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

It can, but we don't know how quickly or efficiently. This is because all hardware can do normal mapping. Even an old 8 bit computer could. It's just a matter of calculating the maths fast enough to do it in a game...

A GPU that supports normal mapping in hardware is set up to combine the textures and values very quickly. A system that lacks this hardware in the GPU can get the CPU to do it, or in the case of Wii I think a combination of TEV's and CPU. I'm really not sure. My guess is, from what we've seen, normal mapping will be applied in limited amounts. It won't have the universal environmental application that we've seen elsewhere - on the platforms that support normal mapping it's used absolutely everywhere in some titles! I'd have thought if Wii was up to that, some tacky developer would have thrown bumps over everything.
 
Shifty Geezer said:
It can, but we don't know how quickly or efficiently. This is because all hardware can do normal mapping. Even an old 8 bit computer could. It's just a matter of calculating the maths fast enough to do it in a game...

A GPU that supports normal mapping in hardware is set up to combine the textures and values very quickly. A system that lacks this hardware in the GPU can get the CPU to do it, or in the case of Wii I think a combination of TEV's and CPU. I'm really not sure. My guess is, from what we've seen, normal mapping will be applied in limited amounts. It won't have the universal environmental application that we've seen elsewhere - on the platforms that support normal mapping it's used absolutely everywhere in some titles! I'd have thought if Wii was up to that, some tacky developer would have thrown bumps over everything.
Click to expand...

plain and simple!

thanks:D
 
So does this new info leave the Wii GPU exactly the same is Flipper(feature set wise) with just faster clock speeds or is there somewhere in between Flipper and Xbox1 GPU that may have been added to Wii GPU?
 
I dunnon about new info, but everything to date points to GC graphics hardware, overclocked and potentially doubled up. There's been nothing substantial anywhere suggesting extra functions have been added to the TEV, and plenty to suggest the hardware has remained the same as GC's in operation.
 
Shifty Geezer said:
It can, but we don't know how quickly or efficiently. This is because all hardware can do normal mapping. Even an old 8 bit computer could. It's just a matter of calculating the maths fast enough to do it in a game...

A GPU that supports normal mapping in hardware is set up to combine the textures and values very quickly. A system that lacks this hardware in the GPU can get the CPU to do it, or in the case of Wii I think a combination of TEV's and CPU. I'm really not sure. My guess is, from what we've seen, normal mapping will be applied in limited amounts. It won't have the universal environmental application that we've seen elsewhere - on the platforms that support normal mapping it's used absolutely everywhere in some titles! I'd have thought if Wii was up to that, some tacky developer would have thrown bumps over everything.
Click to expand...

Go look at the new godzilla screens that came out you'd be surprised at how tacky the bm application is.
 
Shifty Geezer said:
I dunnon about new info, but everything to date points to GC graphics hardware, overclocked and potentially doubled up. There's been nothing substantial anywhere suggesting extra functions have been added to the TEV, and plenty to suggest the hardware has remained the same as GC's in operation.
Click to expand...


I really don't think there is anything substantial indicating either extreme. By either extremes I mean zero improvements vs. major improvements.
What I'm really wondering is ,if there is no shader improvement(we can eliminate that possible added feature of the check list) hypothetically is there anything else that might be have been added to a Flipper that would make the Wii GPU fit the description "better than Flipper but not as good as Xbox1 GPU"?
 
Shifty Geezer said:
It can, but we don't know how quickly or efficiently. This is because all hardware can do normal mapping. Even an old 8 bit computer could. It's just a matter of calculating the maths fast enough to do it in a game...

A GPU that supports normal mapping in hardware is set up to combine the textures and values very quickly. A system that lacks this hardware in the GPU can get the CPU to do it, or in the case of Wii I think a combination of TEV's and CPU. I'm really not sure. My guess is, from what we've seen, normal mapping will be applied in limited amounts. It won't have the universal environmental application that we've seen elsewhere - on the platforms that support normal mapping it's used absolutely everywhere in some titles! I'd have thought if Wii was up to that, some tacky developer would have thrown bumps over everything.
Click to expand...

you can not do normal map on the cpu.That is a per pixel instruction.
You calculate the lightning on the corner of the vertex (goraud shading),and interpolate it on the vertex,and it is a cpu possibly calculation,but after it you want to increase the scene complexity with integer caculation (bump mappin),without resource intensi (cpu,tnl engine) things.
 
if they add 8 stage to the TEV(there is no proof) thet have to mean 2 megs of texture cache.And that can make big diference for the pixture quality.

