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Nintendo expanding dev tools for Wii - fur shading, predictive input, text to speech
- Thread starter ziran
- Start date
To put things into perspective for those who dont know what ive been saying about the HUGE increase in transistors for the wii GPU, im posting a pic of the flipper die, with the pink areas being all the area with more transistors
the pink areas will be the new transistors, and inside the die itself ive accounted for using 1t-sram Q rather than 1t-sram, it cuts the physical size in half
the pink areas will be the new transistors, and inside the die itself ive accounted for using 1t-sram Q rather than 1t-sram, it cuts the physical size in half
OG_Original Gamer
Member
I don't think Julian Eggebreht comment about Wii having a "insane fillrate", suggest that the console fillrate is 900 mega pixels. Fill rate buring effects like fire is used to engulf an entire room in Red Steel almost making it nearly impossible to move around in the room.
When devs are saying Wii is a souped up Xbox, reading post by some guy suggesting that the PS2 can out perform the Wii ony proves he's basing his information on maxconsole specs that suggested that Hollywood is a OC'd Flipper.
It should be obvious that you can't get the same texture quality with 24MB, that you can with 88MB. Unless Genius Sorority found some hidden memory in the Cube.
When devs are saying Wii is a souped up Xbox, reading post by some guy suggesting that the PS2 can out perform the Wii ony proves he's basing his information on maxconsole specs that suggested that Hollywood is a OC'd Flipper.
It should be obvious that you can't get the same texture quality with 24MB, that you can with 88MB. Unless Genius Sorority found some hidden memory in the Cube.
Mithos Yggdrasill
Banned
gcfan2k5 said:To put things into perspective for those who dont know what ive been saying about the HUGE increase in transistors for the wii GPU, im posting a pic of the flipper die, with the pink areas being all the area with more transistors
the pink areas will be the new transistors, and inside the die itself ive accounted for using 1t-sram Q rather than 1t-sram, it cuts the physical size in half
ARGH. Can you explain us something more about these parts ? No, I'm really interested, but I don't understand much in this schema.
Mithos Yggdrasill
Banned
gcfan2k5 said:
No, I mean the names: SU, CP, DSP, NB, XF, .......
I wanna not abuse of your knowledge too much, but I'm curious.
Mithos Yggdrasill said:
PLL: Phase Lock Loop
eFB: Embedded Frame Buffer
eTM: Embedded Texture Memory
TF: Texture Filter
TC: Texture Coordinate Generator
TEV: Texture Environment
RASx: Rasterizer
C/Z: Color/Z Calculator
PEC: Pixel Copy Engine
SU: Triangle Setup
CP: Command Processor
DSP: Audio DSP
XF: Triangle Transform Engine
NB: Northbridge - all system logic
including CPU interface, Video
Interface, Memory Controller, I/O
Interface
gcfan2k5 if they changed the EFB and ETM shouldn't games be showing it.
BTW here's the link for where he got the flipper picture.
BTW here's the link for where he got the flipper picture.
Mithos Yggdrasill
Banned
Thanks a lot !! 
It would be interesting to know if the Wii has some NEW parts, in addition to the expansion of his pre-existing parts already present on Gamecube.
It would be interesting to know if the Wii has some NEW parts, in addition to the expansion of his pre-existing parts already present on Gamecube.
Hatorade said:
They didnt neccesarily CHANGE the EFM and ETM, they COULD have doubled both and not lost any space, but its likely they DIDNT double both, perhaps they increased framebuffer to accuont for the 30% increase in pixels in 480p widescreen, perhaps not. But my picture shows what theyed use the space for if they DIDNT increase the amount of embedded memory...... logic transistors for more processing power.
OG_Original Gamer
Member
Its pretty obvious, Hollywood is a larger chip then Flipper. Which makes it even more obvious, that going from 180nm to 90nm shrinks the size of the chip. Overclocking a chip doesn't magically produce more transistors or size.
So one or two had to have occurred, Hollywood is a 8 pixel pipe part, with an additional TEV revamped for more programmability. Or the rest the of space is filled with air.
