It's true most games are 720p, despite the constant railing against that. Lots aren't, that doesn't mean most aren't though.
http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?t=46241
Since some people keep harping the eDRAM as the savior, how much will that help against the rumored specs of the Durango/Orbis?
I used to be a Nintendo fanboy up until the Wii came out. When I saw the "Revolution" I called it Madness and concluded that Nintendo left me, I didn't leave Nintendo. Since then I've been on the PS360PC bandwagon.
Yeah, no. That's exactly what it does.eDRAM isn't a savior at all. Its good for a FB and some other things but it won't make up for low through-put at all.
I do hope no one is listening to a word this guy says. Blu's flowers will be prize winning with all the rain water and horseshit flying round here.
All these issues about the Wii U power has me a bit worried about PS4 and NextBox capabilities if they release in under 12 months, even considering the advantages (larger form factor, $399, no expensive tablet controller).
Haven't read the entire thread but what does that mean in a nutshell?
That the WiiU will have problems even running current gen games properly?
Yeah, no. That's exactly what it does.
Yeah, it means that there are some hardware things that PS3/Xbox360 can do (and have been doing for 5-6 years), and WiiU won't be able to do them. Of course, there are other hardware things that WiiU can do much better than current consoles, so maybe developers might come up with some creative solutions to reach approximately the same results.
It's bad news for people expecting definitive-version ports of current-gen games, and doesn't bode well for Nintendo's relationship with third parties, and the real next gen is apparently right around the corner, but hey, there's always Nintendo's first party output...
Thanks!
jesus, so it is as bad as it sounds. Sure I buy nintendo consoles for first party games anyway but still...
Oh dear, what's the problem Herp-a-derp...NDF membership subscription fees due or something.
Never take advice off hookers or random GAF members.
Of course, the Wii U won't be able run unoptimised code designed for old unoptimised CPUs as well as the 360 can.
You know how all those DF face-offs show up problems with the PS3 version, because multi-platform GFX engines are tuned for the Xboxs faster on-die EDRAM and so the PS3 version is stuttery and lower res because of the lower memory bandwidth.......?
Never take advice off hookers or random GAF members.
Of course, the Wii U won't be able run unoptimised code designed for old unoptimised CPUs as well as the 360 can.
so all the trouble the ports seem to have is just laziness on part of the developers?
Nope its not similar because the main memory pool on the GC was fast. Both the GC and Wii U have super fast embedded RAM for the frame buffer. Then the 24MB general purpose RAM of the GC, is the super slow 2GB pool in the Wii U. The 16MB slow pool was mainly for audio.Wasn't the GC very similar? 24MB of fast 1T-SRAM and 16MB of slow RAM?
Obviously. It's up to developers and middleware providers to actually optimize their shit for this particular design. And it's probably not an ideal setup for current generation multiplatform engines as far as I can tell. Should be pretty nice for deferred rendering though.Not for anything that is not stored in it.
The engines haven't been tuned for the different hardware configuration of the Wii U. Reworking an engine like that isn't something that is usually within the scope of a launch title, especially if the work is outsourced to another developer.
The eDRAM is the main memory pool. The DDR3 is secondary/ auxiliary RAM, comparable to the Wii GDDR3 or Gamecube ARAM.Nope its not similar because the main memory pool on the GC was fast. Both the GC and Wii U have super fast embedded RAM for the frame buffer. Then the 24MB general purpose RAM of the GC, is the super slow 2GB pool in the Wii U. The 16MB slow pool was mainly for audio.
Yes the game engines will have to be significantly re-engineered. That's why all the Wii U games have issues with low res shadows - the RAM is too slow. To think Iwata even mentioned the Wii U was designed with easy portability for 3rd parties in mind.The engines haven't been tuned for the different hardware configuration of the Wii U. Reworking an engine like that isn't something that is usually within the scope of a launch title, especially if the work is outsourced to another developer.
Nope the eDram is the frame buffer for graphics work, its enough for 720p 4x MSAA or 1080p rendering in a single pass.. The 2GB is the system RAM, where all your AI, game logic, audio, CPU routines, etc is stored.The eDRAM is the main memory pool. The DDR3 is secondary/ auxiliary RAM (Wii GDDR3, Gamecube ARAM).
But this isn't about the Xbox's old CPU, it's about Nintendo's even-slower-than-old RAM.Never take advice off hookers or random GAF members.
Of course, the Wii U won't be able run unoptimised code designed for old unoptimised CPUs as well as the 360 can.
Jesus can you stop attacking posters
Just say your peace, don't need to underhand smack talk to get your point across
Am I the only one who dont really care about the power of a console?
As a PC player, I find it more attractive to have new way to play games than trying to get PC graphics, when next year PC will be over everything, again.
The eDRAM is the main memory pool. The DDR3 is secondary/ auxiliary RAM, comparable to the Wii GDDR3 or Gamecube ARAM.
