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[ozfunghi]

That has more to do with advances in the game engines and optimizations. The increase in the way that games look now compared to then is directly related to optimizing for the consoles, as their power level is constant. The same will happen with Wii U. Once devs get familiar with the hardware (and the toolsets become available to allocate resources more efficiently), you will see and increase in output. It won't be as drastic as this gen, of course I highly doubt the PS4/Xbox3 will either.

That was my point. WiiU launch games are not representative of what the hardware will be able to output when it's being put to use by devs that have experience with the new hardware, their engine, that are developing on the system as either lead platform or exclusively etc.

Log4girlz likes to ridicule this by stating all the devs must be rookies then.

 

[cyberheater]

lol

You are arguing the hardware is not (much) more powerful. Then i am asking you, why didn't 360 launch games look like WiiU launch games?

It's pretty obvious at this stage that the WiiU hardware is a mixed bag. A small relatively slow 3 core out of order execution CPU connected to slow ram and a more capable GPU.

I think it's impressive that the games look as good as they do.

 

[z0m3le]

It's pretty obvious at this stage that the WiiU hardware is a mixed bag. A small relatively slow 3 core out of order execution CPU connected to slow ram and a more capable GPU.

I think it's impressive that the games look as good as they do.

Well in all fairness, the mixed bag being able to handle ports so well (many of them exceeding PS3's versions of the same game) does show that it's clearly more powerful than these consoles. The question has always been how much, I tend to think that all we can do is guess about that for now. And while you are right about "slow ram" we now know that 360 ram reads AND writes at ~11GB/s, while Wii U's ram reads OR writes at 12.8GB/s.

The problem with Wii U isn't it's power level however, it's publishers interest to bring games to the platform. I really hope publishers release their games across all platforms, since that would sort of solve everyone's problems. However I know that is wishful thinking, and until Wii U has fair amount of market share, will it even get it's fair share of ports at all.

Still those buying Wii U can safely know that they will get more ports than Wii got.

 

[Effect]

It then becomes a question of will people want those ports when there is likely going to be a gap between them and exclusives and 1st party games. What I wonder is will that make 3rd parties put in the man power and money to make sure their ports (is this the right word or would multiplats be more appropriate at this point?) are done well.

 

[Quaz51]

And while you are right about "slow ram" we now know that 360 ram reads AND writes at ~11GB/s

no, it's just for cpu side. GPU can write at 22GB/s (RAM) or read at 33Gb/s (22GB/s RAM + 11GB/s L2 CPU cache) + framebuffer eDRAM of course

 

[z0m3le]

no, it's just for cpu side. GPU can write at 22GB/s (RAM) or read at 33Gb/s (22GB/s RAM + 11GB/s L2 CPU cache) + framebuffer eDRAM of course

Interesting, thanks for the correction on that, but considering so much is done on the 360's CPU, that is still a big thing to think about when comparing it to the Wii U.

 

[Meelow]

Doesn't the Wii U also have a good amount of eDram that could help the slow ram or am I talking foolish?

 

[Orayn]

Doesn't the Wii U also have a good amount of eDram that could help the slow ram or am I talking foolish?

It helps for some things, but the slow main RAM is still a significant bottleneck.

 

[Barack Lesnar]

You might want to double your core estimates for the next Xbox and PlayStation.

Fuck yeah, that's what I wanna hear. Bring on next-gen!!111

 

[Meelow]

It helps for some things, but the slow main RAM is still a significant bottleneck.

That's what confuses me, devs said the ram isn't a bottleneck

http://www.vg247.com/2012/11/05/wii-u-avoids-ram-bottleneck-says-nano-assault-dev/

The developer said bottleneck apply to any hardware but Nintendo’s decisions as regards cache layout, ram latency and ram size prove an effective solution.

