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RUMOUR: Wii U specs leaked?

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About the Audio concerns:

My home theater does not have an HDMI input, so I depend on optical cables, which are connected to my Xbox/TV/etc. If I use my Xbox without an optical cable, the sound would go to my TV, then the TV would filter the 5.1 sound and transmit 2.1 sound to my home theater. In the end => no surround sound if no direct optical cable.

This sucks big time. I'll probably have to stick with Xbox for the meantime.

Maybe they'll wise up and release something like the 360 had, where the toslink was on certain cable outs instead of on the console, otherwise it's time to upgrade the receiver.
 

statham

Member
I don't get the storage complaints. All Wii U retails game will be released as digital downloads from launch and 3DS games from August. Countless pieces of DLC, nearly 200 WiiWare games and 400 VirtualWare games have been released for Wii (a console with 512mb of internal memory). I don't think it's a problem for publishers. Beats the $99 20GB 360 hard drive MS offered at launch.
insane price for MS HD, but at launch, you couldn't install any retail or download any retail games and the biggest XBLA game was 60mb. Not defending MS prices, but at launch 20gb got you pretty far.
 

Bullza2o

Member
Maybe they'll wise up and release something like the 360 had, where the toslink was on certain cable outs instead of on the console, otherwise it's time to upgrade the receiver.

But I just bought it last Christmas :\

Yeah I bought that optical dongle thing that connects to the AV slots of the Xbox. That's what I'm hoping will happen with Wii U.
 
Looking at those specs and then the games showed today I can understand the graphics on most titles. Except textures that looked quite good on some games looks like 360 and PS3 graphics.
 
Get lost.

Looks fantastic to this day.

In your mind maybe. I hated how that game looked with its horrible art direction and god awefull plastic bumpmapping and tiling everywhere.

I was not a fan... but i can see how people got wowed.
Like they got wowed by Pamela Anderson.
 

scitek

Member
Most multiplatform games allow for higher framerates and AA on PC though.
Well, a lot of that's the result of brute force, but I was being sarcastic. The Witcher 2 on 360 looked very nice, but no one in their right mind would use that as an example of PCs not being much more powerful. It's all in whether or not that power is used or not.

I'm not saying anything new, but judging a console's capabilities before it even launches really isn't possible.
 

StevieP

Banned
I'm having a hard time thinking the specs are legit after watching all of the games. If it is more powerful than the 360/ps3 it being used up by the 2nd screen :/

But im just being bitter.

judging from what we have seen these specs are fake.

They're not. They're legit, albeit outdated. Sure the conference didn't show it, but it was a garbage conference anyway.

That's a ridiculous amount of RAM for the OS. It's a game machine first, all other social & browsing stuff is secondary.

It has a "suspend mode" feature, like your handhelds do - as well as some resident things that run all the time in the background. This will be far more common on all 8th gen consoles.

I wonder what the Assassin's Creed III dev means when he says the Wii U is stronger in "some areas". Does he mean it's weaker in other areas? Because he would have just said it's "stronger overall" if it was was outright more powerful under the hood.

He probably meant it won't play in SubHD on the Wii U.


About the Audio concerns:

My home theater does not have an HDMI input, so I depend on optical cables, which are connected to my Xbox/TV/etc. If I use my Xbox without an optical cable, the sound would go to my TV, then the TV would filter the 5.1 sound and transmit 2.1 sound to my home theater. In the end => no surround sound if no direct optical cable.

This sucks big time. I'll probably have to stick with Xbox for the meantime.

I'd say it's time to start saving if you're expecting optical audio on some of the other next gen products lol. HDMI's the way to go.
 
Most multiplatform games allow for higher framerates and AA on PC though.
like GTA?

Just comparing early gen stuff with late gen stuff should show how much becoming familiar with systems and being able to optimize code can do wonders...


also, no one to answer me? :(
what does this translate to in terms of bullshit 360 multiplier? [honest question]
 

I buy 3 a month or so. Bottom end is $999, and it has 64 gigs of flash, $1199 or $1299 for 128gig (like you suggested - difference here is the 11" or 13" screen - and why would you buy an 11" laptop?) and $1599 for 256gig - $1699 if you bump it for the higher end processor - which you should if you're already paying for the almost top end.

On this basis, it's $300 for 128gig of quality flash, which is what you suggested in your post.

EDIT: Ah, my mistake, not you, but some other poster. You're still wrong.
 

