WiiGeePeeYou (Hollywood) what IS it ?

[bomlat]

Not sure what you mean but you're a little off, so let's calculate the stuff out for once.

Isomorphic 16:9 480p is, err ... let's say at most 854 pixels wide. 409920 pixels in a frame. Tops.

Bytes per pixel     |    memory needed
         3                   1.23MB
         4                   1.64MB
         6                   2.46MB
         7 ???               2.87MB
         8                   3.28MB

Six bytes per pixel is enough for Gamecube's "baseline" rendering with an RGB888 or RGBA6666 backbuffer and a 24 bit Z buffer.
Eight is what we would expect from a PC card, it would allow the Wii to get rid of the RGBA6666 mode, and the color banding with it, and bump up stencil precision without compromising Z precision.

48 bit / pixel is 2,34 MB,not 2,46 million byte.
The alpha is not useful in the fame buffer.The realy needed thing is the 8 bit stencil,and you have to accept that the remained 8 bit is not used for anything.
But the gamecube is not use 852*480 square pixelbut it use amorph pixels with a 640*480 resolution
So you need 1,75 MB in the case of ntsc.
The PAL resolution is 640*528, so you need 1980 kB.If you want 8 byte/pixel you need 2640 kB.And a totaly new memory controller with a brand wen texturing unit,and the texturing unit have to be complex for the backward compatibility.

 

[bomlat]

The GF3 pipeline has two "register combiners" chained together in each pixel pipeline. To the programmer though it looks as if there were eight, because he can configure a chain of eight (abstracted with "insructions" in Direct3D, or more directly in OpenGL) and the result will be as expected. This is accomplished by looping data from the end of the pipeline back to the beginning of the pipeline and putting in extra work cycles with the remaining "instructions". I was talking about that kind of loop, nothing to do with a jump instruction

So,the jmp in the PS was hardwired.

 

[pc999]

The new VS mean physics .The AA isn ot so possible without huge fillrate and big memory,as you can see it on the pc and on the xb2 an ps3.

The biggest disadvantage of the GC is the raw calculating power,the mem size and the memory bandwith.

It can at least it would offload the CPU, if they are advanced enought it could even do the physics but I guess there would be better ways.

pc999,
Multisampling AA is not a fillrate problem, it's for all intents and purposes free as long as you have the bandwidth and the space.

But GC does use supersampling.

BTW anouther source for the die sizes of the chips, thanks to hupfinsgack.

 

[matrix960]

I remember a comment when a Factor 5 guy said : "the sound chip in Wii is not good....". But the sound chip on GC was made by Factor 5 themself ! So maybe there were a change in that too.

 

[Fox5]

The new VS mean physics .The AA isn ot so possible without huge fillrate and big memory,as you can see it on the pc and on the xb2 an ps3.

The biggest disadvantage of the GC is the raw calculating power,the mem size and the memory bandwith.

That's quite a multifaceted disadvantage. Was there anything the Gamecube was good at then?

And MSAA doesn't impact fillrate directly, and it's possible it could have been added in for Wii. That, or ATI didn't use any of their current design expertise in designing Hollywood.

But the sound chip on GC was made by Factor 5 themself ! So maybe there were a change in that too.

The sound chip wasn't, the sound tools were. And I'm sure there's a lot about the Wii hardware that Factor 5 disapproves of.

 

[Megadrive1988]

the GameCube's 16-bit DSP for sound was made by Macronix, not Factor 5.... Factor 5 made some of the audio tools / software. not the hardware.

 

[Rainbow Man]

I'd have thought it would be obviously why you should try to explain away a fact that completely contradicts your opinion. As Shifty says you don't need to be technically gifted to see the basic logic at work in my argument.

My problem with that reasoning is you seem to be working entirely upon the assumption that the "shrinkage" calculation in your other post is absolute truth. What if it isn't?

Theres' no actual evidence so far to suggest it is and nintendo and its devs certainly aren't bragging about 3x (ish) increased power either.

This goes back to what I've been saying all along. If wii hardware IS improved then there should be tangible improvements in graphics at SOME point at least and so far we've seen zippo. Not even the token "morrowind" effect with some quick and dirty shading on water surfaces or something similar which ANY wii dev could surely implement with a minimum of time and effort.

The facts I've given you are at least as solid if not more so, but all you seem to do is dismiss them.

Apart from your assumption based on a photograph and some measurements I'm not sure what supposed facts you're refeerring to..?

Basically what you seem to be saying is that because you aren't capable of discussing the facts I've brought up those facts don't count and are in fact just wishful thinking or delusion...

I find your attitude needlessly hostile. Chill.

Facts - att leasty as far as I'm used to using the word - refer to concrete/observable/provable information or phenomena of some sort etc. Not much to be had of that at the moment.

An assumption that flipper (GC graphics chip was called flipper right?) should be a certain size in today's IC tech while wii graphics chip is 3x larger should mean wii chip is around 3x more powerful is merely dodgy reasoning at best and not at all any kind of 'fact'.

Now if I've misunderstood you somehow then my bad and I'm sorry. But if not and you've nothing more to add to what you've already said then I've nothing mroe to add either and any further discussion would merely be us banging heads and a wast eof effort. So in that case I agree to disagree with you until a game comes out that uses the extra 3x very well hidden power.

Dont' get me wrong I wouldn't ind 3x extra horsepower in my wii.

But I'm not going to declare merely based on linear scaling of chip sizes and precious little else that wii must have 3x extra power. Thats jyust the kind of reasoning that ends up biting people in the ass in the end when it doesn't turn out to be tru eafter all.

Peace.

