Seems like we will never get the answers we want with this GPU.
All we can do at this point to see if its above ps360 graphics is to wait until E3.
The max is likely 550 million polygon/sec (1 poly/cycle @ 550MHz) The 360 is 500 million, the PS3 is 250 million (cell had to help to keep up with the 360s), and the PS4/Durango clocks at 1.6 billion. The real world numbers are a bit more complicated than that, considering that no current-gen game was able to reach close to 500 million poly/ sec.
@timfollowsyou @twelvezero8 I can't give details but definally, Wii U is a strong piece of hardware! Lot of memory and modern GPU = win win!
That's how you count polygons? 1 polygon per hertz?
I remember seeing the PS2 hardware limit being 50 millioin for 147 Mhz and the GC hardware limit being like 110mil for 162 MHz
I always thought polygon performance was calculated by some other factor.
GameCube's peak poly count was actually about 20 million (Nintendo gave out some realistic performance figures of about 675,000 triangles per frame @30Hz and 337,500 @60Hz). PS2 had an infamously inflated theoretical peak poly-count (something like 60 million raw *read, no textures or effects* triangles and a realistic count of 500,000 triangles per frame @ 30Hz and 250,000 @ 60Hz).
That's how you count polygons? 1 polygon per hertz?
I remember seeing the PS2 hardware limit being 50 millioin for 147 Mhz and the GC hardware limit being like 110mil for 162 MHz
I always thought polygon performance was calculated by some other factor.
For comparison, the 360's eDRAM is usually listed as 256Gbit/s, which is 32GB/s. So if the WiiU eDRAM is 70GB/s, that's a healthy doubling over the 360's eDRAM. And as on-die eDRAM, it doubtless has respectable latency performance.
70GB/s isn't crazy high, but for a console that seems to be targeting a graphical performance ballpark not all that far above PS360, it's probably more than adequate. If 70GB/s is what the eDRAM actually is, that's probably something to be celebrated, not a horrifying bottleneck of doom.
sony's infamously inflated figure was more like 100 million
Don't lose your hope ForeverZero!Seems like we will never get the answers we want with this GPU.
Don't lose your hope ForeverZero!
Maybe soon Nintendo will publish real specifications to developers that can then leak it to us!
We need a "This is Nintendo" gif
Don't lose your hope ForeverZero!
Maybe soon Nintendo will publish real specifications to developers that can then leak it to us!
GameCube's peak poly count was actually about 20 million (Nintendo gave out some realistic performance figures of about 675,000 triangles per frame @30Hz and 337,500 @60Hz). PS2 had an infamously inflated theoretical peak poly-count (something like 60 million raw *read, no textures or effects* triangles and a realistic count of 500,000 triangles per frame @ 30Hz and 250,000 @ 60Hz).
So is anybody still holding out hope for more than 320 shader count on this GPU?
And if not can someone explain why?
I think 320 is the most likely number but 400 could be possible I guess
Could anyone with more technical knowledge than myself compare this to a say, a Geforce Titan? How does it compare?
Fourth Storm answer was correct.That's how you count polygons? 1 polygon per hertz?
I remember seeing the PS2 hardware limit being 50 millioin for 147 Mhz and the GC hardware limit being like 110mil for 162 MHz
I always thought polygon performance was calculated by some other factor.
Having said that, the actual polygon counts a game will more complicated to calculated. Heavy use of shaders, for example, will effect how many polygons you can render on screen.That's how it's calculated on many modern AMD GPUs at least. Although I believe the newest batch have doubled that. So 2 polygons per herz. I believe PS4/Durango fall into that category.
In positive news Georges Paz had to say this about Wii U's hardware.
https://twitter.com/tatoforever/status/326827203256012800
modern GPU
modern GPU
modern GPU
modern GPU
Could anyone with more technical knowledge than myself compare this to a say, a Geforce Titan? How does it compare?
Fourth Storm answer was correct.
