the distance from the sound source", interactive sound changes.

3. Variations of the sound spread function "randomize"
Randomization of simple parameter settings volume, pitch, pan, and filter possible. I extend a variation of the sound. In addition, each time you request a different playback, you can also play audio.

4. We can adjust the various parameters while playing the game "In-Game Preview"
While operating the actual game, you can in the development program adjust volume, pan and sound effects that will be played during the game. A debugging environment which can be operated directly from the authoring tool parameter settings is offered.

5. Provides the actual previewer
Sound that was created on the PC can be easily previewed on the actual "real machine Previewer". You can easily check the output of the sound during sound production.

6. Low CPU load sound playback using hardware
We're capable of playing standard ADPCM on Wii U. Sound hardware that is installed in your Wii U. By utilizing the hardware, you can reduce the load on the main CPU.

No. 6 definitely needs a better translation.

7. Representation rich sound effects and filters
We are providing a feature rich software filter effect in ADX2.Additions for a wider range of expression additions available.

8. Other features
Compliant to "5.1ch" audio. Also planning to support "audio output from the Wii U GamePad".

Source: http://www.cri-mw.co.jp/product/lineup/audio/criadx2/2nt4hm000000xz63-img/2nt4hm000001osj5.pdf
 
Rösti;42266570 said:
I have not seen this posted, it's documentation of Cri Middleware's CRI ADX2 solution for Wii U. In it there are some remarks on CPU. It's nothing spectacular and tells little of any specs, but could help further our discussion. It's from two days ago.

Note: I don't know Japanese very well, and thus this is translated using Google Translate. I tried to improve the gibberish, but if anyone can provide a better translation, that'd be swell.

Anyway:

Features of CRI A DX2 for Wii U













No. 6 definitely needs a better translation.





Source: http://www.cri-mw.co.jp/product/lineup/audio/criadx2/2nt4hm000000xz63-img/2nt4hm000001osj5.pdf


Ok, now tell me if any of that is good, bad or ugly. I'm not sure how much of that info really means much.....
 

Lord Error

Insane For Sony
The PS4 and 720 will be in the same position at launch as the U is now. Rushed ports and games looking similar to current gen games in terms of eye candy. We won't see games stretching the legs of the PS4 and 720 until late 2014. The 360 launch got a great deal of flak with most of their launch games looking no better than Xbox games, the same with the PS3 and PS2.
That's most likely not going to be the case, and it certainly wasn't universally the case with X360 and PS3 launch. There was an odd game here an there that looked laughably bad, but you'd have to be a lunatic to think that something like PGR3, Kameo or Motorstorm would be possible on older consoles.

Even with the crappy looking games on those two consoles there was a massive increase in resolution compared to the older ones, plus those standout titles. With WiiU you have the situation where there's no visible improvement in almost anything on already existing titles, and practically no such standouts to talk about.
 
R

Rösti

Unconfirmed Member
Ok, now tell me if any of that is good, bad or ugly. I'm not sure how much of that info really means much.....
Well, it tells that Wii U supports ADPCM (Adaptive differential pulse-code modulation) which in my opinion gives developers more things to work with than if just DPCM was supported; though both encoders should see support. ADPCM uses less bandwidth. Maybe even SB-ADPCM is supported for voice chat.

5.1ch audio is also nice to know the Wii U supports, I haven't read anything about Nintendo commenting on that. 5.1ch is lossless while traditional 5.1 is not.

On other notes, it simply speaks of low CPU loads when working with audio (in this program suite). And if we are to believe the details about a relatively weak processor, that can't be anything else than a good thing.
 
That's true, I am very confused... :)

That does sound like instructions per clock. I don't think there are any CPU cores that exceed 4-way SMT. Simple yes or no question. Did you see any clock speeds?

That's a lot of insiders you named there. And all of those people didn't know that Wii U had 2gigs of total system memory? Or did they all just feel the extra gig wasn't worth mentioning? I think that 1gig "that applications can use" number comes from a non-final version of the Wii U dev kit.

