We know the Wii U's IBM-made CPU, made up of three Power PC cores, is one of its weaknesses, at least compared to the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. But how will this impact the performance of Wii U games?
At the Tokyo Game Show earlier today Eurogamer spoke with the developer of one of the biggest Wii U launch games, Warriors Orochi 3 Hyper, to find out.
The playable version of the game on the Tokyo Game Show floor is not up to the performance levels of past Dynasty Warriors games in terms of frame rate and number of enemies on screen, and is shown up considerably by Dynasty Warriors 7 Empires, the PS3 exclusive also playable on publisher Tecmo Koei's stand.
Akihiro Suzuki, producer of the Dynasty Warriors franchise, admitted this was the case when quizzed by Eurogamer, and pointed to the Wii U's CPU by way of explanation.
"One of the weaknesses of the Wii U compared to PS3 and Xbox 360 is the CPU power is a little bit less," he said. "So for games in the Warriors series, including Dynasty Warriors and Warriors Orochi, when you have a lot of enemies coming at you at once, the performance tends to be affected because of the CPU.
"Dealing with that is a challenge."
The exact specifications of the CPU, including clock speed, remain undisclosed for now, but developers, including those Eurogamer spoke to for an investigation into the power of the Wii U, have confirmed it's slower than the CPU inside both the PS3 and Xbox 360.
But one of its strengths is said to be its custom AMD 7 series GPU, and the 1GB of RAM available to games: double that of the PS3 and Xbox 360.
This, Suzuki said, means the Orochi development team had the opportunity to create visuals better than those possible on PS3 and Xbox 360.
"Developing on new hardware in itself was a challenge, and also making that launch date was a challenge," he said. "But from a visual standpoint, based on the performance of the Wii U, we knew the game had the capability of having much better graphics than games on PS3 and Xbox 360. Make no mistake, from a visual standpoint, it is able to produce better graphics. So our challenge was to make a higher quality graphics. We were able to meet that."
Suzuki vowed that the performance of the game will be improved before release. He better get his skates on: Warriors Orochi 3 launches alongside the Wii U on 30th November.
"While the visuals are great, as is being able to improve them, we had to deal with the lower CPU power and how we can get around that issue," he said.
"Actually, we're still working on that. If you see the demo on the show floor and you try it, you'll probably feel it's not up to the PS3 level. But we're working on it!"
As part of Eurogamer's investigation into the power of the Wii U, Digital Foundry boss Richard Leadbetter expressed concern about the Nintendo console. "It'll be interesting to see how future Face-Offs work out," he pondered. "I expect that GPU focused games will benefit from smoother frame-rates and lower levels of screen-tear, but cross-platform titles highly dependent on CPU power could end up noticeably worse off."
According to Suzuki, the main issue is that developers are still wrapping their head around the CPU, and so are yet to work out how best to use it.
"For the PS3 it has multiple CPUs and an SPU, so you can calculate the various motions of the characters on the CPU so overall it runs smoothly," Suzuki explained. "The Xbox 360 CPUs are formulated so they can spread out the processing power so things run efficiently.
"With the Wii U being new hardware, we're still getting used to developing for it, so there are still a lot of things we don't know yet to bring out the most of the processing power. There's a lot that still needs to be explored in that area."
we knew the game had the capability of having much better graphics than games on PS3 and Xbox 360. Make no mistake, from a visual standpoint, it is able to produce better graphics. So our challenge was to make a higher quality graphics. We were able to meet that.
Wii U runs a out-of-order CPU with lower clockspeed than the in-order 360/PS3 chips. An out-of-order CPU will beat the piss out of an in-order CPU. However, code built for the 360/PS3 CPU won't port straight on unless it is optimised.
Well, that's about what we've been hearing (about the cpu), just not stated so plainly. At this point I really don't find it that big of an issue, or rather, I guess I'm starting to care less.
As part of Eurogamer's investigation into the power of the Wii U, Digital Foundry boss Richard Leadbetter expressed concern about the Nintendo console. "It'll be interesting to see how future Face-Offs work out," he pondered. "I expect that GPU focused games will benefit from smoother frame-rates and lower levels of screen-tear, but cross-platform titles highly dependent on CPU power could end up noticeably worse off."
Alright! More grist for the mill. Wii U tech crew gather in.
Anyways, sounds like the usual.
I dont get this. The article author states the game does not look as good as it's PS3 counterpart, but the dev says it has better graphics?
So its cpu is slower than consoles from 7 years ago... So basically the Wii u is like a 12 year old pc? Only based Nintendo can get away with this kind of shit. It is almost apple levels of evil profit margins.
So its cpu is slower than consoles from 7 years ago... So basically the Wii u is like a 12 year old pc? Only based Nintendo can get away with this kind of shit. It is almost apple levels of evil profit margins.
So its cpu is slower than consoles from 7 years ago... So basically the Wii u is like a 12 year old pc? Only based Nintendo can get away with this kind of shit. It is almost apple levels of evil profit margins.
