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Wii U Community Thread

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10k

Banned
Ok, first off, Let me lay the basics for this, measuring how much an image weights is pure math and it's like this:

1280x720x32 = 29491200 bits = 3.5156 MB/frame (x30fps=105.47 MB/s; x60fps=210.94 MB/s)

1920x1080x32 = 66355200 bits = 7.9102 MB/frame (x30fps=237.31 MB/s; x60fps=474.61 MB/s)

(the 32 in the end is relating to the bit depth for the image; in this case 32 bits)

But it's not just this, it's an additive process; Z-Buffer is typically 32 bits as well (but can also be reduced to 24 bits) which effectively doubles the pixels being sampled and X360's "free AA" adds 24 bits per passage; because passages come in pairs 2xMSAA and 4xMSAA on X360 costs an extra 48 or 96 bits respectively.

In short, you do this… I'll do three case test scenarios here, first off the simple no-AA solution 32+32=64 bits (frame+z-buffer), second 32+32+48=112 bits (frame+z-buffer+2xMSAA), third: 32+32+96=160 bits (frame+z-buffer+4xMSAA)

1280x720x64 = 7.0313 MB/frame (x30fps=210.94 MB/s; x60fps=421.88 MB/s)

1280x720x112 = 12.3047 MB/frame (x30fps= 369.14 MB/s; x60fps= 738.28 MB/s)

1280x720x160 = 17.5781 MB/frame (x30fps= 527.34 MB/s; x60fps= 1054.69 MB/s)

As I'm sure you understand, you'll be doing tiling from 2xMSAA and up. (and no, in 2xMSAA even reducing the z-buffer to 24 bits would still land us on 11.5 MB/frame field and rendering the frame and z-buffer on 24 bits would fall on 10.5 MB/frame range; leaving no quick fix other than tiling and/or sub 720p). I also left the MB/s math in as a means to help establish a relation of why 60 frames had a hit on framebuffer bandwidth and could act as a bottleneck; there's no 3D game at 1080p achieving 60 frames this gen (wipeout hd dynamic framebuffer doesn't count, as it adjusts frame size; closest game to doing it is Ridge Racer 7). On top of it I'm sure you know this, but framebuffer acts as a scratchpad of sorts, so you can add even more layers/passages to whatever you're doing on top; it's not uncommon for full frame distortion effects to be applied on top for example.

With this explained I can get on to 1080p, 1920 is:

1920x1080x64 = 132710400 bits = 15.8203 MB/frame (x30fps=474.60 MB/s; x60fps=949.22 MB/s)

1920x1080x112 = 232243200 bits = 27.6855 MB/frame (x30fps=830.57 MB/s; x60fps=1661.13 MB/s) ⬅ Wii U could do 1920x1080p with 2xMSAA without tiling.

1920x1080x160 = 331776000 bits = 39.5508 MB/frame (x30fps=1186.52 MB/s; x60fps=2373.05 MB/s)

No-AA, 2xMSAA and 4x MSAA respectively.

A 40 MB framebuffer seems tempting, but still the 32 MB of eDRAM on Wii-U seem very generous, should be way more straightforward than X360's eDRAM to work with; of course this is just a part of the puzzle, the rest depends on this part bandwidth and clock speed as well as console fillrate; probably why we aren't seeing more (have we seen any?) 1080p games too; still, should be way more easy to pull on it than on this gen, but I suspect most devs will prefer to spice up the graphics and/or throw in more effects/anti aliasing.

Also there's MLAA now which could spare the framebuffer a little but would erode the available fillrate (and a few stream processors along the way) so time will tell how often it'll get used on the platform with less GFlops this upcoming gen.

I hope it shed some light into the matter.
I want to kiss you. Thank you for posting this. But if it could handle 1080p with 2xAA then why are most of the demoes shown 720p with no AA? Is it the game pad usage or other factors? Or Nintendo doesn't want to make use of it yet?
 
R

Rösti

Unconfirmed Member
If only the news of Epic Games not intending to port Unreal Engine 4 to Wii U could reach investors prior to Nintendo's First Quarter Earnings Release on the 25th of July. Or well, I'm sure the news will reach them, but will someone ask about it?

