Wii U hardware discussion and investigation *rename

[french toast]

For iwata to basically be playing down graphics and comparing it to current systems tells me everything.

He never mentions " next generation" or anything, in fact he talks about budgets, trust me for him to come out on record and shout to the world that wuu was a complete new generation and had better graphics then wuu would attract the hardcore audience and sell many many more units and make more profit.

If wuu was even just 50% more powerfull in any quantity that could be seen it would be in his interests to advertise that to attract more sales.

 

[wsippel]

True about the negative spin however it is you who needs to catch up on info and also read what I wrote.

It will in future utilise 2 controllers but games will be cut down to 30fps when 2 are used....and when the console is released it will only have access to a single controller regardless.

Being as the control pad is wvga and is only going to be transmitting basic info whilst hooked up to the tv, the fact that is sucks performance from the system like that should itself put the processing power into perspective.

The frame rate being cut in half when two GamePads are used has nothing to do with system performance though. The dedicated hardware that drives the GamePad, video encoder and wireless chipset, is designed for 60FPS. If you use more than one GamePad, that hard limit is split evenly across receivers. Two GamePads get 30FPS each, three GamePads would get 20FPS each, 15FPS for four controllers and so on.

These are the "facts."

The wiiu is in a small case.
The wiiu is going to be cheap and they will make money day one.
The multi platform games do not look any better on the wiiu compared to the ps360 right now.

The biggest issue I always had when people say the wiiu was going to be powerful was that case. It is so small and has I think one or two small fans. It cannot be more than 40-50 watts . You just dont have much tdp to play with.

We heard reports that current multiplatform games do look better on Wii U (better textures, additional effects, AA - there's only so much you can do with ports), so I'm not sure why you would state the opposite as "fact".

 

[french toast]

The frame rate being cut in half when two GamePads are used has nothing to do with system performance though. The dedicated hardware that drives the GamePad, video encoder and wireless chipset, is designed for 60FPS. If you use more than one GamePad, that hard limit is split evenly across receivers. Two GamePads get 30FPS each, three GamePads would get 20FPS each, 15FPS for four controllers and so on.




We heard reports that current multiplatform games do look better on Wii U (better textures, additional effects, AA - there's only so much you can do with ports), so I'm not sure why you would state the opposite as "fact".

That explains it when thanks, is that effect the same on apple airplay for example?.

 

[stiftl]

These are the "facts."

The wiiu is in a small case.
The wiiu is going to be cheap and they will make money day one.
The multi platform games do not look any better on the wiiu compared to the ps360 right now.

The biggest issue I always had when people say the wiiu was going to be powerful was that case. It is so small and has I think one or two small fans. It cannot be more than 40-50 watts . You just dont have much tdp to play with.

This is in no way a fact, but rightout false.

Batman: AC being the most prominent example, but also Trine 2 is reported to have enhanced graphics compared to PS360. And none of these games were done on final devkits.

 

[wsippel]

That explains it when thanks, is that effect the same on apple airplay for example?.

I'm not sure how AirPlay works, sorry. Does it even support streaming different content to different receivers at all? AirPlay also seems to be limited to 30FPS and the latency isn't even in the same ballpark from what I see (>100ms for AirPlay, ~17ms for Wii U).

 

[HolySmoke]

These are the "facts."

The wiiu is in a small case.
The wiiu is going to be cheap and they will make money day one.
The multi platform games do not look any better on the wiiu compared to the ps360 right now.

The biggest issue I always had when people say the wiiu was going to be powerful was that case. It is so small and has I think one or two small fans. It cannot be more than 40-50 watts . You just dont have much tdp to play with.

It's possibly worth noting that, even with its sizable built-in battery, the Macbook Air manages quite a bit of performance in a much smaller case. You can save quite a bit of space when you forego modular components like the hard drives in the 360 and PS3 and TDP drops as well when you go from mechanical storage to flash-based. It also remains to be seen if the power brick is internal or not (as far as I know) which it is on the PS3 but not the 360.

It doesn't tell us anything about performance is my point. Only slight hints.

 

[Nightz]

As much as Nintendo is trying to adapt, they still have their quirky moments and I can see the clock speeds being one of those moments. I'm still bothered by the likelihood of this thing having USB 2.0 ports for six years when they plan to rely on external HDDs as a method for saving data and what not. With it having two USB 2.0 controllers, you would think they could at least change one to a 3.0 controller.

Or just kill 3 birds with one stone. And put a single thunderbolt port, for daisy chaining all sorts of accessories.

