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[69wpm]

Because falling under 60fps is generally more noticeable than
falling under 30fps.

In what parallel universe is that the case?

Anyway, frame-rate dropps in some intense fights a wee bit, not that much to affect your gameplay. The only time it seems to be locked at 25-30 fps is during

Spoiler

Vorken

fights. And that is pretty cool because there are like 200 guys on screen and the lower frame-rate doesn't interfere with the gameplay.

All in all, it's a PG game so visual effects are more important than everything else.

 

[blu]

Not really surprising or very important, but I got confirmation that the connection between Espresso and Latte is, in fact, a modified 60x bus.

You mean hard-confirmed? Because Chipworks hinted at that at one stage, IIRC.

Also, and that seems more interesting and quite a bit weirder, Latte can apparently do hardware PCF (Percentage Closer Filtering). The strange thing about this is that only Nvidia GPUs support that feature as far as I know, which means it's usually implemented using shaders (which is slower, but works on AMD GPUs as well) - or not at all.

You mean support for PCF beyond fetch4 (a texel fetch op where a quad of texels is fetched in a single batch)?

 

[wsippel]

You mean hard-confirmed? Because Chipworks hinted at that at one stage, IIRC.

Yep. Confirmed by the guy who designed and implemented the bus at IBM.

You mean support for PCF beyond fetch4 (a texel fetch op where a quad of texels is fetched in a single batch)?

That's the impression I got, as a fetch4 isn't considered "hardware PCF" as far as I can tell, and why would a Nintendo engineer have to write a demonstration for something any off-the-shelf AMD GPU can do?

 

[w1gglyjones]

Yep. Confirmed by the guy who designed and implemented the bus at IBM.

You're holding out on us...

 

[blu]

Yep. Confirmed by the guy who designed and implemented the bus at IBM.

That's the impression I got, as a fetch4 isn't considered "hardware PCF" as far as I can tell, and why would a Nintendo engineer have to write a demonstration for something any off-the-shelf AMD GPU can do?

Then those are good finds!

 

[ArchangelWest]

Wow. Thread is going in a positive direction again. Thanks for the info wsippel.

 

[OG_Original Gamer]

Yep. Confirmed by the guy who designed and implemented the bus at IBM.


That's the impression I got, as a fetch4 isn't considered "hardware PCF" as far as I can tell, and why would a Nintendo engineer have to write a demonstration for something any off-the-shelf AMD GPU can do?

Hey, hey.....hey, you can't post that and not explain the benefits or are you forcing me to use Google.

 

[Saint Gregory]

Yep. Confirmed by the guy who designed and implemented the bus at IBM.


That's the impression I got, as a fetch4 isn't considered "hardware PCF" as far as I can tell, and why would a Nintendo engineer have to write a demonstration for something any off-the-shelf AMD GPU can do?

I just read up a bit about PCF. Is it possible that this is what WWHD is using to achieve its wonderful image quality?

I asked in one of the other threads what kind of AA was being used in the game because it looked so great but the answer I got back was no AA applied at all. And yet unlike most Wii U games I've played WW looks much better while playing than it does in videos and screens.

 

[Smurfman256]

Have there really been slowdowns in W101? I keep hearing this but no conformation.

Yes, there is some slowdown, but it only drops into about the 40's and it's infrequent.

 

[fred]

Have there really been slowdowns in W101? I keep hearing this but no conformation.

A great deal of people are confusing framerate drops by design and performance framerate drops. The latter happens very rarely, the former happens whenever you Unite Morph.

Bayonetta 2 has shown us that the Wii U hardware has no problems at all producing great quality IQ locked at 60fps.

 

[ArchangelWest]

I just read up a bit about PCF. Is it possible that this is what WWHD is using to achieve its wonderful image quality?

I asked in one of the other threads what kind of AA was being used in the game because it looked so great but the answer I got back was no AA applied at all. And yet unlike most Wii U games I've played WW looks much better while playing than it does in videos and screens.

Makes a lot of sense, because several Wii U games look absolutely smooth while in motion, but jagged as hell in screen shots. Makes sense because jaggies should only matter to us while actually playing.

 

[Smurfman256]

I just read up a bit about PCF. Is it possible that this is what WWHD is using to achieve its wonderful image quality?