Having said that, the actual polygon counts a game will more complicated to calculated. Heavy use of shaders, for example, will effect how many polygons you can render on screen.
I haven't been following NVidia cards for a while. IMO, though, it would be tough to compare Latte to any existing GPU. The theory that makes the most sense to me, given what we know, is that they have modified the architecture of the shader processors themselves to handle different instructions (such as ones for TEV). So even if it is 160 shaders, it wouldn't be fair to compare them to 160 shader Radeon parts.
That would be interesting... build the TEV functionality right into all the shaders rather than having to bolt extra stuff to the chip to maintain BC. Fits in with the idea of having BC elements serve a purpose for Wii U games and vice versa.
But is that really a cost effective route, all that customization? It almost seems like it would've been easier and/or cheaper to just throw Hollywood on the die along with everything else alongside a more "traditional" GPU, and call it a day.
Of course the power consumption of one 7970 card is also higher than the whole Wii U's by a factor of 7.
Just to clarify: that's the triangle setup rate (aka trisetup) - the rate at which the rasterizer can process individual triangles and send them down to the interpolators. The significance of this rate is that no matter what the vertex/geometry/tessellation shaders do, they cannot produce more triangles than what the trisetup can handle. BUT that does not mean that those shading units always produce vertices and/or topology at this rate! IOW, the trisetup rate is merely a cap of the pipeline in its ability to handle triangles, not the rate in every given case - a particular case can be much lower than that.That's how it's calculated on many modern AMD GPUs at least. Although I believe the newest batch have doubled that. So 2 polygons per herz. I believe PS4/Durango fall into that category.
The large BW between Xenos' ROPs and the eDRAM was accounting for the 'multiplicity' at MSAA and zexel rate during the read-modify-write cycle. The rate at which individual pixels (not MSAA or zexel) were coming from the GPU was capped at 4GPix/s, *8 bytes/pixel max pixel weight = 32GB/s. If UGPU has 70GB/s, it could achieve the same read-modify-write rate (8 pixels @ each clock, but @ 550MHz) sans the MSAA and zexel factor.Well from what I remember (and this might be somewhat confusing) 360's eDRAM actually had 256 GigaBytes/sec bandwidth, internally, between the eDRAM itself and the ROPs/logic, within the 'daughter' die. The daughter die had 32 GB/sec bandwidth to the 'parent' shader core.
Just to clarify: that's the triangle setup rate (aka trisetup) - the rate at which the rasterizer can process individual triangles and send them down to the interpolators. The significance of this rate is that no matter what the vertex/geometry/tessellation shaders do, they cannot produce more triangles than what the trisetup can handle. BUT that does not mean that those shading units always produce vertices and/or topology at this rate! IOW, the trisetup rate is merely a cap of the pipeline in its ability to handle triangles, not the rate in every given case - a particular case can be much lower than that.
It can under some scenarios which normally involve minimal per-vertex/per-primitive work. It really depends how capable the (unified) shading units and the thread schedulers are.Understood, kinda. So basically it's a theoretical max provided you're doing nothing but setting up triangles. Or can this rate actually be achieved realistically?
Yeah, the chip is pretty damn enigmatic. My latest (perhaps final) take on it is that it seems like there may indeed be only 160 shaders on there, but those shaders have been modified to the point that you can't rightly compare them to any Radeon. It truly is a custom beast.
Well, the tri-setup may probably be the same rate, but the modifications and enhancements could positively affect how much Latte can display in actuall games. Perhaps blu or Pop3 could elaborate on that point.I wasn't disregarding Fourth Storms comment. It actually made me wonder even more. Since the Wii U GPU is more modern than the other ones, could it not have similar features that allow more polygons than the hertz suggest?
If you are right and there is only 160 shaders, what would be the flop count ? 176 ? Sorry for idiot question, its probably hard to tell because of how custom it is.
Yup, that would be correct. But if my hypothesis is true, there's more going on there. Here's a link to a post I made on beyond3d recently. The write up is a bit of a mess, but it basically explains where I am coming from with this.
