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The Wii U Speculation Thread V: The Final Frontier

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Rolf NB

Member
It tells us that there are 3 RAM pools. I think that's fairly interesting.
The Gamecube and Wii both had 3 pools as well.
GC: 24MB 1T-SRAM (main, discrete chips) + 2MB eDRAM (framebuffer) + 16MB DRAM (ARAM)
Wii: 24MB 1T-SRAM (main, on Hollywood package) + 2MB eDRAM framebuffer + 64MB GDDR (ARAM)

The patent could as well describe either of Nintendo's previous consoles.
 
Everyone will rant about it and someone will make a thread about that topic wich will then explode. The usual stuff...

Time to go to bed. Another day closer to E3 :)
 
All I can say is that they didnt have the final CPU in the dev kit.
Its just strange when IBM made such a big deal about it:

All that says is that the CPU has access to the eDRAM; not that the eDRAM is necessarily on the chip. This fits the "scratchpad" theory of wsippel. The System LSI, or whatever you want to call it (MCM) would be a joint construct of Nintendo/IBM/AMD. IBM's eDRAM would be on this LSI but still accessible to the CPU. How wide that bus would be is anyone's guess, though.
 

BlackJace

Member
Are people here excited about the Wii U?

you-must-be-new-here-willy-wonka.jpg
 
All that says is that the CPU has access to the eDRAM; not that the eDRAM is necessarily on the chip. This fits the "scratchpad" theory of wsippel. The System LSI, or whatever you want to call it (MCM) would be a joint construct of Nintendo/IBM/AMD. IBM's eDRAM would be on this LSI but still accessible to the CPU. How wide that bus would be is anyone's guess, though.

Man, it is soooo wide.
 
Rösti;37563154 said:
I shouldn't shoulder the blame onto the USPTO, but due to a rather tricky layout in their database, I missed yet another thing regarding the Wii U trademark, this time for the United States.

As I've reported before, the current status of Wii U trade marks in the USPTO's Trademark Application and Registration Retrieval System is that Nintendo cannot continue further action on the application until certain documents are provided. On the 16th of April, Nintendo supplied these documents to the USPTO and thus should soon be able to continue action on it. The status date is still 01/11/2012, but I assume it takes a while to process the documents, the bureaucratic pursuit of the USPTO is rather slow (though effective).

What I can gather from this is that Nintendo wishes to continue action on these marks, and that Wii U is what they want their next generation console to be called. As of now, the examining agent will update the filings and should when done publish the marks in the Official Gazette, a weekly publication of the USPTO. This gazette makes it possible for any party who believes it may be damaged by registration of the mark to file either an opposition or a request to extend the time to oppose. The time limit to do this is 30 days. Should there be no opposition, the name is basically set and all Nintendo has to do is file a statement of use (SOU). Should the SOU be approved, USPTO issues a registration within approximately two months after.

Now it's just the problems in England they have to solve. But the name appears to be what they want.

Thanks for the excellent info bro.

I don't really understand if the trademark issue is US-specific or not, though. (your England comment made things complicated)

Found this over at the "European Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market" (official trade marks and designs office of the European Union) site:

wiiu_trademarkgljmb.jpg


Which seems to say that the trademark is registered.

Edit: I've noticed that it has a "Figurative" "Trademark Type" vs "word", which maybe means it's the logo's design that's registered and not the word. (!?!? - if that's even possible)
 
Reading the bit about pachter made me wanna belive in one of my absolutely insane e3 predictions that i avoided posting because of insanity being off the charts but here we go:

(Imagine the E3 crowd being the biggest Nintendo fans... so basically NGAF)


[Insanity@20%]

While Iwata is talking in the stage, Nintendo employees hand out tomatoes to the people in the audience. The tomatoes have "DOOMED" written on them. The audience goes "WTF???"

Then Iwata announces that someone will celebrate her comeback at Nintendo. Then ALPHAMOM hits the stage, but shes not alone. A Guy in a leathersuit, a leather mask and on a leash on all fours is accompanying her. And Kaplan reveals his idendity by removing the mask. ITS THE PACHTER! Kaplan yells: "WE BEAT THE PACHTER DRAGON!" and the crowd starts throwing the tomatoes at Pachter.

