Wii U hardware discussion and investigation *rename

When developers have a better grasp of the Wii-U's hardware, and if good budgets are applied, I see an exclusive Wii-U game turning out better than the best PS360 games. However I don't see the system magically keeping up with the PS4 & 720 or ever having any games that look as good. I'm not sure what you expect out of the Wii-U, so maybe a better understanding of your expectations would put some things into context.

If you're expecting the same improvement curve as we've seen this gen, you're going to be disappointed. If you expect 2nd gen Wii-U games to look as good or better than PS4/720 games, you're going to be disappointed. If you think the jump will also be minimal for PS4/720 launch titles (like they are with the Wii-U launch), you're going to be disappointed.

All IMO of course.

No, you don't "just do it". With a better understanding over a system, you take advantage of the strengths while doing what you could to work around the bottlenecks. Things don't just "click" for you and all of a sudden this vast wealth of possibilities opens up for you to just do.

 

I think you have a gross misunderstanding of how this technology works, which would explain why you haven't answered my question about what improvements you expect to appear.

 

What does one have to do with the other?

(And why would you port a Wii game--that probably uses the Wiimote to some effect--to a console without an equivalent control scheme?)

Some of us have come to accept that WiiU is a small bathroom and the next MS & Sony consoles will be large bathrooms. As such, you will have to downsize that large tub to accommodate the smaller bathroom, if by tub you mean multiplatform game, and by bathroom you mean console, and by analogy you mean to confuse us.

 

I am not saying that you snap your fingers and fairies magically appear and make games for you. What I am saying is instead of having to rework code, adjust this effect or edit this or that from a XBOX 360 or PS3 port you just go to what you want to do. That doesn't mean your work is done on the game. It is a major obstacle out of the way. You still have to make the game you just don't have to change things over from one thing to another.

As far improvements it, will be sharper, have more bur effects, different lighting and shading effects. Once developers get enough familiarity with it and build from the ground up.

I was using the analogy as far as porting like frome the XBOX 360 or PS3 . When working with different architectures of consoles games have to be reworked to get anywhere close to the full potential out of it. Who knows the Wii-U may be a small tub but, MS and Sony may have to rework their bathrooms the fit it. You never know what if, the Wii U was the main go to source for building games to be ported to the next MS or Sony Systems.

 

I highly doubt it since I would bet there is little code you could write on a WiiU that wouldn't run better on a machine with more, faster processors, a faster more modern GPU, more memory bandwidth.
I think that's what most expect from PS4/720.

Besides I think it's more likely that WiiU will be irrelevant for games outside of Nintendo titles inside 12 months than publishers mysteriously deciding to make it the lead platform.
It simply won't move enough units before PS4/720 ship to get that sort of attention.

 

I'm going to help redirect this thread back to the discussion and investigation

We know that this decision was due to BC, but besides that, are there any advantages for going with a 750-like design with eDRAM caches over using a newer architecture like the 476FP or POWER A2? I believe the CPU is actually clocked fast for its short pipeline, so is there some benefits to that?

 

Just like the Wii was irrelevant? Just like the Vita was gonna crush the 3DS? The Wii U will sale plenty. Although I am not an expert I know there is more than coding than power. Power has nothing to do with giving something a language that it will understand. If, that was the case how come there was such a hard time getting a port from XBOX 360 games to PS3? If, something is at least of equal or greater power it shouldn't have been a problem right?

 

Are you purposely being obtuse or are you just consistently missing the point and logic we are trying to bring to the thread?

How about you answer my question, what exactly do you think devs will accomplish with the Wii-U? Do you honestly believe it will keep up with the other next gen consoles?

What you should be asking yourself is if the Wii-U is so capable as you assume, why do devs need to reach the full potential of the system to outclass the PS360? If the leap in performance were there to begin with, devs wouldn't have to dig that deep to find it.

This isn't going to happen and is nothing more than a pipedream for Nintendo fans. Why would developers be asking MS and Sony for more power if they plan to lead development on the Wii-U? Why would MS and Sony even invest in new consoles if they thought next gen development would lead on the Wii-U?

No need to be so defensive. We can't compare the console market to the handheld market because Nintendo has had a history of dominating that market, not so with home consoles.

You have no idea how well or poorly the Wii-U will sell.

Beyond power, there's also the architecture that needs to be considered. Regardless of how close the PS3 and 360 seem on the surface, each system has strengths and bottlenecks that differ in some big ways. Besides, while we all do it at some point, you can't just measure the "power" of a system in such a general way. There are many things to consider when you look at how a system is expected to perform. So just because the PS3 and 360 produce similar results, that doesn't mean porting would be easy. That kind of question shows a level of naivety on your part.

