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The Wii U Speculation Thread V: The Final Frontier

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Uh, perhaps I'm reading it wrong but I think that section is referring to the UPad, not the Wii Remote...

Here is the text:

The controller 5 provides the game device 3 with operation data representing the content of operations performed on the controller itself. The controller 5 and the game device 3 can communicate with each other by wireless communication. In the present embodiment, the wireless communication between a controller 5 and the game device 3 uses, for example, Bluetooth (Registered Trademark) technology. In other embodiments, the controller 5 and the game device 3 may be connected by a wired connection. While only one controller 5 is included in the game system 1 in the present embodiment, the game device 3 can communicate with a plurality of controllers, and a game can be played by multiple players by using a predetermined number of controllers at the same time.

In the patent, "Controller 5" refers to the Wii Remote and "Terminal Device 7" is used to refer to the UPad.
 
Exact lherre quote:
lherre calling his info is good is good enough for me. And he was basically vouching for the info. When he said he can't legitimize him he was saying it officially, which he factually can't as that's what mods have to do. Both lherre and BG say his info is good, then it's good. That's end of story for me. You guys can discount it all if you like, it's all cool.

Anyway...
 
I am personally expecting WiiU to have a GPU that is around 1TFlop. I don't know where that puts the WiiU in terms of bullshit multiplier, but I consider it more that slightly powerful than current gen.

I've been using "gpu FLOPS" as my personal bullshit multiplier whenever people ask me. 1 TFLOPS would be technically achievable, I think, and really nice as a marketing bullet point, but it seems like an incredibly lofty goal at this point.

I conject that our minimum reasonably speculative number would be 416 GFLOPS (1.66x), if we were indeed getting two different at-least-360-quality renders simultaneously (one at 720p and an additional at 480p) with that garden demo. Gutwise, I think it's much higher than that.



Hey, guys, wasn't there a rumour way back that the DRC would have a magnetometer? I note that the diagram on page 7 of that patent lists the accelerometer ("Acceleration sensor") and gyrometer ("Gyrosensor") but nothign compassy.
 

BurntPork

Banned
So we're back at the "IdeaMan is a fraud" stage? Ugh. Can we make a separate thread for that so it stops coming up every few hours? I mean, it's not like he's given any groundbreaking info anyway.
 
Hey, guys, wasn't there a rumour way back that the DRC would have a magnetometer? I note that the diagram on page 7 of that patent lists the accelerometer ("Acceleration sensor") and gyrometer ("Gyrosensor") but nothign compassy.
I've closed it now, but I read quite a bit about a magnetic sensor in the device
 

EDarkness

Member
lherre calling his info is good is good enough for me. And he was basically vouching for the info. When he said he can't legitimize him he was saying it officially, which he factually can't as that's what mods have to do. Both lherre and BG say his info is good, then it's good. That's end of story for me. You guys can discount it all if you like, it's all cool.

Anyway...

This is my feeling as well.
 

Skiesofwonder

Walruses, camels, bears, rabbits, tigers and badgers.
lherre calling his info is good is good enough for me. And he was basically vouching for the info. When he said he can't legitimize him he was saying it officially, which he factually can't as that's what mods have to do. Both lherre and BG say his info is good, then it's good. That's end of story for me. You guys can discount it all if you like, it's all cool.

Anyway...

He has good info in some ways.

If you want to put all your eggs in a basket with the strength of "good info in SOME ways" then go for it. Personally I'll take everything he says with a grain of salt until E3.
 

HylianTom

Banned
Looking at the Assassin's Creed 3 gameplay trailer, is that 360 level? I think I need a benchmark for when people start making comments either way.
Truth be told, after a certain level of detail I kinda haze-over as far as the differences go between levels of hardware power. It all looks "pretty" after some point, haha..
 

Nibel

Member
So we're back at the "IdeaMan is a fraud" stage? Ugh. Can we make a separate thread for that so it stops coming up every few hours? I mean, it's not like he's given any groundbreaking info anyway.