[/Insanity]

...wow...really?
 

Nilaul

Member
All I can say is that they didnt have the final CPU in the dev kit.
Its just strange when IBM made such a big deal about it:

I have a theory..

Remember the rumors when Nintendo went to bargain? It didn't work out for them. IBM said were not selling this chip to you; use something else.
 
R

Rösti

Unconfirmed Member
Thanks for the excellent info bro.

I don't really understand if the trademark issue is US-specific only or not, though.
(your England comment made things complicated)

Found this over at the "European Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market" (official trade marks and designs office of the European Union) site:

wiiu_trademarkgljmb.jpg


Which seems to say that the trademark is registered.
I explained this in the previous thread. This particular application is for a logo that can be used in conjunction with any of the following:

Nice Classification: 18
List of goods and services: Handbag frames; purse frames; horseshoes; industrial packaging containers of leather; clothing for domestic pets; bags and the like; pouches and the like; vanity cases [not fitted]; umbrellas and their parts; walking sticks; canes; metal parts of canes and walking-sticks; handles of canes and walking-sticks.

Nice Classification: 25
List of goods and services: Clothing; garters; sock suspenders; suspenders [braces]; waistbands; belts for clothing; footwear; clothes for sports; boots for sports [other than "horse-riding boots"]; masquerade costumes.

Nice Classification: 30
List of goods and services: Coffee and cocoa; tea; confectionery, bread and buns; instant confectionery mixes; chinese stuffed dumplings [Gyoza, cooked]; sandwiches; chinese steamed dumplings [Shumai, cooked]; sushi; fried balls of batter mix with small pieces of octopus [Takoyaki]; steamed buns stuffed with minced meat [Niku manjuh]; hamburgers (sandwiches); pizzas; box lunches [prepared]; hot dogs (sandwiches); meat pies; ravioli; cube sugar; fructose [for food]; crystal sugar [not confectionery]; sugar; maltose [for food]; honey [for food]; glucose [for food]; powdered starch syrup [for food]; starch syrup [for food]; worcester sauce; meat gravies; ketchup; soy sauce [soya sauce]; vinegar; vinegar mixes; seasoning soy sauce (Soba-tsuyu); salad dressings; white sauce; mayonnaise; sauces for barbecued meat.

Nintendo could if they wanted to start, in Europe, producing jars of Wii U branded mayonnaise or start sewing horse riding boots with the Wii U logo. This has nothing to do with the console or the services connected to it.

And the trademark opposition is England-specific. No opposition has been made in the United States (yet).
 
The Gamecube and Wii both had 3 pools as well.
GC: 24MB 1T-SRAM (main, discrete chips) + 2MB eDRAM (framebuffer) + 16MB DRAM (ARAM)
Wii: 24MB 1T-SRAM (main, on Hollywood package) + 2MB eDRAM framebuffer + 64MB GDDR (ARAM)

The patent could as well describe either of Nintendo's previous consoles.

Unless only specific parts of that image are holdovers from Wii/GCN, it's most certainly referring to Wii U. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong, but it makes sense for BC purposes that the architecture would appear similar. I can pull out a block diagram of Gamecube's innards from another patent for comparison's sake if you like, but I'd rather not go through the trouble/cause any confusion.
 
TDMA and FDMA are different ways to divide up a transmission system (in this case wireless) between different senders/receivers. It's just a technical distinction that doesn't really have any effect on the functionality of multiple Wii U pads (if they are supported).

Thanx for the clarification Thraktor ,,,I guess that doesn't say if streaming to multiple pads would affect performance :/
 
I have a theory..

Remember the rumors when Nintendo went to bargain? It didn't work out for them. IBM said were not selling this chip to you; use something else.

IBM playing hardball with one of their closest and most longstanding partners in the gaming space? Not likely.
 
