Wii U hardware discussion and investigation *rename

[Shifty Geezer]

When some effort is taken, PS360 is exceeded the system shows better framerate, lighting and reflections as Need for Speed proves. The Pikmin 3 screenshots that pop up all over the place now show very good ambient lighting.

I'm sceptical of that picture, at least that it shows what you think it does. I'm guessing you got it from here after Google searching for the image. If you look at the rest of the images, there are very conventional shortcomings, like horribly flat ground with zero anisotropic filtering. Looking at this video

There's a lot of Nintendo art that stands out, like specular shading and rim lighting, but also a lot of uninspired lighting and texturing. If you watch from 13:23, a lens flare kicks in that makes everything look better, and then it's gone 10 seconds later and the game looks very ordinary. There's a lot of static content meaning lots of prebaked opportunities (both static lighting and environmental maps). There are certainly some nice shaders in operation, but I couldn't point at Pikmin and identify that it's better than anything PS360 could do if they implemented the same game.

 

[Commenter]

The graphics card has to be of a higher capability for Criterion to achieve what they did with NFS, whatever Nintendo decided to put in there. Nintendo's Special Sauce? Maybe. The cpu on the other hand is obviously not as good.

P.S. which reminds me. I really pick up Pikmin 3.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

NFS is a good example of where there's a little more juice to be extracted, I don't dispute. I do dispute Pikmin as an example of Wii U's superior capabilities though - I'm just not seeing it.

 

[swaaye]

Artistic direction and trickery is not something Nintendo has a problem with and it is really most of what makes a game look good.

 

[Rootax]

I've Pikmin 3, and some scenes are really beautifull and "technical", cant' see that on ps360. Other levels/scenes are "meh". And there is no AA.

I guess it's because the game was started on Wii.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I've Pikmin 3, and some scenes are really beautifull and "technical", cant' see that on ps360.

What sort of features and what's your basis for comparison? I can't think of any similar reference titles. Pikmin, from what I've seen, has a very small scope for the visuals allowing for a lot of processing to be spent per pixel. It's hardly rich in scenery geometry, after all. Doesn't even need to worry about grass drawing (textured meshes) unlike comparable vegetation-rich games on PS360 where we could compare the greenery shaders. the graphical techniques I'm seeing can generally be accomplished on PS360 AFAIK. There are no stand-out features like tessellation, for example.

 

[Brad Grenz]

The graphics card has to be of a higher capability for Criterion to achieve what they did with NFS, whatever Nintendo decided to put in there. Nintendo's Special Sauce? Maybe. The cpu on the other hand is obviously not as good.

P.S. which reminds me. I really pick up Pikmin 3.

It's Direct3D 10.1 level hardware. That is several pc generations past the unified shader architecture in the 360. That makes a difference even if the performance is not higher.

 

[DRS]

Or the shader compiler optimizes stuff.

Yes, I agree. Is that enough to get it render 1.5 times faster or even more than that in the case of NFS? I'm sure that DX10.1 also provides new features that aren't taken into usage with a recompile of the shadercode. For example, I can think of DOF being implemented much less efficient on X360, requiring a framebuffer dump and all. As Function wrote before, we need some proper benchmarks to get as accurate as we can get.

I'm sceptical of that picture, at least that it shows what you think it does. I'm guessing you got it from here after Google searching for the image. If you look at the rest of the images, there are very conventional shortcomings, like horribly flat ground with zero anisotropic filtering.

I'm sceptical too. It looks too good and its obviously not a gameplay shot. Yet, it's there. And yet, in 7 years of time, nothing similiar looking (regardless artstyle) was released on other platforms. One can say, PS360 can do it but proofing so is another thing. But I can tell you, when I saw the Last of Us I thought, WOW. These shots of Pikmin 3, artstyle or not, look better even though it looks like a Wii game with some kind of realism shading. The lowres ground argument was floored before; RTS type games seem to have low res floors.

