Honest question because i'm not familiar with the logistics used in deciding what base to use for ports. If the architecture in the Wii U is using newer tech that is more advanced then PS3/Xbox 360 and closer to the insides of a modern PC then why not port from the PC version?
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Wii U Reality Check - Black Op's II No Native 1080'p Support
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Honest question because i'm not familiar with the logistics used in deciding what base to use for ports. If the architecture in the Wii U is using newer tech that is more advanced then PS3/Xbox 360 and closer to the insides of a modern PC then why not port from the PC version?
Delusibeta
Banned
Because the budget of the port is approximately $2, and the 360 is close enough to a modern PC as it is for most publishers who want to spend no more than $2 on a port.
KojiKnight
Member
Since the game was undoubtedly first designed for the x-box360, it doesn't make much sense to port from a port, especially since all of these versions have to come out at about the same time.
It would mean a delay in porting, having to wait for the PC team to finish parts of their code before the Wii U team could work on theirs. That said, even if the hardware is "closer" to a PC, the SDK is likely not and the limitations are probably closer to the x-box360, aiming lower also means they'll probably have to spend less time optimizing and with the relatively short time they've had with finalized SDKs, it wouldn't make sense to shoot for the moon... especially if you want to be in for launch.
DCharlie
And even i am moderately surprised
the reality is that the Wii U is closer to the X360 than it is to the mid/high level PC gaming machine.
This is the reality.
Given a sufficient increase in GPU capability, you don't need a team of 14 (or even 4) to increase the rendering resolution of a game when porting to a different hardware paltform.
That's certainly the reality that every single indication we get points towards.
memory: 2GB vs 512 MB or Ps360
eDRAM: 32 MB vs 10 MB
GPU: at least 4 years ahead of 360 GPU
CPU: OoO CPU with a little less of clock than 360 3.2 GB linear CPU
Shaders: Something between DX10 and DX11, vs DX9 on other consoles
These numbers in a more modern and faster architecture can provide something 2x to 4x better than current gen.
KojiKnight
Member
Derp. Never said it didn't...
Durante: You're comparing PC market where you can literally plug in a new video card designed to be functionally identical and 100% BC and APIs that have been the same (sans additions) for over a decade with DIFFERENT hardware and completely different APIs and running a completely different OS.
This isn't the x-box 360+ where everything is the exact same only a little better, it's a different set of hardware with a completely different set of software and OS... I don't expect the Wii U to blow the PS360 out of the water... but to not expect any improvements when we KNOW it's more modern hardware? That's crazy talk ^_^
It´s 1GB for games and the GPU is low end. 2 times 360 power max.
If that's the case(i don't think it's 4x as powerful) do you think the difference will be noticeable to the average consumer?
KojiKnight
Member
It's all about software and developers. I think in 2 years time the best Wii U titles will easily outdo the best PS360 titles, and side by side it'll be very obvious.
That said, the average consumer isn't going to do side by side comparisons, and larger textures (from more memory) won't mean much if the Wii U doesn't regularly put out much higher resolution (above 720, even if it's not full 1080).
DCharlie
And even i am moderately surprised
true
but - there's a good stream of "IMAGINE!!!.... <horseshitliveshere>" posts living in a fantasy world where the Wii U is the "low end" of next gen and Sony/MS -so robbed of cash- have to resort to wanking off NEC execs for CPU/GPU chips and "next gen" belongs to Nintendo.
On a further rant: There's a reality somewhere out there - where this "generation" bullshit means nothing. People are playing games (with or without inverted commas)
Here's where i stand and i don't expect many to agree and neither do i care : Wii U is technically above the current gen BUT they fucked a few things up, net-net we will end up with a machine producing results on par with current gen BUT with (CASE BY CASE) some interesting ideas.
The big Nintendo fan failing - again, fan by fan... ? Hyping up the Wii U to be something that it's not. The guilty parties already know who they are and , hilariously, as we get closer to th Wii U launch we see a few deciding not to post any more for "unrelated reasons" and we more people getting firebrand hot in a last supernova of denial.
