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[A More Normal Bird]

"Pedneault was cagey about details and wouldn't get into specifics, but said that the Wii U hardware allowed the team to feature a new lighting system, improved fog, improved shadows, and antialiasing."

I think it takes a lot more than memory to do all of that.

The new lighitng system has me most interested. I wonder if it will be like the lighting we saw in ZombiU.

Actually memory is key to increased shadow map resolution and AA. The improved lighting and fog could also be simply from optimisation and re-evaluation of the title; correct me if I'm wrong but I believe it has been stated that there were improvements made to the game's lighting for the DLC, and these changes are now being implemented in the main game as well for the Wii-U version, which is why it was stated that these improvements are beyond what is seen even in the PC version. A bit like how the 360/PS3 versions of Half Life 2 featured better lighting than the PC version for a time until the HDR renderer was added to the PC version in a patch.

I replied to your above posts about Zombi-U; the lighting looks nice and meshes well with the distinct art design but technically does not appear to be anything out of the ordinary.

Yes. I think its pretty safe to say that the lighting capabilities of the Wii U are dx11 "level". Now, all that is left to see is the capability of the tessellater.

Not at all. There are DirectX9 titles with more advanced lighting than has been seen on any Wii-U games to date. Using an API as a comparison for 'level' to a console is also fraught with inaccuracies.

If the Froblins demo is anything to go by, then we can expect a graphical feast from Shin'en.

Froblins was designed for more powerful GPUs than the Wii-U's.

 

[joesiv]

Actually memory is key to increased shadow map resolution and AA.

Interesting, could you explain how?

 

[A More Normal Bird]

Well, I'm no expert and obviously greater processing power helps as well. But if memory is the limit in the first place as it quite potentially would have been on 360/PS3 then an increase in RAM may have been the main prerequisite. I'm fairly sure that on consoles Deus Ex only featured FXAA, a post process filter that takes only minimal shading power and memory. If the Wii-U version uses MSAA, the memory requirements for storing samples and interpolating them would be a large increase over a post-process filter. That said, I have no idea if the Wii-U version uses MSAA or just a better post-process anti-aliasing solution (a more recent FXAA algorithm or hopefully SMAA). The Wii-U should support MSAA in deferred renderers but the performance may not be there to implement it on a title such as DE.

As for increased shadow map resolution, it's similar to increased resolution on anything: textures, rendering resolution, screen space effects... Increased resolution simply means more data, which needs more memory. Here's an example from an engine that looks to be widely used on the Wii-U.

 

[Mr. Wonderful]

Something that bares repeating based on the last few pages:

Most DirectX 11 graphical features require a very powerful GPU.
Most DirectX 11 graphical features require a very powerful GPU.
Most DirectX 11 graphical features require a very powerful GPU.

 

[tipoo]

Something that bares repeating based on the last few pages:

Most DirectX 11 graphical features require a very powerful GPU.
Most DirectX 11 graphical features require a very powerful GPU.
Most DirectX 11 graphical features require a very powerful GPU.

That didn't bear repeating at all. The lowest end integrated graphics can support all the most modern DirectX features while being weak crud.

 

[A More Normal Bird]

Exactly, which is why it bears repeating that some of the visual improvements made possible by DirectX11 would not be feasible on weaker GPUs that support the featureset, e.g. Latte.

 

[krizzx]

Not at all. There are DirectX9 titles with more advanced lighting than has been seen on any Wii-U games to date. Using an API as a comparison for 'level' to a console is also fraught with inaccuracies.

Such as what? Show me some examples of a Dirext9 title producing lighting that is even remotely on this scale.
http://media.edge-online.com/wp-content/uploads/edgeonline/2012/11/ZombiU-police.jpg
http://cdn1.sbnation.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/6699511/zombiu-super-wide.0_cinema_640.0.jpg
http://cdn.pocket-lint.com/images/4XHF/zombi-u-review-4.jpg

I would love to see this.

Froblins was designed for more powerful GPUs than the Wii-U's.

How did you come to that conclusion?
The Froblins demo was designed specifically for, and ran on the HD 4000 series GPUs which is the minimum of what is believed to be in the Wii U. It even says so on the actual video I posted. So now the Wii U's GPU is supposed to be weaker than the weaker guess that DF said it could be?

