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[snowdog1971]

Are we still downplaying the 360's launch and pretending that the technological improvement over the 6th gen systems wasn't significantly more than what is likely with the Wii U over the 7th gen HD systems?

(And probably more than we'll see with the PS4 and 720 as well.)

There were a few standout titles such as PGR 3, Kameo and Condemned but there were much more titles that weren't - FIFA 06, Gun, Perfect Dark starring Wall Guy lol.

It's always the way with launch titles due to the majority of them being rushed last gen ports and titles that have had the majority of development done on unfinished/underpowered dev kits. And at the start of every gen you get people complaining that most games are previous gen standard in terms of eye candy and that X console in Y generation was never like that with it's launch titles. And it was. At the start of every gen without fail.

 

[Graphics Horse]

For a example this?

I haven't seen one PS3/360 game that looks just as good lighting wise, and I think the textures and detail are great.

Hmm, from the size of this coming straight from Nintendo's Press screens, I can only assume 800x450 is the true gamepad resolution. Was that confirmed?

Better DPI than my laptop so no complaints here.

 

[Norml]

I hate when depth of field is overdone. Almost ruined Flower for me.

its only like that there because the camera zooms in when changing clothes.

 

[majik13]

LBP2 does actually use some real time approximation of global illumination too:

mmmm, not really seeing it, personally.

 

[bgassassin]

LBP2 does actually use some real time approximation of global illumination too:

http://images.eurogamer.net/articles//a/1/2/7/3/8/9/6/cornell_lbp2.jpg.jpg

Eh. I think "some" is kinda reaching.

 

[NBtoaster]

Eh. I think "some" is kinda reaching.

It's all real time, they can't bake anything given the editor.

Details here:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-lbp2-tech-interview

 

[Ryoku]

LBP2 does actually use some real time approximation of global illumination too:

Better than I thought it to be, but it still doesn't have the radiosity effects that Nintendo Land seems to pull off without much effort (though I don't know if this is due to how LBP/2 was developed or if it's actually a capability issue with the PS3's hardware), which is why I want to say Nintendo Land's lighting solution is closer to HBAO-level. What I mean by this is that Nintendo Land still has significantly better lighting.

Also, I'm not only using the Nintendo Land screenshot as a reference. I'm also referring back to the video of the Nintendo Land hub, which is a great showcase of the effects going on. Too bad we don't have a direct feed of that, though.

 

[KageMaru]

There were a few standout titles such as PGR 3, Kameo and Condemned but there were much more titles that weren't - FIFA 06, Gun, Perfect Dark starring Wall Guy lol.

Regarding Perfect Dark, that game was actually rather impressive technically. Deferred lighting, first console game to have object based motion blur, nice alpha effects, nice poly counts etc. What most people take is the poor art and probably the over used parallax mapping.

 

[Ryoku]

Because that was a PC-to-PC comparison so that wouldn't have been an accurate comparison for what we've been working with. By that I mean the 7750 on paper would be a better performer than what Wii U has. So when you say Wii U's GPU would be like the 7750 performance-wise, I can't agree because a 7750 in a console would see much better utilization than in the PC and in turn perform even better causing it to continue to be more powerful than U's GPU.

Thanks for clearing that out. So now I think I get what you're saying. That, in practice (given the advantages of a console), the Wii U's GPU should perform similarly to a 4850 or 7750 in a PC. Correct?

 

[brochiller]

Are we still downplaying the 360's launch and pretending that the technological improvement over the 6th gen systems wasn't significantly more than what is likely with the Wii U over the 7th gen HD systems?

(And probably more than we'll see with the PS4 and 720 as well.)

Call of Duty on Xbox and Xbox 360 didn't look all that different aside from the obvious increase in resolution. They were still the same game pretty much. Nothing stands out to me in the lighting department for the 360 version for instance.

Compare the early 360 screen to BLOPS2 now:

 

[Nilaul]

I tried searching several pages...

but.. http://www.examiner.com/article/nintendo-conference-reveals-final-wii-u-specs-price-and-release-date

Is 2 gigs true?

