Wii U hardware discussion and investigation *rename

[Grall]

From what I recall of the zelda tech demo it was absolutely nothing special, even for the time (which was well before PS360 were maxed out as much as they are now.) If anything, the japanese garden tech demo was a lot more elaborate and both technically and artistically impressive. If any game available for wuu actually looked like that, I don't think anyone would have complained (much).

 

[Ika]

From what I recall of the zelda tech demo it was absolutely nothing special, even for the time (which was well before PS360 were maxed out as much as they are now.) If anything, the japanese garden tech demo was a lot more elaborate and both technically and artistically impressive. If any game available for wuu actually looked like that, I don't think anyone would have complained (much).

Weren't those "tech demos" nothing but CGI renders?

Also could anyone here quickly recap me please what did all of you find out about the Wii-U in your "discussion and investigation"?. Many thanks in advance!

Another question what I would like to ask, is: I understand that the hardware itself is kinda out of the main stream now, but I wonder, will we see some technically impressive games like what Factor 5 did on the GC for example (or Retro's Metroid Prime or RE4, on the same platfrom etc... so something which pushes the metal to its limits)..... do we have a talented team working on something interesting/promising at the moment?

 

[Grall]

I'm not sure if the zelda tech demo was demonstrated to be realtime, but the japanese garden was, as you could pan around the scene with the wuublet IIRC. The garden demo didn't run on wuu hardware though so who can say if it would actually be possible to replicate on retail wuu units.

As for technically accomplished wuu games, the closest thing you're likely to see will probably be Bayonetta 2, if it ever comes out that is. It's massively delayed, and I suspect that's because it's being ported to other platforms like rayman was.

 

[Rodéric]

I'm not sure if the zelda tech demo was demonstrated to be realtime, but the japanese garden was, as you could pan around the scene with the wuublet IIRC. The garden demo didn't run on wuu hardware though so who can say if it would actually be possible to replicate on retail wuu units.

As for technically accomplished wuu games, the closest thing you're likely to see will probably be Bayonetta 2, if it ever comes out that is. It's massively delayed, and I suspect that's because it's being ported to other platforms like rayman was.

I thought Nintendo was funding that one, it could mean that quality wasn't up to Nintendo standard...

 

[Goodtwin]

I'm not sure if the zelda tech demo was demonstrated to be realtime, but the japanese garden was, as you could pan around the scene with the wuublet IIRC. The garden demo didn't run on wuu hardware though so who can say if it would actually be possible to replicate on retail wuu units.

As for technically accomplished wuu games, the closest thing you're likely to see will probably be Bayonetta 2, if it ever comes out that is. It's massively delayed, and I suspect that's because it's being ported to other platforms like rayman was.

Bayonetta 2 is funded by Nintendo, and Nintendo is the publisher, so in other words its never going to happen. Its a Wii U exclusive no matter what. Platinum has told people this on twitter more times that anyone cares to count.

The Zelda demo was rendered in real time, but at E3, you were limited on what you could actually do with the demo. You couldn't actually control Link. I will be the first to gush over Zelda, but like we have previously discussed it looks like some of the assets are stripped right out of Zelda TP, and applied better textures and shader effects. Its certainly seems very obtainable with what the Wii U hardware specs are believed to be.

 

[Ika]

I'm not sure if the zelda tech demo was demonstrated to be realtime, but the japanese garden was, as you could pan around the scene with the wuublet IIRC. The garden demo didn't run on wuu hardware though so who can say if it would actually be possible to replicate on retail wuu units.

As for technically accomplished wuu games, the closest thing you're likely to see will probably be Bayonetta 2, if it ever comes out that is. It's massively delayed, and I suspect that's because it's being ported to other platforms like rayman was.

Bayonetta 2 is funded by Nintendo, and Nintendo is the publisher, so in other words its never going to happen. Its a Wii U exclusive no matter what. Platinum has told people this on twitter more times that anyone cares to count.

The Zelda demo was rendered in real time, but at E3, you were limited on what you could actually do with the demo. You couldn't actually control Link. I will be the first to gush over Zelda, but like we have previously discussed it looks like some of the assets are stripped right out of Zelda TP, and applied better textures and shader effects. Its certainly seems very obtainable with what the Wii U hardware specs are believed to be.

Thanks!

