Support NeoGAF

[Instro]

No thanks buddy. I don't want gimmick controllers being defacto. Motion and touch a part of it all you want but give me basic controller options like what we have on PS3 or 360. Nintendo has a unique tablet piece but that will only go so far with practical games. People are going to love that when it comes around due to those possibilities but the controller will never inherently better just because it's more unique.

The WiiU pad has all the same buttons as a regular controller.

 

[DICKS AHOY]

As much as Nintendo fumbled up the Wii U's reveal I thought the touchscreen controller even then looked amazing. Seems like a nice mix of the same kind of 'out-of-the-box' thinking the Wiimotes were while tying it into something already currently big on the electronics market (tablets).

I'm assuming based on some of the reactions in this thread that the amount of RAM/embedded RAM in this rumor is high or at least unexpected of somebody like Nintendo who normally doesn't worry about horsepower as much as their competitors? In terms of gaming how much would that affect, considering something like the 360 only has a couple hundred mb of RAM while an iPhone has 8 gigs, yet the former's regularly far more powerful? And how much would the 'streaming' feature of the Wii U likely take up?

 

[guek]

No thanks buddy. I don't want gimmick controllers being defacto. Motion and touch a part of it all you want but give me basic controller options like what we have on PS3 or 360. Nintendo has a unique tablet piece but that will only go so far with practical games. People are going to love that when it comes around due to those possibilities but the controller will never inherently better just because it's more unique.



Me too, just be practical. On PC, we have had mouse and KB forever and we don't really need anything else. That's not to say we couldn't use some ergonomic changes but the pads have been near perfected on PS3 and 360.

The only things that make a controller good or bad is functionality and functionality alone.

Might as well call anything other than keyboard/mice gimmicks.

 

[LiquidMetal14]

The WiiU pad has all the same buttons as a regular controller.

I know this. It also has a horrendous shape.

The only things that make a controller good or bad is functionality and functionality alone.

Might as well call anything other than keyboard/mice gimmicks.

One could go that route, yes. I would want a regular controller option. I'm sure Nintendo will find a way to make us buy another little piece of HW on top of the base controller though.

 

[EvetS]

How credible is this since ATi no longer exists?

 

[bgassassin]

He just playing with you.

Don't take it seriously.

He's the nicest assassin I know.

Exactly. I kill in a very caring manner.

No need to be sorry.
I had an feeling my idea was absurd anyway. I just didn't think you could have something like 768Mb's worth of eRAM, let alone anywhere near the CPU! Seems the site was just spouting out the same rumours from months ago.

I said earlier that it sounded like they combined a bunch of rumors, but after thinking about it, it sounds like some of it came from the Wii U GAF thread as well.

There's just so much wrong with that "leak" to believe it was true.

 

[LiquidMetal14]

How credible is this since ATi no longer exists?

I still refer to AMD as ATI quite a bit of times. They will always be ATI to me.

 

[Scum]

As much as Nintendo fumbled up the Wii U's reveal I thought the touchscreen controller even then looked amazing. Seems like a nice mix of the same kind of 'out-of-the-box' thinking the Wiimotes were while tying it into something already currently big on the electronics market (tablets).

I'm assuming based on some of the reactions in this thread that the amount of RAM/embedded RAM in this rumor is high or at least unexpected of somebody like Nintendo who normally doesn't worry about horsepower as much as their competitors? In terms of gaming how much would that affect, considering something like the 360 only has a couple hundred mb of RAM while an iPhone has 8 gigs, yet the former's regularly far more powerful? And how much would the 'streaming' feature of the Wii U likely take up?

Well, the romour talks about the RAM being embedded with the CPU, so that sounds like eRAM. But I don't believe you can have such a think as 768Mb (96MB) worth of eRAM. Having that kind of thing on the same die/space as the CPU would probably take up most of your living room (like someone mentioned earlier).

 

[BurntPork]

As much as Nintendo fumbled up the Wii U's reveal I thought the touchscreen controller even then looked amazing. Seems like a nice mix of the same kind of 'out-of-the-box' thinking the Wiimotes were while tying it into something already currently big on the electronics market (tablets).