The day NEXT GEN gets announced will at least be a release. Then we can revert back to "Well, 720p or so is fine - anything else is overkill - and Nintendo inovated controls!" rather than this weird idea that Modern Nintendo have some secret plan up that azzz.
great news that they'll only take 2 years to outdo current gen. That'll be 1 year after next gen. So :
in 2014 the Wii U will -finally- out do the best of the machines that launched in 2006
UNFORTUNATELY - Balrog and Cathulu are waiting around the corner but hey.
i appreciate your response and I really don't want this to head off into troll territory because i'm really interested and trying to understand some internal workings.
It's the limitations that you mention that would be shared between the console versions. I've always heard developers liked to work with Xbox 360 because it was an easy port from PC. Now I realize there is coding involved for the hardware and not just "It's easier because it has more ram or its not split, etc" What I keep hearing in these threads though is that GPU in the Wii U is using different and advanced architecture that is closer to modern PC's that will allow it advanced, modern graphics, so wouldn't it make more sense to port from a PC build that we would assume uses that technology?
What is the major difference in console SDK's that separate it from programming on a PC, yet was easier to port to Xbox 360? And if we assume that, and they did a port from 360 because it was easier, then why not follow that trail back and assume its just as easy to port from PC to Wii-U? I can understand the concept of quick and dirty port, i'm just trying to understand the reasoning and difference between SDK's and PC programming when they are getting so close tech wise with the added benefit of consoles being a closed system requiring less redundant programming for different hardware.
No, I'm not. I'm estimating the difficulty of increasing the rendering resolution, given an already complete port to a new platform (which they need to do anyway). And I'm saying that, given sufficient hardware resources, that difficulty is miniscule. If such difficulty occurs it is most likely because the hardware resources are not sufficient in some respect. (If I had to guess, and if it is true that the Wii U GPU only has 8 ROPs, then I'd guess fillrate)
"4 years ahead of", on it's own, is not a performance classification. A modern low-end Notebook GPU is 4 years ahead of a GTX 280, but the latter blows the former out of the water in terms of performance.
More importantly, I'd love to see you source (or at least quanitfy) the "little less of clock" of the Wii U CPU compared to 3.2 Ghz. Because everything I've heard didn't sound like "little".
plagiarize
Banned
i haven't heard any sources saying that the Wii U's CPU was more than a little slower than the 360's. obviously it being even slightly slower is massively disappointing... but i've not heard suggestions that it's clocked at anything much below 3 GHz. not that clock speed tells us much of course.
I also don't believe that it's much slower in terms of performance. But to be just on par, a reasonably modern OOE core would need to be clocked significantly lower than Xenon.
KojiKnight
Member
If you really want to understand this, let me expand out this whole thing a bit... this may seem to get out of context of things at first, but it's important to understand.
Programmers program things via software languages (yes yes, probably going too far, but still bare with me
). There are many different languages, development environments, etc but the easiest way to break them down is by whether they are high level, or low level. Low level means the developers basically have to write very specific code, that's very dependant on a specific features on specific hardware. This often times gives great results (especially for unoptimized high level code) but can often times be very confusing and a lot of extra work.
High level means the developers can give simpler and easier to read commands, and the compiler interprets what you mean into the specifics. It also means that developers don't have to know their specific hardware in-depthly to get the results they want. This is what nearly all developers use except in certain situations where they may want to push more out of a system (see custom micro-codes for N64 for example).
So why is all of this important? Well, simply put... X-box uses the same high level code and APIs as most PC's do in direct X. It's not just simply that the x-box hardware is similar to PC, most of the same commands you use to make programs on PC work on x-box and vise versa. Obviously since the x-box doesn't have all the newest hardware features of modern PCs, it doesn't have all of the features. Luckily though, most PC software is still being designed with compatibility of old DX9 graphics cards in mind, the same graphics that the 360 uses. Very little changes to code makes for very easy to port code.
Now we get back to the Wii U. The hardware to the Wii U is pretty similar, if more modern to the 360, but the high level language is completely different. Nintendo doesn't use direct X, they have their own development environments and APIs. Now, in most situations you can 1:1 change your commands (or 1:3 or similarly only a few small changes) and everything will be the same... but not always... and it may come at a higher resource cost... so instead of just changing a single command, you now have to look for alternatives, different hardware and implementations can result in pretty different results.
lunchwithyuzo
Banned
Where are you getting 8 ROPs from? The "8 render targets" from the old spec leak?
flatearthpandas
Member
Am I just totally off-base here in being suspicious about the email?