 

[Shadow of the BEAST]

lol

You are arguing the hardware is not (much) more powerful. Then i am asking you, why didn't 360 launch games look like WiiU launch games? You are claiming inexperienced developers, small teams, small budgets and time constrains are not viable arguments. Then what was the reason 360 launch games looked like crap in comparison?

The ports from previous consoles to 360 are totally irrelevant because nobody is arguing the 360 was only as powerful as the PS2. We all know the 360 was a many times more powerful than the previous gen. We are trying to establish if and how much more powerful the WiiU is compared to the 360 gen. So again. Why are the WiiU launch games looking so much better than 360 launch games?

We are comparing WiiU to 360. Not Dreamcast to PS1 or 360 to PS2.

And just to be ahead of your argument, i'm not even speaking of "ports". You can even show me ANY exclusive 360 launch game, that looks as good as Mass Effect 3 on WiiU or Assassins Creed III on WiiU. I'm not even talking about the upres'd PS2 games the 360 got as launch games. I'm talking about real actual decent efforts.

Becasue the technologies(like shaders etc) that defined this gen was largely new. It isnt just about coding specific hardware, its also about knowing when to employ certain techniques, and when not to and how you use them best.

You are not going to see the sort of learning curve on the wii u. Most of it is known.

 

[BlockheadBrown]

Interesting, thanks for the correction on that, but considering so much is done on the 360's CPU, that is still a big thing to think about when comparing it to the Wii U.

Can there even be 1 for 1 comparisons here? You're talking about an entirely different structure between Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii U along with little hard information on the Wii U hardware or its structure. I'm not trying to be inflammatory, btw.

 

[ColdBlooder]

That's what confuses me, devs said the ram isn't a bottleneck

http://www.vg247.com/2012/11/05/wii-u-avoids-ram-bottleneck-says-nano-assault-dev/

I really don´t get why people think GAF >>>> Actual developer working with the system

 

[Brashnir]

That's what confuses me, devs said the ram isn't a bottleneck

http://www.vg247.com/2012/11/05/wii-u-avoids-ram-bottleneck-says-nano-assault-dev/

Isn't Nano Assault Neo like 50 MB total?

 

[Van Owen]

Isn't Nano Assault Neo like 50 MB total?

Shhhh, those comments are the spec defenders saving grace. Just ignore that it's completely different kind of game instead of something as complex as Metro Last Light.

 

[Nostremitus]

Becasue the technologies(like shaders etc) that defined this gen was largely new. It isnt just about coding specific hardware, its also about knowing when to employ certain techniques, and when not to and how you use them best.

You are not going to see the sort of learning curve on the wii u. Most of it is known.

You also have to take the API into account as it will continue to evolve and become more developer friendly as opposed to fighting them at every turn. Something that seems as simple as offloading the audio to the DSP could be a major hassle that actually frees up a lot of power from the CPU as it doesn't appear to be designed to be used for that purpose.

 

[Lord Error]

Well in all fairness, the mixed bag being able to handle ports so well (many of them exceeding PS3's versions of the same game) does show that it's clearly more powerful than these consoles.

More correct statement of this would be some of them and in some (not all) areas. I also don't think this clearly shows anything. We know the numbers now and the machine is definitely slower in some aspects than the existing consoles, while probably being better/faster in other aspects.

Becasue the technologies(like shaders etc) that defined this gen was largely new. It isnt just about coding specific hardware, its also about knowing when to employ certain techniques, and when not to and how you use them best.

You are not going to see the sort of learning curve on the wii u. Most of it is known.

Besides, there were at least some games on X360 that looked fantastic, PGR3 most of all, and Kameo as well. On top of that even the 'crappy' ports like The Gun were massively better in terms of resolution and framerate compared to older consoles of the time. I don't think anyone would be disappointed in WiiU if its situation was the same: Say if Batman looked identical to X360 Batman in terms of assets shaders, but ran in 1080p and/or 60FPS.

 

[ColdBlooder]

Shhhh, those comments are the spec defenders saving grace. Just ignore that it's completely different kind of game instead of something as complex as Metro Last Light.

