WiiGeePeeYou (Hollywood) what IS it ?

[pakotlar]

If gamecube could do it, why wasn't it done? Some games used small elements like this, but none made the entire game look like this, I don't think gamecube had quite enough power to do an entire scene in this style, but then again, pokemon wii is limited to a mere 4 characters with limited quality backgrounds, and fighting games typically look a generation beyond most other games anyway just due to the smaller focus.

Yes, and this makes a lot of sense. I don't, for a minute, think that in 5 years dev's could not extract the "full" power of the gamecube. That is a rediculous notion, even the significantly harder (and worse libraries at that) to program for PS2 has by all accounts reached the peak of its potential. Though Pokemon Colleseum is not exactly peak of GC rendering power, even RE4 was not as pretty as this new pokemon (or the new metriod) and ran at 480i (i believe?). I love my gc, but this is way better. Also remember that even 4x gamecube will not bring us amazing changes in graphical quality. We are slowly reaching a point of diminishing returns in graphics, where even xbxo1->360 is not in all cases a huge jump in graphical quality (at least compared to say PS->PS2 or even better, SNES->64). The graphics will be better where it counts, especially as far lighting goes (it seems the biggest improvements are in this area), and physics should be more intricate thanks to the extra CPU power, but do not expect a huge leap. That being said, if I could get even just get real-time dynamic shadowing (stencil) and better dynamic lighting in RE4 I would be pleased, even if polygon counts got only a small bump, and textures stayed the same. By all accounts, we should expect the above except with double the texture resolution and polygon counts. Not bad imo.

also, it is important to note that many Wii games should be 480p widescreen, which is a bump in resolution over 480p 4:3.

 

[Megadrive1988]

if Wii games all use 4x anti-aliasing, that alone would be a nice improvement,a long with 2x polygons count and 2x texture resolution.


i'm really hoping the 60fps for all Wii games is true. that alone would be a large improvement over Gamecube, PS2 and Xbox games.

 

[Fox5]

Actually I find it best to compare games from the same Franchise & Dev Team more relevant. Why compare RE4 to a new Mario game? Super Mario Sunshine vs. Mario 128 seems a much fairer comparison.



And everything being shown are 1st gen Wii titles Heck, unreleases, thus pre-1st gen Wii titles



Maybe true. But we are seeing some effects (namely shadowing techniques and possibly some new lighting tricks as well) never found on the GCN and there is still a bit of mystery about the hardware. The textures and poly detail seem to be inline with the GCN x ~2 approach, but some of the effects not so.

As for dev tools, they should not take a step back. Nintendo is at the advantage of 1) releasing 1 year into the next gen curve and 2) going with a hardware-performance level already mastered. The PS3 and Xbox 360 have issues with new technology + how to best use the power. Wii will only be an issue of best using existing techniques.

Ok, most of those dev teams already released one or two games on the cube! And Melee and Brawl both use assets straight from other games, and are not representative of either system's strength.
And I'm not comparing different dev teams, I believe Pikmin and Sunshine are the same dev team, though you don't know if galaxies is still the same dev team. Even if it is, it's essentially a late gen effort on the same hardware, and pikmin is in a somewhat similar style to mario anyway. It's not like galaxies is keeping with the standard mario art direction, and it's not like sunshine did either.

And when you're trying to analyse the abilities of the Wii compared to gamecube, and not xbox 360 or ps3, you really need to ask "could this have been done on the cube?"

I haven't seen anything I don't think could have been done on cube, I've only seen things that I don't think could have been done anywhere near as extensively on cube. In most cases, they look inline with what a raw 2x to 3x power jump would imbue, but I think that some (like the pokemon video and early red steel stuff) indicate feature upgrades as well.

Though Pokemon Colleseum is not exactly peak of GC rendering power, even RE4 was not as pretty as this new pokemon (or the new metriod) and ran at 480i (i believe?).