I asked in one of the other threads what kind of AA was being used in the game because it looked so great but the answer I got back was no AA applied at all. And yet unlike most Wii U games I've played WW looks much better while playing than it does in videos and screens.

I was actually wondering why the edges on the jaggies on the shadows in Wind Waker look like they were rounded off. Could PCF do that?...actually, come to think of it, almost ALL of the 3D games that I've played on Wii U do that to the shadows. Maybe it's a feature implemented by default?

 

[Argyle]

I just read up a bit about PCF. Is it possible that this is what WWHD is using to achieve its wonderful image quality?

I asked in one of the other threads what kind of AA was being used in the game because it looked so great but the answer I got back was no AA applied at all. And yet unlike most Wii U games I've played WW looks much better while playing than it does in videos and screens.

Makes a lot of sense, because several Wii U games look absolutely smooth while in motion, but jagged as hell in screen shots. Makes sense because jaggies should only matter to us while actually playing.

IIRC PCF is usually used when sampling shadow maps to try to feather the edges of shadows for softer shadows. It doesn't have anything to do with anti aliasing in the general case.

 

[OG_Original Gamer]

What's the deal with 60x bus, is that the controller that gives Espresso access to the eDRAM on Latte?

 

[Saint Gregory]

IIRC PCF is usually used when sampling shadow maps to try to feather the edges of shadows for softer shadows. It doesn't have anything to do with anti aliasing in the general case.

OK thanks. And oddly shadows are one of the few rough aspects of WW. They don't look bad but just not as good as other surfaces which make them stand out.

Shadows on vertical surfaces, self shadows and the shadows that fall on Link and NPCs tend to look fantastic, almost like they're baked on when they're not. Shadows cast onto the ground from objects however look a mess. I'd really like to read up on what kind of rendering techniques are being used in WWHD because there's some really impressive aspects of the game's presentation.

 

[MDX]

IIRC PCF is usually used when sampling shadow maps to try to feather the edges of shadows for softer shadows. It doesn't have anything to do with anti aliasing in the general case.

Interesting...

As you can see there is marked difference on the edges between the standard point sampling and the 1-tap PCF. The 1-tap refers to how many post-filtering sampling operations we perform. For example, a single sample operation on a texture is a single “tap” irrespective of whether we are using point, bilinear or anisotropic sampling.

 

[Smurfman256]

Am I the only one who gets pissed off when review websites say that Wind Waker HD is running at 60FPS? I KNOW IT RUNS 30! I PLAYED IT IN PERSON, I PANNED THE CAMERA, THERE WAS 30Hz FLICKER!!! WHY DO WEBSITES KEEP SAYING THAT IT'S 60?!

 

[fred]

Am I the only one who gets pissed off when review websites say that Wind Waker HD is running at 60FPS? I KNOW IT RUNS 30! I PLAYED IT IN PERSON, I PANNED THE CAMERA, THERE WAS 30Hz FLICKER!!! WHY DO WEBSITES KEEP SAYING THAT IT'S 60?!

Because the vast majority of reviewers are clueless unfortunately.

I often wonder how these people get their jobs tbh. A good few of them are useless at playing games too.

 

[MrPresident]

FWIW, AMD's HD4600 page states PCF support under its texture filtering capabilities. I could be misremembering about ATi licensing PCF but I do remember being surprised at seeing the effect in some game a few years ago when I got myself a new Radeon card.

I think it's been supported since AMD's DX10 cards.

Edit: Apparently they do

 

[Saint Gregory]

Am I the only one who gets pissed off when review websites say that Wind Waker HD is running at 60FPS? I KNOW IT RUNS 30! I PLAYED IT IN PERSON, I PANNED THE CAMERA, THERE WAS 30Hz FLICKER!!! WHY DO WEBSITES KEEP SAYING THAT IT'S 60?!

Because the vast majority of reviewers are clueless unfortunately.

I often wonder how these people get their jobs tbh. A good few of them are useless at playing games too.

It runs so smoothly that it's understandable why some reviewers are confused. usually when a game is marketed as 30fps it's really running in the high 20s whereas WWHD is actually locked at 30fps most of the time. When it drops below that it's really noticeable although I have to admit that it does look kind of cinematic running lower than 30.

Check out the area in the second dungeon where all the spiked vines pop out of the ground for an example. It's the only really significant drop that I've noticed so far. A lot of what I'm hearing described as drops sound like the deliberate pause effect Nintendo placed into some of the combat animations.

