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[Drinky Crow]

WiiU architecture is not meaningfully different from X360 other than missing 3 hardware threads if it's not SMT. So assuming a 30fps game you have 180ms per frame to do stuff with your shitty slow in-order Xbox 360 CPU and 90ms to do things with your nice "modern" out of order WiiU CPU (modern is in scare quotes because OoOE is not anywhere close to new). So to break even you have to get 2x performance out of WiiU or offload shit to GPU (which you can do on Xbox 360 anyway). Early ports indicate that it probably isn't breaking even, but it's close enough.

Assuming next gen xbox and ps3 are fast out of order processors with a minimum of 4 hardware threads and a GPU with a compute ring then this puts WiiU at an even bigger potential disadvantage since it can't lean on gains from OoOE to make up the slack, nor will it be able to lean on GPGPU (in whatever sense of the word) to make up the slack since newer consoles should also have that capability.

Add to this the slashdot anon claiming WiiU uses paired singles which are vastly inferior SIMD to VMX or SSE, and you've got another area where the WiiU is at a disadvantage.

Basically claiming ports from next-gen will fare better is ridiculous since you'll have an even larger power gap to make up. (Edit: I should add that this is only true if the extra power of the next-gen machines is actually used.)

pretty much nailed it.

 

[AzaK]

Don't get that at all, WiiU will be at most 4 times weaker than PS4 / 720, the Wii was using totally out of date hardware that couldn't even support the most basic versions of UE3 and was 10 - 15 times weaker than PS360.

PS4 / 720 are rumoured to be GPU centric consoles like WiiU and have around 2 TFLOP GPU's with 4-6GB's of Ram, if the publishers decide too they can simply scale down the games for WiiU, from 1080p / 60fps / high graphical settings on PS4 / 720 to 720p / 30fps / lower graphical effects on WiiU.

All of the next gen engines are highly scalable so that multi platform games can be released on as many different platforms as possible.

Third party publishers simply cant afford to go through another expensive generation releasing only two versions of each game, i think for the first 2-3 years of PS4 / 720's life multi platform games will be avaialble for PS3 / PS4 / 360 / 720 and WiiU.

I don't disagree with the bolded, but there's a possibility that Wii U ends up getting ports from the 360/PS3 versions and those engines. Assuming of course that the new PS4/720 engines aren't tooled to be 360/PS3 compatible from the outset.

It's going to be interesting to see how it pans out. As we all know, it's a vicious circle. Pubs are scared to put games on a risky platform, a platform is risky because it doesn't have a lot of games. I really, really hope that these launch titles to pretty well, and I hope even more that we actually see some of the early 2013 titles come to Wii U and those sell well. If sales bomb compared to the relative install base of the console, it'll be getting dangerously close to Wii all over again.

WiiU architecture is not meaningfully different from X360 other than missing 3 hardware threads if it's not SMT.

Isn't the Wii U actually quite different? Someone on the Wii U tech discussion threads was talking about it earlier. Wii U has to share read/write bandwidth along its memory bus, 360 doesn't. 360 GPU has restricted access to EDRAM (write only IIRC) whereas Wii U likely has bidirectional. Wii U has a modern GPU with more viable GPGPU capabilities, whereas 360 doesn't.

 

[RurouniZel]

In the same way people are currently depressed that the Super Wii isn't the power behemoth they were hoping it would be, I have a sneaky suspicion that there's going to be a lot of disappointed GAFers when the next Microsoft and Sony systems are released, torn down, and it is revealed that the increase in power isn't anywhere near as much as they're dreaming currently. They won't scale directly, but 3rd parties are going to have a much easier time taking their Microsoft/Sony games and putting them on Super Wii, though it will obviously require a sacrifice in performance.

 

[Van Owen]

uh, these are not pc configurations. they do not share architectural parity. a wii u is NOT a "durango, but a lot slower!"

engine scaling.

 

[Lord Error]

uh, these are not pc configurations. they do not share architectural parity. a wii u is NOT a "durango, but a lot slower!"

Hell, even if it is, it would be at the very absolute minimum 2x slower in every aspect of the hardware, and likely much more so. How can anyone think that something would fare better while being at such massive power disadvantage just makes my head hurt; seeing that it can hardly keep up with machines six or seven years old (including PCs built around that time with their OoO processors and all).

and the reason is the same as crappy 360 to PC ports generally go.