All PR and no specs makes Rösti a dull boy.
 

Donnie

Member
"The way Wii U outputs UE4 is not representative of how we want the engine's performance to be perceived. For this reason, we are not supporting the Wii U."

I assume this is what you believe Epics position is here rather than this being a real quote from Epic?

If so I agree this is IMO basically their position. They want their newest engine to be associated with power, because they think that's the best way to market it at the moment.
 

MDX

Member
I don't see that as particularly good news, honestly. 3rd parties are not going to go out of their way to adapt the engine to Wii U, and the constant referring to UE3 makes it pretty clear to me where Epic thinks Wii U belongs.

Man has no choice, he is being bankrolled by Microsoft.
He has to keep the appearance that WiiU is not in the same league as the nextbox.

But the question, does WiiU need UE4?
 

jacksrb

Member
Alright, I need to know. Can UE4 run on WiiU or not? Just a yes or no answer.

My understanding is yes, with the caveat that it running the engine is not the same as have equivalent performance or graphics compared to another system.

I mean, he states that it will be highly scalable (like them having UE3 on iPhone 3Gs).
 
I want to kiss you. Thank you for posting this. But if it could handle 1080p with 2xAA then why are most of the demoes shown 720p with no AA? Is it the game pad usage or other factors? Or Nintendo doesn't want to make use of it yet?
This is just a part of the equation, even if it could store it and output it to a TV it doesn't mean it is doable to do so. On top of that I have no clue how it's outputting to the controller, but it probably uses the same framebuffer space (if so separate scene for a 853x480 controller would sit at 1.6 MB 2D, 3.1 MB 3D/Z-Buffer sans AA, 5.5 MB for 2xMSAA and so on; anyway, no biggie; the last option still leaving 26.5 MB for the main buffer; and considering it's being encoded I'd probably drop color depth and z-buffer to 24 bits if I was rendering specifically for it) also we don't know if encode/transfer takes place in there too. Still the biggest chunk of that framebuffer should be for the TV output.

The most important part of the equation in graphics resolution depends on fillrate/Gflops, it's very intensive and there's no working around it (which also means the wii u, shaping to be the less powerful console of the 8th generation will probably take a resolution hit providing it manages to secure multiplatform games anyway); but this gen games struggled with problems like framebuffer tiling to it actually having to access the RAM bank for caching and other "creative solutions"; it effectively hampered the way games ran and it was part of the reason why not many games did 60 fps without resolution drops (sub-HD); there was a big tradeoff in every simple decision and the wii u seems to be a very easygoing to develop for platform compared to them; not unlimited though.

I don't think Wii U is gonna do a lot of 1080p in 3D; but unlike this generation, it seems like that will be a conscious design decision by developers; rather than having to fight the machine just in order to do so.
But the question, does WiiU need UE4?
If they want third party multiplatform UE4 games to grace WiiU then yes.
 
It's possible for UE3 to run on Wii if a thirdy party wants to port it over, but we believe UE2 is a better fit.

This:

"I'll state that I don't think it's our intention to bring Unreal Engine 4 to Wii U, but Unreal Engine 4 is going to be supremely scalable.

"We'll run on mobile phones and on a wide variety of things, so if a customer decides they want to port an Unreal Engine 4 game to Wii U, they could. But Unreal Engine 3 is a really good fit for that platform."

Still sounds more positive than this:

"Ummmmm, well, this is kinda a high definition engine. Designed for a certain level of graphics card and certain amount of CPU. You know, I'm sure one of our licensees will squeeze it down into the Wii. The way Ubisoft squeezed Unreal Engine 2 into the PSP," he explained in a little bit more detail exactly why the Wii and Unreal Engine 3 won't become best buddies, "Unreal Engine 3 is designed for a high level shader architecture and the Wii doesn't have that. I mean, you know, it's just not what we've been aiming for, so it's not something we're looking to do or support.'

