A Summary of the Huge Wii Thread

[bomlat]

A fairly recent Wii SDK (2.1, August 2006) leaked a few days ago, and still no hard infos? It's supposed to be somewhat incomplete, the exact technical specifications are missing, but it should be interesting nevertheless...

YESYESYESE!


The wii sdk is join the world biggest library!
Thanks for god!

"Bomlat start the emule,and start the download of the sdk"

 

[[maven]]

A fairly recent Wii SDK (2.1, August 2006) leaked a few days ago, and still no hard infos? It's supposed to be somewhat incomplete, the exact technical specifications are missing, but it should be interesting nevertheless...

If you want the real, honest-to-god answer: It's not worth the download. Except for the controller and flash functionality, it is for all intents and purposes a Dolphin SDK. What that says about the hardware, I cannot tell you...

 

[bomlat]

I think it will tel everything:


This is because the data inside the structure is highly dependent on the final hardware design and may change several times during the lifetime of this API.

The revolution graphics programming manual is still beign written at 06/08/11.


If this document is real, we can assume that the Nintendo is put out in the last minute not event the final graphics,but the controller devkit.

Grah.I need 2007 devkit.

 

[bomlat]

They even don't changed the filrate data in the graphics documets.They calculated with the filrate of the GC .

 

[jandar]

10 to 1 odds that many sites across the net use this SDK to state "accurate specs known" about the Wii.


Gotta love the net.

 

[wsippel]

I had a chance to talk to a few people who looked at the leaked SDK, and I'll try to recap what I've learned:

- Broadway is clocked at 729MHz, bus at 243MHz.
- TEV revision is the same as with Gamecube (2).
- The Codewarrior compiler still uses the "gekko"-arch.
- Almost all includes are pretty much identical to the Dolphin SDK.
- The higher overall performance affects the audio DSP (more voices, additional effect slot).
- Some new APIs were added, for example a stream (de)compression API for LZ77 and some other algorithms (dedicated hardware?).
- The two memory pools are simply two different "arenas" (unlike Gamecubes ARAM).
- The video interface now features a comb filter and gamma correction in hardware.
- Both memory pools may contain a framebuffer (embedded framebuffer removed?).

And, like bomlat wrote, the SDK is not final - wasn't the GPU not even finalized 'til very close to launch? Like late August or something...?

 

[StefanS]

And, like bomlat wrote, the SDK is not final - wasn't the GPU not even finalized 'til very close to launch? Like late August or something...?

More likely the online structure and its documentation were still missing, at least that's what all the devs were indicating in all the interviews.

 

[bomlat]

I had a chance to talk to a few people who looked at the leaked SDK, and I'll try to recap what I've learned:

- Broadway is clocked at 729MHz, bus at 243MHz.
- TEV revision is the same as with Gamecube (2).
- The Codewarrior compiler still uses the "gekko"-arch.
- Almost all includes are pretty much identical to the Dolphin SDK.
- The higher overall performance affects the audio DSP (more voices, additional effect slot).
- Some new APIs were added, for example a stream (de)compression API for LZ77 and some other algorithms (dedicated hardware?).
- The two memory pools are simply two different "arenas" (unlike Gamecubes ARAM).
- The video interface now features a comb filter and gamma correction in hardware.
- Both memory pools may contain a framebuffer (embedded framebuffer removed?).

And, like bomlat wrote, the SDK is not final - wasn't the GPU not even finalized 'til very close to launch? Like late August or something...?

no character pipeline ->they said that
Method for AA with 640*480 fb (I think it is a GC method that was not supported by the earlyer SDK that I saw.Or my friend saw)
The frames from the embedded fb can copyed to any memory.
The date of the OS part is 2006/03,the graphics part 2006/08(with a reference for a futre revolution graphics doc).There is no doc about the controller, no hardware description(no bandwith,mh data).

 

[wsippel]

More likely the online structure and its documentation were still missing, at least that's what all the devs were indicating in all the interviews.

We know that the online docs and SDK wasn't done last August. But IBM started shipping Broadway as late as June as far as I remember, so maybe the final Hollywood chip really wasn't available 'til August or September. Any additions and improvements at a later date wouldn't really affect developers, since the GPU is backward compatible anyway...

@bomlat:

Clockspeeds and some other data isn't in the docs, it's supposed to be in some headers or makefiles...

 

[bomlat]

More likely the online structure and its documentation were still missing, at least that's what all the devs were indicating in all the interviews.

