iamvin22
Industry Verified
thats nothing compared to some other tube members. i can link if you can stomach it.
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Frostbite Technical Director on why Frostbite never came to Wii U
- Thread starter Nirolak
- Start date
thats nothing compared to some other tube members. i can link if you can stomach it.
CPU-wise, probably. GPU wise, in real-world performance, likely not for years.
blu
Wants the largest console games publisher to avoid Nintendo's platforms.
..For a certain definition of 'very soon'.
Argyle, I posted the PPE SMT results. Improvement is ~29%. Yes, I did overlook one 'small' detail when assessing the original code, which made me undeservedly skeptical re SMT@PPE.
Just saw that, hilarious and sad. Should've duct tapped a cell phone to it, would've ran frostbite.
hooijdonk17
Member
This is hyperbole. EA is making a mobile port of Frostbite, but we have no idea what that engine will be capable of. What EA said about WiiU was that Frostbite engine on the WiiU did not run current or next-gen console games feasibly. And obviously, the WiiU install base does not warrant a ground-up redevelopment of titles to fit WiiU.
The Mobile situation couldn't be more different. Not only is the install base huge, but they are not expected to 1-to-1 port current or next gen games to mobiles (it's not even possible due to input constraints). They won't have to test and see whether BF3 runs on Nexus 4 or not. They'll port the engine and make the best game they can. And they have enough customers to do that.
Stop making sense, its not as funny.
Interesting - so it comes out around 3.47x faster than the projected performance of an Espresso core?
I really wish Nintendo had at least decided to match 360 level performance on the CPU - I would have seriously considered picking up a WiiU last year and been reasonably happy with the best version of any multiplatform game (and it probably would have gotten more ports if there was enough performance to make ports from 360 trivial). Honestly I thought that was going to be their strategy for the WiiU when they announced it...at least it made sense to me
Eh. Its Frostbite Mobile, not Frostbite 3. Its like comparing UE 3 web CE 3 Mobile to U4 or CE 3.5.
blu
Wants the largest console games publisher to avoid Nintendo's platforms.
Yes. Basically the multiplier goes from 2.7 (single-threaded) to 3.47 (SMT) per core. Just keep in mind the (projected) Espresso results are not optimal either (remember we're testing the compiler's performance as much as the CPU's), whereas the SMT boost that PPE gets is pretty much what IBM's own manual projects as SMT gain.
I believe it was in the old WUST when we still had little idea what UCPU was, back then a few posters were discussing the meaning of the rumors that nintendo was aiming for easy ps360 portability. There I said that in my eyes those rumors implied UCPU had to meet Xenon's sustainable SIMD throughout. Fast forward to today. Clearly nintendo got the GPU covered (the jury is still out about the margins), but CPU FLOPS-wise they fell short. They could have addressed that via wider SIMD or more cores, if we assume upclocking Espresso further was not viable. Does that make WiiU less of a console? I don't think so - I judge hw mostly on its own merits, how well it meets its own bar, what hurdles devs have to go through to get it to do this or that advertised metric. Does it affect WiiU's reception of ps360 flagman ports, though? It likely does. Do I think that the original statement of FB2 not running well on WiiU was actually justified? No. If they meant to say such-and-such game they should have said that.I really wish Nintendo had at least decided to match 360 level performance on the CPU - I would have seriously considered picking up a WiiU last year and been reasonably happy with the best version of any multiplatform game (and it probably would have gotten more ports if there was enough performance to make ports from 360 trivial). Honestly I thought that was going to be their strategy for the WiiU when they announced it...at least it made sense to me
hooijdonk17
Member
blu
Wants the largest console games publisher to avoid Nintendo's platforms.
I don't feel like explaining what an engine running well on a hw means. Engines are software and as any software they get ported, are subject to evaluation how well they run, etc. As for the rest, what they obviously did and what they obviously said are apparently different things in this thread. Perhaps why semantics is fairly essential part of human communication. Good luck trying to communicate anything without caring about semantics.
hooijdonk17
Member
Oh please spare me. You know very well that an engine 'running well' on a hardware in a vacuum means shit. You take something they said, isolate it from the context, argue for pages on this thread that what they say is wrong, then try to wash your hands clean of it by conceding solely that they should have explained their context better (which was pretty evident as is)? Thank you but I don't need the good luck, I just know when to stop arguing with this kind of behaviour.
blu
Wants the largest console games publisher to avoid Nintendo's platforms.
Consider yourself spared. I'm not in an educational mood today.
And yet you come back to argue some more. Oh the irony.
As re what they said - it's still sitting on the front page of this very thread.
I agree with hooijdonk17: FB, as in the engine, could probably "run well" on cell phones, and also on Wii U. However, this fact is meaningless in context -- which is also a very important factor in human communication.
And the only meaningful context for porting FB to a new home console platform is porting home console games based on FB to that platform. Thus, if they don't run well, then neither does the engine, for all meaningful purposes.
And the only meaningful context for porting FB to a new home console platform is porting home console games based on FB to that platform. Thus, if they don't run well, then neither does the engine, for all meaningful purposes.
Perhaps. Companies don't always do smart things even if we like to think they do. Even if we like to think they make decisions objectively. They're still run by people and people do stupid and petty things. EA has done so before in the past. EA didn't put up an honest and good faith effort to begin with. They put Mass Effect 3 on the Wii U at full price with on piece of DLC. Then turned around and before it released put out the Mass Effect Trilogy for the same damn price on the PS3/360/PC. Early adopters are knowledgeable and knew they were being screwed from day one. That on top Madden and Fifa not being the full games they were being advertised as.
