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Wii U Speculation Thread The Third: Casting Dreams in The Castle of Miyamoto


Who are you?


AC on Gamecube actually loaded entirely on to the system RAM when you started the game.

I remember the good ol' days of solid state game storage, where loading was so fast they might as well have been in RAM already. ;P


Sorry I bailed out not long before you posted. But yes that info came from Game Watch. Back around E3 they did two articles that dealt with Wii U and the GPU. The second dealt more with the GPU than the first. This info for the most part supposedly came from Marc Diana who works with AMD marketing. The part you refer to saw a change in the Google translation. The newer one is worse than the older one. But the Google translation made it sound like they were told it is over 1 TFLOP, and that they compared it to the off-the-shelf GPUs to determine what it was though they weren't specific on that comparison.

Cool. I'll try to remember the names involved. Or maybe I should look for a "Wii U Facts and Rumours wiki" somewhere online to put this into.

But we definitely have a scapegoat if the Wii U's GPU ends up below 1 TFLOPS. :D
 

Shurayuki

Member
Sorry I bailed out not long before you posted. But yes that info came from Game Watch. Back around E3 they did two articles that dealt with Wii U and the GPU. The second dealt more with the GPU than the first. This info for the most part supposedly came from Marc Diana who works with AMD marketing. The part you refer to saw a change in the Google translation. The newer one is worse than the older one. But the Google translation made it sound like they were told it is over 1 TFLOP, and that they compared it to the off-the-shelf GPUs to determine what it was though they weren't specific on that comparison.

No need for an apology!
It's interesting then. Did we get to see that information from Marc Diana (maybe anywhere else) or is it known that that was specifically mentioned? I would look like a fool then i guess. I asked because you had noted the change in google translation so i thought maybe i could help shine a light on one part of this puzzle and contribute a bit for once, as it seemed nobody who knows japanese had a look at that?
The part you had quoted
AMDとは別系統からの情報もあったので
reads "since there were rumors from a different company/source than AMD" to me. That makes me believe the 1TFLOPs tidbit wasn't actually from AMD at all no?
Now i'm not claiming to be fluent, i did study Japanese Studies in uni though.

Edit: I didn't check the first article, though i saw it mentioned. Was anything like that mentioned there too? I only noticed that they said in that second article that if the RV770 rumor is true then their speculation from the first article (about the Wii U having no Tesselator) was wrong. So i didn't even look.

Edit again: I just found a 4gamer article that talks about the AMD press release and about what Diana talks about. I guess i'll give that the good old one over too, but at first glance it looks to be the same info. (though no FLOPs are mentioned at a cntrl+f search). I might have to bail for today though. Is this calle pulling an Ideaman?
 

Log4Girlz

Member
I think the major reason for Wii U quietness was that they did not predict the 3DS would be the failure it was. So they put hype on the backburner to make sure the 3DS' momentum does not suddenly drop out.

I imagine there was going to be TGS/GDC events, but the 3DS price cut and the stock drop killed it.

Shocking, yet reasonable ;)
 
Cool. I'll try to remember the names involved. Or maybe I should look for a "Wii U Facts and Rumours wiki" somewhere online to put this into.

But we definitely have a scapegoat if the Wii U's GPU ends up below 1 TFLOPS. :D

Definitely should go under the "rumor" side. Though if there was one thing consistent about the dev kit GPU leaks it was that it had an RV770 even though Nintendo didn't provide that info themselves.

No need for an apology!
It's interesting then. Did we get to see that information from Marc Diana (maybe anywhere else) or is it known that that was specifically mentioned? I would look like a fool then i guess. I asked because you had noted the change in google translation so i thought maybe i could help shine a light on one part of this puzzle and contribute a bit for once, as it seemed nobody who knows japanese had a look at that?
The part you had quoted

reads "since there were rumors from a different company/source than AMD" to me. That makes me believe the 1TFLOPs tidbit wasn't actually from AMD at all no?
Now i'm not claiming to be fluent, i did study Japanese Studies in uni though.

I trust your translation more than Google's. I had put it out there a few times a long time ago of wanting someone to give a better translation of at least that section, but no one ever did. So to get proper context, would you be able to write what this said?

