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[tkscz]

The only thing the PS2 or GCN lacked in comparison was well documented conventional pixel-shaders. Both of those two platforms actually had higher poly counts generally (the first thing to take a hit on the Xbox when using tons of fancy pixel-shading effects was poly throughput).

At most I expected the platform to be a half step between the generations. Like an M2 vs DC situation. In some ways noticeably behind. But this being a new era of hardware I expect those differences to appear in relatively minor ways.

Lack of precision, more reliance on baked lighting. I still hold that stance.

Question about the Zelda demo from last year. When the dust and what not fell from the ceiling, were the particles effect in real time by the lighting?

 

[wsippel]

True they are fast, but that's mostly when measuring floating point performance.

General purpose computing is a joke on both CPUs though.

It's obvious that both CPUs were more designed to handle graphical load.

Not just that, the performance figures are also completely theoretical. It's not that different from the last generation, when the PS2 was supposedly ten times as fast as the Gamecube. Looking at Resident Evil 4, we know how that went. Both Cell and Xenon offer really, really terrible performance per cycle in real world applications. The in-order design with way too long pipelines leads to a real world IPC of 0.5, compared to 5 for modern x86 chips. They're some of the worst designed chips in the history of mankind, and I have no idea why IBM designed them that way to begin with. Considering IBM has great engineers, I kinda have to put the blame on Sony and Microsoft.

 

[DCKing]

i think that sort of power differential is VERY unlikely. that is incredibly optimistic. we're looking at something more like 3DS to Vita more likely, I would guess, where similarly featured hardware somewhat covers up a lot of the gap in power... but where the gap is sizeable.

We had good reason to believe for a long time that the Wii U GPU would feature half the 'capacity' (shaders, texture units, ROPs) of what's rumored to be in the PS4. These weren't some fanboy wet dreams, but were actually indicated by (some) rumors and technically quite feasible (with good margin) in a console the size of the Wii U.

It's too bad that Nintendo has stopped being ambitious with home console hardware. Sure, the Wii U isn't even close to the Wii situation but it's still quite clear that hardware power is just too little of a priority (to my tastes) for Nintendo.

 

[Thunder Monkey]

Ok, let's assume that is true for a second. Why would i buy the WiiU? Wouldn't then PS3 and Xbox360, very cheap systems, by them be getting ports also? Only big road block i could see is in regards to memory constraints since WiiU could have double amount of RAM.

Where the line is drawn for a port of a Xbox Next or PS4 game be possible on a WiiU and not on a 360?

When even approximating effects becomes impossible.

I doubt those two systems will be that much more powerful. You'll probably see a total lack of tessellation on WiiU, not because the hardware isn't there, GPU's have had tessellator's forever. But because it's not the precision necessary to make effective use of them.

Depending on how well MS and Sony's systems can run the realtime lighting applications of UE4 and the newest CryEngine, the WiiU could need to take more priority than most devs would be willing. Especially if the port isn't worth the cost.

I want WiiU fans to be realistic.

I personally think this kind of power is more than enough to realize just about any vision. But it looks again like Nintendo shot just under the bar to make future porting possible. Though that's also dependent on whether or not UE4 sees success. Devs might just stick with their highly altered UE3's.

 

[Refreshment.01]

From what I understand (and I could be wrong), it would depend on if the system had a modern feature set or not.

If the Wii U is weak, but has a modern feature set, it may still be able to pull off getting most of the next gen games. They just won't be as pretty.

That's reasonable, thanks for the answer Eteric. However, we have engines that support effects from different API's. Crysis 2 for example ran DX9 for consoles had the option for DX11 in PC.

If a dev is getting through the trouble of down porting to the WiiU, why not take the pains to go even lower but at the same time access a vastly bigger base like 360 and PS3?

 

[Alexios]

Ok, let's assume that is true for a second. Why would be the incentive to buy the WiiU? Wouldn't then PS3 and Xbox360, very cheap systems by that time, be getting ports also? Only big road block i could see is in regards to memory constraints since WiiU could have double amount of RAM.

Because they can get onboard earlier and/or cheaper, they can play Nintendo games on it, they can use the Miiverse with those games as well as the ports, they can use the Upad features, the Wii library, and so on, all on one device with all the additional money spent on software rather than more hardware that enables the use of other types of software. Or other reasons.

Where the line is drawn for a port of a Xbox Next or PS4 game be possible on a WiiU and not say on a 360?

