Wii U hardware discussion and investigation *rename
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There was a rumor of it being "indefinitely postponed", and Wii U's sales are so abysmal that I can't see any third party investing in it 6 months from now if there isn't a historic turnaround. I guess that last statement might have been a bit much, though at the current rate they're going to miss their revised forecast by about a million. Besides, with the game being the technical mess it is, I don't feel that they game should be used to judge any console.
Inuhanyou
Veteran
The ram aspect was my viewpoint, but we did have a debate in here about that.
Higher resolution textures, lighting and draw distance are all enabled by a larger amount of ram.
Applies for just the textures.
From the demo I think I noticed a lot of surfaces reflecting the surrounding area, not just lights. This seems to be missing in the 360 version. Worth discussing?
Yes, I meant to say a more modern tessellation unit. Afaik, Latte is rumored to house a fixed function unit, (ala the 360) but doesn't require explicit vertex fetches, rendering cracks have also further been reduced. When I speak of software at E3, it is certainly not conjecture. There are only 2 examples because proper documentation was not available before November, & Frozenbyte simply spent more time optimizing their engine to better exploit aspects of the Wii U hardware.
Nintendo's most recent SDK is still immature. Toolchains, developer customer support contracts, compilers, various language support that allow for access to its unique PPC-based architecture, etc. These are still very much in their infancy. So I'm sure you can understand this, as well as its direct implications for multi-platform software development. Rayman Legends should further showcase these enhancements in Sept., especially since its the lead platform.
Again we are discussing ported software, non-proprietary developed engines. In all likelihood using the 360 as the base platform. Its akin to looking at the PS3 ME3 port vs. the 360 & thinking “Is this all the system is capable of?” Not at all representing an accurate capability metric when viewing the software output of Naughty Dog or Santa Monica Studios. The titles I have knowledge of were built from the ground up, utilizing proprietary engines built specifically to exploit the Wii U's hardware strengths.
Who here is making the Wii U out to be more than what it is? I'm in total agreement with you regarding the theoretical specs. I am well aware that mirroring the screen incurs no performance penalty, I merely brought this system aspect up. Although mirroring & allowing for seamless & instantaneous changes to the game world, (as in NFS) as well as assisted car control (drifting etc.) is a bit disingenuous to label as a simple mirror, ala Tekken TT. Regardless I believe that Black Ops II was simply a starting point, & these asymmetric gameplay experiences will only further be refined. (certainly for 3rd parties as Nintendo’s API matures) Also all game scenarios will vary by complexity & implementation, so yes it is indeed a bullet point for the system.
I also recognise the Wii U's weaker central processor, albeit not as inept as previously thought. I stated as much a very long time ago here. (despite being of a very GPU-centric design) That is why I qualified the statement by saying "overall more capable system." It was not meant to be a point-by-point comparative evaluation of power vs. the current HD twins, as all systems have their deficiencies. Exotic, or rather unorthodox designs can vary by degrees. (yes the PS3’s Cell architecture had slipped my mind) And your description of Latte being an RV700 derivative with custom arrays “bolted on” as if an afterthought I found quite telling. It’s a tad more complex than your oversimplified GPU analysis. Anyhow I hope David Hegalson’s, CEO of Unity, words ring true: http://www.cinemablend.com/games/Interview-Why-Unity-Engine-Good-Fit-Wii-U-47173.html
Again with the magical ram enabling all effects. I believe you have been corrected twice now, excluding myself. Why you persist along this incorrect line of thought is puzzling, your agenda perhaps?
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Very interesting. Perhaps this was the feature of AMD's Gen-2 Tessellation unit for the R700 series that was not used outside of a demo, or it may be enhancements of the older Tessellation unit that AMD improved for just for Latte.
Ok, I was thinking if we assume that we're are homing in the rough ballpark specs of the Wii U as this article presumes, especially with regards to the power of the Wii U's GPU being roughly a cut down version of the HD4670.
