Wii has plenty of bandwidth, much more than the Xbox if it's used right. However, the architecture simply isn't geared toward extreme vertex-based computations. It's mostly oriented toward texture-based and frame buffer-based effects. So it's great at transparency, layered textures, water effects, static reflections, fog, gloss maps, light maps, depth of field, heat distortion, and so on. So a "graphically intense" title can be very rich-looking, but probably won't have a lot of dynamic shadows moving all over the place.
High Voltage Software's Quantum3 Engine for Wii
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Wii has plenty of bandwidth, much more than the Xbox if it's used right. However, the architecture simply isn't geared toward extreme vertex-based computations. It's mostly oriented toward texture-based and frame buffer-based effects. So it's great at transparency, layered textures, water effects, static reflections, fog, gloss maps, light maps, depth of field, heat distortion, and so on. So a "graphically intense" title can be very rich-looking, but probably won't have a lot of dynamic shadows moving all over the place.
Color me Dan
Regular
I see, thank you for clearing that up for me. I hope developers learn how to use all of that bandwidth to it's fullest potential, from the sound of it (and if I understood correctly) it seems to be the Wii's strongest feature besides the TEV units.
Have you played a lot of Gamecube games? I can think of a handful of games that show off pretty well the right way to push the TEV for the best results.
Color me Dan
Regular
Not really I'm afraid. I'm babysitting a GameCube for a friend of mine who moved away to another town for work and the only games I've played on it thus far is Metroid Prime 1-2 (haven't finished either as this guys brother borrowed them from me) and Resident Evil 4 and Zero. And Mario of course. So yea, my personal knowledge of GC titles are fairly slim.I understand that the Gc hardware (and therefore Wii) is a monster at combining layers and that's how most effects are done.
If you list some worth playing I'll get them and happily give them a go some day though.
If you list some worth playing I'll get them and happily give them a go some day though.
Do you have a Wii? Because if you do, you can play Cube games on that. Anyway, I would recommend both Prime games, F-Zero GX, and both Rogue Squadron games (the second one is not as good, but it has the entire first one in co-op mode with the upgraded gfx engine). Beyond Good & Evil was cross-platform, but the Cube version had some unique water & particle effects. Wind Waker, Mario Sunshine, and Twilight Princess all feature some really nice-looking areas as well. Star Fox Adventures is very boring, but has some really creative uses of fur shading.
Color me Dan
Regular
Don't have a Wii, but I'll look at those games when I get a chance. Thanks for listing them for me :smile:
The Conduit is impressive, but graphics are PDZ's strong point amongst all aspects that make it the game it is. They're richer and more complex than the likes of Doom 3 and Riddick and pretty much give an early impression of what 360 type h/w should be capable of even early on. So it is indeed better than the Conduit, which I'm hoping to see several improvements in the coming months myself.Still a better looking game then Perfect Dark 0
My point was simply that graphics can be subjective and also art counts for a lot. Personally I thought PD0 was an ugly... ugly game. I've already said it was better technically, obviously, but no matter how many effects it used or what resolution it ran at, it offended my eyes.
Just goes to show that different pairs of eyes see different things. One person sees an ugly, garish mess, and another sees an impressive use of technical special effects.
DeadlyNinja
Veteran
But shouldn't the 2 be separate? I mean, you can hate the artwork based on your personal opinion, but you cannot hate parallax mapping. Parallax mapping is not an opinion. The technology used really was impressive for its time, but I also agree the art is ugly.
Same deal with the Conduit. You can't say the technology is an opinion, but you can sure as heck hate the art and design.
I don't think you understood my point at all. The point is that when different people give their qualitative assessment of a video game image as "good" or "ugly," they pay attention to different things. There are people who, when they look at an image, immediately think, "There's some normal mapping. There's a parallax map. There's some specular highlights. There's some hi-res textures. There's some motion blur. There's a water shader. This game looks great! I want to see more!" Then you have people who first think, "Those colors clash. Those textures look amateur. Those models are disproportionate. That gun looks ridiculous. That vehicle looks absurd. Those surfaces are too shiny. This game is hideous! Show me something else!"
To the first type of person, any X360 game will look better to him than any Wii (or previous-gen) game. And not, as in "Oh, the art may be worse, but the technology is better." I mean in that subjective, "I like this more than that; I would rather look at this than that; this is prettier than that" sense. The newer image overall and qualitatively pleases him more than the older one.
The difference I'm talking about is between how people perceive the world. Two people look at the same image; one sees "beautiful," and the other sees "ugly."