It comes from the final. And yes at least one of them did know.

New information in the rumor isn't even specific, but rather so vague that it could be interpreted in very different ways. This is especially true of the "enhanced Broadway" spec. Using that kind of terminology to describe the CPU, and omitting half of the ram, says to me that the source of the rumor is probably someone who does not have access to the final dev kits and its specifications.

That's because they didn't list all the other features. And those I haven't seen.

2gigs has been heavily rumored for over a year now. That number isn't anything new. What I find strange is that no one, who cosigned the rumor in this topic, said "that's what I heard but it has 1gb more ram".

Actually it hasn't. And it sounds like you haven't read any posts then outside of and before this thread started.
 

ozfunghi

Member
That does sound like instructions per clock. I don't think there are any CPU cores that exceed 4-way SMT. Simple yes or no question. Did you see any clock speeds?

So, is he yankin' our chain or is what he says possible? And what does him seeing clock speeds have to do with what he said earlier? And most importantly...

WHAT DOES IT MEAAAAANNNNNN?
 
So, is he yankin' our chain or is what he says possible? And what does him seeing clock speeds have to do with what he said earlier? And most importantly...

WHAT DOES IT MEAAAAANNNNNN?

I think the number is legit, but the interpretation seems off. Especially in retrospect to a vague hint I got months ago.

And the clock speed just deals with the whole "vague issue" regarding what we've seen.

I had to check to make sure (my memory was being vague :p), but the 476FP does 5 instruction per clock.
 

ozfunghi

Member
I think the number is legit, but the interpretation seems off. Especially in retrospect to a vague hint I got months ago.

And the clock speed just deals with the whole "vague issue" regarding what we've seen.

So 3 cores, 5 processes per core...? That's more than assumed right? And what do you mean with interpretation? Is processes = instructions? =SMT?
 

D-e-f-

Banned
Since it's a direct port with no changes in graphics (from what they said) I didn't expect anything better looking on Wii U.

If these are literally the exact same screenshots, it's not even worth discussing lol.

Same ol' bullshots they used for the original versions then.
 
It amazes me the number of people who think the Wii U is not next-gen because its 3rd party ports that were built on the 360 look like the same on Wii U as they do when running on the 360.

Do you really think they would redo all the console based artifacts and objects for a new console with, at this point, zero userbase? Hint: they do it for money, therefore it makes more sense to invest low while the expected return is still low since there is no userbase.

Man people.... at least wait for Retro, Nintendo, or at least a truly next-gen 3rd party title to see what Wii U can and cannot do.

Its not like 360 had "next-gen" visuals from its 3rd party current-gen ports in 2005.
 

FLAguy954

Junior Member
It amazes me the number of people who think the Wii U is not next-gen because its 3rd party ports that were built on the 360 look like the same on Wii U as they do when running on the 360.

Do you really think they would redo all the console based artifacts and objects for a new console with, at this point, zero userbase? Hint: they do it for money, therefore it makes more sense to invest low while the expected return is still low since there is no userbase.

Man people.... at least wait for Retro, Nintendo, or at least a truly next-gen 3rd party title to see what Wii U can and cannot do.

Its not like 360 had "next-gen" visuals from its 3rd party current-gen ports in 2005.

And another thing people are forgetting is that the games being ported to the Wii U are definitely not using it's hardware in a ground up manner. Ass Creed and Batman for example are games that their respective developers spent years refining for the Xbox360/PS3 and only a few months for some quick ports.
 

Shaheed79

dabbled in the jelly
It comes from the final. And yes at least one of them did know.
I'm just being honest here, but I find this hard to believe and I'm going to need more than an anonymous insiders word to believe differently. Even if the final spec Dev Kits only feature 1gig of ram, I highly doubt that any Wii U developer who had access to a final kit didn't know the retail unit would have 2gigs of ram. The title of this topic is "Wii U final specs" not "Wii U dev kits final specs".

