But it has twice+ the BW of Wii U so overall it's as good if not better. It doesn't have bidirectional RAM as I've been told.
We don't know that for a fact. We don't know specifically if the Wii U's memory is bidirectional or not, nor do we know how its memory architecture really works. We know the MEM1 chips speed and bus, that's honestly about it.
Also if the Wii U's memory bandwidth really was half that of the Xbox 360/PS3, explain why games like Trine 2 are running at a higher graphical quality on Wii U. Or why Gearbox have said that the Wii U version of Aliens will be the best looking console version. All this doom and gloom about the Wii U's memory bandwidth seems at odds with what we're hearing and seeing.
George Reith: Some developers have been critical of the Wii U’s slow CPU. Did you have any trouble porting Trine 2 to Wii U because of this?
None whatsoever. The whole architecture is running very well and we were able to ramp the T2 art to a higher degree than with the other consoles.
Then there's all the games that make heavy use of the asymetrical aspect of the console. I can't see how the console can do this if its memory bandwidth was so hamstrung. Rendering one 3D image at 720p 60fps on your TV, and another at 30/60FPS on the controller. If memory bandwidth was an issue, i doubt we'd be seeing such results and capabilities.
360 has about 22 and Wii U about 12 does it not? I'm talking totals so I was assuming (Possibly wrongly) that if you are reading and writing fulltilt on the 360 you can get 22GB/s but on the Wii U 12 max.
I'm sure someone else can confirm, but i don't believe in the real world the Xbox 360's MEM1 pool achieves anywhere near 22GB/s.
Sure, if you're mainly reading then the actual throughput might be similar which was what I was trying to say earlier. That if a Wii U engine is optimised such that it reads 99% of the time because it doesn't have to do all the resolving to main RAM like the 360, then the BW issues don't really matter as much.
This is exactly my thoughts.
Developers need to utelize different memory management techniques on the Wii U to what they've traditionally used on the Xbox 360 and PS3. Developers need to make good use of the increased MEM1 capacity, lower latency access times, GPU and CPU cache, eDRAM, and the likely increased bus speed between the CPU and GPU to limit writes to MEM1. Developers who make use good use of the Wii U's architecture should find its memory bandwidth exceeds its paper specs.
Also just thinkout out loud: I know in the case of the Xbox 360 and PS3, when the CPU and GPU needed to share data they both frequently needed to write it back to MEM1 first. For example Xenon would process its portion of the data, then write the completed result to MEM1, from there Xenos would then retrieve the data and process its portion. With the Wii U appearing to have a direct bus between the GPU and CPU, the larger CPU cache, and the GPU's eDRAM, is it not likely that the GPU and CPU on the Wii U can basically swap data within their own local pools and bus and largely ignore having to write to MEM1 to communicate? If that's the case, this would significantly lower I/O on the memory bus.
I have a strong feeling there's a lot more to the Wii U's memory architecture then many are giving it credit for. It seems to be focused heavily on reduced latency, reduced pipe line stall, reduced I/O and bus stall, and all around high efficiency.