Ok, full interview from anonymous third party about Wii GPU.

[DeadlyNinja]

No no, we're not saying it looks like GC, we're saying it looks worst than GC, to sometimes even worst than sub-par PS2 stuff. As ninzel said, we're not asking for a miracle here.

That may be a big factor in Wii. Those improvements that the hardware is capable of may actually in effect, but people aren't noticing, because the results are still close to GC's.

When you look at special games built ground up for Wii, the results are pretty clear. They certainly don't rival PS3/360, but I think most people here at very least can see the extra effort put into the games. Look at Dewy's Adventure for the Wii, I'm sure most people here agree it's definitely one of the better non-first party Wii games. I mean, normal mapping is hard to see sometimes, but there are other elements that stand out.

Here's let's look at Rampage on Wii and GC and compare them.

Wii

http://wiimedia.ign.com/wii/image/article/737/737685/rampage-total-destruction-20061006113420234.jpg
http://wiimedia.ign.com/wii/image/article/737/737685/rampage-total-destruction-20061006113413297.jpg

GC

http://ps2media.ign.com/ps2/image/article/689/689344/rampage-total-destruction-20060217002252349.jpg
http://ps2media.ign.com/ps2/image/article/689/689344/rampage-total-destruction-20060217002252802.jpg

It was hard to find shots that look similar and contain the exact same monsters. I saw one with the George, but the Wii version was taken at night so it's hard to see. I just took the cleanest screens from both games for comparison. The Spider and the Squid are used to show the difference between multi-limbed creatures, I know it's not the same, but it's the best I can find.

Yes, the average Joe won't be able to tell the different, but it's us here at beyond3d who are criticizing the games, not the average Joe. I'm not as tech savvy as most of the more intelligent members here, but I've played enough games to know the difference. I think everyone here can clearly see the difference between the GC version and the Wii version. The backgrounds stink in both versions, but the Wii version clearly has more polygons on the models. There's a nice rim lighting on the monsters, and there's the bump mapping that gives the creatures a little extra detail.

*edit* Oops, accidentally posted a Wii shot in the GC link. Also, looking at the link, I just realize they were PS2 shots of the same game. There's nothing I can do about it since I went straight to the GC section of IGN and they're just sharing media between the two games. I seriously doubt the GC version would look any better than the PS2 version at all.

 

[Ooh-videogames]

What keeps me unhappy with the results I see from many third party devs, is Julian Eggebreht comments about devs efforts. If theres any dev team that understand GC/Wii architecture I can point to F5.

Scarface on Wii is looking pretty good now. With shadows and lighting better than RE4 in some areas.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Oh come on what's with the long winded ramblngs to a simple concept.

Ummm...the attempt to get some intellectual considerations into the values and expectations people place on titles and hardware? This thread is about 'what can Wii achieve' and thus the response to 'we want devs to try' is 'what's your metric'. If the thread was 'why do some titles look cheap even by GC standards' than the simple answer would seem more appropriate.

You guy's just love to draw out these things and make them more complicated than they really are. You don't have to be an expert to know a good job and a well made game when you see one or even understand the technology behind it.

Your second point is true enough. And your first is also true, though you phrase it as if to make it sound a bad thing! Some people like to understand things in depth, and consider them in depth. The quick, simple answer is, to be frank, boring! And in this particular thread I don't see it as terribly appropriate. Wanting devs to make the most of the hardware isn't the same as wondering what the hardware is capable of. And as that's the topic at hand, that's the meaning I attributed to your post.

 

[Eteric]

What keeps me unhappy with the results I see from many third party devs, is Julian Eggebreht comments about devs efforts. If theres any dev team that understand GC/Wii architecture I can point to F5.

Scarface on Wii is looking pretty good now. With shadows and lighting better than RE4 in some areas.

I've actually been wondering why Factor 5 hasn't licensed out their Gamecube engine. They could probably make a nice chunk of money off of that.

 

[DeadlyNinja]

That's right, I completely forgot about Julian Eggebreht's comment on the 3rd party offerings on Wii!

Yeah, why can't they license the engine? The only reasons I can think of is some sort of legal issue from Nintendo or Sony (I'm stretching it of course and I have absolutely no clue what I'm trying to say either), or that Factor 5 hates money. Forget Unreal 3, I'd be more than happy with Rebel Strike engine 1.5 on the Wii.

 

[pc999]

Forget Unreal 3, I'd be more than happy with Rebel Strike engine 1.5 on the Wii.