We shouldn't need a whole ton of power to run a port of a game from 7 year old tech on a modern gaming PC - but usually they run not as good as could due to poor optimization.

No, sorry, this is simply not true. The main reason they don't run "as good as they could" is that people want to play their games on PC in 1920x1200 @ 60FPS and high levels of AA and Ultra in-game visual settings. You could run most of the games made today just fine on any low end PC if you were willing to stick to 720p (or sub-720p) resolutions, 30FPS and low-mid visuals like most multiplatform console games perform right now in comparison.

I think my PC was mid-tier machine 3-4 years ago, and I can run literally any new multiplatform game on it in resolution/framerate/visual settings better than on consoles. Hell, ultraportable laptops perform at about the level of current consoles. Think about that, if those machines were any thinner they'd break when you lift them up, and yet they run newer games in 720p@30FPS just fine. If there was some big problem with games being unoptimized on PC, this would never happen.

 

[RurouniZel]

Hell, even if it is, it would be at the very absolute minimum 2x slower in every aspect of the hardware, and likely much more so. How can anyone think that something would fare better while being at such massive power disadvantage just makes my head hurt; seeing that it can hardly keep up with machines six or seven years old (including PCs built around that time with their OoO processors and all).


No, sorry, this is simply not true. The main reason they don't run "as good as they could" is that people want to play their games on PC in 1920x1200 @ 60FPS and high levels of AA and Ultra in-game visual settings. You could run most of the games made today just fine on any low end PC if you were willing to stick to 720p (or sub-720p) resolutions, 30FPS and low-mid visuals like most multiplatform console games perform right now in comparison.

I think my PC was mid-tier machine 4 years ago, and I can run literally any new multiplatform game on it in resolution/framerate/visual settings better than on consoles.

Um... these two statements read to me as "The Super Wii won't run shit because it doesn't have the power, but you can run these games on any low end PC if you settle for less power!"

That makes my head hurt a little bit.

 

[Lord Error]

Um... these two statements read to me as "The Super Wii won't run shit because it doesn't have the power, but you can run these games on any low end PC if you settle for less power!"

That makes my head hurt a little bit.

He was saying that games on PC are poorly optimized, using that as his argument that by the same logic, WiiU games now are being poorly optimized.

You however can run newer multiplatform games on ultraportable PC laptops in resolution and framerates same or better than on consoles, so clearly PC games are not terribly optimized like he claims.


The original claim that several people are discussing right now is someone saying that WiiU will "fare better" compared to other upcoming two new consoles than it does now against PS3 and X360. It is at relative parity with X360 and PS3 right now, so to fare better against next two consoles, it would have to be at least at a complete parity with them, and it just makes absolutely no sense to expect something like that to happen - given that we practically know already that every single component in those new consoles will be multiple times faster than what's in WiiU.

 

[RurouniZel]

He was saying that games on PC are poorly optimized, using that as his argument that by the same logic, WiiU games now are being poorly optimized.

You however can run newer multiplatform games on ultraportable PC laptops in resolution and framerates same or better than on consoles, so clearly PC games are not terribly optimized like he claims.


The original claim that several people are discussing right now is someone saying that WiiU will "fare better" compared to other upcoming two new consoles than it does now against PS3 and X360. It is at relative parity with X360 and PS3 right now, so to fare better against next two consoles, it would have to be at least at a complete parity with them, and it just makes absolutely no sense to expect something like that to happen - given that we practically know already that every single component in those new consoles will be multiple times faster than what's in WiiU.

I wouldn't put much faith in the rumors. Not that long ago the rumors told the tale of the Wii U being several times more powerful than the 360 and PS3. Lots of hyperbolic statements that never panned out. Microsoft and Sony are going to want to release systems that are somewhat price competitive and I highly doubt that they can afford to deal with massive loss-leading hardware (esp. Sony).

We don't "know" anything.