So one or two had to have occurred, Hollywood is a 8 pixel pipe part, with an additional TEV revamped for more programmability. Or the rest the of space is filled with air.
OG_Original Gamer said:
:lol Seriously though, an "additional" TEV wouldnt work, theyed increase the size of the TEV. But, heres the interesting thing, things like the NB and the DSP, wouldnt need an increase. You could MORE than double up the TEV, because other parts dont need as large of an increase, and you could upgrade the XF (T&L) and still have room left to upgrade
What we are looking at is roughly 2.5 - 3x as much logic in Hollywood. Coupled with a 50% clock increase we are looking at WAY more than 3x the power than gamecube had, probably closer to 5x REAL WORLD.
Mithos Yggdrasill
Banned
Hatorade said:
Oh man.....so many technical information....
gcfan2k5 said::lol Seriously though, an "additional" TEV wouldnt work, theyed increase the size of the TEV. But, heres the interesting thing, things like the NB and the DSP, wouldnt need an increase. You could MORE than double up the TEV, because other parts dont need as large of an increase, and you could upgrade the XF (T&L) and still have room left to upgrade
What we are looking at is roughly 2.5 - 3x as much logic in Hollywood. Coupled with a 50% clock increase we are looking at WAY more than 3x the power than gamecube had, probably closer to 5x REAL WORLD.
OG_Original Gamer
Member
Hatorade said:
Not in games developed with an OC'd Flipper, which was what early devkits had.
OG_Original Gamer
Member
gcfan2k5 said::lol Seriously though, an "additional" TEV wouldnt work, theyed increase the size of the TEV. But, heres the interesting thing, things like the NB and the DSP, wouldnt need an increase. You could MORE than double up the TEV, because other parts dont need as large of an increase, and you could upgrade the XF (T&L) and still have room left to upgrade
What we are looking at is roughly 2.5 - 3x as much logic in Hollywood. Coupled with a 50% clock increase we are looking at WAY more than 3x the power than gamecube had, probably closer to 5x REAL WORLD.
Yeah, but I keep reading this patent of Nintendo, that has a diagram with a part added to the TEV section, called "recirculating shader". I was also thinking maybe Nintendo needed the old TEV for BC.
Here's of the diagrams.
TEV only.
TEV and Recirculating Shader
Eteric Rice
Member
gcfan2k5 said::lol Seriously though, an "additional" TEV wouldnt work, theyed increase the size of the TEV. But, heres the interesting thing, things like the NB and the DSP, wouldnt need an increase. You could MORE than double up the TEV, because other parts dont need as large of an increase, and you could upgrade the XF (T&L) and still have room left to upgrade
What we are looking at is roughly 2.5 - 3x as much logic in Hollywood. Coupled with a 50% clock increase we are looking at WAY more than 3x the power than gamecube had, probably closer to 5x REAL WORLD.
Damn... That sounds good.
Mithos Yggdrasill
Banned
Eteric Rice said:
I hope that we'll see more facts then merely words....
gcfan2k5 said::lol Seriously though, an "additional" TEV wouldnt work, theyed increase the size of the TEV. But, heres the interesting thing, things like the NB and the DSP, wouldnt need an increase. You could MORE than double up the TEV, because other parts dont need as large of an increase, and you could upgrade the XF (T&L) and still have room left to upgrade
What we are looking at is roughly 2.5 - 3x as much logic in Hollywood. Coupled with a 50% clock increase we are looking at WAY more than 3x the power than gamecube had, probably closer to 5x REAL WORLD.
Obviously, look at the games, they look five times as good!
Mithos Yggdrasill said:
Mario Galaxy is all the fact you need, Bumpmapping, Per Pixel Lighting, Normal Mapping (yep, thats there too!) VERY high quality environment mapping, fairly high polygon counts, clean, crisp textures, very large draw distances, phong shading....... specular highlighting, bloom lighting.... rim lighting....... the list can go on all day folks
Mithos Yggdrasill
Banned
gcfan2k5 said:Mario Galaxy is all the fact you need, Bumpmapping, Per Pixel Lighting, Normal Mapping (yep, thats there too!) VERY high quality environment mapping, fairly high polygon counts, clean, crisp textures, very large draw distances, phong shading....... specular highlighting, bloom lighting.... rim lighting....... the list can go on all day folks
I know it. I mean from Third Parties.
