WiiGeePeeYou (Hollywood) what IS it ?

[The_legend_of_drtre]

But than you are talking about the artistic point of view and not the technical point of view as we are talking about.

LOL better is better. I hate it when people pull this "it looks better technically" crap out of their ass. If a game looks better, it looks better no matter how the developer achieved the results.

Tekken 5 looks way better than tekken tag tournament on the ps2 even though the characters models in tekken 5 use almost 50% less polygons than the ones in tekken tag.

BTW while Kameo looked good it not completely out of Wii's reach. Did you see pics or video of the xbox version?

http://media.xbox.ign.com/media/749/749221/img_2238859.html

Note this is from the original xbox version from 2004.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

LOL better is better. I hate it when people pull this "it looks better technically" crap out of their ass. If a game looks better, it looks better no matter how the developer achieved the results.

It isnt crap and I do agree with you that it doesnt matter how you archieved the results. But this topic is about what the wii gpu is capable of from a technical pov, its about weater it can do effect x, y or z. Its not about how a dev can make a game that looks better but is technically inferior. Those are 2 different things. I'd rather look at zelda TP than most next gen games, but its obvious there is still alot ''wrong'' with the gfx. I (we) want to know how much more the Wii is capable of, not if you can do more with less because you can if you want, thats not the point.

 

[Capeta]

I knew seconds after I posted that I should have been clearer.

I undertood what you were trying to get at but wiping the thermal paste off of the die doesn't allow you to see the circuits since the circuits are embedded inside of the die.

 

[Panajev2001a]

Not if it's true. It's gotten so bad that people didn't even think the Wii would be capable of normal mapping even thought a GC launch game used it. BTW I said "end up" meaning by the end of Wii's life cycle. There will definately be better looking Wii games than Kameo. That's for sure.

I seriously do not think so, it depends on what you define as better looking, because technically impressive speaking Kameo is out of Wii's reach IMHO(let alone doing that in 720p with AA and no dithering or banding).

Edit: if you are talking about Kameo XBOX and not Kameo Xbox 360, we will see... I do not know how well it was running in some of those shots fps wise (it might have been pushing the hardware too much), but still we will see. According to developers it seems that the Wii has the RAM advantage on the Xbox as well as the edge on some things CPU wise and GPU wise, but then the XBOX still leads in other areas so it is not a clear-cut Wii >>>> XBOX situation.

 

[see colon]

I seriously do not think so, it depends on what you define as better looking, because technically impressive speaking Kameo is out of Wii's reach IMHO(let alone doing that in 720p with AA and no dithering or banding).

even technical limits asside, i don't think Wii games will stress the hardware at all unless they are made specificaly for the hardware. nintendo themselves aren't really pushing the technology envelope with what they've released, and to be honest the only game on the horizon that looks like it might is metroid.

the PS2 has to die before developers start putting any serious work into Wii's graphics. and even then it may be too late, because everyone will be using middleware from last generation.

 

[swaaye]

Yeah it does seem that the devs who would've really pushed the hardware for certain have split. If Factor 5 was still on the job, we'd know by now what the thing can do. I'm not sure any other dev will push that hard because it doesn't really seem to fit into their management's mind's as a way to make more money. It's the definitely major downside of all this cross-porting, and that more money into graphics sure doesn't guarantee sales.

And when the company behind the machine is marketing it as an easy-to-develop-for platform instead of technologically-advanced-wonder-machine, well that sure doesn't motivate companies to risk the extra cash.

 

[The_legend_of_drtre]

I seriously do not think so, it depends on what you define as better looking, because technically impressive speaking Kameo is out of Wii's reach IMHO(let alone doing that in 720p with AA and no dithering or banding).

Edit: if you are talking about Kameo XBOX and not Kameo Xbox 360, we will see... I do not know how well it was running in some of those shots fps wise (it might have been pushing the hardware too much), but still we will see. According to developers it seems that the Wii has the RAM advantage on the Xbox as well as the edge on some things CPU wise and GPU wise, but then the XBOX still leads in other areas so it is not a clear-cut Wii >>>> XBOX situation.

LOL the xbox does not lead in any area regarding the Wii besides having a hardrive. It is a clear cut situation.

I don't understand your argument. What exactly do you think the xbox does better than the Wii?

The xbox has a friendlier environment for shaders but that's where it stops. Any effects you saw on the xbox could be pulled off on the Wii. The shader programs just must be built from scratch as opposed to the xbox. The xbox gave them an easy way out but shaders could have looked even better on the GC than on the xbox because it could render more textures in a single pass.