Somebody told me that those demos were pre-calculated and that led me to believe that they were pre-rendered, my mistake, sorry. (I - sadly - did not have time in the last few years to follow console development). I didn't even know that interaction was possible, so I looked it up on Youtube and I agree, they are certainly look something like what a low end dx10 card could deliver at its best, but I also find it very fishy that the camera movement is so restricted in both cases, and the water in the garden demo was a bit too nice imho. Well, we will see how it goes, Thanks again.

 

[TheLump]

I'm not sure if the zelda tech demo was demonstrated to be realtime, but the japanese garden was, as you could pan around the scene with the wuublet IIRC. The garden demo didn't run on wuu hardware though so who can say if it would actually be possible to replicate on retail wuu units.

As for technically accomplished wuu games, the closest thing you're likely to see will probably be Bayonetta 2, if it ever comes out that is. It's massively delayed, and I suspect that's because it's being ported to other platforms like rayman was.

Zelda demo was realtime (you could alter lighting, pan the camera around etc). Wouldn't be my idea of a 'tech demo' if it was 100% pre-rendered

Neither ran on anything near retail wiiu hardware I don't think - they were from 2011 after all. They were running on Alpha dev kits at best (i'd heard rumours of pretty much off the shelf hardware clocked to replicate WiiU target specs). Theres nothing in either demo to suggest they are beyond WiiUs technical capablilties imo. Both looked nice in 2011, mind.

Bayonetta 2 is a Nintendo published/funded game so it's impossible for it to come out on other platforms in the near future. It also hasn't been delayed at all afaik - it was never even dated so they could hardly delay a TBC release date Has always been rumoured for 2014.

As far as other announced games which might push wiiU graphically - X looks like it has some nice graphical flourishes. I think we're going to see that the only real place where WiiU is going to shine above last gen is that it has more contemporary shader support. I don't think we'll be seeing "next gen" particle effects or spit-take inducing geometry/character models. Not without trade offs elsewhere.

 

[Goodtwin]

That Eurogamer article with the secret devs said that the dev kits never resembled off the shelf parts, so it was still done on early Wii U hardware. The misinformation about Bayonetta 2 is astonishing, seeing as how Platinum has spelled it out multiple times now. I have no idea where the idea came from that it was delayed. Its a Nintendo funded game, Nintendo would rather delay the game to make sure its polished than rush it out and have a buggy game. I guess that's one great thing about Nintendo, they don't release broken games. I will also be interested to see Shin'en's Fast Racing Neo. They have already said a few things, like using HDR lighting and deferred shadows, as well as 4k textures (not everywhere obviously). Shin'ens games are excellent, but they almost always feel like a bit of a tech demo as well. They go out of their way to pull off graphical effects others aren't or cant.

 

[creaks]

Well, Wii U is deficient in almost every 360 port it runs that I know of. So by your same argument, if it's really 352 GFLOP shouldn't Wii U be "murdering" 360 in straight ports?

If you ran straight 360/PS3 ports on XBO, it would murder them. Instead it's running "next gen" versions, and sometimes struggling, but that's not the same thing.

Beyond that, you're just into diminishing returns to some extent. Nothing on either PS4 or XBO could be argued to "murder" prior gen. Yet, at least.

It doesnt matter what the flops are. Flops are not comparable across architectures, as different architectures have different ways of arriving to the same floating point solutions. Before we could ever hope to make sense of flop performance if we ever DID find a number, wed need to normalize them before we could really get an idea of what we were looking at.

On one architecture, a square root could be a single cycle operation, on another, it could take 15 cycles.


Also, the wii u cpu runs at 1/3rd the clock speed but with a much higher ipc, and is far more efficient (as does ps4/xbone, but they also have 5 more cores). Its very different, and wasted performance, particularly in ports made by understaffed port teams who didnt write the original software are to be expected, even for systems far more powerful than the systems the games are being ported from.

Just look at the disaster that was the silent hill collection HD.

Its true the wii u cpu has no modern simd, and is still stuck with paired singles, whilst the 360 and ps3 still have impressive looking flop numbers. But, the situation is not as dire as many previously believed.

RAD game tools got bink 2 up and running fantastically on the wii u. In fact, it was a surprise to them. THey assumed that since the system had no modern sind, it would be stuck with bink 1, as over 70% of the data executed in a frame is pure simd.

Apparantly, that 750 is the little ppc core that could.

'Added Wii-U support for Bink 2 - play 30 Hz 1080p or 60 Hz 720p video! We didn't think this would be possible - the little non-SIMD CPU that could!'

Its certainly not a powerhouse, but its cpu is not a blackhole of simd performance either.