To the first type of person, any X360 game will look better to him than any Wii (or previous-gen) game. And not, as in "Oh, the art may be worse, but the technology is better." I mean in that subjective, "I like this more than that; I would rather look at this than that; this is prettier than that" sense. The newer image overall and qualitatively pleases him more than the older one.
The difference I'm talking about is between how people perceive the world. Two people look at the same image; one sees "beautiful," and the other sees "ugly."
DeadlyNinja
Veteran
Actually, I do understand what you mean. I was just saying how some people can't differentiate the two forms of criticism. Some people look at art, while others look at technology. What I was trying to say is that while art itself is subjective, there's nothing subjective about tech.
But I wasn't talking about various forms of criticism. I was talking about the subjective experience of viewing an image, so your question, "Shouldn't the two be separate?" didn't really apply at all, as one person cannot really simultaneously have two separate experiences. Two people look at the same image and have two different experiences because they look at the image with different sets of eyes. The same thing happens in art and music.
And yes, there is a subjective element to tech as soon as you start appraising it as "good" or "bad."
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2008 IQ is unacceptable
Banned
Is there anywhere on the 'net which says the mode each gc game used (i.e. a master list)?
All of the aliasing negates the purpose for trying to do anything good looking for the wii, IMO, as well as the fact that it has at best a 24 bit INT frame buffer, and internal rendering no higher than that.
They shouldn't bother making the graphics look good on the wii, IMO. To me, it's either all or nothing. And they'll always be closer to nothing. The only game that looks good on the wii is super mario galaxy.
I simply will never play mp3 due to the awful graphics.
It's still the only one of the 3 current gen consoles that I have due to the VC, even though I own just about every pre-current-gen console and add-on starting with nes (didn't have any add-ons in the u.s.)
Of course, I'm the only person in the world that is incredibly displeased with the direction they went in with the wii and ds. They once cared about being powerful and innovative. Now they only care about innovation, and innovation that ain't all that great either, at least IMO.
I'd be merely ok with it if all that was ruined was metroid games, but I'll forever be disturbed by their decision to go with low tech, because the 2D games are going to the DS, which means no Castlevania equivalent in tech quality to 1997's Symphony of the Night.
2008 IQ is unacceptable
Banned
Sorry for the rant; what I was basically pointing out is that you can only do but so much with such low rendering precision.
You can usually tell by looking. Most 1st-party games were in 8:8:8, and the 6:6:6 games (prince of persia, RE4) are usually very obvious.
But you'll play VC games...does that include N64 titles? Do you still play Gamecube, Xbox or PS2 games at all?
Most people on this board (myself included) are disappointed with the choices Nintendo made regarding Wii's silicon, but I also think that most of us do not equate "modestly improved" with "ruined." Prime 3 looks better than either of the previous games, just not as much better as most of us would have liked. Saying it's "ruined" is just blustering.
The DS is faster and has more RAM than the PS1, I thought. I think there are a couple features the DS has that the PS1 didn't, like Z-buffering. And I don't know if you noticed, but 2D games were on the GBA before the DS came out, so it's a definite improvement.
2008 IQ is unacceptable
Banned
Thanks=]
The max size of a DS game is less than 1/4 the size a ps1 game can be. ~128MB (i.e. ~1Gb) vs ~650 MB. Shorter games, lower quality video codecs, lower quality and less audio. Although I guess one could argue that PoR's synth music was almost as much of a geniune aural pleasure to some people as much as SotN's music was.
The PS1, and even the genesis run at a higher res than the DS, and the DS is hardly an improvement over the GBA, in that area.
The DS has only an 18 bit palette; the saturn, ps1, jaguar, and 3do all have 24 bit palettes. I guess one could argue that the other systems i mentioned usually don't run in more than 16 bit simultaneous colors.
If the DS didn't exist, then 2D games would have to be in HD (i.e. on the x360, pc, and ps3) or at least on the psp.
It's ruining the tech quality of every 2D castlevania since it's taking 2D games from the consoles, pc, and psp.
But yes, I do like the VC for every system, but those games were released in the past, so the graphics are fine and I have to give nintendo a lot of credit in that area for not screwing them up (i.e. carefully emulating them.)
I hope no one here thinks I'm retarded for thinking 2D games would be a lot better (at least in tech quality) if they were on the current gen consoles.
I'd go as far to say that nintendo should've kept the gamecube alive alongside the wii so the 2D game quality would be better than it is. Think about how much better a 2D metroid would be on the GC in 480p compared to the 98 pound weakling (i.e. the DS.)
ASH is 256 MB. I also have DS Real (a Hong Kong DS card with a MicroSD slot) and I have it working with a 6 GB MicroSD.
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