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WiiU "Latte" GPU Die Photo - GPU Feature Set And Power Analysis

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prag16

Banned
You have to see where I was coming from though. I have no idea what "bloody high" means for a Mario game (or any game for that matter). Someone responding with a gif (saying I was wrong for placing it close to PS3?) doesn't help things either. So what was I left with? Either it looks like a PS1 game or it's some kind of never before seen render in the console space.
You didn't say "near PS3". You said "somewhere between PS2 and PS3", which is why Jennifer Lawrence reacted the way she did to your post.
 
Once you remove Mario's textures and lighting, you're going to be left with the same shell of geometry that every 3D video game is bound by.

I used the coin as an example. It's not taxing no matter you try to define it. I'm sure you could rip those and it would run fine on the PS2 or Gamecube. Props in video games, they all have a poly budget to abide by and Mario is no different.

Also, I was categorizing the models. In which case, they're not consistent.


I'm still correct. Just having PS2 broadens it (if you read the above, I pointed out how not everything is the same. My baseball example from the beginning, was also proof of this).
Can you elaborate more on the models being inconsistent?
 

JordanN

Banned
Can you elaborate more on the models being inconsistent?
You're not going to see everything with the same polycount. There's no way the Brick Block is going to match Mario when it's more than likely a cube with some chamfered edges (and since Wii U now has shaders, it probably uses some normal maps to fake some detail like the gaps).

Mario's topology likely goes further than that (see the face's edge loops for example).
 

prag16

Banned
Once you remove Mario's textures and lighting, you're going to be left with the same shell of geometry that every 3D video game is bound by.

I used the coin as an example. It's not taxing no matter you try to define it. I'm sure you could rip those and it would run fine on the PS2 or Gamecube. Props in video games, they all have a poly budget to abide by and Mario is no different.

Also, I was categorizing the models. In which case, they're not consistent.


I'm still correct. Just having PS2 broadens it (if you read the above, I pointed out how not everything is the same. My baseball example from the beginning, was also proof of this).
It's clear that all you're trying to do is downplay the Wii U in any way you can, deserved or not. Invoking PS2 while talking about polygon counts in SM3DW is silly, indicates an agenda, and I don't even know what you're trying to prove. Baseball example? Proves what exactly? Proves that you're "right" to categorize the Wii U with the PS2 based on nothing concrete?

Needless to say, Jennifer Lawrence and I don't follow.
 

JordanN

Banned
It's clear that all you're trying to do is downplay the Wii U in any way you can, deserved or not. Invoking PS2 while talking about polygon counts in SM3DW is silly, indicates an agenda, and I don't even know what you're trying to prove. Baseball example? Proves what exactly?
Well I called Wii U more powerful than 360 so I'm not sure what that makes me. It wouldn't be to my benefit if there was something better about Wii U I didn't know about.

Calling something PS2 is not an agenda. I already said Gamecube had coins. It just means for those objects, they were never all that complex to begin with.

As for the baseball, it doesn't need to look better than Mario because it's already a primitive (sphere). Those resources could be used towards something else (more balls?). If the baseball was a million times better than Mario, that would be a waste of poly budget (because it's bound to look like a ball 1/1000th of a way there).
 
Well I called Wii U more powerful than 360 so I'm not sure what that makes me. It wouldn't be to my benefit if there was something better about Wii U I didn't know about.

Calling something PS2 is not an agenda. I already said Gamecube had coins. It just means for those objects, they were never all that complex to begin with.

As for the baseball, it doesn't need to look better than Mario because it's already a primitive (sphere). Those resources could be used towards something else (more balls?). If the baseball was a million times better than Mario, that would be a waste of poly budget (because it's bound to look like a ball 1/1000th of a way there).
You realize that you're just talking in circles and stating the obvious that also applies the XboxOne, PS4, and PC as if it's somehow a slight against the Wii U, right? Not once did anyone indicate that every item on the screen had the same polycount. Since you are using that to downplay the Wii U, does that mean that you believe that other conoles do? Otherwise, what are you rambling on about?
 

JordanN

Banned
Otherwise, what are you rambling on about?
Well I can't answer this because you joined the conversation late and it shows when you jumped straight to "downplay" while not paying attention to what's going on (no, my point of my post was to dissect Mario wasn't this hyper complex game some wanted to believe once confronted about it). So yeah, read what happened before.

Edit: To save some time I'll do it for you.

-Someone said Mario was "bloody high" polycounts
-I confronted by saying what generation of hardware does this refer to? My guess being PS2/PS3.
-Someone then called me out for it. I called them back (I told them why it would fit those consoles, and not anything else)
-Then there was this conversation of "CG" and "artstyle", but I wanted to concentrate on where did the "bloody high" part come from
-Some wanted to know what inconsistent meant and I told them it all had to do with why I believed there was nothing more current gen going on (i.e budgets, topology, and using past games as examples)

I'll admit one thing though. The last couple of posts started to get convoluted, but only because of how long this went on for.
 
Well I can't answer this because you joined the conversation late and it shows when you jumped straight to "downplay" while not paying attention to what's going on (no, my point of my post was to dissect Mario wasn't this hyper complex game some wanted to believe once confronted about it). So yeah, read what happened before.

Edit: To save some time I'll do it for you.

