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

[kagemaru]

Unclear if the machines resolution is "capped" at 1080P or 1080i.

I read this rumor yesterday and when I came across this part the first thing I thought of was "why?".

What would be the point of capping the system to 1080i when performance would be very similar in 1080p. The size of the framebuffer should be the same, so why not just allow full 1080p?

Besides 1080i isn't even supported anymore since CRT HDTVs have died out and 1080p flat screens have become the standard.

If Nintendo is announcing this at E3 what are the odds Sony and Microsoft start releasing info about their next consoles at E3 just to try and shift attention away from Nintendo?

I don't think MS or Sony will do anything this E3, it would be wiser to let Ninty show their hand this E3 and if MS/Sony start to feel pressured, they can opt to tease at next E3.

I don't see MS or Sony doing any actual reveal until E3 2013, assuming they launch later that year. Not fully convinced they will wait until 2014 to launch their next systems.

If Sony and MS aren't going to launch their next gen consoles until 2014, do people really need to be concerned about Nintendo not providing a huge jump in graphical performance compared to the 360 and PS3 and therefore not being graphically competitive with Sony and MS next gen consoles?

If Ninty's next system is intended to compete with the PS4/720, then I think the difference in power should be considered.

Someone earlier (Laa-Yosh IIRC) made a great point to how even if the WiiHD has lower specs than the ps4/720, the system is more likely to receive down-ports from the competition. So it may not be too bad in the end.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I thought the performance rumors remained all over the map, from "way more powerful than Ps360" to just comparable.

Same as with Wii, which turned out to be exactly the 'GC1.5' that defenders of the unreleased console were adamant it couldn't be. Rumours count for squat! At least, not until they start converging, or are from a trusted source. Wasn't the IGN source very on-the-nail with Wii?

 

[liolio]

I don't think MS or Sony will do anything this E3, it would be wiser to let Ninty show their hand this E3 and if MS/Sony start to feel pressured, they can opt to tease at next E3.

Agreed

don't see MS or Sony doing any actual reveal until E3 2013, assuming they launch later that year. Not fully convinced they will wait until 2014 to launch their next systems.

Agreed.

If Ninty's next system is intended to compete with the PS4/720, then I think the difference in power should be considered.

Indeed last info we got about the different llano SKU have TDP between 65 and 100 watts. If N goes with a single chip beating it significantly will implies a really healthy increase in power consumption and heat dissipation. Actually I'm no sure it's possible to significantly outdo N if is chip is in llano ballpark (given the proper amount of RAM). 22nm processes may make things better (I'm not sure 22nm process will be available in mass or at all in 2014, Intel aside the other founders are familiar with dealy to say the least...). Nintendo may have gain extra time if 22 process is late.
On the other hand say 22nm processes are too late Ms and Sony may go with 2 tinier chips with an overall healthy power consumption but easier to cool, still that would have a cost. Actually A single chip may fight back as fast CPU / GPU communication may allow some extra tricks.

Someone earlier (Laa-Yosh IIRC) made a great point to how even if the WiiHD has lower specs than the ps4/720, the system is more likely to receive down-ports from the competition. So it may not be too bad in the end.

Depending on the Wii2 final spec, N who may at first strongly enforce a native 1080P rendering (which equates to almost twice as much work / bandwidth) may relax its criteria. That can help and modern scaler can do wonder (enough for trick your average user).

 

[zed]

I expect the nintendo's graphic chip to be 2-3x the power of the ps360s ones but the thing is the ps360 will have been out 5+ years thus we're looking at 2or3rd gen games(ps360) vs 1st gen games(wiiHD), developers wont be able to extract as much from the machine. thus the difference is gonna be not very big (likely just higher FPS or texture res/screen res)

 

[liolio]

I expect the nintendo's graphic chip to be 2-3x the power of the ps360s ones but the thing is the ps360 will have been out 5+ years thus we're looking at 2or3rd gen games(ps360) vs 1st gen games(wiiHD), developers wont be able to extract as much from the machine. thus the difference is gonna be not very big (likely just higher FPS or texture res/screen res)