 

Please don't stray off-topic. Just to clarify, though, ERP was talking about the success of third-party games and not the system itself. Time will tell if Nintendo will be able to satisfy third-party publishers for good support, be we already know that alot of publishers will be betting on Microsoft next consoles and the PS4 to a lesser extent at this time.

The issue with your comparison with the PS3 vs Xbox360 is that the PS3 is NOT several times stronger in every way than the Xbox360. In fact, the PS3 has a weaker GPU (half the triangle set-up, etc), so some GPU tasks has to be offset to its CELL processor to make up for it if you're doing Xbox360 -> PS3 ports. Its split memory compared to 360's unified memory apparently gave devs some issues too.

For the Wii U, it appears to have the opposite problem from the PS3 in some ways. From what we know, its CPU is clocked slower and do not have as many GFLOPS as either current-gen CPUs. The processor, however, is probably more efficient in some tasks, and the GPU has been stated to be overall stronger. We are still not sure on how much stronger it is at this time, but it is safe to assume that it is not an order-of-magnitude difference from 360's GPU.

The specs for the PS4/Durango have not been confirmed, but they will likely be over 8x more powerful than current-gen overall, and probably at least several times stronger than in almost everything than the previous systems (though probably not as theoretically as powerful as CELL in some ways.) That means that both will at least be several times more powerful than the Wii U and should be capable to outperform it in graphics by brute force alone.

Now.. it may probably be arguable on how much better some games will look due to diminishing returns, budget, and personal tastes. For early ports, we may see modern enchanted 360 games at higher resolutions and framerates .or simply the PC-versions ports. The point is that they should be superior in a technical level.

Looking at games at a technical level is different from looking at an appealing one. Mario Galaxy, for example, is a generation behind games for HD systems in many technical ways, but looking at it in another perspective will give you various opinions.

The people at Beyond3D generally discuss things at a technical level, so that is something to consider when you make statements that you may not be able to back up with technical knowledge.

 

The wii u could end up being the system developers target for next gen games.

Think about it , if the current rumors are true and the xbox/ps are delayed till 2014 Nintendo will have 2 years on the market alone. A $300/$350 wii u isn't selling that great now but a $250/300 wii u will sell better in 2013 and a $200/$250 will sell even better in 2014.

A larger install base will get developers excited. The engines they were building for the new ms/sony systems could be tweaked and ported to the wii u during this time and games can be made to run on the wii u esp games that targeted 2013 but will not have the proper hardware around to run them.

A 2014 sony/ms launch would also allow a 2016 or so launch of a new Nintendo system. So Nintendo with perhaps quirky controls and its stable of mega sellers could be left on its own while sony/ms battle it out

 

Until the next gen Sony and MS consoles come out Wii U is basically competing against XBox 360 and PS3 for third party interest. Even if Wii U becomes a smash hit it'll still take a few years before it has an install base that rivals the current gen consoles. Especially if this is all contingent on price drops that you expect to happen down the road, although I say Nintendo doesn't drop prices unless they have to and Nintendo is traditionally set against selling at a loss (which they claim they're already doing anyway). I don't think Nintendo will sink that kind of investment for third party support because I don't think Nintendo values third party support enough. If they did they would have done a better console.

So far developers are regarding Wii U pretty tepidly and are reluctant to port anything at all. It simply doesn't offer enough over the other consoles to make it a new baseline for future game development. What it does offer is going to be pretty specific to the console, like the controller.

 

But it is. NO launch games has shown anything the Wii U can do. im just asking you this question. do we not factor in the MAJORITY of launch games have been made in 6 months to a little over a year, they have been made with a B or C team as the A teams were working on ps360 version of that game, and they were made on not final dev kits.... do we not take that into consideration? Fifa developers said " it was a challenge it was something written for a different machine there is a lot of work getting it to work. there are different processors, CPU's and different libraries. one of the challenges is we have to pick a point in time where the code base is stable and bring it over." My problem is most gamers have doomed the Wii U without seeing what it can do. i dont believe there is one game we have seen so far that pushes the Wii U even a little bit.... thats not even including optimization and a ground up engine specifically for Wii U (obviously only 1st and 2nd party games). like i said before the majority of the gaming world would have said Halo 4 couldnt be done on 360 a couple years ago and look what we have now. yes im aware the studio had a massive amount of money to spend to make that game possible.

 

But having launch-multi-platform titles that don't perform better than 6 year old consoles is not a good way to start. Even more so when the hardware included doesn't require a large learning curve (as when the 360/PS3 came out.)