-Someone said Mario was "bloody high" polycounts
-I confronted by saying what generation of hardware does this refer to?
-Someone then called me out for it. I called them back.
-Then there was this conversation of "CG" and "artstyle", but I wanted to concentrate on where did the "bloody high" part came from
-Some wanted to know what inconsistent meant and I told them it all had to do with why I believed there was nothing more current gen going on (i.e budgets, topology, and using past games as examples)
I read the entire coversation, but thanks for your biased recounting.
Go back and read it again and ask yourself if your comments make any sense. BTW, that's not what inconsistent polycount means, you described intelligent use and distribution of assets that is completely consistent with all echelons of graphic design. An inconsistency would be if two objects of similar size, complexity, and use have drastically different polycounts. ( ie, mario and luigi's polycounts were noticeably diifferent from one another.)
 

JordanN

Banned
I read the entire coversation, but thanks for your biased recounting.
Go back and read it again and ask yourself if your comments make any sense. BTW, that's not what inconsistent polycount means, you described intelligent use and distribution of assets that is completely consistent with all echelons of graphic design. An inconsistency would be if two objects of similar size, complexity, and use have drastically different polycounts. ( ie, mario and luigi's polycounts were noticeably diifferent from one another.)
So you don't think it's possible to smartly distribute assets and not be the same? Because what I said deals with that.

The numbers that show up for Mario vs that of a block is inconsistent. Again, he's not suppose to be same. This was the point of saying PS2/PS3. I wanted to make it clear none of Mario games are all pushing the same things. So Mario having a "bloody high" baseball would look ridiculous, because you could be implying it needs to be at the same or better detail as Mario is (who is also implied to be "bloody high").
 
So you don't think it's possible to smartly distribute assets and not be the same? Because what I said deals with that.

The numbers that show up for Mario vs that of a block is inconsistent. Again, he's not suppose to be same. This was the point of saying PS2/PS3. I wanted to make it clear none of Mario games are all pushing the same things. So Mario having a "bloody high" baseball would look ridiculous, because you're implying it needs to be at the same or better detail as Mario is (who is also implied to be "bloody high").
I implied nothing, I stated the exact opposite. No, I'm stating that the baseball isn't supposed to have a polycount anywhere close to Mario's and there is absolutely nothing inconsistent about that. Please read comments before replying to them. And no, your PS2 comment really had no point other than to push your agenda here. Please take a moment and consider that perhaps there have been some fairly illogical cases of posters jumping to conclusions taken in this discussion. I don't always agree with what you're saying, but I've always respected you... but lately you seem to be following the same path into fallacious arguing taken by Krizzx, obviously with a different bias however. I urge you to please take a moment to view things from a broader perspective.
We're all friends here, otherwise why waste our time and energy?

When Mario looks this good in 60fps, I can imagine a really stunning looking Zelda game in 30.
I wholeheartedly agree.
 

JordanN

Banned
Please read comments before replying to them.
I want to say the same for you. Because I'm telling you why it's inconsistent. In this case, two things not being the same is just that. Consistency would be if none of the Mario games were ever different in anything. Or if they were always the same in some way.

Nostremitus said:
And no, your PS2 comment really had no point other than to push your agenda here.
You made a big deal out of reading but I defended my position on the PS2. You need to stop.

Nostremitus said:
I don't always agree with what you're saying, but I've always respected you...
I disagree with this. Because now you're accusing of being like Krizzx (whose posting style was literally thrash talking people behind their backs), say I have an agenda and are just "now" pretending to be friends? No one outbursts at someone in a day and then says "oh, but I'm just trying to be friends/always believed you".
 

v1oz

Member
Anybody else notice that some of the models look like they have really bloody high poly counts?

They've been using high poly counts for some time now. Their characters are always perfectly rounded, you wont see any seams or rough edges on any of the topology. Which has has always been a pet peeve of mine when it comes to games. I want to see clean smooth meshes.
 
They've been using high poly counts for some time now. Their characters are always perfectly rounded, you wont see any seams or rough edges on any of the topology. Which has has always been a pet peeve of mine when it comes to games. I want to see clean smooth meshes.
That's not strictly from polycount, that's more from mapping and shading. You can achieve similar results as extremely high poly models at a much lower visual cost that way.
 
This is silly.

What? You actually think those coins are made of a million polygons or something? I'm pretty sure I've been collecting those things since the Gamecube (there was even a tech demo where they created a crap load of them and it showed their wireframes).
That tech demo was done on closed areas and had stuff rarely seen on GC, like 2xAA; precisely because they weren't free.

Sure, coins have been 3D since Mario Sunshine, but that doesn't mean a shitload of them moving independently was free on the GC/Wii.

It isn't and it probably isn't now depending on the complexity of them then and now (assets meant for SD won't appear as detailed in HD, do they have to be spruced up, turning more expensive to track/display), of course that depends on the capabilities of the hardware, but that's besides the point.
Mario 3D World isn't even a complex game. I actually think Bayonetta 2 is far better. The Wii U hardware is also close to the PS3, so why would polycounts suddenly quadruple? You want far better polycounts, you can only expect that on PS4/XBO or a PC. If the Wii U can do more, have a developer come out and say so like they do for the other platforms.
You're missing the point.

Bayonetta 2 polycounts increased in a palpable way, I don't know for polycounts quadrupling on this mario game, but they just might, seeing Mario Galaxy was a Wii game, a high polygon wii game that scaled up pretty well but a Wii game just the same. Quadrupling wouldn't be hard; but fact is Galaxy 1&2 look good even without it, even in a HD situation.

There's a reason people stopped talking about polygons as the 3D detail el dorado though, and that's because you now have normal and displace maps in the equation, lots of games this gen opted out to cut polygons to have more normal maps, it's a decision like any other; hence why you have comparatively low polycount games competing in detail with heavy polycount ones.