(laughs) I can’t say, I’m under NDA with Nintendo. But I can tell you that we’re not doing, internally any development right now on the Wii. The Wii I’m sure is going to be a fantastic machine and sell really well but it’s kind of below - it’s not Intel integrated graphics but it’s pretty far bellow the kind of min-bar of Unreal Engine 3. If you built a PC with that spec it wouldn’t really be capable of playing an Unreal Engine 3 games decently. They’re aiming at clearly at different audience that what we are. You know, Unreal Engine 3 can’t run on Xbox 1 or PS2 either - and that’s not to say that some of our licensees wont find a way to shoe-horn it into that platform, we certainly have some licensees that are doing some experiments in that area and it could very well happen. But that’s a really tough job. And one thing that has become public knowledge in the last little while is that Ubisoft’s game Red Steel is using Unreal Engine 2, so there will be Unreal Engine games on the Wii. There will be Unreal Engine games on the Wii and hopefully they’ll be successful and maybe we’ll make a little money from it, but Unreal Engine 3 - that’s a little below our target platform."
 
The good news just keeps coming. Realistically, to what sort of degree will UE4 be in use 5 years from now at the arse-end of the Wii U's life cycle? There's plenty of other engines coming up as well, who's to say UE will be the engine of choice this time round anyway...
 

Drago

Member
I love how people kept saying "of course WiiU won't run UE4" and now that it could (I think) people in that thread are ssying "it also runs on phones, of course it will be on WiiU".

Ugh. That thread...
 
I love how people kept saying "of course WiiU won't run UE4" and now that it could (I think) people in that thread are ssying "it also runs on phones, of course it will be on WiiU".

Ugh. That thread...

You're taking things too literally, which seems to be a huge problem when having discussions over the Internet. When people in the past said "of course Wii U won't run UE4" they mean Samaritan-type graphics, true "next-gen visuals"... that's implied in their statement. If the same person was asked "do you think the Wii U could run a very scaled down version of UE4?", they'd say yes... any sane person would. It's important to read into the context of these discussions instead of reading everything so literally.
 

tkscz

Member
I love how people kept saying "of course WiiU won't run UE4" and now that it could (I think) people in that thread are ssying "it also runs on phones, of course it will be on WiiU".

Ugh. That thread...

igQbLhmO8O6fz.gif
 

schuelma

Wastes hours checking old Famitsu software data, but that's why we love him.
Hey look who is here again. We just need specialguy and we'll have a full house.
 
It's more positive, but it still doesn't tell us we will get supported and that's what we (and third party devs) need to hear. Sure a licencee can port it; but that doesn't:

a) make it optimized to run on it

b) make it supported by Epic (hello is this Epic: yes I have a problem with your engine running on the wii u? *click* hello? hello?)

c) make it sellable/acquirable for other third party devs; Case scenario: Ubisoft can't possibly licence their version of UE4 if they port it over for other third party's that want it (and they won't).


Seriously, Epic is so good at ignoring customer requests it's like they are a monopoly and thus don't have to listen to them (when they should). Ubisoft didn't want to port UE2.5 to PSP and 3DS, they did so because they had to if they wanted to see the games running on that tech in there, because Epic wouldn't support them properly as licensers that's what (and yet, they were porting an engine they pay licencing fees for). The guys that attempted to port UE3 to the wii didn't want to either; they only tried because their current existing work pipeline wasn't compatible with the wii; not because they expected it to magically pull UE3 shaders once it was running there wii.

Epic's biggest kick in the groin with the wii wasn't that they decided not to port UE3, it's that they said the UE2.5 port of their previous engine, made for the Gamecube was enough. That port sucked, not many westerners knew the architecture well enough and those who did weren't on Epic a company that never really worked on the platform with their IP (in fact they never worked in the gc/ps2 engine ports either, as they were done by secret level). They only did two builds for GC, Build 829 dating January 2002 and Build 927 dating April/May 2002.

Yes, that's it.

They went on to release updates for Xbox version as late as Mar 2004 now called Unreal Engine 2.X(box) and numbered Build 2227.


Now, Gamecube was second last gen, that port thought the GC was a PS2. It was crap.

