Well first off, I want to establish that the auteurist idea of "vision" is bullshit. Developers compromise on vision a thousand times during development, and all things considered I'm not convinced the usable gap in power between the Wii U and whatever the PS4 and nextbox has to offer is significant enough that major, gamemaking features will have to be omitted. In fact, Wii U support means that the game is much more likely to have those features should it go to the Wii U since the engine makes code compatible across different hardware architecture. Will there be some games that use every bit of power of the PS4 or Durango? Bet your bottom dollar. But those games tend to be console exclusives and most likely not made on UE4. Coding to the metal makes for some fantastic gains, but it also makes the games MUCH harder to port. UE4 on the WiiU isn't about those games though, it's about the ease of transposition and the promise of positive support without expectations, aka, the majority of games. We focus on the outliers, we lose the meaning of the greater whole. Make sense?
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
Kotaku: The Wii U Won't Be Getting Unreal Engine 4
- Thread starter rouken
- Start date
- Status
Well first off, I want to establish that the auteurist idea of "vision" is bullshit. Developers compromise on vision a thousand times during development, and all things considered I'm not convinced the usable gap in power between the Wii U and whatever the PS4 and nextbox has to offer is significant enough that major, gamemaking features will have to be omitted. In fact, Wii U support means that the game is much more likely to have those features should it go to the Wii U since the engine makes code compatible across different hardware architecture. Will there be some games that use every bit of power of the PS4 or Durango? Bet your bottom dollar. But those games tend to be console exclusives and most likely not made on UE4. Coding to the metal makes for some fantastic gains, but it also makes the games MUCH harder to port. UE4 on the WiiU isn't about those games though, it's about the ease of transposition and the promise of positive support without expectations, aka, the majority of games. We focus on the outliers, we lose the meaning of the greater whole. Make sense?
SmokedMeat
Gamer™
He was? I recall Unreal 3 tech demos being shown running on PS3 before the system released, not to mention Unreal Tournament 3 launching on PS3 well before the 360.
Doesn't sound like something someone "shitting" on the console would do. And "ugly clusterfuck" is some major hyperbole on your part.
H_Prestige
Banned
You should convince yourself of that then because it's the reality. Unless you think every ps4 and 720 game could also run on ps3 and 360 as long as the "settings" are cranked down all the way.
Well it's a good thing that the Wii U is a decent amount more powerful than the PS3 and 360, which you should know if you actually did your research. And regardless, I can still out-perform the PS4 and nextbox with a mid-range PC, and that gap is only going to widen, and yet games like Battlefield 4 still make it to the PS3 and 360. Imagine that, scalability? In my video games? It's more likely than you think.
No, it isn´t.
Brothers In Arms and Red Steel were UE2.5 on Wii
pants
Member
On what basis are you comparing these two events? lol wth man
Well to be fair, it's up in the air at this point, and the answer is probably in some ways it is, and some ways it isn't. But it's definitely closer to Xbox360/PS3 than it is PS4.
I love how you backed up your comment as if you knew what you were talking about
This is probably the most reasonable response short the bolded. The issue is that we don't know either way. We don't know anything about the PS4 short the 8 gigs of RAM (which has no context as to its use within the console architecture), we don't know about the Durango, and other than some very sloppy analysis by DF, we don't have a good understanding what the WiiU is capable of either. Now, there's no magic module, no secret Titan hiding under the hood of Nintendo's console, the new consoles will definitely outclass the WiiU when they come out. But the real question is "by how much?"
Can you see how I'm not convinced?
BruiserBear
Banned
Dude, I own a Wii U, and I even recently bought Need for Speed: Most Wanted U, which looks a bit better than the PS3/360 versions.
But please, just stop with this argument. Most of what you're saying is utter nonsense. Digital Foundry's analysis of the next gen consoles is "sloppy"? No, just stop, please. You have no idea what you're talking about friend.
Howard Ballou
Member
I'd imagine this is what Rein was getting at with his comments.
Steve Youngblood
Member
Can I read your analysis wherein you substantiated the following comment?
What research does that entail that you have apparently done?
Saint Gregory
Member
I'm actually saying that both scenarios are ridiculous. Apply that as you will.
IIRC UE3 was pushed on both the PS3 and 360 at E305. Mark later was pushing UE3 on the 360 leading up to Gears (telling Sony that next gen starts when they say so) but then switched up and started promoting UE3 on the PS3 as UT3 got closer to launch.
Basically he does and promotes what he needs to build interest in UE3 on whatever platform is in the spotlight at the moment.