Who knows? That's not gonna matter much for long past the Nextbox's release since Microsoft themselves will eventually kill it to avoid cannibalising Nextbox sales. Kinda how it went with the 3DS and DS. The install base of the latter is still vastly superior to the 3DS but the support is quickly shifting to the former, even though Nintendo still has a big title or two left for it, as do others.

Besides, a lot depends on what WiiU does before the competition. What if you end up with developers doing WiiU optimised games that they can then run in 1080p/60fps/3D/higher resolution art assets/completely dynamic lighting/tessellation vs normals, and so on, on the other systems? As opposed to doing games that fully utilise the other systems and then trying to hastily chop them down until they fit on it, similar to the absolute lowest settings on a PC game that still doesn't run well on inferior hardware even though said inferior hardware can run much better looking older games way better. I'd be ok with that even if I was an owner of the other systems, lol. But yeah all of this is so hypothetical when we know so little of what's in the WiiU and even less of the next systems beyond rumors that may be close or way off or vague brands and models without any meaningful number.

As for fully dynamic lighting, which isn't something UE4 or next gen introduces as a first, though I understand it's very taxing and not used often on current systems... I'm sure UE4 will have an easy setting that makes lighting work more like UE3 without necessarily changing how the level designers assign the different light sources, and thus not requiring much additional work, considering it's made for tablets and smartphones too, even if it doesn't have such support implemented just yet (I doubt they will wait until some monster tablet that surpasses the WiiU to the level of running the UE4 demo showcased becomes available).

Anyway, The Witcher 2 was ported to the 360, and the amazingly looking Watch Dogs will be too, that's pretty cool even if they're clearly inferior versions as far as the visuals go, I think we need more details about what each platform includes within its hardware before even trying to know exactly how much portability is viable between them. DF said even the rumoured Orbis/Durango specs are way below what the UE4 demo would require for example. And it makes sense really, the demo was an advertisement, not necessarily an accurate depiction of games we'll be getting on PC or any other platform any time soon. And we're already told to expect next gen to start with UE3. And we don't even know if UE4 will still be as popular as 3. Lots of companies invest in their own engines, which may be more scalable in this manner, or other middleware may gain traction by offering that among other features, it's not unprecedented to surpass the previous hit (hear that, Quake?), and so on.

TL;DR, who knows what's gonna happen, let's talk about gameplay possibilities guyz.

 

[plagiarize]

Depending on how well MS and Sony's systems can run the realtime lighting applications of UE4 and the newest CryEngine, the WiiU could need to take more priority than most devs would be willing. Especially if the port isn't worth the cost.

I want WiiU fans to be realistic.

exactly, although i'm not as worried about the next iteration of CryEngine (given that a lot of things which were realtime on PC were baked on console). hearing the UE4 developer say in that walkthrough 'we have removed the ability to bake lightmaps' was a wake up call. i'd presumed such features would be left in, and that you could do all your tweaking and adjustments in real time, and then at the end of development you could just bake off the final version for lesser powered hardware.

if UE4 becomes favoured it won't be about whether or not the game needs real time lighting, because UE4 isn't going to let you bake lightmaps. unlike UE3 where the baseline for support wasn't about performance but rather supporting at least shader model 3.0 since programmable shaders were fundamental to the engine, the baseline for UE4 is going to be horse power based, because if your hardware can't handle the lighting calculations in real time... you aren't getting any UE4 engine games.

the rumoured parts for the Wii U are definately below that line.

 

[Refreshment.01]

I doubt those two systems will be that much more powerful.

Only chance of that happening is if Sony or MS opted to include some type of expensive peripheral. If Sony went crazy an put in there a more modern version of the HMZ head set

I want WiiU fans to be realistic.

That is my wish also Thunder monkey. WiiU threads could be far more enjoyable if we discussed about possible Upad applications than HardWare specs.

I personally think this kind of power is more than enough to realize just about any vision.

I don't think it's enough. I think next round will be more about GPU driven simulations and lighting. Very computing intensive effects that make a huge difference visually and are not so budget Dependant. And it looks like so far the WiiU won't deliver in this terms.

 

[marc^o^]

If the Wii U is weak, but has a modern feature set, it may still be able to pull off getting most of the next gen games. They just won't be as pretty.

They may play better though. PES Playmaker on wii had PS2 bad graphics, yet it's the best soccer game I have ever played. With even more control options, I can easily see this become a trend. Moreso after seeing Ubisoft 1st tries on the console.