Mithos Yggdrasill said:
I agree. I think a better statement is that it has about 4x the power of the GC. (2.5-3)x1.5 =~ 4. I see that as possible. And i think it shows in the games. The games have been looking better than GC games from pretty much everyone except EA and Koei. While the leap is nowere near the leap of the Xbox -> 360 it is certainly substantial.
EDIT: Ah logic. I take back what i said about the power of the GC.
gcfan2k5 said::lol Seriously though, an "additional" TEV wouldnt work, theyed increase the size of the TEV. But, heres the interesting thing, things like the NB and the DSP, wouldnt need an increase. You could MORE than double up the TEV, because other parts dont need as large of an increase, and you could upgrade the XF (T&L) and still have room left to upgrade
What we are looking at is roughly 2.5 - 3x as much logic in Hollywood. Coupled with a 50% clock increase we are looking at WAY more than 3x the power than gamecube had, probably closer to 5x REAL WORLD.
Thanks for putting that in a number I can understand.
Loonz
Member
I have a question for gcfan2k5. How can Wii deal with some sort of antialiasing?. I ask this 'cause Wii games would be very favoured by using 2x or 4x FSAA, if you are playing in a HDTV. Do you think we'll see more use of FSAA in future titles of Wii?.
Anyway, thanks for all your explanations, very instructive
EDIT: another question. What kind of things can be done using the extra fillrate the Wii has?
Anyway, thanks for all your explanations, very instructive
EDIT: another question. What kind of things can be done using the extra fillrate the Wii has?
thefro said:
Things dont work exactly like that. 4x the resolution is not neccessariy 4x the need for power as there are a lot of things that can save power.
For example oblivion on the latest cards:
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2945&p=8
Loonz said:I have a question for gcfan2k5. How can Wii deal with some sort of antialiasing?. I ask this 'cause Wii games would be very favoured by using 2x or 4x FSAA, if you are playing in a HDTV. Do you think we'll see more use of FSAA in future titles of Wii?.
Anyway, thanks for all your explanations, very instructive
Even gamecube had Antialiased games as far back as rogue leader, youll see 2x the majority of the time because from a bandwidth perspective, 2x is free on GC and thus wii (it still uses fillrate, but not bandwidth, as the pipelines pull 2 samples across ANYWAY.
I may have that backwards, if so sorry about that ^^
EDIT: the extra fillrate is ALREADY being put to use in things like SSX BLUR, blur eats fillrate like crazy ^^. Fillrate is used for most pixel level effects i believe, more is always better
maxmars said:This is the pic I remembered:
But I don't know what BroadOn is. I remembered a different logo e.g. BroadBand (evidently it isn't).
BroadON deal with the DRM on the Virtual Console, id suspect that the ULTRA TINY chip under that heat spreader (less than 1mm on either side) contains mask rom, and the broadon DRM stuff.
top right corner, very tiny chip
Mithos Yggdrasill
Banned
maxmars said:This is the pic I remembered:
But I don't know what BroadOn is. I remembered a different logo e.g. BroadBand (evidently it isn't).
All these numbers/words have some meaning perhaps ?
Mithos Yggdrasill
Banned
IBM 72914
Is from this number that IGN has concluded that the CPU is clocked at 729 Mhz, isn't it ? But is it an accurate conclusion ?
Is from this number that IGN has concluded that the CPU is clocked at 729 Mhz, isn't it ? But is it an accurate conclusion ?
gcfan2k5 said:
Ok, now, what I meant is that perhaps the GPU die also contains some of that stuff.. It would still have a lot more room than what would need a shrink of flipper, but perhaps some of that extra room went there?
BTW I seem to recall that now framebuffer can be anywhere in the two RAM blocks, so this rules out the option of extra space being allocated for cache.. Or does it?