 

[TheGuardian]

Such as what? Show me some examples of a Dirext9 title producing lighting that is even remotely on this scale.
http://media.edge-online.com/wp-content/uploads/edgeonline/2012/11/ZombiU-police.jpg
http://cdn1.sbnation.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/6699511/zombiu-super-wide.0_cinema_640.0.jpg
http://cdn.pocket-lint.com/images/4XHF/zombi-u-review-4.jpg

I would love to see this.

So a bit of bloom and lens flare is taken as good "lighting" now? Feels like we're back at the 90s.
You want a game using DX9-level tech that has good lighting? How about Killzone 2/3, God of War, Beyond, MGS5, Alan Wake, Witcher 2, etc..

 

[A More Normal Bird]

Such as what? Show me some examples of a Dirext9 title producing lighting that is even remotely on this scale.
http://media.edge-online.com/wp-content/uploads/edgeonline/2012/11/ZombiU-police.jpg
http://cdn1.sbnation.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/6699511/zombiu-super-wide.0_cinema_640.0.jpg
http://cdn.pocket-lint.com/images/4XHF/zombi-u-review-4.jpg

I would love to see this.

As mentioned by TheGuardian, I think you're conflating lighting that looks impressive to you with technically advanced lighting. Bloom, specular and anamorphic lens flare which are the most prominent effects in the shots you posted are by no means out of the ordinary.

As for impressive lighting implemented in DX9, take a look at the ENB mods for Skyrim and GTA4 on PC, or Crysis 1&2. My main point though is that you're talking about things being DirectX11 'level' as though it means anything. Unless you're pointing out specific things it's pointless.

How did you come to that conclusion?
The Froblins demo was designed specifically for, and ran on the HD 4000 series GPUs which is the minimum of what is believed to be in the Wii U. It even says so on the actual video I posted. So now the Wii U's GPU is supposed to be weaker than the weaker guess that DF said it could be?

Froblins was a showcase for 48xx cards. Don't confuse the series prefix for a universal indication of power. The computing power and memory of the 48xx cards exceed the estimates and figures that more educated people than you or I have come up with for Latte. Even if it was based on AMD's 5xxx or 6xxx GPUs this gulf in power would still exist.

 

[freezamite]

So a bit of bloom and lens flare is taken as good "lighting" now? Feels like we're back at the 90s.
You want a game using DX9-level tech that has good lighting? How about Killzone 2/3, God of War, Beyond, MGS5, Alan Wake, Witcher 2, etc..

Eeerrrr, what makes ZombiU lighting above the majority of the games you mentioned is that it uses a radiosity effect and spherical armonics for the environmental lights, as can be seen clearly on near every part of the game.

To say that this game only uses "bloom" and "a lens effect" proves that you don't know about what you are talking about, or you're simply trolling.

Bloom, specular and anamorphic lens flare which are the most prominent effects in the shots you posted are by no means out of the ordinary.

This is not bloom + specular, it's pretty obvious that radiosity lighting is being used.
I don't think that this has anything to do with DX11 or DX9, but to say that ZombiU only uses bloom + flare lens effect is not accurate at all.

Froblins was a showcase for 48xx cards. Don't confuse the series prefix for a universal indication of power. The computing power and memory of the 48xx cards exceed the estimates and figures that more educated people than you or I have come up with for Latte. Even if it was based on AMD's 5xxx or 6xxx GPUs this gulf in power would still exist.

You're right on that, Froblins was running on an HD4870 if I'm not mistaken, but we are speaking of tessellation here, and this depends on the tessellation unit of the GPU. Even considering the clock differences between the HD4870 and the Latte GPU, I wouldn't rule out the possibility of a more efficient tessellation unit being implemented on the WiiU.

 

[A More Normal Bird]

Eeerrrr, what makes ZombiU lighting above the majority of the games you mentioned is that it uses a radiosity effect and spherical armonics for the environmental lights, as can be seen clearly on near every part of the game.

To say that this game only uses "bloom" and "a lens effect" proves that you don't know about what you are talking about, or you're simply trolling.

This is not bloom + specular, it's pretty obvious that radiosity lighting is being used.
I don't think that this has anything to do with DX11 or DX9, but to say that ZombiU only uses bloom + flare lens effect is not accurate at all.


You're right on that, Froblins was running on an HD4870 if I'm not mistaken, but we are speaking of tessellation here, and this depends on the tessellation unit of the GPU. Even considering the clock differences between the HD4870 and the Latte GPU, I wouldn't rule out the possibility of a more efficient tessellation unit being implemented on the WiiU.

