Question about the performance of Wii
- Thread starter Flux
- Start date
On a more serious note: I remember asking about interlaced rendering awhile ago, and DeanA (not sure if he's still at Ninja Theory) had the following response:
I thought DeanA was never at NT. He was (is?) at SCEE Cambridge working on technologies.
If you ran games at 5 fps, Wii games would look stunning on a frame by frame basis. Plain and simple the Wii is an underpowered machine IMHO however it the vain of going after casuals and non gamers and providing a cost effective inexpensive approach, Nintendo has only succeeded in the highest of terms. Only thing is they can't do this next time around, even the casuals will have high expectations.
keptcopsup
Newcomer
I don't think running it at 5FPS would make that big of a difference. The Wii's limited RAM is something you couldn't get past by just cutting the FPS, same with the far simpler GPU, there's a lot of effects you couldn't get on Wii without rendering an image for seconds, minutes, or hours off the CPU to emulate nice shader effects.
Maybe he left around the time when Just Add Monsters changed their name?
I guess so. When he arrived here it was DeanA at SCEE Cambridge when NT moved in next door, so if he worked on KFC there must have been a move.
Well I was being sarcastic about the idea of getting 360 like graphics on the Wii. But yeah you could technically render ANYTHING on the Wii just be prepared to wait a long time for the rendering to finish frame by frame XD
Well there is always the option of only rendering as much as you can (v-sync turned off). A more graceful variation of this is "dithering" the rendering over the screen if the renderer can predict it's not going to be able to make a full screen, within the frames allotted time. I don't know to what extent this is possible on the Wii.
The Wii is plenty powerful for what it does. It can be argued whether you get enough for your money, compared to the other two consoles. But, I'm not complaining. The Wii has been my best buy since my trusty old N64 in terms of pure fun.
A portable console at that price with those specs would be killer. Why are we really complaining? Good art overcomes all technical limitations.
The Wii is plenty powerful for what it does. It can be argued whether you get enough for your money, compared to the other two consoles. But, I'm not complaining. The Wii has been my best buy since my trusty old N64 in terms of pure fun.
A portable console at that price with those specs would be killer. Why are we really complaining? Good art overcomes all technical limitations.
Well Wii has so far been a big dissappointment for me, it's typically relegated to GC games rather than Wii stuff, same with my PS3 which I've been playing PS1 and PS2 stuff on lately. I can't argue with their success, it's proven and here to stay but I can argue with them being cheap-asses and letting me down in many ways this generation.
keptcopsup
Newcomer
I don't think even the 360 and PS3 are plenty powerful for what they do, games. I mean, I accept where we are technically now, but I'd always like to see more.
Of course a portable console at the same price and those specs would be killer, but that doesn't make a good argument for the Wii's specs. Why would anyone complain? Basically hardware that's 8 years old coupled with a price fit for a more modern device.
I don't see why people argue the 'good art' angle. You'll never have a Wii game that looks as good as a competent 360 or PS3 game, even with both good art AND good coding. Good art versus bad art is the difference between Perfect Dark Zero and Bioshock.
Of course you can always have better hardware, I too am interested in that, else I wouldn't be here.
But the curve for potential improvement to the actual graphical complexity and "realism" of the graphics (and even more when i comes to gameplay) is getting steeper and steeper.
Unless some great breakthrough in computer science happens, it will take decades to get to where for example Pixar movies are today, and they aren't even looking real enough to fool anyone.
The most important thing when it comes to how a game looks is art. Always have been, always will be. Even with the simplest hardware good art shines through, because it plays with, instead of against the grain of the tool used.
The real scope for improvement is in the interface and just as important (perhaps much more important) in a change of attitude toward games and gamers, both from the side of devs and publishers, and from the side of consumers.
Remember old arcade games, in the golden era? Everyone used to play those, because they where easy to learn, hard to master and even harder to put down.
Remember Lucas Arts adventures? Women and men alike, played those, they were deep and involving, but not complicated or foreboding.
Both of these categories of games have timeless classics in them, that are every bit as good today, as they were back then (perhaps even more because of the added veneration for an old thing that still shines).
Try to look at the technical argument the other way around.
Imagine a dev. coming straight from the GC to Wii.
Suddenly he's able to do stuff he never was quite able to do with GC, because of oversights in the design and stupid bottlenecks.
Suddenly he's not held back by 24 Mb.
Wii is the GC hardware done right. It's the GC hardware reworked after 5 years of experience.
A design that was already damn efficient and lean, an in many cases more than gave the much more expensive (to manufacture) kludge of a design; xbox, a run for its money.
Also, devs are familiar with the design (some more than others), that is a very big plus.
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keptcopsup
Newcomer
Of course, but the difference between 360/PS3 games and Wii games are still huge graphically.
Compare a movie like Toy Story 1 to Ratatouille. There's some nice improvements, however I don't feel there's a world of difference there. I believe the 'curve' actually lies mostly around that level of CG. That said, I think we could probably make a game that emulated (not every effect done the same way, but close enough) most of the nice things about Toy Story within a decade. The thing is, the reason Pixar movies don't look real is because they stylize. Take a really nice screenshot of GT5P at a good angle (one that won't show many faults) and you could pass it off as reality.