Mario is not a good example, of course it'll value polygons over normal maps because it's not trying to be realistic and so it gains comparatively less for going that route, it simply lends itself better to polygons; and that's why whatever we're trying to do here, raining on it, is comparing apples to oranges; if an object already looks as round as it gets at, say, 20.000 polygons, then 40.000 is diminishing returns, even if they might be impressive; the fallback is not so bad (and I'm not saying it's the case here, I'm saying though the graphical style is not a good poster child for high end.

Comparing Bayonetta 1 (on X360) to Bayonetta 2 on the Wii U being more indicative. (and we know the polycount increased already)

Theoretical polygon throughput could be the same across Wii U and the current gen systems, but the attainable realworld polycount is bound to be very different, and that's because very different reasons, from efficiency to RAM (geometry also takes space, and this generation consoles had a huge bottleneck there); wether that can be considered a generational leap though, we'll have to wait and see.


Going backwards, I don't even know why we're discussing this. It would be very hard to say that a Mario game couldn't be pulled just the same on a PS3, hell I can imagine it running on Wii with a few (graphical) sacrifices, more than a few actually, but being able to recreate the gist of it in an integral way - but how many games did you have whose core gaming experience couldn't be recreated on a PS2/GC/Xbox? Not that many.

I'm somewhat sure, being an exclusive that a team doing a conversion would have to make some compromises; but the end game on the PS3 could still be very acceptable, that's simply the kind of game it is, I mean, even huge downport efforts like the RE4 PS2 managed to pay off; doesn't mean they were the same across all platforms.

"between PS2 and PS3" is an insult, tbh, first off, PS3 level assets are not a gold standard, you had 10.000 polygon characters running on PS2, you have lots of PS3 games who won't go further than that; albeit one is PS2 higher detail and the other PS3 lower detail. Still, it boils down to needing more polygons or not, or compensating their omission throughout other means (like better textures and normal mapping on top). Manageable assets on PS3? Perhaps so; between PS2 and PS3? That's silly; specially seeing that would be Mario Galaxy, as the things it was doing were already well beyond PS2 realm of possibility; also on the polygon front.
 

v1oz

Member
That's not strictly from polycount, that's more from mapping and shading. You can achieve similar results as extremely high poly models at a much lower visual cost that way.

They were quite a lot of games in this generation with low poly character models wrapped up in hi-res normal maps (sometimes even displacement maps) to hide the low detail. But it doesn't look nice at all. The models just look odd. I think you need a decent amount of polygons in the mesh for that sort of mapping and shading to look nice.

But a lot of Japanese studios like Nintendo and Platinum are kinda old fashioned in that they still use use real polygons to render a lot of the small details in their models.
 

v1oz

Member
Mario 3D World isn't even a complex game. I actually think Bayonetta 2 is far better. The Wii U hardware is also close to the PS3, so why would polycounts suddenly quadruple? You want far better polycounts, you can only expect that on PS4/XBO or a PC. If the Wii U can do more, have a developer come out and say so like they do for the other platforms.

Just because the art style is simple doesn't mean that the engine isn't doing a lot of heavy lifting under the hood. Everything in the game is high geometry even compared to similar PS3 games like Ratchet and Sly.

One of the things that surprised me was when Retro studios said that each level in Donkey Kong Returns was far more complex and made up of more polygons than the worlds featured in Metroid Prime Trilogy. You wouldn't think so looking at screen shots because DKR has a simple art style.
 
They were quite a lot of games in this generation with low poly character models wrapped up in hi-res normal maps (sometimes even displacement maps) to hide the low detail. But it doesn't look nice at all. The models just look odd. I think you need a decent amount of polygons in the mesh for that sort of mapping and shading to look nice.
Depends a lot on how low you're going and how (regarding texture resolution and the like)

user_image-1059270299uhg.gif


That being a best case scenario (and poster child) for displace mapping.

It's quite honestly a balancing act and you can lean whatever side you prefer, hence teams favoring one or the other, but in the end relying more on one or the other it's all about the tradeoff's.

Relying on Polygons though, is not so old fashioned; Forza 5 is doing the same, as did Forza 4, and that's a western production, they couldn't have it any other way as we're talking about cars with huge detail to it, had they foregone with displace maps they'd have to pull some huge ass textures to withstand closeups; polygons is simply a more fitting and economic solution seeing these cars colors are usually flat colored (and not a skinned texture with effects on top); implications can go on forever but it's easy to understand why they chose polygons; it's also easy to understand the guys that over rely on displace maps, given their results, but it's simply not as good of a practice; polygons have infinite resolution, a texture doesn't.

As for regular character models, and varying levels of LOD being available, normal mapping was generally a less expensive solution this gen precisely because there were bottlenecks going on, hence it was used and abused to go the extra detailed mile, the thing it really wasn't is better, though. Hence, if you had unlimited power I reckon you wouldn't even touch them; it's not like you don't have to subdivide the meshes and work with extra detail, so in the end it is for geometry the same thing it is doing textures; a lower quality output optimized so that can be masked as much as possible.

Of course though, you have limits, and Wii U certainly has them as well, but it's likely the added efficiency can benefit the polygon throughput (the added RAM certainly can help a lot on the normap/displace maps details too), and that scrambles things up again; every team needs to find their own balance.
 
Just because the art style is simple doesn't mean that the engine isn't doing a lot of heavy lifting under the hood. Everything in the game is high geometry even compared to similar PS3 games like Ratchet and Sly.

One of the things that surprised me was when Retro studios said that each level in Donkey Kong Returns was far more complex and made up of more polygons than the worlds featured in Metroid Prime Trilogy. You wouldn't think so looking at screen shots because DKR has a simple art style.
Kinda like I've seen ignorant people stating Wind Waker looked graphically simpler to pull than Ocarina of Time.