Nice that you have seen Metro Last Light in action. Hows the game?

 

[Meelow]

Shhhh, those comments are the spec defenders saving grace. Just ignore that it's completely different kind of game instead of something as complex as Metro Last Light.

Considering THQ said they are considering making a Wii U version at a later time and the PS3 version is even holding them up I don't think it's all Wii U's fault that it's not getting it at launch.

 

[Lord Error]

Nice that you have seen Metro Last Light in action. Hows the game?

Unless I'm thinking of a different game, there's been approx 15 minutes of gameplay released, and yeah it's looking pretty advanced visually, that's for sure.

 

[Van Owen]

Nice that you have seen Metro Last Light in action. Hows the game?

Looks beautiful on 360.

 

[Saint Gregory]

The thing that confuses me most about this slow RAM talk is that it's the exact opposite of Nintendo's usual design philosophy in their console where in the past they've made sacrifices in other areas of the system to incorporate the lowest latency RAM available.

We've been hearing complaints/concerns about the CPU for some time now but have any developers commented negatively about the RAM specifically or is this issue based entirely on the type of RAM being used?

 

[Nostremitus]

Shhhh, those comments are the spec defenders saving grace. Just ignore that it's completely different kind of game instead of something as complex as Metro Last Light.

To be fair, Metro Last Light has more to do with THQ's financial situation than anything else. Don't let PR spin fool you, it's easier to discount another company than admit that yours is not stable.

The thing that confuses me most about this slow RAM talk is that it's the exact opposite of Nintendo's usual design philosophy in their console where in the past they've made sacrifices in other areas of the system to incorporate the lowest latency RAM available.

We've been hearing complaints/concerns about the CPU for some time now but have any developers commented negatively about the RAM specifically or is this issue based entirely on the type of RAM being used?

They did go with low latency ram, it's just not very fast. If that makes sense to you.

 

[Moral Panic]

There's a difference between latency and bandwidth. AFAIK the latency is fine, the bandwidth is not.

 

[wsippel]

Isn't Nano Assault Neo like 50 MB total?

On disk, yes. In RAM, it's several hundred MB. The game uses procedural generation.

 

[Durante]

Bulldozer and all of it's future variations based on it's design (steamroller, piledriver) are designed in modules (groups of two in this case), 2 integers share 1 body, sort of like a conjoined twin. So a 4 core AMD CPU is 4 integers sharing 2 cores in essence anyways.

You should read up on it, it works better than hyper-threading, but it's still not as good as 4 completely separate cores like the phenom 2 series it replaced. Either way, when you hear AMD CPU, you will 100% definitely get 1 thread per core, and 2 threads per module. A 4 core PS4 would mean 4 threads ran by 2 conjoined twins.

I know quite a bit about Bulldozer (it's part of my job to know about hardware architectures). I've just never before heard it being referred to as "coherent" (or "non-coherent" for that matter) cores.

The thing that confuses me most about this slow RAM talk is that it's the exact opposite of Nintendo's usual design philosophy in their console where in the past they've made sacrifices in other areas of the system to incorporate the lowest latency RAM available.

The latency isn't that bad. It's the bandwidth that's mediocre.

 

[Van Owen]

To be fair, Metro Last Light has more to do with THQ's financial situation than anything else. Don't let PR spin fool you, it's easier to discount another company than admit that yours is not stable.

Does THQ own 4A? The CTO talking about hardware is now PR spin?

 

[Moral Panic]

To be fair, Metro Last Light has more to do with THQ's financial situation than anything else. Don't let PR spin fool you, it's easier to discount another company than admit that yours is not stable.

It's also easy to shoot the messenger when you don't like what they're saying.

 

[z0m3le]

The thing that confuses me most about this slow RAM talk is that it's the exact opposite of Nintendo's usual design philosophy in their console where in the past they've made sacrifices in other areas of the system to incorporate the lowest latency RAM available.

