Wii U hardware discussion and investigation *rename

[Megadrive1988]

Here's a rather interesting post by blu on another forum (guess where from

U-GPU already has access to a split-mem architecture - 32MB edram, and 2GB of main ram. The first pool likely provides BW in the hundreds of GB/s. The second pool - a couple of tens of GB/s (i.e. from mid 20's to low 30's GB/s). Now, in contrast to the 360, the edram is very likely not a 'mere' framebuffer. That means that relatively small but often-used render targets might not need to be resolved to main RAM - they can sit in edram during their entire lifespan (alternatively, some write-only targets could sit entirely in main RAM - Xenos' memexport style). Long story short, in the average main ram BW will go essentially toward static texture assets and resolved large target (e.g. deferred shading g-buffers). But all read-modify-write fb BW will be covered by edram. As shown in practice by various platforms (360 being a good example), such a split could be very beneficent toward a balanced performance.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Given the 32MBs eDRAM is supposed to be from IBM, and given the tiny size of the Broadway cores, could we be looking at a single integrated chip with the CPU on the GPU? A discrete package for the CPU sounds fairly redundant to me.

 

[Megadrive1988]

Given the 32MBs eDRAM is supposed to be from IBM, and given the tiny size of the Broadway cores, could we be looking at a single integrated chip with the CPU on the GPU? A discrete package for the CPU sounds fairly redundant to me.

I would not be surprised, at all.

 

[ultragpu]

Unknown. The rumors from bg's camp say ~500-600+ gflops GPU (apparently an early dev kit was 576 gflops), I'm skeptical it's that much.

Nothing as far as flops have been released, or even rumored, as far as I'm aware. Only speculation.

Wonder if they would ever release that info, I guess we'll know once the specs of PS4 and xbox720 are announced.

 

[Megadrive1988]

Most of us know that Xbox 360's C1/Xenos GPU provides 240 gflops.

Yet I don't think I've seen anything concrete about PS3's RSX, where does it stand?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Wonder if they would ever release that info, I guess we'll know once the specs of PS4 and xbox720 are announced.

Nintendo will never release that info. There's no reason for anyone to release it. We might be lucky and get clocks. We might be very lucky and get shader counts. But realistically, we're not likely to ever learn more than SM4.0+ at xxx MHz, and maybe over the years we'll get some clues from dev comments as to underlying architecture.

 

[Megadrive1988]

Nintendo will never release that info. There's no reason for anyone to release it. We might be lucky and get clocks. We might be very lucky and get shader counts. But realistically, we're not likely to ever learn more than SM4.0+ at xxx MHz, and maybe over the years we'll get some clues from dev comments as to underlying architecture.

You're probably right about that, unfortunately.
-Postiing from my 3DS, as my PC is being used by a family member wanting info on a certain new product by Apple...

 

[XpiderMX]

And you'll no doubt will see them eventually. Currently you have to "settle" for multiplatform titles which are said to look better and/or render at higher resolution than PS3/XB360 counterparts while rendering the pads secondary screen, too (Assassin's Creed, Batman)

Well, webs reports that batman, AC3, fifa and other games have bad performance compared to ps3 versions.

 

[McHuj]

People on GAF are saying that the WiiU's power draw is rated as 75W peak, 45W typical. If that's the case, the GPU can't be that powerful.

If the GPU gets half "the power" and we're looking at a 40nm part, then it's probably around a 300 gigaflop GPU. Typical ATI 40nm GPUS, had a Gigaflops/W ranges of 12 (4770) to ~16 (5970).

Unless this thing got upgraded to a 28nm GPU, at least in terms of RAW power, it's not a whole lot more powerful then current gen consoles.

I'm sure thanks to more modern architectures in both GPU and CPU, they're getting much more efficient performance, but there's only so much you can do in a "typical 45W" power envelope.

 

[Sonic]

What is this TEV 2.0 rumor floating around?

 

[kalelovil]

If the GPU gets half "the power" and we're looking at a 40nm part, then it's probably around a 300 gigaflop GPU. Typical ATI 40nm GPUS, had a Gigaflops/W ranges of 12 (4770) to ~16 (5970).

Using a desktop graphics card does not make for a fair comparison though.
A better benchmark would be the embedded E6760 which achieves 576Gflops in 35W, or around 16.5Gflops per watt (and this figure would increase if it were using DDR3 memory or was part of an SoC).

