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For those who don't own a Wii U - These are the load times people complain about

Ivan 3414

Member
I was going to complain about the speed of the Punch-Out download but I seem to recall downloading Xbox 360 updates that big and it taking about the same time to download...
 

Gaspode_T

Member
It has bothered me for a long time that Nintendo low balls software engineer salaries (in both the US and Japan), they have Digipen constantly pumping out kids who are so passionate about working at Nintendo they have literally in their backyard a constant stream of people to pick from that are willing to take a pretty small salary for the opportunity of working at Nintendo. The rumored salary in the late 90s was something like $30K, which was not that much at the time (other places were probably $60K even for new grad), now I wouldn't be surprised if the new grad salary Nintendo pays is still like $50K

Basically, a company has to decide what to invest in. Do they invest in hardware engineering and supply chain manufacturing? That is Nintendo's biggest strength to date. Even more than game designers, yes. Do they invest in software engineers? Maybe for games they do, for OS or other things? Not as much obviously. It is one frustrating thing that hampers not just Nintendo but many Japanese companies to under-invest in software. You need to be willing to pay top dollar, recruit experienced architects, etc...then you will get an OS that doesn't suck
 
I downloaded Punch Out last night and it took seconds. The installation part was literally about 2 seconds. Are you installing to a hard drive from the 1960's?

The OS in general is slow as hell, but that games download and installation most certainly wsn't.

It depends on how much data it needs to shuffle around to fit it into memory - it appears Nintendo's file system demands that all files be stored contiguously. If you've got a nice big empty external drive, it'll probably be fast, but if you're storing it on the tiny built-in memory on the console, the performance can vary wildly. They really need to sort this, but I fear it's such a fundamental part of the hardware, it'll be impossible to implement a more modern (read: less prehistoric) file system.

I think the download speeds are another issue. I'm not sure if it's the cheap wireless hardware in the Wii U, slow servers, or some sort of bug in the OS, but for me, the download speed of the Wii U rarely gets above about 200KB/s, when my connection is capable of around 3000KB/s.

The general slowness of the OS is another issue, but that's pretty much down to poor, inefficient coding, and I'm confident they should be able to improve that massively. But I'm not sure they can get things running as well as people expect from new 2012 hardware without rethinking everything from scratch. This paradigm they have of every single function of the console, no matter how basic, being a separate app that has to spend at least ten seconds initializing itself, is rotten to the core. It's especially ludicrous when you have to go three apps deep - with anywhere from 10-30 seconds of loading as you enter and exit each one - to do something like manage your NintendoID details.
 

M3d10n

Member
The crazy thing is that the 3DS doesn't need to install anything. When the download is done, that's it. The 3DS also works with FAT32: the actual game files uses a virtual filesystem stored inside the physical files on the SD card.

It's amazing that many of the advancements they made on the 3DS didn't carry off to the Wii U.
 

Panajev2001a

GAF's Pleasant Genius
It has bothered me for a long time that Nintendo low balls software engineer salaries (in both the US and Japan), they have Digipen constantly pumping out kids who are so passionate about working at Nintendo they have literally in their backyard a constant stream of people to pick from that are willing to take a pretty small salary for the opportunity of working at Nintendo. The rumored salary in the late 90s was something like $30K, which was not that much at the time (other places were probably $60K even for new grad), now I wouldn't be surprised if the new grad salary Nintendo pays is still like $50K

Basically, a company has to decide what to invest in. Do they invest in hardware engineering and supply chain manufacturing? That is Nintendo's biggest strength to date. Even more than game designers, yes. Do they invest in software engineers? Maybe for games they do, for OS or other things? Not as much obviously. It is one frustrating thing that hampers not just Nintendo but many Japanese companies to under-invest in software. You need to be willing to pay top dollar, recruit experienced architects, etc...then you will get an OS that doesn't suck

I am not sure they are at the top of their games when it comes to supply chain control and manufacturing. Not to the level of a company like Apple and this starts to reflect in the lower and lower margins they have on HW even though MSRP are increasing each new console generation (Wii U at $350 is taking a loss on each unit sold in late 2012). Still, I agree with what you said about software R&D.

I think some Japanese companies have been investing quite a lot more in that area than before. See Sony and the PS Vita OS (a pleasure to use), how the OS for PS3 changed over time, the capabilities they are pushing for PS4.
 

Panajev2001a

GAF's Pleasant Genius
The Wii U emulators for Virtual Console games include a variety of other bits including control scheme editing, save-state creations etc. These features didn't exist in the Wii's version. All this is in the emulator rather than system wide due to the need for emulators to be edited to make sure the game works perfectly. Plus the manual.

... and this balloons the file size by about 30 MB?
 