Rösti;37566044 said:
I explained this in the previous thread. This particular application is for a logo that can be used in conjunction with any of the following:

Nintendo could if they wanted to start, in Europe, producing jars of Wii U branded mayonnaise or start sewing horse riding boots with the Wii U logo. This has nothing to do with the console or the services connected to it.

And the trademark opposition is England-specific. No opposition has been made in the United States (yet).

Wow, thanks.

Got me covered completely.

(I later realized it's probably just for the logo - see edit)
 
EDIT: ACtually that might be a bad idea.

I kid I kid, love you both BurntPork and Amirox, just bored as fuck and writing random stuff for shits and giggles.
 

HylianTom

Banned
I just claim to be the most insane guy here :)

I have other insane predictions for e3, but i wont post them
now :)

But now. Straight jackeeeerm... bed time ;)
Wow. I love your story, haha. Damn good. You have my applause!

I'm pretty crazy-insane for Nintendo, but I think you have me beaten.
 

Thraktor

Member
All that says is that the CPU has access to the eDRAM; not that the eDRAM is necessarily on the chip. This fits the "scratchpad" theory of wsippel. The System LSI, or whatever you want to call it (MCM) would be a joint construct of Nintendo/IBM/AMD. IBM's eDRAM would be on this LSI but still accessible to the CPU. How wide that bus would be is anyone's guess, though.

Further down the page on the press release:

IBM said:
IBM's embedded dynamic random access memory (test chip shown here) will help deliver a thrilling new game experience to Nintendo fans. The new memory technology, a key element of the new Power microprocessor that IBM is building for the Nintendo Wii U console, can triple the amount of memory contained on a single chip, making for extreme game play.

It's quite clear that there's an eDRAM cache on the CPU. Keep in mind that there's no reason to mention the kind of RAM used for the CPU's cache in official documentation, it makes no difference to programmers whether it's SRAM or eDRAM.

The current understanding is that there is also a separate 32MB of eDRAM on-chip with the GPU, similarly to the XBox360.
 

peter

Banned
I don't like clickable thumb sticks. I hope nintendo will add some grip at the backside of the wiiu controller with 2 triggers, something like this:

ct.png
 

McNum

Member
Yay! Survey!

1)  Price?
€319

2)  Release date?
Nov 9th 2012 (For Europe)

3)  Bullshit xbox360-based Multiplier Equivalent?
360 x3

4)  Nintendo conference surprise(s)?
NiN going live in 3... 2... 1... Now! Wiis and 3DSs start glowing blue worldwide.

5)  Predict Miyamoto's role/costume/appearance context in this year's show.
Mario hat and overalls. (Fake mustache optional) For announcing Super Mario Bros. 4.

6)  Any special MS or Sony predictions?
Xbox on a subscription plan, PSVita getting a 3D revision.

7)  You know we're going to hear some, umm, interesting excuses from third parties.  So.. what'll be your favorite?
"Our spiritual advisor has warned us against developing games for any system with more than one 'i' in its name." (Which also explains the Playstation Vita.)

8)  Any special E3 plans/arrangements of your own?  Taking off from work?  Skipping a final exam?
June 5th is a national holiday here. No need to get crafty.

9)  Your favorite bullshit gaming media critique of Nintendo's performance at E3 this year?
Booth girls too conservatively dressed. (I give this a 50/50 chance of being mentioned, sadly.)

10)  Your own predicted complaint/peeve/angering issue regarding Nintendo's E3 performance this year?
F-Zero, where are you? And there's probably going to be something strange with going to WiiU from Wii, like Motion+ being required to use a Wii Remote on WiiU. Or the lack of ability to transfer WiiWare and VC games.

I don't think any of these are impossible, maybe pretty unlikely for some, but not impossible.
 

MDX

Member
All that says is that the CPU has access to the eDRAM; not that the eDRAM is necessarily on the chip. This fits the "scratchpad" theory of wsippel. The System LSI, or whatever you want to call it (MCM) would be a joint construct of Nintendo/IBM/AMD. IBM's eDRAM would be on this LSI but still accessible to the CPU. How wide that bus would be is anyone's guess, though.


