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Rumor: Wii U final specs

M

majik13

Member
bigjimmystyle said:
I noticed that the aus version base model doesn't come with a sensor bar. Would you have to buy one to use a wiimote?
Click to expand...

I am surprised that they even include one with the other models, since they dont come with a wiimote in the box anyways.

and If you have wiimotes already, then most likely you already have a sensor bar too.

But yeah, i suppose you would have to buy one, if you dont have a wii sensor bar already.
 
S

Stewox

Banned
Fourth Storm said:
Thanks for the correction. I'd never analyzed that diagram of the patent closely enough to see the single wireless transmitter. Very interesting indeed. Makes me a bit more hopeful for bathroom play! lol
Click to expand...

You meant three right, one if for LAN, one for gamepad, and one for wii stuff.

If the default range is not as good as we hope for, then there's always plan B, which is hacking it up and installing a custom external antenna, problem is, need to have the correct antenna for the band and that will show if it's even possible to find aftermarket one matching what the terminal signal requires, not sure if it's going to be tricky it may just work without the system noticing any difference. And with a long enoug cable you could extend the range considerably by placing elsewhere in the room, possibly center of the house so more rooms could be covered, or even by the windows to get signal outside on the yard.

Plan C would be extending the cable connection between the Codec LSI 27 and the existing Terminal Communication Module (the antenna). You would take a really long cable and put it where you want it, not for mainstream but it would work great.
 
T

TheBear

Member
majik13 said:
I am surprised that they even include one with the other models, since they dont come with a wiimote in the box anyways.

and If you have wiimotes already, then most likely you already have a sensor bar too.

But yeah, i suppose you would have to buy one, if you dont have a wii sensor bar already.
Click to expand...

OK so the old one is also compatible. I guess it would a be a dick move if it wasn't. I just remember thinking it had the sensor bar built in? Or did I imagine that?
 
A

AlStrong

Member
Fourth Storm said:
I don't recall hearing of any die shrinks beyond 90 nm and that's something we usually hear about.. I always just assumed the latest Wii lacked the cube controller port guts and called it a wrap, but you raise a good point.
Click to expand...

mmm.... They probably never needed to go through shrinking anyway given the starting size (crazy good yields & lots of dies per wafer + cheaper fabrication costs for using older node).

The CPU at least would be too problematic to shrink on its own (physical pad limitation), but I wonder how much difference it'd make after 10's of millions of chips if they just made an SoC for example. Then again, they'd probably be more limited by 1T-SRAM node progress & cost.

The only real benefit would be packaging. Probably not worth the engineering effort. XD

Anyways, that's enough silly ramblings. :p

blu said:
PGR3 runs at 1024x600, while there were 720p Xbox games. Just saying.
Click to expand...

One could say they quadrupled the amount of sampling with 2xAA (vs 480p). :p
 
T

The_Lump

Banned
bigjimmystyle said:
I noticed that the aus version base model doesn't come with a sensor bar. Would you have to buy one to use a wiimote?
Click to expand...

If you want yo use a wiimote for IR pointing, and you don't have one from a wii, then yes.

They're selling packs with wiimote plus, nunchuck & sensor bar. Also I think standalone sensor bars (which are pretty cheap)


Edit: beaten
 
T

Thraktor

Member
frankie_baby said:
I don't believe they ever did die shrink the chips, I wonder if they ever will with wii u, at least the CPU certainly has room to be down the line
Click to expand...

I quite hope they do a mid-gen revision of the Wii U. Die shrink down to ~16nm, take out the optical drive and increase the flash memory to about 250GB and you've got a wonderfully small and quiet console.
 
C

Cuth

Member
The_Lump said:
Friendly advice, but maybe say that then instead of this:

Cuth said:
You're trying to say PGR3 didn't show obvious improvements over previous generation's games?
Click to expand...

...which he obviously wasn't trying to say.
Click to expand...
Of course he wasn't trying to say that, mine was a rethorical question.
I'll take the advice, anyway, thanks.
 
blu

blu

Wants the largest console games publisher to avoid Nintendo's platforms.
AlStrong said:
One could say they quadrupled the amount of sampling with 2xAA (vs 480p). :p
Click to expand...
At 2xMSAA? I dunno, man, I dunno ; ) At least there was some gain from the whole sub-HD resing (1024×600×8×2 = 9.6MB). At the same time, though, other 360 launch racers were busting their asses to do tiling for the sake of the mandatory (at that time) MSAA.
 
