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Wii U has 2GB of DDR3 RAM, [Up: RAM 43% slower than 360/PS3 RAM]

Shion

Member
Nintendo are not in a hardware race. They would be crazy to go down that road. Rightly or wrongly they are trying to make a difference in other ways but personally I think that's a lot more wiser than jumping in a straight hardware race with the competition.
You really don't have to be in the hardware race to offer a respectable jump from Xbox 360...7 years later.
 

jwhit28

Member
well, specs will mean something when developers and publishers alike skip out on bringing over future and current games. in the long run, it's bad for consumers who buy the wii u, when they can't get even get something comparable to what will be found on other next gen systems.

That isn't the draw, it isn't what the console is being sold on. Nintendo offered a console with a different gamepad and new ways to play games. Does it say on the box We will have the best copy of Modern Warfare 5 in 2015?
 

B.O.O.M

Member
It doesn't come with Uncharted and whether or not it is sold at a profit does not change the value to the consumer.

Are we really going to pretend that the PS3 is an engineering wonder? Sony went from first to last place in the hardware race on the back of a system that came out a year late, $200 more expensive and was weaker.

lolwut? So a potentially on par or slightly better system sold at a higher price vs a system with a much bigger hard drive, game, one month of ps+ and dust included doesn't do anything to you when it comes to customer value?

And we are talking about hardware yes? I'm no expert but this pretty pathetic for a next gen console isn't it? I never implied ps3 was a engineering wonder either...stop being paranoid. Now you are just on damage control mode. Calm down lol

I'm just simply pointing out that your comparison was weak and useless. You used the 'price' as the basis of your argument which is pretty silly really.

It's running Black Ops 2 at 720p isnt it?

Dunno..did hear it had some issues with batman
 

farnham

Banned
The problem is Nintendo act like simply having a system that can output HD graphics means it's modern. The second the next systems come out, this system is dated, and supporting it becomes a chore. You either take a risk on a system with an unproven userbase or you just make the same game for both PS4 and 720, while also being able to put out a PC port.

It's one thing to say you don't want to get drawn in to rising dev costs and shit. The problem is Nintendo doesn't control the industry. If they want to make games for their own system that don't cost too much to make, that's fine, but it ends up compromising the long-term potential of the console for people who aren't Nintendo. If someone wants to make a low budget game, they'll make it for iOS or digital distribution.

And when will ps4 and x720 launch?

WiiU has at the very least a one year headstart and without ms and sony showing its next gen last e3 i kinda doubt it will be Q4 2013

If they have a decent launch and second christmas they could create a ps2like situation too
 

jaosobno

Member
Actually, iirc PS3 is rocking 256 MB of RAM, but still. What a strange console so far.

PS3 has split memory pool between XDR and GDDR3. 256+256 MB RAM. OS footprint was reduced from 120 MB to 50 MB in 2009. WiiU has 1GB OS footprint which is massive. Windows on PC massive.

And you are forgetting that Nintendo is just a small software company and not a big hardware/software company like Sony and MS is that can take those kind of losses (well Sony is having trouble with that ATM lol)

AFAIK, Nintendo is in a better situation than Sony when it comes to finances and is by no means a small software company. What Nintendo did with WiiU was the same thing they did with Wii; made crappy hardware, added gimmicky controller and called entire thing next gen.

Except now when people want gimmicky controls they turn to tablets and phones. For most casuals, home consoles are a thing of the past. Nintendo is currently in sort of a limbo. It's not casual and it's not core. And that lack of clearer definition could mean their downfall.
 

Erethian

Member
And yeah it's a pretty important point to make that Nintendo could have never sustained the hardware losses that Microsoft and Sony did with the 360 and PS3 respectively. The fact they are taking what seems to be such a prolonged loss on the Wii U is notable in and of itself, because while they did that with the Gamecube it was a pretty short amount of time.

In a fantasy world where Nintendo can put out beastly hardware and still thrive, then sure, that's great. But we don't live in that world.
 
i never played me3 on ps3. but i did play me2. And its one of the worst ports ive ever played.

some levels even lacked texturefiltering.

if this is anything like that then its borderline unplayable.
 

