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[oversitting]

40nm has about 6.2 million transistors per mm^2 from AMD.
If the Wii U's gpu is 156mm^2 with gpu + EDRAM and maybe additional IO.

http://www.realworldtech.com/iedm-2010/3/
says on 32nm EDRAM is >11Mbit/mm2, so we can assume it will about 1MB/mm2(8Mb/mm^2) on 40nm.

so ~32mm^2 will be used by the EDRAM.
this leaves 124mm^2 for the GPU and w/e else is there.

124*6.2= 768M transistors.
5670 with 627M transistors with 400SP. 4770 with 826M transistors has 640SP. 6670 with 716M transistors has 480SP.

So 400SP would be reasonable considering there would likely be some logic that goes with the EDRAM and some other IO and such.

400SP @ 550Mhz = 420 GFLOPs. Best case would be 480 SP = 500GFLOPs.

 

[MDX]

40nm has about 6.2 million transistors per mm^2 from AMD.
If the Wii U's gpu is 156mm^2 with gpu + EDRAM and maybe additional IO.

http://www.realworldtech.com/iedm-2010/3/
says on 32nm EDRAM is >11Mbit/mm2, so we can assume it will about 1MB/mm2(8Mb/mm^2) on 40nm.

Cell size is 0.06-square micron meters for NEC/Renesas eDRAM

Pretty sure IBM's eDRAM is only for the CPU.

 

[oversitting]

Cell size is 0.06-square micron meters for NEC/Renesas eDRAM

Pretty sure IBM's eDRAM is only for the CPU.

I was under the assumption the size of the eDRAM would be the same and would not depend on application. I still stand by about the estimates. I have no idea how dense Renesas packs their eDRAM.

 

[ikioi]

It has a 70 watt power brick and it draws 33 watts. That's fairly typical for systems to draw about half what their power supply can (with a 250 watt power brick the Falcon 360 drew 120 watts for instance, similar with the PS3).

IMHO that is not a far comparison.

PSU efficiency has dramatically improved in the past few years. These days even cheap quality power supplies tend to be able to achieve 80% efficiency. I would not be surprised if the Wii U's PSU was also around the 80% mark, giving it a potential 24/7 max of around 60 watts. I doubt very much the next Xbox and Playstation will have PSUs rated at near double the actual consumed wattage.

The more efficient the power consumption means less draw at the wall, less heat generated by the power supply, and has a few benifits for the console's silicon, vrms, etc.

That said its also just as plausable that Nintendo went as cheap as possible and chose the lowest cost power supply for the Wii U irrespective of its output capabilities. I'd say this is the reality.

I really have to wonder wtf Nintendo were thinking when they built this archaric console

 

[ozfunghi]

400SP @ 550Mhz = 420 GFLOPs. Best case would be 480 SP = 500GFLOPs.

400*2*550/1000=>440
480*2*550/1000=>528

?

 

[Chronos24]

The entire system is 32W under load, so you're aiming a little high there.

Not that it's an entirely accurate comparison anyway.

Not necessarily under "load". The games out aren't exactly pushing the system yet. I would say the system over time will be pushing 45 watts with more demanding games. I remember iwata or someone saying that max it hits 75? Watts but doubtful.

 

[NBtoaster]

Sorry for the double post, but I had to get this off my chest.

After browsing the "games known for their visuals" someone reminded me of the conduit for Wii. For those that don't know, The Conduit was suppose to be a game promising Xbox 360 graphics on the Wii. They even made a video showcasing what their engine could do.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tovnipDToc

It obviously never matched the 360 1:1 but it was an impressive effort given the API they had to work with.

Now imagine if a developer went through the same effort for Wii U, trying to bring PS4/720 visuals to the console. It's unlikely to be 1:1 but with 3 multicore OOE processors, 1GB of RAM and a 2012 GPU, the difference between Wii U and PS4/720 should be far negligible this time.

It never came close to getting 360 quality visuals. Most of the techniques in that video were possible on the Xbox.

If anyone tries this time they need competent artists. Conduit had impressive tech for Wii but it was used it an incredibly ugly way.