Gritier vs cartoony.


Makes it really hard to compare, unless there's a huge generational gap. (ie: Silent Hill 1 on PSone versus Jak and Daxter: as silly as that sounds)
 

JordanN

Banned
Ok, I could start quoting things one by one but everything I wanted to say is being said by you guys. I even beat you to the normal maps on the same page so I'm well aware of what I'm talking about!

Now, my issue was I found it to be a big joke Mario was said to be this big polygon monster and nobody wanted to come forward (except for Lwilliams) and explain what they're talking about. If you were smart enough to see why I mentioned PS2/PS3 you would easily see through this and understand my suspicions rather than take it as insult (if I wanted to insult Wii U, why not just say it can't render no polygons at all?).

Someone brought up "Krizzx" but that was his schtick. Saying how insanely powerful the Wii U is without considering already existing features or games or just ignoring why something may not appear demanding.

And that's how the insanity began. What's next? Wii Sports Club is a tech showcase because the characters (or bowling balls) are close to round?

But that's not being a powerhouse, that's just being smart with your budget confronted with the artstyle you have. Even the Wii could pull off something similar but not because it's using some secret tessellation tech, but because it's easy to render something close to spheres or boxes (primitives are the first thing you find in almost every modeling program and you can make easy modifications to them).


lostinblue said:
I don't know for polycounts quadrupling on this mario game, but they just might,
It's highly unlikely if not impossible. I think we know enough about the Wii U hardware at this point (or at least why no developer is leading with it like the PC/PS4/XBO) that it wont blow the PS3/360 away. And yes, that's what I meant by "quadruple".
 

fred

Member
Bayonetta 2 has already 'blown away' the PS3 and 360 in terms of polys. The Gomorrah boss fight in particular. Bayonetta herself, the city buildings in the background, the building that the boss fight is happening and the Gomorrah model are way beyond anything the previous gen consoles can handle. And that's in 720p native, 60fps with v-synch enabled.

People are really underestimating what the GPU in particular is capable of I think, same goes for the CPU too. All you need to do is look at Elebits/Eledees on the Wii to see that Broadway was capable of impressive physics, and I think it's safe to say that Expresso is a bit more impressive than 3 x Broadways duct-taped together too lol.
 
Ok, I could start quoting things one by one but everything I wanted to say is being said by you guys. I even beat you to the normal maps on the same page so I'm well aware of what I'm talking about!

Now, my issue was I found it to be a big joke Mario was said to be this big polygon monster and nobody wanted to come forward (except for Lwilliams) and explain what they're talking about. If you were smart enough to see why I mentioned PS2/PS3 you would easily see through this and understand my suspicions rather than take it as insult (if I wanted to insult Wii U, why not just say it can't render no polygons at all?).

Someone brought up "Krizzx" but that was his schtick. Saying how insanely powerful the Wii U is without considering already existing features or games or just ignoring why something may not appear demanding.

And that's how the insanity began. What's next? Wii Sports Club is a tech showcase because the characters (or bowling balls) are close to round?


But that's not being a powerhouse, that's just being smart with your budget confronted with the artstyle you have. Even the Wii could pull off something similar but not because it's using some secret tessellation tech, but because it's easy to render something close to spheres or boxes (primitives are the first thing you find in almost every modeling program and you can make easy modifications to them).



It's highly unlikely if not impossible. I think we know enough about the Wii U hardware at this point (or at least why no developer is leading with it like the PC/PS4/XBO) that it wont blow the PS3/360 away. And yes, that's what I meant by "quadruple".
One issue is that categorizing hardware generations by their models' polygon counts have some flaws and neglects alot of other factors. Here is an example: The main character in Ryse is ~70k polygons, but there is a current-gen game that has characters beyond 120k. Would we categorize Ryse as having "current-gen character models," or say that the current-gen game has "next-gen character models?" Either choice is weird when you consider other important factors.
 

JordanN

Banned
One issue is that categorizing hardware generations by their models' polygon counts have some flaws and neglects alot of other factors. Here is an example: The main character in Ryse is ~70k polygons, but there is a current-gen game that has characters beyond 120k. Would we categorize Ryse as having "current-gen character models," or say that the current-gen game has "next-gen character models?" Either choice is weird when you consider other important factors.
It depends on what definition you choose to follow.

I would consider Marius current gen if there are indeed PS3/360's characters that match his tri count. But that's it. I don't see it as weird though because it only relates to geometry and not anything else.
 
It depends on what definition you choose to follow.

I would consider Marius current gen if there are indeed PS3/360's characters that match his tri count. But that's it. I don't see it as weird though because it only relates to geometry and not anything else.
Well, as long as you are consistent with that thought. If you feel that way, thought, there will likely be quite a few next-gen games with "current-gen" character models.
 

blu

Wants the largest console games publisher to avoid Nintendo's platforms.
So Mario having a "bloody high" baseball would look ridiculous, because you could be implying it needs to be at the same or better detail as Mario is (who is also implied to be "bloody high").
Pardon my french, but since I've been trying to make heads or tails of your argument for the past couple of pages and failing:

How is a statement of the form 'game x seems to employ high poly counts' (on objects that justify using high poly counts apparently; the brick example you gave earlier really did not help your point) implying that two fairly different objects from game x would need to be of the same detail level (read: polycount). I mean, what's making that connection, on a purely logical level?

Say, you had made a game consisting entirely of cubes, apples and sea urchins. If I said, 'JordanN, you're using some amazing polycounts!' would I be implying that:
a) The cubes, apples and urchins have the same polycounts?
b) The apples and urchins have the same polycount, but cubes don't.
c) None of the above?
 

