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[Grampa Simpson]

This is can understand, especially with such a push from Epic.




This sounds like a crazy train bound for RRoD. Like games, at some point it has to go gold and go into retail production. Do Hardware devs really leave it till last minute? They have 6 months left of this year.

If they have final components right now, they're probably very busy doing a bunch of thermal profiling to determine max clock that they can run and neither overheat nor put undue wear on the parts. They'll have this nailed down two months before release, and clock speeds will be set and final production begins. This is not an uncommon practice.

 

[Raide]

If they have final components right now, they're probably very busy doing a bunch of thermal profiling to determine max clock that they can run and neither overheat nor put undue wear on the parts. They'll have this nailed down two months before release, and clock speeds will be set and final production begins. This is not an uncommon practice.

Wow. I dunno about anyone else but if I was in this situation I would be crapping myself.

No wonder developers sometimes have issues with launch games.

 

[Donnie]

No, there isn't.

There are a lot of people out there under the delusion that tablets/phones are about 100 times more powerful than they really are.

 

[snowdog1971]

This is can understand, especially with such a push from Epic.




This sounds like a crazy train bound for RRoD. Like games, at some point it has to go gold and go into retail production. Do Hardware devs really leave it till last minute? They have 6 months left of this year.

Yup, a platform holder ends up juggling with squeezing every single bit of juice out of the thing without the thing going bang. They do 'soak tests' which basically means they'll have the thing on and processing for 12, 24 or even 48 hours.

 

[Error Macro]

Yes hyperbolic, but by the time the Wii U releases it won't be far from reality at all. Maybe like a year...tops.

Aaaaand whenever they do arrive, they'll cost $500+

 

[Donnie]

Yes hyperbolic, but by the time the Wii U releases it won't be far from reality at all. Maybe like a year...tops.

There's hyperbole, then there's just plain nonsense, the most powerful mobile GPU currently in a handheld device is probably SGX 543 MP4+, which is like 28Gflops at most.

Also a tablet more powerful than WiiU by late 2013?, no. There may be a mobile GPU more powerful available by 2014 but no guarantee anyone would use it (nobody used the 50Gflop SGX 543 MP8 or 100Gflop SGX 543 MP16 AFAIK)

 

[MDX]

They can switch mid-development, but the problem is that if they were originally targeting 720p it'll require a hell of a lot of work to get the game running at a decent framerate at 1080p, so it's very unlikely that any games we've seen at E3 will switch, especially given the time constraints.

Cool, thats what I thought.

 

[MrNyarlathotep]

It's pretty interesting how convinced people are that the next wave of consoles are going to be bleeding edge tech visuals, when that's still far from a certainty.

Microsofts E3 conference suggests they'd be happy to release a SOC kinect enabled TiVo that happens to play Halo, and Sony are never going to repeat 599 Us dollars ever again.

 

[Donnie]

It's pretty interesting how convinced people are that the next wave of consoles are going to be bleeding edge tech visuals, when that's still far from a certainty.

Microsofts E3 conference suggests they'd be happy to release a SOC kinect enabled TiVo that happens to play Halo, and Sony are never going to repeat 599 Us dollars ever again.

From what we've heard they aren't looking like bleeding edge tech at all, though not SOC kinect enabled TiVo either. It looks like they'll have maybe a similar increase in RAM that we saw this generation but a more moderate increase in processing power (6-7x the current gen rather than over 10x).

 

[popeutlal]

It's pretty interesting how convinced people are that the next wave of consoles are going to be bleeding edge tech visuals, when that's still far from a certainty.

Microsofts E3 conference suggests they'd be happy to release a SOC kinect enabled TiVo that happens to play Halo, and Sony are never going to repeat 599 Us dollars ever again.

Well there was a recent article/report from IGN which stated that the devs are more excited from PS4/Next Xbox then Wii U, there is a reason for this.

 

[Thraktor]

Being true, the actual gain will be dependant over the prefetching logic of the new CPU. How many transistors will be IBM using there and so. I always thought Xenos would be a better processor being a dual core with OoO.