That is two of us.

 

[Eteric]

That's right, I completely forgot about Julian Eggebreht's comment on the 3rd party offerings on Wii!

Yeah, why can't they license the engine? The only reasons I can think of is some sort of legal issue from Nintendo or Sony (I'm stretching it of course and I have absolutely no clue what I'm trying to say either), or that Factor 5 hates money. Forget Unreal 3, I'd be more than happy with Rebel Strike engine 1.5 on the Wii.

Err, well, I don't think Sony owns Factor 5, so it can't be that. And I don't think Nintendo would be against having an engine capable of REALLY nice SD visuals sold to developers.

Maybe they don't want their tech to get out? Or maybe... Maybe they plan on making a Wii game one day? :smile:

But yeah, seeing something like this...

Would not be a bad thing. Heck, they could probably make it look a lot better now.

 

[fearsomepirate]

Ummm...the attempt to get some intellectual considerations into the values and expectations people place on titles and hardware?

Here are my expectations:

1. I expect to see an end of 4-bit textures, which should never have existed to begin with.
2. I expect to see much more frequent use of lightmaps to create realistically lit areas, even if most of the lighting is static.
3. I expect good fire and water effects.
4. I expect gunfire to make light. Somehow, that technology was common in mid-90s PC games and the N64, but disappeared when the PS2 hit the scene.
5. I expect detail textures in first-person shooters.
6. I expect bigger areas, more detailed characters, and better texturing.
7. I expect more use of TEV effects to create things like heat waves, distored reflections, refractions, transparencies, camera filters, and so on.

I think that sounds pretty reasonable.

 

[Eteric]

Here are my expectations:

1. I expect to see an end of 4-bit textures, which should never have existed to begin with.
2. I expect to see much more frequent use of lightmaps to create realistically lit areas, even if most of the lighting is static.
3. I expect good fire and water effects.
4. I expect gunfire to make light. Somehow, that technology was common in mid-90s PC games and the N64, but disappeared when the PS2 hit the scene.
5. I expect detail textures in first-person shooters.
6. I expect bigger areas, more detailed characters, and better texturing.
7. I expect more use of TEV effects to create things like heat waves, distored reflections, refractions, transparencies, camera filters, and so on.

I think that sounds pretty reasonable.

That seems pretty fair. We know the Gamecube could do nice effects (character models in RE4, water in Waverace and FFCC, etc), so I don't see why that stuff is out of the Wii's limits.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Here are my expectations:

1. I expect to see an end of 4-bit textures, which should never have existed to begin with.
2. I expect to see much more frequent use of lightmaps to create realistically lit areas, even if most of the lighting is static.
3. I expect good fire and water effects.
4. I expect gunfire to make light. Somehow, that technology was common in mid-90s PC games and the N64, but disappeared when the PS2 hit the scene.
5. I expect detail textures in first-person shooters.
6. I expect bigger areas, more detailed characters, and better texturing.
7. I expect more use of TEV effects to create things like heat waves, distored reflections, refractions, transparencies, camera filters, and so on.

I think that sounds pretty reasonable.

Yeah, I'd go with that. Though not all at the same time. Some things can be added independently, like better textures, without impacting other activities. Other things will use up resources from each other. eg. Bigger areas and more detailed characters will gobble up vertex power needed for better shadows one would associate with dynamic lighting.

 

[Eteric]

Yeah, I'd go with that. Though not all at the same time. Some things can be added independently, like better textures, without impacting other activities. Other things will use up resources from each other. eg. Bigger areas and more detailed characters will gobble up vertex power needed for better shadows one would associate with dynamic lighting.

Indeed, the bigger areas will probably be seperated into zones like Dragon Quest VIII had. Other tricks will probably be used to reduce lag.

This is another thing I find interesting. I love how devs find little tricks to do things you never thought they could.

Wish Factor 5 would show us their bag of tricks.

 

[Capeta]

I just wanted to mention that the RE series on GC probably displays every conceivable TEV effect the Flipper could do except fur shading. Originally furshading was used on Leon's jacket though so they probably could've added it to the RE games if they wanted to.

 

[pc999]

On a more direct question anyone a idea/educated guess on how much the use of the full 16 stages of the TEV can inpact the overall and polys/s performance.

 

[Ooh-videogames]

You'll never get an answer to that question. There really isn't any dev that has really tackled the TEV unlike F5 or Retro( I believe they use it for the detailed textures in MP2).

 

[Eteric]

Did anyone ever find out what that extra space on the CPU is?