 

[tkscz]

exactly, although i'm not as worried about the next iteration of CryEngine (given that a lot of things which were realtime on PC were baked on console). hearing the UE4 developer say in that walkthrough 'we have removed the ability to bake lightmaps' was a wake up call. i'd presumed such features would be left in, and that you could do all your tweaking and adjustments in real time, and then at the end of development you could just bake off the final version for lesser powered hardware.

if UE4 becomes favoured it won't be about whether or not the game needs real time lighting, because UE4 isn't going to let you bake lightmaps. unlike UE3 where the baseline for support wasn't about performance but rather supporting at least shader model 3.0 since programmable shaders were fundamental to the engine, the baseline for UE4 is going to be horse power based, because if your hardware can't handle the lighting calculations in real time... you aren't getting any UE4 engine games.

the rumoured parts for the Wii U are definately below that line.

This makes one wonder what Nintendo will do after this E3. They can easily push back the WiiU launch to 2013, I mean, they've yet to give a real release date for the thing. Maybe tweek the U a little to just reach that bar.

 

[Christine]

If a dev is getting through the trouble of down porting to the WiiU, why not take the pains to go even lower but at the same time access a vastly bigger base like 360 and PS3?

You might well see this happen for a while, but remember that it's not total installed base that matters, it's active users.

 

[Death Dealer]

I don't think anyone realistically saw Wii U competing graphically. I think what most reasonable people were expecting was a system that could handle the future generation of games at low settings, similar to turning the settings down on an older PC.

Something similar to PS2 vs Xbox in terms of power.

I know the line of thought began when someone asked if Wii-U will look closer to PS3 or PS4. I think the hw rumors point to it being much closer to PS3. Yeah I think the new hw could help, I'm optimistic Wii-U can have some really nice looking games if the effort is made, but I'm not certain it will be close enough to reliably get ports of most 3rd party games.

Based on it being 1.5x this gen, I don't know how the multi platform game porting situation will workout for Nintendo. I think the reasonable people, myself included, that thought Nintendo would make Wii-U good enough to get downgraded third party ports expected better than 1.5x. But maybe if PS4 only has 2GB of ram, that will be the de facto standard, and if Wii-U has 1.5, it won't matter at all, and it will still get most all of the same games but with a completely different render target pipeline. But still the same game, not like Ghostbusters. It could get complicated though. Are a lot of studios going to create the main title on UE4 or whatever engine and then downport it to enhanced UE3 or whatever ? I assume UE4 needs more CPU as well as GPU power and that's why Epic said it won't work on Wii-U ? Because otherwise, you would think they could just degrade the UE4 engine graphics sufficiently to make it run. Turn down the resolution, and uncheck the optional eye candy boxes.

 

[plagiarize]

This makes one wonder what Nintendo will do after this E3. They can easily push back the WiiU launch to 2013, I mean, they've yet to give a real release date for the thing. Maybe tweek the U a little to just reach that bar.

i don't think such a thing is simple at all. missing christmas was huge for the 3DS. they won't make that mistake again, i don't think. launching opposite the PS4 and next Xbox seems like a bad idea too.

plus, the specs are probably already in stone as they get ready to ramp up manufacturing, if they haven't already.

 

[plagiarize]

I assume UE4 needs more CPU as well as GPU power and that's why Epic said it won't work on Wii-U ? Because otherwise, you would think they could just degrade the UE4 engine graphics sufficiently to make it run. Turn down the resolution, and uncheck the optional eye candy boxes.

the bulk of lighting you see in most games today has been pre calculated and baked into the environments. with UE4 that's all going away and all of the lighting will be realtime. so, if you can't do those lighting calculations in real time at a decent frame rate, you aren't going to be running UE4.

we aren't talking about optional effects here. its not like you just turn off indirect lighting say, because then most games wouldn't look any good if you did.

 

[Refreshment.01]

You might well see this happen for a while, but remember that it's not total installed base that matters, it's active users.

Of course, it's an important clarification TwinIonEngines. That's what i was trying to say.

They may play better though. PES Playmaker on wii had PS2 bad graphics, yet it's the best soccer game I have ever played. With even more control options, I can easily see this become a trend. Moreso after seeing Ubisoft 1st tries on the console.