You learn something new everyday. To be fair though, the shots Krizzx was posting were hardly the game's best representatives, and he/she was focussing on those with lens effects; I also wasn't saying those were the only things the game was using. I did assume that the environmental lighting was entirely prebaked, mea culpa on that one. Have you played the game? How dynamic is the SH implementation?

 

[freezamite]

You learn something new everyday. To be fair though, the shots Krizzx was posting were hardly the game's best representatives, and he/she was focussing on those with lens effects; I also wasn't saying those were the only things the game was using. I did assume that the environmental lighting was entirely prebaked, mea culpa on that one. Have you played the game? How dynamic is the SH implementation?

Well, I didn't see the screens he posted until you said it, and yes, that's true, they weren't representative of how good the lighting on this game is.
About how dynamic they are, I didn't try to play with that specific light so I don't know if it's something you can interact with, but I remember doing it with other lights such as the one at the entrance of the kindergarden section.

Then there was the rave section in the apartments (posted on this thread, on the previous page) that had some sort of dynamic lighting, but the lights didn't move in a way that the radiosity effect couldn't be pre-backed in a certain way.

Here's a video showing that section:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6ZVR4ePJZ8

Today I will play the game and try to determine how dynamic/static those lights are, but it's undeniable that this lighting is not common on PS3/360 games. I think the only one I've seen using something similar is Battlefield 3.

 

[A More Normal Bird]

Today I will play the game and try to determine how dynamic/static those lights are, but it's undeniable that this lighting is not common on PS3/360 games. I think the only one I've seen using something similar is Battlefield 3.

True. I recall reading that DICE switched to light probes for BF3 after the long delays for baking lighting in Mirror's Edge played havoc with their workflow. On PC it updates as buildings get destroyed, but I'm not sure how they worked around the inability to do this on consoles.

 

[phosphor112]

Well, I didn't see the screens he posted until you said it, and yes, that's true, they weren't representative of how good the lighting on this game is.
About how dynamic they are, I didn't try to play with that specific light so I don't know if it's something you can interact with, but I remember doing it with other lights such as the one at the entrance of the kindergarden section.

Then there was the rave section in the apartments (posted on this thread, on the previous page) that had some sort of dynamic lighting, but the lights didn't move in a way that the radiosity effect couldn't be pre-backed in a certain way.

Here's a video showing that section:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6ZVR4ePJZ8

Today I will play the game and try to determine how dynamic/static those lights are, but it's undeniable that this lighting is not common on PS3/360 games. I think the only one I've seen using something similar is Battlefield 3.

Looks like a basic light projection.

MGS4 (and many other games) do this. Here is the MGS4 example off the top of my head.

http://youtu.be/vogKw9h-1Ms?t=1m55s

Keep in mind it's real time.

 

[TheGuardian]

Eeerrrr, what makes ZombiU lighting above the majority of the games you mentioned is that it uses a radiosity effect and spherical armonics for the environmental lights, as can be seen clearly on near every part of the game.

To say that this game only uses "bloom" and "a lens effect" proves that you don't know about what you are talking about, or you're simply trolling.

This is not bloom + specular, it's pretty obvious that radiosity lighting is being used.
I don't think that this has anything to do with DX11 or DX9, but to say that ZombiU only uses bloom + flare lens effect is not accurate at all.


You're right on that, Froblins was running on an HD4870 if I'm not mistaken, but we are speaking of tessellation here, and this depends on the tessellation unit of the GPU. Even considering the clock differences between the HD4870 and the Latte GPU, I wouldn't rule out the possibility of a more efficient tessellation unit being implemented on the WiiU.

From what I've played of the game so far, all the indirect lighting is backed, so although it can look great at times, it's really no different from what every other game with baked lighting has been doing for years now.
I'm not saying that the game doesn't have dynamic lighting, just that it doesn't contribute to the indirect component and therefore is nothing that couldn't easily be done by any current hardware.
As for the bloom and lens flare comment, that was directed at the shots posted, nothing more.

All of this to say that although the lighting looks good, it's not technically advanced in any way, at least as far as I have seen (Only on my third character at the moment).

 

[Bony Manifesto]

Looks like a basic light projection.

MGS4 (and many other games) do this. Here is the MGS4 example off the top of my head.

http://youtu.be/vogKw9h-1Ms?t=1m55s

Keep in mind it's real time.

Yeah, I remember back in the days of Unreal Engine 2, using projections like that was the way you did convincing lighting and shadow effects. The original Splinter Cell went crazy with them (and still looks good to this day).