Of course it does depend on how it's implemented, and we don't really know anything about that. The only high-performance OoO chip IBM currently produces is the Power7, which is quite aggressively out-of-order, however we shouldn't infer too much from it, as the Wii U CPU is obviously built to very different price and thermal specifications.

I have hard times believing sound processing would take an entire thread of Xenos. This is true in case of Cell cause of the SPE private caches, but not in a modern cpu like Xenos.

Sound processing can be very CPU intensive. Of course it varies from game to game, but there are games out there where a full core of Xenon is dedicated to sound processing.

"bit less raw power" in what? Both Xenos and this new CPU outperform hard Cell in general purpose computing. Cell is very strong in floating point, but a weak CPU overall.

By raw power, I mean flops. The Cell is actually very capable at certain things (like physics code), but you're right in that it's not a very good general-purpose processor.

CPU's don't benefit at all from higher bandwith. x3 RAM size should be a huge leap and make the difference here.

CPUs can certainly benefit from higher bandwidth, it just depends on the kind of code you're running.

If they have final components right now, they're probably very busy doing a bunch of thermal profiling to determine max clock that they can run and neither overheat nor put undue wear on the parts. They'll have this nailed down two months before release, and clock speeds will be set and final production begins. This is not an uncommon practice.

This man speaks the truth. The hardware is finalized. The clock speeds aren't.

 

[LeleSocho]

huge post of WiiU's power.

nice!
how much of this power will be sucked by the pad giving these 3 scenarios (what i think in the parenthesis)?

-displayed on the tablet the same rendered on the tv (i think not too much to make a noticeable difference in displayed graphics)

-another part of the scene always counting it in the best graphics possible (heavy impact on gfx quality)

-2d stuff like HUDs and map (no difference at all but might remove enough memory from the edram to prevent to launch a framebuffer in 1080p for the actual game [this obviously would be applied to the other 2 options above since the console had to render always a 854x480 screen])

please note that i'm a tech noob and i learned all the stuff i know thanks to posts like yours.

 

[childplease]

If these specs are true then I will not purchase a wii u.

I was going to stick with PC and Wii U to satisfy all my gaming needs next gen. Will stick with PC now.

 

[japtor]

If they have final components right now, they're probably very busy doing a bunch of thermal profiling to determine max clock that they can run and neither overheat nor put undue wear on the parts. They'll have this nailed down two months before release, and clock speeds will be set and final production begins. This is not an uncommon practice.

Huh, what are the odds of something like the PSP and 3DS where they allow more resource usage some time post launch? Like clock it conservative at launch but they find they can get more out of it later and update it accordingly.

 

[Grampa Simpson]

Huh, what are the odds of something like the PSP and 3DS where they allow more resource usage some time post launch? Like clock it conservative at launch but they find they can get more out of it later and update it accordingly.

PSP was about battery life. That's not a question here since it's off of mains power. They're likely to figure out what clocks speeds they can go with in a 90 degree fahrenheit room running at full load for 48 hours without burnout and minimal airflow and then manufacture at that. It's probably something that they can tune in software on test units.

 

[Alexios]

nice!
how much of this power will be sucked by the pad giving these 3 scenarios (what i think in the parenthesis)?

-displayed on the tablet the same rendered on the tv (i think not too much to make a noticeable difference in displayed graphics)

-another part of the scene always counting it in the best graphics possible (heavy impact on gfx quality)

-2d stuff like HUDs and map (no difference at all but might remove enough memory from the edram to prevent to launch a framebuffer in 1080p for the actual game [this obviously would be applied to the other 2 options above since the console had to render always a 854x480 screen])

please note that i'm a tech noob and i learned all the stuff i know thanks to posts like yours.

Sounds about right to me, except the third scenario might not be much different to the first, games can already have pretty complex interactive, moving, good looking HUD elements and the like, some on all the time (health bars, radars, mini maps), others able to be turned on at any time (interactive inventories a la Dead Space), etc, to be about as insignificant that they're streamed to the pad instead of overlayed on top of the action. And of course there are all sorts of in-between scenarios where the Upad may be displaying some more complex 3D stuff but not even close to what's essentially a split screen function in your 2nd scenario.

Edit: disregard the "except" bit, I misread, sounds about right all around.