 

[oversitting]

400*2*550/1000=>440
480*2*550/1000=>528

?

Hmm idk how I even got those numbers earlier lol. your numbers are right mine are wrong.

 

[Chronos24]

Hi guys, simple question abort the Wii U gamepad.

Is it possible for game developers to make the screen refresh like 1 frame per second or at the lowest possible to free up more power for the graphics?

I remember reading that the Crysis developers were saying they could achieve 1080p and 30fps? With gamepad turned off but didn't have that option. Surely nintendo would free some stuff up for developers.

 

[ugoo18]

It never came close to getting 360 quality visuals. Most of the techniques in that video were possible on the Xbox.

If anyone tries this time they need competent artists. Conduit had impressive tech for Wii but it was used it an incredibly ugly way.

I actually wonder what the game could have looked like with a better artstyle,

Red Steel 2's artstyle for example.

 

[JordanN]

It never came close to getting 360 quality visuals. Most of the techniques in that video were possible on the Xbox.

If anyone tries this time they need competent artists. Conduit had impressive tech for Wii but it was used it an incredibly ugly way.

You could say the same about Xbox 360 as both consoles relied on their pixel/vertex shaders to do what they do (which the engine was trying to simulate).

Again, not saying it was Xbox 360 quality, only that it was trying to imitate it and it did with some success (bump maps in place of normals, advance alpha blending effects, etc) .

 

[Spongebob]

You could say the same about Xbox 360 as both consoles relied on their pixel/vertex shaders to do what they do (which the engine was trying to simulate).

Again, not saying it was Xbox 360 quality, only that it was trying to imitate it and it did with some success (bump maps in place of normals, advance alpha blending effects, etc) .

Nope, it looks light years worse.

 

[JordanN]

either way my hope has been the same. will there be a third party developer(dont care if small team or not) that attempts to push the Wii U from a graphical perspective? like i think Nintendo should buy HVS and give them a shot and see what they can do with some actual money behind them. its going to be interesting to see if anyone wants to push a Nintendo branded system.

Where have you been since the NES? Plenty of third partys have pushed their hardware to this day.

Factor 5
Squenix
Shinen
Namco-Bandai
Capcom
Tecmo-Koei
Konami
EA
Swingin' Ape Studios
Ubisoft
Étranges Libellules
Vicarious Visions

etc

 

[Zoramon089]

40nm has about 6.2 million transistors per mm^2 from AMD.
If the Wii U's gpu is 156mm^2 with gpu + EDRAM and maybe additional IO.

http://www.realworldtech.com/iedm-2010/3/
says on 32nm EDRAM is >11Mbit/mm2, so we can assume it will about 1MB/mm2(8Mb/mm^2) on 40nm.

so ~32mm^2 will be used by the EDRAM.
this leaves 124mm^2 for the GPU and w/e else is there.

124*6.2= 768M transistors.
5670 with 627M transistors with 400SP. 4770 with 826M transistors has 640SP. 6670 with 716M transistors has 480SP.

So 400SP would be reasonable considering there would likely be some logic that goes with the EDRAM and some other IO and such.

400SP @ 550Mhz = 420 GFLOPs. Best case would be 480 SP = 500GFLOPs.

That's quite the leap...not to mention where did you get the 5670 from? I've heard rumors of a 6670 and 4770 base but haven't seen anything for that one

 

[MDX]

So 400SP would be reasonable considering there would likely be some logic that goes with the EDRAM and some other IO and such.

I was under the assumption the size of the eDRAM would be the same and would not depend on application. I still stand by about the estimates. I have no idea how dense Renesas packs their eDRAM.

But are you assuming the eDRAM is on or in the LSI or next to it on the substrate?

 

[Moral Panic]

IMHO that is not a far comparison.

PSU efficiency has dramatically improved in the past few years. These days even cheap quality power supplies tend to be able to achieve 80% efficiency. I would not be surprised if the Wii U's PSU was also around the 80% mark, giving it a potential 24/7 max of around 60 watts. I doubt very much the next Xbox and Playstation will have PSUs rated at near double the actual consumed wattage.