Assuming the developer wishes or can invest the time of coming up with these better controlling methods. And yes i think PES Playmaker had a revolutionary use of the WiiRemote, it was truly a generation apart in terms of input method.

i don't think such a thing is simple at all. missing christmas was huge for the 3DS. they won't make that mistake again, i don't think. launching opposite the PS4 and next Xbox seems like a bad idea too.

plus, the specs are probably already in stone as they get ready to ramp up manufacturing, if they haven't already.

Pretty much, tkscz suggestion at this stage in time would be counter productive. The faster they can launch now the better, that is if they had the software ready. Only real advantage right now for Nintendo is the head start as the Upad acceptation is a complete unknown.

 

[KageMaru]

The only thing the PS2 or GCN lacked in comparison was well documented conventional pixel-shaders. Both of those two platforms actually had higher poly counts generally (the first thing to take a hit on the Xbox when using tons of fancy pixel-shading effects was poly throughput).

Nah it's the GC that suffered most in the poly pushing department. The issue with the Xbox is the same as the ps3 this Gen: bandwidth. IIRC both the GC and especially PS2 were better at handling effects through multiple passes, where the Xbox was designed to handle more in a single pass, theoretically requiring less bandwidth.

Ok, let's assume that is true for a second. Why would be the incentive to buy the WiiU? Wouldn't then PS3 and Xbox360, very cheap systems by that time, be getting ports also? Only big road block i could see is in regards to memory constraints since WiiU could have double amount of RAM.

Where the line is drawn for a port of a Xbox Next or PS4 game be possible on a WiiU and not say on a 360?

The 360's architecture wouldn't be nearly as feature-filled, so I can easily see a situation where the Wii-U received a down-port, but not the PS360.

The lack of speed may be what keeps the Wii-U from being a generational leap, but the hardware that is there will be more capable than the old tech in the PS360.

Not just that, the performance figures are also completely theoretical. It's not that different from the last generation, when the PS2 was supposedly ten times as fast as the Gamecube. Looking at Resident Evil 4, we know how that went. Both Cell and Xenon offer really, really terrible performance per cycle in real world applications. The in-order design with way too long pipelines leads to a real world IPC of 0.5, compared to 5 for modern x86 chips. They're some of the worst designed chips in the history of mankind, and I have no idea why IBM designed them that way to begin with. Considering IBM has great engineers, I kinda have to put the blame on Sony and Microsoft.

Oh yeah, I wasn't trying to insinuate that the specs weren't exaggerated.

I also don't know if I would blaim MS and Sony if stories surrounding the development of the CPUs are true.

Besides, they weren't bad by 2005/2006 standards, they were pretty good choices IMO considering their choices.

 

[StevieP]

Only chance of that happening is if Sony or MS opted to include some type of expensive peripheral. If Sony went crazy an put in there a more modern version of the HMZ head set

Not going to be the HMZ, but there will be peripherals in the boxes.

 

[Colonel Mustard]

Not even remotely true, the Xbox ran 90% of multiplats better than PS2.

You're missing the part at the bottom. For that matter how many of these games had the original Xbox as lead SKU. (The point I was trying to make.)

It all comes down to how the game was developed. Was it hastily ported? Or was it built with the hardware-strengths in mind?

 

[donny2112]

That would mean that any of the shaders that the WiiU supports went unused, the DSP went unused, the I/O processor went unused. Everything that pushes the WiiU above what was said goes unused. This should answer a lot.

From my perspective, I'm just now playing through Brotherhood. Revelations is still in shrink-wrap. I'm fine getting AC3 for $20 on Wii U sometime next year instead of getting it for $20 on 360 sometime next year, since they're the same game. Hope Wii U keeps the achievements, too, though, since that provided some focus for how to fill in the playing gaps after beating it on 360.

Edit:
It's worth noting that that doesn't mean I'll actually have a Wii U next year. I bought 360 games on the cheap long before I bought a 360 this generation, for reference. :lol

So, in 2014, is Wii U going to end up being closer to PS3 or PS4 I wonder?

It'll be closer to PS3, but that's a far cry from saying that it's just "on-par" with PS360.

 

[B.O.O.M]

oh boy, they are in for a world of hurt 3rd party support wise if these rumors are true. When the next PS and Xbox comes out chances are it will be a repeat of this gens 3rd party support all over again

 

[Van Owen]

For that matter how many of these games had the original Xbox as lead SKU. (The point I was trying to make.)

A select few.