I'll just check the game. If these gorgeous shots don't allow dynamic camera it's pretty clear that even a iPhone could do it.

It's Direct3D 10.1 level hardware. That is several pc generations past the unified shader architecture in the 360. That makes a difference even if the performance is not higher.

How big is this difference? 240 shaders vs 160 shaders is quite a big difference. Let alone when the 160 shader unit isn't on par but even outperforms the 240 shader part and consumes less power doing so, on a similiar system architecture. It would be an amazing 160 shader part IMO if such a thing is possible.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I'm sceptical too. It looks too good and its obviously not a gameplay shot. Yet, it's there. And yet, in 7 years of time, nothing similiar looking (regardless artstyle) was released on other platforms.

You can't isolate how things look from art-style. Every game has a finite amount of resources to play with, and the devs have to choose how to use those resources. Loads of simply shaded geometry for dense grass, or a different environment without grass and complexly shaded trees? Realtime, accurate reflections on your car, or far more, less detailed cars? Can one point to Okami and conclude it's not possible on XBox because no game on Xbox looks even remotely similar?

You have to understand what the rendering engine is doing and consider how those functions map to other hardwares. If Pikmin showcased highly detailed terrain, for example, obviously tessellated and displaced, that'd be a function unlikely to be accomplished on PS360 (any effect can be achieved, but at lowering framerates, so "can't do" is more accurately "can't do at 30/60 fps"). What I'm seeing isn't showing anything I think can't be comfortably accomplished on PS360. They could use rim lighting shaders, spherical harmonic lighting, projection maps and specular maps. The geometry isn't very demanding considering such simple scenery (in what I've seen), with the major investment in Pikmins. The lack of terrain quality is kinda odd considering the extra RAM in Wii U.

If anyone wants to raise Pikmin, or any other game, up as an example of what Wii U can do above and beyond PS360, they need to go into more detail than, "it looks good," like the exact differences between NFS on the different platforms.

 

[Shoujoboy]

Have there been any titles so far that'd be impossible to
pull off on either current gen console ?
How do you feel about Beyonetta 2 and "X" ?
Do you see anything outside of the realm of possibility for either
current gen console in those two titles ?

 

[DRS]

Shifty please, I realize devs have to make choises if they want reasonable framerates. Okami came out on PS2 too and XBOX has better looking games. Not a real comparison to this case IMO.

I mentioned Pikmin not to proof Wii U is better than PS360, I mentioned it in the context of 160SP. We can all see that Pikmin's enviroments aren't high poly areas but the shots are supposed to be taken in free camera mode and therefore render a greater part of the map. You also mention some basic shaders, which is fine, but is it easy to spot EVERYTHING that is going on? Can you spot the difference between for example SSAO and prebaked ambient lighting in a still shot for example (I really have no clue, I'm not that much into this stuff)? Can you explain how they implemented the DOF or why the blooming doesn't look so blocky (ok, the blooming is not excessive, the blocks may be there)?

As for Pikmin being possible on PS360, well it is said that this game started out as Wii game. However, it is reported to run only 30fps and having dips too. This by itself is a Sad thing ofcourse but if NFS MW is considered to be better than PS360 regarding both framerates and shading it's not far fetched to assume that even a PS360 optimized version of Pikmin would run lower framerates, let alone how a direct port would perform. The difference between NFS MW on various platforms was explained by the DEV itself, Pikmin dev doesn't mention what they did.

I'm not just saying it looks better than any PS360 game. PC games look better than PS360 games and so is this game. In the end looks is what counts and again, in 7 years time nothing on PS360 had artwork and/or shading that looks this good.

 

[Rangers]

NFS:MW better on Wii U

A bunch of other multiplats: Better on PS360

I fail to see how that proves any Wii U superiority. In fact the bulk of the multiplatform evidence supports inferiority.

