WiiGeePeeYou (Hollywood) what IS it ?

[Teasy]

Well that comment will always likely be true because it's relative to the other consoles out at the time. In other words, whatever technology MS has available, Sony & Nintendo have access to it as well. And of course vice versa. This is especially true since IBM/ATI did work for both MS & Nintendo. I.e. it's not as if Nintendo was going to get some sort of Alien technology or that MS was going to ask for an engineering disaster.

Wii could be twice as powerful as it is and still not even begin to get close to powerful relative to 360 or PS3 though, so its not really an issue here. Though I still don't agree with it (hence my sig) but its not the best place to discuss it so..

Fair enough. I just don't think it's safe to assume that Nintendo could have gotten a much more powerful console in that case.

We're talking about 17w, the case is small but its not that small.. After all nobody batted an eye lid when we all thought Wii used 50w. Because it seemed perfectly plausable that a system of Wii's size could use somewhere around that kind of power without causing any heat problems (Mac Mini uses about 50w, as do various powerbooks ect).

 

[Fox5]

Wii could be twice as powerful as it is and still not even begin to get close to powerful relative to 360 or PS3 though, so its not really an issue here. Though I still don't agree with it (hence my sig) but its not the best place to discuss it so..



We're talking about 17w, the case is small but its not that small.. After all nobody batted an eye lid when we all thought Wii used 50w. Because it seemed perfectly plausable that a system of Wii's size could use somewhere around that kind of power without causing any heat problems (Mac Mini uses about 50w, as do various powerbooks ect).

17W is most likely not the wii's max power consumption. The wii likely can go higher, probably 30W to 40W in a game that truly stresses it and is online enabled.

BTW, the Wii has some much spit and shine (auto calibrating controllers, a slick interface, the fact that the controllers work as well as they do, flawless backwards compatibility) that it's no surprise it costs $250. Like Apples, it may not have much hardware punch, but you can still there is a lot of other hard work put into it.

 

[[maven]]

(Mac Mini uses about 50w, as do various powerbooks ect).

The original Mac mini (1.2 Ghz G4, Radeon 9200 w/ 32mb, 512mb RAM, 2.5" HDD) uses 18W during normal usage, and a maximum of 30W under full load...

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

Fair enough. I just don't think it's safe to assume that Nintendo could have gotten a much more powerful console in that case.

Than again you have laptops wich probably have even less space for hardware but are faster than alot of desktop pc's. Though they cost a fortune thats besides the point. So I wouldnt be suprised if Wii could be alot faster in the same case. GC had top notch hardware when it came out and it also had a small case.

 

[Techno+]

hey look

http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/nintendo-revolution1.htm

it mentions the wii GPU having 32 shader pipes, hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

 

[thejeek]

hey look

http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/nintendo-revolution1.htm

it mentions the wii GPU having 32 shader pipes, hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

If it does, all current games are leaving 28 of them idle...

 

[StefanS]

The article also mentions 64 MB external 1T-SRAM which we all know is in reality GDDR3. So I wouldn't put too much faith in it.

 

[sfried]

Someone, for the sake of science, pop the heatspreader off the chip and put a picture online now! What's taking so long

I'm seconding the request. Somebody steal SmashMyConsole's broken Wii.

 

[Teasy]

I'm seconding the request. Somebody steal SmashMyConsole's broken Wii.

Not a bad idea actually, someone email them and ask if they still have the peices lying around anywhere and if they wouldn't mind doing some more damage. This time to Hollywoods heatspreader

 

[sfried]

Anyways, not to backtrack into spec-ulation...

I recently saw Wii Sports in motion (lots of nice depth-of-field and really nice lighting, despite the simplistic presentation), and I was wondering if Broadway does some sort of "semi"-subsurface scattering? I noticed it in some of the shots of Super Mario Galaxy, where at the edges of Mario's skin definately seems lighter/highlighted. If not, I was wondering if there was/can be some sort of trickery used to achieve to the same effect as regular subsurface scattering (think of all the possible rendering shortcuts you can...I was thinking of using Broadway's lighting pipeline as a basis rather than letting the GPU crunch up numbers all by itself)?

 

[Ty]

Than again you have laptops wich probably have even less space for hardware but are faster than alot of desktop pc's. Though they cost a fortune thats besides the point.

Actually that gets right back to the argument I'm making. Small, powerful, cheap - you can have two but not all 3. Those laptops are small & powerful but not as you admit, cheap.

So I wouldnt be suprised if Wii could be alot faster in the same case. GC had top notch hardware when it came out and it also had a small case.

Just about every console, when they launched, was top notch. Yes, the GCN is small, but that's partly due to not having to use a standard DVD/CD rom drive AND the lack of an internal power brick. Ever seen the original PS2 motherboard? It's really not that large, even at that process.

http://www.freezeepop.com/takinapart/ps2.html

Don't get me wrong, I think the GCN is one of the most elegant if not THE most elegantly designed systems created especially when compared to the clunky Xbox. Yet this time around, the major partners, IBM & ATI are working for both MS & Nintendo, so I wouldn't expect one to be that much better than the other when it comes to elegance & efficiency.