 

[pc999]

My problem with that reasoning is you seem to be working entirely upon the assumption that the "shrinkage" calculation in your other post is absolute truth. What if it isn't?
Peace.

What about this (from here, if they arent right then none is ), they say that the CPU is 19mm^ and we know that the 750CL is only 16mm^ and once that the 750CL seems to be equal (plus some minor features) to the Gekko (GC CPU) I think that we do have enought facts to say that Broadway>Gekko and then it should have something else that is making the chip bigger.

To sum thing ups in die sizes, Broadway>750CL>Gekko (which should translate in more performance per cicle), this is all facts comming from official docs and the most reliable info on the net.

On the more especulative side we already saw an almost liniar shrinkage (g70->g71) on GPUs and once the CPU had been upgrade it makes very probable that (at least in my pessimist calculation) are right. Still it is possible that it is wrong (unlike the CPU).

Theres' no actual evidence so far to suggest it is and nintendo and its devs certainly aren't bragging about 3x (ish) increased power either.

Like I said, before, the first 2 leaks (on from ign and the other from gamesgiz?) said about 2,5-3x faster, ATI/Retro said it is a new architeture, Ubi said Wii>XB, if you have doubts do a search here, all the links are in this forum.

If wii hardware IS improved then there should be tangible improvements in graphics at SOME point at least and so far we've seen zippo..

Why There isnt anthing that garante that this is true to every new gen (althought I admit it is usual). Anyway some games coming soon seems to show some nice improvements (like MP3).

Not even the token "morrowind" effect with some quick and dirty shading on water surfaces or something similar which ANY wii dev could surely implement with a minimum of time and effort.

Had you saw FC:V . ., thats what they did.

 

[Rolf N]

"Token water effects" wouldn't prove anything.
(gawd they do have issues with Gamecube screenshot capturing)

 

[Fox5]

"Token water effects" wouldn't prove anything.
(gawd they do have issues with Gamecube screenshot capturing)

No, they sure wouldn't.

 

[matrix960]

I bought Rayman Raving Rabbids and when we are in the prison, you can see the light move and illuminate the ground "like in Doom 3" but, it's the texture ground that change (like old lighting) and not the lighting. So we can definetely say that with Star wars game on GC show that GC can do more than that, developpers on Wii, for first generation games, have worked really on the wii remote only, not the graphics because like Nintendo said :"That don't care!".

 

[bomlat]

if anybody is able to translate sentences from japanese,or able to understand the bablefish pls. dothe translation and bring back the result

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

If I understand things right its about speed to power consumption ratios and about backwards compatibility. Because Nintendo wanted to keep the electricity consumption low and keep backwards compatibility the Wii is based on GC hardware. Also the GPU doesnt have programmable shaders because that would require more power consumption and will make things harder for developers. Atleast, thats what I am able to make of it but especially the part about the GPU is very hard to understand since I think it depends kinda on how you imply the bablefish translation.

 

[pc999]

That is what I understund too, then I wonder what is taking so much transistores (2,5x), it most be more than just twice the GC HW (eg 2x TnL, pixel pipes (TEV,EMBM...), meybe a upgrade of those, whatever it is I hope it can offload the CPU.

 

[swaaye]

If I understand things right its about speed to power consumption ratios and about backwards compatibility. Because Nintendo wanted to keep the electricity consumption low and keep backwards compatibility the Wii is based on GC hardware. Also the GPU doesnt have programmable shaders because that would require more power consumption and will make things harder for developers. Atleast, thats what I am able to make of it but especially the part about the GPU is very hard to understand since I think it depends kinda on how you imply the bablefish translation.

I don't think power consumption mattered much at all to Nintendo.

IMO, their concerns were:
1- new controller (to totally separate themselves from competing hardware they couldn't afford to compete with)
2- have some sort of online component (absolutely required today)
3- backwards compatibility (cuz it's all the rage for some goofball reason)
4- keep it cheap (typical Nintendo)

If they coulda tossed out #3, I would bet on Nintendo having much more advanced hardware in Wii (and at the same price point). I think backwards compat is the most detrimental aspect of Wii.

One could almost relate a console GPU that's stuck with past hardware to keep compatibility with a GeForce FX. GFFX was a smattering of DX7, 8, and 9 hardware. And that sure didn't help out its performance or looks. R9700, with its clean DX9 slate and software translation of the rest, was a lot better off.

 

[Fox5]

So the entire design of the wii was created in an attempt to play games while using no more power than a NES...

Maybe Nintendo secretly followed the gpu market and gave us everything we wanted in a gpu back in 1999. 10MB edram, tbdr, fast glide/d3d/ogl support, and 4x super sampling AA at less than a 75% performance hit.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

I don't think power consumption mattered much at all to Nintendo.

Well that is what the article says. Is this a article from a nintendo speech btw? or someone who made a story based on things nintendo said?

About the chips, couldnt they used the GC design as their base and build extra functions around it to make it better? For example the GC has 10 effects in the GPU and now nintendo added 10 more to it? thats not really changing the design but you do add more stuff to it wich is needed because everthing is hardwired because they dont have shaders?

 

[bomlat]

big power consumption=big size.
I think this is the backbone ofthe logic.

 

[MDX]

Is it possible that Nintendo capped the Wii to 480p due to heat issues?

Because there has been reports of Wii's running hot and even overheating.
I suppose this would be due to the GPU vs the CPU?

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

No. The problem is not putting fast hardware in a small box. Laptops have more and faster parts in a smaller box than the wii. The problem is that it will be very expensive. Besides that my Wii never even got warm after paying for over 3 hours so I doubt there are real issues concering overheating. Probably some faulty units or people that place them in closed boxes.