And they were suggesting in 2005 that developers should licence (and pay them) for that port because they had moved on and didn't care. You don't do that for licensees if you want their money. Unreal Engine 3 was based on shader model compliant architectures and thus it would take a pretty major rewrite in order to be something the wii could run (and in the end it would give results as good as Unreal Engine 2.X gave on the Xbox; but the problem was that you couldn't do that much with their UE2.5 build, and devs didn't have their development pipeline that way either.
 

MDX

Member
If they want third party multiplatform UE4 games to grace WiiU then yes.



Which developers will WiiU miss out on that plan to use UE4?

Many major publishers have their own engines.
And developers who want to go multi-platform can choose an engine that is compatible between WiiU and the other two consoles. There will be many to choose from.

I would also say that UE3 wont be quickly replaced
The impressive looking StarWars 1313 is using it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQyGu4EqZsU
 

ArynCrinn

Banned
UE4 being the probable de-facto engine next-gen not withstanding, I'm actually hoping to see ground up engines for the hardware, or even how Cryengine or Doom 4's engine might perform. Nintendo's internal stuff for WiiU is really what I think will drop jaws, if Retro is creating a visually aggressive game or even Tokyo EAD, primarily those.

It was always obvious that Epic didn't want the WiiU to flex the marketability of the engine on WiiU, that's just obvious and would be counter productive. But no doubt it can and will run the engine in some capacity.
 

Drago

Member
You're taking things too literally, which seems to be a huge problem when having discussions over the Internet. When people in the past said "of course Wii U won't run UE4" they mean Samaritan-type graphics, true "next-gen visuals"... that's implied in their statement. If the same person was asked "do you think the Wii U could run a very scaled down version of UE4?", they'd say yes... any sane person would. It's important to read into the context of these discussions instead of reading everything so literally.
Well I knew that it wouldn't be a graphical beast, but you never know, I'm sure some people thought it wouldn't run on WiiU...

So it's just a matter of whether someone will port it over and UE4 games are released now, right? Ubisoft has ported Unreal Engines before I think, so maybe they will.
 

VariantX

Member
If there's any reason to get UE4 on the Wii U, It's my hope to allow devs to make use of that development environment. I wasnt really all super impressed with the tech demo, but the demo of the dev environment floored me. Seems night and day better than back when I was making Q3 and ut2004 maps for fun. To be able to see your work, make changes, test it in the game environment, switch back to the dev environment to make adjustments almost instantly is pretty awesome.
 
If there's any reason to get UE4 on the Wii U, It's my hope to allow devs to make use of that development environment. I wasnt really all super impressed with the tech demo, but the demo of the dev environment floored me. Seems night and day better than back when I was making Q3 and ut2004 maps for fun. To be able to see your work, make changes, test it in the game environment, switch back to the dev environment to make adjustments almost instantly is pretty awesome.
Precisely.

The engine itself doesn't matter all that much as we haven't seen much it can do that the Samaritan UE 3.9 demo couldn't (and just look at what some devs were able to do on UE2.5 in later years), what matters is the development environment being familiar and productive in assisting art creation/implementation; it'll help in PS4/X720 case and it'll help in WiiU. If anything the development environment being the same (and not a step back) is always helpful; and that was the real issue of UE3 tools, not engine, not being available for it; they could be encrusted on UE 2.W or whatever.

Epic sells engine's they're not on a misson for anything or anyone so they ought to support any platform that can run their tech "easily"; which was not the case with UE3 on the wii btw making this a very different case. Not leave it to their licensers, who are first and foremost licensing the tech in order to have their work simplified.

I think they need competition, the whole ill-will attitude is really bad at this point; not to mention it's saying no to money. They need the situation on if they don't someone else will do it, licence it and make money with tech that isn't theirs.


Dragon Quest X is probably using Crystal Tools, the FFXIII engine, because if they were gonna work with it they might as well make sure they share the same development environment. Capcom did put MT Framework on the wii for the very same reasons (as they did with 3DS). Sadly not "licenseable" tech, but a much better deep-rooted platform ethic.
 
You're taking things too literally, which seems to be a huge problem when having discussions over the Internet. When people in the past said "of course Wii U won't run UE4" they mean Samaritan-type graphics, true "next-gen visuals"... that's implied in their statement. If the same person was asked "do you think the Wii U could run a very scaled down version of UE4?", they'd say yes... any sane person would. It's important to read into the context of these discussions instead of reading everything so literally.