 

[Death Dealer]

the bulk of lighting you see in most games today has been pre calculated and baked into the environments. with UE4 that's all going away and all of the lighting will be realtime. so, if you can't do those lighting calculations in real time at a decent frame rate, you aren't going to be running UE4.

we aren't talking about optional effects here. its not like you just turn off indirect lighting say, because then most games wouldn't look any good if you did.

Ok that makes sense. So it's down to lack of graphics power for features integral to UE4 that can't be shut off.

Well if the new engines are that advanced, and Nintendo went with only 1.5x this gen, they obviously decided they don't need heavy third party support to be successful. They are going for an altered Wii strategy again, by creating their own market and not trying to play in Sony/MS's garden.

Wow this is pertinent. Epic: UE4 full feature set requies 1 TFLOP GPU, a scaled down version exists for less
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=477663

 

[tkscz]

Ok that makes sense. So it's down to lack of graphics power for features integral to UE4 that can't be shut off.

Well if the new engines are that advanced, and Nintendo went with only 1.5x this gen, they obviously decided they don't need heavy third party support to be successful. They are going for an altered Wii strategy again, by creating their own market and not trying to play in Sony/MS's garden.

That's if this 1.5x thing is true. multipliers are bull and the guys here who are in the know seem to be pointing away.

Why is the speculation thread locked?

 

[donny2112]

IIRC both the GC and especially PS2 were better at handling effects through multiple passes, where the Xbox was designed to handle more in a single pass, theoretically requiring less bandwidth.

Not a technical guy on PS2/Xbox, but my understanding of GameCube TEVs was that they could do 8 shader effects on a single-pass. Recall bandwidth being considerably higher than PS2, as well, from an anandtech breakdown way back when.

 

[TAJ]

You're missing the part at the bottom. For that matter how many of these games had the original Xbox as lead SKU. (The point I was trying to make.)

It all comes down to how the game was developed. Was it hastily ported? Or was it built with the hardware-strengths in mind?

None of them had the original Xbox as lead SKU.
NONE. Xbox was an afterthought. EDIT: Splinter Cell. Almost none.
Was Wii your first console?

 

[KageMaru]

This makes one wonder what Nintendo will do after this E3. They can easily push back the WiiU launch to 2013, I mean, they've yet to give a real release date for the thing. Maybe tweek the U a little to just reach that bar.

There is absolutely zero chance Nintendo will push the Wii-U's launch date back. In the end it would cause far more harm than good.

 

[Mr. E. Yis]

The Burnout games ran better on PS2. The Xbox lost out on the particle effects.

The Burnout games may have run better on PS2, but the better version was Xbox, if only for the fact that the games used custom soundtracks, which made the races much more fun.

If there's WiiU-enhanced or specific extras or functions that make a game better, that version would be a better port, even if it's missing some effects.

 

[TAJ]

Not a technical guy on PS2/Xbox, but my understanding of GameCube TEVs was that they could do 8 shader effects on a single-pass. Recall bandwidth being considerably higher than PS2, as well, from an anandtech breakdown way back when.

Xbox could do twice as many textures per clock, and was clocked higher.

 

[MDX]

Wow this is pertinent. Epic: UE4 full feature set requies 1 TFLOP GPU, a scaled down version exists for less
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=477663

So obviously WiiU will get UE4 one way or the other. But does it really matter it is available almost two years from now? I would think developers, will be very familiar with the WiiU hardware. Its already getting ports that are visually better than current gen, so that trend will continue.

 

[plagiarize]

That's if this 1.5x thing is true. multipliers are bull and the guys here who are in the know seem to be pointing away.

Why is the speculation thread locked?

Epic have said it won't handle UE4, I believe. I don't need any more confirmation than that.

edit: that new quote is interesting though. 'mainstream' could well just mean PS4/Next Xbox. hopefully not.

 

[schuelma]

Epic have said it won't handle UE4, I believe. I don't need any more confirmation than that.

I don't think that is correct.

 

[Doc Holliday]

There is absolutely zero chance Nintendo will push the Wii-U's launch date back. In the end it would cause far more harm than good.

They are famous for system delays, I believe the Snes and n64 were delayed.

 

[nikatapi]

Epic have said it won't handle UE4, I believe. I don't need any more confirmation than that.

I think they said it was not targeted at WiiU, not that it wouldn't handle it. The question is if the GPU has all the features and maybe is close to 1tflop in order to get the full version. It seems its not that capable at the moment, but one can hope.