Donnie

Member
I have always been skeptical of low power mobile-chipsets claiming to give desktop like power but untill Tegra 5 is released into mainstream, we will just have to take Nvidia’s word for it. Those of you who are Mobile lovers, this will come as a pleasant surprise, because allegedly the Tegra 5 “Logan” is more powerful than the PS3 and the 8800 GT, not only that, it will consume only 2W.

So here’s the thing, Nvidias Tegra 5 will come in two versions: the 1 W version and the 2 W version and will allegedly yield more power than its 250W counterparts. To put it into perspective that’s a 5 Fold Increase over current graphics chipset in the latest iPad. Not only that, Logan is made from the Mobile Kepler GPU architecture and it will support Open GL 4.3 and Cuda 5 out of the box.



Read more: http://wccftech.com/tegra-5-demoed-...3-tegra-6-could-rival-next-gen/#ixzz2iFfCPeCU

Would be great if true but until we see some in depth results I'll assume its just Nvidia PR. Considering they don't specify what metric they're using to define power (or did I miss some specifics?).

Also AFAIR the 8800gt is 105w max.
 
Would be great if true but until we see some in depth results I'll assume its just Nvidia PR. Considering they don't specify what metric they're using to define power (or did I miss some specifics?).

Also AFAIR the 8800gt is 105w max.

Didn't they make the exact same claims the last two times they released a mobile chip?
 

prag16

Banned
Edit: Ok, here's the problem. I'm struggling to think what "amazing polycounts" mean. At this point, I could make up my own definition and then say A,B or C and there would be no wrong answer.

But hey, this is the post that tried to put everything in perspective. So for all worries, only refer to that one. This goes for anyone else reading this thread. Also going to update my first post with it.

Nah, that linked post didn't do much good. In fact it makes things worse since you peg anyone who thought your PS2 comparison was inappropriate as dumb or "not smart enough".

lostinblue wins, and you're still not making any sense whatsoever. Sorry.
 
Didn't they make the exact same claims the last two times they released a mobile chip?
Pretty much; they're the boy who cried wolf sans wolf.

I mean, they're the company that pulled this:

Ii4CL1w.jpg


Kal El being, of course, Tegra 3.

It turns out that the version of Coremark that Kal-El ran was heavily optimized and used a relatively new version of GCC, while the T7200 flavor was compiled using an old version of GCC with minimal optimization.
Source: http://hothardware.com/News/Nvidias-KalEl-Demonstration--Marred-By-Benchmark-Shenanigans/

Of course, Core2Duo in reality wiped the floor with it with a slightly optimized gcc build.


Overpromising through their teeth is a pretty standard pattern; starting with Tegra 1:

(...) a few years ago, (...) Nvidia emphasized Tegra 1 HD video capabilities. 1080p was touted as the killer app, no other chip on the market could play video well at that resolution. They showed movies and games, but the displayed picture was not good quality. This was blamed on the projector (...)

Checking the specs in the presentation, (...) it appeared that the device could not actually support the promised 1080p resolution on an internal display (...) asked if the presenter meant 1080p video on an external display, they said that Tegra 1 could not support that resolution on it’s external output either (...) pressed by SemiAccurate about how the chip could claim to support 1080p video if it could not show it on an internal LCD or external screen, nvidia ultimately admitted that in Tegra 1, 1080p was, “just an internal decoding format”.
Source: http://semiaccurate.com/2013/02/18/nvidias-telegraphs-tegras-woes-at-ces/

Onto Tegra 2:

(...) Silicon delivered was roughly 25% over the promised power budget, an unforgivable ‘misstatement’ in a space that will throw an SoC out the door for 10 milliwatts too many. To make matters worse, that 25% was at a far lower clock than originally promised, the promised clocks would have unworkable power draws for a mobile device. The cherry on top was that the two promised killer features that no other device had, interrupt driven USB and one we were asked not to reveal, both simply did not work.
Source: http://semiaccurate.com/2013/02/18/nvidias-telegraphs-tegras-woes-at-ces/

And they promised lots of design wins and devices using them coming in flocks, a bluff that obviously didn't happen; I already covered Tegra 3, but they also promised that glamour acceptance to be in cards, any minute.

About Tegra 4 on the same article:

Tegra 4 had zero non-reference design wins announced at launch. This wasn’t a fluke. This wasn’t a change of PR philosophy. It wasn’t conservatism to win back the stock market oriented crowd, sources say that the number of design wins was minuscule. There was a Visio tablet shown off and a rumored LG win, but adjectives like dozens and tens were notably absent for cause. At this point, Nvidia has burned all the players at least once, and the results are quite clear to anyone looking on, Tegra 4 has few if any real customers.
Source: http://semiaccurate.com/2013/02/18/nvidias-telegraphs-tegras-woes-at-ces/

The fact they're promising the moon and the stars again tells us they didn't learn and they keep marching to their own tune, if they were to deliver, at this point they'd also have to shut their mouth and not try to get people's hopes up seeing they miserably fail every year; instead they'd have to deliver, and they'll only know that by the time they get the chip taped out (see Tegra 2).


Giving credit to Nvidia and outlandish claims for upcoming chips can only lead to one thing: disappointment. Tegra 5 is most likely not gonna match PS3 let alone 8800GT, and even if it does on paper, chances are that won't be in an usable way. Thus, "surpassing" will be a loose expression enabled by their metric, it might have better efficiency or hardware acceleration for some things due to it's more modern upbringing, but it's certainly not gonna surpass them on muscle. And so, it's only better by their own, fixed scenario metric.


They have the credibility of Michael Pachter.
 