It's pretty embarrassing that something like the Warriors series cannot perform as well. It could just be developer incompetence but they make it seem like it really can't handle it as well.
So its cpu is slower than consoles from 7 years ago... So basically the Wii u is like a 12 year old pc? Only based Nintendo can get away with this kind of shit. It is almost apple levels of evil profit margins.
I'm wondering how Nintendo can find CPUs that are slower than ones from 6 years ago
It's pretty embarrassing that something like the Warriors series cannot perform as well. It could just be developer incompetence but they make it seem like it really can't handle it as well.
As expected, ground up engines will (unsurprisingly) perform best and take better advantage of the hardware, producing games that exceed current generation capabilities. The hardware stuff is there for developers who have the time/budget/engineers to get good stuff out of the system.
But the CPU issues will be a concern and I am personally of the belief that even with possible work arounds Nintendo made a pretty baffling decision to do what they've done in that area. I do wonder if their insistence on Wii backwards compatibility and low power draw lead to this.
This is a misunderstanding.
The CPU is out of order execution vs in-order of say, the 360. It works differently.
It's misleading in a similar way to saying an Intel i5 clocked at 3ghz is old and crappy compared to an AMD from four years ago overlocked to 4ghz.
Clock speed is not everything but the average person is going to see it that way. More = better is basic perception. Thus many people are going to hear this stuff and say "LOL Wii U is older than seven years."
Thought developer were supposed to be concentrating on the GPGPU, not the CPU this new generation?
I dont get this. The article author states the game does not look as good as it's PS3 counterpart, but the dev says it has better graphics?
The playable version of the game on the Tokyo Game Show floor is not up to the performance levels of past Dynasty Warriors games in terms of frame rate and number of enemies on screen, and is shown up considerably by Dynasty Warriors 7 Empires, the PS3 exclusive also playable on publisher Tecmo Koei's stand.
They are porting current gen games. They lead on PS3, where the CPU takes heat of the GPU.
If a developer has only been working on the PS360 these past years, computer shading might be something new that they need to graps. Actually, it could simply be that they don't know how to use the CPU properly atm.Thought developer were supposed to be concentrating on the GPGPU, not the CPU this new generation?
I can't believe it has a SLOWER CPU. What are they thinking?
The author states:
Nowhere does the author say anything about the graphics.
and is shown up considerably by Dynasty Warriors 7 Empires, the PS3 exclusive also playable on publisher Tecmo Koei's stand.
Good point.They are porting current gen games. They lead on PS3, where the CPU takes heat of the GPU.
I can't believe it has a SLOWER CPU. What are they thinking?
Are Digital Foundry Face Off threads going to be the best things ever?
"While the visuals are great, as is being able to improve them, we had to deal with the lower CPU power and how we can get around that issue," he said.
"Actually, we're still working on that. If you see the demo on the show floor and you try it, you'll probably feel it's not up to the PS3 level. But we're working on it!"
Low power consumption plus a GPGPU to take work off the CPU.
I hope so. The console is coming out in two months!!!Are they even working with full specs yet, i mean i doubt the full wii u specs were locked down long enough for a launch title to use the full power out the gate. Sounds promising overall though better looking games than ps3 360 is all im looking for from the wii u anything more is a bouns.
I can't believe it has a SLOWER CPU. What are they thinking?
Or you know, it could just be really slow CPU.It could be with adjustments we begin to see performance, strictly in terms of CPU, that are beyond most things on the PS360 that matter for games.
Or it could continue to be a problem in some games due to developer failure, or lack of time to tweak the engine for Wii U.
Who are you arguing with? Developers are saying the CPU is slow, not that it has a low frequency. I'm sure they know the difference.Read up, clock speed isn't everything, etc etc.
What is the benefit of low power consumption though? This isn't a handheld device.. and isn't the content on the controller screen just streamed to it from the base console?
As expected, ground up engines will (unsurprisingly) perform best and take better advantage of the hardware, producing games that exceed current generation capabilities. The hardware stuff is there for developers who have the time/budget/engineers to get good stuff out of the system.
But the CPU issues will be a concern and I am personally of the belief that even with possible work arounds Nintendo made a pretty baffling decision to do what they've done in that area. I do wonder if their insistence on Wii backwards compatibility and low power draw lead to this.
This.
Now I'm no developer, but I understand that there's a bit of extra oomph that can be squeezed out of the processor due to it's out-of-order nature. How much, exactly, remains to be seen.
If a developer has only been working on the PS360 these past years, computer shading might be something new that they need to graps. Actually, it could simply be that they don't know how to use the CPU properly atm.
"For the PS3 it has multiple CPUs and an SPU, so you can calculate the various motions of the characters on the CPU so overall it runs smoothly," Suzuki explained. "The Xbox 360 CPUs are formulated so they can spread out the processing power so things run efficiently.
"With the Wii U being new hardware, we're still getting used to developing for it, so there are still a lot of things we don't know yet to bring out the most of the processing power. There's a lot that still needs to be explored in that area."
"we don't know yet (how) to bring out the most of the processing power. There's a lot that still needs to be explored in that area."