Also, Power 7 confirmed or is it broadway?

Its not broadway, for a thousands different reasons specified in the Wii U thread.

 

[Graphics Horse]

Better than I thought it to be, but it still doesn't have the radiosity effects.

I don't think there's any colour bleeding in that picture, while the Cornell Box they've set up seems to imply there should be.. But it does do some neat ambient occlusion based on volume textures.

But I'm not sure there's any dynamic radiosity in Nintendo Land either, but it does have a nice look.

 

[Nilaul]

The system does have 2GB of ram but the Developers only get to play with 1GB right now pending any future changes to the 1GB reserved for System use.

Its like nintendo left a whole 1 GB purposly because they havn't finalised the Wii U OS and its features and dont know how much they will need (Like 3ds and it late os updates).

On the other hand it could be just wishfull thinking.

 

[Synless]

For a example this?

I haven't seen one PS3/360 game that looks just as good lighting wise, and I think the textures and detail are great.

The Witcher 2 has some pretty damn impressive lighting and shadowing. I'd say it's far more impressive with much better geography than any of that simple geography going on in that pic.

Edit* I'm not saying the 360 is more powerful, I'm just saying I'm not impressed with what's in that picture.

 

[AlStrong]

I don't think there's any colour bleeding in that picture,

Light bouncing of any sort falls under "GI-approx".

 

[megarockexe]

Its like nintendo left a whole 1 GB purposly because they havn't finalised the Wii U OS and its features and dont know how much they will need (Like 3ds and it late os updates).

On the other hand it could be just wishfull thinking.

Very wishful thinking. The distribution of RAM is concerning up to now. There hasn't been much dev talk about lack of RAM though, so that's a good thing too.

 

[brochiller]

Its like nintendo left a whole 1 GB purposly because they havn't finalised the Wii U OS and its features and dont know how much they will need (Like 3ds and it late os updates).

On the other hand it could be just wishfull thinking.

Nintendo is trying to avoid a PS3 situation where they don't reserve enough at launch and then can't add in features later (see: cross game voice chat). They should free up more RAM later like they did with the 3DS.

 

[Meelow]

I tried searching several pages...

but.. http://www.examiner.com/article/nintendo-conference-reveals-final-wii-u-specs-price-and-release-date

Is 2 gigs true?

Yep, confirmed at the Japanese Nintendo Direct conference.

 

[Graphics Horse]

Light bouncing of any sort falls under "GI-approx".

Which is why I specifically said colour bleeding.

 

[specialguy]

There were a few standout titles such as PGR 3, Kameo and Condemned but there were much more titles that weren't - FIFA 06, Gun, Perfect Dark starring Wall Guy lol.

Those titles, besides being pretty major graphical jumps in every case, yes even PDZ, also ran in 720P besides vs the previous 480P standard.

It would be akin to the Wii U pumping out a bunch of somewhat current gen looking games-except they were all in 1080P. That's not the case,

 

[AlStrong]

Which is why I specifically said colour bleeding.

Put another way, what do you think the box would look like with direct illumination only?

 

[Gravijah]

dof is the worst thing ever.

 

[Ryoku]

dof is the worst thing ever.

I think it adds to the immersion if it's used correctly, like in Crysis 2 or even Pikmin 3.

 

[Medalion]

seeing nintendo land right before seeing that makes it look ugly in comparison IMO but I think you could have chose a better screenshot than that

Look, I like Nintendo plenty
but to say Nintendo Land looks better than LBP, that's just insanity

 

[Graphics Horse]

Put another way, what do you think the box would look like with direct illumination only?

It wouldn't have the soft shadows for a start, but I'm not sure where you're going. All I was doing was expressing my surprise at a red and green Cornell Box being used to demonstrate something which has no colour bleeding.

 

[AlStrong]

It wouldn't have the soft shadows for a start, but I'm not sure where you're going. All I was doing was expressing my surprise at a red and green Cornell Box being used to demonstrate something which has no colour bleeding.

