Nintendo Conference

[mczak]

If past is any indication, I don't think Nintendo is really going for high-end specs (and sticking to 45nm and the small case confirm that).
Also, I don't think using rv7xx like gpus makes a lot of sense for a next year console - I'd suggest something closer to Turks (which has more than twice the shader power of Xenos after all).
The confirmation of edram on the cpu suggests to me it's an all-integrated cpu/gpu chip - I just can't see why they'd need a friggin big L3 edram cache otherwise.
If they opt for rather a lot of edram (32MB) they could in turn probably save on main memory bandwidth (64bit ddr3?), though 32MB edram on IBM's 45nm process takes up about 60mm² which might be too much (with 32MB edram you can fit both z buffer and color back buffer at 2xAA at 1920x1080 into it). If that's less edram (16MB?) it'll probably really need more main memory bandwidth (64bit gddr5?).
I think a chip integrating 16MB edram, with 4 Power derived cores, and Turks-like graphics (but different ROPs, handling AA like Xenos) should be quite doable on IBM's 45nm process (around 200-250mm² maybe?).

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Where they'll get their returns is (hopefully) out of order processing and GPU tech advances. Their form factor dictates their power envelope, and from that alone I can't see them being much more powerful than 360/ps3. Even the PS3, and I stand in awe of Sony's technical prowess in board and cooling design, needs a bigger form factor than what they've shown for the Wii U.

I'm nodding with agreement here. Given the box size, the thermal situation is going to be a significant limiting factor, and there can't be much more silicon in Wuu than in the other boxes, but it can be more advanced in some areas. Looking at that linked YouTube video, I'm not as blown away as some. It's certainly very nice, but real-time tech demos work with different limits to full games, and invariably look prettier. One thing very apparent to me was the flat water as fish pushed through, which wasn't displaced on any level. That doesn't really disprove anything - we don't know what constraints were on the demo developers - but it shows results that aren't a clear technological generation ahead of PS360, especially viewed alongside some of the latest engines on these consoles.

All in all, given form factor and that demo, I'm not expecting a huge performance advantage for Wuu. given Nintendo's wonderful support for 60hz gaming too, I dare say the typical game will look very comparable to PS360, only maybe better IQ due to resolution or framerate or texture quality.

 

[function]

Even when desktop GPUs do pass the TDP, it's only in the ultra-high end where clocks are being pushed to the limit and TDP isn't really such a big concern.

Besides, I don't know if laptop GPUs can afford to ever go past their TDP, as requirements for cooling and power supply are way more critical.

Well, I wouldn't put it past anyone to sail close to the wind with tdp, figuring most laptop owners either wouldn't know about furmark or would but would know better. With heat being the big killer, there might also be a temptation to fall back on temperature based throttling and just accept the possibility of slightly exceeding tdp.

I know ATI have introduced power draw based throttling now, but that wouldn't really fly in a console.

Oh I didn't suggest Nintendo would use only high-binned chips (and I'm not sure how you got those 90%, but ok). Just that a (supposedly) high-binned 40nm 1B transistor GPU @ 500MHz consumed about 24W when it was introduced, 18 months ago.

High-binning in January 2010 doesn't mean high-binning today for the same chip, does it?

The 90% figure was made up, I just like that particular percentage! Yields no doubt improve over time, so I guess something of that level of performance @ 24W would be cheaper now. I wonder if Nintendo may choose 40nm over 28nm (assuming it's a separate GPU) - perhaps it'll work out cheaper for mass availability next year. No point in trickling systems out and all that.

Even 24W would be higher than the entire Wii draws at the wall btw. How expensive a cooling system will Nintendo want to cram into the WiiU, and how hot and loud will they accept the system running?

 

[Arwin]

It's an honest question, and I guess the answer will vary from person to person, but for me it's clear that we are past the point where I stop caring from a gameplay point of view. I'm still in my room sitting on my butt staring at pixels on the screen - more realistic rendering won't increase my involvement anymore. (I may still take a technical interest though, but from a functional standpoint it has ceased to make a difference for me.)

Gameplay always has limitations. But functionally, there is a lot of room for improvement. I'd like to see games with proper fluids for example, just as a gameplay effect. And virtual worlds that are as lively and vibrant as real cities or forests. And I also think that virtual worlds that are not realistic, but surreal (always have to think of nAo with that one), much like Bioshock's worlds. The atmosphere of such worlds at a much higher level of graphics is still going to increase its dramatic effect quite a bit. In that respect I'm also still interested in 3D display tech, but developments like Rockstar's face capture technology are equally interesting once they can develop to a point where they are more dynamic, or can even be pared with a future Kinect and be applied (in a more flexible way) in real-time at similar fidelity.