I find this whole notion of "being able to run engine XY" completely puzzling. The content determines performance in any engine. Engines are supposed to be scalable. Any engine can render a square room at 1000fps+ on a Gamecube. Any engine can brute-force render a 750M polygon teapot and bring any machine to a crawl. The question is thus not "can my machine run this engine?", but rather "can this engine push this amount of detail on my machine?".
If Epic seriously managed to make their new engine even less efficient with moderate detail, I say fuck 'em. They've done enough terrible things to framerates and image quality this past gen. And I'm by no means a Wii U supporter, make no mistake.
If Epic seriously managed to make their new engine even less efficient with moderate detail, I say fuck 'em. They've done enough terrible things to framerates and image quality this past gen. And I'm by no means a Wii U supporter, make no mistake.
Schnozberry
Member
You mean faces that look like vaseline coated rubber stretched over a crude wire frame don't excite you?
Jinfash
needs 2 extra inches
They only do with nonsensical amounts of DOF, intestine-pallette tone mapping, and a next-gen piss filter.
The WiiU GPU thread is a fantastic thread to understand the Wii U hardware featuresets and how they tie together for real results. It's more complicated than the numbers on paper.
That said, I can't really take Rein seriously. I'm with Rolf NB on my opinions of UE3 either way, and I doubt it will change with UE4, but I do recognize the importance of the engine for multiplatform games, I'm just incredulous that Rein would imply the code he shills as middleware wouldn't run on the WiiU.
What is this contribution supposed to tell us?
A modern rendering engine utilizing more advanced system features will be more efficient on a newer system, while at the same time possibly less efficient when recreating the same effects on a less advanced console.
But Unity, that's what I call an engine!
We have seen plenty of real results: They tell us the Wii U is in the same ballpark as PS360. Epic are building a powerful engine targeted at next generation systems - creating a version of UE4 with a downgraded featureset for Nintendo's last gen console doesn't seem to be in their plans. It's not about the theoretical ability of UE4 possibly running on Wii U.
Workflow. If you make a PS4 and 720 game and want Wii U too it'd be easier to use the same Dev environment. And if you plan multiple titles it'd make even more sense.
OG_Original Gamer
Member
Isn't it on Nintendo to go after UE4 or third-party devs to license UE4. This IMO is a support problem Nintendo has with third-parties. If the WiiU technically matched the PS4, Epic probably would still make the same comment or give the same answer.
Correction, Mark Rein.
Correction, Mark Rein.
That if I can't use Unreal Engine 4 to run Unreal Engine 3 content with the same detail, same effects and at least the same performance, then what is UE4 good for? What has Epic's engine team done all these years? Regress in memory usage?
OG_Original Gamer
Member
Backwards compatibility?
Nothing you state is back up in that thread. In fact the latest finding suggest even more we are looking at a 160 part. One thing is sure its not 320 bc they just isn't enough room. But it doesn't really matter and no one really care enough to keep looking at it. Doesnt really matter we have the ball park. That ball park is a little better than ps360.
Really the biggest difference is the more ram. If it wasn't for the more ram it would be on par with ps360. In need for speed u the main difference is from the extra ram.
Seem you still believe stuff from the wust and that stuff was just very incorrect.
Saint Gregory
Member
I really don't think that was the point he was trying to make, but unfortunately since he was asked the clearly click-bait question and he fell into the trap the obvious conclusion people came to is that he was trolling Nintendo.
All he meant by his comments is that UE4 isn't meant for the Wii U just as it isn't meant for the PS3 and 360. It's an engine that was designed specifically for high end PCs and the bleeding edge console partners. UE4 will mostly run on PCs with real world specs similar to the Wii U but it's not meant for them either, its purpose is to drive image technology forward. I'm a Wii U owner and a Nintendo fan and I understand that bleeding edge graphics technology isn't what Nintendo was aiming for when designing the Wii U so there's nothing to be offended about here.
I just want to say that your insistence on restating this in every thread that you can is just bizarre. Do you have an SPU side bet with someone or something?
I never said the mention of poly counts completely stopped.
The PS4 presentation you linked to was discussing technology, which is exactly where I said it's generally mentioned these days.
Also I expect most discussions about tessellation to be in tech related articles, conversations, interviews, etc.
Basically exactly what I've been saying. If MS or Sony try to boast the peak poly count of their next gen system on stage in E3, then you'll have a point.
You're of course free to believe this, but I find it hard to believe with the countless aspects in rendering today that poly counts alone make up so much of the visual make up.