The email header is cut off. Her email has no signature block, which seems strange for the professional email address of an Activision publicist. We also don't see an email address for her, which seems like a weird thing to omit when Bianca Blair's email address and phone number can be found on the first page of a google search.
No one seems to be crying foul, but I don't see anything that couldn't be recreated in a few minutes by someone looking to get their low-key website a ton of hits.
Paranoia?
The email header is cut off. Her email has no signature block, which seems strange for the professional email address of an Activision publicist. We also don't see an email address for her, which seems like a weird thing to omit when Bianca Blair's email address and phone number can be found on the first page of a google search.
No one seems to be crying foul, but I don't see anything that couldn't be recreated in a few minutes by someone looking to get their low-key website a ton of hits.
Paranoia?
When asked to Katsuhiro Harada whether it was lower than that of the Xbox 360 or PS3, he replied: "Maybe a little bit.
ANd Akihiro Suzuki say one of the weaknesses of the Wii U compared to PS3 and Xbox 360 is the CPU power is a little bit less
KojiKnight
Member
To be fair... I'm sure Nintendo would have frowned very heavily (read Ninjas) at them if they had said it was noticably weaker than the other two, but the simple fact that they'd mention it at all seems to imply that.
I think it's something I read on B3D, but I can't source it right now. As I said, "if it is true". I truly hope it is not, since lacking fillrate usually makes IQ suffer above all else.
Asked about what? The performance or the clock rate? You were explicitly talking about the clock rate. I can easily believe that the overall performance is only slightly lower or even on par with Xenon. I find it harder to believe the same thing about the clock rate, since that should imply that real-world performance actually significantly exceeds Xenon's. And that doesn't mesh well with everything we've heard so far.
walking fiend
Member
Please share with us all you've heard of; every time I check in a Wii U performance related thread you are just dirtying the water with made up speculations you throw around as if they are insider facts.
XBOX wasn´t even 4 times as powerful as the PS2.
Good post, especially on the people who are hyping the console to be something it isn't, it's really hurting the platform.
Realistic expectations, thst's all you need to enjoy the Wii-U, and the reason i'm getting it day one.
If you really want to understand this, let me expand out this whole thing a bit... this may seem to get out of context of things at first, but it's important to understand.
Programmers program things via software languages (yes yes, probably going too far, but still bare with me
Low level means the developers basically have to write very specific code, that's very dependant on a specific features on specific hardware. This often times gives great results (especially for unoptimized high level code) but can often times be very confusing and a lot of extra work.
High level means the developers can give simpler and easier to read commands, and the compiler interprets what you mean into the specifics. It also means that developers don't have to know their specific hardware in-depthly to get the results they want. This is what nearly all developers use except in certain situations where they may want to push more out of a system (see custom micro-codes for N64 for example).
So why is all of this important? Well, simply put... X-box uses the same high level code and APIs as most PC's do in direct X. It's not just simply that the x-box hardware is similar to PC, most of the same commands you use to make programs on PC work on x-box and vise versa. Obviously since the x-box doesn't have all the newest hardware features of modern PCs, it doesn't have all of the features. Luckily though, most PC software is still being designed with compatibility of old DX9 graphics cards in mind, the same graphics that the 360 uses. Very little changes to code makes for very easy to port code.
Now we get back to the Wii U. The hardware to the Wii U is pretty similar, if more modern to the 360, but the high level language is completely different. Nintendo doesn't use direct X, they have their own development environments and APIs. Now, in most situations you can 1:1 change your commands (or 1:3 or similarly only a few small changes) and everything will be the same... but not always... and it may come at a higher resource cost... so instead of just changing a single command, you now have to look for alternatives, different hardware and implementations can result in pretty different results.
Ok thank you, that does make sense and i've heard about Wii U not using/licensing DX11. Development limitations, time constraints and probably assuming low launch install base to software sales ratios would mean it wouldn't be a priority for them. I was just looking for more in depth, factual reasoning then the usual regurgitated rhetoric that gets thrown around and you seemed to actually be know something about the real workings.
gamergirly
Member
I think the people going into every Wii U thread and going straight into saying a game sucks if its not 1080p are only hurting themselves. It always becomes a question of do you care more about the graphics than the game
KojiKnight
Member
You're way to enthusiastic about bashing the system when I've not made any attempt to say that Wii U is some sort of super machine or that it'll be the next coming of Jesus or PS4.
