flyinpiranha
Member
I care, it's why I didn't buy one at the price they are selling it at.
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Wii U has 2GB of DDR3 RAM, [Up: RAM 43% slower than 360/PS3 RAM]
- Thread starter Horse Armour
- Start date
I care, it's why I didn't buy one at the price they are selling it at.
EternalGamer
Banned
Between this, the crappy OS load speeds, and the 2 GB quicklooks I watched this morning I am now not sure I want to bother keeping mine when I pick it up today.
Refreshment.01
Member
I apreciate your cleverness.
I don't like to post off topic but this one deserves it and the thread (as always with WiiU specs ones) already gone to hell, so
Yes it was a guess, those aren't illegal.
StrangeADT
Banned
Wow, kind of a hardware trainwreck. I'm grimacing as I watch this unfold. At least the Wii was equal to the most powerful consoles the from the previous gen. This is awful.
StealthGoblin
Banned
People don't really care about how it performs against the PS3/360. Most of the speculation is about whether it'll hold a candle to Orbis/Nextbox, based on whatever information we have or rumours.
My personal opinion based on what I have read (I am still open to changing my opinion) is that the Wii U will likely be my Zelda box. I can't see myself buying any 3rd party games for this machine and I flat out hate Mario games.
Pertaining to those who have mentioned PS4 and XB3 as the saviour in the face of such "disappointing" spec of WiiU, aren't they doing pretty much the same thing pertaining to RAM, i.e. in all likelihood they will be cramming DDR3 as well (but about 4 times as much as WiiU)? I have heard rumours about DDR4 and nothing is written in stones. But if they do end up with DDR3 modules, won't it be victim to shitty bottleneck situation when paired with a powerful GPU or CPU?
While I may never buy the WiiU, I think Nintendo gamers are happy "enough" that Nintendo decided to go HD. That should fuel their fire for next 6 years.
While I may never buy the WiiU, I think Nintendo gamers are happy "enough" that Nintendo decided to go HD. That should fuel their fire for next 6 years.
chaosblade
Unconfirmed Member
That's in the OP. 4x16 = 64 bit bus. How else would they get the 17GB/s figure?
And since the RAM is unified, this is for the CPU, GPU, and DSP.
Might be the biggest overreaction in this whole thread.
H_Prestige
Banned
Cell phones also come with 2GB RAM these days. So what?
Felix Lighter
Member
If the speed of the ram causes a significant bottleneck, it becomes the most important spec.
Except it's arguably been the biggest culprit that has held this generation back.
cyberheater
PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 Xbone PS4 PS4
Yes. You can see how much of a difference that huge memory pool made to the launch games and early multi platform games on WiiU.
It only has twice the RAM of 360.
There are some people here implying that this console isn't as good as the 360 or PS3 from a technical standpoint when it's blatantly not true.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_360 (512 mb)?
SquiddyCracker
Banned
More like 2.2 times the RAM available for games.
When/if people are doing that they are obviously wrong, you can only really judge the external memory bandwidth of a system by knowing its external memory bandwidth.
But of course the discussion is going to focus on it, since it's the only certain fact we really know about the system at this point.
H_Prestige
Banned
In terms of RAM speed, it isn't. This is now officially fact.
GPU better? Sure. CPU? Still up in the air. This isn't so cut and dry like a certain crowd would have you believe up to now.
Oh I see. Well, there was a similar situation for 3DS or DS wasn't there where some of the memory was walled off from developers for the OS but it opened up eventually?
TouchMyBox
Member
It's funny,
Whenever Wii U specs come in at being less than what was expected, I get excited since it means it will be easier to emulate.
cyberheater
PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 Xbone PS4 PS4
It's funny,
Whenever Wii U specs come in at being less than what was expected, I get excited since it means it will be easier to emulate.
You've identified the silver lining. Well done. I knew there was an upside somewhere.
Fourth Storm
Member
Wow. A 64 bit bus. That's cheaper than expected. And we don't know clocks? So under 17 GB/s is pretty much a lock. I don't care how good the eDRAM is. That's poor. Whelp, time to go pick mine up!
lwilliams3
Member
Wii U's memory artitecture relies on the eDRAM that is greater than the 360 and is apparently more flexible in use. It also should be noted that the Wii U seems to have a bit more cache, especially that one core that has 2MB by itself.
You should. It has a direct bearing on bandwidth requirements from main memory.
Alexios
Cores, shaders and BIOS oh my!
Did you really need this thread to know it's not going to replace a top of the line PC?
CoffeeJanitor
Member
Does Nintendo just not care about future proofing or 3rd party support? Hope this cheap Crap bites them in the ass this gen
grimshawish
Banned
Believe so. But again the OS itself is very unoptimised.
Can't you run things on the pad whilst someone plays? I can't remember.
That would explain such a 'split' in the RAM>
I meant i was expecting the console to be able to run current gen games with better performance than the 360 or PS3 easily. I knew it was never gonna be more powerful than my PC. But if it could have at least guaranteed that games would run smoothly, i would have not hesitated to buy something like AC3 on Wii U instead of PC to try the gamepad additions. But if it runs as badly at the other console versions, i wont bother.
EatChildren
Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
I don't think Nintendo is in touch with what constitutes as future proofing technologies for third parties, even if they don't realise it. They stuffed it with the Wii. Stuffed it with the 3DS. And we'll see if they stuff it with the Wii U.
Nintendo gave up on future proofing a while ago.