A bordered (thus lower res) unstable 30 fps actually, which is just as good as being a 480i game. (visual wise anyway, the 480p mode actually looked worse...60fps games seem to have large jumps going to 480p, but I'm hard pressed to think of a 30fps game that really benefitted from pscan)

also, it is important to note that many Wii games should be 480p widescreen, which is a bump in resolution over 480p 4:3.

I thought the res was the same, but the pixel shape different? More detail is still in the shot though, so more power is required, I'm just not sure if fillrate is.

Dedicated physics/animation hardware and dedicated anti aliasing support would free up a lot of the wii's resources to make some outstanding looking games, btw.

 

[Urian]

Gamecube making FSAA---> Performance to the half.

Wii making FSAA---> 50% more clock speed without losing performance----> 3 times faster.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

And everything being shown are 1st gen Wii titles Heck, unreleases, thus pre-1st gen Wii titles

Indeed. To compare relative performance you need to consider the games from the same periods in lifecycle, in this case first-gen titles vs. first-gen titles. To compare the best of last-gen with the worst of this-gen isn't going to be a fair comparison. But also, improvements in tools could mean more is being extracted from the hardware in Wii, so it's first-gen titles could be significantly advanced on a software level. Thus, once again, hardware comparisons from screenshots become moot!

 

[pakotlar]

Indeed. To compare relative performance you need to consider the games from the same periods in lifecycle, in this case first-gen titles vs. first-gen titles. To compare the best of last-gen with the worst of this-gen isn't going to be a fair comparison. But also, improvements in tools could mean more is being extracted from the hardware in Wii, so it's first-gen titles could be significantly advanced on a software level. Thus, once again, hardware comparisons from screenshots become moot!

Well to be fair, if the Wii is really as similar to GC as developers are claiming, this would be more like 6th gen GC software than 1st gen Wii software. But I guess that hinges on Hollywood. And look, we went full circle back to OP!

 

[GwymWeepa]

What befuddles me is why the wii would need any sort of active cooling if we're just dealing with 5 yr old technology shrunk down in die cast size. It should fun just fine from ambient air cooling right?

 

[Guden Oden]

Perhaps passive cooling would suffice, but the chips are enclosed in a very small plastic shell, which means hardly any ventilation or surface area. The heat still has to go somewhere, hence the fan.

 

[pc999]

Dedicated physics/animation hardware and dedicated anti aliasing support would free up a lot of the wii's resources to make some outstanding looking games, btw.

Something for pathfinding/sensory AI/... (or low level AI like AISeek call it) would be very nice too that with 128Mgs of memory would make what starting to look like a good console.

Gamecube making FSAA---> Performance to the half.

Wii making FSAA---> 50% more clock speed without losing performance----> 3 times faster.

Free FSAA and still 3x better, I hope so, at least that.

Perhaps passive cooling would suffice, but the chips are enclosed in a very small plastic shell, which means hardly any ventilation or surface area. The heat still has to go somewhere, hence the fan.

It is said to be even more quiet than GC and that would be more than enought.
If the fan is small/slow enought with a inteligent design is possible I think.

 

[mattcoz]

Gamecube making FSAA---> Performance to the half.

Wii making FSAA---> 50% more clock speed without losing performance----> 3 times as fast.

fixed.

Then double the pipelines for 6 times as fast. Wiiii!

 

[pc999]

fixed.

Then double the pipelines for 6 times as fast. Wiiii!

In that case it would be

Gamecube making FSAA---> Performance to the half.

Wii making FSAA without losing performance ---> 50% more clock speed ----> 3 times as fast.

 

[swaaye]

Well to be fair, if the Wii is really as similar to GC as developers are claiming, this would be more like 6th gen GC software than 1st gen Wii software. But I guess that hinges on Hollywood. And look, we went full circle back to OP!

