[Chet Rippo]

[Donnie]

Also I'd be interested to know what lherre says on this rumoured info. Considering he confirmed that WiiU's CPU was dual threaded a while back. A CPU based on Broadway isn't going to be multi-threaded no matter how much they've enhanced it.

[PhoReal]

Wow @ cyberheater in the other thread. lol Can't wait for the meltdowns and bickering on Thursday.

[Oersted]

I was thinking about the Wii U golf demo shown in the video at E3 2012, and I'm wondering how long it will be before we see something that actually uses similar functionality (The Wii remote as the primary controller, using the Gamepad as a separate screen). I think it has tons of potential uses, so hopefully we see a game use it before long. I think we will see a lot of unique uses of the Gamepad coming from indie devs on the eshop.

imagine a star wars. you see the usual dogfight at your tv screen. but when you point your gamepad besides the tv screen, you will see where your enemies coming from. it wouldnt be needed but increase the intensity.

[Oersted]

Wow @ cyberheater in the other thread. lol Can't wait for the meltdowns and bickering on Thursday.

where? what?

[Nibel]

I don't care about asymmetrical gameplay as much as about the TV to Pad function

This is a killer feature for me. Playing homeconsole games, then switching to the Pad when I feel tired, then play some more, browse some GAF afterwards and sleep #LivinLaVidaLoca

[Bisnic]

where? what?

He called a bunch of people f_____rds.

I'll let you fill the blank to avoid the ban myself. :P It's in the Rumor Wii U specs thread.

[Fourth Storm]

Also I'd be interested to know what lherre says on this rumoured info. Considering he confirmed that WiiU's CPU was dual threaded a while back. A CPU based on Broadway isn't going to be multi-threaded no matter how much they've enhanced it.

It just seems strange to me that they'd start w/ Broadway cores and "enhance" them rather than start with a 476fp/470S core and include a few of the necessary Broadway features. But maybe that's still exactly what they did and it's just another way of putting it.

[jerd21]

I don't care about asymmetrical gameplay as much as about the TV to Pad function This is a killer feature for me. Playing homeconsole games, then switching to the Pad when I feel tired, then play some more, browse some GAF afterwards and sleep #LivinLaVidaLoca

One of my favorite things to do is play turn-based strategy games or something else that doesn't require 100% attention on my PC while browsing GAF on my Kindle Fire. Now I can reverse that. It will be great.

[blu]

But it was needlessly confusing and contrived. If the stupid thing just said it's on my cats collar.... the cat was about twenty feet from them at the time.

That would've made for a hell of a short movie, don't you think?

[chris3116]

I will not get hyped unless/until we get news of a Japanese event/Nintendo Direct.

It will probably be before the TGS. Since it begins next week (September 20th), I can see Nintendo doing a Japanese Nintendo direct the day before.

[shagg_187]

Also I'd be interested to know what lherre says on this rumoured info. Considering he confirmed that WiiU's CPU was dual threaded a while back. A CPU based on Broadway isn't going to be multi-threaded no matter how much they've enhanced it.

From what I can tell:

Original numbers = Devkit.
Current numbers = Final spec.

EatChildren confirmed them both to be accurate.

[Anth0ny]

It will probably be before the TGS. Since it begins next week (September 20th), I can see Nintendo doing a Japanese Nintendo direct the day before.

Are they really going to leave Japan hanging for a week like that?

I don't think Nintendo has taken TGS seriously since 2005. I expect a surprise Nintendo Direct announcement for Japan later today or tomorrow.

[Earendil]

It just seems strange to me that they'd start w/ Broadway cores and "enhance" them rather than start with a 476fp/470S core and include a few of the necessary Broadway features. But maybe that's still exactly what they did and it's just another way of putting it.

I would lean toward this. Since the 476fp core has some similarities to Broadway, the person who leaked the specs may have simply assumed that they were the same thing.

[PhoReal]

where? what?

If you haven't seen it yet: here

[Fourth Storm]

I would lean toward this. Since the 476fp core has some similarities to Broadway, the person who leaked the specs may have simply assumed that they were the same thing.

I'm thinking so as well. It would be nice to retain the 4 instructions per clock of the 47x cores. And those chips are already made on 45nm, unlike Broadway, which may not shrink as easily.

[ElTopo]

If you haven't seen it yet: here

Oh, he burntporked.

