WiiGeePeeYou (Hollywood) what IS it ?

[jayboychan]

So.....

How would you guys rate Wii's graphic power if you can possibly max it out?

Assume Xbox360/ps3 graphics are on ATI X1950/Nvida GeForce 8800 GTS level.

How would you say Wii's?

 

[fehu]

So.....
How would you guys rate Wii's graphic power if you can possibly max it out?
Assume Xbox360/ps3 graphics are on ATI X1950/Nvida GeForce 8800 GTS level.
How would you say Wii's?

S3 Savage4
or a little in the x1300 range

 

[jayboychan]

S3 Savage4
or a little in the x1300 range

Oops I already got a reply in here!
I just made it a topic so I could get more answers

thank you fefu!

 

[Teasy]

wasn't XGPU nearly always bandwidth limited anyway? it's pretty likely that you couldn't ever fully tap it's fillrate in game while it was much more plausible on GC because of the embedded framebuffer. what i'm saying is, Wii might not need to have the highest theoretical fillrate to have "insane" achievable fillrate, compared to last gen systems.

Either way GC + 50% clock rate isn't insane fillrate compared to GC..

What?!! No, no, no. Nothing we've seen so far, or even looking at the specs would indicate that. Even the best games we've seen so far like Mario Galaxy and SSBB have annoying jaggies and the like. Wii may not be an overclocked GC, but I certainly can't feel it's a 360 at SD res. either.

Of course its going to have jaggies at SD resolutions, so do 360 games, surely that was the point of him saying 360 at SD resolutions. As in looking like 360 games when they run at SD res, jaggies and all..

 

[fearsomepirate]

Is there an advantage for the CPU to be so close to the GPU?

Every time I see the 360's mobo, I just die a little inside. By the way, there's another video review of Red Steel here:
http://www.wii.tv/2007/02/10/wiitv-original-red-steel-in-depth-review/
In my opinion, the graphics do look quite a bit nicer than what we saw on Gamecube, and I've played a ton of Gamecube games. This game must only look bad in areas they didn't have time to polish.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

Yep. I finished the game last week and especially the last few levels look really good. Although sometimes there is a bit to little geomotry and because of that some things just look to flat and the enemy models are crap troughout the game and that looks really bothersome in the last few levels because they stand out to much. In the rain dojo, if they upped the polycount just a little bit it could pass for something x360'ish.

If you take the last few levels and count in the lack of time and the probably not very wii specific engine it really does show that Wii is capable of alot better gfx than we have seen so far.

 

[wsippel]

It's not much, but probably better than nothing - from an interview about Heatseeker on Wii:

RG: It’s known that the Wii version shows better modelled planes. Which other graphical improvements have been included compared to the PS2 version?

AW: Because the Wii’s just got more power under the hood, we were able to improve the explosions, the missile trails, the clouds, we added better water effects –you can see the crest of the wave when you fly really low-… and then you get also a better resolution of the planes, and have been added self-shadowing. But not just that. We also then looked to the colour palette that we use: the Wii, coming from Nintendo, has got a really rich -lush, you know- colour spin. We wanted brilliant skies, that wonderful seas in the Caribbean. It’s a fairly saturated game, it’s more colourful, more appealing, just more striking to the eye.

Source: http://www.revogamers.net/article.php?articleId=90&page=4

 

[Fox5]

So.....

How would you guys rate Wii's graphic power if you can possibly max it out?

Assume Xbox360/ps3 graphics are on ATI X1950/Nvida GeForce 8800 GTS level.

How would you say Wii's?

1. 360 and PS3 graphics likely aren't quite up there with an x1950 or a geforce 8800gts.
2. 8800Gts and x1950 are not on the same level.
3. Wii is probably around a radeon 9000 level.


4. I've played Red Steel, it looks on par with the James Bond games last gen, imo, outside of added shader effects.

 

[pc999]

Finally a game with self shadowing.

 

[wsippel]

Finally a game with self shadowing.

Yes. And another confirmation of high or even "insane" usable fillrate, compared to PS2 at least. There's more, but's it's also very vague:

RG: What have been the most significant advantages and disadvantages developing for the Wii?

AW: I think one of the biggest challenges is first just getting to understand the controller, at how you’re going to best use it. There’re so many different ways you can think of using the controller that really… we just had to take the time to play with it basically. And find what works. And then what works really well. Graphically, it’s got some great performance; it’s a lovely piece of hardware to work with; we got used to the power very quickly, there are a few techniques we’re gonna thank Nintendo, some graphical techniques which we could do easily on the PS2… but it’s only a couple. So at the end of the day, we’ve been able to produce a great different title that plays really, really well.

Problem is, how great is "great performance"...?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Of course its going to have jaggies at SD resolutions, so do 360 games, surely that was the point of him saying 360 at SD resolutions. As in looking like 360 games when they run at SD res, jaggies and all..

That's not a limit of the XB360 hardware though. Games could be rendered with lots of MSAA or high-res and downsampled, for quite reduced jaggies on SD. If Wii hasn't got AA capabilities, it remains a jag-fest.

So far I'm exceptionally disappointed with the SD support from these consoles. I hoped that in targetting SD, Nintendo made sure to target the IQ too. Providing 4xMSAA would have been very nice, but there's no sign of that yet. For XB360 and PS3, it's definitely a matter of the devs choices rather than hardware inadequacies. For Wii we don't yet know.

 

[Teasy]

That's not a limit of the XB360 hardware though. Games could be rendered with lots of MSAA or high-res and downsampled, for quite reduced jaggies on SD. If Wii hasn't got AA capabilities, it remains a jag-fest.