 

[phosphor112]

Yeah, I remember back in the days of Unreal Engine 2, using projections like that was the way you did convincing lighting and shadow effects. The original Splinter Cell went crazy with them (and still looks good to this day).

Yes... Splinter Cell had plenty of that haha. So good though. It works. I mean... why waste so many resources on something when you have an alternative that works just fine?

 

[mrgreen]

I've been reading this topic alot but can't seem to find the page where someone says how powerful the WiiU really is. There is a lot of DBZ comparison stuff which I don't understand.

Is the WiiU really about half as powerful again as the 360? I think that's incredible considering the amount of power the console uses and should make for some incredible Zelda and Mario experiences, which, if those games are up to standard, would be reason enough for me to buy the console.

 

[phosphor112]

I've been reading this topic alot but can't seem to find the page where someone says how powerful the WiiU really is. There is a lot of DBZ comparison stuff which I don't understand.

Is the WiiU really about half as powerful again as the 360? I think that's incredible considering the amount of power the console uses and should make for some incredible Zelda and Mario experiences, which, if those games are up to standard, would be reason enough for me to buy the console.

No, it uses half the power, but it's a lot more powerful. I'd say a rough estimate is 1.5-2.5 times... very rough. I'm leaning more toward 2 times.

 

[mrgreen]

Yeah, I remember back in the days of Unreal Engine 2, using projections like that was the way you did convincing lighting and shadow effects. The original Splinter Cell went crazy with them (and still looks good to this day).

I only played Splinter Cell on PS2 and Gamecube. It looked nothing special on those consoles. My friend told me the Xbox version had much better lighting and graphics.

 

[shandy706]

Here's a video showing that section:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6ZVR4ePJZ8

Today I will play the game and try to determine how dynamic/static those lights are, but it's undeniable that this lighting is not common on PS3/360 games. I think the only one I've seen using something similar is Battlefield 3.

I always see little details like this...lol...so sorry up front.

Why is there light being cast across the right side of that couch when it's facing away from the reflective ball....and is in no way at an angle or place it should be lit?

 

[Spongebob]

No, it uses half the power, but it's a lot more powerful. I'd say a rough estimate is 1.5-2.5 times... very rough. I'm leaning more toward 2 times.

We haven't seen anything that would make me think that to be true.

 

[mrgreen]

No, it uses half the power, but it's a lot more powerful. I'd say a rough estimate is 1.5-2.5 times... very rough. I'm leaning more toward 2 times.

That's even better, amazing. The PS3 must be a lot harder to compare to, even if the 360 was superior for many games, the PS3 was more powerful.

 

[tkscz]

I've been reading this topic alot but can't seem to find the page where someone says how powerful the WiiU really is. There is a lot of DBZ comparison stuff which I don't understand.

Is the WiiU really about half as powerful again as the 360? I think that's incredible considering the amount of power the console uses and should make for some incredible Zelda and Mario experiences, which, if those games are up to standard, would be reason enough for me to buy the console.

Where did you even here that? Who ever told you that is so wrong it's ridiculous.

Why is there light being cast across the right side of that couch when it's facing away from the reflective ball....and is in no way at an angle or place it should be lit?

I noticed that too. A Glitch maybe? It doesn't happen to any of the other objects in the room.

 

[phosphor112]

We haven't seen anything that would make me think that to be true.

Do you think that's too optimistic?

 

[Spongebob]

Do you think that's too optimistic?

At this point I'm thinking that it's no more than 50% more powerful.

 

[Bony Manifesto]

Yes... Splinter Cell had plenty of that haha. So good though. It works. I mean... why waste so many resources on something when you have an alternative that works just fine?

Because it was a horrible and painful workflow! Not only was it hard to set up these individual projection effects and make them look correct, if someone changed the design of the level (or worse, the design of the object being projected), you had to manually adjust (or completely redo) things to get it right again.

 

[phosphor112]

Because it was a horrible and painful workflow! Not only was it hard to set up these individual projection effects and make them look correct, if someone changed the design of the level (or worse, the design of the object being projected), you had to manually adjust (or completely redo) things to get it right again.

Well, lighting is a last addition usually because it's almost always artistic. If the light is static, no need to really worry either. I mean, these days it's not bad though. MGS4 you can pan the projector around in that debriefing and everything works fine and even the shadows are done properly as well.

I only played Splinter Cell on PS2 and Gamecube. It looked nothing special on those consoles. My friend told me the Xbox version had much better lighting and graphics.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoUfmN5RrcQ?t=1m6s

This has good examples of the lighting, you can see the projection at the torture area.