 ところで、RADEON HD4000系というと、ローエンドのRADEON HD4350からハイエンドのRADEON HD4890までがあるわけだが、演算性能が1TFLOPSを超えているというAMDとは別系統からの情報もあったので、スペック的にはミドルレンジクラスのRADEON HD4000系ではなく、もしかするとハイエンド系のRADEON HD4800系に近いのかもしれない。
 

Gahiggidy

My aunt & uncle run a Mom & Pop store, "The Gamecube Hut", and sold 80k WiiU within minutes of opening.
A thought...

If the chip set is "on par" with xbox 360, yet has 3 times the ram which that machine used... it would mark the first time Nintendo designed a console where RAM size was the strong suit.



---

How many Teraflops (or Megaflops?) does the Wii and Gamecube do? What about the Xbox?
 

AzaK

Member
First time posting in this thread, always an enjoyable lurk. :p

About Nintendo's secrecy: from a PR perspective I suppose it's fine, but I don't see it as the Willy-Wonka-chocolate-factory type secrecy: that brilliant surprises are in store.

It's a frustrating coyness that I find is more due to a lack of confidence, like we saw this last year at E3 where Nintendo could hardly come out and just say anything concrete. It feels like the secrecy only surrounds the disappointing information. No fun in that.

To me it feels like misplaced self confidence. Why be so secretive when spec wise you're not really going to blow the roof off (actually maybe that is a reason to be secretive, less time for negative media) We also know what the controller is and have had examples of how it would be used. They might get value out of holding off megaton game announcements of course, but I feel that this intense secrecy is really just blowing smoke out their own arses.

I think the major reason for Wii U quietness was that they did not predict the 3DS would be the failure it was. So they put hype on the backburner to make sure the 3DS' momentum does not suddenly drop out.

I imagine there was going to be TGS/GDC events, but the 3DS price cut and the stock drop killed it.

But wouldn't hyping their new home console at the same time increase investor and consumer confidence? Besides they have had 9 months since E3, they could have waited 6 to let the 3DS shine a bit and start some small Wii U hype a few months ago.

Yes I am bitter :)
 
A thought...

If the chip set is "on par" with xbox 360, yet has 3 times the ram which that machine used... it would mark the first time Nintendo designed a console where RAM size was the strong suit.



---

How many Teraflops (or Megaflops?) does the Wii and Gamecube do? What about the Xbox?

No?
You just described every Nintendo system...
 

Shurayuki

Member
I trust your translation more than Google's. I had put it out there a few times a long time ago of wanting someone to give a better translation of at least that section, but no one ever did. So to get proper context, would you be able to write what this said?

Haha yes sure, i tried to cop out of putting it into proper english but it's only reasonable.

If we're talking about the Radeon HD 4000 family, even though it ranges from low-end cards like the Radeon HD 4350 to the high-end Radeon HD 4890, since there was a rumor from a source outside of AMD that the performance will exceed 1TFLOPs, it most probably will not be a spec-wise middle range class card of the HD4000 family, but possibly a high-end card close to the Radeon HD4800 family

Actually, the thing that threw me off was the use of 別系統 there, which i take to mean a company here, but would be happy to be enlightened if it means something else as it's the one thing i'm not sure about, and also the quintessential one. (it means "other system, family, party"). I hadn't seen it before and it's never used again in the article, the thing is that 系 is used to denote the HD families in the article, but that reading wouldn't make sense in the context there.
 
It's kinda like that GF that used to be madly in love with. You were totally inseperatable, completely comfortable with each other, shared all your stupid stories with, had your sense of humor, got along with the parents, everything was sunshine and rainbows.

But over the years, you started to like her less and less. Things she used to do for you, she doesn't do anymore. That favorite activity you guys did together, she got bored of that, and now all your friends are doing it. Meanwhile, she's taken up a hobby of knitting sweaters for cats and buying an electric car because of the dangers of Global Warming. It gets to the point that all you can do is reminisce about the good old days, and that point you just break it off and find somebody else, like that Sony girl next door, who recently took up your old favorite hobbies you used to do.

And ever since then, you just don't like her whenever you see her in your social circle. Every now and then, you see something about her that makes you remember why you fell in love, but its just not the same. It's not good enough anymore. And it's so much worse because your friends keep talking about her like she's so awesome. I mean, every time someone namedrops her or she shows up, she's the center of fucking attention, it makes you sick at all the wasted potential. "Oh man, isn't she amazing!?" Fuck you dude, she isn't amazing anymore, and she hasn't been in years. So screw her, and screw whatever she is doing. It's gonna suck.

werewolf-crash.gif
 
I asked this question pages agp but never got an answer.