 

[MikeHaggar]

WiiU architecture is not meaningfully different from X360 other than missing 3 hardware threads if it's not SMT. So assuming a 30fps game you have 180ms per frame to do stuff with your shitty slow in-order Xbox 360 CPU and 90ms to do things with your nice "modern" out of order WiiU CPU (modern is in scare quotes because OoOE is not anywhere close to new). So to break even you have to get 2x performance out of WiiU or offload shit to GPU (which you can do on Xbox 360 anyway). Early ports indicate that it probably isn't breaking even, but it's close enough.

Assuming next gen xbox and ps3 are fast out of order processors with a minimum of 4 hardware threads and a GPU with a compute ring then this puts WiiU at an even bigger potential disadvantage since it can't lean on gains from OoOE to make up the slack, nor will it be able to lean on GPGPU (in whatever sense of the word) to make up the slack since newer consoles should also have that capability.

Add to this the slashdot anon claiming WiiU uses paired singles which are vastly inferior SIMD to VMX or SSE, and you've got another area where the WiiU is at a disadvantage.

Basically claiming ports from next-gen will fare better is ridiculous since you'll have an even larger power gap to make up. (Edit: I should add that this is only true if the extra power of the next-gen machines is actually used.)

not sure how you came to the conclusion in bold. a 30fps game must update and draw to the screen within 33.3ms in order to maintain 30fps. the cpu being used isn't going to change that...

 

[Alexios]

uh, these are not pc configurations. they do not share architectural parity. a wii u is NOT a "durango, but a lot slower!"

I dunno how you go from this post to saying a dude saying WiiU architecturally isn't meaningfully different to 360 nailed it. I don't think a Wii U is as simple as an "xbox 360, but with less threads" as he said. Multithreading isn't remotely like having actual physical cores and there's way more to a machine than the number of threads. Going by that alone is silly, his numbers only make sense if every single part of the systems is equal save for the number of cores/threads but even before knowing any numbers we know for a fact they have other major differences (for example the WiiU's sound processor should have been counted as another hardware "thread" in that silly context since it will do work the CPU has to do on 360, bringing the number up to 4 vs 6). But really we don't know what kind of work each of these cores and threads can accomplish in the desired ms to just compare them like this.

 

[wonderdung]

not sure how you came to the conclusion in bold. a 30fps game must update and draw to the screen within 33.3ms in order to maintain 30fps. the cpu being used isn't going to change that...

33.3 ms times 6 threads vs 33.3 ms times 3 threads. It's the max amount of work you can accomplish in a frame assuming 100% utilization of every thread.

It's a toy metric but it illustrates it decently. If the 6 thread xbox is doing 150 ms of total work per frame in a current gen game, you're going to need to get a lot of mileage out of OoOE to cram that into the 90 ms per frame maximum you get on the WiiU.

Just playing around, if a Durango has 12 HW threads then your Durango games could potentially be doing 360ish ms of work per frame, which makes the 90ms WiiU cry bitter tears of sorrow.

 

[Trevelyan9999]

He was saying that games on PC are poorly optimized, using that as his argument that by the same logic, WiiU games now are being poorly optimized.

You however can run newer multiplatform games on ultraportable PC laptops in resolution and framerates same or better than on consoles, so clearly PC games are not terribly optimized like he claims.


The original claim that several people are discussing right now is someone saying that WiiU will "fare better" compared to other upcoming two new consoles than it does now against PS3 and X360. It is at relative parity with X360 and PS3 right now, so to fare better against next two consoles, it would have to be at least at a complete parity with them, and it just makes absolutely no sense to expect something like that to happen - given that we practically know already that every single component in those new consoles will be multiple times faster than what's in WiiU.

Ok, I'll put it this way:

The Wii U will "fair better" in the next gen due to it being able to run the amazing looking games that PS4/Xbox 3 will be able to run in a scaled down fashion. Those ports will still look "next gen" enough to show a nice gap between the last gen PS3/Xbox 360.

The Wii U is capable of DirectX 11 type effects like compute shading, it uses an Out of Order Execution CPU, it has a DSP Chip that if used correctly can off load even more from the CPU and a huge amount eDRAM. It's a next generation console that can produce next generation graphics especially in exclusive "made from the ground up" games and even in port downs with scaled back effects. How is that not fairing better than a port from Xbox 360? I'd say it is a mile better in comparison. This is why Iwata is not too concerned about having some huge gap this time in graphics like they did with the original Wii.