EDIT: Here is an example from Splinter Cell Conviction, it takes regular projections but adds textures. That's how you get these interesting affects.
http://youtu.be/4-UryXpuxy0?t=27s

 

[Oblivion]

Well, lighting is a last addition usually because it's almost always artistic. If the light is static, no need to really worry either. I mean, these days it's not bad though. MGS4 you can pan the projector around in that debriefing and everything works fine and even the shadows are done properly as well.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoUfmN5RrcQ?t=1m6s

This has good examples of the lighting, you can see the projection at the torture area.

EDIT: Here is an example from Splinter Cell Conviction, it takes regular projections but adds textures. That's how you get these interesting affects.
http://youtu.be/4-UryXpuxy0?t=27s

Wow, that's a damn fine looking game. Awesome textures too.

edit: Referring to the original Xbox one.

 

[Donnie]

Wow, that's a damn fine looking game. Awesome textures too.

edit: Referring to the original Xbox one.

Just FYI that's running on PC not XBox.

 

[phosphor112]

Just FYI that's running on PC not XBox.

They used the same engine though. The main difference really is the IQ and texture quality. The lighting is practically the same.

 

[Schnozberry]

At this point I'm thinking that it's no more than 50% more powerful.

Hard to tell, really. I think once we see games built from the ground up on final dev kits with more or less complete SDK's we'll have our answer. Most Wanted U looks great and squeenix is making grand claims about the Deus Ex port. The tidbit that Miyamoto let loose about not having final SDK's and hardware out until very close to launch explained a lot of things.

 

[Donnie]

They used the same engine though. The main difference really is the IQ and texture quality. The lighting is practically the same.

Yeah lighting was very similar between the XBox and PC version AFAIR. Like I said it was just for his information, since he's referring to the overall look of the game and not just lighting.

 

[freezamite]

Looks like a basic light projection.

MGS4 (and many other games) do this. Here is the MGS4 example off the top of my head.

http://youtu.be/vogKw9h-1Ms?t=1m55s

Keep in mind it's real time.

I'm speaking about the radiosity effect, so you don't have to look at the projected lights but at the environment surrounding them.
To explain it in another way, look at the picture I posted. It's pretty obvious that there is a radiosity effect going on there. Now look at this same effect coming from the light (not the projections) on the disco.

As I said, I don't think these projections illuminate their surroundings with a radiosity effect, which would be the proof of this effect being implemented dynamically.

From what I've played of the game so far, all the indirect lighting is backed, so although it can look great at times, it's really no different from what every other game with baked lighting has been doing for years now.

No. You didn't see any game using this kind of lighting approach until 2 or 3 years ago. Maybe Half Life 2 was the first one that used some sort of radiosity, and it used it in a much more simple way.
Look at the indirect illumination, look at how the lights merge between them... that's not something you've been seeing from 15 years ago. In fact, the only game that attempts to do something similar in PS3/360 is Battlefield 3.
None of the game that you posted have any sort of radiosity illumination implemented on them.

We haven't seen anything that would make me think that to be true.

The fact that it's running top-quality PS3/360 fast-ports of the best looking games this console had, in a completely different architecture, is proof that those numbers are valid.
Once we see what Nintendo has been doing for this past two-three years for the system, we will have a much more accurate picture of the console's power.

Well, lighting is a last addition usually because it's almost always artistic. If the light is static, no need to really worry either. I mean, these days it's not bad though. MGS4 you can pan the projector around in that debriefing and everything works fine and even the shadows are done properly as well.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoUfmN5RrcQ?t=1m6s

This has good examples of the lighting, you can see the projection at the torture area.

EDIT: Here is an example from Splinter Cell Conviction, it takes regular projections but adds textures. That's how you get these interesting affects.
http://youtu.be/4-UryXpuxy0?t=27s

This is not the same effect. Artistically speaking its great, but it hasn't any sort of indirect illumination. The light only projects to the objects linearly, like (I think) the light rays of the "zombi rave" which I don't think have this radiosity effect implemented on them. As I said, until I play it latter today (and if my save allows me to access that area) I won't be able to tell.

 

[Captainsweatpants]

No, it uses half the power, but it's a lot more powerful. I'd say a rough estimate is 1.5-2.5 times... very rough. I'm leaning more toward 2 times.