To put things into perspective.
400SP @ 600 offer a bit more than twice Xenos throughput. If we take in account the architecture higher efficiency may be 3 time the shading power is not how of reach. Devs may pass on this raw power advantage, ceteris paribus at least games will be smoother when ALU throughput is the limiting factor.
Texture units would be more numerous and way better, x8 AF is almost a given and it's mostly a check boxes to tick for devs. Imho that would make quiet a difference in the way quiet some game look as AF is clearly a huge lacking of this generation hardwares.
It will more bandwidth available than RSX and RBEs that make better use of this bandwidth, this will translate in either some MSAA or better performances.
I can't imagine anything less than 1GB of GDDR5, this will help on many fronts from texture quality to streaming to overall perfs.
Without doing anything fancy I can see the games being significantly more pleasant to look at. Such a set-up could run all the @ 1080p running the same level of effects as the ps360 with some headroom left. AF and better textures here and there as well as smoother frame rate on top of it are not to be dismissed for reference Eurogamer get an insane numbers of clicks for analyzing minor differences (like 100 pixels x 80 pixels ). I'm not for double standard I don't imply that you have by the way I just want to make clear that the difference could be sound even if the hardware is in no way a "geek sweet dream"

And one of the beauty of N (say if N doesn't doom it by being overly conservative...) is that they choose a set-up well known by devs and studios, a cpu akin to the 360 one and a mostly "off the shelves" GPU.

The more I think about it the more I think N if it act right as actually a shot to well. I find that games looks dated now on my 360, what will be my pov by fall 2014?
Next year is far away, depending on price & specs I may have jumped this fall and I'm not hardcore in anyway: I don't play on PC, I buy few games (I'm pretty picky), I'm not into online or FPS. On top of it the possibility to play on the pad (say while my wife watch something at the tv). Clearly I may have jumped.

 

[kagemaru]

I expect the nintendo's graphic chip to be 2-3x the power of the ps360s ones but the thing is the ps360 will have been out 5+ years thus we're looking at 2or3rd gen games(ps360) vs 1st gen games(wiiHD), developers wont be able to extract as much from the machine. thus the difference is gonna be not very big (likely just higher FPS or texture res/screen res)

I'm not so sure that will matter at all. If anything Ninty has the advantage here since the studios would have had years of R&D to apply to WiiHD games right out the gate.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

I think the current consoles have the following limiting factors with regards to porting from DX11:
GPU programmability
GPU pixel fill rate and memory bandwidth
CPU speed
memory
Once you can more or less just port the code without major rewrites (like moving tasks between CPU-GPU) most of the other features can be scaled back by lowering the resolution and halving textures. A current gen GPU, 1GB of RAM, and something like an out of order 3-core IMB CPU should be enough for that.

The one problem might be that if the CPU is not fast enough, it can limit gameplay possibilities once again (which also includes AI). That's a part you can't really scale back as easily.

 

[AlNom]

factors with regards to porting from DX11:
GPU programmability
GPU pixel fill rate and memory bandwidth
CPU speed
memory
Once you can more or less just port the code without major rewrites (like moving tasks between CPU-GPU) most of the other features can be scaled back by lowering the resolution and halving textures. A current gen GPU, 1GB of RAM, and something like an out of order 3-core IMB CPU should be enough for that.

The memory bandwidth has me particularly concerned when taking into consideration the "approximate 360 power" rumour and looking at comparable hardware from AMD.

Take something like the llano + 6550, the latter of which sports 400SPs, 8 ROPs, 20 texture units, 32 Z/stencil-only per clock (4x ROP rate). The ROPs should still be capable of 4 samples per clock as well for MSAA. Anyways, at ~600MHz, that's double the theoretical shading ignoring efficiencies between the ALU implementations (VLIW5 vs vec4+1). You've also got the clock and z-rate advantage for the ROPs.

It supports DDR3 or GDDR5. High-end GDDR5 is not inexpensive, plus if they go with a 128-bit bus, that means 4 chips since I don't think there's a 16-bit variant... I'm not clear on the availability of 2Gb GDDR5, but mid-2012 should be fine... That would imply 1GB GDDR5.There is also the latency to consider as it is quite a bit higher for GDDR5 than DDR3. It's not a huge deal for the graphics side of things, but on the CPU side, it's not exactly favourable.