IdeaMan Speculation Thread: French Fries for everybody!
 
What would a magnetometer allow developers to do?

Tells you which way in the room the controller is pointing.
P.S. Move has this, but Sony's system can use that and combine it with the relative room position from the PS eye. Wii U doesn't seem to have that advantage.

So the DRC senses the swing of the Wiimote using a magnetometer?

Probably for aiming the shot rather than the swing.
 

EDarkness

Member
He has good info in some ways.

If you want to put all your eggs in a basket with the strength of "good info in SOME ways" then go for it. Personally I'll take everything he says with a grain of salt until E3.

*shrug* I think we should take everything everyone says with a grain of salt. Doesn't matter who it is. It's really the only way to be sure.
 

tkscz

Member
Wii U block diagram.

EVhWU.png


Looks like another GPU centric design.

Edit: Also no HDD.

This was actually posted here before. Which is strange considering the patent was posted up today.

Still, as I said before they really made this console to free up a lot of the CPU. The CPU doesn't need to do the I/O, doesn't need to handle sound thanks to the DSP, and it has three different memories (RAM, VRAM, and eDRAM). Nintendo may have made a very intelligent move with the way they built this.

I'm also going to make a guess at the RAM:
RAM: 1 GB XDR2 (Nintendo loves their fast RAM)
VRAM: 1 GB GDDR5
eDRAM: 32MB.
 
If you want to put all your eggs in a basket with the strength of "good info in SOME ways" then go for it. Personally I'll take everything he says with a grain of salt until E3.
actually if you go back a lot of pages you'll see me explicitely stating that I don't fully believe anything that isn't first hand information, but I do take other stuff into account. Certainly no eggs in baskets though :p


Truth be told, after a certain level of detail I kinda haze-over as far as the differences go between levels of hardware power. It all looks "pretty" after some point, haha..
the AC3 footage looks good, a little better than AC2. I'd say that's indicative of 360 level :p
 
In the patent, "Controller 5" refers to the Wii Remote and "Terminal Device 7" is used to refer to the UPad.

Ah, that makes sense. Need to have a proper close re-read.

Well technically SoC centric but the SoC is going to be 90% GPU by transistor count anyway.

Anyway notice that block in the middle that contains the IO controller, GPU, DSP, VRAM and internal main RAM in it? That's the SoC that contains the GPU, Much like Hollywood within the Wii. Anyway, as you'll notice all the other blocks connect directly to that SoC. Even the CPU and the external main memory connect directly to it and not to each other. That's personally what I'd call a GPU centric design.

Typically it would be the CPU at the centre controlling everything else but Nintendo's been doing it this way since the GCN (Maybe the N64 even, though I don't know for sure).

Also I just noticed the the VRAM is on die with the GPU. That means real eDRAM not self-contradictory external eDRAM like the 360 had. That's good to see. Real eDRAM is much, much faster.

Cheers - that's what I thought you were getting at, but I'm not well-enough versed in these kind of diagrams to be sure.
 

Linkhero1

Member
Tells you which way in the room the controller is pointing.
P.S. Move has this, but Sony's system can use that and combine it with the relative room position from the PS eye. Wii U doesn't seem to have that advantage.



Probably for aiming the shot rather than the swing.

Interesting. Wouldn't it have been also wise of Nintendo to put one in their Wiimotes?

If you had a magnet in your hand you could use it for hands free manipulation of the touchscreen (as seen in this video)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7RQk9vuGzQ

That looks pretty neat. There are plenty of possibilities then.
 
This was actually posted here before. Which is strange considering the patent was posted up today.


The whole patent is a rehash, they seem to do that. There might be some new info starting at [298] but I can't remember.

Interesting. Wouldn't it have been also wise of Nintendo to put one in their Wiimotes?.