S

shinra-bansho

Member
The_Lump said:
When all graphical improvements are visible just around the very edge of the screen.

I'll get my coat
.
Click to expand...
I'm just curious about others' views and whether they're referring to hard numbers or visible improvement.

My random arbitrary measure has actually been Final Fantasy games...

I don't foresee the mainline Final Fantasy games (when they finally return to Nintendo system) looking that much of a jump from FFXIII.

But I can see it in Agni's - (so hopefully there'll be a PC SKU).
 
O

ozfunghi

Member
shinra-bansho said:
I'm just curious about others' views and whether they're referring to hard numbers or visible improvement.

My random arbitrary measure has actually been Final Fantasy games...

I don't foresee the mainline Final Fantasy games (when they finally return to Nintendo system) looking that much of a jump from FFXIII.

But I can see it in Agni's - (so hopefully there'll be a PC SKU).
Click to expand...

This has been the center of the discussion between me and Refreshment.001... where he was looking at launch games, looking for improvements, and i was looking at confirmed specs, and hinted speculation. He didn't see much if any improvements (marginal), i consider doubling (or more) the RAM, tripling the eDRAM etc... not so marginal.
 
T

Thraktor

Member
frankie_baby said:
That could possibly even be smaller than the wii
Click to expand...

Considerably so. The components which take up the greatest amount of space inside the Wii* and (I assume) the Wii U are the optical drive and heatsink. Take one out and reduce the size of the other (due to the reduction in heat generated by the smaller components) and you've potentially got an extremely small console.

*The Gamecube ports also take up a chunk of space in the Wii, but that obviously isn't an issue here.
 
F

Fourth Storm

Member
Stewox said:
You meant three right, one if for LAN, one for gamepad, and one for wii stuff.

If the default range is not as good as we hope for, then there's always plan B, which is hacking it up and installing a custom external antenna, problem is, need to have the correct antenna for the band and that will show if it's even possible to find aftermarket one matching what the terminal signal requires, not sure if it's going to be tricky it may just work without the system noticing any difference. And with a long enoug cable you could extend the range considerably by placing elsewhere in the room, possibly center of the house so more rooms could be covered, or even by the windows to get signal outside on the yard.

Plan C would be extending the cable connection between the Codec LSI 27 and the existing Terminal Communication Module (the antenna). You would take a really long cable and put it where you want it, not for mainstream but it would work great.
Click to expand...

I meant 1 transmitter in the controller for both av and input (not counting sensor bar, nfc, etc). Those range extension ideas sound novel, but I'll likely settle for whatever Nintendo achieve unless something unforseen arises.
 
B

bgassassin

Member
Shaheed79 said:
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
Click to expand...

Haha. WUST is short for "Wii U Speculation Thread". They're the Wii U threads we use(d) to consolidate the Wii U news and talk.

As for me I would say it's a combination of all of that instead of either the former or latter. I took info from actual sources combined with info posted on messageboards that was in line with those sources and used educated guesses to try and fill in the rest. Since I'm still nothing more than a random poster I haven't learned everything which I expected (though I was also more focused on learning details for all the next consoles instead of everything Wii U), but I'm surprised I've learned as much as I have as well.

As for not posting that info in this thread. It was no other reason than not even thinking about it. The info in the OP is a part of what that second post I linked was based on though. I'd have to look back, but I don't think I've ever said anything was 100% guaranteed even when I had no reason to doubt it. But it's true, just lacking everything devs have. I call it a "spec summary" (don't know if it has an official name) that Nintendo included in the SDK and presumably Nintendo only chose to list the amount that devs can access for games right now. Again IMO. However I also was shown a similar summary with the original target specs. And then I guess about 7-8 months later this came out from VGLeaks. So to me the leaker only chose to give the final "summary" to VGLeaks and not all of the final features like we saw a few months ago with the original features. Maybe we'll see all the final details next year. :p
 
Eteric Rice

Eteric Rice

Member
I went to the other Wii U thread (Why don't dev's port Wii U builds to PS4/720 next gen?).