 

[plank]

A great deal of people are confusing framerate drops by design and performance framerate drops. The latter happens very rarely, the former happens whenever you Unite Morph.

Bayonetta 2 has shown us that the Wii U hardware has no problems at all producing great quality IQ locked at 60fps.

Ah I see so I guess that's why some people were referencing it to WWHD as well.

 

[Smurfman256]

It runs so smoothly that it's understandable why some reviewers are confused. usually when a game is marketed as 30fps it's really running in the high 20s whereas WWHD is actually locked at 30fps most of the time. When it drops below that it's really noticeable although I have to admit that it does look kind of cinematic running lower than 30.

Check out the area in the second dungeon where all the spiked vines pop out of the ground for an example. It's the only really significant drop that I've noticed so far. A lot of what I'm hearing described as drops sound like the deliberate pause effect Nintendo placed into some of the combat animations.

Someone hasn't gone back to the Forsaken Fortress yet, have they? I got to the door with 5 or 6 cannons shooting at me and my framerate tanked to about 18-ish.

Also, that samurai pause was intentional? I had always thought that the framerate died whenever I did that, but Nintendo kept it in because it made you feel like a samurai and his blade slowing down in flesh.

 

[blu]

FWIW, AMD's HD4600 page states PCF support under its texture filtering capabilities. I could be misremembering about ATi licensing PCF but I do remember being surprised at seeing the effect in some game a few years ago when I got myself a new Radeon card.

I think it's been supported since AMD's DX10 cards.

Edit: Apparently they do

You missed this, I guess.

 

[Ganondolf]

Someone hasn't gone back to the Forsaken Fortress yet, have they? I got to the door with 5 or 6 cannons shooting at me and my framerate tanked to about 18-ish.

is this because the game engine cant cope? are all the frame drops in the same place as the gamecube version

 

[MrPresident]

I was actually wondering why the edges on the jaggies on the shadows in Wind Waker look like they were rounded off. Could PCF do that?...actually, come to think of it, almost ALL of the 3D games that I've played on Wii U do that to the shadows. Maybe it's a feature implemented by default?

I think PCF only applies to shadow maps. The original Wind Waker used stencil shadows and I think Wind Waker HD does the same.

 

[MrPresident]

You missed this, I guess.

I didn't, actually. That B3D poster states that it's being done without using Fetch4, in any case.

Edit: No, wait, I just misread your post. I thought it suggested Latte didn't support PCF.

 

[equippedwithtowel]

is this because the game engine cant cope? are all the frame drops in the same place as the gamecube version

I'd assume, especially since they probably bolted on the new elements to the old engine.

 

[Smurfman256]

I think PCF only applies to shadow maps. The original Wind Waker used stencil shadows and I think Wind Waker HD does the same.

STENCIL SHADOWS?! ...never mind. I was going to ask how the GameCube could handle Stencil Shadowing but the Xbox could barely do it in Doom 3. Also, I thought that stencil shadows were as smooth as your monitor's resolution, but whenever I look at a shadow in WWHD, I see jaggies like it's a 512x512 or 768x768 shadow map.

 

[Saint Gregory]

Someone hasn't gone back to the Forsaken Fortress yet, have they? I got to the door with 5 or 6 cannons shooting at me and my framerate tanked to about 18-ish.

Also, that samurai pause was intentional? I had always thought that the framerate died whenever I did that, but Nintendo kept it in because it made you feel like a samurai and his blade slowing down in flesh.

Nope, I just finished the tower. The smoke effect seems to wreak havoc on the game engine though, it's the same reason for the drop in the vine room. The pause whenever you land a killing blow is intentional but the stutter when you hit multiple enemies with it at once and the game is trying to load the smoke animations separately isn't.

 

[wsippel]

You missed this, I guess.

Or maybe I missed something and AMD did in fact implement the feature in later GPUs - seems to be the case unless they only do it in the drivers or something (the most recent statement claiming AMD GPUs didn't support hardware PCF I've seen was from 2009 IIRC). According to GPU Gems and an old article on Beyond3D, the difference is that fetch4 only returns texels, the actual interpolation has to be done in a shader and therefore requires additional GPU cycles, whereas Nvidia's implementation does the whole math in hardware and returns interpolated values.

 

[AzaK]

So, 60x bus means what in the scheme of things?