 

[tkscz]

Epic have said it won't handle UE4, I believe. I don't need any more confirmation than that.

edit: that new quote is interesting though. 'mainstream' could well just mean PS4/Next Xbox. hopefully not.

When did they say this? As far as I can remember they never said it wouldn't, only that they would rather use high-end UE3 for it and that they can (something I doubt with their art style) do a better demo for WiiU than the Zelda one.

 

[KageMaru]

They are famous for system delays, I believe the Snes and n64 were delayed.

True, but there is little incentive to delay the system since the specs would likely remain the same and all it would do is piss off your partners who are expecting to launch their game during the current projected quarter.

 

[marc^o^]

Of course, it's an important clarification TwinIonEngines. That's what i was trying to say.

Assuming the developer wishes or can invest the time of coming up with these better controlling methods. And yes i think PES Playmaker had a revolutionary use of the WiiRemote, it was truly a generation apart in terms of input method.
Pretty much, tkscz suggestion at this stage in time would be counter productive. The faster they can launch now the better, that is if they had the software ready. Only real advantage right now for Nintendo is the head start as the Upad acceptation is a complete unknown.

If Wii U doesn't get pirated within 2 months, and if a fraction of wii owners buy the console at launch, there will be a bankable market on Wii U, hard to ignore for the smartest studios. Ubisoft leads the pack so far and if their bet pays off, others will follow. In the interval, Nintendo needs to plan a steady release output in 2013.

 

[LCGeek]

Not a technical guy on PS2/Xbox, but my understanding of GameCube TEVs was that they could do 8 shader effects on a single-pass. Recall bandwidth being considerably higher than PS2, as well, from an anandtech breakdown way back when.

That's texture effects not a shader. You use the tev to make a pixel shader.

 

[Dreamwriter]

That "Wii-U won't run UE4" thing was a journalist claiming to have been told by Mike Capps that UE4 is not targeted towards the Wii U. That's all we know about the situation.

 

[Nirolak]

Why is the speculation thread locked?

The system is unveiled, so there's not much to speculate about. Feel free to make a post reveal general thread though.

My intention wasn't to bar people from having a thread about the Wii U, but rather I assumed people would make a Wii U Information Thread or something after the conference that actually included all the new information.

 

[Diablos54]

My intention wasn't to bar people from having a thread about the Wii U, but rather I assumed people would make a Wii U Information Thread or something after the conference that actually included all the new information.

That would have required us knowing a significant amount more about the system than before though.

 

[tkscz]

The system is unveiled, so there's not much to speculate about. Feel free to make a post reveal general thread though.

My intention wasn't to bar people from having a thread about the Wii U, but rather I assumed people would make a Wii U Information Thread or something after the conference that actually included all the new information.

That was basically what the speculation thread was lol.

You might want to tell one of the creators of the Speculations threads this though, they may not know.

 

[seattle6418]

Why is this even relevant? Nintendo way back in the Gamecube days realised that with the addition of Microsoft they couldn´t be "me too" machines competing with Sony and MS because that was not smart.

They carved out a market using other things as a differential, and the Wii proved that they could be sucessfull without that much horsepower.

Since the Wii was a moderate step above PS2/Xbox, it´s only normal that Wii U is a moderate step above PS3/360.

I don´t think they are going for call of duties, GTA´s, sports and racing sims. That´s not why you buy a Nintendo Console. The 64 was their last "powerfull" console and they changed a lot afterwards.

I think it´s stupid to think they are going after the high end market and it´s stupid to expect high end performance out of the Wii U. What worked well for then with Wii/DS/3DS has NOTHING to do with graphics and/or power.

 

[AzaK]

Why not? I mean, you already established devs have mastered the ps360 (and by conjecture, wiiU) gen inside-out. Why is not every high-budget game looking technically on-par with Uncharted?


Then we agree to disagree. I say that some will be unfeasible but most will benefit the entire landscape, wiiU included.

Blu, would you care to speculate why the wii u games are really looking so average? I thought that because the tech is essentially the same feature set that we have now, plus more, than any port should instantly be essentially identical. So why the low frame rates and bad popin on batman for instance. Could it be the media they are once e3, as in USB or a slow sd? Or could it actually require rewriting shaders and things for Wii U, which I would imagine puts it in a scary predicament if that amount of work is required.