Tis' a silly place!

Still leaves the question. Will the Wii U receive next gen ports? It seems to be the only important question left tbh.
 
Sentenza

Sentenza

Member
onQ123 said:
Espresso


Wii+U+CPU.jpg
Click to expand...

Dolphin support in two years.
 
Smiles and Cries

Smiles and Cries

Member
Eteric Rice said:
I went to the other Wii U thread (Why don't dev's port Wii U builds to PS4/720 next gen?).

Tis' a silly place!

Still leaves the question. Will the Wii U receive next gen ports? It seems to be the only important question left tbh.
Click to expand...

I'll take this gen ports... I want Need for Speed and DOA5 these are not unreasonable

then I would ask for a GTA beyond that the answer could be no and I would be okay with that people should not buy Wii Us for the hope of 3rd Party ports. Every Gen I swear, one day we will learn :)
 
Sentenza

Sentenza

Member
wsippel said:
You're right, it'll most likely be more than two years...
Click to expand...
It'll most likely be before anything PS3-related, that's the point.
And that's simply because if we are actually talking about a beefed-up Wii in terms of architecture, as that post seems to suggest, then half of the job is already done.
 
C

ColdBlooder

Banned
TucoBenedictoPacifico said:
It'll most likely be before anything PS3-related, that's the point.
And that's simply because if we are actually talking about a beefed-up Wii in terms of architecture, as that post seems to suggest, then half of the job is already done.
Click to expand...

Yes because emulating 3 cores with different cache sizes is a piece of cake....

Just like a GPU with modern architecture...
 
JordanN

JordanN

Banned
Eteric Rice said:
Wii+U+CPU.jpg


Hopefully not true. It would be pretty WTF worthy.
Click to expand...
That is so fake.

LIzWO.png



Also,
Dead Rising Wii: 100 Zombies
Dead Rising (360): 800 Zombies
Dead Rising 2 (360): 7,000 Zombies

Edit: There's no friggin way the Wii/Gamecube outperforms Xbox 360 at any clockspeed (that doesn't defy physics). If it is, I'll destroy my 3DS.
 
Sentenza

Sentenza

Member
OryoN said:
It's even tougher when trying to emulate software that makes such great use of a hardware's unique capabilities. Still waiting to see a decent version of Rogue Leader for Dolphin.
Click to expand...
That's mostly hard because people working on these emulators don't have access to the specific of the hardware.
They go with reverse engineering, starting with barely any information, through trial and error.
It has very little to do with hardware limitations, more often than not.
 
L

lwilliams3

Member
JordanN said:
That is so fake.

LIzWO.png



Also,
Dead Rising Wii: 100 Zombies
Dead Rising (360): 800 Zombies
Dead Rising 2 (360): 7,000 Zombies

There's no fucking way the Wii/Gamecube outperforms Xbox 360 at any clockspeed. If it is, I'll destroy my 3DS.
Click to expand...

Well, Wii's CPU is apparently does very well clock-to-clock with Xenon. There was even one report that claimed that a single core in Xenon only did 20% better performance than Broadway despite the significant clock-speed difference.

As for Dead Rising it is possible that the GPU and/or RAM could have been the limitation before the CPU, though I don't know about that port.
 
T

Trevelyan9999

Banned
lwilliams3 said:
Well, Wii's CPU is apparently does very well clock-to-clock with Xenon. There was even one report that claimed that a single core in Xenon only did 20% better performance than Broadway despite the significant clock-speed difference.

As for Dead Rising it is possible that the GPU and/or RAM could have been the limitation before the CPU, though I don't know about that port.
Click to expand...

The Wii GPU was the biggest drawback for any console in recent memory. Being able to output just 720p with no other graphical effects from the other consoles would have probably given it longer life.

Anyway, out with the old and in with the new I say.
 
G

Gahiggidy

My aunt & uncle run a Mom & Pop store, "The Gamecube Hut", and sold 80k WiiU within minutes of opening.
When systems are emulated does that mean they are literally recontructed in a 3D space? Is every circuit, transistor, chip, wire, and mechanical part recreated with thier physical properties as close as possible to the real life hardware? Is that how they do it?
 