JordanN

Banned
Nah, that linked post didn't do much good. In fact it makes things worse since you peg anyone who thought your PS2 comparison was inappropriate as dumb or "not smart enough".

lostinblue wins, and you're still not making any sense whatsoever. Sorry.
The best you could come up with was a gif. I don't know who you think you are to say what's "dumb" or "inappropriate".

But I've notice something. I've notice how all the "Wii U is so powerful, I don't need to say why" posts only happen in this thread. I think this is because most know this is the only place they can get away with it.

If this still goes on, then whatever. Just thought I'd let you and others know I'm way smarter then you take me for.

Edit: And here's something that will stop you all in your tracks. So many cling onto the "PS2" part but ignored there was also "PS1" right? You can't honestly think I wouldn't have a reason to leave that out if my purpose was to somehow say Wii U sucks right? But this goes back to what I was saying. It's only this thread you have users who want to avoid giving any honest answer because when tasked to, they can't do it.
 
The best you could come up with was a gif. I don't know who you think you are to say what's "dumb" or "inappropriate".

But I've notice something. I've notice how all the "Wii U is so powerful, I don't need to say why" posts only happen in this thread. I think this is because most know this is the only place they can get away with it.

If this still goes on, then whatever. Just thought I'd let you and others know I'm way smarter then you take me for.

When one is dealing with 'dumb' combined with an innately angry and dismissive disposition toward the Wii U in a Wii U thread, why wouldn't they use a gif? That's exactly what they are for.

Thing, is, you aren't dumb. You just come off that way sometimes because of the extent to which you go at times to try and snidely slam anything anyone says about Wii U that might make someone else feel good about it.

Admit it. You saw the word amazing and 'Hell no!' bubbled up within you and came out of your every pore. Then you made an ass of yourself in nitpicking and failing at what you thought was a clever squeezing of 'PS2' into the conversation.

Plain and simple.
 
The best you could come up with was a gif. I don't know who you think you are to say what's "dumb" or "inappropriate".

But I've notice something. I've notice how all the "Wii U is so powerful, I don't need to say why" posts only happen in this thread. I think this is because most know this is the only place they can get away with it.

If this still goes on, then whatever. Just thought I'd let you and others know I'm way smarter then you take me for.
...you didn't read his post if you thought he said anything about you being dumb... Stop fabricating conflict for yourself. Most, if not all, of your disagreements recently are directly related to you assuming what people are saying without actually reading their posts. If you're having trouble with the English language, then I apologize.

No one has been touting how "powerful" the Wii U is. Some people have expressed surprise for what it's doing despite it's limitations. There's a big difference.
 

DynamicG

Member
The best you could come up with was a gif. I don't know who you think you are to say what's "dumb" or "inappropriate".

But I've notice something. I've notice how all the "Wii U is so powerful, I don't need to say why" posts only happen in this thread. I think this is because most know this is the only place they can get away with it.

If this still goes on, then whatever. Just thought I'd let you and others know I'm way smarter then you take me for.

Edit: And here's something that will stop you all in your tracks. So many cling onto the "PS2" part but ignored there was also "PS1" right? You can't honestly think I wouldn't have a reason to leave that out if my purpose was to somehow say Wii U sucks right? But this goes back to what I was saying. It's only this thread you have users who want to avoid giving any honest answer because when tasked to, they can't do it.

Dude, what is your end game? Can you sum up your ultimate point in one or two sentences. The people here are note trying to champion the WiiU above all, they are trying to figure out what the hell your point was in the first place.
 
^ It's the metric that didn't really make any sense; lwilliams3 said it better by putting next and current gen polycounts and expectations side-by-side but, not only do you have various means to an end, there's also the issue of a 1000 polygon ball is already round enough, so 2000 polygons is bound to be diminishing returns regardless of wether you do it or not; if you don't nobody will notice, and if you do perhaps you'd be better off investing that budget elsewhere, it's that simple; keeping the framerate will be a better balance than running it into the ground because you want to push a few more polygons (you needed to do that on PSone/Saturn and N64 as a few less polygons made such a huge difference, not so these days).

Simpler polygonal graphical styles are technically less in need of polygons to pull through, as evidenced by Wind Waker HD being re-issued and being praised everywhere, that's a game where the Link character model weighted in at 2800 polygons, at least on the very similar GC version.

You could pull a shitload more polygons into it and it would be diminishing gains considering it already looks pretty damn good.

Mario games are a similar example, Mario Galaxy's Mario character model had 4877 polygons, fun fact: that's 3.6 times over Mario Sunshine's 1348 polygons; which could be considered it's "last gen" counterpart.

In order to quadruple that you'd only have to reach 19508 polygons, something they probably only didn't go for because a) they didn't want to b) they didn't need to. 19.5k polygons being above average for current gen standards, specially if it's an in-game character model and not a cutscene one, in fact at 720p more than being a challenge it almost seems like a waste.

Models are pretty high polygon for what they are though, just like Mario Galaxy was pretty high polygon for a Wii game.

Doesn't really make sense to go the "generation route" about this, because it either looks pretty good or it doesn't; if it doesn't and it's not due to lousy modeling/animation/texturing then it boils down to lacking in geometric detail (something that can be attributed to lacking polygons, or being poorly mapped with more advanced techniques, but we already went there).