 

[Fafalada]

# I expect gunfire to make light. Somehow, that technology was common in mid-90s PC games and the N64, but disappeared when the PS2 hit the scene.

It disappeared when DC hit, but anyway, the reasons are the same as for the staple of NewGen right now - the flickery,aliasing galore ugly shadows, which basically didn't exist in last 5 years.
Certain things changed in scene complexity that make other things less practical then before. In PS1 days, polycounts were so low that local lights were dirt cheap. In PS2 generation, that was no longer the case.

Similarly today - volume shadows are increasingly worthless compared to shadowmaps due to similar scene complexity increases. The tradeoff is shit-image quality, but consumers so far seem OK with it (or maybe not, given the sales of Wii compared to others).

At any rate, Wii makes a lot of things for dynamic lighting much more of a chore then other machines thanks to less then flexible GPU, but it should come into its own as long as it doesn't keep getting hand-me down ports from some other platforms. On other hand, it's more likely HD platforms will be getting Wii hand-me downs in future, so prospects are good for Wii.

 

[Eteric]

It disappeared when DC hit, but anyway, the reasons are the same as for the staple of NewGen right now - the flickery,aliasing galore ugly shadows, which basically didn't exist in last 5 years.
Certain things changed in scene complexity that make other things less practical then before. In PS1 days, polycounts were so low that local lights were dirt cheap. In PS2 generation, that was no longer the case.

Similarly today - volume shadows are increasingly worthless compared to shadowmaps due to similar scene complexity increases. The tradeoff is shit-image quality, but consumers so far seem OK with it (or maybe not, given the sales of Wii compared to others).

At any rate, Wii makes a lot of things for dynamic lighting much more of a chore then other machines thanks to less then flexible GPU, but it should come into its own as long as it doesn't keep getting hand-me down ports from some other platforms. On other hand, it's more likely HD platforms will be getting Wii hand-me downs in future, so prospects are good for Wii.

The 360 already got one, actually. Rayman came out on the 360. I heard it wasn't good, though.

 

[fearsomepirate]

I'm not asking for super-awesome projected shadows everywhere when I fire a gun, a la Doom 3. I'm just asking for stuff in the area to get, you know, lighter. I don't think this is a heavy expectation, either. The guns in both Metroid Prime games, Geist, and both Rogue Squadron games generated local lights. RE4 also had some local lights generated by a few of the weapons.

 

[Eteric]

I'm not asking for super-awesome projected shadows everywhere when I fire a gun, a la Doom 3. I'm just asking for stuff in the area to get, you know, lighter. I don't think this is a heavy expectation, either. The guns in both Metroid Prime games, Geist, and both Rogue Squadron games generated local lights. RE4 also had some local lights generated by a few of the weapons.

I think I understand what you mean (the non-technical part).

You expect things to be a bit more defined, with more "shine." You expect less blurry textures (hiya Zelda) and better effects, etc, than before.

Basically, not 360 or PS3, but the last generation's visuals with more detail, with more normal mapping, better lighting, etc.

That's what I expect, too. I wish they'd get on the ball.

 

[ninzel]

Ummm...the attempt to get some intellectual considerations into the values and expectations people place on titles and hardware? This thread is about 'what can Wii achieve' and thus the response to 'we want devs to try' is 'what's your metric'. If the thread was 'why do some titles look cheap even by GC standards' than the simple answer would seem more appropriate.
Your second point is true enough. And your first is also true, though you phrase it as if to make it sound a bad thing! Some people like to understand things in depth, and consider them in depth. The quick, simple answer is, to be frank, boring! And in this particular thread I don't see it as terribly appropriate. Wanting devs to make the most of the hardware isn't the same as wondering what the hardware is capable of. And as that's the topic at hand, that's the meaning I attributed to your post.

Excuse the snotty response,hope it didn't come off that way.
It's hard to qualify exactly point by point,but I think you just play a game and get whether the dev put some real effort into the game or not. Maybe it doesn't look as technically good but is well polished and plays good for example.
If I could more specific I would like to see the level of graphics in games like Metroid Prime2 and RE4 become the norm and not the exception. And hopefully a little better. Certainly I would like better than PS2 graphics because IMO GC was already better than PS2 is some ways graphically. If PD can make Grand Turismo 4 look the way they did on PS2 I see no reason why that level of graphics and type of game can't be seen on Wii.
Control wise that's harder to pin down because as you said we don't know exactly what the system is capable of.