 

[HolySmoke]

Judging by a live blog I'm reading, Nintendo just announced Black Ops 2 running in full HD.

If correct, and not the blogger mistaking it, that would make it ~3x faster than the Xenos in terms of pixel pushing.

 

[Brad Grenz]

The guy from Activision said full HD, but he looked coked out of his mind, so I wouldn't assume that means Full HD.

 

[Megadrive1988]

I'll bet BLOPS2 is 60fps @ 720p.

 

[GuestLV]

I'll bet BLOPS2 is 60fps @ 720p.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/368276/black-ops-2-on-wii-u-is-full-hd-60fps-triple-a-graphics/

Black Ops 2 on Wii U is 'full HD, 60fps, triple-A graphics'
Plus, New Transformers, Skylanders and James Bond projects announced

Too good to be true?

 

[Megadrive1988]

I suppose we'll find out what the actual resolution is, soon enough.


Everything I saw from the various Nintendo Directs and the NY conference looked pretty unimpressive. I'm guessing that these games were developed on early kits without the use of the final custom GPU and edram. Again, that's just my rather uninformed guess. I noticed low framerates, poor geometry and little if any AA. It all looked pretty bad actually, IMHO. Much of the footage looked less convincing to me than first-gen 360 and PS3 games from 2005/2006. Am I the only one with this opinion? Now I suspect that Mario (EAD Tokyo, not NSMBU), Metroid, the Retro game and Zelda in the coming months/years will show off what the system can really do.

 

[Karamazov]

a vast majority of people think that 720p is full hd.

 

[Grall]

I'd hope a games publisher would know the difference between 720P and actual full HD though.

 

[MDX]

I suppose we'll find out what the actual resolution is, soon enough.


Everything I saw from the various Nintendo Directs and the NY conference looked pretty unimpressive. I'm guessing that these games were developed on early kits without the use of the final custom GPU and edram. Again, that's just my rather uninformed opinion.

Can we also take into consideration the quality of the developers themselves?
A better console does not make a better development team. Take a look who
publishers put on the WiiU, from
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=41915631&postcount=6503 :

Today I stumbled across the info that Demiurge is doing the Aliens:CM Wii U version so I decided to create a little overview over how the ports of the current-gen games are being handled across the board.

Straight Right/Tantalus Media (Mass Effect 3)
Straight Right itself is still pretty young but they're a sister company to Tantalus Media who are an experienced port-studio, mainly doing handheld ports but also responsible for the Xbox version of Unreal II, for example.

WB Games Montréal (Batman Arkham City: Armored Edition)
no track record whatsoever (aside from a browser game) since it's a brand new studio

Demiurge Studios (Aliens: Colonial Marines)
Lots of Unreal Engine experience, started out by making a UT2004 mod, then helped out with the first Brothers in Arms games, the BioShock intro area, Mass Effect PC port + DLC, Arena Mode in Borderlands, Titan Quest, Rock Band.

Vigil (Darksiders II)
We haven't heard much from them regarding the Wii U version but from what they've talked about, they only have a small team from withing Vigil working on the game so no external port-house seems to be working on this.

4A Games (Metro: Last Light) (development on hold)
Let's not totally write this game off, even though it has been put on ice indefinitely. Apparently it was due to lack of resources which means it probably was worked on by 4A themselves again.

Ubisoft Montreal Studios (Asssassin's Creed III)
This is also ported in-house.

EA Canada (FIFA 13)
Also seems to be developed in-house.

EA Tiburon (Madden 13)
My Google search told me that the Wii U version is being handled by a dedicated team within EA Tiburon.

No offense to those working hard on getting these games out in time, but its not
like WiiU is getting all the 'A' developers to make games for its launch.

I also find it interesting that Nintendo did not reveal the look of Bayonetta2.
I would expect that to be a stunning looking game. Why is Nintendo holding back?

 

[Megadrive1988]

I also find it interesting that Nintendo did not reveal the look of Bayonetta2.
I would expect that to be a stunning looking game.

I would expect it to be so, indeed.

Why is Nintendo holding back?

Many reasons, I think. Perhaps they're holding back on their killer 1st/2nd party titles so that they have some ammo to face the coming Xbox3/PS4 onslaught.