TEV trivia. The ADD function of the TEV calculated a*(1 - c) + b*c + d which is five floating point ops. If that was directly brought over into the shader cores for compatibility instead of 176 GFLOPS (550000000 * 160 * 2 MADD) you could calculate 440 GFLOPS (550000000 * 160 * 5 TEVADD).Yup, that would be correct. But if my hypothesis is true, there's more going on there. Here's a link to a post I made on beyond3d recently. The write up is a bit of a mess, but it basically explains where I am coming from with this.
So Fourth Storm's Shader + TEV theory would push the GPU to a calculated higher FLOP count than it would be if it had 320 normal shaders. Very interesting, but I thought that they were sources that heavily implied that there were no fixed TEV units in Latte outside of Wii BC.TEV trivia. The ADD function of the TEV calculated a*(1 - c) + b*c + d which is five floating point ops. If that was directly brought over into the shader cores for compatibility instead of 176 MFLOPS (550000 * 160 * 2 MADD) you could calculate 440 MFLOPS (550000 * 160 * 5 TEVADD).
You could make the figure even higher if you took into account the scale and bias that could be applied.
I'm sceptical however.
TEV trivia. The ADD function of the TEV calculated a*(1 - c) + b*c + d which is five floating point ops. If that was directly brought over into the shader cores for compatibility instead of 176 MFLOPS (550000 * 160 * 2 MADD) you could calculate 440 MFLOPS (550000 * 160 * 5 TEVADD).
You could make the figure even higher if you took into account the scale and bias that could be applied.
I'm sceptical however.
That really doesn't make much sense. What exactly would a "huge TEV" look like?It was always kind of a dream of mine that they would go with a really huge TEV in the next GPU.
Are you referring to this? I don't think it uses the word "tessellation" in the way you think it does.Would tessellation be possible on fixed function shaders? How exactly did Wind Waker achieve it on the GC?
I'm trying to imagine a 160-shader device that could keep up with something like a Titan. And I'm seeing either a comically huge piece of silicon that tries to route everything to absurdly massive functions, or a slightly more reasonably-sized piece of silicon that's clocked at 8GHz with a 20V power supply and a constant stream of liquid nitrogen pouring over it to keep the magic smoke in.160 shaders with the fixed function capabilities of the GC/Wii would allow shading beyond what any other modern GPU can do.
Well that high figure is assuming the TEV ADD op can be executed in a single cycle.So Fourth Storm's Shader + TEV theory would push the GPU to a calculated higher FLOP count than it would be if it had 320 normal shaders. Very interesting, but I thought that they were sources that heavily implied that there were no fixed TEV units in Latte outside of Wii BC.
Like any other, only with more pipelines and more capability.That really doesn't make much sense. What exactly would a "huge TEV" look like?
I don't think you understand what I'm thinking about.Are you referring to this? I don't think it uses the word "tessellation" in the way you think it does.
Mathematically speaking, any use of polygons to represent a model as done in computer graphics involves "tessellation." The plane was represented in-engine by a substantial number of polygons, hence "tessellated plane."
Basically, Wind Waker probably doesn't use tessellation in the sense of running geometry through a tessellator to break it into more geometry.
I do not understand what you are saying.I'm trying to imagine a 160-shader device that could keep up with something like a Titan. And I'm seeing either a comically huge piece of silicon that tries to route everything to absurdly massive functions, or a slightly more reasonably-sized piece of silicon that's clocked at 8GHz with a 20V power supply and a constant stream of liquid nitrogen pouring over it to keep the magic smoke in.
I don't think you understand what I'm thinking about.
I said tessellation. I never said anything about tessellator.
Popstar said:Just to be clear, there is nothing that could be done in a TEV that couldn't be done in an unaltered R700 if you're just talking about the final result.
Okay, I'll spell this out a bit differently.I don't think you understand what I'm thinking about.
I said tessellation. I never said anything about tessellator.