Again, imo anyone who really did know the retail Wii U's final specs, who then decided to cosign the specs in this topic, would have said something like "Yeah that's it but I know it has 1 more gig of ram" in this topic. Not 1 month ago, 2 weeks ago or 1 year ago. Saying that you or someone else mentioned 2gigs of memory in another older topic is irrelevant, in my eyes, to this issue.

I have read large amounts of the many Wii U speculation topics, but I usually have to stop reading due to my eyes rolling all the way to the back of my head.

That's because they didn't list all the other features. And those I haven't seen.
What exactly are you saying here? Any developer who is legitimately working on final Wii U dev kits would have to know exact unit specifications in order to optimize their games. I don't believe that developers like Gearbox, UBI Montpellier, Capcom, Platinum, etc. do not have specs for their units. No offense, but who are you that if you haven't seen them, then they do not exist? I'm just not familiar with your industry credentials.

Actually it hasn't. And it sounds like you haven't read any posts then outside of and before this thread started.

Again. If one of these insiders actually had access to the real final Wii U specs, then in this very topic, when those people cosigned the information in the OP, they would have mentioned 2gigs instead of 1gig. Not one month ago. Not 2 weeks ago. In this topic.

To me that would have given anyone, who had interject that fact, tons of credibility when two days later Iwata confirmed that number in the Nintendo Direct. No one did that. That tells me that more than likely none of these "insiders" have real legit final Wii U spec info.
 

Van Owen

Banned
It amazes me the number of people who think the Wii U is not next-gen because its 3rd party ports that were built on the 360 look like the same on Wii U as they do when running on the 360.

Do you really think they would redo all the console based artifacts and objects for a new console with, at this point, zero userbase? Hint: they do it for money, therefore it makes more sense to invest low while the expected return is still low since there is no userbase.

Man people.... at least wait for Retro, Nintendo, or at least a truly next-gen 3rd party title to see what Wii U can and cannot do.

Its not like 360 had "next-gen" visuals from its 3rd party current-gen ports in 2005.

We've already seen Nintendo games on Wii U, and they could be done on 360.
 

Black_Stride

do not tempt fate do not contrain Wonder Woman's thighs do not do not
Textures look fucking great in Killzone:

30wuyb5.jpg

Level 0 Normal Mapping?
I want to be impressed....but i just cant.
 

Earendil

Member
So, is he yankin' our chain or is what he says possible? And what does him seeing clock speeds have to do with what he said earlier? And most importantly...

WHAT DOES IT MEAAAAANNNNNN?

Well, he has a Darkwing Duck avatar, so I feel compelled to trust him.
 

Shaheed79

dabbled in the jelly
Well, i kinda revealed all this memory situation in February, back in the days 90% of gafers doubted of this huge size reserved for the OS, as explained in some posts earlier in this thread, with links to those discussions that were central in the Wii U speculation thread 2 i think.

But i understand your position, take all those reveal with huge grain of salt. That's the best you can get thought, you've seen what happens when a dev publicly leak something (well, unwinlingly in this case) with the updated version of the Gamepad: their jobs are at stakes because they signed NDA. So don't expect more than 54545434 layers of anonymous. The correct course of action is to listen to their reveal, and judge the accuracy of their info once it's confirmed or not.

I appreciate you replying to me and I understand how some people may think that having mentioned certain specs in the past may somehow cover all of their bases even if they cosigned the specs stated in this topic. I don't see it that way.

I guess you could say that I am one of those "the devil is in the details" type of people. I can't help that I look for stuff like this. I just do. This is why I keep quiet in 95% of topics of this manner. These topics always have a certain narrative and I know that some people won't like the kind of counter narrative my questions may pose.
 