Do you techies think that Wii U would be capable of rendering the mostly pre-rendered 'Rebirth' demo by MixCore that was shown for GameCube at Space World 2000, in real-time?

Assuming Wii U's GPU is at least twice as powerful as Xbox 360 (worst csdr),
 

Log4Girlz

Member
A thought...

If the chip set is "on par" with xbox 360, yet has 3 times the ram which that machine used... it would mark the first time Nintendo designed a console where RAM size was the strong suit.



---

How many Teraflops (or Megaflops?) does the Wii and Gamecube do? What about the Xbox?

Gamecube: http://www.segatech.com/gamecube/overview/

GPU does about 10 Gflops

Wii: No numbers I can find, but we know its clocked about 50% faster

Xbox: http://forum.teamxbox.com/archive/index.php/t-422171.html

About 21.6 realistic Gflops (was advertised by Nvidia to do 80)

Xbox 360 as stated in the thread does about 240 Gflops.
 
A thought...

If the chip set is "on par" with xbox 360, yet has 3 times the ram which that machine used... it would mark the first time Nintendo designed a console where RAM size was the strong suit.



---

How many Teraflops (or Megaflops?) does the Wii and Gamecube do? What about the Xbox?

Gamecube manages an incredible 8 GFLOPS on the gpu side and 1.9 GFLOPS on the cpu side. The gpu of the Wii is 50% higher, so scale appropriately.

Interesting. The rumoured floppage of the Wii U is more than eighty times as high as the Wii's. This might actually mean slightly rounder models on the next Animal Crossing!

Can't quite nail down the Xbox's.
edit: I found some Xbox specs here
 

Shurayuki

Member
A 4800?
That's pretty good news for the range of the Wii U.

Well if i'm right they have the FLOP rumor from an undisclosed (?) source and made an educated guess with the information they have.
It also seems that they had guessed earlier that the Wii U wouldn't have a Tesselation unit, which would be false if the newer information in this article is correct (they note as much themselves), so i'm not sure if their guess is better than ours.
It also says "close to 4800" and reinforces the estimation by using "もしかすると" and "かもしれない" which generally denote a personal guess.


Do i spot Reggie in the audience?

~~

not so stealth edit: i'm out for the night if there are still questions. Later! (i think this fits on multiple accounts)
 

Log4Girlz

Member
Gamecube manages an incredible 8 GFLOPS on the gpu side and 1.9 GFLOPS on the cpu side. The gpu of the Wii is 50% higher, so scale appropriately.

Interesting. The rumoured floppage of the Wii U is more than eighty times as high as the Wii's. This might actually mean slightly rounder models on the next Animal Crossing!

Can't quite nail down the Xbox's.
edit: I found some Xbox specs here

That's a good source.
 
I think the major reason for Wii U quietness was that they did not predict the 3DS would be the failure it was. So they put hype on the backburner to make sure the 3DS' momentum does not suddenly drop out.

I imagine there was going to be TGS/GDC events, but the 3DS price cut and the stock drop killed it.

I agree in part, but even before that, there are multiple indications that Nintendo had originally planned a more substantive software showing at E3 last year, which they ended up pulling (Vigil developing a demo build of Darksiders, Iwata's comments about "expand[ing] the development resources in the foreign countries," etc).

I'm pretty sure, though, that the overall plan at that point was indeed for multiple press events later in 2011 and early 2012, leading to a launch in Q2 or early Q3 of this year. But plans change.
 
But wouldn't hyping their new home console at the same time increase investor and consumer confidence? Besides they have had 9 months since E3, they could have waited 6 to let the 3DS shine a bit and start some small Wii U hype a few months ago.

Yes I am bitter :)

Not if they have nothing to show.

But the point was more that distracting from the 3DS wasn't a good idea.
 
I asked this question pages agp but never got an answer.

Do you techies think that Wii U would be capable of rendering the mostly pre-rendered 'Rebirth' demo by MixCore that was shown for GameCube at Space World 2000, in real-time?

Assuming Wii U's GPU is at least twice as powerful as Xbox 360 (worst csdr),

Difficult to say, but probably more or less. Especially if the Wii U has enough processing power. As long as we're talking about a skin deep visual layer, but it's hard to say concerning a frame-by-frame IQ. Haven't watched that demo in a while.