Someone asked a question of whether it would be obvious, i gave a statement on that. In fact if you had read the REST of that same post, you'd have realized I also said it likely wouldn't be a big enough difference that the average person would see it without direct side by side shots and thus didn't mean much.
In short, chill out dude... not everyone is hyper inflating nintendo or bashing PS4720 or anything of the like.
ponn01: Thank you for that, but in reality I don't know much about the hardware side of things, only how the general stuff works. It's easy to forget in a forum relatively full of "experts" that some things like that are unknown to other people so no biggie in explaining it.
Thunder Monkey
Banned
That depends on what you mean by "sufficient".
I'm impressed they got a GPU with purportedly (Arkam stated this) SM4+ functionality, and 32MB eDram onto a chip that small. Do I think it's a big enough increase alone to not bog the framerate striving for a higher res? Obviously not. I doubt the budget was very high though. And this coupled with rendering a separate 3D scene on the pad? I'm happily surprised it looks at parity with the other two console versions.
I have no idea what the fuck you are talking about in that second sentence. if you have a problem with my posts then I'd encourage you to point out specific instances.
Now, here's "all I've heard of" -- the same things everyone else has heard really, unlike others I have never pretended to any insider knowledge:
- I have heard that the CPU features 3 cores from the POWER architecture family
- I have heard that these cores support out-of-order execution
- I have heard statements from numerous developers that put the CPU performance at anything between "slower than" and "on par with" Xenon
- I have seen (and marginally contributed to) these benchmark results
- I have seen the maximum total power usage of the system, and the relative die sizes of the CPU and GPU
None of this is secret in any way. Taking all this information into account, and evaluating it with a some degree of background knowledge in computer science, high performance computing and computer architecture, I think it is unlikely that the Wii U CPU is only clocked "slightly" (let us define that as "<10%" to be more exact) lower than Xenon. Why? Because if that were the case, then due to architectural improvements and increased efficiency / IPC due to OOE, it should be faster than Xenon in practice.
Now please present your argument as to why the clock rate of the Wii U CPU is likely to be only slightly less than 3.2 GHz. Of course, that would require something more coherent than a drive-by shot at a statement you perceive as endangering your favorite corporation.
H_Prestige
Banned
Fantastic post. Really getting tired of the nintendo reality distortion field created by a certain crowd here.
The GPU which the WiiU is rumored to made based from (R700) is miles ahead of the 360 GPU. No doubt that Nintendo also did some tweaks on it to bring it even more up to date. It may not be ZOMGWTFBBQ like a high end PC (of course not), but it's no slouch either.
Some people kinda won't accept this, the Wii U has modern tech, Nintendo would have to pay much more to have the Wii U slightly better than the PS3/360.
Cyborg
Member
Durante has the habit of actually knowing what he's talking about. Without people like him, these threads would be nothing more than ignorant fanboys fighting about how great/terrible the WiiU is every time a dev says something new about the hardware. If you listen you might actually learn something.
Thunder Monkey
Banned
Now this is just rude.
It goes for the camps of the other two manufacturers as well. It's just a pointless one to talk about when in the Nintendo camp. WiiU will be the most powerful console on the market for a year. And only marginally so.
Orbis and Durango will be a lot more powerful still. But for the first generation weaker than what is possible to buy the year before. The saving grace is those two consoles will increase the baseline. Devs will have another milestone to reach. But they both will be weaker than is possible. And their age will show much quicker as PC hardware quickly hits 5-6x their effective capability.
walking fiend
Member
I don't see how your programming expertise [or anyone else without considerable hands on experience with the system] can be used to deduce any 'knowledgeable 'fact' from these info that is not merely speculations or very probable outcomes like Wii U CPU not being more than 2x more powerful than current gen.
We don't know if it isn't.
Unlike you, I do not pretend to know if Wii U CPU isn't actually less powerful than current gen and refrain from posting my basic speculations as facts.
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I am not arguing if Wii U CPU is more powerful or less [outside of almost definite ranges like it can't be noticeable less powerful and run BOps on both TV and Gamepad without taking a hit, or that it can't be much powerful and consume so little power]; but that by posting speculations as fact you just stir up unnecessary and useless discussions that derail the threads.