That's a common misconception. A 100% efficient 70W PSU delivers 70W of power. A 80% efficient 70W PSU also delivers 70W of power only that it must draw 87.5W from the wall. For a good PSU it's efficiency affects it's power bill not it's output.

 

[Refreshment.01]

There i saw you trying to make an honest to good thread for Wii U tech discussion and like always it turns into yet another Wii U OT with BS raining everywhere.

Time to start ver. 2.0 and have someone assisting to level the comments.

 

[Nostremitus]

nevermind

 

[sketchsanchez]

There i saw you trying to make an honest to good thread for Wii U tech discussion and like always it turns into yet another Wii U OT with BS raining everywhere.

Time to start ver. 2.0 and have someone assisting to level the comments.

What are you talking about? This thread has been awesome.

Sure there has been som FUUD here and there but its usually reigned in eventually.

 

[Kenka]

Can anyone compare what we know about the WiiU with what we heard of VGLeaks about Durango and Orbis ? It seems the power gap won't be insurmountable but who am I to talk...

 

[ozfunghi]

Can anyone compare what we know about the WiiU with what we heard of VGLeaks about Durango and Orbis ? It seems the power gap won't be insurmountable but who am I to talk...

Some opinions about that in the last six or so pages. We still know too little, but architecture seems to be based on similar principles as Durango. Now the question remains how the real-life performance of the WiiU memory solution compares, and what GPU is exactly under the hood. I doubt CPU will make or break the possibilty of "some" downports.

lherre is a dev, who doesn't seem to be as accurate as his tag suggests, but he seems to think the gap between WiiU and Durango is larger than that between xbox and Dreamcast. That seems to be kind of harsh, but he's the one with inside info, not me, so...

 

[Spongebob]

Can anyone compare what we know about the WiiU with what we heard of VGLeaks about Durango and Orbis ? It seems the power gap won't be insurmountable but who am I to talk...

Durango will be weak, nothing more than a cable box/tv tuner/kinect box. Though it will probably be difficult to port games over due to large difference in available memory (1GB vs 5GB). It also won't help that Durango RAM has much higher bandwith than Wii U's. I think it will be very difficult to scale Durango games to the Wii U because of this and also the difference in CPUs. 8 jaguar cores are still much better than 3 Espresso cores and bkilian has hinted that Durango's cores have been improved from their original design.

Edit: Lol man, because he made an error once which he forgot to correct you doubt him now? Stop trying to look for ways to make the Wii U look better.

 

[pixlexic]

Can anyone compare what we know about the WiiU with what we heard of VGLeaks about Durango and Orbis ? It seems the power gap won't be insurmountable but who am I to talk...

The cpus are similar in architecture which surprised me. and the gpus as well.

The thing people are not understanding is that even with the durango you can not just take a game made for the 360s cpu architecture which runs a main core at well above 2 ghz at a given time with multiple threads in that core and translate that easily to a cpu the has more than one core running one thread wide open at 1.6 ghz.

The new architecture is much better for making games because what ever you break off to other cores never affects the bandwidth and speed of your main core running your main game thread.



Just throwing out a guess i would say the durnago is to the xbox as the wii u is the Dreamcast. There will be a difference but not a 360 to wii difference.

 

[Kenka]

Durango will be weak, nothing more than a cable box/tv tuner/kinect box. Though it will probably be difficult to port games over due to large difference in available memory (1GB vs 5GB). It also won't help that Durango RAM has much higher bandwith than Wii U's. I think it will be very difficult to scale Durango games to the Wii U because of this and also the difference in CPUs. 8 jaguar cores are still much better than 3 Espresso cores and bkilian has hinted that Durango's cores have been improved from their original design.

Edit: Lol man, because he made an error once which he forgot to correct you doubt him now? Stop trying to look for ways to make the Wii U look better.

What, pardon me. What is WiiU if the Durango is "weak". You are implying that all the resources of the console will go into Kinect image-processing while the games will be streamed from a server ?

The cpus are similar in architecture which surprised me. and the gpus as well.