As to how much more powerful they could have made the Wii? I have no idea and anyone here outside of engineering types is just speculating.

 

[pc999]

Well from a consumer standpoint in terms of cost vs. "power", you're certainly better off getting a 360 or maybe even a PS3 so I can't disagree with you there. But you have to remember, that both MS and Sony are subsidizing the true cost of their consoles.

Not really my point, what I mean is that they could keep the price and size, go up to the 35-50W in use and put 2-3x the memory and die size (eg1 that could easly mean a dual-core or/and a VMX array, very helpfull for rendering, physics, animation...; or just have some dedicated HW for such tasks; eg2 something as easy as 2-3x (just to not go anyhere near high, as 1/2 of flipper die size is edram) the fillrate, TEV unists, have vertex shaders or more TnL units, a better dsp for sound...) that they would still make proffit.

Once they could have done that, it means this console is way overpriced even if not compared to the others.

 

[Oblivion]

Not really my point, what I mean is that they could keep the price and size, go up to the 35-50W in use and put 2-3x the memory and die size (eg1 that could easly mean a dual-core or/and a VMX array, very helpfull for rendering, physics, animation...; or just have some dedicated HW for such tasks; eg2 something as easy as 2-3x (just to not go anyhere near high, as 1/2 of flipper die size is edram) the fillrate, TEV unists, have vertex shaders or more TnL units, a better dsp for sound...) that they would still make proffit.

Once they could have done that, it means this console is way overpriced even if not compared to the others.

Yeah, seriously. There's a difference between being frugal and just being jerks.

 

[Oblivion]

hey look

http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/nintendo-revolution1.htm

it mentions the wii GPU having 32 shader pipes, hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Haha, what a garbage article. It mentions how Nintendo's not going for processing power, yet says right after that a lot of it is comparable to 360.

 

[Megadrive1988]

for very little cost, Nintendo could make a massive leap from Wii's Hollywood GPU to Wii2 GPU just by having a GPU that is concidered midrange by PC standards in 2011. that might be as if a 10 year leap in GPU for Nintendo since Hollywood is probably 2x or less than 2x more powerful than Flipper, and Flipper was designed in 1999-2000. Nintendo said in a recent interview (one of the Iwata ones) they would concider having significantly more power for the next console and would certainly have HD support in the future, meaning the next console.

 

[thejeek]

Yeah, seriously. There's a difference between being frugal and just being jerks.

Yes. I've been hoping for a long time that the Wii was going to be more than a slightly warmed over Gamecube but there's just no way to justify holding onto that hope - the launch games look universally crap, the controller barely works and they're charging way too much for it. It looks like they may well get away with it too but I'm buggered if I'm paying for one until I'm convinced I'm not paying good money for old rope...

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

As to how much more powerful they could have made the Wii? I have no idea and anyone here outside of engineering types is just speculating.

True. But if you ask me something like a radeon9600gpu or even a 9800 along with something like a amd 2500+ and 128mb or 256mb would be possible without much problems and keep the costs below 250euro and it would probably eat the current wii specs.

 

[Teasy]

Yes. I've been hoping for a long time that the Wii was going to be more than a slightly warmed over Gamecube but there's just no way to justify holding onto that hope - the launch games look universally crap, the controller barely works and they're charging way too much for it. It looks like they may well get away with it too but I'm buggered if I'm paying for one until I'm convinced I'm not paying good money for old rope...

The controller barely works?.. Thats one of the most bizarre comments I've heard in a long long time, seriously are you joking there or what?

By the way if Zelda TP is a crap game by your standards then I'd be amazed to see what you consider to be great. The rest of the Wii launch list includes some well rated games too. Unless you meant the launch games look poor graphically, which most do (all by next gen standards).

 

[thejeek]

The controller barely works?.. Thats one of the most bizarre comments I've heard in a long long time, seriously are you joking there or what?

By the way if Zelda TP is a crap game by your standards then I'd be amazed to see what you consider to be great. The rest of the Wii launch list includes some well rated games too. Unless you meant the launch games look poor graphically, which most do (all by next gen standards).

OK - the controller has some well documented problems - poor calibration, lag, interference from IR sources, occasional failure to recognise gestures, poor ergonomics with regard to key placement - but saying it barely works was probably an overstatement brought on by frustration on my part with the apparent poor price/performance of the Wii at the moment.

The art direction in Zelda seems to be really nothing but a reaction to critisism of Wind Waker - carefully calculated not to offend Zelda fans - it shows no real imagination. I've no idea how the game plays and it could be great - it gets pretty good reviews after all but I don't have it and I'm not likely to get it until it and the Wii drop in price so I can't comment.

The launch games do indeed all look fairly bad, both technically and artistically. Also none of them really stand out as being anything especially exciting or innovative, except that the controller itself is novel.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

lol all the things you mention arnt mentioned by anyone else who has the Wii. Most people find the controller comfortable and nice to hold and very reactive. If its not working right for you maybe boost the sensorbar in the settings? its been reported that that helps with people who have problems with the wiimote not working right.