Art is really nice, it makes Robotron 2084 an appealing game for me, today. However you won't get Crysis graphics on a NES no matter how masterful your artists are.
Well if you're referring to the Wiimote, I don't feel it does enough for a real interface revolution. I do believe in that direction lies some important gains for games, but I feel there are technical breakthroughs required.
These games still exist on all platforms, stuff like Geometry Wars are huge hits too. There will probably always be room for those types of games, but we've already 'done that' as far as gameplay.
Again, another 'done that'. Personally I don't really like the adventure genre, not intuitive enough. Anyone can click their character around and mess around until they get a part right. Too much 'Pour the milk on the pirana plant so he becomes hungry for the mutagen which will make him eat the angry dog.'
Classic gameplay, nothing to do with graphics. A nice sheen of new graphics on old gameplay is always nice.
That same developer would have less technical constraints on more powerful hardware though. The real issue about Wii is learning to use the Wii's motion controls in a new and worthwhile way. Many developers are more than happy enough to simply cash in on the market by making the latest movie based game on the platform (as well as on PS2).
I'm still very much at odds for what Nintendo chose to do hardware wise. While I don't think they needed to go after the PS3/360-ish level of capabilities, I think it would've been in more people's best interest for a more powerful machine, which was fully within reach of still being profitable at a $250 price point in the US. Basically there could be no real excuse for alot of these developers to make shovelware games that look/run the same on the PS2 and Wii both. I think a much faster version of the Wii's PowerPC 750CL derived processor was in order (and even still the chip is said to be stable upwards of 1.1 GHz, not just 729 MHz), something that is compatible but much more current in terms of capabilities. As for RAM, I think a good system could've been built with 128 MB of total RAM, and as for the graphics I'd stick with the GC style GPU, but on a larger scale with I guess you could say a "doubled/tripled up" pipeline system and larger embedded memory with built in 720p support. I can continue to dream, but such isn't the case, however we can speculate the next system they have planned.
No not really, the jump is much less than the jump last gen, from N64 to GC.
Art is really nice, it makes Robotron 2084 an appealing game for me, today. However you won't get Crysis graphics on a NES no matter how masterful your artists are.
Well if you're referring to the Wiimote, I don't feel it does enough for a real interface revolution. I do believe in that direction lies some important gains for games, but I feel there are technical breakthroughs required.
These games still exist on all platforms, stuff like Geometry Wars are huge hits too. There will probably always be room for those types of games, but we've already 'done that' as far as gameplay.
Again, another 'done that'. Personally I don't really like the adventure genre, not intuitive enough. Anyone can click their character around and mess around until they get a part right. Too much 'Pour the milk on the pirana plant so he becomes hungry for the mutagen which will make him eat the angry dog.'
Classic gameplay, nothing to do with graphics. A nice sheen of new graphics on old gameplay is always nice.
That same developer would have less technical constraints on more powerful hardware though. The real issue about Wii is learning to use the Wii's motion controls in a new and worthwhile way. Many developers are more than happy enough to simply cash in on the market by making the latest movie based game on the platform (as well as on PS2).[/QUOTE]
keptcopsup
Newcomer
Well that's just your impression of it. The costs of PS3 and 360 are higher than previous generations, and I feel they were more 'ahead of the curve' than previous generation consoles technically, and my impressions of the systems have been that the jump is about the same, maybe a little bigger maybe less. This was a discussion about the performance of the Wii, so let's leave any subjective opinions out of this.
No not really, the jump is much less than the jump last gen, from N64 to GC.
There is more than one reason why they stylize in every single movie they've made (apart from it being more charming and working better on a psychological level).
13 years after TS we're still not even approaching the level reached with the renderfarms of back then. There is a huge difference between having predictable scenes, with minutes or hours of rendertime per frame, to having one 60th of a second to do the same on affordable hardware.
Art is really all there is, the choice of medium and tools is really also an artistic choice on some level.
A console has to be affordable above all else to succeed. PS3 proves that for any doubters. Within the limits of the budget the wiimote is probably the best that could be done right now.
It's basically what the mouse was for the personal computer. Negating the need for lots of buttons and sticks, just point and click.
There is plenty of room for "that" within the realms of modern 3d graphics. I would argue that "simple" concentrated games like that are far closer to the real heart of hardcore, far closer to what realtime videogames are really (or should really) be all about.
It's still the best examples of true interactive fiction there has ever been, whether you like it or not is of little consequence.
So you would argue that, let's say the Bayeux tapestry, would be better with realistic pictures instead of the style they're in now?
Style and medium is an integral part of any good piece of art (and I don't hesitate calling some the classic "real", considering what is passing as art today).
A lot of the time constraints is a good thing (tm).
A lot of artists voluntarily puts constraints on themselves, to better focus their creativity and to "celebrate" the nature of the medium.
There are very few gameplay ideas that you couldn't fit on Wii. The reverse is not true.
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