In the end, it's like this, you have a cube, is a 10.000 polygon cube better than a 12 polygon cube? next gen cubes are still cubes, they don't need to have higher geometry to them (and you've had games built around cubes, like Cubivore, hell, there's 3d dot games heroes on PS3), so every game has to find their own sweet spot; whatever the polycount Mario 3D world went with... It's probably appropriate as long as you don't feel it's lacking geometry. This generation was 720p, the next one will be sub-1080p-and-often-720p, it's not such a big leap that current generation character models are bound to look like shit providing they were properly detailed and textured, so investing somewhere else to make a difference would be the clever thing to do, unless you really require those extra polygons (I mentioned Forza 5 before, so: Forza 5 seems to need them and hence it'll go there); everybody else... perhaps not, unless on cases where they had variable LOD going on where they'll of course try to stick with the highest LOD from the get go (or apply tesselation, but that might be a game changer in itself).

What defines a generation is not a linear thing; polygons defined it at one point, we're past that point though, and this generation is gonna be all about RAM, shader capability and passes; not polygons.

Backtracking... the "in between PS2 and PS3" remark didn't make much sense. There's lots of ways to claim something and that was simply a bad way to do it; because these days you'll only push for higher *something* if you think you need to, no title this gen tried to be a "polygon pusher" for instance, because even if they hit a wall and have to apply some trickery... they simply won't disregard a balance of needed features, they can't go one trick pony on it in the name of getting horrible results.

Resources are still finite, but precisely because of that you have to pick your battles it just happens that, unlike a few generations ago polygons are often not your biggest problem, far from it, same as saying variable LOD is not a industry standard. (for open-world games though, it is); more power, had that been "the" bottleneck will just enable developers to avoid the variable LOD/proximity asset replacement process and it'll result in generally the very same results to the viewer. Hence, not much of a generational leap, right?

Unless Tesselation comes into full play, but that's a potential game changer for a reason, if used in a plentiful manner it could enable a generational leap on a machine no more powerful than X360, precisely because it can add detail to details close to the camera and simplify detail for further away objects. Nobody knows how to use it in a way that is not complementary as of now though; so games that use it are using it as a icing on top rather than building the game to be light from the ground-up yet really scaleable.

The needs of developers are never really predictable, so before a generation is in full swing we'll never know what kind of advantage really gives developers the edge, but the sheer graphical leap of previous generations is unattainable, and it would be even if the leap could be rated to be as big (in processing power) as in the past something that it really isn't. So they have to focus on the things that really make a difference; such things might not even have to do with power in a linear way, as seen with animations on, say... GTA5; it's like the discussion of going realtime shadow map for a gameworld or keeping it pre-baked, really. They'll only go realtime if the gameworld needs it or they have so much power they don't need it elsewhere - polygons is bound to a similarly etched balance.

And Mario 3D World uses as many polygons as it needs to.
 

JordanN

Banned
lostinblue said:
^ It's the metric that didn't really make any sense;
For me, it made perfect sense. But that's because I know what I'm dealing with.

For you and others got too hung up on just me saying "PS2" and not trying to understand where I may be going with it. If you had asked me why I said that I would explain my logic to you, and then you would get it or not.


lostinblue said:
In order to quadruple that you'd only have to reach 19508 polygons
You misread "quadruple" if this is the example you think I meant. Look back at this post and I'm talking Wii U vs PS3. I actually told you what I meant so what happened?

It's highly unlikely if not impossible. I think we know enough about the Wii U hardware at this point (or at least why no developer is leading with it like the PC/PS4/XBO) that it wont blow the PS3/360 away. And yes, that's what I meant by "quadruple".
 
For me, it made perfect sense. But that's because I know what I'm dealing with.
Sure, I think I also know what I'm talking about.
For you and others got too hung up on just me saying "PS2" and not trying to understand where I may be going with it. If you had asked me why I said that I would explain my logic to you, and then you would get it or not.
It's not that, it's really the basis for it, I've read you twist and turning around it, but I can't agree with the basis for the line of thought or the fact you aren't retracting it.

It's down to, saying silly, wrong, misleading things is not *stupid* (pardon me for the expression), everyone does it sometimes willing, with an agenda or not; not backtracking on them though, can be just that. An inteligent person changes his mind all the time, and I don't think you're not intelligent.

At this point though, I think you're really stubborn.
You misread "quadruple" if this is the example you think I meant. Look back at this post and I'm talking Wii U vs PS3. I actually told you what I meant so what happened?
I know you're talking about PS3; a quadruple increase from PS3 numbers; and that won't happen in most situations, it's unlikely it'll happen on so called upcoming next generation consoles.

But point stands: Wii wasn't 4 times more powerful than GC yet the mario character model had a 3.6 times polygon increase. But that doesn't mean the GC couldn't handle a 4877 polygon character model, it certainly handled more than that; but nonetheless they saw fit to increase it almost 4 times for a console that had a 50% clockrate increase over GC.

It's all down to what could benefit more from stepping up with the limited extra power they had, and that model detail increase benefitted the game visuals a lot. They could have gone higher, but that would be diminishing returns seeing it looks great (for the Wii) just like they could have gone lower, but didn't. That's the very definition of striking a balance.

They could perhaps pull character models 4 times as detailed but what's in it for them? overhead is finite; they might as well implement proper tesselation.

The question is: Seeing they're going for 720p why would they go that much higher than PS3 on most situations? PS3 is a 720p console and I don't hear often things like "owww that shit is so low polygon"; because it really isn't; current gen character models can benefit a little from extra polygons but will probably benefit more from things like more texture and rendering passes or high resolution self shadowing.

Polygon throughput standards per "asset" are not a gold standard, we're seeing higher polygon throughputs on Wii U exclusives though, generational leap or not it doesn't matter; from the moment they're visible; they're not so visible here? hey I'm not even going there, but I'll say the graphical style sure helps in decreasing the impact of tenfold increases - like in Wind Waker.

