WiiGeePeeYou (Hollywood) what IS it ?

[Teasy]

Quite probably more than that, anyway they can use it in features that may not make the GPU being faster (eg offloading the CPU with vertex shaders/physics/animation/...) overall the "GPU numbers" could only see a 50% increase (althought a overall big increase of the "console numbers").

If there's a vertex shader inside Hollywood then I doubt it will have replaced the T&L engine from Flipper. More likey that it would be in addition to Flippers T&L engine in order to keep full backwards compatability. So perhaps Hollywood has the hardwired T&L from Flipper (around 20 million pps in game) plus a vertex shader with similar performance plus 50% clock, for around three times the polygon performance of Flipper (around 60mpps). That could also explain why all launch games had similar polygon counts to GC games. Because it takes more then a quick upgrade of a GC project to make use of an entirely new vertex shader. At best they could offload some work from the CPU to the vertex shader, but since the game was designed to work within the limits of the CPU that wouldn't have much effect. Who knows though, this is just speculation obviously

 

[Fox5]

i'm using the composite cables that came with the system. just zoom all the way out and look at the pacific ocean. you'll see a banded specular map. or zoom in a bit anywhere and lower the angle so you get a good view of the banded atmosphere.

the globe is something that isn't very taxing to render. there aren't any mountains or even waves in the ocean. there aren't even cloads. and since it's made by nintendo and not available for other systems i think it's safe to assume it's not a port from a PS2 engine. there isn't really a reason to have it run in anything less than 32bit unless it's a hardware limitation. the specular map could just be low color to save space, but the atmosphere more like a gradient fog of some sort, and it's banded as well.

Not able to check right now, but I wouldn't be too quick to jump on color banding when using composite cables, the low bandwidth of the cables alone will create some.

However, even zoomed out, there were clear color bands on component with progressive scan. I'm not sure however if they were divisions by timezones (or something similar) or color banding. If it is from the specular map though, I wouldn't be surprised if the wii had color limitations with shaders and lighting that aren't there for non-shaded stuff; even the geforce fx series typically had color banding on shaders.

 

[pc999]

Correct me but didnt ATI used the vertex shaders to emulate (100%) the TnL engine before (and with a smaler increase in transistores/speed)?

I also wonder if it make any sense having both on the die, could they work both at the same time and give god results? If no then soon the TnL would be a completely wast of transistores and probably there would be much better way to offload the CPU/get "better" polys without wasting that space. If yes I guess that making a good combo of such architeture would be very hard (not what Nintendo wants).

Anyway if anything of the new transistores is diferent from the GC or/paired with a a very low experience of GC architeture could explain why all games look to much like GC games.

 

[bomlat]

Correct me but didnt ATI used the vertex shaders to emulate (100%) the TnL engine before (and with a smaler increase in transistores/speed)?

I also wonder if it make any sense having both on the die, could they work both at the same time and give god results? If no then soon the TnL would be a completely wast of transistores and probably there would be much better way to offload the CPU/get "better" polys without wasting that space. If yes I guess that making a good combo of such architeture would be very hard (not what Nintendo wants).

Anyway if anything of the new transistores is diferent from the GC or/paired with a a very low experience of GC architeture could explain why all games look to much like GC games.

The vertex shader is just a name for a complex tnl hardware!
The radeon 7000 was able to run VS 0,5 (ok, there is no existing vs 0,5, but the hardware was programable,just not on the level of the radeon 8500), and the gf3 had vs1,1,the radeon had vs1,4 (but it haven't got vs 1,1!!!!).
So, if you have the shaders that simply mean yoou are in the specification of the M$.Nothing else.
It isn't mean quality,speed or anything else.

And the vs hardware is not elumlated the tnl, but there wasn't eny diference between the two hardware.

 

[Teasy]

Correct me but didnt ATI used the vertex shaders to emulate (100%) the TnL engine before (and with a smaler increase in transistores/speed)?