Here yet again, I'll use the Witcher 2 example. Xbox 360 vs PC http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-the-witcher-2-tech-analysis

The PC rig that Digital Foundry is using is an i7 Quad Core running at 3.33GHz and a brand new GTX 680 that all together more than crushes the Xbox 360 in terms of power by a huge margin but the effects and look of the game don't seem way too different. Simply the Xbox 360 has less and PC more in terms of graphics but if someone were to play the Xbox 360 version by itself (which they have already noticed) it looks pretty damn impressive in it's own right.

Another point to consider is that the Xbox 360 isn't capable of some of the effects that the high end gaming PC is using in this comparison and it still looks pretty good. The Wii U on the other hand in comparison to this same high end PC, IS capable of all the effects the PC version is doing due the modern GPU (recommended PC requirments for the Witcher 2 was a Radeon 4850 with 1GB), granted it would need optimizing and some scaling down of the effects in terms of quantity of effects but all the graphical features would be there. It's funny how some of the people here down-play the importance of optimizing code on these games made for different architecture. Without optimizing a game (especially a port) you're going to need way too much raw power to blast through the differences, and for a console it's just not going to happen that easily.

This Witchter 2 example is what the gap between the Wii U and PS4/Xbox 3 will most realistically look like in a worse case scenario in my opinion. Wii U ports will look great on their own merits, but of course side by side comparisons would show the differences between the consoles.

The next gen is already shaping up to be about GPU features and what engines developers can use to create amazing looking games. The Wii U has a next gen GPU feature set and it has the engine compatibility as well. All these things are going to equate into "close enough" parity to whatever Sony or Microsoft releases in the future.

 

[MikeHaggar]

33.3 ms times 6 threads vs 33.3 ms times 3 threads. It's the max amount of work you can accomplish in a frame assuming 100% utilization of every thread.

It's a toy metric but it illustrates it decently. If the 6 thread xbox is doing 150 ms of total work per frame in a current gen game, you're going to need to get a lot of mileage out of OoOE to cram that into the 90 ms per frame maximum you get on the WiiU.

Just playing around, if a Durango has 12 HW threads then your Durango games could potentially be doing 360ish ms of work per frame, which makes the 90ms WiiU cry bitter tears of sorrow.

i understand. however the amount of work that processor A can accomplish in 33ms may be very different than what processor B can accomplish in the same amount of time. your example implies the processors accomplish the same amount of work for a given time interval (in this case 33.3ms). not trying to give you a hard time, i'm just saying...

 

[FLAguy954]

This. Also, I'm surprised to see some of the more sensible posters on here (posters who infact PC game with monster rigs and are knowledgeable about the PC landscape) downright selectively rule out the Wii U in terms of scalability. You need to look no further than PCs to see that scalability is the Wii U's saving grace.

For instance, on paper, or 'on the surface' (as some seem to judge the Wii U), my 'weak' A8-4500M laptop with integrated graphics shouldn't hope to run the latest games at an acceptable performance level seeing as higher end PC hardware is comfortably more than 15 times as powerful. Yet, by the 'miraculous' power of scaling, I am able to run Medal of Honor Warfighter at a little more than a constant 30 fps with ALL effects (albeit scaled down). And through wonderful optimization by the developers, I am able to run Dishonored at above 50 fps with MAX (in-game) settings. All running at 768p and all on my 'crappy' (but MODERN) laptop. And the best part? This is all under a 35W, low power draw.

snip

Hey can you comment on my post? I want to have your opinion on the matter.

 

[Log4Girlz]

Ok, I'll put it this way:

The Wii U will "fair better" in the next gen due to it being able to run the amazing looking games that PS4/Xbox 3 will be able to run in a scaled down fashion. Those ports will still look "next gen" enough to show a nice gap between the last gen PS3/Xbox 360.

The Wii U is capable of DirectX 11 type effects like compute shading, it uses an Out of Order Execution CPU, it has a DSP Chip that if used correctly can off load even more from the CPU and a huge amount eDRAM. It's a next generation console that can produce next generation graphics especially in exclusive "made from the ground up" games and even in port downs with scaled back effects. How is that not fairing better than a port from Xbox 360? I'd say it is a mile better in comparison. This is why Iwata is not too concerned about having some huge gap this time in graphics like they did with the original Wii.