Yeah I get the feeling that Wii is basically a significantly enhanced machine, perhaps similar to 'Cube in CPU, with the same simple-to-program-for design philosophy. I don't think there is a huge difference between 'cube 1st gen and the final games, at least nothing like on N64 say. It was very easy to optimize for the machine because they got rid of bunches of the horrible bottlenecks of the '90s systems. I've read several developers say that.

360 and PS3, however, should display obvious improvements as devs figure out the wacky CPUs in those machines. I doubt this will result in better graphics, but maybe more consistent framerates with more objects on the screen at once? The GPUs are not unknown factors in those machines IMO because they don't have the strange holdbacks (multithreaded in-order nonsense) of the CPUs. Other than the obvious 720p advantage, I seriously doubt that the graphical differences will be all that noticeable. Why? 'Cube was well outgunned by Xbox but it hardly mattered in the end. And on an SDTV, which I firmly believe is what the majority will use the systems on, the differences will be almost entirely lost.

 

[Ooh-videogames]

Memory is the biggest ? for me right now, it seems to be the main hurdle for Nintendo when it comes to price and technical benefits. Nintendo doesn't want memory to be the achilles heel for Wii, the same way it was for the GC. I bet they're trying to find a number that doesn't push them over $250.

Also souped-up GC devkits purpose, FMPOV has more to do with devkit cost then anything. Its alot cheaper than going the route MS went with early devkits being G5's and the latest ATI card.

 

[Fox5]

Memory is the biggest ? for me right now, it seems to be the main hurdle for Nintendo when it comes to price and technical benefits. Nintendo doesn't want memory to be the achilles heel for Wii, the same way it was for the GC. I bet they're trying to find a number that doesn't push them over $250.

Also souped-up GC devkits purpose, FMPOV has more to do with devkit cost then anything. Its alot cheaper than going the route MS went with early devkits being G5's and the latest ATI card.

Is the cost of the dev kit really significant compared to the cost of the game development? Whether it costs $500 or $5000 or $50000, it shouldn't be a big part of the budget. (well, $50,000 might be if you have to get one for every team member)

 

[fearsomepirate]

I don't think Gamecube even had the featureset to do much in the way of per-pixel lighting (can someone like ERP confirm this?). If that's the case, a simple overclock wouldn't give us what we're seeing in the tiny handful of relevant images/vids we've seen. What it seems like to me is that Hollywood has slightly bumped up data throughput, but a significantly beefed up featureset. That's why I think we're seeing less than spectacular polycounts and texturing (though better than most of Cube's generation, they're not orders of magnitude better), but lighting and shadowing going way beyond what we saw on PS2, Cube, or Xbox. On an interesting note, we haven't seen much in the way of bump mapping. There's a bit in Galaxy, but that's all.

 

[Megadrive1988]

Fearsomepirate, Jessica:

any word on hearing even part of that interview?

 

[pc999]

GC can do normal maps and that requires per pixel lighting so the feature set is able to do that, or simple read the ERP post that someone linkend in the begining of the thread hee he say that pixel shaders and the TEV are on par with each other.

So spped would be enought for this.

 

[pc999]

Fearsomepirate, Jessica:

any word on hearing even part of that interview?

News on this would be very nice too.

 

[Thunder Emperor]

News on this would be very nice too.

yeah news would be nice

 

[Guden Oden]

GC can do normal maps and that requires per pixel lighting so the feature set is able to do that

Sorry, you got it the wrong way around. Per pixel lighting - at least as implemented in Doom3 and similar games - requires normal maps (DOT3 bumpmap). Unfortunately, it also requires cubemapping, which the gamecube ironically CANNOT do!

or simple read the ERP post that someone linkend in the begining of the thread hee he say that pixel shaders and the TEV are on par with each other.

I think you're trying to overexaggerate what has been said.

Actually, the cube's TEV is less powerful than the "pixel shaders" of the NV2A GPU used in the xbox. And calling those pixel shaders might be somewhat of an exaggeration as well actually, as they're very primitive with limited instructions and very limited instruction slots...