Plinko

Wildcard berths that can't beat teams without a winning record should have homefield advantage
I still can't believe how bad the load times are on this thing. I absolutely adore Lego City Undercover but wow at those load times. I'm really hoping the April update helps matters but I really have no faith in Nintendo to get it right.
 
Fixed--Yes, this should be the demand for all Nintendo fans.

I know that's not what you meant, but still.

Nice use of the comma. And the people that were in charge for the launch of the Wii are still in charge now. And they're still making the same exact mistakes over and over. Change would be nice.
 

Plinko

Wildcard berths that can't beat teams without a winning record should have homefield advantage
Nice use of the comma. And the people that were in charge for the launch of the Wii are still in charge now. And they're still making the same exact mistakes over and over. Change would be nice.

It's coming. I see no way they make it through the year.
 

Goodlife

Member
Nice use of the comma. And the people that were in charge for the launch of the Wii are still in charge now. And they're still making the same exact mistakes over and over. Change would be nice.

As always, I bet Nintendo wish they make EXACTLY the same "mistakes" as they did with the Wii.
 

mAcOdIn

Member
As far as I'm concerned the Wii's "mistakes" were minor. About the only real "mistake" at that time was the OS and the lack of a real online presence and what online services it had was all piecemeal, but in a way I kinda don't see that big a "mistake" there, Microsoft was ahead of everyone in that regard and even Sony's behind Microsoft still(with Nintendo still trailing them both). The Wii was weak, sure, but I thought it was a well designed system, it worked faster than the Wii U does, I found the controller to be more friendly and appreciated the battery life as well as the option(well necessity at first really) of using standard batteries which meant you could quickly get back up and running if your controller died. The only gripe would be SD and its online ecosystem and frankly, I don't know if it being weak was truly a con.

I mean, at some point I think you have to step back and realize that everything is different, it's not a "mistake" to not have a HDD although some will surely miss it, it's not a mistake to not play DVDs although some will miss it, it's not a mistake to hit a certain level of graphics or not, nothing on its own is a mistake when making a console really, what matters is that the sum of pluses outweigh the cons and that it's an appealing product overall. I think the Wii was an appealing product that launched at a time when everyone but Microsoft was struggling with online and console OSs.

The Wii U on the otherhand I think addressed everything wrong. It ditched the controllers that made it popular in exchange for a tablet that's neither a good tablet nor a good controller, drastically shortened it's battery life and the gamepad's not as rugged yet still looks like a toy. Despite being 2013 it still has shitty online and it's eShop is shit despite having years to copy its competitors. The OS that was relatively snappy to use with the Wii has returned more or less, just with Wara Wara Plaza on the other screen but it's now much slower despite supposedly being better hardware. It launched at a higher price than the Wii. Despite being at a higher price the basic does not come with a pack in game like the Wii did.

Frankly, I think the Wii U launch is the mistake while the Wii was not. The problem we had with the Wii was online and third party shit. As Goodlife said, Nintendo wishes they made the same "mistakes" with the Wii U.
 

AzaK

Member
I've got to chime in on this. The Wii version of Punchout!! which also includes its own wrapper and emulator is 22 Blocks! Which is 2.75 MB.
How the hell did it suddenly grow nearly 15 times in size!?
Multiply by four as a rough start. 8bit to 32 bit instruction set. Then add an emulator code. They might also have the graphics in a different format to make drawing speedier. Likewise with sounds, they might be samples and not emulated. It's not hard to see how it's a lot bigger.
 

Clockwork

Member
Multiply by four as a rough start. 8bit to 32 bit instruction set. Then add an emulator code. They might also have the graphics in a different format to make drawing speedier. Likewise with sounds, they might be samples and not emulated. It's not hard to see how it's a lot bigger.

Are you wearing boots right now?
 

Amir0x

Banned
Once someone seriously argued on neoGAF that the loading times were positive and, in his opinion, should be longer so he can listen to the amazing Wii U OS music for that much longer. So look at it from that perspective and it's almost a blessing the OS takes forever to load things!
 
Multiply by four as a rough start. 8bit to 32 bit instruction set. Then add an emulator code. They might also have the graphics in a different format to make drawing speedier. Likewise with sounds, they might be samples and not emulated. It's not hard to see how it's a lot bigger.

They're emulating the NES hardware, not rewriting the game in native Wii U code!
 

FLEABttn

Banned
Once someone seriously argued on neoGAF that the loading times were positive and, in his opinion, should be longer so he can listen to the amazing Wii U OS music for that much longer. So look at it from that perspective and it's almost a blessing the OS takes forever to load things!

Seriously?
 

teh_pwn

"Saturated fat causes heart disease as much as Brawndo is what plants crave."
What is "installing"? If it's just copying? Sure. If it's deflating an uncompressed archive? Yes. If it's anything more than that? Maybe. Maybe not. Installing a 3MB security update on my Macbook Air, with SSD and all, can take up to five minutes. There is no "installing X MB on system Y takes Z seconds" rule. What archive format is used? What kind and level of compression? Encryption? How many files does the archive contain, and does the installer verify checksums of each file? Are there any pre or post install scripts, and what do they do?