Myriadis

Member
I agree. Kameo looks muddy and awful by today's standards.

I think the grass was really impressive. In fact, I don't remember such a thing even in other games.
pressshot11bkkb.gif

Kameo is strange. Looks stunning in some areas, bad in others (especially some character models). Nonetheless one of my favorite Rare games.

It's still interesting how we still don't know much about the specs.
 

Raistlin

Post Count: 9999
HDMI carries audio. And quite well I hear.
Not everyone has an HDMI receiver and would still like discrete surround sound ... or even hell, digital audio given the shit DAC's incorporated in most consoles.


Think about it. PS2 had digital audio, and Xbox even had discrete digital audio (DD). Gamecube? Analog. This gen both 360 and PS3 had discrete digital audio. Wii? Analog.

This will be the 3rd generation in a row where a good portion of their audience will not have discrete surround let alone digital audio.
 

IdeaMan

My source is my ass!
They seems to be legit

For example, here what i've heard about the flash memory, and i revealed it for the first time a few weeks ago then confirmed it after, and it's the same as those specs:

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=38001100&postcount=14359

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=38012220&postcount=14967

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=38455133&postcount=12497

NOTA BENE: they are target specs. The flash memory status was still relevant in the v4 dev kits, used from December/January to April/May. Don't know if Nintendo increased the flash size in the "v5", mass production dev kits, that replaced the previous ones since May (grain of salt for all the supplying date).

And more generally, as these are early target specs, the actual hardware (for the GPU obviously as it has been highly customized) is different for certain components now.
 

NBtoaster

Member
I think the max texture resolution up to 8192x8192 confirms it is still based on the AMD 4xxx series, as that is one of the things they liked to advertise for them but stopped with the 5xxx series.

Of course the other parts of the specs imply its been heavily modified.
 

StevieP

Banned
1.3 x 360, apparently

No. lol

I think the max texture resolution up to 8192x8192 confirms it is still based on the AMD 4xxx series, as that is one of the things they liked to advertise for them but stopped with the 5xxx series.

The original architecture of the Wii U GPU is entirely based on the r700 series. The specs on the Cafe SDK PDF is almost copied+pasted piecemeal from ATI's spec sheets on that series.

The end GPU is customized to a degree, however.
 
Not everyone has an HDMI receiver and would still like discrete surround sound ... or even hell, digital audio given the shit DAC's incorporated in most consoles.


Think about it. PS2 had digital audio, and Xbox even had discrete digital audio (DD). Gamecube? Analog. This gen both 360 and PS3 had discrete digital audio. Wii? Analog.

This will be the 3rd generation in a row where a good portion of their audience will not have discrete surround let alone digital audio.
Thank you.
Another thing to note is that DD (decoding) is mandatory for both DVD Video and BR players and DTS for BR players.
The issue here isn't so much the hardware people own as Nintendo half assing that side of things as they've been doing forever.

Plus, we're talking about an industry that's been supporting RF output forever...
 

v1oz

Member
They seems to be legit

For example, here what i've heard about the flash memory, and i revealed it for the first time a few weeks ago then confirmed it after, and it's the same as those specs:

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=38001100&postcount=14359

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=38012220&postcount=14967

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=38455133&postcount=12497

NOTA BENE: they are target specs. The flash memory status was still relevant in the v4 dev kits, used from December/January to April/May. Don't know if Nintendo increased the flash size in the "v5", mass production dev kits, that replaced the previous ones since May (grain of salt for all the supplying date).

And more generally, there have been at least 2 spec "boost" (slight to moderate, depending on the boost, nothing huge), i don't know if it was just tweaking, optimization, or change of components.

Does your source have any estimates of raw power?
 

Zero148

Member
From what we can see, the WiiU games look like PS360 titles (regular, not the uber polished AAA PS3 exclusives like uncharted or las of us) and are Launch titles for the system. This is a good sign for me, that the WiiU is more powerful than those consoles, I'm sure we will be blown away on a graphics side when the EAD Tokyo and Retro games show up (Fall Conference maybe).

Pikmin is an upport from the Wii and looks very good for what it is, Mario also looks nice, but more from an Art perspective. Technically it looks solid. Lego imo looks good too, but it needs some AA. And even the Nintendoland graphics don't seem to be crap. Trine looks just amazing.

Overall from my point of view, the IQ of the WiiU games is quite high.