I was expecting to see AA on everything seeing as its "free" and maybe Nintendo's games 1080 as they're not pushing insane polys and fillrate.

 

[tkscz]

Why is this even relevant? Nintendo way back in the Gamecube days realised that with the addition of Microsoft they couldn´t be "me too" machines competing with Sony and MS because that was not smart.

They carved out a market using other things as a differential, and the Wii proved that they could be sucessfull without that much horsepower.

Since the Wii was a moderate step above PS2/Xbox, it´s only normal that Wii U is a moderate step above PS3/360.

I don´t think they are going for call of duties, GTA´s, sports and racing sims. That´s not why you buy a Nintendo Console. The 64 was their last "powerfull" console and they changed a lot afterwards.

I think it´s stupid to think they are going after the high end market and it´s stupid to expect high end performance out of the Wii U. What worked well for then with Wii/DS/3DS has NOTHING to do with graphics and/or power.

Wait wait, the GC was more powerful than the PS2, nearly on the same level as Xbox, if not was at that level.

 

[plagiarize]

That "Wii-U won't run UE4" thing was a journalist claiming to have been told by Mike Capps that UE4 is not targeted towards the Wii U. That's all we know about the situation.

thanks for the clarification. as gofreak is speculating in the other thread, the question then becomes one of 'how easily can a UE4 fall fat game be ported to UE4 lite?'

 

[magash]

thanks for the clarification. as gofreak is speculating in the other thread, the question then becomes one of 'how easily can a UE4 fall fat game be ported to UE4 lite?'

Has it been concluded then that the Wii U's GPU is less than a Tera Flop?

 

[The Hermit]

Wait wait, the GC was more powerful than the PS2, nearly on the same level as Xbox, if not was at that level.

the GCN was so amazing they refurbished as a Wii.

 

[Diablos54]

Has it been concluded then that the Wii U's GPU is less than a Tera Flop?

I'm pretty sure rumors have said that it is, by how much is the question.

 

[SapientWolf]

I doubt those two systems will be that much more powerful.

That would be scary. Maybe that's why Crytek is going F2P.

 

[Thraktor]

I thought I'd chime in with a few of the things we know about the Wii U's hardware from the speculation threads (and by "know" I mean info which has been confirmed by multiple reliable sources).

CPU

The Wii U's CPU is a three-core, dual-threaded, out-of-order IBM Power ISA processor with 3MB of eDRAM L2 cache. Superficially it looks pretty similar to the Xenon CPU in the XBox 360, but it's a completely new CPU, and there are a number of important differences from Xenon:

- Firstly, it supports out-of-order execution. Roughly speaking, this means that the processor can alter the order it executes instructions to operate more efficiently. The benefit of this depends on the kind of code being run. Physics code, for example, wouldn't see much benefit from an out-of-order processor, whereas AI code should run significantly better. Out-of-order execution also generally improves the processor's ability to run poorly optimized code.

- Secondly, we have the larger cache (3MB vs 1MB). The Xenon's cache was actually pretty small for a processor running 6 threads at 3.2.GHz, causing a lot of wasted cycles as threads wait for data to be fetched from main memory. The Wii U CPU's larger cache should mean code runs much more efficiently in comparison, particularly when combined with the out-of-order execution.

- The Xenon processor used the VMX128 AltiVec unit (or SIMD unit), which was a modified version of IBM's then-standard VMX unit, with more gaming-specific instructions. It appears that the Wii U's CPU will feature a highly customized AltiVec unit itself, possibly based off the newer VSX unit. This should substantially increase the efficiency of a lot of gaming-specific code, but the important thing is that, unlike the out-of-order execution and large cache, developers have to actively make use of the new AltiVec unit, and they have to really get to know how it operates to get the most out of it.

- The Wii U has a dedicated DSP for audio and a dedicated I/O processor. These relieve the CPU of a lot of work, for instance there are XBox 360 games which require an entire core to handle audio.

The CPU should have quite a bit less raw power than the PS3's Cell, although the same will most likely be true for both the PS4 and next XBox. It will, however, be significantly easier to program for, and should be more effective at running a lot of code, for instance AI.

There aren't any reliable sources on the CPU's clock speed, but it's expected to be around 3.2Ghz or so.