This is backtracking and conveniently modifying what others have said. I am not pointing the finger at you as having said it, but based on what I remember that was not what the "sane" posters here on Neogaf were saying. much of the argument was along the lines of...

"LOL Wii U can't run unreal engine 4"

"even the next IPad can do that"

"No Unreal 4 no buy"

So here we are and those commenters have been proven wrong. And here we have guys posting like you, with this constant need to take something positive and retwist it into something negative that is starting to aggrevate.
 

BlackJace

Member
Yo, that AstroNut325 dude is whack. That whole thread about Epic wanting to wait for a larger performance boost is worrisome, too.

Power power power. Yes it's important, but damn, it's not what defines a console and gaming experience...
 

DynamicG

Member
You're taking things too literally, which seems to be a huge problem when having discussions over the Internet. When people in the past said "of course Wii U won't run UE4" they mean Samaritan-type graphics, true "next-gen visuals"... that's implied in their statement. If the same person was asked "do you think the Wii U could run a very scaled down version of UE4?", they'd say yes... any sane person would. It's important to read into the context of these discussions instead of reading everything so literally.

So like, people online don't actually mean what they write? Do you mean what you write? Is there some sort of Heavy rubric that I can use to interpret the true meaning of your text. The idea literally excites me, like we can find some sort of internet-speak Rosetta Stone.

Personally, I tend to mean what I say when I write it otherwise I wouldn't write it.
 
Let's get someone who is a full member to start a new thread.

We will call it the "Rube Goldberg thread of not meaning what you really say in the first place, and then when it is proven wrong, conveniently backtracking and telling everyone to just use context instead of literally interpreting what was said, especially when it comes to the Wii U thread."
 
So like, people online don't actually mean what they write? Do you mean what you write? Is there some sort of Heavy rubric that I can use to interpret the true meaning of your text. The idea literally excites me, like we can find some sort of internet-speak Rosetta Stone.

It's using critical thinking skills.
 

Donnie

Member
You're taking things too literally, which seems to be a huge problem when having discussions over the Internet. When people in the past said "of course Wii U won't run UE4" they mean Samaritan-type graphics, true "next-gen visuals"... that's implied in their statement. If the same person was asked "do you think the Wii U could run a very scaled down version of UE4?", they'd say yes... any sane person would. It's important to read into the context of these discussions instead of reading everything so literally.

Is that why people argued with me and others when we made the point that as an engine UE4 would be scalable and therefore would run on WiiU? Graphics fedelity doesn't come into it, Samaritan isn't even UE4..

Many people simply don't understand what an engine is.
 
It's possible for UE3 to run on Wii if a thirdy party wants to port it over, but we believe UE2 is a better fit.
You're starting to make up imaginary quotes now, seek help.
I think it's based on this:

Mark Rein: I know one of our licensee who's giving it a shot [UE3 Wii port]; it's their own port, in the same way Ubisoft brought Unreal Engine 2 to the Wii
Source: http://archive.videogamesdaily.com/features/markrein_ut3_iv_p2.asp

Transcribing that would could come out the way he said it; that or other quote saying the same thing, I dunno.


Anyway, back then they had a point, even if I think they didn't deal with the situation well enough and that costed them potential money; now they apparently don't when themselves admit it can run on the platform just fine.
 

Meelow

Banned
About the Unreal Engine 4 comment I think it's just the way he said it which sounds weird, Unreal Engine 4 games can be supported on Wii U it's just Epic doesn't have any games right now in development for Wii U that uses Unreal Engine 4.
 

DynamicG

Member
Let's get someone who is a full member to start a new thread.

We will call it the "Rube Goldberg thread of not meaning what you really say in the first place, and then when it is proven wrong, conveniently backtracking and telling everyone to just use context instead of literally interpreting what was said, especially when it comes to the Wii U thread."

Why go through all that trouble when the hits keep coming, like this one:

It's using critical thinking skills.