Here yet again, I'll use the Witcher 2 example. Xbox 360 vs PC http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-the-witcher-2-tech-analysis

The PC rig that Digital Foundry is using is an i7 Quad Core running at 3.33GHz and a brand new GTX 680 that all together more than crushes the Xbox 360 in terms of power by a huge margin but the effects and look of the game don't seem way too different. Simply the Xbox 360 has less and PC more in terms of graphics but if someone were to play the Xbox 360 version by itself (which they have already noticed) it looks pretty damn impressive in it's own right.

Another point to consider is that the Xbox 360 isn't capable of some of the effects that the high end gaming PC is using in this comparison and it still looks pretty good. The Wii U on the other hand in comparison to this same high end PC, IS capable of all the effects the PC version is doing due the modern GPU (recommended PC requirments for the Witcher 2 was a Radeon 4850 with 1GB), granted it would need optimizing and some scaling down of the effects in terms of quantity of effects but all the graphical features would be there. It's funny how some of the people here down-play the importance of optimizing code on these games made for different architecture. Without optimizing a game (especially a port) you're going to need way too much raw power to blast through the differences, and for a console it's just not going to happen that easily.

This Witchter 2 example is what the gap between the Wii U and PS4/Xbox 3 will most realistically look like in a worse case scenario in my opinion. Wii U ports will look great on their own merits, but of course side by side comparisons would show the differences between the consoles.

The next gen is already shaping up to be about GPU features and what engines developers can use to create amazing looking games. The Wii U has a next gen GPU feature set and it has the engine compatibility as well. All these things are going to equate into "close enough" parity to whatever Sony or Microsoft releases in the future.

Next gen will soon make Witcher 2 look merely ordinary. Considering it is the pinnacle of what one can expect from the Xbox 360, I don't see the Wii U surpassing that, seeing as how it is not significantly more powerful.

 

[Trevelyan9999]

Hey can you comment on my post? I want to have your opinion on the matter.

I agree with what you said. Like I was saying in my previous post, if you got the GPU features that current games are using then the games will still look good even on lower spec machines like that Laptop you're talking about. Scaled down a bit sure, but still enjoyable and impressive enough graphically.


Edit: Good night guys, hehe I already see a rebuttal to my post......this is never going to end is it? lol.

 

[Dreamwriter]

Next gen will soon make Witcher 2 look merely ordinary. Considering it is the pinnacle of what one can expect from the Xbox 360, I don't see the Wii U surpassing that, seeing as how it is not significantly more powerful.

Oh, did we finally get the Wii U CPU and GPU specs?

 

[wonderdung]

i understand. however the amount of work that processor A can accomplish in 33ms may be very different than what processor B can accomplish in the same amount of time. your example implies the processors accomplish the same amount of work for a given time interval (in this case 33.3ms). not trying to give you a hard time, i'm just saying...

I know what you mean... WiiU can somewhat keep up with current gen consoles at 3 cores because of OoOE but next gen it probably won't have that advantage. It should be significantly harder to run a well-optimized Durango game on WiiU than a well-optimized 360 game. But it will take us a few years past launch to get to a well-optimized Durango game so maybe it won't matter a whole lot anyway.

I dunno what these huge screenshots comparing X360 to PC are for though. If WiiU ports of next gen games are scaled down then that would actually be a pretty reasonable definition of "faring worse" than WiiU ports of current gen games which seem to be somewhat close in visual parity.

 

[Log4Girlz]

Oh, did we finally get the Wii U CPU and GPU specs?

No, but we did get some third party ports that made us say "wow".

 

[Glorified G]

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

hmm....

 

[Dreamwriter]

No, but we did get some third party ports that made us say "wow".

And at least one of those was due to poor programming (turning off frame limiting, turning on VSync), there are also rumors of very small team sizes with low budgets and schedules, and they were using a game engine optimized for XBox 360 (Unreal Engine 3) that got quickly ported to Wii U.

It's very possible that the system is only a little better than XBox 360 or PS3, but we can't really make the call based on those ports.