Contrast this to DDR3, which is dirt cheap. 16-bit chips (8 for 128-bit), 4/8Gb density chips are available. Bandwidth per clock is similar to GDDR3 IIRC. The max speed available is 2500MHz IIRC, but I'm not sure how costly that is. 1866 or 2100 seems to be more common. At any rate ('scuse the pun), it's not really that great for overall bandwidth.

That all supposes they don't use edram (extra cost & complexity)... or a TBDR solution. Of course, BW reqs aren't too terrible sans MSAA.

 

[ninzel]

http://ca.kotaku.com/5798609/nintendo-president-wii-price-drop-comes-with-perfect-timing

Some quotes from Regi.
"When we launch our new home system sometime in 2012 we think the consumer buying in will look very different than the consumer who's going to be buying a Wii now," Fils-Aime said. "What we've seen in this business it that there are certain consumers who love being first - they have to have the absolute latest hardware - and there are other consumers that are perfectly happy to wait until the game library is much more robust and they have a wider range of options."

Now I guess you could read slightly different things into this.
It could simply be comparing early Wii adopters vs late Wii adopters. Or it could be suggesting the Wii2 will appeal to a different type of gamer to than Wii did suggesting a different emphasis from the hardware.

Overall it seems they aren't giving up on Wii at all. Could they be positioning the Wii as the casual game system and the Wii2 for the hardcore?

 

[Xenus]

If they are it better be more impressive then rumored or that same hardcore that bought the Wii2 at launch will buy the PS4/X720 at launch for the same boost and it doesn't really help them at all.

Bersides going by the lack of software on the Wii I don't think Nintendo can support 3 systems with their 1st party output. Which puts the Wii as pretty much worthless anyways.

 

[Kaotik]

Same as with Wii, which turned out to be exactly the 'GC1.5' that defenders of the unreleased console were adamant it couldn't be. Rumours count for squat! At least, not until they start converging, or are from a trusted source. Wasn't the IGN source very on-the-nail with Wii?

Even by vaguest estimation Wii is GC2.0 rather than 1.5, the raised clocks alone would make it 1.5, while at least the GPU is far too big to be shrunken Flipper+ARM9

 

[Xenus]

Not literal as in 1.5 times the power but as in a slightly souped up gamecube as opposed to what the PS3 was to the PS2.

 

[AlphaWolf]

This is mostly down to semantics, when I suggested wii 1.5 I only meant less than the maximum they could get out of hardware. If they come out with a $279 console that isn't a loss leader, I believe it's going to get absolutely crushed in performance by whatever Sony and MS release a year or so later.

This could still get them a significant performance edge on ps360, the question would be how much will that edge show up in the first year in 3rd party titles. Nintendo titles don't really matter because they are only going to show up on one platform anyway. So it might garner them ps360 ports, but not so much ps4/720.

I'm certainly eager to see what they have and I hope the jump is huge, because it will just push the competition that much harder, but I wouldn't bet the farm on it.

 

[Megadrive1988]

Even by vaguest estimation Wii is GC2.0 rather than 1.5, the raised clocks alone would make it 1.5, while at least the GPU is far too big to be shrunken Flipper+ARM9

Wii is exactly 1.5x GameCube not 2x. Wii has the exact same architecture as GameCube only running 50% (1.5x) faster. The only way we could say Wii is more than that is in the amount of RAM it has.

 

[Rangers]

Even by vaguest estimation Wii is GC2.0 rather than 1.5, the raised clocks alone would make it 1.5, while at least the GPU is far too big to be shrunken Flipper+ARM9

Err, I'm sure that's exactly what it is.

Edit: Beaten by megadrive.

 

[Kaotik]

Hollywood's Napa-chips (GPU+ARM) diesize is 72mm^2, ARM9 takes around 2mm^2 of that (ARM926 was already under 4mm^2 with 130nm).
Flipper (which IIRC includes the DSP too, unlike Hollywood's Napa-chip) is depending on source somewhere between 80 and 110mm^2 at 180nm, at 90nm that should be between 20-30mm^2.

How do you explain Napa being over twice the size if it's just "overclocked flipper"?