[Shin Johnpv]

You have got to be kidding me... Nintendo gave them months to themselves at the 3DS launch with nothing but N64 remakes, and they did fuck all, and sales suffered for it. Why the hell are 3rd parties moaning when they've proved they can't be trusted on Nintendo consoles? Nintendo need to launch their new system with something big, shouldn't 3rd parties be happy its a game which will move tons of systems which they can then take advantage of?

3rd Parties: What ever Nintendo does, we don't like it. Either they give us too much space or too little!

[GiantEnemyGoomba]

I don't care about asymmetrical gameplay as much as about the TV to Pad function This is a killer feature for me. Playing homeconsole games, then switching to the Pad when I feel tired, then play some more, browse some GAF afterwards and sleep #LivinLaVidaLoca

Same here. This is such a huge feature for me. I can already imagine playing NSMBU or ACIII in bed. It will be glorious.

[Mpl90]

Apart from that, the way until next E3 should be pretty barren though. Cash-ins that could very well end the same way as Nintendogs 2, while the rest again consists of outdated ports from 3rd parties. Looks like the 3DS to me, but without the future proof. They only thing they've learned from that launch apparently is that you can slap NSMB on it and be fine. But then, NSMB2 didn't quite set the world on fire alongside the XL. At least not the way they were hoping for, I imagine.

Kind of...err...jumping to conclusions, to judge NSMB2 impact on 3DS just from the first week / month (respectively US and Europe. No, just UK, not even Europe. And there it's doing better than NSMB in a much worse market compared to how it was in 2006), I fear.

[ScreenSplitter]

3rd Parties: What ever Nintendo does, we don't like it. Either they give us too much space or too little!

Apart from Ubisoft. Ubisoft and Nintendo be tight.

[Shin Johnpv]

Wii U spec thread causing mass casualties already. Stay in your bomb shelters.

I'm just not buying the CPU info. I don't think Broadway was ever meant to go to 1ghz or higher. I have a feeling that it's another chip that's similar with additional stuff to make backwards compatibility easier.

I just have a hard time believing they would go with a more modern GPU and then just slap 3 broadway cores in there, and some how get it past 1ghz.

[Oersted]

He called a bunch of people f_____rds. I'll let you fill the blank to avoid the ban myself. :P It's in the Rumor Wii U specs thread.

If you haven't seen it yet: here

thanks guys. nice meltdown^^

[DXB-KNIGHT]

The rumored Wii U spec thread is like a Venus Trap :/

[ScreenSplitter]

The rumored Wii U spec thread is like a Venus Trap :/

It's fun to watch though, just as long as you don't get into arguments with the people quoting CPU speeds, DX11's and RAM all over the place.

[Pineconn]

The rumored Wii U spec thread is like a Venus Trap :/

I think you mean it's more like a

[Shin Johnpv]

From what I can tell: Original numbers = Devkit. Current numbers = Final spec. EatChildren confirmed them both to be accurate.

The point he's making is that it can't be 3 broadway chips since it's multi-threaded.

[Nilaul]

The point he's making is that it can't be 3 broadway chips since it's multi-threaded.

Something that acts similar to broadway, its programamble like broadway?
Would make it more easier for Nintendo developers, I guess.

Perhaps the graphic chip will have a similar in somewhat to Wii/GC then, in terms of programing.

[chris3116]

Are they really going to leave Japan hanging for a week like that? I don't think Nintendo has taken TGS seriously since 2005. I expect a surprise Nintendo Direct announcement for Japan later today or tomorrow.

Nintendo does their own things for Japan. I think it will before TGS could be anytime between today and September 20th. I say the day before maybe it will be sooner. They could release Wii U after the North American release like they did with the original Wii.

[The_Lump]

I'm just not buying the CPU info. I don't think Broadway was ever meant to go to 1ghz or higher. I have a feeling that it's another chip that's similar with additional stuff to make backwards compatibility easier. I just have a hard time believing they would go with a more modern GPU and then just slap 3 broadway cores in there, and some how get it past 1ghz.

Yep. "enhanced broadway" means nothing. Sounds like an off hand comparison (maybe based on the overall clock speed?) rather than a literal description. I could obviously be wrong though.

Also, how is a beefed up broadway anything remotely to do with Power7? I'm not saying it was ever going to be a power7 but what about the confirmation it's using the 'same chips' as Watson (which are power7's)?

