phosphor112
Banned
Can someone post the comparison shots? I can't access the link.
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WiiU "Latte" GPU Die Photo - GPU Feature Set And Power Analysis
- Thread starter Thraktor
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Saint Gregory
Member
That's the same trailer and it looked the same to me. Maybe the video was updated to a higher format since it was originally posted?
ab.aeterno
Member
As someone else pointed out, saying the differences "aren't that apparent" seems to be inferring something different than what the wrote said. In fact, the quote makes it plain the WiiU version will be closer to current gen than next gen, so it's likely to be harder to distinguish the WiiU version from the 360/PS3 versions. It seems like you took away the exact opposite of what the quote was saying.
This argument is only applicable when there are no apparent differences between the WiiU version of a game and the PS4/Xbox One versions, which as established above, is not seemingly the case at all.
The average gamer is not going to sit there and compare two copies of the game next to each other. So all the WiiU version has to be is 'close enough'. There is no "apparent" difference like SD vs HD, 30 vs 60fps.
Most consumers will probably make their decisions on other factors: DLC options, price of entry, online options, which version their friends have, Kinect, Off TV play, etc.
Not to forget, since many WiiU owners are enjoying off tv play, is it necessary for the WiiU version to be at parity?
Thunder Monkey
Banned
I've got to say that if it holds true it's impressive they've put in that much work for what is likely going to be really really low returns.
JordanN
Banned
I know it's not the first time this has been said (Wii U games tessellating everything, lol) but, has it ever been put forward by those who preach Wii U's power that tessellation is not free?
While the Wii U's tessellation unit is at minimum a generation or so above the one in Xbox 360, if it's not GCN/DX11 related, I expect it to be shit, or at the least, never used alot.
So far, the lack of documentation (outside of that one Shinen game) doesn't give me hope for it.
ab.aeterno
Member
Because they can tell the difference between PS360 and WiiU, but not WiiU and PS4/Xbox One, despite the WiiU version being roughly between the 2, or closer to current gen.
Which is a specious argument at best, and disingenuous at worst.
blu
Wants the largest console games publisher to avoid Nintendo's platforms.
What makes you think it used stencil shadows, given the system lacks a stencil buffer, and WW does not exhibit any observable self-shadowing?
The mem<->L1 DMA on the Gekko lineup works over the 60x. The benefits of the mechanism are not some extra BW (which a separate bus would have provided) but that (1) it works entirely asynchronously to the L/S units of the CPU, (2) is almost as flexible as the latter (scatter-gather support), and (3) can work orthogonally to the cache coherence protocols (locked L1D). Otherwise you're correct - AFAIK no other CPU (save for Power7) does that.
ArchangelWest
Member
As far as I know, with eDRAM there tends to be strangely large bus widths. Since the CPU is also connected to this RAM, it would make sense I think.
Smurfman256
Member
Yeah, you are right. Everyone in the world already own PS3s and 360s, and nobody intends to buy next gen consoles. I dont know how I missed that.
JordanN
Banned
Id Tech 4 = Progammable pixel and vertex shaders
Gamecube/Wii = fixed function only
Third parties were also doing their own thing at that point and the console wasn't selling well to make porting a must.
Edit: Say, what high end PC ports did Gamecube even get back then that also wasn't on the PS2? Can't think of any.
MrPresident
Banned
Are you sure about that? I'm just going by 10 year old memories but DX7-era T&L hardware included stencil buffering (or so I thought).
I admittedly didn't google past a few buzzwords that were en vogue at the time. These were the 'it' thing when Doom3 came out though I'd argue that stencil shadows and shadow volumes aren't explicitly the same thing.
Edit: I could also be completely off my rocker here. I thought Doom 3 had been running on DX7-ish hardware but apparently it wasn't.
Ps2 lacked stencil buffer as well and plenty of games used shadow volumes. (Stencil shadows.)
What made Doom3 special was that it lit/rendered the scene for each light separately.
Character self shadows were disabled for quality reasons. (You can enable it with console command.)
Self shadows on characters are as easy to render/create as anything else with shadow volumes and or shadowmaps.
Problem is the quality you need to them not ruining the art. (Like we have seen with many games.(IE. early UE3))
blu
Wants the largest console games publisher to avoid Nintendo's platforms.