Also, with PCF in hardware does this give us an idea for the base level of Latte? i.e the whole R700 stuff.

 

[wsippel]

So, 60x bus means what in the scheme of things?

Also, with PCF in hardware does this give us an idea for the base level of Latte? i.e the whole R700 stuff.

Neither finding means much. The bus is pretty irrelevant, it's just something we were thinking about a while ago that's now confirmed. It's not a surprise, really - 60x is IBM's standard bus for all ppc750s. It just didn't really look like a 60x because it is unusually wide.

The PCF thing is apparently nothing, though I still wonder why Nintendo had to write tests and demos for something any R700 should be able to do.

 

[AzaK]

Neither finding means much. The bus is pretty irrelevant, it's just something we were thinking about a while ago that's now confirmed. It's not a surprise, really - 60x is IBM's standard bus for all ppc750s. It just didn't really look like a 60x because it is unusually wide.

The PCF thing is apparently nothing, though I still wonder why Nintendo had to write tests and demos for something any R700 should be able to do.

Maybe it was simply for completeness of the documentation? When talking about shadow mapping, if you have PCF you'd have to mention it and give examples.

 

[MrPresident]

STENCIL SHADOWS?! ...never mind. I was going to ask how the GameCube could handle Stencil Shadowing but the Xbox could barely do it in Doom 3. Also, I thought that stencil shadows were as smooth as your monitor's resolution, but whenever I look at a shadow in WWHD, I see jaggies like it's a 512x512 or 768x768 shadow map.

Doom3 and WW are very different games but, yes, Wind Waker did use stencils. Only for characters though and not geometry.

I don't have WWHD so I'm only going by screenshots. But I could also be wrong on that and looking at videos it does seem to be using shadow maps or a mixture of both.

 

[ab.aeterno]

This may be a dumb question, but how do we know the frame drop in WWHD is intentional? Has that ever been confirmed, or is it a widely accepted inference? I'm curious because it seems strange to include a time-based flourish that can be interpreted by the user as lag. What would be the design reasoning behind it?

 

[Saint Gregory]

This may be a dumb question, but how do we know the frame drop in WWHD is intentional? Has that ever been confirmed, or is it a widely accepted inference? I'm curious because it seems strange to include a time-based flourish that can be interpreted by the user as lag. What would be the design reasoning behind it?

If you're talking about the animation pauses they were in the original game and Nintendo mentioned at the time that they were intentional for dramatic effect. It could be that they were using them back then to hide the loading of the smoke flourishes and then decided to keep them in the HD version.

And the game does seem to be using different methods for some shadows. I'm wondering if lighting from environmental sources like the sun or the moon that have to change position when the time of day changes are being rendered with a different method than shadows from fixed light sources. That's probably always the case correct?

 

[Smurfman256]

This may be a dumb question, but how do we know the frame drop in WWHD is intentional? Has that ever been confirmed, or is it a widely accepted inference? I'm curious because it seems strange to include a time-based flourish that can be interpreted by the user as lag. What would be the design reasoning behind it?

A lot of the FPS dips happen because there's a lot of smoke or fire alphas. The intentional dips happen whenever you kill an enemy to simulate the samurai myth taht when you slay your enemy, time slows down.

 

[fred]

Neither finding means much. The bus is pretty irrelevant, it's just something we were thinking about a while ago that's now confirmed. It's not a surprise, really - 60x is IBM's standard bus for all ppc750s. It just didn't really look like a 60x because it is unusually wide.

The PCF thing is apparently nothing, though I still wonder why Nintendo had to write tests and demos for something any R700 should be able to do.

Hmmm...so if we now have it confirmed that it's a 60x bus and it's unusually wide does anyone have any ideas on why it's unusually wide..?

 

[ArchangelWest]

STENCIL SHADOWS?! ...never mind. I was going to ask how the GameCube could handle Stencil Shadowing but the Xbox could barely do it in Doom 3. Also, I thought that stencil shadows were as smooth as your monitor's resolution, but whenever I look at a shadow in WWHD, I see jaggies like it's a 512x512 or 768x768 shadow map.

Yeah, the shadows of the boat mast and sail are particularly horrid. But those types of things aren't too prevalent. A shame they didn't fix it on the boat though since you are constantly in it...