I'm just being honest here, but I find this hard to believe and I'm going to need more than an anonymous insiders word to believe differently. Even if the final spec Dev Kits only feature 1gig of ram, I highly doubt that any Wii U developer who had access to a final kit didn't know the retail unit would have 2gigs of ram. The title of this topic is "Wii U final specs" not "Wii U dev kits final specs".

Again, imo anyone who really did know the retail Wii U's final specs, who then decided to cosign the specs in this topic, would have said something like "Yeah that's it but I know it has 1 more gig of ram" in this topic. Not 1 month ago, 2 weeks ago or 1 year ago. Saying that you or someone else mentioned 2gigs of memory in another older topic is irrelevant, in my eyes, to this issue.

I have read large amounts of the many Wii U speculation topics, but I usually have to stop reading due to my eyes rolling all the way to the back of my head.


What exactly are you saying here? Any developer who is legitimately working on final Wii U dev kits would have to know exact unit specifications in order to optimize their games. I don't believe that developers like Gearbox, UBI Montpellier, Capcom, Platinum, etc. do not have specs for their units. No offense but who are you that if you haven't seen them then they do not exist? I'm just not familiar with your industry credentials.



Again. If one of these insiders actually had access to the real final Wii U specs, then in this very topic, when those people cosigned the information in the OP, they would have mentioned 2gigs instead of 1gig. Not one month ago. Not 2 weeks ago. In this topic.

To me that would have given anyone, who had interject that fact, tons of credibility when two days later Iwata confirmed that number in the Nintendo Direct. No one did that. That tells me that more than likely none of these "insiders" have real legit final Wii U spec info.

... All the rumors on dev kits said they had 3 gigs of RAM, not 1. Dev kits typically have twice as much RAM as retail units. It was known to developers and in rumors for a long time that they would only get 1 gig of space for games.

The speculation came in on what will happen to the other RAM. Typically it should have been cut in half as well, meaning the OS would only get the remaining half gig w. you divide 3 in half.

bgassassian and Ideaman both stated that the retail units could actually get a full gig for the OS, breaking tradition.

It wasn't confirmed if the total ram would be 1.5 or 2 gigs in the retail units until Iwata confirmed it.

I actually think having 2 gigs of ram might have been cheaper than 1.5 gig of ram because of production and yield costs.
 
I'm just being honest here, but I find this hard to believe and I'm going to need more than an anonymous insiders word to believe differently. Even if the final spec Dev Kits only feature 1gig of ram, I highly doubt that any Wii U developer who had access to a final kit didn't know the retail unit would have 2gigs of ram. The title of this topic is "Wii U final specs" not "Wii U dev kits final specs".

Again, imo anyone who really did know the retail Wii U's final specs, who then decided to cosign the specs in this topic, would have said something like "Yeah that's it but I know it has 1 more gig of ram" in this topic. Not 1 month ago, 2 weeks ago or 1 year ago. Saying that you or someone else mentioned 2gigs of memory in another older topic is irrelevant, in my eyes, to this issue.

I have read large amounts of the many Wii U speculation topics, but I usually have to stop reading due to my eyes rolling all the way to the back of my head.


What exactly are you saying here? Any developer who is legitimately working on final Wii U dev kits would have to know exact unit specifications in order to optimize their games. I don't believe that developers like Gearbox, UBI Montpellier, Capcom, Platinum, etc. do not have specs for their units. No offense but who are you that if you haven't seen them then they do not exist? I'm just not familiar with your industry credentials.



Again. If one of these insiders actually had access to the real final Wii U specs, then in this very topic, when those people cosigned the information in the OP, they would have mentioned 2gigs instead of 1gig. Not one month ago. Not 2 weeks ago. In this topic.

To me that would have given anyone, who had interject that fact, tons of credibility when two days later Iwata confirmed that number in the Nintendo Direct. No one did that. That tells me that more than likely none of these "insiders" have real legit final Wii U spec info.

The main reason I've been continuing the debate is because I've enjoyed the change in discussion, though I fully understand why you're saying what you are. And yeah there have been a "ton" of WUSTs posts and I've skipped passed some as well.