They were idiots this time around and decided to aim for 3rd party parity with current gen instead of actual next gen consoles.
I can't see why it wouldn't bite them in the ass again.
It can do stuff that PS360 can't, such as being able to browse the internet/do a video chat without leaving your game, and apparently they've saved some of it for future functionality. I'd imagine the RAM the OS uses up will be reduced over time though, as happened with PS3 and 3DS.
Fourth Storm
Member
Oh believe me I do. Just that I'd like that eDRAM to be used to enhance games beyond current gen level. Seems like devs will require it just to match.
They won this time.
This is fine, having PS360 performance so third parties can cheaply support the system while they're working on Mario Kart, SSB, Zelda etc, then first party is the only thing that's going to matter.
They only need third parties while they don't have enough to support the system alone, and that will take less than a year.
H_Prestige
Banned
How many games can Nintendo make on their own?
Alexios
Cores, shaders and BIOS oh my!
Well this thread isnt going to tell you if it will or won't do that. Although we do know these first launch ports aren't all that great ram likely isn't the cause or could in the future be bypassed as the cause when devs can better understand how to deal with it depending on the rest specs. Not that it will always result in better performance, or better enough for your case but iirc they've said sonic all stars runs better on wii u for example.
wakajawaka
Member
For someone like me who doesn't own a ps360, the idea of buying a Wii U is not very appealing right now. I like many Nintendo titles, but why would I choose the few Nintendo (awesome of course) titles to come in the next years over the ps360 library, with hundreds of nice cheap games? :/
I don't know if that's the case. There were plenty of times during the Wii's lifetime that it underwent a game drought relative to 360/PS3.
Aren't people overracting a bit?
We already knew the amount of ram and the number of chips. Most people were expecting GDDR3, but DDR3 makes sense considering how much nintendo hates latency (I still can't find any solid numbers on GDDR3 latencies, except that it's higher). DDR3 isn't some ancient cheap tech, it's newer than GDDR3 and it's what used in all modern desktops; DDR4 is hardly on the market yet. It's not the highest clock available but not too far behind. DDR3 should be better for CPU use, but not optimal for graphics. Since it's unified they had to chose one or the other, and there's still the EDRAM for the most bandwidth heavy tasks.
Also I may be way off with this, but isn't pretty much the only way to increase the bus size for DDR3 to increase the number of chips? But in that case wouldn't you only actually see the full effect if you spread out the memory so you're reading from every chip at the same time.
We already knew the amount of ram and the number of chips. Most people were expecting GDDR3, but DDR3 makes sense considering how much nintendo hates latency (I still can't find any solid numbers on GDDR3 latencies, except that it's higher). DDR3 isn't some ancient cheap tech, it's newer than GDDR3 and it's what used in all modern desktops; DDR4 is hardly on the market yet. It's not the highest clock available but not too far behind. DDR3 should be better for CPU use, but not optimal for graphics. Since it's unified they had to chose one or the other, and there's still the EDRAM for the most bandwidth heavy tasks.
Also I may be way off with this, but isn't pretty much the only way to increase the bus size for DDR3 to increase the number of chips? But in that case wouldn't you only actually see the full effect if you spread out the memory so you're reading from every chip at the same time.
lunarworks
Member
All of this would have mattered to me when I was a dorky teen.
Now all I care about is if they can make good first-party games, honestly. HD quality Mario and Zelda titles, etc.
Anyway, the PS Vita absolutely murders the 3DS in terms of specs, but which one is selling?
Now all I care about is if they can make good first-party games, honestly. HD quality Mario and Zelda titles, etc.
Anyway, the PS Vita absolutely murders the 3DS in terms of specs, but which one is selling?
At least a major release a month, which for many people is all they need, beyond that releases cannibalize each other anyway. They did it masterfully with the Wii until it dried up when the focus shifted to 3DS's launch. They have to be very happy with how it worked out, and they're just trying to repeat it, it seems, which is smart.
walking fiend
Member
Well, that certainly worked well for PSV
I believe it has been obvious from the start that if Wii U is going to get a port from Nextbox/PS4, it will boil down to the economical decision making; cause regardless of whether Wii U is 1/4 or 1/10 as powerful as these machines, it still need heavy modifications to downport the games.
So basically these info, which although are disappointing, doesn't change anything in the big picture. If 3rd party games sell well on Wii U, if the console sells well compared to Nextbox/PS4 to begin with, we will see 3rd party games coming too it; otherwise, we wont, and we wouldn't even if it was 3 times as powerful as it is now; just like how a lot of 3rd party games were not being ported to PC before this gen. If anything, making the system any more powerful would most probably just make things worse, because the added price would meant even less sales.
That's pretty much how I felt about all consoles this gen, and I guess that's pretty much how you're gonna feel about all consoles next gen.
GDDR3 is EOL, so they wouldn't have used it in any case. You could have a wider bus on DDR3 if you used chips with a 32 data pins, although 4Gb DDR3 chips more commonly have 8 or 16 data pins.
Little Green Yoda
Member
So it uses the slow kind of RAM that people were being corrected about in various speculation threads on GAF?
Just ROPs, no shading units or TEX units on daughter die.
So texturing and shading uses main memory and result is sent to daughter die in which ROPs write the output.
If result is needed for shading it must be sent to main memory to be used.
EDRAM will certainly be very important for Wiiu as the whole system seems to be designed around it.
It's slower than the ram used in ps3 and 360 but a bit more modern.