Fact: Nintendo to release HD console + controllers with built-in screen late 2012

[liolio]

This suggests to me:

512 RAM

Slightly more shaders (320).

Using all the work for other platforms=same assets=same RAM.

Use all the capacity of Wii2=bolt on slightly better shaders.

All falls in line with my predictions, 320 SP HD4670, 512 RAM.

It says nothing on the RAM, as most games availlable on console run on PC too with improved texture quality. Anyway I would more willingly put my bet on 1GB of RAM. For the GPU something close to a 4670 wold be fine. Not outstanding but fine. It would be a nice increase in shading power but onsistant jump in regard to texturing power.

Actually the whole thing is so elusive that it's hard to come to a conclusion.
It will do well? As the 3DS?

 

[Deleted member 13524]

512MB RAM doesn't even make sense nowadays from a cost perspective.

Besides, RAM amount is one of the main complaints from developers when programming AAA titles for PS3 and X360.
If the Nintendo Stream\Feel's specs were decided through consultation with 3rd party developers (as many rumours have reported so far), there's just no way it'll get only 512MB RAM.

 

[pc999]

AFAIK if they could only improve one thing (ever PS/360) and asked to devs what that thing would be, they would get a massive more RAM request.

So I do have some hope for 1GB.

But lets assume that it is more powerful than PS360, wouldnt be a nightmare to devs having more power and higher rez (1080p) and not have more RAM and better textures?

 

[pjbliverpool]

2GB RAM might be more sensible. I doubt it would cost all that much but even with a weaker GPU and CPU, 2GB RAM should make ports from the next gen xbox and PS feasible while 1GB could be a little to small. And of course it would be a devs dream in the meantime. X360 and PS3 games should be a breeze to port.

 

[Rangers]

Well, 512 MB RAM makes perfect sense if Nintendo only wanted a 360/PS3 port machine. And I'm guessing it still is cheaper. Most superphones still come with 512MB, even if a few are transitioning to 1GB.

1GB almost makes more sense to me as well, has to be dirt cheap. But I keep hedging my bets here because "it's Nintendo".

I think it's hugely important too. A tremendous amount of the calculation for how much pressure Wii2 places on the current consoles is going to be RAM/power. 10% vs 50% will be a big difference.

That said, we saw an era where one console had 2X as much RAM as the leader (XboxS2) and often it wasnt taken advantage of in ports.

 

[Entropy]

Ok similar if not more powerful than 360/PS3 is a given.



http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-05-12-ubi-to-leverage-360-ps3-work-for-cafe

At least the usual (Ubisoft) multi platform games will be on Wii 2 too...

There was one more quote:
"The platform Nintendo is coming with is really a fantastic platform. We think it will be extremely successful."
Of course, propaganda is part of the industry, but when such a comment isn't actually called for by the occasion, maybe it carries some meaning after all.

If nothing else, the comments confirm that Project Café has some headroom over Microsofts and Sonys offerings. How much remains to be seen, and these straight ports won't be the applications that show it.

 

[lwill]

Well, 512 MB RAM makes perfect sense if Nintendo only wanted a 360/PS3 port machine. And I'm guessing it still is cheaper. Most superphones still come with 512MB, even if a few are transitioning to 1GB.

1GB almost makes more sense to me as well, has to be dirt cheap. But I keep hedging my bets here because "it's Nintendo".

I think it's hugely important too. A tremendous amount of the calculation for how much pressure Wii2 places on the current consoles is going to be RAM/power. 10% vs 50% will be a big difference.

That said, we saw an era where one console had 2X as much RAM as the leader (XboxS2) and often it wasnt taken advantage of in ports.

Even if Nintendo desired to be a "port machine", it most likely want to be able to have superior ports. The additional features of the system will also additional RAM (especially the extra screen(s)), so Ubisoft's statements almost wouldn't make alot of sense if it just had 512MB of RAM.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

If nothing else, the comments confirm that Project Café has some headroom over Microsofts and Sonys offerings.

And\Or they're totally sold on the "gimmick", as I think I will be.

Well, 512 MB RAM makes perfect sense if Nintendo only wanted a 360/PS3 port machine. And I'm guessing it still is cheaper. Most superphones still come with 512MB, even if a few are transitioning to 1GB.

I don't think the LPDDR2 RAM amount in smartphones is comparable to the DDR3\GDDR5\(whatever form of weird RAM Nintendo comes up with this time) that's going into a game console, either in price or in power-consumption considerations.

And as stated before, even if the controller screens only get simple images, you'll still need at least ~48MB for framebuffer for the 4 controllers (4x960*540x24bit), so the Stream\Feel would even get a RAM penalty compared to the other two.

 

[RudeCurve]

For a console not coming out until 2012, 1GB RAM would be the bare minimum IMO.

 

[function]

Nintendo aren't the kind of people to spec a system using a calendar; if 512 MB would meet their objectives they'd use it regardless of what year it is!

Spoiler

It wouldn't meet their objectives though.