But why would 2GB being mention beforehand and outside of this thread be irrelevant especially when one of the listed gave that info? To me it seems that Nintendo told devs that there would be 2GB in the final and "on paper" only listed what they could actually access.

As for what I was "trying to say", I was referring to features like what Matt mentioned earlier. They have that info, but I haven't seen it personally. But I have yet to hear if Nintendo gave them the clock speeds or GPU ALUs. Unless I'm misremembering Nintendo didn't give clock speed info out for Wii either. And I have no industry credentials, but I've said that before a few times already.

And I doubt these will help, but I'll post them anyway.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=37507570&postcount=18519

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=41612008&postcount=2536
 

IdeaMan

My source is my ass!
I appreciate you replying to me and I understand how some people may think that having mentioned certain specs in the past may somehow cover all of their bases even if they cosigned the specs stated in this topic. I don't see it that way.

I guess you could say that I am one of those "the devil is in the details" type of people. I can't help that I look for stuff like this. I just do. This is why I keep quiet in 95% of topics of this manner. These topics always have a certain narrative and I know that some people won't like the kind of counter narrative my questions may pose.

Absolutely not, you express yourself respectfully on that matter so you have every right to do it, we should just be careful to avoid derailing the purpose of this thread and just agree to conclude that one should "doubt everything" and "keep a critical mind" (well, to a different degree depending on the poster who claim to have info) :p

For the "whoever co-signed this thread didn't react", i don't know as i intervened here rather late, but i guess they have their reasons, either because they thought only 1GB is relevant for games, or didn't know the exact amount of additional ram for the "OS".

Here's a message from 3 months ago where all is explained without any vagueness http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=39223191&postcount=120

Concretely, third-parties haven't seen a retail unit with 2GB of ram. They worked, at least on a v4 dev kit context, with 3GB dev kit, 1GB available for their games, 1GB for debug and 1GB that was clearly in prevision of the OS but that they couldn't tap into.
 

Shaheed79

dabbled in the jelly
... All the rumors on dev kits said they had 3 gigs of RAM, not 1. Dev kits typically have twice as much RAM as retail units. It was known to developers and in rumors for a long time that they would only get 1 gig of space for games.

The speculation came in on what will happen to the other RAM. Typically it should have been cut in half as well, meaning the OS would only get the remaining half gig w. you divide 3 in half.

bgassassian and Ideaman both stated that the retail units could actually get a full gig for the OS, breaking tradition.

It wasn't confirmed if the total ram would be 1.5 or 2 gigs in the retail units until Iwata confirmed it.

I actually think having 2 gigs of ram might have been cheaper than 1.5 gig of ram because of production and yield costs.

Are you saying that no one knew what the final amount of RAM would be in the final Wii U retail unit until Iwata said it 5 days ago? Not even the Wii U developers working on launch games? If that is what you are saying then pardon me if I simply do not believe you.

If what you say is true, then maybe trying to leak a rumor called "Wii U final specs" at this point in time was a bit silly and premature on the part of the source.
 

Koren

Member
Are you saying that no one knew what the final amount of RAM would be in the final Wii U retail unit until Iwata said it 5 days ago? Not even the Wii U developers working on launch games? If that is what you are saying then pardon me if I simply do not believe you.
It could be possible that they said "1.5GB with 0.5GB reserved or 2GB with 1GB reserved"... For developpers, that would mean 1GB available to devs, not depending on the final hardware decision.

The 1GB reserved seems really conservative to me, and I expect that they reduce it in the coming months/years. The late decision o 2GB of RAM could explain that quite large amount of RAM currently reserved.
 

Shaheed79

dabbled in the jelly
The main reason I've been continuing the debate is because I've enjoyed the change in discussion, though I fully understand why you're saying what you are. And yeah there have been a "ton" of WUSTs posts and I've skipped passed some as well.