But I'd love to see another Silent Hill/REmake-type game made with entirely pre-rendered graphics on Wii U. Could be interesting using both screens.
 
Haha yes sure, i tried to cop out of putting it into proper english but it's only reasonable.



Actually, the thing that threw me off was the use of 別系統 there, which i take to mean a company here, but would be happy to be enlightened if it means something else as it's the one thing i'm not sure about, and also the one quintessential one.

Thanks. Glad to finally get a better idea if where that "1 TFLOP" mention came from. The rumors from that time seemed to be pretty consistent, though I keep forgetting the same article said it was an RV770.

I'm going to abuse your ability for a moment. :p

I have two more sections in question.

もう1つは「Wii U本体からのHD映像出力」と「4つのSD映像出力」のモードだという。 つまり、SD映像にはなるが、メイン画面に加えて最大同時4画面出力が可能だということになる。

それと、海外著名ゲームエンジンUnreal Engine3やCRY ENGINE3のWii Uへの対応だが、開発元のEPIC GAMES、CRYTEKは共に明確なコメントは避けたが、すでに対応に向けての動きは始まっている。

ついに著名メジャーゲームエンジンが任天堂ハードのサポートを開始するのだ。
 
I asked this question pages agp but never got an answer.

Do you techies think that Wii U would be capable of rendering the mostly pre-rendered 'Rebirth' demo by MixCore that was shown for GameCube at Space World 2000, in real-time?

Assuming Wii U's GPU is at least twice as powerful as Xbox 360 (worst csdr),

I'm not an expert, but I just looked it up. Yes. The Wii U (real time) bird demo looks better than Rebirth. For one thing, there's a much further draw distance (Rebirth whites out only a few layers of trees back) and more dynamic effects. The ground is largely flat texture, too. The particle effects are pretty primitive looking, as well. I'm guessing the Wii U could do this from two angles at once without breaking a sweat.

(it might look magically better not on Youtube, but the stuff I remarked upon above wouldn't be affected by that sort of video quality)
 

AniHawk

Member
I'm looking forward to playing GCN titles on the uPad while watching TV in the background. Gonna be sweet!

you could be sailing to someplace in the wind waker, tune into the tv show in the meantime, and reach your destination and play during the commercial break.
 
I wouldn't be surprised if Wii U had some weird quirk like "THIS GAME CAN NOT BE PLAYED WIRELESSLY" or that Wii games won't work unless you set the controller down and sit there pointing at the controller with the wiimote.
 
I asked this question pages agp but never got an answer.

Do you techies think that Wii U would be capable of rendering the mostly pre-rendered 'Rebirth' demo by MixCore that was shown for GameCube at Space World 2000, in real-time?

Assuming Wii U's GPU is at least twice as powerful as Xbox 360 (worst csdr),

I think the bird demo surpasses it.

Well if i'm right they have the FLOP rumor from an undisclosed (?) source and made an educated guess with the information they have.
It also seems that they had guessed earlier that the Wii U wouldn't have a Tesselation unit, which would be false if the newer information in this article is correct (they note as much themselves), so i'm not sure if their guess is better than ours.
It also says "close to 4800" and reinforces the estimation by using "もしかすると" and "かもしれない" which generally denote a personal guess.

Really? I thought it was saying it had the 4000-series tessellation unit that had been used in previous Radeon GPU gens as well.
 
I wouldn't be surprised if Wii U had some weird quirk like "THIS GAME CAN NOT BE PLAYED WIRELESSLY" or that Wii games won't work unless you set the controller down and sit there pointing at the controller with the wiimote.

I dunno how the former would work, unless they're keeping the HDMI port on the controller.
As for the second, we've already seen a sensor bar port on the console, so why would we need to point at the controller?
 
you could be sailing to someplace in the wind waker, tune into the tv show in the meantime, and reach your destination and play during the commercial break.
It's so genius!
I wouldn't be surprised if Wii U had some weird quirk like "THIS GAME CAN NOT BE PLAYED WIRELESSLY" or that Wii games won't work unless you set the controller down and sit there pointing at the controller with the wiimote.
Hah.

Yes I have to say something cumbersome is likely.