Do we know if the RAM bandwidth is really slower than the Xbox 360? Nintendo said that they designed the system to be very memory intensive. This wouldn't make sense if the RAM is really slow as hell. Nintendo Land has glorious Textures, nothing on PS3/Xbox 360 can even compete with the sharpness of those textures.

I hope that the next Zelda will be closer to the Tech Demo than Twilight Princess was to the Game Cube Tech Demo. It had a bigger area to render and still performed very very well. Shouldn't be a problem.

 

[Oblivion]

Just FYI that's running on PC not XBox.

Ah okay, makes sense. Those textures did seem a little too nice for og Xbox.

We haven't seen anything that would make me think that to be true.

Sure, few people have pushed the Wii-U very far, but it's got a way more powerful GPU than the 360's, and double the RAM. Saying it's at best 2X than the 360 seems fairly reasonable, imo.

 

[tkscz]

Do we know if the RAM bandwidth is really slower than the Xbox 360? Nintendo said that they designed the system to be very memory intensive. This wouldn't make sense if the RAM is really slow as hell. Nintendo Land has glorious Textures, nothing on PS3/Xbox 360 can even compete with the sharpness of those textures.

I hope that the next Zelda will be closer to the Tech Demo than Twilight Princess was to the Game Cube Tech Demo. It had a bigger area to render and still performed very very well. Shouldn't be a problem.

The main DDR3 RAM yes, the eDRAM no. The 32MBs (think more was discovered and now it's 40MBs or something) of eDRAM is faster than the 360's 10MBs. WiiU's 2GB's of DDR3 is slower than the 360's 512MBs of DDR3, but the way the WiiU was made, the eDRAM makes up for it, along with a shorter latency.

Also, Twilight Princess looked MUCH better than the Zelda Gamecube tech demo. Way more detail in everything, from textures to lighting, think even geometry.

 

[phosphor112]

I'm speaking about the radiosity effect, so you don't have to look at the projected lights but at the environment surrounding them.
To explain it in another way, look at the picture I posted. It's pretty obvious that there is a radiosity effect going on there. Now look at this same effect coming from the light (not the projections) on the disco.

As I said, I don't think these projections illuminate their surroundings with a radiosity effect, which would be the proof of this effect being implemented dynamically.

This is not the same effect. Artistically speaking its great, but it hasn't any sort of indirect illumination. The light only projects to the objects linearly, like (I think) the light rays of the "zombi rave" which I don't think have this radiosity effect implemented on them. As I said, until I play it latter today (and if my save allows me to access that area) I won't be able to tell.

You can easily bake in radiosity... What do you think Mirrors Edge did? They did baked in GI. You can also simulate a "dynamic" one like in the image above with... putting the "radiositiy" affect into the projection itself. The scene itself doesn't seem to indicate any of that being dynamic. I mean... nothing in that scene is moving except the zombies, and we see no indication of them affecting the environment beyond shadows.

 

[freezamite]

Do we know if the RAM bandwidth is really slower than the Xbox 360? Nintendo said that they designed the system to be very memory intensive. This wouldn't make sense if the RAM is really slow as hell. Nintendo Land has glorious Textures, nothing on PS3/Xbox 360 can even compete with the sharpness of those textures.

I hope that the next Zelda will be closer to the Tech Demo than Twilight Princess was to the Game Cube Tech Demo. It had a bigger area to render and still performed very very well. Shouldn't be a problem.

No, the 2GB RAM itself is faster (800Mhz vs 700Mhz) but what makes the bandwidth to be lower is the 64bit bus instead of the 128 bit bus the Xbox 360 has.

When Nintendo says that the WiiU design is a memory intensive design speaks of the whole system.
With a CPU with 512Kb of L2 cache for the secondary cores and 2MB L2 cache for the main one, among with the 32+2MB of eDram and 1MB of eSRAM on the GPU, the 2GB pool of memory will have to deal with much less accesses than the 512MB of RAM on the Xbox 360, making the real performance much closer to the theoretical limit and increasing bandwidth when all the memory pools are being used at once.

With that being said, bandwidth was never the problem or the bottleneck on Xbox 360, but the limited amount of RAM (512 MB for games+OS) which the WiiU doesn't have to deal with.

You can easily bake in radiosity... What do you think Mirrors Edge did? They did baked in GI. You can also simulate a "dynamic" one like in the image above with... putting the "radiositiy" affect into the projection itself. The scene itself doesn't seem to indicate any of that being dynamic. I mean... nothing in that scene is moving except the zombies, and we see no indication of them affecting the environment beyond shadows.