And that's wrong. The eDRAM is MEM1. It's not a framebuffer.Nope the eDram is the frame buffer for graphics work, its enough for 720p 4x MSAA or 1080p rendering in a single pass.. The 2GB is the system RAM, where all your AI, game logic, audio CPU routines, etc is stored.
Yes the game engines will have to be significantly re-engineered. That's why all the Wii U games have issues with low res shadows - the RAM is too slow. To think Iwata even mentioned the Wii U was designed with easy portability for 3rd parties in mind.
so all the trouble the ports seem to have is just laziness on part of the developers?
I'm in the same boat. I recently upgraded my PC spending the supposed price of a next-gen console (~450) in CPU, mobo, RAM and GPU and now I have a machine capable of crapping all over whatever Sony and MS put on the table. In the other hand I want a Wii U for the same thing I loved my Wii: Nintendo games, niche titles, japanese madness and well-done third party exclusives.
Explain something to me guys, if we take the rain-collecting bucket analogy:
![]()
The rain is the images coming from the GPU, the bucket is the RAM in which images are waiting to get displayed, the smaller bucket is the EDRAM. The arrows are the flow of information from one place to another. Now please tell me roughly how important each of those things are if at the end we want loads of water coming out of the bucket very fast.
Obviously, the aperture of the bottom of the buckets is important, the aperture above also as well as the speed of the respective fluxes.
Thanks![]()
Of course Wii U might, that's MIGHT, have issues hardware wise that might hinder it, but there's no evidence of that at the moment, indeed, testament from developers stating the opposite.
You should look this up for yourself, but take what anyone on here tells you unless you're familiar with them, with a very large pinch of salt, including me![]()
Jesus can you stop attacking posters
Just say your peace, don't need to underhand smack talk to get your point across
The more I read...The rain would be the game disc, not the gfx chip.
The eDRAM would not be a bucket at all, it's bandwidth and throughput would be so fast that it acts as a river stream.
Also, how much does the proximity of the RAM to the MCM matter in bandwidth speed?
Basically you think its the main memory pool just because it's called MEM1. I admire your logic! But for all practical purposes, just like the eDram on the GC its for graphics (frame buffer, textures etc). The small amount of it alone is a hint.And that's wrong. The eDRAM is MEM1. It's not a framebuffer.
Yeah, anyone who truly cares about memory speeds will build a PC. I'm interesting in the Wii U for different things. If you're only buying one console next gen then you'd prpobably want to wait for a couple of months to see how all this shakes out.
I'm guessing that if devs put in the effort to customise to the Wii U platform they will very good looking and smooth running games.
The GC had three 1T-SRAM pools. eFB, eTC and MEM1. That's the official terminology, straight from the technical manual. MEM1 is the main memory. If the Wii U eDRAM was a framebuffer, Nintendo would have called it "eFB", not "MEM1". And the amount is actually a pretty good hint, as the 360 proves that 10MB are sufficient for 720p.Basically you think its the main memory pool just because it's called MEM1. I admire your logic! But for all practical purposes, just like the eDram on the GC its for graphics (frame buffer, textures etc). The amount of it alone is a hint.
But this isn't about the Xbox's old CPU, it's about Nintendo's even-slower-than-old RAM.
To be fair, I am pretty random.
I think you're doing Denial and Anger simultaneously, so the next stage is Bargaining.
indeed, testament from developers stating the opposite
The eDRAM is the main memory pool. The DDR3 is secondary/ auxiliary RAM, comparable to the Wii GDDR3 or Gamecube ARAM.
It seems that CPU's access to the edram is a first-class citizen.Aside from the leaked document you mentioned, this is not entirely clear if this is not a similar to Xbox 360 memory setup rather than the GameCube split. Also, CPU wise we might be talking about a few MB of eDRAM (L2 or L3 cache) and GPU wise we are talking about 32 MB of eDRAM.
Are you saying that we have 32 MB as main RAM and 2 GB of RAM as secondary access pool?
Can the CPU freely read and write from the GPU's eDRAM then? Can the GPU avoid resolving to DDR3 like the Xbox 360's Xenos GPU does for render to texture targets?
Why are you guys arguing about eDRAM when none of you actually knows anything?
Good lord these threads sometimes!
"eDRAM is main memory!"
"No it's similar to eDRAM on the 360!"
"No it's similar to EFB on the Wii"
Lol. Unless you know the details of how it works you have no basis on which to claim anything. Just stop.
The "analysis" here makes "I'm rubber you're glue" look sophisticated.
It's not about capacity, it's about priority. Wii's MEM2 was much bigger than MEM1 as well.No matter how you slice it the main pool is not the EDRAM.
Most data will be stored and run from the 4 DRAM chips, including textures, meshes, game logic, sounds ect.
New exotic architectures that people lack familiarity with are one thing. But whatever the PS4 turns out as, I don't think anyone will ever question it for design choices that seemingly bottleneck the whole system. Sony's hardware designs have actually been getting better recently.Well compared to the Wii it's certainly an improvement, so I guess there's that. But every generation brings with it different architecture, like how the PS4 will be completely different from the PS3 and require a transition period for developers.