If we don't see many shaders effects on the Wii is because developers didn't bother to do the work. Has nothing to do with hardware limitations.

 

[fearsomepirate]

That sounds like a lot of faith. Kameo had some great parallax maps with real depth, and busy scenes.

You're dealing with people who appraise games based on 2 or 3 screenshots.

There is no way Wii could do Kameo. Parallax and normal mapping look infinitely better than flat textures, and there's way more action than Wii's overclocked Gekko could handle. Sorry,

There will definately be better looking Wii games than Kameo. That's for sure.

You clearly lack the technological knowledge to make this kind of guarantee.

Any effects you saw on the xbox could be pulled off on the Wii.

Wrong. Any effect requiring vertex shaders could not be pulled off on Wii.

The shader programs just must be built from scratch as opposed to the xbox.

Do you have any idea what you mean by this? I sure don't. Do you mean that an Xbox devkit has a big button that says "Activate Specular Highlighs" or something?

 

[Fox5]

Well fill rate determines how many pixels can be thrown out the screen at a time. Advanced shaders make s system fill rate take a big hit in performance. I think what he is saying is since there are no Wii games with heaver shader support, then the fill rate of those games should be extremely high... but they are not. Hence the developers are being lazy.

I'm telling you guys, the Wii may not end up with graphics of high end 360 games but it will end up with graphics that excceed all 360 launch titles. At least. For it's size, Wii is a beast.

Once games like Resident evil UC and Final fantasy CC are shown, the wool will be pulled from your eyes. Developers pulled a fast one us this launch just like they did with the 360 launch.

I can believe Wii will have better looking games than....Gun. Not sure about Kameo or Call of Duty 2.

BTW, at 243mhz with two TEVs, the wii would have just under 2GPixels of fillrate, and I think roughly the same texel rate as the original xbox. That could potentially put it at mid range geforce fx levels of performance I suppose. 2Gpixel is a decent amount for a 640x480 res though, but it is by no means insane or excessive. (unless of course you don't have any neat effects to do with the fillrate)

Factor 5 really needs to license their GC engine out to devs!

It most likely does not have the toolset to make it friendly for other companies to use. Not to mention, aren't they a Sony dev?

http://www.hidebehind.com/5CBD1279

If anybody have illusions about the quality of the future ps3 and xb2 games IF the wii will be the "winer", pls check this RE4 shots.
the creenshoots of the 6 year old GC platform is far superior than the quality of the up-to-dat pc platfomr.Why?because the developer exactly know where is the money.

What are these screenshots of? The GC version of RE4 compared to the PS2 version, a PC version, or an emulated version? Neither one has acceptable image quality for the current gen.

It uses a programmable matrix processor.

You mean a DSP? Cause honestly, some of the more advanced DSPs meet these description, and can even do loops, rearrange data, and have fairly random access of memory.

BTW while Kameo looked good it not completely out of Wii's reach. Did you see pics or video of the xbox version?

http://media.xbox.ign.com/media/749/...g_2238859.html

Note this is from the original xbox version from 2004.

Err, doesn't even compare to the 360 Kameo. That looks like mediocre last gen graphics with a heavy blur filter, ie, the best we've seen on Wii so far.

I don't understand your argument. What exactly do you think the xbox does better than the Wii?

Likely stronger shader processors, vertex and pixel.
Higher texel fillrate. Quite possibly nearly double.

 

[pc999]

lmao what? How in the world would you know if the xbox had a higher texel fillrate than the Wii? And two tevs? lol...

To fearsome, keep making those statements. You are going to feel like a complete moron a couple years from now.

If you dont have any info to present you should just go away instead of joking with those that do have.

First XB had almost 3x the texel fillrate of GC (almost 50% higher clock rate and twice the texel units per ROP), even the best we heard is about Wii=3xGC so it may very well be the case.

The 2 TEVs is just a hypothesis that Fox gave so both consoles can have more or less the same texel fillrate.

FSP said truth, vertex shaders on the CPU are way more slower (that is way modern GPU have them) thus presenting a problem and leading o others, aparentely the TEV still not as good as XB pixel shaders (dot products and such, that is way so many said that normal mapping is hard/impossible on the Wii), and althought there is much more info on DX shaders they arent made by magic thus.

Again or give info before you post or at least put a reasonable argument.