Also, considering how hard developers have to work to get the current level of graphics, wouldn't it be wonderful if the hardware was powerful enough so that you didn't have to do as much work optimising your graphics for it? I think more power combined with (r)evolutionary content creation tools are going to make a big difference still. Also think of something like LBP - there is still a limit in terms of the amount of stuff it can handle for physics.

What if such limitations were practically removed? We could simulate stuff like actual breaking planks, say? So many things we currently don't have, but could be wonderful to have in the future and allow use to 'break through' so many current tech-limited memes.

So yeah, I do agree that the gameplay opportunities afforded should always be the primary concern for creating new game consoles. And that doesn't have to come from graphics, that much is clear after the entrance of motion controllers, but physics improvements have brought me at least as much enjoyment (for me, Motorstorm is a good example for that), and graphical display technology can still match it.

The only thing we need to get away from is a focus on graphics by the developers. One of the reasons that still happens, is that currently better graphics still do matter for many people, and that is partly because most people have 80%-90% of their sensory perception capabilities devoted primarily to visual information. But games will always, imho, be better if the actual gameplay comes first, and graphics are then added to help make that gameplay be as effective as possible. In some cases, realism will be most effective (racing sims certainly benefit there, but there too is still a lot of room for improvement with more power for physics as well as graphics), in other cases, simple graphics will be more effective. But particularly those latter needs are going to be met increasingly well by handheld devices.

 

[Trejser]

Miyamoto about the hardware compared to PS360:

When asked about whether Wii U with its hardware capabilities has put Nintendo on equal footing with its competitors, he replied:

Yes, we do feel that we’ve reached that,” he said. “Then it’s just a question of how much gamers understand the uniqueness that Nintendo offers.
​

http://segmentnext.com/2011/06/08/miyamoto-wii-u-is-technically-on-par-with-xbox-360-and-ps3/

 

[mczak]

Miyamoto about the hardware compared to PS360:



http://segmentnext.com/2011/06/08/miyamoto-wii-u-is-technically-on-par-with-xbox-360-and-ps3/

That's an interesting. You'd think that if it's faster (even if not much) he'd said something different than "we feel we've reached that"...
Sounds more like downcut Turks-like graphics to me then

 

[RancidLunchmeat]

It seems like all the quotes coming from Nintendo state fairly specifically that they feel this console gives them a level of parity with the PS360, not superiority.

Which makes sense. Because while a new console could easily be launched with off-the-shelf PC parts that would readily surpass the horsepower of the PS360, it would most likely be bulky and too expensive to include what appears to be a rather costly unique control system.

I'll bet that controller, as well as some of the other upgrades to the system make the BOM of the Wii U too high to incorporate cpu's and gpu's that would provide generational leaps over the PS360.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

Geez, the efforts that Nintendo makes to avoid spilling the beans on the hardware are downright annoying.

If I'd take the 3DS' secrets as a way to avoid criticism among knowledgeable people, I have no choice but to think likewise for the WiiU.

 

[Trejser]

First rumors were like:

Game Informer - "console on par or sligthy worse than PS360"

Kotaku - "console stronger than PS360"

IGN - "console much stronger than Ps360"

And after that:

01.net (they were first with NGP specs, and with touch screen controller and specs for Wii U) - "console on par or slighty stronger than 360"

IGN - they confirmed all 01.net rumors, but still stated that console is much more powerfull

Digital Foundry - direct quote about GPU " but our sources suggest that the overall profile of the GPU is much closer to the Xbox 360 - and we've even heard that in some applications it may even operate at a deficit compared to Xenos."

I think that IGN is wrong on this one and console is in the same ballpark as PS360.

 

[-tkf-]

How does the current mobile GPU´s from AMD and Nvidia compare to the 360 and PS3.?

For example this:
http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-485M.42883.0.html

 

[Shifty Geezer]

IGN - they confirmed all 01.net rumors, but still stated that console is much more powerfull.

Stronger, powerful, similar, are all too vague. The same graphics at 1080p would be stronger but not obviously different. What about the same graphics as a 720p30 360 game at 1080p30, only the 360 game has 4xMSAA and Wuu has 0xAA? Which is 'better' then? You could have 2 developers seeing the same content and coming away with different opinions.