 

[Log4Girlz]

And at least one of those was due to poor programming (turning off frame limiting, turning on VSync), there are also rumors of very small team sizes with low budgets and schedules, and they were using a game engine optimized for XBox 360 (Unreal Engine 3) that got quickly ported to Wii U.

It's very possible that the system is only a little better than XBox 360 or PS3, but we can't really make the call based on those ports.

I would imagine it is only a little better than the HD Twins, if it was substantially better, we wouldn't be having this issue with the ports. :/

 

[Dreamwriter]

I would imagine it is only a little better than the HD Twins, if it was substantially better, we wouldn't be having this issue with the ports. :/

I disagree - I've experienced how bad programming can make a game run HORRRIBLY. A game I was working on for iPhone 4 had over-1-minute load times and really crappy framerates...on iPhone 5, which is an order of magnitude faster than iPhone 4. Admittedly, it didn't take much work at all to fix that so the game was running an order of magnitude faster, but my point is if you cheap out and throw bad programmers at something, or make them rush to get something done, or both, that can effect performance far more than any hardware.

 

[AzaK]

I would imagine it is only a little better than the HD Twins, if it was substantially better, we wouldn't be having this issue with the ports. :/

Depends. It could come down to the 360's strength being the Wii U's archilles heel. Even if everything else about Wii U is good.

 

[Log4Girlz]

I disagree - I've experienced how bad programming can make a game run HORRRIBLY. A game I was working on for iPhone 4 had over-1-minute load times and really crappy framerates...on iPhone 5, which is an order of magnitude faster than iPhone 4. Admittedly, it didn't take much work at all to fix that so the game was running an order of magnitude faster, but my point is if you cheap out and throw bad programmers at something, or make them rush to get something done, or both, that can effect performance far more than any hardware.

How odd that this was the case for so many ports from various companies.

 

[Dreamwriter]

How odd that this was the case for so many ports from various companies.

All using the exact same version of the same game engine, all developed by different teams than the original game, all launch titles. And more than one with VSync lowering framerates where the original game had VSync turned off (thus screen tearing). It is possible that VSync is required in the Wii U, though.

 

[AzaK]

All using the exact same version of the same game engine, all developed by different teams than the original game, all launch titles. And more than one with VSync lowering framerates where the original game had VSync turned off (thus screen tearing). It is possible that VSync is required in the Wii U, though.

I don't think they were all the same engine right? Treyarch used their own. Also vsync isn't mandatory as Darksiders II has tearing from what I saw in a video.

 

[Log4Girlz]

All using the exact same version of the same game engine, all developed by different teams than the original game, all launch titles. And more than one with VSync lowering framerates where the original game had VSync turned off (thus screen tearing). It is possible that VSync is required in the Wii U, though.

They must all be rookies.

 

[NBtoaster]

I don't think they were all the same engine right? Treyarch used their own. Also vsync isn't mandatory as Darksiders II has tearing from what I saw in a video.

It may be required if the output can be duplicated to the pad.

 

[Dreamwriter]

I'm just saying, until we get a game developed alongside the other consoles, rather than quick ports made by their "B" teams, we can't really gauge system power by ports. Of course, hopefully by that point we'll know what the deal is with the CPU/GPU anyways.

 

[Log4Girlz]

I'm just saying, until we get a game developed alongside the other consoles, rather than quick ports made by their "B" teams, we can't really gauge system power by ports. Of course, hopefully by that point we'll know what the deal is with the CPU/GPU anyways.

I'm afraid those games may never come. Wii U may only get the quick, dirty current gen game ports because the hardware is too weak in comparison to the new twins looming on the horizon. I would love to eat crow, but something tells me I shouldn't set the table quite yet.

 

[sp3000]

I never thought Witcher 2 was technically impressive. It was a good looking DX9 game with high resolution textures.

It is nowhere in the same league as Crysis 2 or BF3, where new rendering features are being used.

 

[FieryBalrog]

Wii U modern architecture vs PS4/Xbox3 modern architecture

Wii U modern architecture vs Xbox 360 last gen architecture

I think I see the problem.