GPU

The GPU is likely to be VLIW-based, with a pretty modern feature-set and 32MB of eDRAM. We don't have any reliable numbers on either SPU count or clock speed, but in bullshit multiplier comparisons to the Xenos (XBox 360's CPU), most indications are that it's closer to 2 or 3 times the raw power of Xenos, as opposed to the 1.5 times quoted in the OP. There are a few things we do know about the GPU though:

- The 32MB of eDRAM is the only hard number we have about the GPU. This is more than three times the size of the eDRAM framebuffer on Xenos, and should allow games to achieve either 720p with 4x AA or 1080p with no AA, without having to do tiling (the need to tile AA'd HD images on the Xenos's framebuffer made its "free" AA a lot less free). It's also possible (although unconfirmed) that the eDRAM is on-die with the GPU, as opposed to on-chip (and hence on another die). If true, this means that the eDRAM will have much lower latency and possibly much higher bandwidth than the XBox 360's set-up. Developers will have to actively make use of the eDRAM to get the most out of it, though.

- The GPU features a tesselator. However, we have no idea whether it's a 4000-series tesselator (ie not very good) or perhaps a more modern 6000-series tesselator (a lot better). Again, developers would have to actively make use of this in their game engines.

- The GPU is heavily customized and features some unique functionality. Although we don't have any reliable indications of what sort of functionality Nintendo has focused on, it's been speculated that it's related to lighting. Apparently games which make good use of this functionality should see substantial improvements in performance. More than any other feature of the console, though, developers really need to put in the effort to optimize their engines for the GPU's customizations to get the most out of them.

- The GPU has a customized API, based on OpenGL. Regular OpenGL code should run, but won't run very well and won't make any use of the GPU's custom features. Developers will need a good understanding of the GPU's API to get the most out of it.

RAM

It seems the console will have either 1.5GB or 2GB of unified RAM, with indications that Nintendo were targeting 1.5GB with earlier dev-kits and later increased that to 2GB. We don't know the kind of RAM being used, but most expect DDR3, probably with a 128-bit interface and clock speed somewhere in the 750MHz to 1Ghz range, resulting in a bandwidth somewhat, but not significantly, higher than the XBox360 and PS3. It's worth noting that the large CPU cache and GPU eDRAM somewhat mitigate the need for very high bandwidths. It's possible, but quite unlikely, that they're using GDDR5, which would mean a much higher bandwidth.


Going by what we know about the console's hardware, it should be able to produce games which noticeably out-perform what's available on XBox 360 and PS3, so long as everything's properly optimized. Of course, performance will still be far behind the PS4 and next XBox. What we're seeing at E3 is unlikely to be well optimized for a number of reasons:

- "Final" dev-kits, with actual production hardware, only started to arrive to developers a few weeks ago. This would be too late for the E3 demos to make any real use of any improvements this final hardware may have brought. We know that these dev-kits brought a slight improvement in performance, but we don't know if there were any changes in functionality (eg to the eDRAM, which could indicate why we're seeing so little AA).

- Nintendo don't seem to have locked down the clock speeds yet, which makes it difficult for developers to properly optimize games for the hardware. As Nintendo now has final production hardware to do thermal testing on, final clock speeds should come pretty soon.

- For third party multi-plats, the XBox360 and PS3 versions are going to sell the most (due to higher install-bases), so developers are going to put more resources towards those versions, and are likely to put the more talented team-members on XBox360 and PS3 development as well. Because they can get PS360-grade performance out of the Wii U with a quick, poorly optimized port, most aren't going to bother putting the time and money into substantially improving the Wii U version.

- We've only seen launch-window titles, and launch-window titles that are about five months from completion, at that. I can only think of a single case where a game for new hardware was actually well optimized at this point before the launch of the console (Rogue Leader for Gamecube).

- While third parties are unlikely to make good use of the hardware, Nintendo haven't shown any games from the first party studios most likely to really push the hardware (eg Retro, Monolith, EAD Tokyo, EAD Kyoto Group 3). These studios are the ones to watch for technically impressive games in the first couple of years of the Wii U's life.


Interestingly, the best-looking game that's been shown off thus far is probably Platinum's Project P-100. While people haven't been focusing on it from a technical perspective that much because of the art style, it's got great textures, good polygon detail, very nice lighting, good effects, a nice DoF effect, the IQ seems good and the framerate seems smooth. In some parts it also does nice 3D visuals on both the TV and controller screen. I wouldn't go so far as saying it looks substantially better than anything we've seen on PS360 (certainly not without seeing it in person), but it's definitely a nice looking game.