WiiGeePeeYou (Hollywood) what IS it ?

[Mmmkay]

IGN has current and next generation screens of Marvel: Ultimate Alliance up. The next-gen screens look far below the abilities of X360 and PS3. Could they be indicative of Wii graphics?

http://media.wii.ign.com/media/825/825377/img_3550375.html

Compare to:

http://media.xbox.ign.com/media/762/762707/img_3579410.html

Err, did you check the 360/PS3 screenshots?
http://media.xbox360.ign.com/media/822/822965/img_3549489.html

Because they all have the same screenshot. i.e. All the 'next-gen' shots were taken from the same development platform. Which is more than likely the 360.

 

[StefanS]

guys, is it possible that the physics-processing done on the Hollywood LSI,
is non-ATI tech ?

Wouldn't we have heard from their partners by now? We've seen press releases from most of their partners (Havok, etc.), so I'll believe that the physics processing is handled by ATI. Who would be their partner anyway? Ageia?

 

[mattcoz]

guys, is it possible that the physics-processing done on the Hollywood LSI, is non-ATI tech ?

Seems to me it would make a lot more sense to have ATi handle it, more flexible and cost-effective. ATi's solution doesn't require any additional hardware other than 3.0 level vertex shaders, and if they're moving to fully programmable T&L then they might as well go all the way.

 

[pc999]

Here is the Havok announcement about their software on Wii. With Jessica's recent interview I can't help but wonder if all 3 of them being on Wii is a coincedence.

Havoc is already prepared to GC if it is going to be done in the same overclocked HW there wouldnt be need for this.

BTW did you know that ATI says that a X1600 should be faster than a PPU.

 

[mattcoz]

Havok FX requires SM3.0 Pixel Shaders, and nothing we've seen or heard so far has suggested that Hollwood would have them. This is the biggest thing that is standing in my way of believing it can handle physics.

 

[swaaye]

Heh well I'm a long way in believing in physics acceleration at all. So far it just has proven how difficult it is to come up with ways to actually use simulated physics in games. And I'm also not convinced that it's not just GPU and PPU makers grasping for ways to market their products in new ways (to sell more new stuff). Nothing good there for us.

The other consoles have so much CPU power that can be tapped yet (they just need things to use it for, things that can be easily parallelized) that GPU physics acceleration, I feel, is just another stupid buzzword.

And my PC, oh, just has a whole extra 2.6 GHz K8 core sitting there idle in 98% of games!

 

[darkblu]

Heh well I'm a long way in believing in physics acceleration at all. So far it just has proven how difficult it is to come up with ways to actually use simulated physics in games.

actually there're whole game genres whose bread'n'butter is physics simulation.

And I'm also not convinced that it's not just GPU and PPU makers grasping for ways to market their products in new ways (to sell more new stuff). Nothing good there for us.

'us' being?

The other consoles have so much CPU power that can be tapped yet (they just need things to use it for, things that can be easily parallelized) that GPU physics acceleration, I feel, is just another stupid buzzword.

never heard of computation efficiency? hell, i'm all for software rasterizers but i believe GPU's had proven their efficiency, no?

And my PC, oh, just has a whole extra 2.6 GHz K8 core sitting there idle in 98% of games!

that comes in ralation to what?

 

[Teasy]

swaaye

I'm not sure I understand your point. How does the fact that XBox 360/PS3 and your PC (mine too ) have a lot of CPU power to use for physics make a dedicated physics processor only a buzz word?

 

[pc999]

Not talking about physic on the GPU/PPU in the PC but in the consoles it would be used with the objective of doing it and doing it cheap.

Everybody agree that physics/animations is on of the main things that should evolve why not making it evolve in a cheap way, ie, making you save money or meybe letting other components evolve too?

 

[Urian]

Is possible that when Matt talks about internal RAM he is talking about embedded RAM on Hollywood?

In 90nm we can put 12MB in the same area where 3MB at 180nm can be put and since they can use 1T-SRAM-Q (4x Density) is possible that Hollywood has 24MB of "internal" embedded RAM.

 

[pc999]

Is possible that when Matt talks about internal RAM he is talking about embedded RAM on Hollywood?