There were a couple folks saying they couldn't see the "GI". Nevermind.

 

[majik13]

yeah I really see no Global illumination or color bounce anywhere in the LBP image.

 

[Margalis]

yeah I really see no Global illumination or color bounce anywhere in the LBP image.

There appears to be some on the bottom of the golf ball thing - but it's not even close to correct lol.

 

[bgassassin]

It's all real time, they can't bake anything given the editor.

Details here:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-lbp2-tech-interview

Guess I've been ruined by other GI demos then.

Thanks for clearing that out. So now I think I get what you're saying. That, in practice (given the advantages of a console), the Wii U's GPU should perform similarly to a 4850 or 7750 in a PC. Correct?

I don't know about a 7750, but a 4850 yes. Last time we talked about it I mentioned the 6570. Tom's Hardware was down at the time so I couldn't use it. But now being able use it I see the 6570 was a much better performer in comparison to a 4850 than I thought.

 

[JordanN]

Never mind.

 

[Daschysta]

http://youtu.be/ZhyqhiHI7yU

Here is how good Pikmin 3 could have looked if developed ground up for the Wii-U instead of built from Wii. Honestly looks better and cleaner, with better lighting than most PS360 games to my, admittedly, un tech-educated eyes.

 

[majik13]

There appears to be some on the bottom of the golf ball thing - but it's not even close to correct lol.

that's what I thought, but it is on both sides, and not really the right value, so not sure what that is.

 

[Meelow]

Guess I've been ruined by other GI demos then.



I don't know about a 7750, but a 4850 yes. Last time we talked about it I mentioned the 6570. Tom's Hardware was down at the time so I couldn't use it. But now being able use it I see the 6570 was a much better performer in comparison to a 4850 than I thought.

So...That's good right? lol.

 

[cand]

Maybe if every Wii U was packed in with a Towel and "DON'T PANIC!" written in the box people would finally have peace in their hearts...

 

[fritolay]

So if you have a choice to buy the Wii U for 300, or a tablet, say Google Nexus 7 for 200 or 250, for kids under 10 what would you buy?

 

[Nostremitus]

So if you have a choice to buy the Wii U for 300, or a tablet, say Google Nexus 7 for 200 or 250, for kids under 10 what would you buy?

Me, I'd buy the wii U. Better games and they won't take it with them and lose it somewhere.

 

[StickSoldier]

So if you have a choice to buy the Wii U for 300, or a tablet, say Google Nexus 7 for 200 or 250, for kids under 10 what would you buy?

Man, I'd say a console, but that's just because that's what I used to get for x-mas

 

[Ryoku]

So...That's good right? lol.

My old (now dead) Radeon4850 was able to run Crysis 2 at max settings (DX9) at decent framerates. I don't want to lie and put an exact number on here since I don't remember, but it was definitely playable, and sometimes hit 50+, if I remember correctly. It was able to run Crysis at max settings (DX10) at less-than-competent framerates (I had a lot ton of mods on it), but somewhat playable. Games were running at 1680x1050 when using computer monitor, and 1920x1080 when using my HDTV. But fuck AMD's drivers, man..... Sorry, I had to slip that in there for some reason.

So if you have a choice to buy the Wii U for 300, or a tablet, say Google Nexus 7 for 200 or 250, for kids under 10 what would you buy?

No way in hell would I buy an expensive tablet for a kid under 10. Hell, I wouldn't even think of it until the kid was around 16-18, and was able to show some responsibility. A Wii U will also have plenty of high-quality games for kids under 10 that will last them a long time.

 

[AzaK]

NintendoLand is technically very pretty. I still find the Miis a horrible affront to my aesthetic sensibilities.

Yeah I was never much of a fan of them either.

So if you have a choice to buy the Wii U for 300, or a tablet, say Google Nexus 7 for 200 or 250, for kids under 10 what would you buy?

Depends what you want them to do on it. If it's more than games, get a tablet. If it's games then I suppose it depends on whether you want them to have a gaming centric experience, or something a little less cohesive and more piecemeal. Of course, I'm sure the games on the tablet will be a lot less expensive.