QaaQer

Member
Newer better tech doesn't have to be more powerful. Systems can be designed more efficiently, new controls lead to new gameplay, developers don't have to start at the ground floor with new architecture.

We'll see how the market reacts over the next few months and years. I think it is a lot easier selling new tech when the marketing dept can use the words 'more powerful' and 'faster'.
 

LeleSocho

Banned
and the wii u is significantly more powerful over the wii. what's the problem?
the problem is that the "next gen" graphics of the wiiu is already seen everywhere else
Nintendo are not in a hardware race. They would be crazy to go down that road. Rightly or wrongly they are trying to make a difference in other ways but personally I think that's a lot more wiser than jumping in a straight hardware race with the competition.

we are not talking about hardware race.... we are talking on not even achieve on some parts what other console achieved 7 years ago... and 7 years in the world of tech is like saying 30 years.
 

gofreak

GAF's Bob Woodward
Is it 17GB/s to 1GB => 34GB/s to 2GB, or 17GB/s to 2?

I suppose in the former case it'd make it similar-ish to 360 in terms of bandwidth into the front end of the rendering pipeline. Maybe a little less if the eDRAM isn't more flexible than 360's.
 
That's nice, but you're being naive to think that developers will care about that. Have a look at what happened this generation - resolution and frame rate sacrificed in the name of geometry and explosions. That's exactly what will happen next generation, unless 1080p is mandated.

Thats because its the first time we moved to the HD era. When the next consoles releases it will be 8 years since the launch of the current.

8 years of tech is a huge jump. My guess is that the devs that are trying to make the games as pretty as possible will aim for 1080p@30 fps or "sub"1080p.
 

Squire

Banned
I feel pretty comfortable in saying that if there wasn't the perception of "our franchise doesn't really fit the Nintendo hardware-owning audience" then Nintendo would have almost no problem with third-party support this generation. I suppose their hardware focus plays its part, but it's not the most significant part in my view.

Further to this, I've been saying for a while now that I expect a whole lot of cross-generation game engines for the first couple of years of the next generation. With how companies are bleeding they don't want to give up that PS3/360 audience unless they absolutely have to, or see it in their best interests to do so.

I totally agree! I think Nintendo isn't even trying to break that perception. You could say give them time, but they squandered a year. Now they've got a 3DS campaign tagged, "I am not a gamer." that's targeted at girls for critical damage and a Wii U thats just bizarre. If you make games for a hardcore crowd, they've still go no merits beyond simply being Nintendo. (Which I understand goes a ways, but again: not quite enough.)

And ditto cross-gen engines. Publishers aren't gonna throw away these huge install bases. I'm right there with you, but I actually don't think that'll result in more Wii U ports. Not if it doesn't take off sales-wise.
 

IdeaMan

My source is my ass!
Don't forget this interview of Shin'en (GAF thread here) who praise the memory layout of the Wii U, so no, the DDR3 isn't a problem, you have to take into consideration all the rest.

When testing our first code on Wii U we were amazed how much we could throw at it without any slowdowns, at that time we even had zero optimizations. The performance problem of hardware nowadays is not clock speed but ram latency. Fortunately Nintendo took great efforts to ensure developers can really work around that typical bottleneck on Wii U. They put a lot of thought on how CPU, GPU, caches and memory controllers work together to amplify your code speed. For instance, with only some tiny changes we were able to optimize certain heavy load parts of the rendering pipeline to 6x of the original speed, and that was even without using any of the extra cores.

......

We didn’t have such problems (about CPU power). The CPU and GPU are a good match. As said before, today’s hardware has bottlenecks with memory throughput when you don’t care about your coding style and data layout. This is true for any hardware and can’t be only cured by throwing more megahertz and cores on it. Fortunately Nintendo made very wise choices for cache layout, ram latency and ram size to work against these pitfalls. Also Nintendo took care that other components like the Wii U GamePad screen streaming, or the built-in camera don’t put a burden on the CPU or GPU.

