Wii U hardware discussion and investigation *rename

Is it possible the WiiU will have a single APU instead of separate CPU/GPU?

 

Well, just that it's hard to explain when looking at any reasonably recent GPU's. Pretty much only a downclocked RV730 would fit the bill.

Anyways I had forgot Wii U GPU docs supposedly specify DX10. Though I'm not totally ready to rule out this Xenos thing.

 

Every AMD/ATI graphics chip starting with R600 is a descendant of Xenos.

 

Not news, but this podcast discussion of the relative power of the Wii and the dev tools was interesting. I'm a bit bummed that we probably won't even get the 'best' version of multi console ports during the brief window where the Wii is the newest console.

http://cruncheons.podbean.com/2012/06/13/cruncheons-31-e3-2012-tablets-strategy-diablo-iii-redux/

Skip to 1 hour, 11 minutes.

 

No. They dont include EDRAM. And AFAIK the structure is quite different as well.

I meant fairly direct offshoot, anyways.

 

If you think edram is what defines Xenos then even Yamato (Adreno) is not a descendent. Many parts have been completely replaced, but Tahiti is an evolution of Xenos let alone the parts that came before Tahiti.

 

The rops on EDRAM etc make it quite different, yes.

AFAIR, the R600 line wasn't even particularly similar to Xenos. Let alone Tahiti.

At some point you can say everything is an evolution of everything by your logic.

 

yup

If the Wii U has 2-3xGPU in every way vs Xenos it makes no sense to see these ports running at similar resolution and framerates even with minimal gamepad use. If the system is bandwidth starved like current consoles it makes no sense for there to be 3xGPU powaf in the first place

The Eurogamer PC was the minimum perfomance Wii U should have delivered in a closed box. 4x current gen, doable for £199 system these days http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/df-hardware-introducing-the-digital-foundry-pc

 

Most things are evolutionary. Xenos or rather R400 which never shipped was as clean of a slate as exists. I worked on R600 and it started from the Xenos code base. Some things like the memory controller, SP's and sequencer were completely different, but the overall graphics pipeline was similar in a lot of ways and used a lot of Xenos code.

 

Well while cheap that set-up sucks quiet some juice.
The CPU has a tdp of 65 Watts the GPU should be around 80 Watts (guru3d figures).

Still that article tells us something interesting, Intel CPU are crazy fast even low parts. Definitely to sustain 30FPs in most cases within the same power budget an dual core AMD CPU would have done the trick too. Modern X86 dual cores are plenty fast, fast enough to not be a bottleneck @30fps at least. Looking at (real) next gen, that sounds promising

Nintendo set themselves crazy limits for sake of having a really tiny box... imho that was unreasonable. They also have to save money for the controller.
What the WiiU is doing within those constrains is maybe impressive but I expect nothing from the core crown aside being underwhelmed by the whole thing.

 

They're trying to set themselves apart in an era where mobile devices are progressively encroaching on territory traditional hardware platforms used to occupy. The alternative would pretty much have been to try and one-up Sony and Microsoft with a much larger big-guns console, which probably wouldn't have worked. Instead they try to play on their percieved strengths, which are highly playable rather than technically superb games. Many mobile games also have the same approach; playability over technical prowess (although developments towards better graphics are ongoing of course, as evidenced by Horn for example)

Also, Japanese people alledgedly prefer small home electronics, alledgedly due to smaller japanese homes compared to american dwellings in particular. ...And since Nintendo is a heavily Japanese company at its core...

 

I do agree they are trying to find their place and that's a clever move. I'm not sure that it's good idea for Sony to try to go head to head with MSFT either.

BUT a slightly bigger case may have allowed for more power and possibly the use of more off the shelves part (with possible positive impact on costs and on R&D). If not bigger a different form factor may have helped.
I think that the form factor of the gamecube could have helped for example as it allows for more solid cooling solution.

To give an idea I believe they could have fit something like a trinity or llano part into something like a gamecube (or close) you have room for a sane cooling solution. AMD is needing all the money it can get, they may have done them a good deal. They may have save significantly in R&D. As far as editors is concerned it would definitely have helped too.

It might still be to expansive. I don't know how much AMD would ask for say a trinity with one module disable (so two cores) and a sane amount of SIMD active (say at least 4 out of 6).
But that not really my point, my point is that the design (tiny and flat) was definitely setting big restriction on the choice Nintendo could do as far as hardware is concerned.

 

I can only assume that they hope that sticking to the same-ish (slightly larger) form factor and basic appearance as the Wii will lend them some goodwill, since the wii was pretty much universally considered a success from a visual point of view.

 

Which was stupid, since it was a plain rectangular box. Looked exactly like a OEM PC DVD drive in white to me, more or less. The kind you buy at newegg for $20.

And hailed for it's looks, sigh.

 

Wii looks great, IMO. Very simple and stylish. Clearly Apple-inspired, in that almost all unneccessary features have been removed. What I miss from Wuu is the ability to stand it on its side, to take up less desk space. That was a great feature (which Sony pioneered, and kudos to them, although I found the PS2 absolutely hideous the first time I saw it.)

 

never mind then

 

Looks pretty slick to me....



This looks slick too.

 

sony had something of a inspiration (this is maybe the last computer atari tried to make)

 

Can the Wii U CPU be based on Power7?

 

we know some things about the Wii U CPU.
low power, matches the current consoles CPU, much better for general code but with lower peak performance.

based on Power7? no.