Plenty? I'd say countable on the fingers of one hand, but I might be missing some. I would say the opposite was true -- that self-shadowing was a 'big deal' on the ps2, thanks to the fact the hw had little provisions for such techniques.
Stencils are surely subject to emulation, and surely when emulated they are not as fast as native stencil support. Regardless, using stencil shadows for singular ground shadows where a basic shadow map would have sufficed would be a fundamental waste of fillrate. Unsurprisingly WW does not do that. As re how easy it is to create viable shadows with shadow maps disregarding the shadow quality - that's a rather void statement, don't you think? The quality of the shadow makes or breaks the technique, and is the main reason why there are more than a few algorithms and dozens of variations striving to achieve good/viable shadow quality with depthbuffers.
Sounds like the Gamecube had it:
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/2945/shader_integration_merging_.php
blu
Wants the largest console games publisher to avoid Nintendo's platforms.
One last time: Flipper does _not_ have a hw-supported stencil buffer, in the sense that stencil buffers have been defined in the established low-level APIs and compliant hw products. Stencil buffers in those APIs are not just arbitrary destination buffers - they have certain hw functionality associated with them, which functionality is targeted at accelerating shadow volume algorithms. Flipper's destination alpha does none of those functions (and the fact you'd lose your destination alpha if you used it as a stencil buffer is not negligible either). Otherwise you can emulate stencil buffers in any destination buffer, given a sufficiently-developed blending op set, and a sufficiently-large multi-pass budget.
Smurfman256
Member
Nope, it required at LEAST DX8-level hardware and Carmack himself recommended DX9.
lostinblue
Banned
That's actually wrong.
First of all, sorry for being mocking, but Carmack recommending DirectX is like Bill Gates recommending Linux; Doom 3 uses DirectX on a superficial level because it has to but doesn't use Direct3D portion, instead using OpenGL. Of course, you meant GPU features, Geforce 256/2 being DirectX 7, Geforce 3/4 being DirectX 8 and Geforce 5/FX being DirectX 9. He was probably doing recommendations in OpenGL terminology and just being translated by the media to easier terms.
Second, as much as Doom 3 was designed with Geforce 3 in mind, it had to go lower, as they had to write a fallback path for Geforce 2 MX, which is DirectX 7 (and a NV1x part) and was the most disseminated card back then. It didn't run great and sacrificed quite a bit, but it was playable and supported/optimized in the realms of possibility; that meant 20 to 40 fps at 640x480 with everything on low.
So technically the game ran on DirectX 7-level hardware (and with some changes, even lower); it just wasn't optimal.
Nostremitus
Member
Regarding PCF, is it the reason shadows start crisp near objects and then grow softer and lighter as they get farther away?
blu
Wants the largest console games publisher to avoid Nintendo's platforms.
That's an interesting use of 'some' there ;p
Do we actually know they didn't add any extra lines, though? I mean, in the context of then new wide 60x bus.
Smurfman256
Member
There's a good chance that it was probably PC footage. Have they shown what the current-gen versions look like and if the PS4/Xbone versions look immediately better to the layman?
prag16
Banned
What makes you say that? While it may be true, are you dismissing the possibility that it is Wii U footage just because it seems to look better than AC3 on PS360(U) (from what little we see)?
And no, I dont' think they've shown ANY PS360U AC4 footage.
The latest ubisoft interviews about Wii U version have indicated AC4 will be better than Ps360 but not as good as next gen. They were clearer about this than the Watch Dogs comment about it better but closer to Ps360. It's a 15 man team working on Wii U port.
The lighting is great. wow
That scene looks similar to pikmin where they blast off, in both cases the shaders are looking lovely, however they the "blasts" don't cast any real time shadows (check marios shadow pre and post explosions) unfortunately.
Definitely looks pretty though!
Smurfman256
Member
What makes me say that is that Ubisoft has been using PC footage for all other advertisements. I don't see why this would be any different.
prag16
Banned
Nintendo: "We want some AC4 footage to put in a sizzle reel of 3rd party Wii U games we're showing."
Ubi: "Here, take this PC footage..."
Well, I suppose. And I guess it's probably what happened. Kind of odd though.
The_Intruder
Member
That's the same footage of the ps4 gameplay during e3 2013, nothing more nothing less.
ps4 footage
WiiU ND october 2013
(both screens come from youtube video)
Mario's shadow isn't supposed to be dynamic. It's a visual hint to see where you are while jumping, so it always has to be straight below you.