 

[fearsomepirate]

lmao what? How in the world would you know if the xbox had a higher texel fillrate than the Wii? And two tevs? lol...

To fearsome, keep making those statements. You are going to feel like a complete moron a couple years from now.

"lmao" and calling people "moron" might be totally sweet on the gamefaqs boards, but it's not really how discussion rolls around here. I'd suggest you be a little more polite around here, especially around people who have a little bit more knowledge than you.

If you take Flipper, double its texel fillrate (by doubling the texture units, which is essentially the same as adding a 2nd TEV), then overclock it by 50%, you get 1.9 GTexels/sec, which is the same as the original Xbox.

 

[Pigman BABY!!!]

lmao what? How in the world would you know if the xbox had a higher texel fillrate than the Wii? And two tevs? lol...

To fearsome, keep making those statements. You are going to feel like a complete moron a couple years from now.

Pfff... for gods sake stop posting you're making yourself look silly.
Wii comparable or even to PS3 and Xbox 360.
Man wtf are you smoking?

PS3 and Xbox 360 are both something like 10 times more powerfull than the Wii.
Kameo isn't possible on the Wii. Kameo pushes lots of polygons, heavy SM3.0 shaders, lots of CPU and 5.1 realtime audio.

Wii is weaker than the Xbox 1.
Xbox 1 does 1864MTexel/s, 932MPixel/s, has Vertex and Pixel shaders.
Wii only does 972MTexel/s, 972MPixel/s and has no Vertex and Pixel shaders.
Wii is only a Gamecube +50% clockspeeds, 64MB GDDR3 and more optical drive space.

 

[The_legend_of_drtre]

"lmao" and calling people "moron" might be totally sweet on the gamefaqs boards, but it's not really how discussion rolls around here. I'd suggest you be a little more polite around here, especially around people who have a little bit more knowledge than you.

If you take Flipper, double its texel fillrate (by doubling the texture units, which is essentially the same as adding a 2nd TEV), then overclock it by 50%, you get 1.9 GTexels/sec, which is the same as the original Xbox.

First off... I didn't call you a moron. I said you are going to "feel" like one down the road for making the Wii out to be alot less powerful than it probably is.

Second... what makes you think you Wii's fillrate is only double that of the GC's?

Didn't Factor 5 just say that Wii has in insane fillrate? A fillrate the same as original xbox does sound too insane to me. Does that sound insane to you?

 

[Pigman BABY!!!]

10 times more powerful? right...

Also, even by the lowest estimate by developers put Wii as a "souped up xbox" meaning.. it's more powerful than the xbox.

Your texel numbers for the Wii are made up. Again.. wii is not a GC with 50% the clock speed. Have you not read anything that was stated in this thread?

Broadway is a Power PC e750GX with extra instructions @729MHz, Gekko is the same CPU @485MHz.
Hollywood from everything we've heard untill now is the same architecture as the Flipper but clocked from 162MHz to 243MHz.
Apart from this thread I've never heard the Hollywood having 2 TMU's.

4 Pipelines x 1 TMU x 243MHz = 972MTexel/s.
4 ROP's x 243MHz - 972MPixel/s.

 

[Pigman BABY!!!]

First off... I didn't call you a moron. I said you are going to "feel" like one down the road for making the Wii out to be alot less powerful than it probably is.

Second... what makes you think you Wii's fillrate is only double that of the GC's?

Didn't Factor 5 just say that Wii has in insane fillrate? A fillrate the same as original xbox does sound too insane to me. Does that sound insane to you?

Factor 5 hasn't even made a positive comment about the Wii.
The only thing I've heard of Factor 5 is that they won't support the Wii because it's much too weak.

Wii insane fillrate?
Where did anyone say that ever?

By the way since you're so in the loop what is the fillrate of the Wii.

 

[theafu]

Fair warning tre the way you argue at IGN won't even fly here as much as you've done it on other boards. If you really want to learn then ask the right question or just say I don't know and desire, but the other way is going to get you kicked if not banned eventually. Think Wii is better than what is thought of it in this thread present evidence. Your only good point was the insane fillrate comment, but like the last time Julian spoke of Wii and said turbocharged or formidable about the Wii it does little in a tech discussion where you need numbers.

