Are there any technical reasons why Nintendo couldn't or shouldn't use ARM for Wii2?
- Thread starter Squilliam
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corduroygt
Banned
I've read it here that AMD can't just license an x86 architecture to a third party without Intel's consent.
Llano is based on the phenom tech and not the athlon 64 tech like bobcat. I wouldn't compare the two at all
They have done a ton of work on the power management.
Bobcat on the other hand is doing very well
http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph4187/35503.png
http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph4187/35502.png
The e350 is 1.6ghz dual core and the d525 is 1.8ghz dual core with hyper threading . Seems better than 15% at same clock speeds
corduroygt
Banned
You did not read what I posted, here it is again with the relevant part bolded:
Benchmark scores you linked are 3D rendering benchmarks so it's really comparing GPU's not CPU's, where Bobcat graphics are faster than Intel HD or ION graphics. When you compare the CPU cores, Bobcat is not impressive at all:
http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/intelpinetrail_122009194423/30338.png
http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/intelpinetrail_122009194423/30339.png
http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/intelpinetrail_122009194423/30340.png
http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/intelpinetrail_122009194423/30341.png
http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/intelpinetrail_122009194423/30342.png
http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/intelpinetrail_122009194423/30343.png
There is no reason why N+ can't license their ARM CPU and their PowerVR/AMD/NV GPU separately, they might even get something better than the 80-shader GPU of Bobcat. No need to be stuck with inefficient, low-performance Bobcat CPU that they can't even license in the first place because it's x86. You can always get the GPU IP separately.
As for Llano, it's vaporware at the moment, we'll see if AMD can indeed make it and hit their targets.
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You need to learn to read because I'm specificly talking about Llano not bobcat .
As for your marks , the e350 dispite being clocked lower than the d510 is still more than 15% faster clock for clock.
Bobcat also has a gpu on a single chip while atom requires a seperate gpu .
Llano will be faster than bobcat its based on a newer core and the phenoms clock for clock are 5-30% faster than the athlon 64 cores depending on benchmark.
Llano will also have a larger gpu
As for your marks , the e350 dispite being clocked lower than the d510 is still more than 15% faster clock for clock.
Bobcat also has a gpu on a single chip while atom requires a seperate gpu .
Llano will be faster than bobcat its based on a newer core and the phenoms clock for clock are 5-30% faster than the athlon 64 cores depending on benchmark.
Llano will also have a larger gpu
corduroygt
Banned
Well, you linked misleading Bobcat GPU benchmarks trying to pass it as a much faster CPU than Atom. How was that talking about Llano?
The clock difference is only 60 Mhz between the two, which is only 3.75% faster. Performance difference is within 10% in all of the 7 benchmarks, with some of them almost equal. Doesn't matter since both are slower clock per clock than an ARM and more power hungry.
You can combine the two later down the road if you own the IP, just like Xbox 360. You'll never be able to own x86 core IP, and will have to buy the chips from a single vendor.
AMD promises lots of things...
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What's the highest and ARM has ever been clocked? Different processors clock differently, and can an ARM actually get to the 2.5 - 3 GHz range, or will it always be at a clocking disadvantage regards peak performance?
I know some people have ran the 600MHz Cortex A8 inside N900 at 1.7GHz, though that required active cooling obviously.
I'm not sure how well the newer cores clock but I wouldn't be surprised if they have a very high (theoretical) clock ceiling.
Source
I guess it is possible for them to hit 2.5Ghz especially with a much wider thermal envelope. Thats probably sufficient for their objectives however.
I don't know the details of the agreement, but what you've read might be outdated since Nov. 2009 when AMD and Intel settled their dispute. Global Foundries is a separate company and at some point AMD will have no stake in a foundry leaving the x86 license more open than it used to be.
On what basis do you think PowerVR GPU's don't do any form of GPGPU work?
Amd is producing bocat cores at tmsc
This looks a bit outdated, isn't it? I mean from a performance point of view (in comparison even with years old XB360 and PS3)
Well, Gamecube's custom G3 was somewhat retro at the time too but it's niftier than a normal G3. It kept up with that Celeron 733 just fine.
Blazkowicz
Legend
or they could stick a Wii CPU on the motherboard and hand it boring decompression tasks when it's not running the Wii. that's not unheard of on consoles.
Well I guess they aren't that big, are they?
tongue_of_colicab
Veteran
But you will be stuck with extra costs for 5 or 6 years. Even if it's only 10 dollars that adds up to easily half a billion for something that at the end of the day really doesn't matter for 99% of the customers.
How well would emulation work? The dolphin emu works pretty well right? And it even runs on a pentium 4 so even if nintendo would come out with a ps360 specs console it should be possible to emulate wii. Sure, maybe not all games would work perfect, but it should be possible to get all the big titles to work good enough. This way they can also sell wii games in a download store for wii2 withouth much extra work.
How well would emulation work? The dolphin emu works pretty well right? And it even runs on a pentium 4 so even if nintendo would come out with a ps360 specs console it should be possible to emulate wii. Sure, maybe not all games would work perfect, but it should be possible to get all the big titles to work good enough. This way they can also sell wii games in a download store for wii2 withouth much extra work.
Surely if it were possible given their intimate knowledge of the system to emulate on X level of hardware then the third party emulator crowds given their lack of deep knowledge would require X+Y performance to do the same thing and with exceptions that don't work. I remember they already have an X86 Wii emulator since the first Wii games were developed on the emulator rather than actual hardware development kits. So it isn't beyond reasoning that they could develop a similar emulator for ARM if they were so inclined given they've already made a pretty good emulator in the past.
Anyway im completely clueless on the following:
Is it easier to emulate PPC on ARM or X86? I.E. Which architecture is actually more suitable for the job? Could a single Cortex A15 core @ 2.0Ghz for instance emulate the PPC core in the Wii? At least if someone gives us a rough idea it would help in working out whether ARM was suitable at minimum for emulation.
corduroygt
Banned
Since Nintendo would be just moving to the HD era in their next-gen console, they can forego BC and sell HD remakes...
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