But thats nothing special. The CPU had access to both pools of memory with the Wii.
 
Further down the page on the press release:



It's quite clear that there's an eDRAM cache on the CPU. Keep in mind that there's no reason to mention the kind of RAM used for the CPU's cache in official documentation, it makes no difference to programmers whether it's SRAM or eDRAM.

The current understanding is that there is also a separate 32MB of eDRAM on-chip with the GPU, similarly to the XBox360.

You're right and I forgot to mention that. I don't know whether the L2 cache being eDRAM is a good thing or a bad thing. It would make sense of how they are fitting 3MB on there vs the 360's 1 MB. Wouldn't it be slower than SRAM, though? I can't remember IBM's claims.
 
What the fuck is up with my brain.
NSFW and Swear warning.
http://www.neogafbans.com/#/user/Amirox

Doesn't the warning usually come after the swearing starts? ;)

I know, it's worse at the linked url

…woohoo, Jazz Jackrabbit! Fun game, good music.



Are people here excited about the Wii U?

I just got hit with Civ-fever. I'm gonna go home and play some more IV:BTS.

This has been a really interesting Wii U day, though. I've been pretty hard at work doing some hard research on GAFfers and video game executives and employees for Thread 6, there's been plenty of news for a single afternoon, people are optimistic and feisty, there's a really high signal:noise ratio, including a lot of actually technical chatter… frankly, I think this is going to be a hell of a thread. I only hope that it takes longer than two weeks to reach 20k, because I still have to set up my image creation pipeline.
 

Thraktor

Member
You're right and I forgot to mention that. I don't know whether the L2 cache being eDRAM is a good thing or a bad thing. It would make sense of how they are fitting 3MB on there vs the 360's 1 MB. Wouldn't it be slower than SRAM, though? I can't remember IBM's claims.

The eDRAM used in the Power7 has a higher latency than the SRAM (hence why there's a small L2 SRAM cache for each core in addition to the L3 eDRAM), but the more recent PowerPC A2 just goes with eDRAM all the way, so it's possible that they've managed to get the latency down a bit further, although it doesn't seem to be mentioned in any of the documents I've read on the A2. The advantages are obviously the three-fold increase in density and lower power requirements.

On balance I'd say it's a good thing. The reduced size and power consumption means a (potentially) slightly higher-clocked chip, and I'd assume, given the lack of intermediate SRAM, that they've managed to get the eDRAM's latency down to reasonable levels.
 

BurntPork

Banned
EDIT: ACtually that might be a bad idea.

I kid I kid, love you both BurntPork and Amirox, just bored as fuck and writing random stuff for shits and giggles.

Lies. First of all, nobody likes me. Second, that's really going to happen. It's all part of the master plan.

BurntPork was banned on 08/09/2011 for 1 Month due to the following official reason:

“Racist remarks”

Haha.
 

NateDrake

Member
Posted? Via http://techtroid.co.uk/starfox-wii-u-at-e3-2012-10079

An inside source close to the folks here at Techtroid has suggested we may be seeing a Star Fox reveal at E3 this year, along with the already announced Pikmin and Mario games.

The new title is believed to be developed by Retro Studios, who we know for a fact are working on a Wii U game.

Retro has previously said: “It’s a project everyone wants us to do.”

The source added that the game will be shown off, but will not be a launch game for the Wii U system.

We won’t have to wait long to find our answer, as E3 is little over a month away.

What do you think? Is it about time for Fox McCloud to appear once more? Would you welcome him in HD?

I have doubts on this story because I don't believe Retro ever said “It’s a project everyone wants us to do” as the original mention of such a claim was from Paul Gale. Unless I'm mistaken.
 

IdeaMan

My source is my ass!
There will be 3rd party grips, bet on it. Maybe even 1st party.

Yeah, a lot of peripherals & accessories brands are already on board for Wii U, and you can see them listed on mapyourshow.

Be prepared for mad catz and hori giant grips with cooling solution integrated for sweating hands.
 
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