We've been hearing complaints/concerns about the CPU for some time now but have any developers commented negatively about the RAM specifically or is this issue based entirely on the type of RAM being used?

Technically it still has extremely low latency, I saw someone in the other thread say 2ns for system ram. It's part of using slower system ram, they usually respond faster. That is why ddr4 has started to get hard looks, it will have extremely high latencies.

One thing I think we can all agree on is that these next consoles from Sony and Microsoft will likely have at least 3 or 4x the graphics processing power of the Wii U.

I don't think anyone here believes it will be close. However I also don't expect that to hurt enjoyment of games played on the Wii U. Just as people playing on ps3 didn't care that bf3 looked so much better on pc.

 

[Saint Gregory]

They did go with low latency ram, it's just not very fast. If that makes sense to you.

The latency isn't that bad. It's the bandwidth that's mediocre.

That make sense, I just wasn't think about it the right way. I'd still like to know if any developers feel that it's actually a serious problem that will impact game quality.

Technically it still has extremely low latency, I saw someone in the other thread say 2ns for system ram. It's part of using slower system ram, they usually respond faster. That is why ddr4 has started to get hard looks, it will have extremely high latencies.

One thing I think we can all agree on is that these next consoles from Sony and Microsoft will likely have at least 3 or 4x the graphics processing power of the Wii U.

I don't think anyone here believes it will be close. However I also don't expect that to hurt enjoyment of games played on the Wii U. Just as people playing on ps3 didn't care that bf3 looked so much better on pc.

It hasn't impacted my enjoyment in the few days that I've owned the system but I'm more concerned about the long term issues. I was fairly happy with the Wii at launch too but by a few years later most games looked unacceptably bad to me. I don't care if the WiiU isn't as powerful as the other new systems (it won't be) but I do want to know that this system won't be hampered by design issues like the Wii appeared to be.

 

[z0m3le]

I know quite a bit about Bulldozer (it's part of my job to know about hardware architectures). I've just never before heard it being referred to as "coherent" (or "non-coherent" for that matter) cores.


The latency isn't that bad. It's the bandwidth that's mediocre.

I reread that, he was referring to xenon and cell. I think he is talking about their general processing capablities.

It hasn't impacted my enjoyment in the few days that I've owned the system but I'm more concerned about the long term issues. I was fairly happy with the Wii at launch too but by a few years later most games looked unacceptably bad to me. I don't care if the WiiU isn't as powerful as the other new systems (it won't be) but I do want to know that this system won't be hampered by design issues like the Wii appeared to be.

If you made it a few years with the Wii, you should easily make it 5 with Wii U just thanks to moving to modern effects and HD. Honestly I had to jump to dolphin a few years ago just because of the pixel mess Wii looked like on my 46inch hd tv.

 

[JordanN]

So are people calling the Wii U ram a bottleneck just because it's the "cool thing now"? When I hear and see games that pull off higher resolution textures and slather motion blur while retaining 720p, in what way is the RAM choking the console?

The Wii U's memory has always been great, I'm not sure why it's being used against it now.

 

[z0m3le]

So are people calling the Wii U ram a bottleneck just because it's the "cool thing now"? When I hear and see games that pull off higher resolution textures and slather motion blur while retaining 60fps, in what way is the RAM choking the console?

Because it had a bit more than half the bandwidth of last gen consoles, it clearly on paper looks like a bottleneck, especially when we expect the next Sony and Microsoft consoles to run 30-50GB/s. We should really wait until we at least get final numbers for this console or seen next gen games try to run on Wii u, or at least wait for other consoles specs to come out first.

 

[Mastperf]

So are people calling the Wii U ram a bottleneck just because it's the "cool thing now"? When I hear and see games that pull off higher resolution textures and slather motion blur while retaining 720p, in what way is the RAM choking the console?

The Wii U's memory has always been great, I'm not sure why it's being used against it now.