 

[Cygnus X-1]

Critics on Nintendo for their choices are quite easy nowadays, but I have to admit that they found me pretty in agreement with what concern the hardware. It's always the same question after all. 6 years ago, just a very small percentage of TV were HD enabled. Today, the majority of TV are HD enabled, but the penetration of full HD will still be quite low for a while. Selling a system at a more expensive price just to put a CPU and a GPU able to render every game at 1080p is something that - again - only gamers would want, but that would be prohibitive for the mass market. 720p will be disappointing for gamers - especially those used to play with high-end PC setup, but will make the system affordable and profitable.

The interesting thing is that - as the Wii was the definitive 480p system, Wii U likely will be the definitive 720p system. Let's hope the quality of the games will reach the best we saw on PS360 quite fast and that the learning curve will be short and steep.

 

[Linkhero1]

If these specs are true then I will not purchase a wii u.

I was going to stick with PC and Wii U to satisfy all my gaming needs next gen. Will stick with PC now.

Not sure I understand this line of thinking. If you were going to go with PC/Wii U then surly you were going to buy all the multiplatform titles on PC to begin with. Are you telling me that you do not want to play Nintendo games in HD? Because I'm sure you weren't going to get a Wii U for multiplatform titles.

 

[USC-fan]

Well u guys are looking this wrong. The wiiu will be the most powerful system for most likely the next 2 years.

 

[Clevinger]

It's pretty interesting how convinced people are that the next wave of consoles are going to be bleeding edge tech visuals, when that's still far from a certainty.

They don't have to be bleeding edge to leave 6 or 7 year old hardware in the dust.

 

[epmode]

Critics on Nintendo for their choices are quite easy nowadays, but I have to admit that they found me pretty in agreement with what concern the hardware. It's always the same question after all. 6 years ago, just a very small percentage of TV were HD enabled. Today, the majority of TV are HD enabled, but the penetration of full HD will still be quite low for a while. Selling a system at a more expensive price just to put a CPU and a GPU able to render every game at 1080p is something that - again - only gamers would want, but that would be prohibitive for the mass market. 720p will be disappointing for gamers - especially those used to play with high-end PC setup, but will make the system affordable and profitable.

I seriously doubt that we're going to see many 1080p games with Sony and Microsoft's next consoles.

 

[marc^o^]

Not sure I understand this line of thinking. If you were going to go with PC/Wii U then surly you were going to buy all the multiplatform titles on PC to begin with. Are you telling me that you do not want to play Nintendo games in HD? Because I'm sure you weren't going to get a Wii U for multiplatform titles.

You don't get it, a game can only be exciting if its supported by powerful specs. It's like 10 years old movies, they are laughable now that new movies have better resolution and can be watched in 3D. Content you say? Why do you ask about content? How related is it to specs?

 

[Jacobi]

Well u guys are looking this wrong. The wiiu will be the most powerful system for most likely the next 2 years.

I'll believe that when I see a game on WiiU matching the graphics of Last of Us....

 

[Gamer @ Heart]

Well there was a recent article/report from IGN which stated that the devs are more excited from PS4/Next Xbox then Wii U, there is a reason for this.

But are the publishers, who pay for everything? That is who Nintendo is trying to court because tthey decide how many versions of something there are.

 

[soulassssns]

I'll believe that when I see a game on WiiU matching the graphics of Last of Us....

That is not to difficult, the 360 could do that game.

 

[childplease]

Not sure I understand this line of thinking. If you were going to go with PC/Wii U then surly you were going to buy all the multiplatform titles on PC to begin with. Are you telling me that you do not want to play Nintendo games in HD? Because I'm sure you weren't going to get a Wii U for multiplatform titles.

I wanted the Wii U for the Nintendo and exclusives from third parties that made use of the innovative controller.
I however cannot purchase such an underpowered system. 2006 era technology in 2012 is terrible.

 

[sykoex]

I'll believe that when I see a game on WiiU matching the graphics of Last of Us....

When the Wii U is finally released, as long as ports have an as smooth or smoother frame rate than their PS360 counterparts then that's enough for me.