Yeah, I don't see it as unfortunate. If his shadow was dynamic you'd have no "where am I" indicator.
Not always. If you're just walking around you can have it react to lights and junk, and have it below you when you jump. The Ratchet and Clank games do this, for example.
No idea. All we know is that the bus is apparently wider than usual.
Yeah, you can do that. I prefer consistency though. And so does EAD it seems.
I think after the release date as always , i remember call of duty BO2 in lunch we didn't see any trailer until the game release.
phosphor112
Banned
Typical Ubisoft.
Anyway. People are mentioning performance gains after this latest update? Someone also mentioned their Wii U was running warm and the fan was on higher while at the home screen.
Can anyone test a new power draw?
phosphor112
Banned
Yeah, I don't see it as unfortunate. If his shadow was dynamic you'd have no "where am I" indicator.
Yeah, I noticed his shadow was cast in a different direction though. Which is much different to the "directly below you" shadow that has almost always existed.
It still sticks right below you, but it'll be "cast" in a certain direction.
EDIT: Shit shit shit double bump. Sorry!
Smurfman256
Member
Call me kooky, but has Nintendo recently developed an Ambient Occlusion fetish, or is that just me?
A
A More Normal Bird
Unconfirmed Member
I'm pretty sure Nintendo has a system whereby once a code is developed it's shared between studios.
phosphor112
Banned
That, and this is their first system fully capable of AO...
You could be right, also a benefit because it's cheaper
I have to admit though, the shadows in this game are super clean! Especially when they do the projected shadows on walls, no jaggies anywhere, almost uncannily smooth. I it doesn't seem like they're using shadow maps, perhaps some projections based on the characters geometry. It's interesting, and very classy.
I don't seem to hear the fan running all the time, although I do hear the drive occassionally start spinning just as I'm about to enter the Wii U Menu scree.n
JordanN
Banned
Isn't Wind Waker the only one using it? If so, not really.
They seem more interested in using bloom though (see Nintendoland, SM3DWorld, MK8 and of course Wind Waker HD).
Smurfman256
Member
If you slow down that .gif, even before the "POW" blocks explode, it looks like the models have some self-shadowing going on around their edges (look at the lips on the piranha plant and the flanges on the Bowser box).
blu
Wants the largest console games publisher to avoid Nintendo's platforms.
That's what a high-res shadow map with good filtering looks like. Also, I doubt they care what direction the shadows are casted in, aside from the visual-cue considerations.You could be right, also a benefit because it's cheaper
I have to admit though, the shadows in this game are super clean! Especially when they do the projected shadows on walls, no jaggies anywhere, almost uncannily smooth. I it doesn't seem like they're using shadow maps, perhaps some projections based on the characters geometry. It's interesting, and very classy.
Perhaps, though, when the shadows hit perpendicular surfaces, I find they don't have the same feel as typical shadowmaps I usually see. For example, when the light source is above the characters, and the characters jump up a wall, the shadows will cast vertically great distances very cleanly. Typically this type of cast will stretch the resolution of any shadowmap I've ran into, showing it's raster roots.
There also doesn't see to be as much bias problems as you sometimes see.
For example how the shadows cast downwards under the blocks against the wall, they always have a solid shadow against the wall, not just under the blocks, typically with shadowmaps you'd get either nothing on the wall, or massive aliasing/smoothing.
That gif also highlights the strange things Nintendo is doing with shadows. As you mention there is the shadows under the player controlled characters, seemingly cast from above. Then there are the shadows that are cast from enemies (the big snake pirrana plant) which are casting at an angle to the left (which are not obscured by the environment by the way lol). Then there is also the environmental shadows from "foliage" somewhere off camera, which is also casting on the wall and ground, which are also from directly above, not at the same angle as the snakes shadow.
Perhaps they are shadowmaps, but I wouldn't be surprised if they're doing some other type of shadowing, or some pretty tricky filtering. Most definately, they have multiple shadow layers going on at the same time, potentially of different types too.
Smurfman256
Member
Is Super Mario 3D World going to be 60FPS? Normally, I would say that this was a dumb question, but Mario Sunshine originally ran at 60FPS and then, for whatever reason, they dropped it down to 30.
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