I'm assuming based on some of the reactions in this thread that the amount of RAM/embedded RAM in this rumor is high or at least unexpected of somebody like Nintendo who normally doesn't worry about horsepower as much as their competitors? In terms of gaming how much would that affect, considering something like the 360 only has a couple hundred mb of RAM while an iPhone has 8 gigs, yet the former's regularly far more powerful? And how much would the 'streaming' feature of the Wii U likely take up?

Uh... I'm guessing that you were throwing around some hyperbole in that second paragraph...

Anyway, that amount of eDRAM is impossible, and even if it were possible, not even Kutaragi would be crazy enough to use that much.

 

[TheMagician]

Do people reckon the Wii U could handle the PC versions of Arkham City and Battlefield 3?

 

[LiquidMetal14]

Do people reckon the Wii U could handle the PC versions of Arkham City and Battlefield 3?

Nope. Not with the same fidelity. Especially when the specs speak for themselves. It could handle it as good as the PS3 or 360 going by those specs.

If the game doesn't have ram eaten up by having to cater to that controller, it should look better though but we don't know how the system works right now.

 

[Mrbob]

Not sure what you mean? PC version on high? Probably depends on how much power the tablet takes.

It'll be better than the 360 and PS3 versions though.

With 1GB of memory it would be impossible for the Wii U version to run with all the effects of the PC version on high. I'm sure it will run some of the high effects.

 

[MadOdorMachine]

This puts it right at about PS3 and 360 level graphics. I don't think people should expect the graphics to be that much better since most of you should be smart enough to realize the extra RAM and power will be to power and utilize that unique controller. Now, I can see some instances when there may be something that will not use the screen as much but I hope some aren't setting themselves up thinking this will murder the current gen systems because it doesn't look like that by any means.

That being said, I welcome a Nintendo HD system. I just hope we get an actual controller instead that of ridiculous screen based one.

I think it will be a little bit more powerful than the HD twins. The particle effects and lighting in the Zelda demo already looked fantastic and slightly beyond what are on those systems and that was made in a month IIRC. The GPU is based off of the ATI/AMD 2008 GPUs and we can expect more ram as well. I'm hoping at the very least it will display anything the PS3/360 can dish out at 1080p & 60 fps with better lighting, particle effects and physics. With exclusive games we should see something that's not capable on current gen as well.

 

[DICKS AHOY]

Uh... I'm guessing that you were throwing around some hyperbole in that second paragraph...

I'm asking a question what the difference is and how that much RAM would relate back to the games themselves, not making any sort of hyperbolic statements. I honestly don't know how these different types of memory usually relate to console design, but based on some of the reactions in this thread I'd be curious to have at least a basic gist.

 

[MadOdorMachine]

Do people reckon the Wii U could handle the PC versions of Arkham City and Battlefield 3?

There was a site that built a PC running off of similar parts that were rumored to be in the Wii U. It ran most third party games better than PS3/360 and it was on an unoptimized PC.

 

[SolarPowered]

Yeah, I'm just gonna assume that the edram is somewhere between the forties and nineties in terms of MB. The main VRAM or general purpose RAM seems like it will remain a mystery for little while longer.

The WiiU pad has all the same buttons as a regular controller.

People are just gonna move the goalpost with this sort of thing.

Well, the romour talks about the RAM being embedded with the CPU, so that sounds like eRAM. But I don't believe you can have such a think as 768Mb (96MB) worth of eRAM. Having that kind of thing on the same die/space as the CPU would probably take up most of your living room (like someone mentioned earlier).

I'm pretty sure they were describing 768MB of edram as insane. An amount like 96MB is still a lot, but not "living room" size.

 

[guek]

Nope. Not with the same fidelity. Especially when the specs speak for themselves. It could handle it as good as the PS3 or 360 going by those specs.

Do you know what EDRAM is?

 

[Raide]

There was a site that built a PC running off of similar parts that were rumored to be in the Wii U. It ran most third party games better than PS3/360 and it was on an unoptimized PC.

What spec was that? Do you have a link for the site?

 

[Shanadeus]

I know this. It also has a horrendous shape.

Aesthetically, perhaps- but that is bound to change as Nintendo always update their initial controller designs for the better (and no, not by removing essential features of them).

Ergonomically speaking it is excellent according to almost all hands-on impressions.