Well it wouldn't have hurt, but the sensor bar already served a similar purpose.


Wii U controller can't see the sensor bar (as far as we know), so in Shield Pose, it uses magnetic north to test if you're facing towards the wall with the TV on.
 

DrWong

Member
lherre calling his info is good is good enough for me. And he was basically vouching for the info. When he said he can't legitimize him he was saying it officially, which he factually can't as that's what mods have to do. Both lherre and BG say his info is good, then it's good. That's end of story for me. You guys can discount it all if you like, it's all cool.

Anyway...
I'm with you.
 
So the DRC senses the swing of the Wiimote using a magnetometer?

Yeah, the DRC has:
accelerometer (like the early Wii Remote)
- this gets very confused about what direction it's pointing while you're moving it, so it totally loses anything directional that isn't tilt
gyroscope (like Wii Motion Plus or Playstation Move)
- this can figure out if you're turning left or right pretty nicely, but it isn't perfectly accurate and drifts over time
magnetometer
- this can use the Earth's magnetic field to give you an idea of your absolute direction


Use all three together (extra nice if you also have that IR pointer to unambiguously tell you where the TV is), and you should be able to pretty accurately determine what direction the device is pointing with respect to the television set.


That is, if I'm understanding correctly what a magnetometer is. For all I know, it could just be a tool used for spiritual wellness. "Wii Heal"
 

Luigiv

Member
Hey, guys, wasn't there a rumour way back that the DRC would have a magnetometer? I note that the diagram on page 7 of that patent lists the accelerometer ("Acceleration sensor") and gyrometer ("Gyrosensor") but nothign compassy.

Magnetometer is present in the Upad Block Diagram. just give me a movement to grab the image.

edit: Here it is.

wM2IY.png
 
So does no one here follow FFXIV? I know square fucked it up big time but apparently they fixed it and made it quite a bit better since then. If so it might shit on DQX.

Not that I'm interested in paying any sub fees, just sayin.
 

BurntPork

Banned
This was actually posted here before. Which is strange considering the patent was posted up today.

Still, as I said before they really made this console to free up a lot of the CPU. The CPU doesn't need to do the I/O, doesn't need to handle sound thanks to the DSP, and it has three different memories (RAM, VRAM, and eDRAM). Nintendo may have made a very intelligent move with the way they built this.

I'm also going to make a guess at the RAM:
RAM: 1 GB XDR2 (Nintendo loves their fast RAM)
VRAM: 1 GB GDDR5
eDRAM: 32MB.

XDR2 and GDDR5? The main RAM faster than the VRAM? Yeah, not happening. That's, frankly, insane, especially if half of the main RAM is for the OS.

Also, I believe it was concluded that this is likely a diagram of the Wii, not the Wii U.
 

Linkhero1

Member
I had a nightmare last night. I was banned from GAF for half a year for arguing with another forum member. I would have missed E3 with GAF.


Yeah, the DRC has:
accelerometer (like the early Wii Remote)
- this gets very confused about what direction it's pointing while you're moving it, so it totally loses anything directional that isn't tilt
gyroscope (like Wii Motion Plus or Playstation Move)
- this can figure out if you're turning left or right pretty nicely, but it isn't perfectly accurate and drifts over time
magnetometer
- this can use the Earth's magnetic field to give you an idea of your absolute direction


Use all three together (extra nice if you also have that IR pointer to unambiguously tell you where the TV is), and you should be able to pretty accurately determine what direction the device is pointing with respect to the television set.


That is, if I'm understanding correctly what a magnetometer is. For all I know, it could just be a tool used for spiritual wellness. "Wii Heal"

Thanks for the little rundown. Makes much more sense to me. Basically all components help the console detect the controllers position more accurately.
 

EDarkness

Member
Ha, Final Fantasy XIV. God I hope not. I'd rather play Crystal Bearers. Yeah, I know.