It's easy to know what the capabilities of the graphics card are. I remember being able to play Batman Arkham Asylum at a decent 30 frames at 1280x800 (roughly 720p) with a few stutters later in the game. What about the CPU though? What could we compare that with to get an idea of it's actual capabilities. On paper it looks like an archaic design straight from 1998 when pentium II were the mainstream cpu's, but I'm pretty sure IBM would not use a design that is over 14 years ignoring all the progress in the cpu tech in those years. It may have much in common with that design, but it surely is improved a lot? If we compared it to say one athlon core in an athlon dual core processor then assuming all the three cores in the wii u's cpu were utilized fully then it would be roughly about a 2.0ghz athlon dual core. I'm no processor designer though so I have no idea whether it's significantly better or worse than that.
It's easy to know what the capabilities of the graphics card are. I remember being able to play Batman Arkham Asylum at a decent 30 frames at 1280x800 (roughly 720p) with a few stutters later in the game. What about the CPU though? What could we compare that with to get an idea of it's actual capabilities. On paper it looks like an archaic design straight from 1998 when pentium II were the mainstream cpu's, but I'm pretty sure IBM would not use a design that is over 14 years ignoring all the progress in the cpu tech in those years. It may have much in common with that design, but it surely is improved a lot? If we compared it to say one athlon core in an athlon dual core processor then assuming all the three cores in the wii u's cpu were utilized fully then it would be roughly about a 2.0ghz athlon dual core. I'm no processor designer though so I have no idea whether it's significantly better or worse than that.
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We probably shouldn't assume that. The DF article is worthless. "We told you so", yet nothing they wrote makes sense. The GPU doesn't look like a HD4670 at all, cut down or otherwise. The shader clusters make no sense, what they've identified as TMUs doesn't really look like TMUs, and we have no idea where the ROPs are, let alone how many ROPs there are. The only blocks we can identify without any doubt are the shader clusters, and neither their size nor the number of register files matches what you'd expect from an R700.
And while the CPU definitely is a member of the 750 family, Nintendo 750s are no 1998 designs to begin with. They were always quite different, with several new features and a heavily extended instruction set. Despite their age, they seem to keep up extremely well with more modern designs.
...Compared to what? Powerpc PPE designs as in cell and xenos, possibly. On integer workloads anyway and likely because of the OoOE support. Any recent x86 is going to stomp all over the G3-derivative that is in GC/Wii/Wuu simply by function of being over ten years more recent in design.
Wuucpu's achilles heel is total lack of SIMD support of course. Unless Nintendo snuck something to that effect in there literally without telling anyone about it that is... It's incomprehensible how they could order a CPU without SIMD in this day and age. Unbelievable!
Blazkowicz
Legend
What about old x86?
Pentium 3 was nice. Dual P3 rigs definitively killed the dinosaur workstations (sparc, mips, alpha) plus it competed nicely as a single CPU against the gekko in the console space.
If you duck taped three Pentium 3 together it would probably compete against the Wuu CPU.
Compared to some recent x86 netbook cpus.
True. Just imagine what a sad bunch those recent netbook x86 cpus would've been if those ancient G3s had the slightest resemblance of a SIMD unit. *shudders at the thought*
Sad bunch? I think a 2GHz Atom can easily hold its own against a < 1.25GHz G3 with "real" SIMD added..
In fp SIMD? Well, we'd have to decide what the 'real' SIMD added to the G3 would be. Are you ok with AltiVec?
Wouldn't just have to define the ISA, would also have to define the execution units of the processor and the problem at hand..
For instance if it's FMADD heavy work and it has 1 vec4 FMADD unit the Atom could probably keep up, if it's 2 vec4 FMADD units then maybe not.
I have access to a 7447A, which should be as close to the Atom on paper as it gets - 7447's SIMD cluster is entirely in-order, including permutes, with a sole FMADD unit (actually, a sole FP SIMD unit).
Interesting WebKit app framework for WiiU:
https://gdc2013.nintendo.com/
They have free tools to convert an iOS Xcode app to WiiU Web Framework app.
https://gdc2013.nintendo.com/
They have free tools to convert an iOS Xcode app to WiiU Web Framework app.
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