 

[Type_Raver]

Guys I am playing through Twilight Princess on both GameCube and Wii--I cannot help but to think what EAD could do with a huge leap in graphics processing power. Twilight Princess is still a wonder to behold artisically and in level design concidering how old our Nintendo console's graphics architecture is--Currently 12 years old. Just think what EAD could do in an HD Zelda with slightly/somewhat more power than Xbox 360 and PlayStation3.

^__^

I was thinking the same thing, but for Metroid prime. When you see whats been done in Portal 2 and Deus ex 3 (even Halo 3), you cant help but imagine the worlds and and the level of detail possible.

 

[theLonely1]

From IGN

"For one, the CPU is likely to be clocked above 3.2GHz and the GPU will feature a tweaked design but a similar speed to the HD 4850 we used. Most importantly, the Wii 2/Project Café's total RAM is likely to be 1GB"

Source.

Fell free to ignore their mock-up system, though-

 

[Rangers]

I'm VERY skeptical about the new IGN article.

I cant decide if they're just extrapolating off the original shaky "r700 based" info, or they actually went back to the original "trusted sources" who know for a fact the Wii2 has something akin to a 4850 in it. I guess there's evidence both ways in the wording of the article.

Anyways, it wont be a RV770/HD4850 due to the 256 bit bus, but if it's on that level, it will be a RV740.

And again, seems such a card would require more CPU oomph as well, which makes a Xenon based CPU seem underpowered, doesnt really add up.

Heck just IGN's BOM at over $400 makes the point...Nintendo is not going to do that, throw in uber expensive controllers, all at the usual hefty Nintendo profit? IGN claims the difference is down to margins and economy of scale, except I doubt newegg OEM charges just THAT much more than the bulk price.

I mean if it truly is 4850 level, with 1GB RAM (although again, 4850 seems almost overkill for 1GB total RAM...), that's impressive, but I'm still skeptical.

 

[pjbliverpool]

Wow what a ridiculous article. How exactly is an AthlonX3 comparable to Xenon outside of having 3 cores and running at the same clock speed?

And then to conclude it will only result in a marginal performance improvement based on a handful of unoptimised console ports running on a PC??

 

[dragonelite]

Dam not sure if im more excited for E3 or my birthday both fall on the same day

 

[Rangers]

Wow what a ridiculous article. How exactly is an AthlonX3 comparable to Xenon outside of having 3 cores and running at the same clock speed?

And then to conclude it will only result in a marginal performance improvement based on a handful of unoptimised console ports running on a PC??

Yeah, incredibly stupid. "It'll run Modern Warfare with more AA" Giving their users the impression that's all it will do, slightly better ports.

If you actually had games built around 4850, it would utterly destroy 360 and PS3.

 

[pc999]

Personally I would like to see them try a few things from the HW not gfx related like low loading times (as it happen in GC and Wii) low price, low noise. Likewise I prefer they to build good relations to 3º partys and decent FREE online.

Gfx wise if they can bring a little more than 360 (and the above) I will be happy.


I really want to know is the controllers, I hope it doesn't abandon any of the movement controls...

 

[Teasy]

Wow what a ridiculous article. How exactly is an AthlonX3 comparable to Xenon outside of having 3 cores and running at the same clock speed?

And then to conclude it will only result in a marginal performance improvement based on a handful of unoptimised console ports running on a PC??

Yeah its pretty poor, as you say a console with those specs would produce much better graphics then they're showing on the PC. Even the way they've captured/compared the video/pictures is poor and won't show the difference between the two versions of each game very well.

Still if as they say their developer source pointed them to those parts as the most comparable to Wii2 then its pretty interesting at least.

 

[sebbbi]

Wow what a ridiculous article. How exactly is an AthlonX3 comparable to Xenon outside of having 3 cores and running at the same clock speed?

Triple core (6 hw threads) Atom would be the closest x86 chip architecture wise, as Atom is an in-order architecture and it has SMT (hyper threading). Unfortunately dual core Atom (4 hw threads) is the highest available... and it doesn't overclock to 3.2 GHz

At the time Xbox 360 was launched (2005) I remember some developers comparing XCPU to a 2 GHz dual core Athlon (both CPUs were released the same year). The consensus back then seemed to be that Athlon was slightly faster for generic unoptimized code, but XCPU was slightly faster for specially optimized game code. The situation has likely improved since for XCPU, as developers have better learned how to code more efficiently for in-order architectures (Xbox & PS3), how to better exploit vector instructions and caches and to better utilize all the six (SMT) hardware threads. But still, it wouldn't be near a modern out-of-order CPU with equal clocks and core counts, since the in-order CPUs have that much worse IPC (and PC chips tend to have much faster memory as well).

But running games at 1080p with 8xMSAA wouldn't require any extra CPU power compared to current 720p console versions. A faster GPU would be enough.

 

[Svensk Viking]

Just wondering, would the specs IGN listed be enough for emulating the GC/Wii without problems?

But anyway, I got the feeling IGN more wanted to show possible differences in release titles/multiplats rather than well optimised Wii 2 games