lwilliams3
Member
Not sure how related this is, but since Wii U's CPU is described as "enhanced broadway" cores, I guess it's relevant...
Despite how "weak" Wii was compared to other consoles, I was surprised that it did had games that focused mainly on physics - which struck me as a bit odd. Right out of the gate, there was Elebits, then Boom Blox(and it's sequel) came along. Some will write those off as "not impressive" simply based on simplistic visuals, but they did a really good job off showcasing what Broadway could do for physics.
Below is a video - of Elebits' editor mode - actually boasting about this very thing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xJXvFqhCk0
This makes me anxious to see what would be possible(if devs pushed it) now that Wii U have higher clocked multi-core CPUs, with extra large caches, low-latency access to the GPU's Edram, and who knows what other "enhancements."
What's strange, is that for all the power PS360 packed in their CPU's, we didn't see physics & AI taken to "the next-level" as developers promise each generation. Of course, it could be argued that this generation was more focused on pushing GPUs than anything else. Console CPU's this gen were in some ways over-powered, but were somewhat inefficient and spent a lot of time doing tasks that dedicated chips could have been used for. It does seem like this gen was a failed experiment hoping that a ridiculous amount of CPU FLOPs would bring significant advances in Physics and AI.
That didn't quite pan out, so now it appears that next-gen consoles CPUs will be trading a lot of those FLOPs in favor of efficiency, large caches, plus dedicated silicon and/or enough cores to handle various tasks. That combined with a strong focus on GPGPU capabilities...maybe this is the better formula for the results we are promised each generation?
Going back to this point, what was the initial purpose of having CPUs the way they were this current-gen besides going with the concept "faster frequency is better?"
I despise the NaturalMotion shit in most games. It introduces a massive disconnect between the player's actions and the actions performed by the character. Controls (and by proxy animations) need to be tight, precise and 100% predictable. Realism is a bonus. Uncharted was a great example of an animation system getting in the way.
Yeah.. though that is not a new concept. Reminds me of my issue with the original Prince of Persia for the PC decades ago. It was beautifully animated, but the controls were affected due to animated realism.