Not easily at all. Mirror's Edge had a fully pre-backed radiosity, and it took them a lot of time to achieve that effect. The Radiosity lighting is not fully pre-backed on WiiU, it uses a similar approach to the one seen on Battlefield 3.
ZombiU uses spherical harmonics to render it's lighting, which is a solid proof that it's not a totally pre-backed radiosity effect like the one seen in Mirror's Edge (which is completely logic. In Mirror's edge, it took 24 hours of rendering to have an image of how the scene would look, which in terms of development costs it's something HUGE. ZombiU was a low investment by Ubisoft, a good game but also a cheap one to make, and it was there for launc. Not only the fact that it uses spheric harmonics to calculate the lighting, but also the fact that the game had to be rushed and was low-cost is enough to discard the possibility of it being made a la Mirror's edge).

 

[Captainsweatpants]

Also, Twilight Princess looked MUCH better than the Zelda Gamecube tech demo. Way more detail in everything, from textures to lighting, think even geometry.

Twilight Princess had better artstyle, but I'm not sure about the geometry.

The first pic has more polygons.

 

[Oblivion]

The spaceworld trailer was also 60 fps iirc.

Granted, it's in a small room, of course...

 

[krizzx]

Twilight Princess had better artstyle, but I'm not sure about the geometry.

http://www.angelfire.com/tv/tsr/images/linkngc.jpg http://wiimedia.gamespy.com/wii/ima...zelda-twilight-princess-20061113011308668.jpg

The first pic has more polygons.

I'm definitely seeing more geometry in the Twilight Princess face, hair and body, but I can't compare the arms and sword as they are not in the picture you used. The EMBM on Link's body looked nice though. I wish they would have stuck with it. Just normal textures look so bland an washed out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoUfmN5RrcQ?t=1m6s

This has good examples of the lighting, you can see the projection at the torture area.

EDIT: Here is an example from Splinter Cell Conviction, it takes regular projections but adds textures. That's how you get these interesting affects.
http://youtu.be/4-UryXpuxy0?t=27s

That doesn't look very advanced to me at all. Its just looks like normal dynamic lighting and bloom. Overlord Dark Legend on the Wii did it better than that from what I can tell as well as some nice volumetric lighting.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1gsibpCdKc&list=FLkHCVeC07mi2Ok_p-DIobVA&index=20
http://wiimedia.ign.com/wii/image/article/997/997208/overlord-dark-legend-20090623011808395.jpg
http://oyster.ignimgs.com/franchise...rd_Wii_Fairytale_Screens_1-noscale_normal.jpg

Never was able o figure all what they were doing on this game. I'm guessing was just some really dynamic bloom and normal mapping. Its definitely the most advanced game I've ever seen on the Wii though.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4gfED0_PCA




Back on topic though.

I've still, yet to see anything in these examples that have been posted that remotely resembles what I've seen in ZombiU. We know by the words of the Dex Ex dev, if nothing else that the Wii U is capable of much more advanced lighting than the last gen console.
"Pedneault was cagey about details and wouldn't get into specifics, but said that the Wii U hardware allowed the team to feature a new lighting system, improved fog, improved shadows, and antialiasing."
They made an entire new lighting system for the Wii U version. Why are people so resistant to the idea of the Wii U having more advance lighting capabilities, or more advanced anything for that matter? It makes no sense to me. People immediately outright dismiss any performance gain announced on the Wii U.

Also, on the subject of RAM being brought back up. Wouldn't it be fairly likely that the RAM is dual channel in the Wii U? It would make the most sense given the comments by devs that their Wii U games run fast compared to analysis by site like Beyond3D that it has bandwidth problems which no developer who has actually made a game for the system, to my knowledge, has echoed.

 

[Easy_D]

I'm definitely seeing more geometry in the Twilight Princess face, hair and body, but I can't compare the arms and sword as they are not in the picture you used. The EMBM on Link's body looked nice though. I wish they would have stuck with it. Just normal textures look so bland an washed out.

Which one of these two Mario models do you honestly think has more polygons?

OR:

Spoiler

Mario 64 uses more polygons, I'd believe the same applies with the Zelda tech demo in comparison to Twilight

 

[Captainsweatpants]

Which one of these two Mario models do you honestly think has more polygons?



OR:

Spoiler

Mario 64 uses more polygons, I'd believe the same applies with the Zelda tech demo in comparison to Twilight

I'm sill mad at them for not adding a simple texture filter to the DS.