*munch munch* Hey this fig is great, where did you say you got it from again?
Anihawk gave me a bag as a belated birthday present.
 

Anth0ny

Member
I wouldn't be surprised if Wii U had some weird quirk like "THIS GAME CAN NOT BE PLAYED WIRELESSLY" or that Wii games won't work unless you set the controller down and sit there pointing at the controller with the wiimote.

For sure.

I bet the console will go into WII MODE or VIRTUAL CONSOLE MODE and have absolutely no compatibility with the controller screen whatsoever.
 

Krev

Unconfirmed Member
For sure.

I bet the console will go into WII MODE or VIRTUAL CONSOLE MODE and have absolutely no compatibility with the controller screen whatsoever.
This is what I'm worried about for VC. They'd better put stream streaming into the emulator. I mean, you can press use the Home button on Wii VC games, damnit!
 
I think the bird demo surpasses it.

I was going to say that but there's the question of if the Bird demo is directly relative to what the system can/will do in practice. Which could very well be a bit less than that demo suggests. Whereas the Rebirth demo should be completely doable now more or less in-game.

Hopefully Nintendo is undershooting or on point what the system is actually capable of in-game, as opposed to almost every other early gen demos. In any case, the bird demo looks great and it would be a fine high water mark. Just imagine a Metroid, Crytek, or Platinum project on this HW.

For sure.

I bet the console will go into WII MODE or VIRTUAL CONSOLE MODE and have absolutely no compatibility with the controller screen whatsoever.

I really hope the console/controller features and services are still accessible and usable while playing any game. But you're probably not too far off here.
 

Hiltz

Member
If Wind Waker HD does come out in whatever form, then I hope to God Nintendo makes some adjustments like speeding up the boat's movement, skippable baton animation, putting the inventory on the Upad's touchscreen, and offering an alternative Wii remote control scheme because going back to dual analog is gonna suck with the bow and arrow.
 

Shurayuki

Member
Really? I thought it was saying it had the 4000-series tessellation unit that had been used in previous Radeon GPU gens as well.

Which one, the one i'm translating from now? That one (the second, newer one) says that yes. As i said i didn't check the earlier one but they mentioned in this newer one that they previously didn't think it would have one if i recall correctly from reading it earlier. (i didn't make that very clear sorry).
As for the current status of the rumor, yes it should have them.

Rough first draft of the two quotes: (the first is a bit cryptic to me since i'm no techhead and hadn't followed any wii u news)

Another one are the so called "Wii U unit HD Image Output" and "4 SD Image Output" modes. In short that means, that the possibility is high that it can output 4 screens, even though they become SD.

I'm not really sure what it's about, maybe need the paragraph or something i don't know about Wii U? Possibility of 4 SD images being produced (maybe 4 Wiipads?).

Well known foreign engines like UE3 and CryEnginge are supported by Wii U, even though the development houses Epic Games and Crytek are trying to avoid clear statements, the hints pointing towards it have already started.

It seems that finally major game engines are supporting Nintendo hardware.
 
Which one, the one i'm translating from now? That one (the second, newer one) says that yes. As i said i didn't check the earlier one but they mentioned in this newer one that they previously didn't think it would have one if i recall correctly from reading it earlier. (i didn't make that very clear sorry).
As for the current status of the rumor, yes it should have them.

Rough first draft of the two quotes: (the first is a bit cryptic to me since i'm no techhead and hadn't followed any wii u news)



I'm not really sure what it's about, maybe need the paragraph or something i don't know about Wii U? Possibility of 4 SD images being produced (maybe 4 Wiipads?).

Oh so you're saying that it was their opinion that they thought it wouldn't have one?

But yeah that first one was saying that the GPU had the capability of outputting multiple streams. In other words it is supposed to have the ability to support more than one controller. That goes back to Iwata saying it was possible.

And of course that was early confirmation that UE3 and Cryengine 3 could be run on Wii U.
 
I bet they had to shield their eyes.

Well they got a stream of golden light when they looked.


Oh so you're saying that it was their opinion that they thought it wouldn't have one?

But yeah that first one was saying that the GPU had the capability of outputting multiple streams. In other words it is supposed to have the ability to support more than one controller. That goes back to Iwata saying it was possible.

And of course that was early confirmation that UE3 and Cryengine 3 could be run on Wii U.
Just making sure it didn't get lost.
 
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