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

[patsu]

I just wonder if a dual screen game has stereoscopic 3d content on tv screen and 2d content on the controller screen, how is that going to work?

Think about it the other way, I think either the controller screens will have to be s3d capable or we won´t see much in the way of stereoscopic 3d gaming with the Wii U. (?)

Probably the latter ? Or may be they have to render stereo 3D to both screens ?

I tried 3DS yesterday in Fry's, the 3D effect in the submarine game is nifty, but it tires my eyes a little bit rather quickly.

 

[borowki]

Miyamoto attempt to clarify Nintendo's online plans...
http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2011...-become-the-number-one-online-gaming-company/

I think Nintendo is exploring the right niche. The screen on the Wii-U makes interactive television a lot less intrusive. You no longer disturb other people watching at the same time when you choose to do something.

 

[function]

Nothing that Miyamoto was talking about would appear to be prevented by a unified, coherent online system.

 

[stiftl]

I think I posted this already in the "Predict the Next Generation Console Tech" thread, but haven't received any reply

What would you think are the chances that the WiiU will use a customized "Graphics Core Next" architecture in it's final form? I think it would make sense in terms of timing, because according to the interviews they don't have nearly final dev kits to date which for me doesn't makes sense if they would stick with 2008 tech @40nm. So they are most probably going with 28nm. But why shrink an old architecture when the new one is already tailored to 28nm?

Another question for me is RAM: Will they go with 1T-SRAM again? I think at least the Embedded RAM is a given and is also available for 28nm AFAIK. My guess are 27MB for Wii backwards compatibility (24+2+1MB), which would also fit the higher resolutions for WiiU games. Will the main memory pool be splitted between 1T-SRAM and GDDR5? I think the latter would make more sense.

 

[pc999]

I think I posted this already in the "Predict the Next Generation Console Tech" thread, but haven't received any reply

What would you think are the chances that the WiiU will use a customized "Graphics Core Next" architecture in it's final form? I think it would make sense in terms of timing, because according to the interviews they don't have nearly final dev kits to date which for me doesn't makes sense if they would stick with 2008 tech @40nm. So they are most probably going with 28nm. But why shrink an old architecture when the new one is already tailored to 28nm?

I also dont expect it to be 4x00 based, because not only of timing, but because the dev themselves dont seem to know what to expect. Also having much newer and even more efficient (power/performance/price) tech like the 6x00 (even on 40nm) would be quite strange to do that.

Probably a truly custom or based on newer tech based IMO, anyway the benefits of a truly custom chip are so big that are a good investment. This would be also the hardest one to dev to predict and say about the final performance...

 

[stiftl]

I also dont expect it to be 4x00 based, because not only of timing, but because the dev themselves dont seem to know what to expect. Also having much newer and even more efficient (power/performance/price) tech like the 6x00 (even on 40nm) would be quite strange to do that.

Probably a truly custom or based on newer tech based IMO, anyway the benefits of a truly custom chip are so big that are a good investment. This would be also the hardest one to dev to predict and say about the final performance...

That's quite interesting for me! What are things that could be made more efficient on a custom chip beside of embedded RAM?

 

[stiftl]

Another guess:

480 SP / 32 TU / 16 ROPs @600 MHz => 580 GFLOPS
So basically specs of e6760 but unsure of the architecture. If it would use the RV7xx (DX10.1) architecture I think this could end @20W.

1,8GHz tri-core or quadcore Power7 derivate
How would such a CPU compare with Xenon and Cell? Clock is much lower, but IIRC Power7 can do 4 threads/clock and the low clock would much better fit the small power budget. Devs would need to do a lot of multithreading but this would fit Sega's "it's different" comment.

Still unsure about the RAM, would 1200 MHz GDDR5 be realistic?

Third and last guess (I promise )

480 or 640 SP / 32 TU / 16 ROPS @ 486 MHz => 470 / 620 GFLOPS
27MB embedded 1T-SRAM

1GB - 2GB GDDR5 @ 972 MHz (really unsure about the quantity, I hope Nintendo will not be too stingy in foresight of N3xtBox/PS4)

TriCore or QuadCore Power7 derivat @ 2,9 GHz

 

[pc999]

That's quite interesting for me! What are things that could be made more efficient on a custom chip beside of embedded RAM?