Pigman where you pulling those numbers from? Edit IC now. Btw gecko was a CXe IIRC not a GX. Broadway is a beefed up 750CL from what I know, this came from someone I can trust on these sorts of things

 

[The_legend_of_drtre]

Broadway is a Power PC e750GX with extra instructions @729MHz, Gekko is the same CPU @485MHz.
Hollywood from everything we've heard untill now is the same architecture as the Flipper but clocked from 162MHz to 243MHz.
Apart from this thread I've never heard the Hollywood having 2 TMU's.

4 Pipelines x 1 TMU x 243MHz = 972MTexel/s.
4 ROP's x 243MHz - 972MPixel/s.

No. Broadway is based of the PPC 750 CL, not the GX. Gekko is based of the PPC Cxe. Two different chips.


We haven't heard anything about hollywood architexture besides it's clock speed and the type of memory it uses and an extimate of how much memory.

You can spit out these estimated figures all you want. They mean nothing because none of it is confirmed. You can't simply take flipper and times everything by 2.

Hollywood was built from the ground up for Wii.

 

[The_legend_of_drtre]

Factor 5 hasn't even made a positive comment about the Wii.
The only thing I've heard of Factor 5 is that they won't support the Wii because it's much too weak.

Wii insane fillrate?
Where did anyone say that ever?

By the way since you're so in the loop what is the fillrate of the Wii.

http://wii.ign.com/articles/762/762984p1.html

5. Resident Evil 4 was a beautiful GCN title. Rogue Squadron was doing things at launch that developers still haven't done on Wii. Why do you think that is? Are studios getting sloppy on Wii?

"Julian: Yes. I'm so disappointed knowing exactly what the Wii can do -- and I still think nobody knows it better than we (no pun intended) [laughs]. I really have to say, boy, am I disappointed! They all have finally figured out, five years into the hardware's life cycle, how to do at least basic shaders and a rim light, but that's what everybody does. But I still don't see enough bump and normal-mapping, if any. I still don't see enough post effects, although you would have insane fill-rates with Wii. I don't see any of that. I was digging out Rebel Strike the other day and was looking at it, and we had some people who were visiting ask, "Why isn't anybody else doing this on Wii?" And I am at a loss. I really am.
"

 

[nihilistcanada]

The bottom line seems to be no one other than Factor5 even scratched the surface of the GC. The Wii at least is a "Super GC". However we all know that ATI did not charge Nintendo hundreds of millions to die shrink flipper. So it is certainly more powerful than an overclocked flipper. So what is it capable of? It seems from the various developers(at least the good ones) that on the flipper you could do pretty much everything that could be done on the XBOX if you worked at it. The Wii is probably the same way only more. Thus the problem. If no one really used the GC then who will push the Wii?

Well unlike last time Nintendo can sell as many Wiis as it can make, and then some. This will encourage people to develop on the platform if only for the money. Since no HD is used the costs of development should be less, thus more developers will want to try their hands on it.

The Wii is the system for developers to make their name with. This is the perfect set of conditions to allow for the production of cutting edge design and IP from. Sure we are not going to get the ultimate FPS on the Wii. The XBOX360 and the PS3 are for that.

The Wii appears to be designed to provide XBOX360 like graphics at SD resolutions. ATI designed both chips and both machines use similair PPC derived CPUs. I cannot understand why people insist on thinking the Wii is an overclocked GC.

 

[Capeta]

A question for those with GPU design insight. Can you double the number of TEVs and keep everything else roughly the same? Everything else meaning the texture cache and the other processing blocks inside the GPU.

I can't help but look at the micrograph of Flipper and realize how small the TEV block. It would seem doubling the TEV would only use up a small fraction of the available die space when going from 180nm to 90nm. Since we know that Hollywood is more than a simple die shrink when examining the die size, it looks like ATI could've added a 2nd TEV and a beefed up SU/XF unit (still fixed function but double the size). Also would the CPU need additionaly instructions to feed this beefed up GPU?

PLL: Phase Lock Loop
eFB: Embedded Frame Buffer
eTM: Embedded Texture Memory
TF: Texture Filter
TC: Texture Coordinate Generator
TEV: Texture Environment
RASx: Rasterizer
C/Z: Color/Z Calculator
PEC: Pixel Copy Engine
SU: Triangle Setup
CP: Command Processor
DSP: Audio DSP
XF: Triangle Transform Engine
NB: Northbridge - all system logic
including CPU interface, Video
Interface, Memory Controller, I/O
Interface

If you look closely at the Hollywood die (square on bottom), you'll realize it's slightly rectangular and not completely square like Flipper.

http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2006/1201/ninten01.jpg