So I don't see a problem for later WiiU games to technically outclass the best PS360 games, and downports from Orbis/Durango should also be possible, but here is the problem if developers / publishers want to make a WiiU Version, what I seriously doubt, but it shouldn't fail on the tech side imo.
 

Raistlin

Post Count: 9999
25/50gb single/dual layer "not"Bluray but bluray lol

I'd imagine it is BluRay. I'm not aware of any competing formats that are different enough to avoid a majority of the licensing fees. So there wouldn't be much of a savings?

Just remember, while there are some licensing fees associated with a BD-ROM, they aren't much at all. Where it gets pricier is when you license the portfolio for movie playback (broad licensing portfolio that includes BD-J, audio/video codecs, etc). Obviously it's not including that.






What? If you've got a hdmi equipped TV. It will receive the audio just fine.
Stereo sound through tiny shit speakers. Wow ... so awesome.
 

Dash Kappei

Not actually that important
About the Audio concerns:

My home theater does not have an HDMI input, so I depend on optical cables, which are connected to my Xbox/TV/etc. If I use my Xbox without an optical cable, the sound would go to my TV, then the TV would filter the 5.1 sound and transmit 2.1 sound to my home theater. In the end => no surround sound if no direct optical cable.

This sucks big time. I'll probably have to stick with Xbox for the meantime.

You can get an HDMI switcher (not splitter, that costs more) with 4 inputs and one HDMI out plus optical audio out for like $50 and be ok. You'll obviously pick up only the compressed DD/DTS core stream if it's in uncompressed audio in DD True HD or DTS HD/Master Audio. For multichannel LPCM the games will obviously sport a compressed DD or DTS audio track option as well, like for some PS3 games.

Also, it works like the old Xbox digital cable it seems. It says it supports Nintendo-D which will probably be a cable with HDMI video +optical audio out.
 

Mithos

Member
You can get an HDMI switcher (not splitter, that costs more) with 4 inputs and one HDMI out plus optical audio out for like $50 and be ok.
But will the sound carried over HDMI be of a format the reciver I have can understand, I mean will games on Wii U have DD/DTS or only have LPCM sound?
 

Dash Kappei

Not actually that important
But will the sound carried over HDMI be of a format the reciver I have can understand, I mean will games on Wii U have DD/DTS or only have LPCM sound?

No chance they'll be in LPCM multichannel only, 0% chance.
Also, instead of a switcher you could probably just buy the Nintendo-D cable.
 

Lord Error

Insane For Sony
Overall from my point of view, the IQ of the WiiU games is quite high.
Texture filtering certainly looked good (from the crappy video I watched), but I was surprised to read that most of the footage was 720p with no AA. It was like that last E3 when they showed Zelda demo etc, and I just don't understand why that would be so.
 

Raistlin

Post Count: 9999
But your TV has HDMI obviously, right? Does it not have audio out? Can you not run the Wii to the TV, and an optical cable out of your TV into your receiver? That's how I set up a few things at my folks' place, since they lack an HDMI receiver.
Nope. Two points here:

1) The vast majority of TV's cannot act as a pass through for bitstream audio out of their digital output due to where it's located in the processing chain. It's actually meant for bitstreaming from the ATSC tuner. Audio from the inputs has already been down-converted to stereo before it ever gets to the outputs (though in the case of HDMI, it wouldn't even need to be down-converted since the EDID handshake would request stereo from the Wii U anyway).

2) There's a bigger point here however. Take a closer look at the audio specs. Notice anything missing? That's right ... there is no bistream encoding listed at all (Dolby Digital, DTS, whatever). Apparently Nintendo didn't want to pay for the licensing ... again. So even if there was an optical or coax digital output on the Wii U, you won't have discrete surround. Sort of explains the lack of digital output doesn't it. It would still be nice to have digital since the DAC's are garbage, but Nintendo obviously doesn't give a shit.



So due to the 2nd point, even if you did have a TV that could pass through bitstreams ... it still wouldn't matter. You'd need a TV that actually had a built-in discrete encoder (DD, DTS, etc) and had the capability to use the discrete PCM channels from the HDMI. That doesn't exist, and for a variety of reasons never will. How would the EDID handshake even work? It can't know you have optical hooked up. Beyond that, what's the audience for something like this?
 

Eradicate

Member
The original architecture of the Wii U GPU is entirely based on the r700 series. The specs on the Cafe SDK PDF is almost copied+pasted piecemeal from ATI's spec sheets on that series.