 

[Dreamwriter]

I'm afraid those games may never come. Wii U may only get the quick, dirty current gen game ports because the hardware is too weak in comparison to the new twins looming on the horizon. I would love to eat crow, but something tells me I shouldn't set the table quite yet.

I was talking about games developed side-by-side for XBox 360, PS3, and Wii U. While I'm sure some developers are working on PS4/720 games right now, I'd bet some games in development are still coming to current-gen plus Wii U.

 

[Reiko]

I never thought Witcher 2 was technically impressive. It was a good looking DX9 game with high resolution textures.

It is nowhere in the same league as Crysis 2 or BF3, where new rendering features are being used.

Crysis 3 will definitely close the gap between it and the Witcher 2.

 

[FieryBalrog]

Crysis 3 will definitely close the gap between it and the Witcher 2.

I think you read his statement backwards.

 

[lherre]

I wouldn't put much faith in the rumors. Not that long ago the rumors told the tale of the Wii U being several times more powerful than the 360 and PS3. Lots of hyperbolic statements that never panned out. Microsoft and Sony are going to want to release systems that are somewhat price competitive and I highly doubt that they can afford to deal with massive loss-leading hardware (esp. Sony).

We don't "know" anything.

Who said that? I mean who with "trusted" info?

I hate the multipliers that people uses here. I never gave one in those threads. When people threw crazy multipliers I (and arkam) tried to show people that this was wrong. In fact some people think that I hate wii u or something (I have some pm's telling me that).

I always said that wii u is more powerful than ps3-x360 (it will be difficult not to be in 2012) but the difference is another story (and the gamepad). Not more not less. So I don't know why people is suprised at all. In fact I said that ports from ps4-xbox next will be "hard" because the difference in performance is huge, so I don't understand why the people is still saying that it will be "easier" because arquitectures are similar. It's not that easy.

It is like the mantra with the EDRAM or GPGPU like it's some miracle or something new that will save any system that have them.

 

[Reiko]

I think you read his statement backwards.

There are lots of people that still think The Witcher 2 is comparable to Crysis 2.

 

[AzaK]

Who said that? I mean who with "trusted" info?

I hate the multipliers that people uses here. I never gave one in those threads. When people threw crazy multipliers I (and arkam) tried to show people that this was wrong. In fact some people think that I hate wii u or something (I have some pm's telling me that).

I always said that wii u is more powerful than ps3-x360 (it will be difficult not to be in 2012) but the difference is another story (and the gamepad). Not more not less. So I don't know why people is suprised at all. In fact I said that ports from ps4-xbox next will be "hard" because the difference in performance is huge, so I don't understand why the people is still saying that it will be "easier" because arquitectures are similar. It's not that easy.

It is like the mantra with the EDRAM or GPGPU like it's some miracle or something new that will save any system that have them.

If its too hard I worry they won't bother. I hope at least though that it gets versions whilst PS3 and 360 do.

 

[Nostremitus]

It won't be easy to port PS4/XBox3-Wii U, but it would seem like it would have to be orders of magnitude easier than PS360-Wii... The power/feature gap shouldn't be anywhere close to the same.

 

[ColdBlooder]

WiiU architecture is not meaningfully different from X360 other than missing 3 hardware threads if it's not SMT. So assuming a 30fps game you have 180ms per frame to do stuff with your shitty slow in-order Xbox 360 CPU and 90ms to do things with your nice "modern" out of order WiiU CPU (modern is in scare quotes because OoOE is not anywhere close to new). So to break even you have to get 2x performance out of WiiU or offload shit to GPU (which you can do on Xbox 360 anyway). Early ports indicate that it probably isn't breaking even, but it's close enough.

Assuming next gen xbox and ps3 are fast out of order processors with a minimum of 4 hardware threads and a GPU with a compute ring then this puts WiiU at an even bigger potential disadvantage since it can't lean on gains from OoOE to make up the slack, nor will it be able to lean on GPGPU (in whatever sense of the word) to make up the slack since newer consoles should also have that capability.

Add to this the slashdot anon claiming WiiU uses paired singles which are vastly inferior SIMD to VMX or SSE, and you've got another area where the WiiU is at a disadvantage.

Basically claiming ports from next-gen will fare better is ridiculous since you'll have an even larger power gap to make up. (Edit: I should add that this is only true if the extra power of the next-gen machines is actually used.)