L

Log4Girlz

Member
Gahiggidy said:
When systems are emulated does that mean they are literally recontructed in a 3D space? Is every circuit, transistor, chip, wire, and mechanical part recreated with thier physical properties as close as possible to the real life hardware? Is that how they do it?
Click to expand...

You can emulate a system by doing that, usually by adding previous generation technology as some kind of chip inside the new system (like how the PS1 essentially resided in the PS2), or the new technology can be a super-set of the older system, or you need a software abstraction layer that tries to emulate the timing of everything with the existing hardware.
 
JordanN

JordanN

Banned
lwilliams3 said:
Well, Wii's CPU is apparently does very well clock-to-clock with Xenon. There was even one report that claimed that a single core in Xenon only did 20% better performance than Broadway despite the significant clock-speed difference.

As for Dead Rising it is possible that the GPU and/or RAM could have been the limitation before the CPU, though I don't know about that port.
Click to expand...
Or I think it's just a really old CPU that was never meant to be compared to tech 6 years ahead of it.
 
L

lostinblue

Banned
lwilliams3 said:
Well, Wii's CPU is apparently does very well clock-to-clock with Xenon. There was even one report that claimed that a single core in Xenon only did 20% better performance than Broadway despite the significant clock-speed difference.
Click to expand...
That's because xenon and cell are crap at general processing, and they're in-order at that.

Also, broadway had 4 execution stages versus roughly 30 on xenon/cell and that was hampered further with a 5% cache miss with no prediction applied. Some of you will remember how Pentium 4 underperformed despite it's clock-rate; well, that was because it had lenghtned it's stage pipeline big time (and that means data takes more time to get across, and if shit happens it takes more cycle time to clean out); but it kept out-of-order execution, smt and cache miss prediction.

They did it in order to have more GFlops (more MHz for the FPU); simplified the whole CPU and lengthned it's pipeline to no end, that made them less than stellar cpu's for their core task.

But being able to beat that doesn't exactly make this cpu that good; I mean, it's not hard to do.


As for it being a PPC based on a G3 core, that's kinda ridiculous; I doubt it; they have lots of better mass produced options to pick from. And I'm pretty sure they did.
lwilliams3 said:
As for Dead Rising it is possible that the GPU and/or RAM could have been the limitation before the CPU, though I don't know about that port.
Click to expand...
Dead Rising Wii? that wasn't a port, it was retooling of assets by TOSE into the RE4 engine; no source code shared.

Porting that one would be hard to do, it was one of the first titles using the 3 cores on X360, so I've heard they basically went crazy with it, filled all the overhead they could find with AI and crunched the rest so they had more overhead for it too, so later the prospect of a PS3 port was to be difficult as nails (hence, it didn't happen). It basically turned into a technological exclusive, couldn't be ported elsewhere without rewriting the AI big time or cutting down the number of zombies a lot.
Margalis said:
At the same clock speed as a 360 the Wii CPU would crush the 360 in single-threaded performance.
Click to expand...
In dhrystones, yes.

In whetstones no dice, but it's not for whetstone performance that we want our cpu's for so...
 
Theonik

Theonik

Member
Gahiggidy said:
When systems are emulated does that mean they are literally recontructed in a 3D space? Is every circuit, transistor, chip, wire, and mechanical part recreated with thier physical properties as close as possible to the real life hardware? Is that how they do it?
Click to expand...
That is one way to do it and the most accurate. You need a modern computer clocked at 3Ghz to emulate Pong at 5-10FPS in that way however. Usually emulation is done at a much higher level, translating CPU and GPU commands from those of the emulated platform to the target platform, sometimes also accurately emulating latency for those. You also have emulators that specialise in a per-game basis with specific "hacks" to make games work correctly.
 
Teletraan1

Teletraan1

Banned
I wonder why xbox emulation never materialized. it had a Geforce 3 Ti200 and a celeron and was based on a direct x api. This is all pretty standard stuff yet one of the most convoluted hardware designs (PS2) is emulated to a surprising degree of compatibility.
 
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