Basically anything, but sometimes (always?) there is trade offs.

From fine tuning to a lot of things, they can put hardwired HW for specific stuff (like AA on 360), sacrificing flexibility, or they can put special instructions/ops that can be useful on certain kinds of engines (eg the VMX engines in PS360), they can push more or make special units for stuff like tessellation...

They can always take out stuff that dont need and make with cheaper or speed the increased budget on features, like the uncore parts of PowerPC and the video tech from radeons...

 

[Megadrive1988]

Third and last guess (I promise )

480 or 640 SP / 32 TU / 16 ROPS @ 486 MHz => 470 / 620 GFLOPS
27MB embedded 1T-SRAM

1GB - 2GB GDDR5 @ 972 MHz (really unsure about the quantity, I hope Nintendo will not be too stingy in foresight of N3xtBox/PS4)

TriCore or QuadCore Power7 derivat @ 2,9 GHz

Would be really nice overall. I would hope the CPU clockspeed is at least 3.2 GHz though. I know however, that the architecture matter MUCH more than the clockspeed. but it would give people less excuse to call Wii U "weaker" than 360/PS3. Anyway the CPU should easily outperform Xenon in general purpose ops, and probably floating point ops too. I doubt it'll match PS3's CELL in fp performance though.

The GPU really matters. I;m hoping it has at least 640 SP / 32 or 40 TU and 16 ROPs is absolutely essential to provide a decent fillrate for HD resolutions and framerate. The 640 SP at that clockspeed would provide 2.5x the GPU shader/floating point performance of Xenos. Pretty decent although not spectacular like a RV770. Ack I forgot the core clockspeed might be different than the SP clockspeed. Can someone clear that up?

 

[lilbroK]

Would be really nice overall. I would hope the CPU clockspeed is at least 3.2 GHz though. I know however, that the architecture matter MUCH more than the clockspeed. but it would give people less excuse to call Wii U "weaker" than 360/PS3. Anyway the CPU should easily outperform Xenon in general purpose ops, and probably floating point ops too. I doubt it'll match PS3's CELL in fp performance though.

The GPU really matters. I;m hoping it has at least 640 SP / 32 or 40 TU and 16 ROPs is absolutely essential to provide a decent fillrate for HD resolutions and framerate. The 640 SP at that clockspeed would provide 2.5x the GPU shader/floating point performance of Xenos. Pretty decent although not spectacular like a RV770. Ack I forgot the core clockspeed might be different than the SP clockspeed. Can someone clear that up?

Clock speeds haven't mattered much for the last 6 year. I would prefer that they achieved higher result with a lower, less heat producing and less engery consuming clock speed.

People are going to it weaker than the 360/PS3 no matter what, just look through this thread from the point where it was first shown.

I'm hoping for a complete custom deisng that emphasizing high level features like the SNES. Stuff like a independent unit for toing AA and Tessellation.

What I'm most interested in is the RAM count. That is going to be the deal breaker for the next generation. If the PS4 and the 3rd Xbox are stronger(which they will more than likely be) a strong RAM count will allow for games to run on the system just as well without pushing up the price.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

AFAIK, a 4-core PowerPC A2 @ 1.8GHz would be on par (or possibly faster) than Xenon while consuming a fraction of the power consumption.

I'd say Nintendo should be targetting higher IPC and lower clocks.

I kinda "like" the rumours about the overheating hardware. It could mean that Nintendo didn't go all cheap on the GPU and there's actually something powerful inside the tiny box.
A 500MHz RV730 would have no problems whatsoever running in there. A 500MHz RV740~RV770, on the other hand, could struggle a bit, if the cooling isn't proper enough.