The revision of the advanced gx part is 2006/08/25,and it is conatin remark about a future,final doc.But the general gx rev date is 2006/03.So the documentation is contain diferent revisions.(same part is from the 1.0,and sami is from 2.1).But it is signal that they didn't have finalised doc untill 2006/08

 

[bomlat]

Ah,the release notes.
2006/04/07-intiial release, v1.0+later two patch--basicaly the GC devkit with modded mem support,and limited wiimote support,with emulation
2006/06/20-v2.0-NAND and the final wiimote is added.
2006/08/21-v2.1-NAND fine-tune, wiimote interface improvement,bug fixing.

The wiimote final design was finished 2006/06/20,and the final version of the hardware possbily introduced in the v3.0 devkit.

 

[Metal_Spirit]

What's the latest version of the devkit currently available?

 

[The_legend_of_drtre]

A new juicy tidbit I'm sure all of you will enjoy:




http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=159190


"In support of Wii's technical ability, Geoff Thomas, producer at Radical Entertainment told CVG that Nintendo's console can pack a fair punch in the graphical department.
Speaking about his latest project, Scarface: The World is Yours, being reworked for Wii, Thomas said: "The Wii has a lot of horsepower under the hood and we're making full use of it.
"We've overhauled our graphics engine to get the most out of the console by updating all of the shaders responsible for rendering the environment, vehicle, and characters."

 

[Fox5]

A new juicy tidbit I'm sure all of you will enjoy:




http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=159190


"In support of Wii's technical ability, Geoff Thomas, producer at Radical Entertainment told CVG that Nintendo's console can pack a fair punch in the graphical department.
Speaking about his latest project, Scarface: The World is Yours, being reworked for Wii, Thomas said: "The Wii has a lot of horsepower under the hood and we're making full use of it.
"We've overhauled our graphics engine to get the most out of the console by updating all of the shaders responsible for rendering the environment, vehicle, and characters."

Well, no company making a wii game is going to say the system is weak and the graphics suck.
Also, shaders is a rather generic term that doesn't mean much.

 

[wsippel]

id Software currently considers creating an engine for Wii (or, more precisely, the most powerful engine for Wii), based on older technology. From an interview with Steve Nix:

We have a bunch of brands and maybe we'll look at partnering with somebody with some of our older technology that really would push the limits of the Wii and look at our brands and which are appropriate. See which makes sense, and this version of our technology would look better than any other Wii game out there. We would modify it to make sure things made sense and add things in where possible, because the Wii is a fairly new graphics card, even if it's no a very powerful machine. So there are things we could do to make it look great.

"A fairly new graphics card" doesn't really sound like an overclocked Flipper...

 

[fearsomepirate]

Well, no company making a wii game is going to say the system is weak and the graphics suck.
Also, shaders is a rather generic term that doesn't mean much.

And consider that the game in question is Scarface, which as far as I can tell doesn't even sport detail textures. So "a lot of power" means "a lot of power for one of the worse-looking PS2 games." Excuse me for not being excited. By the way, here are some Wii-specific Scarface screens (high-res and devshot AA):

http://media.wii.ign.com/media/880/880697/imgs_1.html

Who knows what "fairly new" is supposed to mean?

 

[The_legend_of_drtre]

id Software currently considers creating an engine for Wii (or, more precisely, the most powerful engine for Wii), based on older technology. From an interview with Steve Nix:

"A fairly new graphics card" doesn't really sound like an overclocked Flipper...

Aww crap you beat me too it.:smile:

 

[pc999]

Who knows what "fairly new" is supposed to mean?

Acctually it would be much more interesting know what mean older tech, does it mean D3/Q4 level (at this point seems a bit doubtfull, but if overall Wii>XB, how knows), does it mean just the best of the Q3 engines...

 

[Teasy]

Scarface has only just been anounced for Wii AFAIK. So who knows if the shots shown so far are actually Wii specific. And if so how early they are. If a developer who claims to be overhauling there games graphics engine for Wii can't produce a game with better textures then a average looking PS2 game then something is extremely wrong. I mean GC already had better texturing capabilities then PS2 and Wii has 3.5 times as much memory and bandwidth as GC.

Who knows what "fairly new" is supposed to mean?

Not 7-8 years old for a start...

 

[wsippel]

Acctually it would be much more interesting know what mean older tech, does it mean D3/Q4 level (at this point seems a bit doubtfull, but if overall Wii>XB, how knows), does it mean just the best of the Q3 engines...

Carmack already stated a while ago that the Gamecube could handle Doom³. Hollenshead said it couldn't, but I think I'll believe Carmack over Hollenshead.

And "older technology with stuff added here and there" could mean pretty much anything. Source is basically "old id technology with stuff added here and there" as well...