The new architecture is much better for making games because what ever you break off to other cores never affects the bandwidth and speed of your main core running your main game thread.

Just throwing out a guess i would say the durnago is to the xbox as the wii u is the Dreamcast. There will be a difference but not a 360 to wii difference.

The first bolded part means better physics/AI ? The second one is actually encouraging, it would mean philosophies in game development won't need to be different at core. All I would need is to have all games under one hat, for financial sake of course.

 

[tipoo]

IMHO that is not a far comparison.

PSU efficiency has dramatically improved in the past few years. These days even cheap quality power supplies tend to be able to achieve 80% efficiency. I would not be surprised if the Wii U's PSU was also around the 80% mark, giving it a potential 24/7 max of around 60 watts. I doubt very much the next Xbox and Playstation will have PSUs rated at near double the actual

And the 360 slim and PS3 super slim? If you give the Wii U power supply the benefit of the doubt you have to do it universally, and those systems are still drawing far less than their rated power. It's a normal phenomenon.And they do have to overprovision, remember capacitors age so a 500 watt power supply may only be able to supply 480 in two years, etc. So for a console to live a long life the power supply has to overprovision.

That said its also just as plausable that Nintendo went as cheap as possible and chose the lowest cost power supply for the Wii U irrespective of its output capabilities. I'd say this is the reality.

Possible, if they skimped on other things I can't imagine them dishing out cash for a great power supply. I mean, just look at the size of the thing, for a mere 70 watts, when laptop power adaptors the size of a deck of cards can deliver that much.

Can anyone compare what we know about the WiiU with what we heard of VGLeaks about Durango and Orbis ? It seems the power gap won't be insurmountable but who am I to talk...

Well, I have no idea what the IPC of a modernized PowerPC 750 design would be like in comparison to a modern AMD Jaguar core design, but I very much doubt even a large advantage could overcome having so many more cores and higher clocked cores. The Durango rumor is saying 8 modified AMD Jaguar cores at 1.6GHz, and some are saying the same thing for the PS4 or alternatively half the cores at twice the speed. The Wii U has three cores at 1.2Ghz. So it seems like the CPU gap will be pretty huge, even if the Wii U CPU is somehow head over heels more efficient than the AMD/Durango/Orbis one.

We still know too little about the Wii U GPU.

And of course 8GB RAM with 3 used for OS is better than 2 and 1 for OS. The Xbox supposedly also has embedded RAM to speed things up, of an even faster variety (eSRAM), as well as the main DDR memory being clocked higher.

So I would not hazard a guess at raw x is y times faster than z numbers, but the difference seems substantial. Very substantial.

 

[blu]

Durango will be weak, nothing more than a cable box/tv tuner/kinect box. Though it will probably be difficult to port games over due to large difference in available memory (1GB vs 5GB). It also won't help that Durango RAM has much higher bandwith than Wii U's. I think it will be very difficult to scale Durango games to the Wii U because of this and also the difference in CPUs. 8 jaguar cores are still much better than 3 Espresso cores and bkilian has hinted that Durango's cores have been improved from their original design.

Edit: Lol man, because he made an error once which he forgot to correct you doubt him now? Stop trying to look for ways to make the Wii U look better.

Posts like the above are not welcome in this thread. Opinions of the sort of 'console x = toaster', whether that's WiiU, Durango or Ouya, add nothing but emotions to this thread, which, low and behold, is not about emotions. Durango is what it is, WiiU is what it is. If you want to compare individual components or aspects we know sufficiently about - go ahead. If you want to make 'macro' comparisons between the two - make sure you know what you're talking about. Thank you.

 

[Earendil]

Well, this thread went to hell in a hand basket. I liked it better when we were actually discussing the hardware by itself and not making comparisons to unannounced platforms.

 

[tipoo]

Well, this thread went to hell in a hand basket. I liked it better when we were actually discussing the hardware by itself and not making comparisons to unannounced platforms.

It would help if there was an iota of new news on the U hardware...