It might be some aspects are stronger, like twice the RAM. Everything else though (console size, probable cost of controller eating into budget to spend on console components, comments placing performance in the same ball park) is pointing to comparable visuals. This isn't a next-gen box in terms of hardware capabilities, and like Wii, Nintendo are wanting people to think in terms of next-gen as the new experience.

 

[-tkf-]

How does the current mobile GPU´s from AMD and Nvidia compare to the 360 and PS3.?

For example this:
http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-485M.42883.0.html

EDIT:
Already replaced by a 75Watt solution that is faster:

http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-560M.48313.0.html

And the AMD solution
http://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-Radeon-HD-6970M.43077.0.html

 

[snarfbot]

mm i dunno, the controller looks a bit big and unwieldy.

the bird demo was nice though, indirect lighting on the bird, and what looked like subsurface scattering on the fish.

 

[hoho]

It seems like all the quotes coming from Nintendo state fairly specifically that they feel this console gives them a level of parity with the PS360, not superiority.

Which makes sense. Because while a new console could easily be launched with off-the-shelf PC parts that would readily surpass the horsepower of the PS360, it would most likely be bulky and too expensive to include what appears to be a rather costly unique control system.

Then again a system that (probably) has rather different system architecture and is only on-par will mean porting won't be as simple as just recompiling, devs will have to do quite a bit of low-level optimization as well.

 

[Arwin]

mm i dunno, the controller looks a bit big and unwieldy.

the bird demo was nice though, indirect lighting on the bird, and what looked like subsurface scattering on the fish.

The GameCube demo looked pretty nice too, didn't it? Didn't it have something very similar, with something with trees?

 

[ERP]

Graphics demos very rarely tell you anything about performance, 90% of it is artwork, and the other 10% is hand tuning.
I didn't see anything in the bird demo that lept out at me and said much better than PS360.
Doesn't mean it isn't.
But I wouldn't draw any conclusion from any graphics demo.

 

[RancidLunchmeat]

Stronger, powerful, similar, are all too vague. The same graphics at 1080p would be stronger but not obviously different. What about the same graphics as a 720p30 360 game at 1080p30, only the 360 game has 4xMSAA and Wuu has 0xAA? Which is 'better' then? You could have 2 developers seeing the same content and coming away with different opinions.

I agree on this, and it brings us back to another discussion that was had about what the "next gen" consoles should all have - primarily, should they all output natively in 1080p.

The problem with that is as you mentioned, varying degrees of MSAA, varying frame rates, etc.

Which is why Nintendo's rather extreme, IMO, focus on describing the console in terms of "1080p" seems to be mere marketing.

And (again, IMO), it's probably the strongest bit of marketing we're going to get that is geared towards comparing the Wii U to the PS360. I don't think we'll see a lot of comparisons of RAM or # of shaders, how many pixels it can push, how many flops, etc.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

I've been thinking and this entire announcement does not make any sense.

The console won't come out until next year, probably well after the next E3. Hardware isn't finished, software is still in the conceptual stage as it appears, even less developed than the Wiimote games were.

People without a current console buying the WiiU would miss out on the entire current X360/PS3 catalog. Many of the announced AA titles will be released for months on these systems, too, and they're be old news. So who cares if ACR comes out on WiiU? People will also miss out on multiplayer with their friends who already own a current system. So they don't care at this point, if anything the announcement will only turn them towards buying an X/PS3 right now as there's nothing special to look forward to.

Current Wii sales won't be helped by this announcement either. In fact it has only made the Wii obsolete, although it still has a large game catalog.

Current Wii owners are probably not really interested either. They've only learned that something is on the way, far into the future.

However Sony and MS now have a pretty good idea of Nintendo's new concept way ahead of time, and they will be able to implement their versions for X3/PS4 (probably involving their other tablet/portable devices instead of a controller). So the WiiU won't be as different and unique as the Wii was.


So what good is it to show it to the world today?

 

[hoho]

However Sony and MS now have a pretty good idea of Nintendo's new concept way ahead of time, and they will be able to implement their versions for X3/PS4
...
So what good is it to show it to the world today?

Maybe it's all a big hoax and nintendo is just trying to mislead the competition into doing something stupid

/tinfoil

 

[Laa-Yosh]

You could also say they're desperate because of falling Wii sales and the lack of massive success for 3DS, but even that isn't helped by this announcement in any way.