*Comes out of his hole (again)*
I tend to forget some people take this stuff a lot more serious than I do.
First a thanks to Chipworks for going above and beyond for the picture and to blu, Durante, Fourth Storm, Thraktor, and wsippel for the work they did. Shinjohn let me know that the picture had been obtained and sent me a link, but I also checked out the thread. I wanted to come back and help with the confusion and what not.
As some of you know getting info about the hardware was a pain because what Nintendo released essentially boiled down to a features list. And by that I mean general features of a modern GPU that could easily be looked up. Info that dealt with performance apparently was not given out leaving devs to figure have to figure it out on their own. I had two working ideas of the GPU based on a more traditional design (which I was hoping for) and a non-traditional design. I see that some of you actually remembered the non-traditional idea. Wsippel and I would compare notes on whatever info we could come up with. Some of those notes led us to come up with how it may look if Nintendo took the non-traditional route.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=36485259&postcount=12053
In this post youll see both wsippels take and my take. Im going to address some things in that post because I know some of you will try to take them out of context. First youll see wsippels baseline ended up being more accurate than mine. When I talked about the potential performance of 1TF or more that was in comparison to the R700 series because new GPUs are more efficient than that line, a higher baseline, and my idea focused on the dedicated silicon handling other performance tasks.
So what was the basis for the non-traditional view? I shared two of those bits of info before.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=41883633&postcount=6136
Well, I can't reveal too much. The performance target is still more or less the same as the last review from around E3. Now it's more balanced and "2012" now that it's nearer to complete and now AMD is providing proper stuff. As far as specs, I don't see any big change for better or worse, other than said cost/performance balance tweaks... It won't make a significant difference to the end user. As far as the kit goes, it's almost like what MS went through. Except more Japanese-ish... If you know what I mean.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=41901585&postcount=6305
Anyway, things are shaping up now with the new year. There was some anxiety with some less close third parties about what they were doing with GPU side, whether things were going to be left in the past... but it looks more modern now. You know, there simply wasn't actual U GPU data in third party hands this time last year, just the target range and R700 reference GPU for porting 360 titles to the new cafe control. Maybe now they finally can get to start debugging of the specifics and start showing a difference...
Here is one more specific piece that I didnt fully share.
I can't confirm or deny, sorry. The cat is very confidential and I repeat non-final. The target, last checked, is triple core with XX eDram and exclusive Nintendo instructions. 1080/30 capable Radeon HD w/tess. and exclusive Nintendo patented features. On a nice, tight bus that MS wishes they had on 360.
I appreciate the individual for sharing as much as he did. He was a little paranoid though (I can understand) and at one point thought I was leaking info on a messageboard under a different name, but wouldnt tell me the board or the username, lol.
Im sure some of you remember me talking about games being 720p. Its because with this I knew devs would use those resources for 720p development. Im sure some of you also remember me mentioning the bus. The key thing in this is the
Nintendo patented features. In the context of things we talked about, it seemed to me these were going to be hardwired features. What is certain for now is that the die shot shows a design that is not traditional, fewer ALUs (in number) from where things supposedly started with the first kit, and GPU logic that is unaccounted for. Ive seen some saying fixed functions, but thats too specific to be accurate right now. Dedicated silicon would be a better alternative to use, though I say that as a suggestion.
In my opinion I think lighting is a part of this. The Zelda and Bird demos emphasized this. Also in the past it was discussed how Nintendo likes predictability of performance. It would also suggest Nintendo wasnt ready to embrace a fully programmable GPU and kept on the water wings when jumping in the pool.
I did what I could to get as much info on the hardware as possible since Nintendo was giving out so little. From there I gave the best speculation I could based on that info. As of today, I still stand by the evaluations I made about Wii Us potential performance from all the info I could gather. And until Nintendos games show otherwise Ill continue to stand by them because in the end its on Nintendo show what Wii U is capable of.
And if you think I deserve flak for what Ive said in the past then Im here, but youre wasting your time trying because my view hasnt changed yet.
I made the farewell post to hold myself accountable to avoid posting, but I havent done well sticking to that, haha. I wasnt going to make this post, but since I was one of the primary ones gathering info its unfair to you guys to leave things as they were.