......

Nano Assault Neo only needs a fraction of the memory, even when all assets are unpacked and processed. So we use all remaining memory as a cache. So for instance loading times are nearly zero after a short while. It feels like playing from a SNES rom :)

etc.
 
Platinum and SE I would reckon will support the system well. Even Capcom

I just don't see how this isn't following the exact same pattern as Wii. Only it's almost certainly not going to get the same install base and nowhere near the same growth in the first 12-24 months.
 

AniHawk

Member
I wonder. You're probably right, but I don't think publishers are going to be beholden to the standards Microsoft and especially Sony wanted on their systems, and to a degree that seems to be the trajectory of the market on the whole even without rising dev costs. And we already have the Wonderful 101, so I guess one step's been made.

nintendo is footing the bill for that one though. the only way those games do get made, is if there's a lot of support for them early on. wonderful 101 and pikmin will probably be the ones to look out for.
 

ASIS

Member
Ah yes, as per usual we are now at the point of discussing the importance of tech. I'll let the guy in my avatar answer the reasoning:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EFkqn2TwIw&t=19m48s

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EFkqn2TwIw&t=3m12s

These two statements go hand in hand, the tech has to have meaning, and it has to be the best of its time to be remembered in the future. It isn't just about specs, its about everything, from software to controls, from engineering to art. So far, Nintendo hasn't shown the reason why the gamepad is meaningful to us. The software, while it looks amazing, doesn't really show why we need the Wii U. So that leaves us with the specs, which is also disappointing.

I understand its all about the games, but if thats the case then where are they on the Wii U?
 
Selling any hardware is and always be about software.
And traditionally what's made new generation software stand out is based upon a foundation of significantly better hardware.

I completely get that Nintendo's schtick these days is new ways to play and attracting the expanded audience. That that's what they're using to stand out with their software. And it may work out well again with the Wii U as it did for the Wii.

But the oft-repeated notion that "weakest always wins" "hardware power is completely irrelevant" and trying to draw analogies to the success of the PS2 are ill-founded. The PS2 was sold on the notion of power.

People wouldn't have bought PS2s to play games that were technically on par with their PS1s. People wouldn't have bought PS1s if games all looked just like the SNES software. People generally don't upgrade, when there isn't much of an upgrade.
 
And yeah it's a pretty important point to make that Nintendo could have never sustained the hardware losses that Microsoft and Sony did with the 360 and PS3 respectively. The fact they are taking what seems to be such a prolonged loss on the Wii U is notable in and of itself, because while they did that with the Gamecube it was a pretty short amount of time.

In a fantasy world where Nintendo can put out beastly hardware and still thrive, then sure, that's great. But we don't live in that world.

They through everything into another gimmick controller and gimped the living hell out of the actual system itself. There's not going crazy with hardware and then there's going to the fucking goodwill to scrap together pieces for your console. 7 years since the launch of the 360, there is no reason what so ever that could be given as to why anything in the system is actually worse then something that launched in 2005.

This is simply amazing Nintendo. Simply amazing.
 

IrishNinja

Member
You forgot SNES Vs. Genesis

the start of sony's sins against sega was that soundchip, less than a decade later they'd be fighting with "toy story graphics"
unforgivable

if that was true, why did people buy the 3ds when the ds was still on sale, same for xbox/xbox360, ps1/ps2/ps3. tech matters.

not that his argument was appropriate here, but you're falling into the same trouble some knuckleheads around here do when missing the point of a next gen system, regardless of specs

Should I just masturbate to the first sign of Nintendo's stock reversing it's decline?

i thought this was appropriate behavior? thunder monkey likewise recommends this if it plummets, or simply maintains.
 

Margalis

Banned
You used the 'price' as the basis of your argument which is pretty silly really.

The statement I was responding to originally was that the Wii U is expensive at $300. Given what is on the market today it isn't.

If it cost $599 like a launch PS3 then sure.
 

StevieP

Banned
Thats because its the first time we moved to the HD era. When the next consoles releases it will be 8 years since the launch of the current.