They totally screwed up Crystal Bearers. I'd like to see them try it again, but make it a REAL RPG. The main character in that game was awesome and he deserved a better game.
 
Yeah, the DRC has:
accelerometer (like the early Wii Remote)
- this gets very confused about what direction it's pointing while you're moving it, so it totally loses anything directional that isn't tilt
gyroscope (like Wii Motion Plus or Playstation Move)
- this can figure out if you're turning left or right pretty nicely, but it isn't perfectly accurate and drifts over time
magnetometer
- this can use the Earth's magnetic field to give you an idea of your absolute direction


Use all three together (extra nice if you also have that IR pointer to unambiguously tell you where the TV is), and you should be able to pretty accurately determine what direction the device is pointing with respect to the television set.


That is, if I'm understanding correctly what a magnetometer is. For all I know, it could just be a tool used for spiritual wellness. "Wii Heal"

Can't the magnometer also be used to automatically calibrate the gyroscope, hence eliminating the drift seen in games like SS?
 

Sadist

Member
They totally screwed up Crystal Bearers. I'd like to see them try it again, but make it a REAL RPG. The main character in that game was awesome and he deserved a better game.
Nah, they should make it an action game. Better controls, more powers. That would work.
 

tkscz

Member
XDR2 and GDDR5? The main RAM faster than the VRAM? Yeah, not happening. That's, frankly, insane, especially if half of the main RAM is for the OS.

Also, I believe it was concluded that this is likely a diagram of the Wii, not the Wii U.

Didn't think about that (I forget XDR2 is faster than GDDR5). Still, I don't remember the Wii having three separate RAM. But I could be wrong.
 
I had a nightmare last night. I was banned from GAF for half a year for arguing with another forum member. I would have missed E3 with GAF.

Too soon.

I once got banned for exactly the length of E3 in 2006 when the PS3 models were announced for asking which one was the tard pack. Later in the same thread a mod made the same joke. Oh the days.
 

Sadist

Member
So wait...

Confirmed (more or less)

- Call of Duty Black Ops 2
- 007 Legends
- The Avengers Battle for Earth

Rumoured

- Final Fantasy XIV
 

Linkhero1

Member
Too soon.

I once got banned for exactly the length of E3 in 2006 when the PS3 models were announced for asking which one was the tard pack. Later in the same thread a mod made the same joke. Oh the days.

Ha. I can guess who that was.

I would never want to get banned and miss out on E3. I love GAF during E3 because of how rowdy and crazy people get. I enjoy watching people get banned during E3, but wouldn't want the same to happen. Hopefully no one else falls from this thread.
 
wait arent these "new" patents have been discussed in OLD threads ?
or maybe I'm having a De ja vu ?

anywayz ...
From Ubi site:

Developed by Ubisoft Quebec, Marvel Avengers: Battle for Earth’s interactive environments are inspired by iconic Marvel comic artwork and the Secret Invasion storyline. This game will be released this fall for the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft with Kinect™ for Xbox360 and Nintendo’s Wii™ U™ system.

now now calm down I KNOW I'm a bit late and have been beaten to it by nine inch niles but what caught my attention is the use of a multiple ™ marks for Wii U ?? is nintendo having trouble registering the thing ?? ROSTI HELP HELP ??
 

Good catch!!

Is there any way that this is just an older prototype model reused in this patent filing? Are we sure we have not seen these images before?


Yeah I believe this is an "older" design which can also be found in previous patents, but who knows if this (or some features - e.g analog stick) is closer to the final one or not? (that "clickable sticks" confirmation perplexed things even more)

Could the following 2 designs (Filed: 05/12/2011 - Published: 14/02/2012) be more representative of how the Upad evolved? (Sorry about the size - couldn't decide how to post this)

(click image for a 6MB, 4000x10000 version)



The button/port placement as well as the more "detailed" schematics give the impression that the RIGHT design is more close to the final one.

(source: OHIM - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)
 
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