 

[itsgreen]

Well u guys are looking this wrong. The wiiu will be the most powerful system for most likely the next 2 years.

It will probably have the field for itself from nov 2012 till nov 2013... but rumours about next gen will start to pick up, and MS and Sony will probably announce their next gen consoles for nov 2013 at e3.. those announcements aren't going to help WiiU...

After that they have a whole other battle...

 

[soulassssns]

I wanted the Wii U for the Nintendo and exclusives from third parties that made use of the innovative controller.
I however cannot purchase such an underpowered system. 2006 era technology in 2012 is terrible.

PS4 and the 720 will both be older tech as well.

 

[KageMaru]

I'll believe that when I see a game on WiiU matching the graphics of Last of Us....

Umm the 360 could pull it off, so why not the Wii-U?

 

[snesfreak]

I wanted the Wii U for the Nintendo and exclusives from third parties that made use of the innovative controller.
I however cannot purchase such an underpowered system. 2006 era technology in 2012 is terrible.

It's not 2006 era tech, stop being willfully misinformed.

 

[MrNyarlathotep]

They don't have to be bleeding edge to leave 6 or 7 year old hardware in the dust.

Who's releasing a console with 6 or 7 year old hardware? Nintendo aren't.

 

[GreggTheGrimReaper]

I would like to see Mario in Pixar quality so how many generations will it take us 'til Nintendo builds the hardware for it?

 

[test_account]

Well u guys are looking this wrong. The wiiu will be the most powerful system for most likely the next 2 years.

I think that 1 year is most likely. I will be very surprised if Microsoft or Sony doesnt release their next console before holiday season 2014.

That is not to difficult, the 360 could do that game.

Yet it hasnt been done, so who knows. EDIT: Sorry, wasnt just thinking about the graphics, i was also thinking about the animation system and all that.

It is actually an interesting point regarding this. Even if there is no doubt that the WiiU is more powerful, it doesnt really matter much unless someone really takes advantage of all the hardware.

 

[Twenty7KVN]

I wanted the Wii U for the Nintendo and exclusives from third parties that made use of the innovative controller.
I however cannot purchase such an underpowered system. 2006 era technology in 2012 is terrible.

It seems to me that you had your mind made up about the wii-u before this rumor.

 

[snesfreak]

Retro's game will likely be a showcase for the system's power.
Now when they actually show it is a whole other matter.

 

[sykoex]

I would like to see Mario in Pixar quality so how many generations will it take us 'til Nintendo builds the hardware for it?

With how incredible SMG2 still looks, you don't think Nintendo could pull off Pixar quality with a Wii U followup?

 

[marc^o^]

I think that 1 year is most likely. I will be very surprised if Microsoft or Sony doesnt release their next console before holiday season 2014.



Yet it hasnt been done, so who knows. EDIT: Sorry, wasnt just thinking about the graphics, i was also thinking about the animation system and all that.

It is actually an interesting point regarding this. Even if there is no doubt that the WiiU is more powerful, it doesnt really matter much unless someone really takes advantage of all the hardware.

Gamekult posted an interview with Phil Pencer few hours ago, where he says x360 is here to last, for far more than two more years.
Source: http://www.gamekult.com/actu/e3-la-xbox-360-encore-la-pour-deux-ans-A102136.html

Whether he means we won't see a new console for two years, or x360 will keep being supported for far more than 2 years, the result is the same for Wii U: the content will be there.

 

[apana]

I'll believe that when I see a game on WiiU matching the graphics of Last of Us....

This is just silly.

I think that 1 year is most likely. I will be very surprised if Microsoft or Sony doesnt release their next console before holiday season 2014.



Yet it hasnt been done, so who knows. EDIT: Sorry, wasnt just thinking about the graphics, i was also thinking about the animation system and all that.

It is actually an interesting point regarding this. Even if there is no doubt that the WiiU is more powerful, it doesnt really matter much unless someone really takes advantage of all the hardware.

Yeah it will only be one year before Sony and Microsoft strike. Wii U may still get ports for a period longer than one year though.

 

[bgassassin]

Nice post Thraktor.

The games we're seeing as well as numerous dev reports say its comparable to current gen, as well as the fact that there's only so much they can do in the tiny Wii U case.