And to clarify, this isn't me trying to say its going to perform better than "3 broadways", just that describing it as such is a strange thing to say. Especially if this is supposed to have come from the warioworld.com developer site. Would Nintendo say that?

Colour me confused and a little skeptical.

[Donnie]

From what I can tell: Original numbers = Devkit. Current numbers = Final spec. EatChildren confirmed them both to be accurate.

The CPU wouldn't change from multi-threaded to single threaded though.

[Shin Johnpv]

Something that acts similar to broadway, its programamble like broadway? Would make it more easier for Nintendo developers, I guess. Perhaps the graphic chip will have a similar in somewhat to Wii/GC then, in terms of programing.

Sure, that makes sense. People how ever are taking it to mean 3 literal Broadway CPU's slapped together and with a clock speed turned up. I just can't see that being the case for a number of reasons.

[D-e-f-]

So CPUpocalypse again?

Just relax. Games will still looks awesome.

[GameplayWhore]

is it just me or do these shapes have hard corners? Really odd, I know, but you'd think nintendo would go with round corners...and it bugs me.

I guess this means that Nintendo is really "hard cor" now. ;)

Yep. "enhanced broadway" means nothing. Sounds like an off hand comparison (maybe based on the overall clock speed?) rather than a literal description. I could obviously be wrong though.

It is entirely possible to have a chip that uses the same architecture with a pretty different microarchitecture. My Phenom II runs code made for the original, decade-plus-old 32-bit Athlon. In the same manner, it could be said that the cpu is "Multiple beefed up Athlon cores at a higher clock", even if that description is a bit disingenuous.

So Nintendo could have had custom designed a multithreaded core that simply kept the ISA of the Broadway (or a superset thereof), so they get the benefit of full backwards compatibility (without having to deal with emulation) but much higher performance, in terms of both IPC and total vroom.

[fabricated backlash]

I guess this means that Nintendo is really "hard cor" now. ;) It is entirely possible to have a chip that uses the same architecture with a pretty different microarchitecture. My Phenom II runs code made for the original, decade-plus-old 32-bit Athlon. In the same manner, it could be said that the cpu is "Multiple beefed up Athlon cores at a higher clock", even if that description is a bit disingenuous. So Nintendo could have had custom designed a multithreaded core that simply kept the ISA of the Broadway (or a superset thereof), so they get the benefit of full backwards compatibility (without having to deal with emulation) but much higher performance, in terms of both IPC and total vroom.

If you're being that liberal you could say that my i7 is based on the calculus.

[Übermatik]

If you haven't seen it yet: here

Wow. Also, 'Burntporked' should be a new verb.

As for the round corners thing above^, is it in image? If not, it could be CSS, explaining the hard edges for ease?

[Oersted]

can you please stop that tech talk yadda yadda. it doesn´t workso good with the hype train

[Earendil]

I'm thinking so as well. It would be nice to retain the 4 instructions per clock of the 47x cores. And those chips are already made on 45nm, unlike Broadway, which may not shrink as easily.

I am still a little confused though, because as far as I can tell, the 47x cores are not multi-threaded, and we've heard two conflicting reports about the WiiU CPU being multi-threaded or not. I had theorized that it has 6 47x cores in 3 logical groups (I believe someone else had originally postulated this), but now I'm not so sure.

[Übermatik]

can you please stop that tech talk yadda yadda. it doesn´t workso good with the hype train

RETRO'S GAME AT SEPTEMBER CONF OR BUST CHOO CHOOOO.

[Fourth Storm]

Man this thread has picked up. :) Thursday looms - wish I had off work...

Wsippel got that info for us first. I do believe it will be an MCM like you said, but Mr. Patti's hypothetical does open me to wondering about who is making the GPU. Was he speaking hypothetically in referring to TSMC as a part of that, or was he just speaking hypothetically about how the stacking would be handled in that case because Nintendo is using TSMC. The question for me would be how much of that was truth and how much was hypothetical? gDDR3 seems to have very poor density. I'm talking about DDR3 that's specially clocked for Wii U. That speed falls between DDR3-1866 and 2133 and ~31GB/s on a 128-bit bus. As for the amount, here are two posts I made about it. http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost...postcount=2303 http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost...postcount=2638

My bad. Credit to wsippel. But regards to you both for keeping these threads interesting with fresh scoops...

gDDR3, unless I'm mistaken, is pretty much regular DDR3 just fine tuned to hold up to the rigors of gaming. So whatever you want to call it, I believe we can agree on them 2 gigabit DDR3 chips (DDR3 2133 downclocked to 960 Mhz).