It doesn't mean they aren't high polygon or more detailed (we can't count polygons anymore, can we?) it possibly just means that PS3 level of LOD for such a game would be enough just so that extra detail doesn't come off as striking.

Going backwards (as always), Mario Galaxy polycounts were already between PS2 and PS3, if you will, because both GC and Wii polygon throughput capabilities were well past PS2 and said game was no slouch; this game is well past that so it signals a leap over Wii and it should more than match PS3 standards; not middleterm them.

It doesn't surpass mad high polycount on cutscene character models from some PS3 AAA games? Well, sure. I'm positive they didn't see point in doing so; and I doubt sony themselves will on PS4.

*That* could be a high end next gen model (same as saying it will humiliate a lot of next gen games); and Forza 4 autovista cars were next gen car prototyping. But those are isolated cases, and it's still all about spending a budget, you spend that and then have nothing else on screen; if you do that on the Wii U you can certainly go even higher, (how higher I dunno) but what for?

I just remembered too, Kratos on God of War 3 had 22.000 polygons, well, Billy Coen on GC Resident Evil 0 had 25.000. Next gen model on last gen hardware? (sure the hardware was only pulling two 3D models at the same time there, but you get the gist of it; that's pretty much what a few super high-detail character model cutscene is doing this gen anyway minus the pre-rendered background)


And that's precisely what makes this so silly - oranges to apples if you will.

It most likely won't quadruple PS3 polycounts first and foremost because it doesn't need to as it's doing 720p, and only then because it certainly can't do it on all assets. *But* it probably could pull it on some assets (like character models) on software that's been written from the ground; but it could probably get a better tradeoff by using that overhead elsewhere.

And that's the silver lining why polycount varies so much this generation too, how many polygons each asset needs varies; Pikmin 3 I could agree, that's precisely where it shows it's Wii heritage some world geometry is certainly "between PS2 and PS3" - Mario 3D World is not (not saying it is surpassing, as I dunno, just not stranded on the way for sure; let alone in a palpable way bar perhaps simple prejudice).
 

blu

Wants the largest console games publisher to avoid Nintendo's platforms.
Edit: Ok, here's the problem. I'm struggling to think what "amazing polycounts" mean.
Here's one possible interpretation which is pretty much the fist thing that comes to my mind when I see such qualifications: the poster is impressed with the visual fidelity (which usually translates to silhouettes, and only after that to shading) of objects which she's used to seeing of lower fidelity in previous installments of the series/other games of the genre.

At this point, I could make up my own definition and then say A,B or C and there would be no wrong answer.
Well, you'd be wrong to assume any answer would do, since two of the options were not implied by my statement.
 

JordanN

Banned
lostinblue said:
It's not that, it's really the basis for it, I've read you twist and turning around it, but I can't agree with the basis for the line of thought or the fact you aren't retracting it.
What's my basis? See? It's this stuff again.

You can't just go around saying this stuff and expect me to know why I'm magically wrong. Speak up if you think my example is wrong. I told you I would even explain it to you and I don't think you even bothered. You call me stubborn, but I'm not the one not willing to explain my position.

lostinblue said:
But point stands: Wii wasn't 4 times more powerful than GC yet the mario character model had a 3.6 times polygon increase.
Mario was not even the most complex character on the Gamecube. We saw Leon Kennedy pull far more geometry than him (and hell, even Galaxy's Mario too). It was also an early generation game that had a focus on open world and doing lots of physics for the water. Developers always get better with the hardware as time goes by.

Now again, I find it very hard to reason with you if actually think Wii U is 4x greater or more in power than the PS3. Look at Wii U's games right now. Shouldn't they show obvious benefits if that was true? Instead, we probably don't even have a game that's more complex than Crysis 3 on PC (and who knows if it ever will?)

Or another thing. There where Wii U multiplats at launch that sacrificed geometry over the PS3/360 games. I'm not making this up. Digital Foundry has those comparisons shown for Darksiders or Tekken Tag Tournament 2. I think if Wii U had such an impressive advantage, it wouldn't be the first console in history, to struggle with games from last gen at launch.

lostinblue said:
PS3 is a 720p console and I don't hear often things like "owww that shit is so low polygon";
I imagine those are the same people who don't care about polygons/graphics improvement since the PS2/GC/Xbox.

If you mean developers, they are still continuing to make improvements over what the PS3 could do on the PC/PS4/XBO. The developers behind Killer Instinct, bragged about their 80,000 (?) high characters. Ryse and Killzone SF are also two other obvious improvements over the PS3 that's being talked about. That Dark Sorcerer demo? Also had the developers bragging about the geometry used for the environments and characters.
 

Oblivion

Fetishing muscular manly men in skintight hosery
^Mario games are a similar example, Mario Galaxy's Mario character model had 4877 polygons, fun fact: that's 3.6 times over Mario Sunshine's 1348 polygons; which could be considered it's "last gen" counterpart.

Wow, I had no idea SMG had that much of a poly bump.

But in fairness, shouldn't it be pointed out that SMS was an open world game as opposed to SMG?


edit: Do we know the amount of polygons for the SM3DW model?
 

Easy_D

never left the stone age
Wow, I had no idea SMG had that much of a poly bump.

But in fairness, shouldn't it be pointed out that SMS was an open world game as opposed to SMG?


edit: Do we know the amount of polygons for the SM3DW model?

I think that's pretty much taken for granted. The way Galaxy was structured allowed them to do some magnificent things on the Wii hardware. But guys, don't ever try to talk against a guy with experience. I wonder if he's aware Stump re-edited his original post back into the post linked in his tag after he tried to Amirox his way out of it.
 
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