Of course it isn't a hardware limit, but I don't think that's the point. After all Nihilistcanada wasn't comparing the actual power of each console, he was simply comparing visuals. Saying that in his opinion Wii was designed to produce a similar quality of graphics as 360 games but at SD resolutions, 360 games with jaggies and shimmering if you will.

I very much doubt he was saying that Wii was designed to produce graphics as good as 360's (lack of jaggies and all) at 640x480 using decent levels of anti-aliasing.

 

[swaaye]

If only Nintendo had jammed an RV410 in there.....(yah yah, I say this about every other page). Imagine the geometry power the machine would have then! 6 VS2.0 vertex shaders......

I don't need no backwards compatibility out of my bargain console. Eh!

 

[MDX]

There goes more so called "experts" knowledge on the GPU going out of the window.

From GamaSutra on the GC TEV, with the new Wii effects in BOLD

* dynamically lit polygons with global and local lights specular highlights
* illumination maps
* reflection mapping
* emboss mapping (shift and subtract of a height field)
* bump mapping (per pixel calculations for diffuse, specular and reflective components)
* projected shadows
* self-shadowing
* shadow volumes
* projected reflections
* layered fog
* polynomial texture mapping
* displacement maps
* multiple texture mapping
* custom dithering
* normal mapping

Was pretty much already known, but just incase its now confirmed...

A portion of a Revogamers interview with Andrew Wensley, Codemasters…

RG: It’s known that the Wii version shows better modelled planes. Which other graphical improvements have been included compared to the PS2 version?

AW: Because the Wii’s just got more power under the hood, we were able to improve the explosions, the missile trails, the clouds, we added better water effects –you can see the crest of the wave when you fly really low-… and then you get also a better resolution of the planes, and have been added self-shadowing. But not just that. We also then looked to the colour palette that we use: the Wii, coming from Nintendo, has got a really rich -lush, you know- colour spin. We wanted brilliant skies, that wonderful seas in the Caribbean. It’s a fairly saturated game, it’s more colourful, more appealing, just more striking to the eye.

http://www.revogamers.net/article.php?articleId=90&page=4

 

[Shompola]

Of course it isn't a hardware limit, but I don't think that's the point. After all Nihilistcanada wasn't comparing the actual power of each console, he was simply comparing visuals. Saying that in his opinion Wii was designed to produce a similar quality of graphics as 360 games but at SD resolutions, 360 games with jaggies and shimmering if you will.

I very much doubt he was saying that Wii was designed to produce graphics as good as 360's (lack of jaggies and all) at 640x480 using decent levels of anti-aliasing.

But that sounds too far form the truth aswell now doesn't it? Xbox 360 level graphics at SD resolution inlcuding jaggies and other IQ imperfects would look leaps and bounds above Xbox. People think that lowering the resolution will automatically lower the load of other factors by the same amount. This is not true at all.

People are expecting way too much from Wii. And judging by the available software and forthcoming games in 2007, it hasn't even IMO outdone above average looking Xbox games yet. Definitely not technically.

 

[Oblivion]

Of course its going to have jaggies at SD resolutions, so do 360 games, surely that was the point of him saying 360 at SD resolutions. As in looking like 360 games when they run at SD res, jaggies and all..

What? I've seen plenty of games on SD (from last gen. even) that don't have jaggies.

 

[ninzel]

Wouldn't you just have to apply more AA at lower resolutions to get the desired effect?

 

[see colon]

If only Nintendo had jammed an RV410 in there.....(yah yah, I say this about every other page). Imagine the geometry power the machine would have then! 6 VS2.0 vertex shaders......

I don't need no backwards compatibility out of my bargain console. Eh!

i don't think backwards compatability was really a big concern because nintendo was thinking about the end user, but more for the developers. nintendo wanted a machine that was different, so that's what they made. but they needed a way to bait past developers to the system. having a machine that can run existing code, can be developed in a familiar development environment, and be ported from other popular consoles would make developing for the machine a no brainer for the first year or two because you can revive dead projects or port existing projects with little to no work except with the interface.

nintendo used a similar strategy with the DS. look at the GBA games that got ported over soon after the system launched. some japan only GBA games like pheonix wright turned into big hits on the DS with (relatively) little developer effort. licensed games were released on both platforms (GBA and DS) with little difference beyond a few touchscreen menus or extra 3D levels thrown in and made a quick holiday buck (star wars III and robots come to mind. they even sold at a premium on the DS).

look at the shovelware the DS got after launch, and look what Wii is getting right now. these are the titles developers/publishers will use to test the waters of Wii development. if they can use port an existing title over, learn a bit about the hardware, learn about the controller, then sell that software that they basicaly used as a learning tool at a profit, well that's a pretty big incentive to develope for the system.

 

[Megadrive1988]

So.....

How would you guys rate Wii's graphic power if you can possibly max it out?

Assume Xbox360/ps3 graphics are on ATI X1950/Nvida GeForce 8800 GTS level.

Xbox360 and PS3 graphics are not on the same level as GeForce 8800 GTS or even ATI X1950.
with the exception of Xbox360's huge framebuffer bandwidth.

as for Wii, I'll go with the official line, Wii being about 3 times more powerful than GameCube, which puts it well below 2002's ATI R300 / Radeon 9700 Pro, but above Xbox1.

 

[Flux]

Xbox360 and PS3 graphics are not on the same level as GeForce 8800 GTS or even ATI X1950.
with the exception of Xbox360's huge framebuffer bandwidth.

as for Wii, I'll go with the official line, Wii being about 3 times more powerful than GameCube, which puts it well below 2002's ATI R300 / Radeon 9700 Pro, but above Xbox1.

comments from representatives are hardly official.