 

[yewyew]

Just look at the disaster that was the silent hill collection HD.

SH HD is the wrong example to use...

http://www.destructoid.com/silent-hill-hd-was-made-from-incomplete-code-228158.phtml

 

[Exophase]

It doesnt matter what the flops are. Flops are not comparable across architectures, as different architectures have different ways of arriving to the same floating point solutions.

On one architecture, a square root could be a single cycle operation, on another, it could take 15 cycles.

For the last several years FLOPs have pretty much been synonymous with FMUL + FADD (usually in some combined or fused form). Others like FDIV and FSQRT barely contribute to usage.

What's relevant isn't the nature of the FLOPs but how much other stuff gets in the way from utilizing them, and/or how many of them you waste on redundant operations.

 

[creaks]

Others like FDIV barely contribute to usage.

I bet intel is breathing a sigh of relief over that one.

 

[Exophase]

I bet intel is breathing a sigh of relief over that one.

But pretty much no one bothers doing a fast FDIV (comparatively speaking). Instead they do a fast reciprocal approximation instruction which you then refine with FMADDs, and choose how much to do depending on how much accuracy you need.

And that again is why most FP performance boils down to FMUL and FADD.

 

[creaks]

But pretty much no one bothers doing a fast FDIV (comparatively speaking). Instead they do a fast reciprocal approximation instruction which you then refine with FMADDs, and choose how much to do depending on how much accuracy you need.

And that again is why most FP performance boils down to FMUL and FADD.

Heh, it was just a gag about intels fdiv bug.

 

[Blazkowicz]

That's what you would use the wtf code in Quake 3 for?

float Q_rsqrt( float number )
{
	long i;
	float x2, y;
	const float threehalfs = 1.5F;
 
	x2 = number * 0.5F;
	y  = number;
	i  = * ( long * ) &y;                       // evil floating point bit level hacking
	i  = 0x5f3759df - ( i >> 1 );               // what the fuck?
	y  = * ( float * ) &i;
	y  = y * ( threehalfs - ( x2 * y * y ) );   // 1st iteration
//      y  = y * ( threehalfs - ( x2 * y * y ) );   // 2nd iteration, this can be removed
 
	return y;
}

 

[Goodtwin]

SH HD is the wrong example to use...

http://www.destructoid.com/silent-hill-hd-was-made-from-incomplete-code-228158.phtml

That is an extreme case, but keep in mind that for all ports to Wii U that have come out alongside the Xbox and PS versions, they too were working with incomplete code throughout the process. Games like Deus Ex and NFS resulted in higher quality, and I think thats because they were porting complete code from the first day they started the porting process. A port teams priorities arent going to be to take a prouduct and improve it, but to faithfully move that software onto another platform in a fully playable form that doesnt crash. Look how incomplete Batman Origins was for all platforms, game breaking bugs and glitches, the port team for the Wii U build was really supposed to deliver a better product than the original source code? Which they actually did in a way since the Wii U build didnt suffer from gaming ending bugs, but still had a lot of glitches.

 

[eastmen]

So at what point do you think Nintendo can put the wii u hardware inside the controller ?

I believe the wii u is built on 40nm. So could it be possible at 16nm ?

 

[Blazkowicz]

I would rather they use tech to make the controller a lot lighter, and/or they might improve the hardware in it for better standalone operation while staying backward compatible.

Wii U in the controller would be expensive for Nintendo to develop?, they need to find someone willing to shrink the Radeon 4000 series thing to 16nm, the IBM CPU would have to be integrated in there and then it would need to be crippled regarding bandwithes and latencies to keep the timings compatible (like the Xbox 360 shrink)
Loss of the BD drive means you have to make games on flash storage (ugh. not outlandish but there was a whole long thread to that) or depend on a box with BD and/or HDD beaming the data to the tablet anyway.

 

[eastmen]

I just got a wii u and i'm enjoying the controller a lot. Basicly enough that I would rather have the controller as the next handheld from Nintendo.

I'm just wondering if they'd be able to do it. Although maybe at that point an amd apu would work. Maybe a quad core puma with a small gpu for something like 10 watt tdp .

I just really like the damn controller lol

 

[Grall]

10W just for the APU is just way too much. An iPad is like...4-5W tops, for the whole unit, including BT/wifi radios, LCD screen, backlight and so on. You'd need a giant battery and fairly serious fan cooling to handle that. Would be expensive and heavy.