The end GPU is customized to a degree, however.

Thanks for the link!

I mean, though there will be some customization, it certainly sounds competent enough to be deemed "next gen" I think. I'm no hardware tech maven or anything, but all that sounds pretty good.

In regards to what's important to a videogame console, what customizations do you think they would make?

I'm in agreement with others here that (as in all things) it will be up to the developer to make the most of it all.
 

IdeaMan

My source is my ass!
Does your source have any estimates of raw power?

I detailed this many times on the Wii U speculation threads, search by nickname since the second one.

But i would say roughly 2x Xbox360. 3X with first-party magic, further optimizations of SDK, middleware, etc.

It's considering an intensive use of the Gamepad screen. Basically, all my sources were able to render a Xbox360+++ game on the TV (+++ = real 720p, more AA, more texture filtering, more effects due to the more modern GPU architecture, etc.) + an intricate 3D scene (not just an inventory), often another view of what the TV displays, on the controller screen.

So it's solid, performances wise. Not a full generational leap, not a souped up xbox 360 either, it's a nice stop gap, with in addition, some stretching possible of the system power, thanks to its asymmetrical nature. Read: developers could focus on the TV and avoid intricate usage of the Gamepad, to free up a lot of resources (as it's pretty taxing from what i've heard) and taking advantage of that for what is rendered on the main screen.
 

androvsky

Member
Nope. Two points here:

1) The vast majority of TV's cannot act as a pass through for bitstream audio out of their digital output due to where it's located in the processing chain. It's actually meant for bitstreaming from the ATSC tuner. Audio from the inputs has already been down-converted to stereo before it ever gets to the outputs (though in the case of HDMI, it wouldn't even need to be down-converted since the EDID handshake would request stereo from the Wii U anyway).

2) There's a bigger point here however. Take a closer look at the audio specs. Notice anything missing? That's right ... there is no bistream encoding listed at all (Dolby Digital, DTS, whatever). Apparently Nintendo didn't want to pay for the licensing ... again. So even if there was an optical or coax digital output on the Wii U, you won't have discrete surround. Sort of explains the lack of digital output doesn't it. It would still be nice to have digital since the DAC's are garbage, but Nintendo obviously doesn't give a shit.



So due to the 2nd point, even if you did have a TV that could pass through bitstreams ... it still wouldn't matter. You'd need a TV that actually had a built-in discrete encoder (DD, DTS, etc) and had the capability to use the discrete PCM channels from the HDMI. That doesn't exist, and for a variety of reasons never will. How would the EDID handshake even work? It can't know you have optical hooked up. Beyond that, what's the audience for something like this?

HDMI can handle 5.1 discreet PCM channels, I don't think there's much need to license DD or DTS for real-time mixing over HDMI.
 

Dash Kappei

Not actually that important
Nope. Two points here:

1) The vast majority of TV's cannot act as a pass through for bitstream audio out of their digital output due to where it's located in the processing chain. It's actually meant for bitstreaming from the ATSC tuner. Audio from the inputs has already been down-converted to stereo before it ever gets to the outputs (though in the case of HDMI, it wouldn't even need to be down-converted since the EDID handshake would request stereo from the Wii U anyway).

2) There's a bigger point here however. Take a closer look at the audio specs. Notice anything missing? That's right ... there is no bistream encoding listed at all (Dolby Digital, DTS, whatever). Apparently Nintendo didn't want to pay for the licensing ... again. So even if there was an optical or coax digital output on the Wii U, you won't have discrete surround. Sort of explains the lack of digital output doesn't it. It would still be nice to have digital since the DAC's are garbage, but Nintendo obviously doesn't give a shit.



So due to the 2nd point, even if you did have a TV that could pass through bitstreams ... it still wouldn't matter. You'd need a TV that actually had a built-in discrete encoder (DD, DTS, etc) and had the capability to use the discrete PCM channels from the HDMI. That doesn't exist, and for a variety of reasons never will. How would the EDID handshake even work? It can't know you have optical hooked up. Beyond that, what's the audience for something like this?

It won't need a real time encoder on board if the game sports a simple lossy DD track, nor to pay any license fees.

HDMI can handle 5.1 discreet PCM channels, I don't think there's much need to license DD or DTS for real-time mixing over HDMI.

He's referring to people wanting discreet multichannel audio on receivers lacking HDMI inputs.
 
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