Don't get me wrong, installing shit on Wii U certainly is slow. Too slow, from the perspective of a user. But there might be technical reasons, and "but it takes so and so long on some other system" isn't helping the discussion, because we have no idea what either system actually does.

I appreciate your nuanced focus on details behind the scenes. A lot of people ignore details, and you could be right. Maybe it's activating run-times that are by default disabled kind of like .NET on windows. But I'm skeptical either way.

Then again I'm spoiled. I have 4.6 GHz i7 with SSD and autologin to desktop with Windows 8. Startup is like 5 seconds after BIOS post.
 

Zero148

Member
I haven't read the whole thread, but I made comparism videos with my WiiU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mgaMiy2iic (Punch Out install, video shows OPs video on my Laptop in full screen and my WiiU on the gamepad. OPs video is not finished at the end of the video)



the second video is still uploading, but the load times to get to the system settings are of course far too long, but a few seconds faster on my WiiU.

Maybe the WiiU or the HDD in the OP video are broken?
 

Mutt

Neo Member
It's amazing that many of the advancements they made on the 3DS didn't carry off to the Wii U.

I think it's because handheld and console were two different divisions that are now under one umbrella.

Hands down the 3DS UI is much better and responds quickly. It boots faster, opens up tiles and apps quicker, the little 3DS dynamic logo is nicer than that boring Wii U logo. It's also nice that you can hold down the power button and it shuts the system down, unlike the Wii U. The eShop on the 3DS is much faster at downloading than the Wii U. It's too bad that that team didn't work on the Wii U.
 

Panajev2001a

GAF's Pleasant Genius
Multiply by four as a rough start. 8bit to 32 bit instruction set. Then add an emulator code. They might also have the graphics in a different format to make drawing speedier. Likewise with sounds, they might be samples and not emulated. It's not hard to see how it's a lot bigger.

If games were mostly code you would almost be right, I say almost because the 2.75 MB already take into account the emulator wrapping the ROM.
 

Panajev2001a

GAF's Pleasant Genius
There's all sorts of stuff they could have put in there to bump up the file size. Not that I think it matters much. These days, whether a download is 30MB or 3MB is academic.

... 3G connections vehemently disagree with you. Also, this is a very bad attitude software development wise. I am not talking about carelessly spending tons and tons of resources and time on optimizing things as if we were running on Intel 386 chips, but it is the kind of philosophy which can easily lead to a system running poorly even though the HW could offer so much more than that.
 
... 3G connections vehemently disagree with you. Also, this is a very bad attitude software development wise. I am not talking about carelessly spending tons and tons of resources and time on optimizing things as if we were running on Intel 386 chips, but it is the kind of philosophy which can easily lead to a system running poorly even though the HW could offer so much more than that.

Sure, in an ideal world, they'd want to get these download sizes down, and for a device using a mobile data connection it would be immeasurably more important. I just think with all the shockingly amateur stuff that needs fixing in the Wii U's OS, the size of Virtual Console downloads being about 30MB too heavy is neither here nor there.
 
K

kittens

Unconfirmed Member
Meanwhile, fast, responsive operating systems is one of the things I was most looking forward to with next gen. Hope PS4 delivers on that.
 

Panajev2001a

GAF's Pleasant Genius
Sure, in an ideal world, they'd want to get these download sizes down, and for a device using a mobile data connection it would be immeasurably more important. I just think with all the shockingly amateur stuff that needs fixing in the Wii U's OS, the size of Virtual Console downloads being about 30MB too heavy is neither here nor there.

No, but it is part of a patter of WTF choices (lack of optical audio out included amongst them too IMHO) Nintendo has made with the Wii U.
 

Zee-Row

Banned
I'm annoyed at the "First world problems" responses in the video. If I spend $350 on a console that runs on 6 year old hardware it better at least have a lightning quick OS.
 

XenodudeX

Junior Member
I'm annoyed at the "First world problems" responses in the video. If I spend $350 on a console that runs on 6 year old hardware it better at least have a lightning quick OS.

Not even the 360 and PS3 has a "lighting fast quick OS". So yeah, I see this as a first world problem.
 
It's the definition of a first world problem. But I live in a first world environment so it's one of many reasons I haven't bought the system yet.
 

Zee-Row

Banned
Not even the 360 and PS3 has a "lighting fast quick OS". So yeah, I see this as a first world problem.

They're nowhere near as slow as the Wii U , not even close. I can deal with the installations because the Wii U may use a unique file system but just jumping between apps on a Wii U is so aggravating.
 
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