Take into account that I do not think (again I have no insider info) that Wii U competitors are going to be significantly better.
If neither are, then according to you, there's no "next gen"...

The thing is, Nintendo with the Wii showed that people are interested in accessible games, and not so much about hardware. We are a minority I believe. (And I'm stuck between being a 3D programmer wanting the best gfx and an avid gamer wanting the best gameplay ^^)
If both MS & Sony consider that they have no incentive to release a much more capable system because it won't generate that much more money (ie win on console sold), then the upcoming systems might very well be on par or a little better than Wii U but not much better.

I don't know whether it will be the case, but I can't shake the idea that a console sold with a profit could be seen as a much better model than what happened with PS360...

Personally I think the future of gaming is 100% in the cloud. There is no point putting out expensive hardware anymore. I think Nintendo knows this as well.

According to some supposedly leaked MS document, Microsoft has considered buying Onlive and they suspect the PS4 will be some sort of Google enabled set-top box. And Apple is working on a TV with extensive cloud functionality. That's the future of gaming.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Batman: AC being the most prominent example, but also Trine 2 is reported to have enhanced graphics compared to PS360.

DF's Wuu investigations tell me there's no obvious advantage with Wuu's Batman (some things better, some things worse) apart from addition of FXAA.

Kb-Smoker's 'fact'...

The multi platform games do not look any better on the wiiu compared to the ps360 right now.

...seems true, but that doesn't mean to say they won't improve on release. It's certainly not outright false, even if a generalistion that misses some particular examples to the contrary.

Better textures are enabled with more RAM, so don't give any indicator of greater processing power, except maybe on filtering. Are there examples of better texture filtering on Wuu games? The majority of games I've seen are without any AA, but I don't know about anisotropic filtering. The obvious areas processing power will show themselves are framerate, AA (also needing BW), and scene complexity. Advanced processing techniques will show themselves in shader qualities, perhaps the tilt-and-shift super-blur lens effect Nintendo seem to be enjoying. GPGPU we'll have no idea of without developer feedback.

 

[Nightz]

Fact: No games we have seen show any signs of the WiiU being more powerful than the 360 or the PS3.

That's not a fact. It's an opinion.

Frozenbyte confirmed that Trine 2 is running on higher quality settings than the PS3 or 360 versions. It's also now running two separate frame buffers. Under the hood the engine technically is doing more work because there is more power, but whether you think Trine 2 visually shows signs of being more powerful is an opinion. Personally I think Trine 2 which I played on PC is one of the best looking games on any system.



I dunno if this has been posted before, but Digital Foundry have a positive write-up about their hands-on time with the Wii U recently in London.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-hands-on-with-wii-u

 

[Rangers]

Take into account that I do not think (again I have no insider info) that Wii U competitors are going to be significantly better.
If neither are, then according to you, there's no "next gen"...

We already have pretty solid info that PS3 has a 1.8 TF 1152 SP Pitcairn GPU.

That's plenty for a generation gap right there.

 

[Rangers]

For iwata to basically be playing down graphics and comparing it to current systems tells me everything.

He never mentions " next generation" or anything, in fact he talks about budgets, trust me for him to come out on record and shout to the world that wuu was a complete new generation and had better graphics then wuu would attract the hardcore audience and sell many many more units and make more profit.

If wuu was even just 50% more powerfull in any quantity that could be seen it would be in his interests to advertise that to attract more sales.

Exactly, never once did he say anything like "we feel very good future wii u software will demonstrate significant graphical superiority over the current competition". Or anything, however vague, like that. Nothing.

 

[french toast]

That's not a fact. It's an opinion.

Frozenbyte confirmed that Trine 2 is running on higher quality settings than the PS3 or 360 versions. It's also now running two separate frame buffers. Under the hood the engine technically is doing more work because there is more power, but whether you think Trine 2 visually shows signs of being more powerful is an opinion. Personally I think Trine 2 which I played on PC is one of the best looking games on any system.



I dunno if this has been posted before, but Digital Foundry have a positive write-up about their hands-on time with the Wii U recently in London.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-hands-on-with-wii-u

Interesting thanks, a good write up on very early software, the screen being that low quality resistive tn tft technology is nintendo all over, in practise I have to say it works quite well, certainly I like the controller idea and had wondered some time ago when someone would utilise a technology like this.

My thoughts? This would be a great console design as long as other fills one criteria: price....this machine better ship for not a penny more than £199.

At that price it looks like a fantastic current generation console, especially if your buying it for your kids for Christmas or something.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

That's not a fact. It's an opinion.

Frozenbyte confirmed that Trine 2 is running on higher quality settings than the PS3 or 360 versions.