8 years of tech is a huge jump. My guess is that the devs that are trying to make the games as pretty as possible will aim for 1080p@30 fps or "sub"1080p.

My guess is that developers will sacrifice resolution AND framerate to achieve prettier screenshots, as they have for generations now. There will be no mandate. Microsoft had "720p" in their launch TRC this generation and even they put out subHD games at launch. It's not going to happen.
 

mrklaw

MrArseFace
If the GPU is more powerful, how much of a hindrance would similar memory bandwidth to 360/PS3 be? Presumably at some point of performance a strong GOU will be sitting around waiting for stuff from memory. Looking at mobile GOU benchmarks, DDR3 versions seem to suffer quite a bit compared to GDDR5
 
Is it 17GB/s to 1GB => 34GB/s to 2GB, or 17GB/s to 2?

I suppose in the former case it'd make it similar-ish to 360 in terms of bandwidth into the front end of the rendering pipeline. Maybe a little less if the eDRAM isn't more flexible than 360's.

17 GB/s to 2GB.
 

B.O.O.M

Member
I just don't see how this isn't following the exact same pattern as Wii. Only it's almost certainly not going to get the same install base and nowhere near the same growth in the first 12-24 months.

well like with bayonetta, ninty can help some core game projects and get them exclusively for wiiu. Then as the core base builds other companies will also show more support.

A lot depends on how the other two consoles do as well I think. If they come right out the game with some strong line up of games with some good 3rd party support then Nintendo will have a tough job in their hands.
 

Durante

Member
If the GPU is more powerful, how much of a hindrance would similar memory bandwidth to 360/PS3 be? Presumably at some point of performance a strong GOU will be sitting around waiting for stuff from memory. Looking at mobile GOU benchmarks, DDR3 versions seem to suffer quite a bit compared to GDDR5
You can't really compare it directly to a PC situation, since there's eDRAM. That should alleviate some of the main GPU bandwidth hogs (e.g. framebuffer/Z).

Still, it's a rather anemic overall amount to feed both CPU and GPU.
 
Ah yes, as per usual we are now at the point of discussing the importance of tech. I'll let the guy in my avatar answer the reasoning:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EFkqn2TwIw&t=19m48s

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EFkqn2TwIw&t=3m12s

These two statements go hand in hand, the tech has to have meaning, and it has to be the best of its time to be remembered in the future. It isn't just about specs, its about everything, from software to controls, from engineering to art. So far, Nintendo hasn't shown the reason why the gamepad is meaningful to us. The software, while it looks amazing, doesn't really show why we need the Wii U. So that leaves us with the specs, which is also disappointing.

I understand its all about the games, but if thats the case then where are they on the Wii U?

Why are you using a paedophile in support of Nintendo? That's kinda counter-productive.
 

Squire

Banned
Platinum and SE I would reckon will support the system well. Even Capcom

I love PG, but they'll be lucky if they survive this next generation. SE - Eidos is gonna go all in on PS4/720. If you think they're even entertain the idea of Wii U ports of Just Cause 3/Thief 4/Deus Ex 4/etc, you're kidding yourself. As for SE Japan... who even cares? Capcom: Ditto SE Japan.
 

farnham

Banned
the problem is that the "next gen" graphics of the wiiu is already seen everywhere else


we are not talking about hardware race.... we are talking on not even achieve on some parts what other console achieved 7 years ago... and 7 years in the world of tech is like saying 30 years.

Wii gad graphical prowess equivalent to an xbox 1.. Nobody cared...

The consumers bought the system and the devs never were going to support nintendo anyways...

With wii nintendo failed to get 3rd party support but at least they got the sales..

If they had released a machine with similar power to ps3 or xbox 360 they wouldnt have gotten anymore support then on gamecube and saleswise they would have been in a harder spot as well..
 

wsippel

Banned
As we discussed in the thread for it, if its an indication of the final product then the PS4 will be quite the beast.
Yes, it became a beast once people threw fantasy components into the mix that were never mentioned in the original rumor.
 