JordanN
Banned
Probably because polygons make up the backbone of every [3D] video game.
You can have a video game made of just polygons and nothing else whereas the opposite can't be said with shaders or post processing effects.
Sure...
It doesn't really matter if Wii U can in theory run PS4/720 games.
The way it looks now, it won't have these games even if they could be made for it.
Whether Wii U has the potential to run slightly worse versions of PS4/720 games is interesting from a technological point of view but it is irrelevant when deciding to purchase the system. You can't play with potential, you need the games. And right now it does not look like they'll be coming.
The way it looks now, it won't have these games even if they could be made for it.
Whether Wii U has the potential to run slightly worse versions of PS4/720 games is interesting from a technological point of view but it is irrelevant when deciding to purchase the system. You can't play with potential, you need the games. And right now it does not look like they'll be coming.
TheDrowningMan
Member
It's a very different architecture, generally running quickly assembled late-gen ports pretty well.
There's a fair amount more to it, trust me. These layman suggestions of parity and little else would hold water if it were exactly the same, but it's not. No, it is not nearly as powerful as PS4 / Durango; it isn't a 'full-gen' leap, but you are operating under the supposition that not only is it essentially maxed out already but also that Xbox 360 was squeezed dry before it saw 2006 or in PS3's case, 2007.
Whether it will be pushed as far as those consoles were is another matter entirely. That would be a legitimate debate.
No, it's not up to Nintendo... well, they *could* go after Epic, but in the end it's up to the publishers (or developers depending on their situation), what platforms they will publish on. Even if WiiU had UE4 support, it wouldn't run the same as the other platforms, it'd have to be pared down, it'd have to have gamepad functionality (development expense), all for what? 10,000 sales or so? Fact is, people who own Nintendo Consoles tend to not buy 3rd party games... I know it's a chicken or egg thing, but it's the nature of things. It's still an investment that publishers have to put a $$ figure on, and decide if it's worth it, especially since it'd be a gimped version, the decision is probably an easy one, even if "support" was there in UE4
Generally workflow, tools and rendering. Adam Sessler interviewed Rein a couple days ago and talked about the difference between UE3 and UE4, and it was a little peak at the differences. It seems like the overall workflow is very different, it's not just pretty graphics that have changed, but how those pretty graphics are generated and described and modified, not to mention scripting concept changes. These things seem to be more complicated to just port between the two versions.
When building engines, often you need to decide to build off a previous engine, in which case going back and forth using the same scripts and assets is easy, or totally re-architecting it, to gain something that would be impossible (or gimped if attempted) otherwise.
JonathanPower
Member
Ahh the WUSTS. Those were the days. So much hype, such epic disappointment.
Its not getting Aliens CM either 
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/399578/aliens-colonial-marines-for-wii-u-cancelled/
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/399578/aliens-colonial-marines-for-wii-u-cancelled/
Its not getting Aliens CM either
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/399578/aliens-colonial-marines-for-wii-u-cancelled/
This seems to not be a bad thing. The negativity surrounding this game does not warrant further work on the Wii U version. It was already going to do bad because it was late. The quality of the game, the stories and lies surrounding it hurts it even more. There is no positive spin that can be placed on the game. Best to cut your losses now.
OccamsBlender
Member
Pity because Unreal Engine 4 is way more awesome than Unreal 3 when it comes to workflow. So far, the material editor and particle effect editor are the same as UE3 but the animation tools are lightyears ahead of UE3's. Kismet was impressive at the time but Blueprint is yet another massive leap forward. It's way easier for non-programmers to make games with UE4 than UE3. Fantastic tool, hopefully it'll get a port to a Nintendo system soon.
ElectricKaibutsu
Member
And to update everyone, the Wii U still isn't getting UE4.
Zee_truly evil
Member
wtf? lol
Zeyphersan
Banned
incoming lock
AntiFacebook
Member
Not really a shock:
- Only nintendo makes games for the wiiu
- Nintendo doesn't use engines made by other companies.
If you add those two points togethet, you see the UE4 has no business being on the wiiu.
- Only nintendo makes games for the wiiu
- Nintendo doesn't use engines made by other companies.
If you add those two points togethet, you see the UE4 has no business being on the wiiu.
andrerobot
Member
Was expecting an EPIC bump (get it? uh? uh?). OccamsBlender you disappoint.
MrNyarlathotep
Banned
IIRC it was heavily implied that their hummingbird tech demo from the WiiU reveal was running on UE
- Status