Well, fact is often used too strongly, but again the 'fact' here was

No games we have seen show any signs of the WiiU being more powerful than the 360 or the PS3.

If we haven't seen Trine 2 looking better than that's still a valid 'fact' by TheD. TBH I was disappointed with Trine 2 on PS3 because of the low framerate, and felt PC rendering it at 60 fps, high IQ, is necessary to do it justice. If the Wii is rendering it at a higher framerate, that'd show some better graphics power. If it's rendering some nicer effects at the same low framerate, that would indicate more flexibility but not necessarily more power, or not significantly more. 'Better' is also a term being loosely applied. If al Wuu does is render the same graphics with higher resolution textures, it's technically better although discussion would regard it as the same.

The DF screenshots show quite a variety of qualities but none leaping out as superior to PS360. Framerate could be a big factor, but that's not reportedly so yet. There's talk of better shadows and reflections, and of course Wuu is driving the second screen. It's obviously more powerful. Enough to make a significant perceptible difference seems to be the measure by which many are counting 'better hardware'.

 

[babybumb]

The frame rate being cut in half when two GamePads are used has nothing to do with system performance though

Not sure if serious. You are rendering another 480p scene. It does not come magically free from GPU/CPU/memory resources.

Nintendo already admitted rendering to three screens affects the performance alot and games will obviously need to be downgraded to somehow support it. Downgraded much worse than traditional splitscreen games. So you are probably not going to see many graphically advanced games support more than one pad.

 

[function]

If every game is limited to 30fps when two tablet controllers are used then it suggests a bandwidth issue, possibly in the tablet video streaming.

 

[french toast]

I'm not hot on this area, but could it be nintendo also cheaped out on every other piece of technology...ie the connection ? I remember end of last year there was a great hullaboo about this very subject with devs complaining.

 

[Kb-Smoker]

It's possibly worth noting that, even with its sizable built-in battery, the Macbook Air manages quite a bit of performance in a much smaller case. You can save quite a bit of space when you forego modular components like the hard drives in the 360 and PS3 and TDP drops as well when you go from mechanical storage to flash-based. It also remains to be seen if the power brick is internal or not (as far as I know) which it is on the PS3 but not the 360.

It doesn't tell us anything about performance is my point. Only slight hints.

Someone here has the perfect sig that tell everything. Its something like "Small, cheap and powerful, you can only have 2."

MacBook air is small and powerful. Wii is small and cheap. Wiiu is small and cheap.

Wiiu is around 30% bigger in volume than wii. Wii used 13~ watts. Let's go high end and say wiiu uses 50tdp. Build a system using facts we know. We know the amd series the gpu is base on r700 family and a IBM CPU.

 

[Kaotik]

Someone here has the perfect sig that tell everything. Its something like "Small, cheap and powerful, you can only have 2."

MacBook air is small and powerful. Wii is small and cheap. Wiiu is small and cheap.

Wiiu is around 30% bigger in volume than wii. Wii used 13~ watts. Let's go high end and say wiiu uses 50tdp. Build a system using facts we know. We know the amd series the gpu is base on r700 family and a IBM CPU.

We don't know that, we know that at some point in devkits they used r700 family GPU, it's possible the final will have r700 too, or it could be evergreen, northern islands or even in theory southern islands (remember that for example XB360 went from R300 to R420 and IIRC R520 too, and then finally radically different R500/C1 in it's devkits over time)

 

[AlNom]

remember that for example XB360 went from R300 to R420 and IIRC R520 too, and then finally radically different R500/C1 in it's devkits over time

Well, do keep in mind that they updated the kits as soon as that hardware became available*. They didn't resort to using a 2.5 year old GPU when there were more advanced existing alternatives.

* 9800 was what they could get until X800 showed up late 2004. Then they switched to X850 partway into 2005. R520 wasn't used (they showed up in October due to that pesky library issue ).

 

[Kb-Smoker]

We don't know that, we know that at some point in devkits they used r700 family GPU, it's possible the final will have r700 too, or it could be evergreen, northern islands or even in theory southern islands (remember that for example XB360 went from R300 to R420 and IIRC R520 too, and then finally radically different R500/C1 in it's devkits over time)

Well then that doesn't make any sense. Seeing these gpu were already out. Xbox 360 dev kit change just like the ps3 BC they were using a future gpu that wasn't out yet.

As the other poster already pointed out.

I have been looking at the r700 class gpu and I have to say I'm impress the wiiu is able to match current Gen titles while running a second screen. They must be using 45nm parts.