But why would 2GB being mention beforehand and outside of this thread be irrelevant especially when one of the listed gave that info? To me it seems that Nintendo told devs that there would be 2GB in the final and "on paper" only listed what they could actually access.

As for what I was "trying to say", I was referring to features like what Matt mentioned earlier. They have that info, but I haven't seen it personally. But I have yet to hear if Nintendo gave them the clock speeds or GPU ALUs. Unless I'm misremembering Nintendo didn't give clock speed info out for Wii either. And I have no industry credentials, but I've said that before a few times already.

And I doubt these will help, but I'll post them anyway.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=37507570&postcount=18519

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=41612008&postcount=2536
Actually those do help. Thank you. Now did you and Idea get that information from an actual source working with the Wii U, or did you get that information from having looked at publicly revealed rumors and then making an educated guess? You can answer that by saying either the former or the latter.

I hate to answer your question with another question but why didn't you interject the 2gig number in this topic when you saw this rumor? Is it because you knew that your information could have been wrong? It just seemed strange that people were cosigning the rumor in the op when it ended up not being entirely true. I just don't think someone who had legit final specs would simply not mention all of the ram.

I'm a little ignorant though, but what does "WUST" stand for? lol
 

SapientWolf

Trucker Sexologist
I think it will get much better. People don't realize how much progress can be made over a console's lifetime. I posted this comparison before but check these screenshots of two Call of Duty games, both on Xbox 360.

These graphical improvements were across multiple platforms with roughly similar architectures (360, PS3, PC). So this type of improvement would only make sense if the Wii U's GPU had new features that devs haven't been able to exploit yet. But if it's Shader Model 4.0 then that likely won't be the case.
 

IdeaMan

My source is my ass!
It could be possible that they said "1.5GB with 0.5GB reserved or 2GB with 1GB reserved"... For developpers, that would mean 1GB available to devs, not depending on the final hardware decision.

The 1GB reserved seems really conservative to me, and I expect that they reduce it in the coming months/years. The late decision o 2GB of RAM could explain that quite large amount of RAM currently reserved.

The 2GB of ram for retail unit is, as indicated in some of my previous posts, known since more than 8 months now, by third-parties (well, at least some).

It was concretely the ratio between memory for games/memory for OS that wasn't sure. Devs got 1GB for them, and it wasn't sure if Nintendo will keep 1GB for the OS (as it was the case in V4 dev kits), or reduce this imprint and give to devs more ram.
 

Shaheed79

dabbled in the jelly
Absolutely not, you express yourself respectfully on that matter so you have every right to do it, we should just be careful to avoid derailing the purpose of this thread and just agree to conclude that one should "doubt everything" and "keep a critical mind" (well, to a different degree depending on the poster who claim to have info) :p
I appreciate you saying that.

For the "whoever co-signed this thread didn't react", i don't know as i intervened here rather late, but i guess they have their reasons, either because they thought only 1GB is relevant for games, or didn't know the exact amount of additional ram for the "OS".
That is what I concluded as well. But I also invited the notion that their source was the same source for the vgleaks rumor. So that invites the dangerous possibility of having a rumor corroborated by people who got their information from the same source indirectly. When the source ended up being a gafer this ended up being the likely scenario in my head. Corroborations need to be from independent sources in order to mean anything, and it is hard to confirm something like that when all of the sources remain anonymous and incognito. That is the main problem I have with all of the cosigning that goes on in topics such as this.

Here's a message from 3 months ago where all is explained without any vagueness http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=39223191&postcount=120
Thanks. :)

Concretely, third-parties haven't seen a retail unit with 2GB of ram. They worked, at least on a v4 dev kit context, with 3GB dev kit, 1GB available for their games, 1GB for debug and 1GB that was clearly in prevision of the OS but that they couldn't tap into.

You sound very sure of this. Even though they haven't seen a 2gig retail unit, do you think that any of them knew that the retail unit would have 2gig of ram before Iwata confirmed this? If you and Bg mentioned this in May, then surely some of the actual Wii U developers knew about this back then as well.