 

[Instro]

I'm asking a question what the difference is and how that much RAM would relate back to the games themselves, not making any sort of hyperbolic statements. I honestly don't know how these different types of memory usually relate to console design, but based on some of the reactions in this thread I'd be curious to have at least a basic gist.

It using that much edram is impossible basically. If you assume the rumor actually meant 768Mb(megabits) instead of megabytes, that's still nearly 9-10 times as much edram as what was present in the Xbox 360, which had about 10MB of edram iirc. edram is typically used as a frame buffer, having some 90MB of edram in the console is basically impossible or would be extremely expensive.

Regardless this and the supposed cpu doesnt match up with what we have been hearing in the past few months.

What spec was that? Do you have a link for the site?

That was something IGN did after E3. I believe they picked out a tri core cpu, 1.5-2GB of RAM, and some 4700 gpu.

 

[-Pyromaniac-]

Once Nintendo puts in analog buttons they'll basically have a normal controller, now that rumours say they've updates the triggers.

 

[MadOdorMachine]

What spec was that? Do you have a link for the site?

I brought it up about a month or so ago in this thread. I don't want repeat what was already said about it. Check your PM.

 

[Thunderbear]

with these rumors swirling... i'm not too concerned... Nintendo Wii had some of the most creative games this gen due to it being under powered... and i'm sure that trend will continue if the Wii U sells well in japan....

AND they would have played just as good (if not better because power doesn't just affect graphics) but looked better if Nintendo didn't skimp out on us with the Wii. Most creative artist out there that want as many tools at their disposal as possible to bring their visions to life.

This argument is so old and really so single-minded. Nintendo would make great games on a platform no matter how powerful it is. They are making their systems as cheap as possible to make as much money as possible. You, as a customer, should not be supporting that.

 

[Scum]

Yeah, I'm just gonna assume that the edram is somewhere between the forties and nineties in terms of MB. The main VRAM or general purpose RAM seems like it will remain a mystery for little while longer.

People are just gonna move the goalpost with this sort of thing.

I'm pretty sure they were describing 768MB of edram as insane. An amount like 96MB is still a lot, but not "living room" size.

That was just my way of describing the crazy.

 

[Thunderbear]

There was a site that built a PC running off of similar parts that were rumored to be in the Wii U. It ran most third party games better than PS3/360 and it was on an unoptimized PC.

This is also another annoying assumption that won't die. Just because you put together a PC of similar spec to a console doesn't mean you can plop in Arkham City PC and think you see what it's capable of. There is no single PC game out there that even takes full advantage of a 470GTX, with a decent CPU, 6gb of ram and 1.5gb of vram. Yes you can up the resolution, AA, and shadows etc. but it still doesn't show you what you could do if the game was specifically designed for those specs. That's is why relatively very old technology in the Xbox360 and PS3 are putting out some really beautiful games. Current PCs are capable of so much more than that outside of just bumping up the settings.

Anyway, the titles that come out for the PS4/Xbox2 in its first year of release will show what is possible with todays tech and I bet most people are going to be blown away. Launch titles will look good but obviously not nearly as good as games 6-12 months in.

 

[hellclerk]

Nope. Not with the same fidelity. Especially when the specs speak for themselves. It could handle it as good as the PS3 or 360 going by those specs.

If the game doesn't have ram eaten up by having to cater to that controller, it should look better though but we don't know how the system works right now.

You're half-right with the current specs as compiled by SpeculationGAF, but with the specs in this OP, you'd better believe it would run. Even under 1GB, 768MB of eDRAM would eliminate so many bottlenecks that you would be able to run data through the quad core in ridiculous chunks and thus get massively better speeds despite lower numbers.

And I think you're overestimating the weight of the controller on the system. As it stands, AMD has some pretty extensive systems to optimize multiple screen use, and considering that the Upad is only SD resolution, the practical effect on system performance would be minimal, and even then it's because the game is trying things that other systems just can't handle in the first place (multiple perspectives, greater numbers polygons drawn at any given time, for effects drawn at once, etc.), and this is all on specs that SpeculationGAF has put together. For this rumor's specs, fuck 'da police! This thing would be able to make double rainbows in 4D, let alone power images on a tiny little SD screen.

 

[EvetS]

I still refer to AMD as ATI quite a bit of times. They will always be ATI to me.