Next consoles won´t use SMT. Why? AMD does NOT have a single CPU that does it. So we have 3 fully coherent cores vs. 2 + each with a seperate integer core.

Yes, AMD counts it as four full cores, but in reality Trinity (A10) is not even a real quad core. And lacks SMT.

 

[ozfunghi]

They must all be rookies.

Right, like all the devs that were developing for the 360 launch 7 years ago, right? So tell me, if the WiiU is not more powerful, do the launch games of WiiU look worse or merely on par compared to the launch games of 360? No? Much better you say? Hmm... How come, i wonder? I'm sure 7 years ago devs never heard of high res textures or normal mapping. I'm sure they learned all these wonderful techniques the past few years in favor of the WiiU launch games and they had never heard of "PC" prior to 2006.

 

[RurouniZel]

Who said that? I mean who with "trusted" info?

http://www.ign.com/articles/2011/04/14/nintendo-set-to-reveal-new-console

According to multiple reports today, Nintendo will reveal a new console at E3 this coming June.

Game Informer first reported the details, saying the console is capable of running games at "HD resolutions." Our sources have said the the console is significantly more powerful than the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, and that Nintendo's intent is to recapture the hardcore market. Another source said it is capable of 1080p resolutions.

Nintendo is reportedly showing the console to publishers to garner interest for a late 2012 launch.

Additional sources tell IGN that Nintendo will release a pre-announcement this month with a full reveal expected at E3 and that the console will be backwards compatible with current Wii software.

A report from CVG states the new Nintendo console will use an all-new controller - not an updated Wii controller - with sources saying it will have a built-in screen. Additional sources informed IGN the screen has touch capability.

 

[Durante]

Next consoles won´t use SMT. Why? AMD does NOT have a single CPU that does it. So we have 3 fully coherent cores vs. 2 + each with a seperate integer core.

What' a "fully coherent" core? The only time you usually use the word coherent in architecture is with caches.

 

[Green Yoshi]

The PS3 is on par with Xbox 360 but the first 360 to PS3 ports were horrible. Madden NFL 07 f.e. only had 30 instead of 60 frames.
When the developers learn to work with the WiiU, the games will run as good as on PS3 and 360.

PS4/720 games will of course look far worse on WiiU, but I don't think that there will be so many ports anyway.

In my opinon for hardcore gamers WiiU is a nice addition, but not the new main console, on which you play all upcoming Third-Party games.

 

[Log4Girlz]

Right, like all the devs that were developing for the 360 launch 7 years ago, right? So tell me, if the WiiU is not more powerful, do the launch games of WiiU look worse or merely on par compared to the launch games of 360? No? Much better you say? Hmm... How come, i wonder? I'm sure 7 years ago devs never heard of high res textures or normal mapping. I'm sure they learned all these wonderful techniques the past few years in favor of the WiiU launch games and they had never heard of "PC" prior to 2006.

Why are we comparing launch Wii U games with launch Xbox 360 games? That console is 7 years old. Also, the ports from previous consoles were the very best on the Xbox 360. Wii U struggles with several titles being the WORST versions.

 

[z0m3le]

What' a "fully coherent" core? The only time you usually use the word coherent in architecture is with caches.

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.

 

[Nostremitus]

Why are we comparing launch Wii U games with launch Xbox 360 games? That console is 7 years old. Also, the ports from previous consoles were the very best on the Xbox 360. Wii U struggles with several titles being the WORST versions.

That's because the power gap between Xbox and 360 was so huge. That type of jump is not going to happen again anytime soon. Xbox 3 is going to be nowhere near that powerful in comparison to 360. Anyone planning on judging any of the next gen consoles by those standards will be disappointed, I'm afraid...

I'm not arguing that Wii U is a powerhouse by any means, but you can't gauge its power by comparing its rushed b team ports to A team efforts of last gen with such a large power gap between gens to work with.

 

[ozfunghi]

Why are we comparing launch Wii U games with launch Xbox 360 games? That console is 7 years old. Also, the ports from previous consoles were the very best on the Xbox 360. Wii U struggles with several titles being the WORST versions.

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.

 

[Nostremitus]

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.

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.