In 90nm we can put 12MB in the same area where 3MB at 180nm can be put and since they can use 1T-SRAM-Q (4x Density) is possible that Hollywood has 24MB of "internal" embedded RAM.

I doubt. He talked about edram in the same article and also said it could be accessed as fast as the "external" Ram. But it is perfectely possible that he dont know what is talking about so, yes.

 

[mattcoz]

Is possible that when Matt talks about internal RAM he is talking about embedded RAM on Hollywood?

In 90nm we can put 12MB in the same area where 3MB at 180nm can be put and since they can use 1T-SRAM-Q (4x Density) is possible that Hollywood has 24MB of "internal" embedded RAM.

He never referred to "internal RAM", he referred to 24MB of main RAM, 64MB of external RAM(probably replacement of A-RAM), and 3MB of embedded RAM on Hollywood. Oh, and 1T-SRAM-Q is 4x the density of SRAM, not the original 1T-SRAM. Here is an excellent size comparison: http://www.edn.com/contents/images/265507t1.pdf. Based on the numbers in that chart, using 90nm you could fit around 9-10MB of 1T-SRAM or 20-21MB of 1T-SRAM-Q in the same space as the 1T-SRAM on Flipper.

 

[GwymWeepa]

Well I do wish they would put that much ram in there. I really wish that if Nintendo really was gung-ho about making a gamecube turbo that they pull out all the stops and make it as powerful and efficient as the gamecube architecture allows. If they could fit 20MB of video ram in the same space as the ram in flipper, then do it. Anyhoo, has anyone seen the video of the Wii Pokemon game? Looks great, but its still difficult to guess how much more power we're dealing with. It easily looks 2x the previous pokemon games, but some GC games matched those graphics.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgraCePaHGk

 

[Megadrive1988]

Julian Eggebrecht wanted basicly the same thing. increase every feature by a large amount while keeping the basic Gamecube philosophy in tact.

http://www.planetgamecube.com/specialArt.cfm?artid=1906

Planet GameCube: If there was something you could change about the GameCube hardware, what would it be, and why?


Julian Eggebrecht: Nintendo struck the balance almost perfectly, so aside from increasing every feature hundred-fold we don t have any complaints.

 

[Skrying]

It would seem Nintendo is lossing money on the Wii hardware, I would think this hints as to something a bit more powerful in the Wii. What IGN first said would be very cheap, and would certainlly not be causing Nintendo to sell at a loss.

http://today.reuters.com/stocks/Quo...CH-JAPAN-NINTENDO-UPDATE-1-PICTURE.XML&rpc=66

 

[StefanS]

It would seem Nintendo is lossing money on the Wii hardware, I would think this hints as to something a bit more powerful in the Wii. What IGN first said would be very cheap, and would certainlly not be causing Nintendo to sell at a loss.

http://today.reuters.com/stocks/Quo...CH-JAPAN-NINTENDO-UPDATE-1-PICTURE.XML&rpc=66

"We can't promise we won't even have a one yen loss, but we are not expecting an enormous loss."

Well, that depends entirely on how the final price is going to look like and of course the exchange rates and their volatility. I don't expect them to take losses if Wii is priced at $250.

 

[theafu]

Fearsome any news on the horizon yet?

 

[Megadrive1988]

It would seem Nintendo is lossing money on the Wii hardware, I would think this hints as to something a bit more powerful in the Wii. What IGN first said would be very cheap, and would certainlly not be causing Nintendo to sell at a loss.

http://today.reuters.com/stocks/Quo...CH-JAPAN-NINTENDO-UPDATE-1-PICTURE.XML&rpc=66

but the small losses that Nintendo might suffer from selling Wii hardware, well, we don't know at all where those possible losses are coming from. the Wiimote / free-hand-controller, the Hollywood GPU, or what.

 

[GwymWeepa]

Well considering the R&D and costs of launching a console, and advertising budget set aside for the next year, the hardware itself may be very cheap, but it won't cover those costs for a few months.

 

[Acert93]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apHSA8iQizI

The new Pokemon looks pretty good. Hard to get much from the video, but the quality is much better than GCN titles. Kind of reminds me of the early Red Steel shots.