True that, and I guess the WiiU site is just reporting on the rumor. But if I'm working with a prototype everyday which wouldn't bear the ATi name anywhere, I don't think I will call it that any more.

Or the source is trying to be cryptic and in the end, we still don't have any solid statement on the hardware specs.

 

[Xavien]

Complete fake, in the Wii U Speculation thread, someone who actually works with the Wii U has said it has atleast 1GB of RAM.

 

[Death Dealer]

Fake or not can someone explain what does this mean in a duct taped gamecubes sense?

Impossible to know since they haven't released GPU specs, but going off the devs claiming 1.5x this generation, It would be safe to say Wii-U will be at least as good as 15 gamecubes duct taped together, assuming 100% efficiency, not an SLI like situation. Not only the computational power, but just using a modern GPU architecture will benefit third party Wii-U games immensely. Gamecube might have been close to Xbox, but its GPU was based on ArtX tech from the late 90s. IIRC no programmable, it was fixed function. So in practical terms it could be even better than the pure theoretical ratio.

 

[Raide]

I am interested to see what kind of performance impact the new controllers will have on games, if any.

If the launch lineup is compelling and has full backwards-compatibility, then I might grab it at launch.

 

[MadOdorMachine]

Complete fake, in the Wii U Speculation thread, someone who actually works with the Wii U has said it has atleast 1GB of RAM.

The rumor isn't clear on how the ram is broken up, only that it has 768 Mb (96MB) of e-Dram on the CPU potentially upping that to 1Gb (125MB). It looks like it's in addition to a shared memory pool for the CPU & GPU. It looks like there were typos from the source or mis-communication. In either case, this at least gives us more information. If does have this much e-Dram it should be a nice leap correct?

Nintendo is finally set to release a new, much more powerful console with HD graphics, and many are wondering what kind of technology we might find inside the console, and how it will compare with the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. We’ve heard from developers who have access to the console that the Wii U is “50% more powerful” than the Xbox 360 and PS3. We now know that those estimates of 50% are based on the fact that the Wii U is around 50% more powerful on paper, according to information Wii U Daily obtained from a Japanese developer who is currently working on porting a PS3 game to the Wii U.

According to the source, the Wii U specs are:

Quad Core, 3 GHz PowerPC-based 45nm CPU, very similar to the Xbox 360 chip.
768 MB of DRAM “embedded” with the CPU, and shared between CPU and GPU
Unknown, 40nm ATI-based GPU

The source also mentions that Nintendo has been testing two versions of the console, one with 768 MB of RAM, and one with 1 GB. The RAM is also made by IBM and is embedded with the processor on the same die/silicon, which results in more bandwidth.

These were the specs that Nintendo showed developers around March 2011, so it’s unknown how close to the final specs these are, considering there’s a year until the console is scheduled for release.

When it was unveiled earlier this year, Nintendo confirmed that the Wii U would support 1080p graphics and 3D is possible as well.

 

[bgassassin]

The rumor isn't clear on how the ram is broken up, only that it has 768 Mb (96MB) of e-Dram on the CPU potentially upping that to 1Gb (125MB). It looks like it's in addition to a shared memory pool for the CPU & GPU. It looks like there were typos from the source or mis-communication. In either case, this at least gives us more information. If does have this much e-Dram it should be a nice leap correct?

Nice leap would be a serious understatement.

We have enough confirmation to know it's not close to that much though. But Nintendo is more than welcome to bump it up to that amount.

But yeah this thing is pretty fake.

 

[sfried]

That being said, I welcome a Nintendo HD system. I just hope we get an actual controller instead that of ridiculous screen based one.

Oh that's simple: Use the Classic Controller Pro. Problem solved!

 

[carlo6529]

I choose to believe!

 

[MadOdorMachine]

Nice leap would be a serious understatement.

We have enough confirmation to know it's not close to that much though. But Nintendo is more than welcome to bump it up to that amount.

But yeah this thing is pretty fake.

The e-Dram isn't close? How much is in 360 and hinted at for Wii U?

 

[Nirolak]

Actually, looking at this again:

These were the specs that Nintendo showed developers around March 2011, so it’s unknown how close to the final specs these are, considering there’s a year until the console is scheduled for release.

That part is definitely wrong, and beyond just being confused about how hardware works.

Edit:

Yeah, talked with Kagari. With that we can definitely close this.