I'm going to side with those things in terms of what the system is capable instead of bgassassin on neogaf.

You're free to believe whatever you want. But you also established your view a long time ago, so I'm not expecting anything I say to change that.

Well, 1 certainly isn't being met since current gen games aren't running better than the 360 versions. And while the architectures arent exactly the same, they're certainly similar.

They aren't where the issue seems to be.

Shit job on Nintendo's part by allowing this to happen in the fire place btw. No specs and no games that take advantage of the system shown means that this kind of talk will continue until something impressive is released or they get downports from the PS4/720.

I do agree here. Like that rumor saying Nintendo was upset about the power comments. Do something about it then.

Good God, even developers are using these multipliers? Enough bullshit! Leak the clock speeds, SPUs, etc and let us decide how powerful this thing is!

Clocks - how fast?
SPUs - how many?

Is this really too much to ask?

Yes.

 

[test_account]

Gamekult posted an interview with Phil Pencer few hours ago, where he says x360 is here to last, for far more than two more years.
Source: http://www.gamekult.com/actu/e3-la-xbox-360-encore-la-pour-deux-ans-A102136.html

Whether he means we won't see a new console for two years, or x360 will keep being supported for far more than 2 years, the result is the same for Wii U: the content will be there.

I think it is more about supporting it for more than 2 years. I also think it is more typical PR speak, like "you can safely buy the system now, a new system is not around the corner". One guy from Sony pretty much confirmed that they had studios working on PS4 games at this moment. I cant really imagine to see the consoles in holiday season 2014, but only time will tell.

Yeah it will only be one year before Sony and Microsoft strike. Wii U may still get ports for a period longer than one year though.

I think so too. And after seeing the latest GTTV, i'm pretty sure that Unreal Engine 4 will come to the WiiU as well. There is still a question about the porting though, but still.

 

[Thraktor]

I would like to see Mario in Pixar quality so how many generations will it take us 'til Nintendo builds the hardware for it?

Games could only be truly "Pixar quality" if they're rendered in the same way, ie raytracing. In that case, my guess is we have another one or two generations (past Wii U) before we get real-time raytracing on consoles.

 

[lettermassing]

I feel that we're getting to a point where graphical advancements no longer really matter. The Wii U is going to be amazing.

 

[Instro]

I do agree here. Like that rumor saying Nintendo was upset about the power comments. Do something about it then.

Ha I just noticed typed "fire place" instead of "first place".

I really hope they drop an impressive looking trailer before the console releases at least. They have plenty of time and opportunities to do so.

 

[Mudkips]

I wish the world would learn that:

15 is 1.5 times as much as 10, or 150% of 10.
15 is .5 times more than 10, or 50% more than 10.

 

[Van Owen]

You're free to believe whatever you want. But you also established your view a long time ago, so I'm not expecting anything I say to change that.

To be fair that's only because of the numerous reports and dev comments I've read and because I've seen Wii U graphics the past 2 e3s that align with my view.

 

[Grampa Simpson]

Maybe theres another side to this. Maybe with this "underpowered" (quotes intentional) console, Nintendo is establishing with Microsoft and Sony that they're no threat and will in turn help prevent a 2013 launch of new consoles from their competitors.

Theres some fairly non-intuitive logic here, but to follow it one must accept that Nintendo is going for the most sustainable business plan they can muster and nothing more.

 

[itsgreen]

I wish the world would learn that:

15 is 1.5 times as much as 10, or 150% of 10.
15 is .5 times more than 10, or 50% more than 10.

What's your point?

 

[SmokedMeat]

Well u guys are looking this wrong. The wiiu will be the most powerful system for most likely the next 2 years.

If E3 showed me anything it's that Sony and Microsoft already have their teams working on the PS4/720. You can bet kids will have them under their trees come Christmas 2013.

 

[evilromero]

I wanted the Wii U for the Nintendo and exclusives from third parties that made use of the innovative controller.
I however cannot purchase such an underpowered system. 2006 era technology in 2012 is terrible.

So I'm guessing you didn't buy a Wii then, because that was also six year old tech.