 

[Ryoku]

http://youtu.be/ZhyqhiHI7yU

Here is how good Pikmin 3 could have looked if developed ground up for the Wii-U instead of built from Wii. Honestly looks better and cleaner, with better lighting than most PS360 games to my, admittedly, un tech-educated eyes.

I'd say it'd look better, and definitely different. Nintendo Land's simplistic style hinders complex features from showing their true forms, which may well have had a heavy presence in a Pikmin 3 developed ground-up as a graphical showcase for Wii U.

 

[majik13]

http://youtu.be/ZhyqhiHI7yU

Here is how good Pikmin 3 could have looked if developed ground up for the Wii-U instead of built from Wii. Honestly looks better and cleaner, with better lighting than most PS360 games to my, admittedly, un tech-educated eyes.

looks like fun, cool style too. Like a mario themed mechanical Pikmin world, even has hammer pick ups! It weird that you have to remember this is essentially splitscreen graphics as well, because the game is also streaming to the gamepad.

Anyways, I think Pikmin 3 could look a bit better by the time it launches. I think they have enough time to add an extra coat of polish and/or changes.

 

[Dion Blaster]

I've come to accept that Wii U will be like this gen on steroids, and I'm not nearly as disappointed as I thought I'd be about this. Will have enough unique games and features that have me excited.

 

[Ryoku]

I don't know about a 7750, but a 4850 yes. Last time we talked about it I mentioned the 6570. Tom's Hardware was down at the time so I couldn't use it. But now being able use it I see the 6570 was a much better performer in comparison to a 4850 than I thought.

It's weird. The comparisons show that the 6570 performs on par, sometimes noticeably better, sometimes noticeably worse than the 4850, whereas the specs differences suggest that the 4850 should just outperform it very noticeably.

http://www.hwcompare.com/10468/radeon-hd-4850-1gb-vs-radeon-hd-6570-oem-1gb/

Oh well. I've always trusted direct FPS comparisons over what the specs may suggest, so yeah...

Thanks for the clarification, again.

 

[BlazinAm]

For a example this?

I haven't seen one PS3/360 game that looks just as good lighting wise, and I think the textures and detail are great.

What are you doing? Battlefield 3, Uncharted 3, Gran Turismo 5, Gears of war 3, witcher 2 (360) and a lot more.

 

[les papillons sexuels]

so far I think the most impressive thing I've seen running on the 360 has been the mega meshes gdc presentation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M04SMNkTx9E

the demo is also using realtime global illumination.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=BsywGu-irf0&NR=1

and runs at 30fps.

I was really hoping that pikmin had an art style more similar to it.

 

[BlazinAm]

so far I think the most impressive thing I've seen running on the 360 has been the mega meshes gdc presentation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M04SMNkTx9E

the demo is also using realtime global illumination.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=BsywGu-irf0&NR=1

and runs at 30fps.

I was really hoping that pikmin had an art style more similar to it.

I bet that first demo doesn't have real-time shadows.

 

[les papillons sexuels]

I bet that first demo doesn't have real-time shadows.

do you not see the shadows updating when the tree moves at the boat section?

 

[PhantomR]

Somewhat specs related....but if you guys were given the opportunity to purchase a Blu-Ray license separately so that the system can play Blu-Ray movie discs, similar to what Microsoft did with the Xbox?

I know I would if the price is reasonable.

 

[BlazinAm]

do you not see the shadows updating when the tree moves at the boat section?

You can tell whether or not now the shadows are real time by moving the light source or tinkering the radiosity.

Edit: I wonder if the wii u can do any form of ambient occlusion. That would go a long way in building great lighting and shadow system.

 

[Log4Girlz]

For a example this?

I haven't seen one PS3/360 game that looks just as good lighting wise, and I think the textures and detail are great.

Look at the blue toad's forehead...the lighting is funky. I've seen this funkiness in other screens. NL to me is like super unimpressive. Not ugly per say, but nothing to write home about.