Because A) It is technically slower (excluding the unknown edram spec) and B) It's not exactly blazing through current-gen ports with ease. There's certainly no indication that the WiiU's ram is "great".

 

[Saint Gregory]

If you made it a few years with the Wii, you should easily make it 5 with Wii U just thanks to moving to modern effects and HD. Honestly I had to jump to dolphin a few years ago just because of the pixel mess Wii looked like on my 46inch hd tv.

I really hope that's true. I participated in the original Wii tech speculation thread and although the system was clearly underpowered a lot of us still had high hopes for the system based entirely on the higher clocked CPU and increased transistor count of Hollywood over Flipper but something clearly went wrong in other areas of the system design that never allowed those components to be used in their full capacity.

I just hope that Nintendo hasn't made any mistakes with the WiiU system design that repeats that legacy.

 

[Mastperf]

WiiU being in HD alone will make it infinitely more tolerable for me. The Wii was 480p with a terrible dac that hurt the image quality significantly.

 

[Sanctuary]

I don't know if it's the system's ram, or the processor, but I've had a handful of system freezes near the end of ZombiU and it's reproducible. It always happens when

Spoiler

you let Zombies keep pouring in at the "escape the safe house" sequence. The corpses keep piling up, and the undead keep on spawning.

After about five minutes of that, the system will freeze 100% of the time.

That game also has some of the worst loading times in any game that I've played since the PSX era. On top of that, the Wii U's dashboard/browser makes me feel like I am on dialup on a Pentium 1 or something.

 

[lherre]

What games have higher resolution textures on wii u? My question is honest, I don't know any in the launch (maybe rayman?).

 

[Durante]

When I hear and see games that pull off higher resolution textures and slather motion blur while retaining 720p, in what way is the RAM choking the console?

Which games are you referring to here?

The Wii U's memory has always been great, I'm not sure why it's being used against it now.

It's being discussed (or "used against it" in your worldview I guess) because it's the only component of which we know the exact specifications. And those specifications, in terms of bandwidth, just aren't particularly impressive. Remember that people were already quite disappointed when we were assuming 17GB/s, and now we know that it's 12.8.

 

[JordanN]

Because A) It is technically slower (excluding the unknown edram spec) and B) It's not exactly blazing through current-gen ports with ease. There's certainly no indication that the WiiU's ram is "great".

A) On paper prehaps.
B) Rushed launch titles will do that to you.
C) Again, Wii U is showing games that make extensive use of post processing while remaining in high definition. That doesn't come easy if your system happens to be a PS3 or 360.

Which games are you referring to here?

The Wonderful 101, Nano Assault Neo and Aliens:CM.

Maybe a honorable mention to Nintendoland as well.

 

[Saint Gregory]

What games have higher resolution textures on wii u? My question is honest, I don't know any in the launch (maybe rayman?).

One of the reviews I read (Batman maybe?) did mention higher resolution textures but it certainly didn't say anything about improved framerates or 720P.

There are several games out that I haven't heard any impressions of at all like Sonic Racing though.

That game also has some of the worst loading times in any game that I've played since the PSX era. On top of that, the Wii U's dashboard/browser makes me feel like I am on dialup on a Pentium 1 or something.

I agree about the OS but it's weird that you're having problems with the browser. That was one aspect of the system that impressed the hell out of me. It's the best non-PC browser I've ever used without a doubt.

 

[Nostremitus]

Does THQ own 4A? The CTO talking about hardware is now PR spin?

No, but THQ, being the publisher would be funding the port. And yes, anytime a higher level executive speaks publicly you can bet the PR department had some say in the verbage.

It's also easy to shoot the messenger when you don't like what they're saying.

It has nothing to do with shooting a messenger or lauding one, you just have to take the entire comment into consideration instead of copying the part you like and running with it.

It's really not a matter of liking or disliking a comment, it's a matter of reading the entire comment instead of one part out of context.