I also wonder if it make any sense having both on the die, could they work both at the same time and give god results? If no then soon the TnL would be a completely wast of transistores and probably there would be much better way to offload the CPU/get "better" polys without wasting that space. If yes I guess that making a good combo of such architeture would be very hard (not what Nintendo wants).

Anyway if anything of the new transistores is diferent from the GC or/paired with a a very low experience of GC architeture could explain why all games look to much like GC games.

I suppose they could create a vertex shader that would 'emulate' Flippers T&L unit in GC games. But I don't see what would be bad about having an additional vertex shader to assist the original, or slightly upgraded even, unit from Flipper. The hardwired T&L unit could handle the static T&L work (which it should be faster at anyway) while the vertex shader could handle the rest. Then again sharing the workload between two units may not be as efficient as using a single unit, both from a programming point of view and transistor budget. So I could be completely wrong, its just the way I imagined it considering the way the rest of the system seems to be designed.

 

[Flux]

Does anyone know what the this DSP's function is yet?

Are the Wii launch titles really showing the Wii's performance or the GC's performance?

It takes a year to make a game right? If the final Wii developement kits were released somewhere around june and september then we won't see Wii-like performance in games until 2007.

 

[pc999]

The vertex shader is just a name for a complex tnl hardware!
The radeon 7000 was able to run VS 0,5 (ok, there is no existing vs 0,5, but the hardware was programable,just not on the level of the radeon 8500), and the gf3 had vs1,1,the radeon had vs1,4 (but it haven't got vs 1,1!!!!).
So, if you have the shaders that simply mean yoou are in the specification of the M$.Nothing else.
It isn't mean quality,speed or anything else.

And the vs hardware is not elumlated the tnl, but there wasn't eny diference between the two hardware.

I didnt understud what you mean, but what I am asking is if they didnt used in the past the VS units to processing the TnL in older games that didnt use the VS.

I suppose they could create a vertex shader that would 'emulate' Flippers T&L unit in GC games.

I think they already did it with other tech (ie the radeon thech), but not sure.

But I don't see what would be bad about having an additional vertex shader to assist the original, or slightly upgraded even, unit from Flipper. The hardwired T&L unit could handle the static T&L work (which it should be faster at anyway) while the vertex shader could handle the rest. Then again sharing the workload between two units may not be as efficient as using a single unit, both from a programming point of view and transistor budget. So I could be completely wrong, its just the way I imagined it considering the way the rest of the system seems to be designed

I cant tell, but I have my doubts it would be the best option.

Does anyone know what the this DSP's function is yet?

Are the Wii launch titles really showing the Wii's performance or the GC's performance?

It takes a year to make a game right? If the final Wii developement kits were released somewhere around june and september then we won't see Wii-like performance in games until 2007.

1) there is dsp for sound (from the GC HW), we dont know if there is anything more.

2)Probably there isnt any game showing Wii potential, specially in the controlers.

3) it depends on the game, most of the games made in 1 year usually arent that good IMO.

 

[Flux]

I didnt understud what you mean, but what I am asking is if they didnt used in the past the VS units to processing the TnL in older games that didnt use the VS.



I think they already did it with other tech (ie the radeon thech), but not sure.



I cant tell, but I have my doubts it would be the best option.



1) there is dsp for sound (from the GC HW), we dont know if there is anything more.

2)Probably there isnt any game showing Wii potential, specially in the controlers.

3) it depends on the game, most of the games made in 1 year usually arent that good IMO.

Do we know if its a Sound DSP?

 

[pc999]

Do we know if its a Sound DSP?

In the GC there is a sound dsp, so there must be one on the Wii. If there is any more dsp´s we dont know and we dont know what it is doing on Wii.

 

[Flux]

In the GC there is a sound dsp, so there must be one on the Wii. If there is any more dsp´s we dont know and we dont know what it is doing on Wii.

Then why does it get its own die?

 

[Megadrive1988]

I agree, a vertex shader is just a fancy name for a T&L unit, which itself is another name for a geometry engine / geometry processor. Sure, a vertex shader is more programmable, has a few more features/capabilities, but really is not all that different.

 

[pc999]

Then why does it get its own die?