 

[Schnozberry]

Back on topic though.

I've still, yet to see anything in these examples that have been posted that remotely resembles what I've seen in ZombiU. We know by the words of the Dex Ex dev, if nothing else that the Wii U is capable of much more advanced lighting than the last gen console.
"Pedneault was cagey about details and wouldn't get into specifics, but said that the Wii U hardware allowed the team to feature a new lighting system, improved fog, improved shadows, and antialiasing."
They made an entire new lighting system for the Wii U version. Why are people so resistant to the idea of the Wii U having more advance lighting capabilities, or more advanced anything for that matter? It makes no sense to me. People immediately outright dismiss any performance gain announced on the Wii U.

Also, on the subject of RAM being brought back up. Wouldn't it be fairly likely that the RAM is dual channel in the Wii U? It would make the most sense given the comments by devs that their Wii U games run fast compared to analysis by site like Beyond3D that it has bandwidth problems which no developer who has actually made a game for the system, to my knowledge, has echoed.

The Wii U isn't dual channel. The EDRAM and caches are quite fast, though, so if the architecture is leveraged properly developers don't need to use the main memory pool as intensively.

 

[phosphor112]

That doesn't look very advanced to me at all. Its just looks like normal dynamic lighting and bloom. Overlord Dark Legend on the Wii did it better than that from what I can tell as well as some nice volumetric lighting.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1gsibpCdKc&list=FLkHCVeC07mi2Ok_p-DIobVA&index=20
http://wiimedia.ign.com/wii/image/article/997/997208/overlord-dark-legend-20090623011808395.jpg
http://oyster.ignimgs.com/franchise...rd_Wii_Fairytale_Screens_1-noscale_normal.jpg

Never was able o figure all what they were doing on this game. I'm guessing was just some really dynamic bloom and normal mapping. Its definitely the most advanced game I've ever seen on the Wii though.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4gfED0_PCA

I'm not sure what you're doing with those terrible Wii examples. The lights in SC are dynamic but the torture scene uses a projection. One that is separate from the light source in the room, otherwise that room would be blindingly bright because the projection is pointed directly down the hall to get that long shadow.

Anyway, ZombiU can be using dynamic lights, it wouldn't be much different from a projection except how it's implemented.

I personally think it's a projection because they can create a that uses alpha texture for the spots to slap around the room that repeats instead of creating a 50+ dynamic lights...

 

[Easy_D]

I'm sill mad at them for not adding a simple texture filter to the DS.

Yeah that was incredibly dumb. Would have done wonders if the textures were smoothed out. Especially in Mario 64 DS, which had way better textures overall.

 

[krizzx]

Which one of these two Mario models do you honestly think has more polygons?



OR:

Spoiler

Mario 64 uses more polygons, I'd believe the same applies with the Zelda tech demo in comparison to Twilight

The one on the DS. It clearly has more Geometry.

 

[lostinblue]

Do we know if the RAM bandwidth is really slower than the Xbox 360? Nintendo said that they designed the system to be very memory intensive. This wouldn't make sense if the RAM is really slow as hell. Nintendo Land has glorious Textures, nothing on PS3/Xbox 360 can even compete with the sharpness of those textures.

It's slower for sure, but that might not be an issue.

As Shin'en put it:

The performance problem of hardware nowadays is not clock speed but ram latency. Fortunately Nintendo took great efforts to ensure developers can really work around that typical bottleneck on Wii U.

And sure enough, in that regard:

Wii U DDR3 - 13.75 ns (@ 800 MHz)
Xbox 360 GDDR3 - 14.29ns (low end), 21.43ns (high end)
PS3 XDR - 35ns
PS3 GDDR3 - 15.38ns or 16.92ns

It's a palpable difference, all the more if you count that PS3 had no eDRAM, and the X360 often had to tile the framebuffer 4 times per frame; the CPU/GPU were about 500 cycles away from the RAM and things like that. Everything counts in the end.

Seems like it might not be much of a bottleneck if tackled correctly, the tradeoff though, might be considered a bonus/improvement.

The one on the DS. It clearly has more Geometry.

No it doesn't.

I'm definitely seeing more geometry in the Twilight Princess face, hair and body, but I can't compare the arms and sword as they are not in the picture you used. The EMBM on Link's body looked nice though. I wish they would have stuck with it. Just normal textures look so bland an washed out.

Sorry, There's probably not more geometry on Zelda TP Link's face either.

 

[Oblivion]

What exactly are the benefits of lower latency?