 

[Mastperf]

A) On paper prehaps.
B) Rushed launch titles will do that you
C) Again, Wii U is showing games that make extensive use of post processing while remaining in high definition. That doesn't come easy if your system happens to be a PS3 or 360.

Compared to what? The best on WiiU is still behind the best on PS360. There are plenty of games on both 360 and PS3 that manage 720 with loads of effects. The exclusive WiiU games so far really aren't that technically impressive. Retro should change that, but we're in the here and now.

The Wonderful 101, Nano Assault Neo and Aliens:CM.

Maybe a honorable mention to Nintendoland as well.

None of those( except possibly Aliens) really compare to the top-tier games of current-gen consoles. Aliens is also a big unknown at this point.

 

[Durante]

The Wonderful 101, Nano Assault Neo and Aliens:CM.

So, games which are not yet out and have no other versions to compare to.

 

[dumbo]

I don't know if it's the system's ram, or the processor, but I've had a handful of system freezes near the end of ZombiU and it's reproducible. It always happens when

Spoiler

you let Zombies keep pouring in at the "escape the safe house" sequence. The corpses keep piling up, and the undead keep on spawning.

After about five minutes of that, the system will freeze 100% of the time.

For a coder, that's a CPU problem.
For a hardware designer, that's a coding error.

Seriouslly, in all likelihood that could be fixed with a patch. (the game is probably not garbage collecting assets/AI scripts/whatever properly)

That game also has some of the worst loading times in any game that I've played since the PSX era. On top of that, the Wii U's dashboard/browser makes me feel like I am on dialup on a Pentium 1 or something.

The dashboard/browser should also be patchable, although it's a bit baffling that it was released in that state.

 

[Saint Gregory]

Compared to what? The best on WiiU is still behind the best on PS360. There are plenty of games on both 360 and PS3 that manage 720 with loads of effects. The exclusive WiiU games so far really aren't that technically impressive. Retro should change that, but we're in the here and now.

IDK, although it's a downloadable game Nano Assualt looks and plays pretty incredibly. It's hard to say that it's doing anything the the PS360 couldn't but it's doing it so flawlessly in such a tiny package that it's hard not to be impressed by it.

But after their DS games I'm faily convinced that Shin'en makes their games using dark magic or something so they probably shouldn't be counted

 

[JordanN]

So, games which are not yet out and have no other versions to compare to.

Nano Assault is out and The Wonderful 101 already has videos to prove it.

Compared to what? The best on WiiU is still behind the best on PS360. There are plenty of games on both 360 and PS3 that manage 720 with loads of effects. The exclusive WiiU games so far really aren't that technically impressive. Retro should change that, but we're in the here and now.

The only game I can think of GOWIII but it appears to make sacrifices elsewhere (i.e textures).

Edit: Ignore the fps comment.

 

[lherre]

The Wonderful 101, Nano Assault Neo and Aliens:CM.

Maybe a honorable mention to Nintendoland as well.

Based on? (the first 3 ones) They aren't out if i'm not mistaken. Doubt about neo.

 

[Lord Error]

IDK, although it's a downloadable game Nano Assualt looks and plays pretty incredibly. It's hard to say that it's doing anything the the PS360 couldn't but it's doing it so flawlessly in such a tiny package that it's hard not to be impressed by it.

It looks cool, but nowhere as impressive looking at similar concepted SSDHD, which not just looks better and much busier, but runs in 1920x1080 at rock solid 60FPS (as opposed to 720p in NanoAssault).

The only game I can think of GOWIII but that runs at 45fps and appears to make sacrifices elsewhere (i.e textures).

GoW3 runs in high 40s, more like 50 on average if I remember correctly, and also has perhaps the best AA implementation of any console game. There's plenty of 30FPS games that push tons of effects, but I'm not sure if you're trying to find only those that are 60FPS.

 

[lherre]

The only game I can think of GOWIII but that runs at 45fps and appears to make sacrifices elsewhere (i.e textures).

Gow3 is way more complex than any of the above ...