 

[Spongebob]

Posts like the above are not welcome in this thread. Opinions of the sort of 'console x = toaster', whether that's WiiU, Durango or Ouya, add nothing but emotions to this thread, which, low and behold, is not about emotions. Durango is what it is, WiiU is what it is. If you want to compare individual components or aspects we know sufficiently about - go ahead. If you want to make 'macro' comparisons between the two - make sure you know what you're talking about. Thank you.

Didn't know sorry.

 

[pixlexic]

I think the durango specs help a lot n this. It kind sparks that " Hey maybe hardware is a lot different for these new consoles compared to the last set of consoles/pcs than I was thinking?"

Clock speed for both cpu and gpu doesn't mean what it use to mean.

 

[lwilliams3]

I think the durango specs help a lot n this. It kind sparks that " Hey maybe hardware is a lot different for these new consoles compared to the last set of consoles/pcs than I was thinking?"

Clock speed for both cpu and gpu doesn't mean what it use to mean.

If we look at pure numbers, I was a bit suprised on the architectural similiarities, and the multiples between the Wii U and the Durango were lower than I figured. Aside from CPU/GPU clock speeds, we have these:

Wii U vs Durango
Memory: 2GB of DDR3 RAM @ ~12.6GB/sec and 32MB eDAM at unknown speed. 3MB total L2 cache.
VS
8GB DDR3 RAM @ ~68 GB/sec and 32MB eDRAM @ 102 GB/sec. 4MB total L2 cache.

Disc Speed: 5x Blu-ray vs 6x Blu-ray

GPU specifics: 360-640sp for 0.36-0.54 TFLOPS vs 720sp for 1.2TFLOP/sec

The biggest difference is the memory speed for the main RAM, though the eDRAM in the Wii U could be clocked higher than the ESRAM in Durango (half the speed of the eDRAM in 360 IIRC).

Durango is still alot stronger, but the specs numbers on paper IMO reminds me of differences between dreamcast/PS2 vs Xbox than a full generational gap.

Edit: It is funny that we are missing more numbers for the Wii U than Durango if this info is correct.

 

[OG_Original Gamer]

Idea man comments about a next gen game once thought not possible on the WiiU is now not only possible but may be in development for the WiiU.

 

[oversitting]

If we look at pure numbers, I was a bit suprised on the architectural similiarities, and the multiples between the Wii U and the Durango were lower than I figured. Aside from CPU/GPU clock speeds, we have these:

Wii U vs Durango
Memory: 2GB of DDR3 RAM @ ~12.6GB/sec and 32MB eDAM at unknown speed. 3MB total L2 cache.
VS
8GB DDR3 RAM @ ~68 GB/sec and 32MB eDRAM @ 102 GB/sec. 4MB total L2 cache.

Disc Speed: 5x Blu-ray vs 6x Blu-ray

GPU specifics: 360-640sp for 0.36-0.54 TFLOPS vs 720sp for 1.2TFLOP/sec

The biggest difference is the memory speed for the main RAM, though the eDRAM in the Wii U could be clocked higher than the ESRAM in Durango (half the speed of the eDRAM in 360 IIRC).

Durango is still alot stronger, but the specs numbers on paper IMO reminds me of differences between dreamcast/PS2 vs Xbox than a full generational gap.

Edit: It is funny that we are missing more numbers for the Wii U than Durango if this info is correct.

The hardest part to make up for with a Wii u port will be the ram and the CPU. 8 core jaguar should still be many times stronger than the small cpu inside the Wii u. I don't know about the the absolute details but if the Wii U's cpu is weaker than the 360, then the performance difference maybe more than 4x.

The GPU can be scaled down, durango will be trying to push 1080p maybe 60fps, Wii u should be able to do 30fps 720p with some scaled down physics and geometry easily enough.

 

[oversitting]

That's quite the leap...not to mention where did you get the 5670 from? I've heard rumors of a 6670 and 4770 base but haven't seen anything for that one

The 5670 is the best candidate for the die area and power consumption that is close enough to the Wii-u. Likely the Wii-u GPU will be modified and might not be even close to what a 5670 is but the size gives a good estimate on the number of shaders were are likely to have.