Yeah, not a difficult concept. Context is important when reading anything.

Oh I agree that the original text implied that the engine was highly scaleable, that was clearly written in the quote. I didn't have to "critical thinking skills" to see it's meaning. You are arguing that there is a hidden meaning in everything people write online and that people write words that they don't actually mean. Then you carry on to say that the problem people have discussing things online lies with the people interpreting the inaccurate information and NOT the ones who are writing knowingly inaccurate statements. Yet you wonder why people in this thread are wary of you?
 
So like, people online don't actually mean what they write? Do you mean what you write? Is there some sort of Heavy rubric that I can use to interpret the true meaning of your text. The idea literally excites me, like we can find some sort of internet-speak Rosetta Stone. Personally, I tend to mean what I say when I write it otherwise I wouldn't write it.

They are called...wait for it...The Glorified G Scrolls. Haha, see what I did there?
 

Donnie

Member
I think it's based on this:

Source: http://archive.videogamesdaily.com/features/markrein_ut3_iv_p2.asp

Transcribing that would could come out the way he said it; that or other quote saying the same thing, I dunno.


Anyway, back then they had a point, even if I think they didn't deal with the situation well enough and that costed them potential money; now they apparently don't when themselves admit it can run on the platform just fine.

Yeah I know, I actually commented on it earlier http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=39792388&postcount=7924
 

Meelow

Banned
This is backtracking and conveniently modifying what others have said. I am not pointing the finger at you as having said it, but based on what I remember that was not what the "sane" posters here on Neogaf were saying. much of the argument was along the lines of...

"LOL Wii U can't run unreal engine 4"

"even the next IPad can do that"

"No Unreal 4 no buy"

So here we are and those commenters have been proven wrong. And here we have guys posting like you, with this constant need to take something positive and retwist it into something negative that is starting to aggrevate.

People just like to complain about something, it will never stop...
 
About the Unreal Engine 4 comment I think it's just the way he said it which sounds weird, Unreal Engine 4 games can be supported on Wii U it's just Epic doesn't have any games right now in development for Wii U that uses Unreal Engine 4.
Then they don't have Unreal Engine 3 games being developed by themselves coming out for it too since they kinda dropped it internally already.

I think they meant exactly what they said.


Right now they're not planning on supporting it with UE4, in fact they're praying they don't have to and that next gen platforms from other competitors are a huge leap instead of what they are now.

It's really simple; don't forget Epic is pressuring Sony and Microsoft big time to up their console specs by a whole lot of course the Wii U spec, and the Nintendo philosophy is like kriptonite to them.


Of course, this isn't good for any manufacturer, hence their resistance (they're a business after all), it's not good for Microsoft because they ought to make money, it's not good for Sony because if Microsoft goes for something outrageous they're likely to follow whilst crying... and it's not good for Nintendo because if anything Epic's vision doesn't seem to favour them at all if they have it their way.

It's not good for the whole market at this point, sole focus on specs and making them available for middle-range priced platforms at that; just works for Epic because the biggest leap it is in tech the more current gen developers will have to invest in order to compete. They are running for that goal already while most developers are still too busy launching their games on current gen tech, and will be more than willing to sell their solutions when these developers finally finish current gen development and have to start over if the leap is too big.
 

Meelow

Banned
Then they don't have Unreal Engine 3 games being developed by themselves coming out for it too. I think they meant exactly what they said.

It's really simple; don't forget Epic is pressuring Sony and Microsoft big time to up their console specs by a whole lot.

No, if they are developing a Wii U game than it is using UE3, from what Epic's statements are and the rumors it seems like the PS4 and 720 are not even impressing Epic with they're specs, it's a fact that UE4 will be downscale on the PS4 and 720 as well.

And Epic said if a dev wants to use UE4 on Wii U than they can.
 

blu

Wants the largest console games publisher to avoid Nintendo's platforms.
I don't see that as particularly good news, honestly. 3rd parties are not going to go out of their way to adapt the engine to Wii U, and the constant referring to UE3 makes it pretty clear to me where Epic thinks Wii U belongs.
You'd be surprised how often 3rd parties have had to port Epic tech themselves.
 
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