Reiko

Banned
I love PG, but they'll be lucky if they survive this next generation. SE - Eidos is gonna go all in on PS4/720. If you think they're even entertain the idea of Wii U ports of Just Cause 3/Thief 4/Deus Ex 4/etc, you're kidding yourself. As for SE Japan... who even cares? Capcom: Ditto SE Japan.


If they're doing next gen MGR on Fox Engine... They'll be fine with that alone.
 

Oblivion

Fetishing muscular manly men in skintight hosery
Kinda funny looking back how I was jumped on for downplaying how far Nintendo may go (I said we shouldn't be surprised if the Wii-U may be weaker than current gen. consoles in some respects). At this point, I feel Nintendo fans should probably be happy that Wii-U is at least a noticeable, generational improvement over the Wii, even if it may not ultimately be more powerful than the 360 in the end.
 

Erethian

Member
I totally agree! I think Nintendo isn't even trying to break that perception. You could say give them time, but they squandered a year. Now they've got a 3DS campaign tagged, "I am not a gamer." that's targeted at girls for critical damage and a Wii U thats just bizarre. If you make games for a hardcore crowd, they've still go no merits beyond simply being Nintendo. (Which I understand goes a ways, but again: not quite enough.)

And ditto cross-gen engines. Publishers aren't gonna throw away these huge install bases. I'm right there with you, but I actually don't think that'll result in more Wii U ports. Not if it doesn't take off sales-wise.

Their best bet at breaking that perception isn't going to come in marketing, I think, but doing something like what they did with Tekken. Where a company was going to make a more casual game because of their perception of the audience, but Nintendo convinced them otherwise. The other thing is building partnerships, like what they're doing with Namco and Smash, or how they resurrected Bayonetta 2.

Then helping these games with co-marketing efforts. Which Nintendo seems to have been very successful at doing in Japan, but they can't seem to pull it off in the west just yet.

There are also views like "we can't compete with that Nintendo magic" that are deeply ingrained too, which is probably the hardest thing to shake because it's an irrational concept.
 

farnham

Banned
I love PG, but they'll be lucky if they survive this next generation. SE - Eidos is gonna go all in on PS4/720. If you think they're even entertain the idea of Wii U ports of Just Cause 3/Thief 4/Deus Ex 4/etc, you're kidding yourself. As for SE Japan... who even cares? Capcom: Ditto SE Japan.

If what epic says is true and budgets for next gen games will double those studios you listed will not survive next gen altogether unless they settle with lesser tech
 
Kinda funny looking back how I was jumped on for downplaying how far Nintendo may go (I said we shouldn't be surprised if the Wii-U may be weaker than current gen. consoles in some respects). At this point, I feel Nintendo fans should probably be happy that Wii-U is at least a noticeable, generational improvement over the Wii, even if it may not ultimately be more powerful than the 360 in the end.

nailed it.
 

Bumhead

Banned
PS4 and 720 will both be well supported for years with big budget, graphically intensive games. Who is going to support Wii U when they're out?

Developers who can't sustain the ludicrous development costs of the games you think will be in plentiful supply on Durango and Orbis?
 

B.O.O.M

Member
The statement I was responding to originally was that the Wii U is expensive at $300. Given what is on the market today it isn't.

If it cost $599 like a launch PS3 then sure.

ughh pretty sure the statement you were responding to was a joke made by Takao..with price not being mentioned at all.

Having specs that are supposedly weaker than last gen consoles..this is what he was referring to. You are taking this in a direction that it was never meant to. And if you think the gamepad gives a valid argument as to why the overall system is worth the price compared to the ps360, more power to you. Not something worth debating as people will perceive value differently.
 

Sid

Member
If what epic says is true and budgets for next gen games will double those studios you listed will not survive next gen altogether unless they settle with lesser tech
So they'll go ps360 considering their massive user base then.

Developers who can't sustain the ludicrous development costs of the games you think will be in plentiful supply on Durango and Orbis?
I think they'll stay on ps3 and 360.
 
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