Kai Dracon
Writing a dinosaur space opera symphony
At the end of the day, it seems to me the only way game performance on launch ports would be way above the PS360 is if Wii U was in fact more than just a little better. More like, it would have to be a lot better than PS360, perhaps particularly in the area of raw CPU.
Personally, I would think it's impressive enough that ports of elaborate games late in the life cycle of other consoles, are at least on par (and perhaps with some GPU bonuses in the area if IQ, shadows, etc) on Wii U when they're being pushed out for console launch.
The fixation on BLOPS II and 1080p does seem to have been a little desperate, and perhaps ironic considering Call of Duty is typically lambasted for its "shitty" graphics. Not exactly the launch port you'd normally be looking towards for a display of amazing visuals outside of 60fps.
Like I've been saying from day 1, I think Wii U in terms of hardware power will meet Nintendo's goals well enough if it ends up being an optimized version of this gen's hardware. The caveat is that for a whole lot of people, nothing is ever going to be anything other than "fail" if new hardware released today doesn't run every game at 1080p native.
God help us when the Durango and Orbis games come that are 720p/30fps, regardless of how nice they look.
Personally, I would think it's impressive enough that ports of elaborate games late in the life cycle of other consoles, are at least on par (and perhaps with some GPU bonuses in the area if IQ, shadows, etc) on Wii U when they're being pushed out for console launch.
The fixation on BLOPS II and 1080p does seem to have been a little desperate, and perhaps ironic considering Call of Duty is typically lambasted for its "shitty" graphics. Not exactly the launch port you'd normally be looking towards for a display of amazing visuals outside of 60fps.
Like I've been saying from day 1, I think Wii U in terms of hardware power will meet Nintendo's goals well enough if it ends up being an optimized version of this gen's hardware. The caveat is that for a whole lot of people, nothing is ever going to be anything other than "fail" if new hardware released today doesn't run every game at 1080p native.
God help us when the Durango and Orbis games come that are 720p/30fps, regardless of how nice they look.
H_Prestige
Banned
Oh God, here comes the "we don't know anything so stop speculating!" counter.
I'd like to know how many times you've made this post to people who were speculating in the opposite direction. My guess is zero.
Yeah my phone has "modern" tech also, doesn´t change that the graphics it can display are completely outdated, hust like the WiiU.
walking fiend
Member
I don't have time to do it; but if you can find my posts pre-e3, I was against people believing the system being anything more than a stop gap from then.
However, I honestly don't see people saying Wii U being much more powerful [<2x] as long as CPU goes much often; but I remember Durante from the last thread regarding Koei producer just filling the thread with these kind of posts.
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But I didn't say not to speculate; but just going on and on based on your speculations as if they are even remotely close to known fact is a problem.
MDSLKTR
Member
You're a joker.
Forsaken82
Member
It ran on a 12 year old engine.
How many posts before someone says "So does Black Ops 2!"
cyberheater
PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 Xbone PS4 PS4
Those goals being to create a machine that delivers a HD experience as cheaply as possible.
KojiKnight
Member
1280x720 (900k) + 720x480 (345k) != 1920x1080 (2000k)
H_Prestige
Banned
From a development point of view, I don't even consider Wii U a stop gap. I'm not seeing any evidence of there being a ps3/360 build, a wii u build, and a PC build. Wii U performance is in the same tier as current gen and that's why ports are running at basically the same specification.
If it were 1.5x or 2x current gen, that should be reflected in the games' performance.
KojiKnight
Member
This is true, the speculation comes though from whether this is because the Wii U CAN'T do better, or if the developers are just being lazy/fruggle for the Wii U launch.
Compare this to the early Wii... many games were PS2/PSP/Wii. The Wii undoubtedly could do much more than the PSP, but many developers of smaller titles "brought down" the Wii to those levels for ease of porting/quick buck. Will that continue? If I had to look into my heart... yeah it will. Wii U has more or less guaranteed that the PS360 will get support for at least a couple years longer than if the Wii U had been on PS4720 levels and because of that, the Wii U will get the same quality titles sans minor boosts to things like textures/tacked on gamepad things.
I think the problem is that you're not speculating though. You're saying things (and many others) like they're fact. I think you need to follow the WUSTs to gauge where the WiiU falls power wise. It's definitely a nice step up from current gen, but won't be up to the same level as PS4720 (according to rumors).