And I totally agree with Shifty, from what I've seen Pikmin 3 is another Wii U game that looks to do nothing not possible on PS360. If it did, there would be more excitement around it's graphics.

 

[Kaotik]

Trine 2 is better on Wii U too

 

[Grall]

Trine isn't a technically advanced game. Most likely it just uses the extra RAM for more/better textures.

 

[Kaotik]

Trine isn't a technically advanced game. Most likely it just uses the extra RAM for more/better textures.

PS3 & XB360 lower the resolution down down from 720p as necessary to keep solid FPS, Wii U has it 720p always with no framerate issues.
It's FXAA implementation is better than XB360's which is better than PS3's.
Foliage is also more detailed compared to XB360 & PS3, in addition to textures.
Wii U also uses higher quality normal map compression, more complex water rendering and splash effects.
And finally the Wii U version has enhanced PhysX effects compared to PS3 & XB360
Source: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-trine-2-face-off

 

[Rodéric]

Games written for PS360 run better on PS360 that a 5 minute port on the Wii U, exactly how is that unexpected ?

I fail to see why people can't stomach the Wii U being better than the PS360, it's hardly a technical feat given today's tech really...

 

[Grall]

I fail to see why people can't stomach the Wii U being better than the PS360

...Because it's nintendo, maybe? And because of the almost 15 years old CPU (which an actual games dev described as "terrible", IIRC), and the 12GB/s main memory bus, and stuff of that nature. Silicon semiconductor tech progresses, however nintendo regresses.

 

[forumaccount]

Games written for PS360 run better on PS360 that a 5 minute port on the Wii U, exactly how is that unexpected ?

You don't appear to understand the similarities and differences between PS360 and WiiU nor how they relate to performance and development time.

I fail to see why people can't stomach the Wii U being better than the PS360, it's hardly a technical feat given today's tech really...

Wii came out a year after Xbox 360 and it took at least 3 more years for consumers to understand that it was nowhere close to the Xbox 360. Same old same old. Back then it was "TEVs are really powerful but devs don't know how to use them", and "there's a third party conspiracy against Nintendo". No. The correct conclusion was the obvious one at the end of the day.

History is repeating itself. We have the same made up arguments about the system being hard to understand and magical hidden power somewhere. Again the correct conclusion is the obvious one. Much like how some multiplats are better on WiiU and some are better on PS3 and some are better on 360... all three machines have advantages and disadvantages relative to one another. There's no clear winner for "most powerful".

 

[Rodéric]

You don't appear to understand the similarities and differences between PS360 and WiiU nor how they relate to performance and development time.

I'm not sure I get what you mean, I'm just an ex-AAA senior rendering programmer now working on GPU R&D after all...

Wii came out a year after Xbox 360 and it took at least 3 more years for consumers to understand that it was nowhere close to the Xbox 360. Same old same old. Back then it was "TEVs are really powerful but devs don't know how to use them", and "there's a third party conspiracy against Nintendo". No. The correct conclusion was the obvious one at the end of the day.

History is repeating itself. We have the same made up arguments about the system being hard to understand and magical hidden power somewhere. Again the correct conclusion is the obvious one. Much like how some multiplats are better on WiiU and some are better on PS3 and some are better on 360... all three machines have advantages and disadvantages relative to one another. There's no clear winner for "most powerful".

Nothing like history repeating itself since we are talking about a new console being sligthly better than PREVIOUS generation consoles from competitors.

Noone sane is saying it's incredibly better, just slightly better overall...

 

[willardjuice]

I'm not sure I get what you mean, I'm just an ex-AAA senior rendering programmer now working on GPU R&D after all...

But you're French, so I still take the word of a random forum user over yours.

FWIW, the WiiU's gpu and edram should put it a bit (not a mile) past the 360/PS3 imo. The problem is what Rodéric alluded to, how much time are devs really spending on WiiU? I'd imagine for many ports not much time beyond just getting it to work.

In general though I agree, nintendo played this one too conservatively.