Based on all the rumours, I think we can safely assume now that it'll be a R7xx generation GPU -> at least terms of fragment\pixel shader compliance. And as I said before, performance-per-transistor hasn't increased since that GPU family. Not for 3D rendering anyways.

A complete custom design would end up more expensive than just asking AMD to make older GPUs. Sure, they can ask for a couple of extra features, like power-efficiency optimizations from newer generations, maybe some eDRAM for better Wii+X360 emulation, etc.
But being called a "Radeon HD", it shouldn't deviate too much from a standard PC GPU. It might be different as NV2A was to NV20, or whatever differences exist between G71 and RSX, but not in the same exoctic way as Flipper or Xenos.

 

[pc999]

Based on all the rumours, I think we can safely assume now that it'll be a R7xx generation GPU -> at least terms of fragment\pixel shader compliance. And as I said before, performance-per-transistor hasn't increased since that GPU family. Not for 3D rendering anyways.

A complete custom design would end up more expensive than just asking AMD to make older GPUs. Sure, they can ask for a couple of extra features, like power-efficiency optimizations from newer generations, maybe some eDRAM for better Wii+X360 emulation, etc.
But being called a "Radeon HD", it shouldn't deviate too much from a standard PC GPU. It might be different as NV2A was to NV20, or whatever differences exist between G71 and RSX, but not in the same exoctic way as Flipper or Xenos.

The only thing leading me to have litle confidence in a R700 like is that devs dont seems to know yet what to expect in terms of HW. Even today teken devs confirm that* (also say they may even elevate the HW, if needed?). Really if it is of any resemblance to a R700, both SW and HW developers should have pretty fair performance expectations, dont you think?


Personally I think it will be a custom chip cross developed with a lower power/performance 6x00/7x00, where they share the same architecture for SP/TU/ROPs in custom ratios, but the rest is purely Nintendo driven (tessellation(?), memory architecture...).

That way it would make sense for a 4x00 in a dev kits and then the rumors, IMO.



*http://www.eurogamer.pt/articles/2011-06-27-katsuhiro-harada-fala-sobre-tekken-artigo

Claro que um dos assuntos do momento são as capacidades técnicas da Wii U e do seu poderio face às atuais consolas de alta definição. Questionado sobre o poder da Wii U e se esta vai conseguir competir com a PlayStation 3 e Xbox 360, Harada respondeu que não tem o equipamento novo da Nintendo há muito tempo e não podem dizer muito. No entanto, a Nintendo pode vir mesmo a aumentar o poder do equipamento caso ache necessário mas essa nunca foi a política da Nintendo.

 

[Megadrive1988]

I'm hoping for 1 GB of GDDR5 at the very least. 1.5 GB would be so very nice. 2 GB would be fantastic although I really doubt it'll get 2 GB.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

I'm hoping for 1 GB of GDDR5 at the very least. 1.5 GB would be so very nice. 2 GB would be fantastic although I really doubt it'll get 2 GB.

As DDR3 is dirt-cheap nowadays, I wonder if it wouldn't be cheaper to have 1GB DDR3 for system and 512MB DDR3 for graphics, both using a 128bit bus.

If the GPU also acted as northbridge and implemented Hypermemory (or Sideport, depending on where the memory controller stays), it would do a theoretical maximum of ~50GB/s for the GPU and ~25GB/s for the CPU.

That way, neither the CPU or the GPU would be memory bottlenecked and there'd be more than enough memory for 1080p graphics.

 

[patsu]

What Developers Think of Wii U:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-06-27-what-developers-think-of-wii-u-article

Some of the responses are to be expected (*cough*Gaffe*cough* ;-)).

 

[Blazkowicz]

As DDR3 is dirt-cheap nowadays, I wonder if it wouldn't be cheaper to have 1GB DDR3 for system and 512MB DDR3 for graphics, both using a 128bit bus.

If the GPU also acted as northbridge and implemented Hypermemory (or Sideport, depending on where the memory controller stays), it would do a theoretical maximum of ~50GB/s for the GPU and ~25GB/s for the CPU.

That way, neither the CPU or the GPU would be memory bottlenecked and there'd be more than enough memory for 1080p graphics.