It is in the GPU die.

I agree, a vertex shader is just a fancy name for a T&L unit, which itself is another name for a geometry engine / geometry processor. Sure, a vertex shader is more programmable, has a few more features/capabilities, but really is not all that different.

Well if you prefer, we can change the question to:

1) Did ATI ever used programable geometry engine / geometry processor to emulate/process older geometry engine / geometry processor that are less featured.

We can also put this question

2) is it possible to transform the geometry engine / geometry processor present in flipper in a much more programable geometry engine / geometry processor to the level of of what we can call a vertex shaders.

 

[Corwin_B]

1) Did ATI ever used programable geometry engine / geometry processor to emulate/process older geometry engine / geometry processor that are less featured.

IIRC, the Radeon 9700 dropped the static T&L engine, and its drivers transformed DX7 T&L calls into shaders. I'm not really sure if it qualifies as "emulating", though, the actual process is really different.

 

[Teasy]

I agree, a vertex shader is just a fancy name for a T&L unit, which itself is another name for a geometry engine / geometry processor. Sure, a vertex shader is more programmable, has a few more features/capabilities, but really is not all that different.

Oh they're definitely both T&L units, its just that one is fixed function (does certain fixed tasks you enable or disable) and the other you program to do what you want it to do, within the boundries of transform and lighting of course.

Its just that I'd imagine the first would be the faster/cheaper option for static geometry and would allow perfect out of the box compatability with GC games. While the second would be slower but able to handle more varied tasks. Which is why I thought that possibly they could use the fast and cheap Flipper T&L unit for 100% GC compatability and static geometry. While using a additional vertex shader to do whatever the CPU would have had to do on GC.

But obviously I don't know the current state of this kind of technology. Nor the amount of transistors ATI had to work with or how efficient it might be to use two seperate T&L units to share the geometry load rather then one single unit so...

 

[Teasy]

It is in the GPU die.

I believe he's referring to the third tiny die on the Hollywood packaging.

 

[Flux]

I believe he's referring to the third tiny die on the Hollywood packaging.

weird...

Wonder if its just an audio dsp but why on the GPU?

 

[pc999]

weird...

Wonder if its just an audio dsp but why on the GPU?

There is a audio dsp but it is integrated within the GPU die size (just like the I/O), about the tiny die it there is some good guesses a few pages ago.

It probably is in the GPU because this way it can reduce the complexity and cost of the board.

 

[matrix960]

Maybe there is nothing new in that GPU and the Wii is simply a GC 1.5 with 3.7 times more ram and that's why the Wii will be more powerful! I mean 24 mb, even 1T Sram, is not very appropriate to that power. Wii (and GC) can do 8 textures layer, 20 millions polygons/sec, 8 hardware lights and vertex shader treatment with the CPU. The triforce board (the GC arcade) has 48 mb ram (1T Sram)so that means that GC was ram limited. Let's see 2007 games :smile:

 

[bomlat]

just for the clear view:
http://developer.nvidia.com/object/combiners.html

This is the doc about the riva tnt and gf256 texture combiners.
With this hw , you was able to do all of the effects that can be done by the gf3 ps.The advantage of the ps is that you have a more visual and clear software instead of the dxdevic->settextureblending(pointer,pointer,pointer) style programming.
This s true for the vs too.If you have a fixed pipeline the main issue is not the flexibility,but the transparency and the compatibility between the softwares.

 

[Teasy]

Maybe there is nothing new in that GPU and the Wii is simply a GC 1.5 with 3.7 times more ram and that's why the Wii will be more powerful! I mean 24 mb, even 1T Sram, is not very appropriate to that power. Wii (and GC) can do 8 textures layer, 20 millions polygons/sec, 8 hardware lights and vertex shader treatment with the CPU. The triforce board (the GC arcade) has 48 mb ram (1T Sram)so that means that GC was ram limited. Let's see 2007 games :smile:

If you read some more of the thread you'll see that Hollywood is about three times the size of Flipper. So there really doesn't seem to be any question that Hollywood must have more inside it.