EA had to see that Activision was having success on the Wii even with treating it as a after thought. Each of the Call of Duty games were million sellers. Did that change EA's output on the system? No it didn't. They put out Dead Space Extraction. -_- Did anyone ask for them to make their Madden, etc offerings more cartoony? No. Why did EA release Grand Slam Tennis 2 on the PS3/360 when the first game was a Wii only game. It had to do well enough for them to want to make a sequel but why cut out the system that possibly allowed for that sequel to be green lighted?
So yes I think EA makes stupid decisions and perhaps does things out of spite. Not because they are good business decisions. What they did with the Dreamcast when they couldn't get their way makes it easy for me to believe they'd do it again when they think they have leverage and it looks like they are trying to repeat things with their current actions.
Wii U owners would probably settle for up-ports of phone games, though, given the game situation.
context of why i think it is not on wiiu
devs go- it'll take, we think,, x amount of time and cost y dollars to do...
bean counters- too much money, we need to cut costs, don't do it.
COULD frostbyte 2 or 3 run well on wiiu.. yes it could if and only if the engineers behind the engine put in the work(read spend money to pay the people to work on the engine port) to make it run well. otherwise moot point.
the wiiu needs a GPU heavy engine cpu "light"....frostbyte from the bit i have read, is the opposite- it would require a lot of work to make it gpu centric.
devs go- it'll take, we think,, x amount of time and cost y dollars to do...
bean counters- too much money, we need to cut costs, don't do it.
COULD frostbyte 2 or 3 run well on wiiu.. yes it could if and only if the engineers behind the engine put in the work(read spend money to pay the people to work on the engine port) to make it run well. otherwise moot point.
the wiiu needs a GPU heavy engine cpu "light"....frostbyte from the bit i have read, is the opposite- it would require a lot of work to make it gpu centric.
Brad Grenz
Member
The idea that engines just need to be made "gpu centric" is a complete fallacy. What you're actually saying is "don't make games that need to simulate anything too much".
blu
Wants the largest console games publisher to avoid Nintendo's platforms.
Indeed. About that context:
Random Twitter reader: You had FB3 running on WiiU at one stage.
DICE: Nope. And the tests we did with FB2 were not good.
And you're telling me that the above should be interpreted as:
DICE: Nope. But even if FB2 ran perfectly fine on WiiU, chances for any FB-based game ports are not good.
Those are interchangeable statements to you?
Which entries from DICE's lineup of PC and console games do you expect to run well on the just announced FB mobile (assuming the latter is actually meant for mobiles)?
hooijdonk17
Member
He's probably just assuming that if he insists on responding to you in long sentences with no sense and a lot of false or half logic hidden behind a charade of big words you will eventually think he probably has a point. He doesn't.
blu
Wants the largest console games publisher to avoid Nintendo's platforms.
Ok, perhaps I asked you the wrong question. Let me try again: can you guarantee that any FB2 game, present and future, originating from the PC and console alike, will not be technically portable to the WiiU? And I didn't catch your response re the apparent context in that twitter exchange.
Perhaps my 'hangup' stems from the fact from my POV evaluating an engine and evaluating a title on a candidate platform are not the same thing.
What defines an engine running well on a system is if it could run games well without major cut backs or massive rewriting to bypass something the hardware does slowly.
Trying to take the game out of the question pointless, you might as well claim that anything that has enough RAM to load the engine binaries is running the engine, no matter if all it can at interactive frame rates is rasterize a single polygon!
Trying to take the game out of the question pointless, you might as well claim that anything that has enough RAM to load the engine binaries is running the engine, no matter if all it can at interactive frame rates is rasterize a single polygon!
blu
Wants the largest console games publisher to avoid Nintendo's platforms.
My question wasn't about what EA might or might not decide, though. It was about technical feasibility.For Frostbite 2 yes we can probably guarantee that
"The game"? Which game is that?
Engine feasibility on a given platform is a subject of and in itself. Every function or feature in an engine has an associated cost, which might or might not be constant. We used to collect megabytes of statistical data on my prev job entirely focusing on our engine's associated perf costs on new platforms. That could tells us if feature X is perfectly fine, while feature Y is prohibitively expensive, or feature Z is a simple no-no. That data was never collected from any given game - that data was collected from engine unit tests.
ii Stryker
Banned
its odd that they'll bring Frostbite to iOS and other mobile devices but not nintendo
phosphor112
Banned
Mithos
Member
Just a question. So what happens then IF they decide to make a Wii U version of a game that runs on Frostbite 3.
What engine will they use, and if that less expensive to strip an engine out and replace it, rather then actually make sure the engine they are going to use for their games also works on Wii U.
blu
Wants the largest console games publisher to avoid Nintendo's platforms.
EA decide what games are technically portable to the WiiU?
phosphor112
Banned
It would be a FB2 or 3 engine. They'd either have to rework the FB engine to be less parallel or they'd have to cut down stuff from the game until it works. Probably a combination of both.
I'm sure the GPU is capable, but the engine is very multithreaded based, and that CPU isn't doing anyone any favors.
The games that use the engine to run!
If the engine tests showed that the WiiU is too slow to support the workloads the games (that are targeted at the home consoles) that are being made with the engine are doing, then it is correct to say that the hardware is not fast enough for the engine!
Lighter games made with a version of the engine on weaker hardware has nothing to do with how the WiiU can run non mobile games!
soulassssns
Banned
Not this Wii U owner.
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