I believe two memory pools would be good as well, but was more thinking about 2GB ddr3 on 64bit or 128bit and 1GB gddr5 on 128bit.
for an xbox 720 or PS4 type of console maybe it would be some minimal specs.
for WiiU it it's highest kind of specs I can imagine (or with 1GB system ram)

 

[liolio]

In regard to vram size (assuming non UmA) 512MB would be enough going by the comparison I read a while ago on the matter (assuming 1080p and even some AA)

 

[Megadrive1988]

Core gamers will accept the Wii U because it has high definition visuals and can be played in a conventional way, Nintendo has said.

That was boss Satoru Iwata's response when asked by a shareholder today whether the hardcore will accept Nintendo's next home console.

"Wii was not accepted by core gamers because they did not want to abandon their preferred control approach," he said, as reported by Andriasang.

"Additionally, Wii did not use HD because HD cost performance at the time was low. Wii U makes it easier to use conventional controls. Also, the Wii U controller is not as big or heavy as it looks."

Some criticised the Wii U's debut after Nintendo chose to showcase tech demos running on the hardware rather than games that will eventually launch.

This led to concern that the Wii U may suffer from a poor launch line-up of games - as the Nintendo 3DS did earlier this year - but Iwata told investors this will not be the case.

The CEO then suggested the eye-catching Zelda HD tech demo showcased at E3 was only possible on the Wii U.

"Regarding Zelda HD, Japanese developers said that it could not be replicated on other machines," Iwata said.

It was made in a relatively short period, so Iwata feels that HD development will not be a problem.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-06-29-why-core-gamers-will-accept-wii-u

 

[patsu]

OnLive CEO reveals 'entirely new approach' to wireless, credits Rearden for toppling Shannon's Law:
http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/29/onlive-ceo-reveals-entirely-new-approach-to-wireless-credits/

"In advance, yes -- you're right, it's impossible. But nonetheless, we have ten radios all working at the same frequency, all at the Shannon limit... and there's no interference." You may not fully grok the significance of that statement, but anyone heavily involved in solving the wireless bandwidth crisis is probably dropjawed. For a little background, there's a perceived limit in wireless known as Shannon's Law, which largely explains why no one can watch a YouTube clip on their EVO at Michigan Stadium. For whatever reason, it's been assumed that this law was fundamentally unbreakable, but it looks as if an unlikely member of society may have just overrode expectations.

...

While it applies to OnLive, it should be applicable to WiiU's wireless pad too ?

 

[Megadrive1988]

Bethesda 'will support Wii U if it's powerful enough'
Skyrim, Rage and Prey 2 could all come to the new Ninty console

Bethesda will bring its core titles, such as Skyrim, Rage and Prey 2, to the Nintendo Wii U... if the tech is powerful enough.

Although we saw big name franchises like Call of Duty come to the original Wii, for Bethesda, the amount of re-development that would have gone into names like Fallout and Elder Scrolls made the lower powered machine a no go.

"Our motto has always been: We want to make our gmaes available to the widest audience possible on whatever platforms that will support the game," marketing VP Pete Hines told MCV.

"So to whatever extent new consoles fit with the kind of games we are making and support them technologically, we would certainly do that.

"The Wii wasn't even an option - we would have to make wholesale changes to the games we were making on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC to make them work on Wii."

Things are looking up for the Wii U and the PlayStation Vita though, since they are said to boast significantly improved technology compared to their predecessors.

Hines still remains cautious though: "I honestly know nothing about the tech specs of the new platforms and whether or not they are a good fit for what we are making with say Rage and Skyrim and Prey 2," he said.

"If they are a good fit for the kind of games we are making then absolutely, we would look to put them out for those. But beyond that I can't get into specifics."

Nintendo fans are in for a long haul if Skyrim does come to the Wii U. It was confirmed earlier this week that the massive RPG has hundreds of hours of content. We expected nothing less.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/309811/news/bethesda-will-support-wii-u-if-its-powerful-enough/