 

[wsippel]

The hardest part to make up for with a Wii u port will be the ram and the CPU. 8 core jaguar should still be many times stronger than the small cpu inside the Wii u. I don't know about the the absolute details but if the Wii U's cpu is weaker than the 360, then the performance difference maybe more than 4x.

The GPU can be scaled down, durango will be trying to push 1080p maybe 60fps, Wii u should be able to do 30fps 720p with some scaled down physics and geometry easily enough.

Jaguar is only 3.1mm^2 at 28nm. It's a netbook and tablet core.

 

[oversitting]

Jaguar is only 3.1mm^2 at 28nm. It's a netbook and tablet core.

There is 8 of them as well as they being built on 28nm. The cores inside the Wii-u are probably just as small at 45nm.

Also if the wii-u cpu is based on the ibm 750, that architecture is 15 years old. Jaguar is almost completely new abide it does draw from the same design as bobcat. The speed that technology advanced in those years, its likely the wii-u is missing a lot of cpu.

 

[Thraktor]

A couple of thoughts on Wii U with respect to the new Durango info:

Nintendo seem to have missed out on near-parity with Orbis and Durango by less than I would have expected. I think RAM will be the main determining factor when it comes to ports, and 4GB of DDR3 on a 128bit bus at ~1.2GHz (i.e. ~30GB/s) would have gone a long way without costing much. Of course, when Wii U specs were finalised, Sony were still apparently planning on 2GB for PS4, so perhaps it would have been a bit much to expect Nintendo to pre-empt the RAM escalation between MS and Sony.

The decision to give one Espresso core 2MB of L2 cache is still very odd.

 

[wsippel]

There is 8 of them as well as they being built on 28nm. The cores inside the Wii-u are probably just as small at 45nm.

Also if the wii-u cpu is based on the ibm 750, that architecture is 15 years old. Jaguar is almost completely new abide it does draw from the same design as bobcat. The speed that technology advanced in those years, its likely the wii-u is missing a lot of cpu.

Espresso is a new processor, developed in 2011. People keep repeating that it's just three Broadways bolted together, but that's bullshit - it's not even possible to do that as no PPC750 ever supported SMP. The architecture is old, but so is x86.

Also, Espresso contains three cores and is 32.76mm^2. Granted, that's including cache, but IBM uses eDRAM which offers roughly three times the density compared to traditional SRAM.

 

[Durante]

The hardest part to make up for with a Wii u port will be the ram and the CPU. 8 core jaguar should still be many times stronger than the small cpu inside the Wii u. I don't know about the the absolute details but if the Wii U's cpu is weaker than the 360, then the performance difference maybe more than 4x.

It depends on what you are looking at, but in some metrics the CPU performance difference could be >7x.

 

[Hattori]

A couple of thoughts on Wii U with respect to the new Durango info:

Nintendo seem to have missed out on near-parity with Orbis and Durango by less than I would have expected. I think RAM will be the main determining factor when it comes to ports, and 4GB of DDR3 on a 128bit bus at ~1.2GHz (i.e. ~30GB/s) would have gone a long way without costing much. Of course, when Wii U specs were finalised, Sony were still apparently planning on 2GB for PS4, so perhaps it would have been a bit much to expect Nintendo to pre-empt the RAM escalation between MS and Sony.

The decision to give one Espresso core 2MB of L2 cache is still very odd.

So Wii U is close enough to get downports? (sorry for n00b question)

 

[oversitting]

Espresso is a new processor, developed in 2011. People keep repeating that it's just three Broadways bolted together, but that's bullshit - it's not even possible to do that as no PPC750 ever supported SMP. The architecture is old, but so is x86.

Also, Espresso contains three cores and is 32.76mm^2. Granted, that's including cache, but IBM uses eDRAM which offers roughly three times the density compared to traditional SRAM.

I thought eDRAM is only on the L3 and the 3MB of L2 is SRAM. 3MB of L2 is substantial, this isn't even counting the rest of the uncore.

 

[lightchris]

Espresso is a new processor, developed in 2011. People keep repeating that it's just three Broadways bolted together, but that's bullshit - it's not even possible to do that as no PPC750 ever supported SMP.