 

[wsippel]

Hmmm...so if we now have it confirmed that it's a 60x bus and it's unusually wide does anyone have any ideas on why it's unusually wide..?

To support SMP and make room for the additional DMA channels I guess.

Now, somebody correct me if I'm wrong here, but normal CPUs don't support DMA. They do memory transactions over their regular FSB. The Nintendo modified 750s on the other hand do have a DMA engine connected to L1d, allowing them to read from and write to memory without going through the FSB. Espresso has three cores and therefore three DMA engines, and I guess each DMA engine has a physical connection to the AMBA DMA controller on Latte. So it would require a wider bus.

 

[phosphor112]

Shocking News:

And as for the look of the game, Morin expects the PC build to remain the best-looking version, with Wii U's graphical fidelity lying somewhere in between current and next-gen offerings.

"I think it's even going to be a bit better. If you pump the PC to its maximum there are things in the filtering and rendering that I think are possible on high-end PCs that are pretty amazing. Wii U is pretty much in-between - it's neither of them, not current-gen, maybe closer to current-gen than next-gen."

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-09-27-watch-dogs-boss-compares-its-chicago-map-to-gta5s-scale

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?p=83870053

EDIT: All console versions are going 30fps by the way.

 

[MDX]

Shocking News:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-09-27-watch-dogs-boss-compares-its-chicago-map-to-gta5s-scale

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?p=83870053

So your entrance fee to play the WiiU version is 100 cheaper than the PS4
and 200 than the XB1. If this is how it will be going forward, I think Nintendo has put together a decent GPU with AMD.

 

[phosphor112]

So your entrance fee to play the WiiU version is 100 cheaper than the PS4
and 200 than the XB1. If this is how it will be going forward, I think Nintendo has put together a decent GPU with AMD.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say. What "entrance fee"? To play the game? It's on current gen as well.

 

[MDX]

I'm not sure what you're trying to say. What "entrance fee"? To play the game? It's on current gen as well.

If you are looking to upgrade your console, or getting a new one for the first time, your entrance fee for next gen consoles are each $100 apart. If the differences in graphics are not that apparent, or an issue, then buying into WiiU is the cheapest way to go.

Sure people can get the games for current gen consoles, but thats why I said 'going forward'. People getting current gen consoles now know these systems will get less support going forward. They are buying into the cheap backlog of games available.

I mean, two or three years from now, if the WiiU is selling decently, getting important 3rd party ports, then Nintendo has made a good decision going the direction they have.

 

[phosphor112]

If you are looking to upgrade your console, or getting a new one for the first time, your entrance fee for next gen consoles are each $100 apart. If the differences in graphics are not that apparent, or an issue, then buying into WiiU is the cheapest way to go.

Sure people can get the games for current gen consoles, but thats why I said 'going forward'. People getting current gen consoles now know these systems will get less support going forward. They are buying into the cheap backlog of games available.

I mean, two or three years from now, if the WiiU is selling decently, getting important 3rd party ports, then Nintendo has made a good decision going the direction they have.

I just wasn't sure how you got from the quote I posted to your post. =X

Wii U is pretty much in-between - it's neither of them, not current-gen, maybe closer to current-gen than next-gen.

 

[fred]

Saw this link on another forum I frequent showing an updated trailer of Bayonetta 2. Looks like they've upgraded the textures unless my eyes are deceiving me..?

I particularly noticed it when seeing the flying masonry and the Gomorrah model.

I'm itching to know if Platinum are using tessellation for Gomorrah, either that or the model is ridiculously high poly.

 

[freezamite]

Saw this link on another forum I frequent showing an updated trailer of Bayonetta 2. Looks like they've upgraded the textures unless my eyes are deceiving me..?

I particularly noticed it when seeing the flying masonry and the Gomorrah model.

I'm itching to know if Platinum are using tessellation for Gomorrah, either that or the model is ridiculously high poly.

Isn't it the same trailer that was shown on the E3?

 

[fred]

Don't think so...looks like they've improved the textures to me.

Unless I'm imagining it lol

Edit: Aw bollocks, it is the same one...just read the blurb at the bottom of the page! Whoops! I feel a proper fool lol

 

[pulsemyne]

I checked them both. Same trailer but some areas look better for some reason. Strange.

 

[fred]

I checked them both. Same trailer but some areas look better for some reason. Strange.

Oh...maybe it is a new trailer then. Fuck knows lol.