I understand your stance on capacity. However, I still see 1.5 GB as a safer bet. If the 1 GB of RAM in the dev kits for system applications was so untouchable and such a mystery, why can't we just assume that, just as they did for the 1 GB of RAM available to games, they added twice as much as needed to the dev kits? So the final system would be targeting 512 MB for system applications, with the extra 512 in dev kits for debug, a safety net for experimenting, etc. It even says in that old specs sheet that dev kits would have up to 3 GB (which aligns w/ what you and Ideaman have told us regarding the breakdown of what RAM is available to whom and for what), and that retail units would have half that. So even if Nintendo included 1 GB for "OS" in the dev kits, they clearly state that the final would not.

I think all of that stacking talk was hypothetical, but you never know. That said, I believe it's possible that the eDRAM is right on-chip, not an MCM, but fully embedded ,as on Flipper and POWER7. As we've discussed, it wouldn't add much to die size or TDP, and the benefits would be numerous.

[blu]

If you're being that liberal you could say that my i7 is based on the calculus.

Your i7 is based on the abacus.

[Formless]

Well as long as some games turn out to look like the bird demo or Zelda I think I'll be happy.


...


:(

[Aguila]

can you please stop that tech talk yadda yadda. it doesn´t workso good with the hype train

I know right.

Two more days!!!!!!!!

[GameplayWhore]

If you're being that liberal you could say that my i7 is based on the calculus.

But the i7 doesn't have any calculus instructions. It would have to emulate them.

[Zulithe]

Wii U coming to san francisco. Sign up on their facebook page to be notified about more details at a future date.
https://www.facebook.com/WiiU/posts/388754787859067

When you click and sign up it says "We'll contact you soon with more information if you are one of the first registrants for this event"

Be fast, GAF. Pretty sure I'll be attending :D

[Oersted]

I know right. Two more days!!!!!!!!

choo choo

thats exactly what im talking about xD

[Tehalemi]

It always bugged me that he didn't just say collar. Stupid tiny aliens.

Just because I'm gaseous doesn't mean I don't have life intelligent and big enough to kick youranus.

>:3


Back on focus though:

So CPUpocalypse again? Just relax. Games will still looks awesome.

Heh, I think the last thing people have on their minds at the moment is relaxation of any kind, though my own jelly beans are seriously bouncing for some new footage on the main Wii U UI.

[Stulaw]

Gddr3 is enhanced ddr2 memory, Gddr4/5 is based on ddr3.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GDDR3

The Wii uses Gddr3 from what I know.

I started to read the Wii U spec thread, and now I know why NeoGAF has the reputation it does. Specs really do bring out the worst in people. Still, not as bad as other sites.

[Fourth Storm]

I am still a little confused though, because as far as I can tell, the 47x cores are not multi-threaded, and we've heard two conflicting reports about the WiiU CPU being multi-threaded or not. I had theorized that it has 6 47x cores in 3 logical groups (I believe someone else had originally postulated this), but now I'm not so sure.

Wsippel posted a theory that sounds like what you describe. Basically 6 cores split into 3 groups of 2, with each pair sharing cache and some other stages. Personally, I've fallen into the no SMT camp. Not that I'm down on Wii U - this is not personal to me. I just judge those reports as more likely accurate given what we know...and lherre has been awfully silent since his initially throwing that info out there. :P

What I've been wondering is why is Core 1 the one with the fat cache and not Core 0. Does it make a difference? Would Nintendo really tie up a core w/ background OS-level features? What would possibly be running simultaneously w/ the game that it needs a core? An Arm Cortex A5 at 480 Mhz should be able to run the OS kernel just as Starlet did on Wii...

[Fourth Storm]

Gddr3 is enhanced ddr2 memory, Gddr4/5 is based on ddr3. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GDDR3 The Wii uses Gddr3 from what I know. I started to read the Wii U spec thread, and now I know why NeoGAF has the reputation it does. Specs really do bring out the worst in people. Still, not as bad as other sites.

Don't confuse GDDR3 with gDDR3. The first is what you refer to being based off DDR2. The latter is cleverly marketed DDR3.

Edit: Boo on me for back to backs. ha