Imo it's likely that they didn't change much besides adding SMP support. At least up to now nothing hints at that.

Anyway, it's barely debatable that Jaguar's IPC are at least a bit higher. And then we have 8 instead of 3 cores and a 30% higher clock rate which adds up to a factor of 3.5.
I agree with oversitting that the CPU could be crucial when it comes to downports.

 

[oversitting]

So Wii U is close enough to get downports? (sorry for n00b question)

Porting from 720/ps4 to Wii U will be somewhat in between porting from 360 to Wii and porting to the Vita. This assuming devs will be able to compress the texture ect to fit in the small memory space.

 

[Captain Smoker]

So Wii U is close enough to get downports? (sorry for n00b question)

I think it's up to the developer.

Even the Wii got ports like COD, Star Wars, Dead Rising (lol), etc.

I'm no expert, but the Wii U seems closer to PS480 than the Wii back then and their architecture seems to be closer.

And modern game engines support everything from smartphones to high-end-PCs. (better scaling)


Logically, this should lead to more ports, but we know that logic, 3rd parties and nintendo don't always work together.

 

[Thraktor]

Porting from 720/ps4 to Wii U will be somewhat in between porting from 360 to Wii and porting to the Vita. This assuming devs will be able to compress the texture ect to fit in the small memory space.

There's a big difference between 360-Wii ports and 720-Wii U ports. In the former case, there's a huge gulf in functionality, and a huge gulf in power. In the latter, there's a relatively small gulf in functionality, and a moderately large gulf in power. The Wii simply couldn't do things the 360 could do (ie programmable shaders), so games like CoD had to be rebuilt from the ground up for Wii. By contrast, a sufficiently scaleable engine should allow a single game to be cross-developed for Wii U, 720 and PS4.

Of course, the more important numbers when it comes to ports are financial numbers. Fundamentally, if a publisher believes that the revenue gained from porting a game to a platform exceed the costs of porting said game to said platform, then they'll pay for the port. If they don't, they won't.

 

[ozfunghi]

GPU specifics: 360-640sp for 0.36-0.54 TFLOPS vs 720sp for 1.2TFLOP/sec

640 SPU's would give 704 Gflops... but u don't think that's feasable considering the die size.

 

[lwilliams3]

It depends on what you are looking at, but in some metrics the CPU performance difference could be >7x.

If we are talking about the CPU just for gaming, we need to take out the 2 cores that Durango was reported to be using for the OS. Wii U has a multi-core ARM processor for that. So that would be x5.33 just for gaming with your calculations.

BTW, what is the "4" in your formula for?

 

[oversitting]

There's a big difference between 360-Wii ports and 720-Wii U ports. In the former case, there's a huge gulf in functionality, and a huge gulf in power. In the latter, there's a relatively small gulf in functionality, and a moderately large gulf in power. The Wii simply couldn't do things the 360 could do (ie programmable shaders), so games like CoD had to be rebuilt from the ground up for Wii. By contrast, a sufficiently scaleable engine should allow a single game to be cross-developed for Wii U, 720 and PS4.

Of course, the more important numbers when it comes to ports are financial numbers. Fundamentally, if a publisher believes that the revenue gained from porting a game to a platform exceed the costs of porting said game to said platform, then they'll pay for the port. If they don't, they won't.

Which is why I brought up the vita which has a decently powerful gpu inside for what it needs to do. It can almost do what 360/ps3 can but just not quite.

Ps3 didn't have programmable shaders did it?

 

[Durante]

BTW, what is the "4" in your formula for?

Single precision floating point SIMD width for Jaguar (2 for Wii U, with paired singles).

 

[The Abominable Snowman]

If we are talking about the CPU just for gaming, we need to take out the 2 cores that Durango was reported to be using for the OS. Wii U has a multi-core ARM processor for that. So that would be x5.33 just for gaming with your calculations.

BTW, what is the "4" in your formula for?

Where was this confirmed that the ARM did anything for the OS? and that the WiiU multitasks with games?