EDIT: You actually answer that last question in the link you posted.
 

IdeaMan

My source is my ass!
You sound very sure of this. Even though they haven't seen a 2gig retail unit, do you think that any of them knew that the retail unit would have 2gig of ram before Iwata confirmed this? If you and Bg mentioned this in May, then surely some of the actual Wii U developers knew about this back then as well.

EDIT: You actually answer that last question in the link you posted.

As explained, some third-parties (because i don't have sources in every foreign studios obviously so not sure if it was a widespread information for devs) were noticed by Nintendo that the retail unit will have 2GB. And it was back in winter 2012, this was my second leak in february, when i hinted at that on the WUST by exchanging with folks.

Thing is, for devs, their "mindset" was "we have 1GB to work with", not "we may have 1,5GB soon". It was a clear limit.

(just saw your edit :p)
 

ozfunghi

Member
The 2GB of ram for retail unit is, as indicated in some of my previous posts, known since more than 8 months now, by third-parties (well, at least some).

It was concretely the ratio between memory for games/memory for OS that wasn't sure. Devs got 1GB for them, and it wasn't sure if Nintendo will keep 1GB for the OS (as it was the case in V4 dev kits), or reduce this imprint and give to devs more ram.

So how about that framerate issue :)
 
Well "wait until..." is a terrible excuse to begin with.

And Nintendo fanatics will still come up with excuses no matter what. At the end of Wii U's life, I'm sure it will be "third partys never really tried".
So now everybody has to act like an unreasonable jackass..?
I'm not too confident to talk about it precisely yet.

Let's just say 2X

And i think you can pretty much guess what kind of framerate increase we talk about here.
ideaman, i have a question you might be willing to answer.
There seem to be quite a fair amount of jaggies in the direct capture screens. Do you know anything about the Anti alias capabilities of the Wii-?. I'm a bit worried to be honest. I'd hate see the nice HD graphics ruined by horrible jaggies. Have you heard people talk about adding AA in the industry?
 

fallingdove

Member
The eye candy for Retro's new game as well as Monolith's new game and the latest 3D Mario should be close to the first party launch titles from Sony and Microsoft studios.

I don't know about that. Retro and Monolith, and Mario games for that matter have never focused on breathtaking visuals. I think it is going to be difficult for these games to stand next to a potential Uncharted 4, a Gears 4, or a Halo 5 even if Wii U developers have learned how to wring out a little more power.
 

Stewox

Banned
My biggest concern is that most of that 1GB OS RAM will be most of the time sitting there doing nothing. I could go on to discuss this in detail but it's a bit too early, don't want to speculate too violently, need more info first.
 

AzaK

Member
So in short Nintendo should have lied and created CG demos (Killzone 2) in order to be considered 'wow worthy'. Nintendo's problem (at least when unveiling the Wii U) was that it just didn't lie through its teeth. They should have just 'Killzone-ify' their Zelda tech demo.

I never said anything about CG demos. I would be my balls that Sony and MS will attempt to have a graphical showcase title ready to display when they reveal their consoles. They are still in the arms race (just :p)
 

IdeaMan

My source is my ass!
So now everybody has to act like an unreasonable jackass..?

ideaman, i have a question you might be willing to answer.
There seem to be quite a fair amount of jaggies in the direct capture screens. Do you know anything about the Anti alias capabilities of the Wii-?. I'm a bit worried to be honest. I'd hate see the nice HD graphics ruined by horrible jaggies. Have you heard people talk about adding AA in the industry?

I've been told the reasons since E3 and tried to reassure people who asked why there wasn't AA in a lot of games in several threads, by repeating the words of my sources "there will be AA at launch". True to be told, i haven't understood everything, so i needed some insight of people like alstrong or blu on AA before revealing more, and just forgot doing it as i'm more busy than pre-E3 nowadays.
 
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