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

I'm sorry Kaotik, but does it really matter if wii is a gc1.5, 1.7 or 1.9? Everybody here understands that by saying gc1.5 it basically means it's nowhere near as much of a upgrade as ps360 over psbox2. Basically Wii is a GC with halffords tunning applied. There might be a lot, or a little of halfords but its still halfords so it will never be anything great.

 

[Rangers]

Hollywood's Napa-chips (GPU+ARM) diesize is 72mm^2, ARM9 takes around 2mm^2 of that (ARM926 was already under 4mm^2 with 130nm).
Flipper (which IIRC includes the DSP too, unlike Hollywood's Napa-chip) is depending on source somewhere between 80 and 110mm^2 at 180nm, at 90nm that should be between 20-30mm^2.

How do you explain Napa being over twice the size if it's just "overclocked flipper"?

Source for those sizes?

Why have no developers claimed Wii GPU is a major step up from GC? Why have games not shown it? Have you seen Conduit 2? Looks a whole lot closer to GC than anything PS360 are doing.

Further, nodes dont result in half sizes quite often nowdays. Both PS3 and 360 major chips have showed well less than 50% shrinkage when moving to a new node, so your premise is flawed.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Let's not go there any more. Suffice to say Wii is built on an increasing of GC hardware, and not a new architecture.

 

[Megadrive1988]

bit-tech has posted their article. It's fairly interesting.

http://www.bit-tech.net/gaming/wii/2011/05/04/nintendo-project-cafe-rumours-analysis/1

The Graphics Chip
The difference, of course, is that Project Café looks set to have a very different GPU design from the Xbox 360. Back in 2005, 48 unified stream processors (or ALU pipes, as Microsoft called them back then) was revolutionary, but it now looks pretty weedy compared with the 1,536 stream processors found in the Radeon HD 6970 2GB. Of course, the 48 scalar units found in the Xenos GPU are not directly comparable to the stream processors found in AMD's Radeon HD PC chips, but there's still a gulf between them in terms of graphics processing power.

According to IGN, Project Café's GPU will be based on a 'revamped' version of AMD's R700 GPU, which will out-perform the GeForce 7-series GPU in the PlayStation 3. This doesn't give us a lot of information, though, seeing as the R700-series spanned chips with everything from 80 to 800 stream processors.

Given that there seem to be some big claims being made about Project Café's technical superiority to the PS3, it seems a reasonable guess that its GPU isn't going to have 80 stream processors and a crippling 64-bit memory interface - particularly if it is indeed going to output at 1080p (1,920 x 1,080) resolutions. However, the amount of power and cooling needed for 800 stream processors in a cramped space isn't going to make the Radeon HD 4850, 4870 and 4890 GPUs look attractive for use in a console either.

We're not going to completely rule this out, seeing as we're now dealing with 40nm transistors, which are much smaller and power efficient than the 4800-series' original 55nm manufacturing process. The process shrink could - if it's used - also help lower the cost of each GPU. However, if we were to make an educated guess, we'd say that the GPU is likely to be based on something smaller and less complicated than the 800 stream processor GPU.


A 40nm chip based on the Radeon HD 4670 could provide a sensible balance between speed and thermal/power requirements in a cramped space

For example, the Radeon HD 4670 had 320 stream processors (the same as the top-end parts from the Radeon HD 2000 and 3000-series), but only required a small cooler, and didn't require additional power connectors either. Produce a chip such as this on a 40nm process, and you potentially end up with a small, low-power chip with adequate gaming horsepower.

We say 40nm, rather than 28nm, simply because historically Nintendo has usually chosen to use chips produced on a tried and tested manufacturing process, such as the 90nm CPU in the Wii, rather than taking a risk with new processes. Technical prowess and bragging rights have never been as important to Nintendo as reliability and keeping down support costs. The Wii might have been grossly underpowered, but it also never suffered from the Xbox 360's red ring of death, or the PlayStation 3's over-heating problems.

Despite the fact that Project Café looks set to be several times more powerful than the Wii, the rumoured specs have also resulted in a fair bit of mockery online. After all, even 800 stream processors would be pretty weedy compared with a gaming PC, and fewer than this would make it look comparatively anaemic...

I think Nintendo will go with 28nm process tech since it's not coming out until mid-2012 at the soonest.