Lets not even talk about multi-platform. Lets talk about the new Monster Hunter 3G HD. Simple graphics that can run on 3DS with a little touch up and it's struggling to hit 40fps.

The problem here really lies in that a 2012 year product has trouble outperforming a 2006 product. I've used this analogy before and I'll use it again.

"Can you imagine Samsung making a *NEW* Galaxy series phone today that struggles to outperform the original iphone?"

Yes, it's that bad. Actually, it's worse, because the iphone debut was June 2007, and the twins were November 2005 and November 2006.

 

Bull. Wishful fanboy-thinking like that does not belong on a technical forum like B3D. While launch games aren't optimised for any new system they do put certain boundaries on performance. Also, Wuu should not be so hard to master that great amounts of its power remain untapped without a lot of optimisation.

In fact, we KNOW the Wuu is an underpowered piece of hardware. The entire system draws no more than 30ish watts (excluding optical drive and USB devices). The CPU is tiny, system RAM has half the bandwidth of consoles seven years old, and so on. There simply isn't the kind of resources to pull away from current consoles, performance-wise.

The only way it can really distinguish itself is by having a more modern GPU with more advanced features; its actual GPU performance is of course limited by the low power ceiling of the system (and also likely low system bandwidth.)

Desperately hoping for these things to not be so when they obviously are just that is just counterproductive and fannish.

 

Once again, keep the blind faith topics and discussions out of the technical forums.

 

I'm a grown man so im not going to get to get into a back and forth. Ive already been warned im going away from the forum topic. i didnt see it as foolish fanboy talk as i gave a direct quote from a developer that stated exactly what i was saying. its fine i will back off from posting now and wait until games designed to take advantage of the hardware and not rushed jobs are shown. then hopefully if i dont gen banned by this post I can come back and have another discussion.

 

IT IS NOT A DOUBLE STANDARD!

We also know that the WiiU only uses a small amount of power, has a CPU that is built on a process node of around the same size as the other consoles and that is not as big as the other consoles and thus is not likely to be as powerful as them.
Good PCs on the other hand have CPUs that are known to have many more transistors than the console CPUs, are made on better processes and have much higher IPC in game loads than consoles.

Claiming that because the PC can have poorly optimized games, all the trouble with WiiU games must be down to the same reasons, is false equivalency!

The WiiU is not going to get the install base of the 360 or PS3 in only a year or two and I would not call having the PS3 and 360 on the market being "alone".

 

You are using an open-ended phrase. What is 'anything'? Is Wii U only showing 10% of its capabilities, or 50%, or 90%? When you look at the architecture as we know it, there's nothing complicated to using Wii U, so there's no reason to think usage will be well below capabilities. Yes, 3rd parties may be being cheap, but clearly not everyone is, including Nintendo. Trine 2, for example, is showing improvements. There are some improvements that don't need understanding or effort but just performance, like MSAA, and the lack of such features tells is a decent bit about the capabilities of Wii U (not much above PS360). Your other post gives a better point of reference:

By sharper I guess you mean higher resolution. That's a matter of RAM, ROPS, etc., and not developer skill. If there isn't higher resolution in launch titles, there's not likely to be a big improvement there. There will be sharper textures as a result of more RAM. Lighting and shading, yes, they'll be somewhat improved as it's DX10 versus DX9, although probably not a massive improvement. DX9 is pretty capable. So yes, Wii U will look better in the end, as I've said before. It's just not going to be massively better - the laws of physics tell us this. The small, low-wattage parts in Wii U will not be comparable to large, hot parts in the next-gen consoles. There's no need to wait on Wii U games to learn that.

For the purposes of this thread, Wii U's launch titles are adequate to tell us there isn't a massive amount of performance in there, which would be obvious in launch titles on cross-platform engines (UE3) managing higher framerates and better IQ as a result of the potent GPU. We have a ball-park performance metric, die sizes, rumours/leaks about chip names and flavours....Wii U's launch titles don't bring anything more to the discussion, unless they are exhibiting a particular effect like higher quality DOF.

 

You are completely out of your depth here. You do not have the technological understanding to contribute to this thread. By all means hang around and learn and ask smart questions, but please don't derail this thread with off-topic and confused posts.

 

you brought up a good point. the early rumors stated the wii u was 50% more powerful than what we have now... my question is how powerful exactly is 50%. here is a quote from Iwata from an IGN article on Wii U power

"while exsiting platforms have engines that development teams have tuned and optimized for six to seven years after their respective launches, the Wii U is a new platform that has slightly different architecture and , since development teams have only just begun development on software for it, they are only at the "HALFWAY" point to utilizing its full potential."

does he there basically confirm Wii U is 50% more powerful than what we have and if so again how powerful is 50% more powerful.