But I think untill now the WII graphics sdk is not brought to the sunlight by the N.
 
I'm beginning to wonder about the Wii's specs..why did Nintendo do anything at all if the potential improvements are so insignificant? Let's assume for a second that all the info is correct and there really is no big improvements. So why do anything from a technical standpoint what does it do for Wii devs. Surely the hardcore would not be satisfied with the Wii specs anyway,the potential casual audience won't care.Anyone who cares about specs in the end will not settle for a Wii.
 
As I remember from the doc,the biggest issue in the gc is the paletted textures.
If you load a paletted texture into the cache, you can not load a bump map.
 
ninzel said:
I'm beginning to wonder about the Wii's specs..why did Nintendo do anything at all if the potential improvements are so insignificant? Let's assume for a second that all the info is correct and there really is no big improvements. So why do anything from a technical standpoint what does it do for Wii devs. Surely the hardcore would not be satisfied with the Wii specs anyway,the potential casual audience won't care.Anyone who cares about specs in the end will not settle for a Wii.
Click to expand...

I'm still wondering what the empty space on the GPU (I think it was the GPU) is. I'm surprised no one has disected the Wii to find out. :|
 
Eteric said:
I'm still wondering what the empty space on the GPU (I think it was the GPU) is. I'm surprised no one has disected the Wii to find out. :|
Click to expand...

Maybe there is some very technical reason why 88MB(vs 40) of RAM had to added and clock speeds doubled but no other additions were made and that reasoning is beyond my understanding of game development. I guess any addition is good,but I just don't see the point of added RAM and upped clock speeds with no other additions?Who benefits enough from just some added RAM and doubled clocks to make it worth doing in the first place?
 
Eteric said:
I'm still wondering what the empty space on the GPU (I think it was the GPU) is. I'm surprised no one has disected the Wii to find out. :|
Click to expand...

i'm pretty sure someone did.

but i don't know if this would explain the die size of the GPU...btw..after 7 month i never heard of homebrew of anykind on the wii...maybe i missed some news...
 
theafu said:
Go look at the new godzilla screens that came out you'd be surprised at how tacky the bm application is.
Click to expand...

Are you looking at the huge screens? The huge screens have some kind of photoshop filter added to -- ironically -- make the screens look worst.
 
ninzel said:
I'm beginning to wonder about the Wii's specs..why did Nintendo do anything at all if the potential improvements are so insignificant? Let's assume for a second that all the info is correct and there really is no big improvements. So why do anything from a technical standpoint what does it do for Wii devs. Surely the hardcore would not be satisfied with the Wii specs anyway,the potential casual audience won't care.Anyone who cares about specs in the end will not settle for a Wii.
Click to expand...

I've been racking my brain over that for months. Aside from obviously being more cost efficient for Nintendo, I think that if they made something that was between Wii and 360/PS3, it would be harder for third parties to create assets that act as a middleground, and is just easier to use current gen. assets.

I dunno, I'm just guessing on everything. :p
 
I think you're making the problem way too complicated. The "A-RAM" in Gamecube was almost useless, and the Cube's biggest bottleneck was its small main memory pool (24 MB). Replacing the slow 16MB chip with its pathetic bandwidth of 81 MB/s with a 64MB chip with 3.9 GB/s isn't all that expensive and quick-fixes a major developer complaint. The main thing they were concerned about with the chips is the die shrink...maybe they fiddled with the memory controller and some minor hardware, but they didn't do much. However, more power is always better, and it appears that they found they could bump up both clockspeeds by 50% without much trouble. So they did. If you can get an extra 50% on your clockspeed with no effort, why would you say no?
 
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New Metroid Prime 3 pic on the left. Thoughts?
 
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