TAS
Member
Agreed. I just saw the video review and IMO it looks no worse than the original.
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Rumor: Wii U final specs
- Thread starter EatChildren
- Start date
Agreed. I just saw the video review and IMO it looks no worse than the original.
DonMigs85
Member
It's a lot like the Dreamcast in that regard. Even if it lived, a lot of PS2/Xbox/GCN games weren't feasible on it without some big downgrades.
Thanks for the fast reply mate.
If those stats are correct then WiiU should perform more than double the Ram for games then (an extra 600mhz of Ram speed compared to the 360) ?.
Enjoying the speculation, it sounds like you guys are getting very close to figuring this thing out, keep going !.
4 days to go, HYPE !.
A bit over twice the main RAM for games with about 50% extra bandwidth and lower latency. Importantly, though, the 32MB of eDRAM should provide a couple hundred GB/s of bandwidth at extremely low latency, which, if used properly, should free up the DDR3 bus considerably.
Actually, it's 400MHz. XDR transmits 8 bits per pin per cycle, so it'd be 3.2GT/s at 400MHz.
BocoDragon
or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
Yes, exactly. It would be like buying the Dreamcast because of its shiny version of Tony Hawk 2...
Black Ops 2 and Assasin's Creed 3 will probably look ok on Wii U...
But Black Ops 3 and Assasin's Creed 4? Wii U is gonna be the worst version when its competitors move to the next gen.
Which is why I say ports are irrelevant. A nice bonus for now, but not something to really buy the console for.
Zoramon089
Banned
Why don't we wait till we know the specs of all the consoles?! Some people here are so quick to jump the gun
BocoDragon
or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
It doesn't take a fortune teller to say that PS4/720 are gonna blow Wii U's specs out of the water
Doesn't matter if they "need" it, they simply SHOULD have it.
DonMigs85
Member
It's pretty likely there will be a significant power gap. Even Dreamcast versus Xbox was massive.
Yes, exactly. It would be like buying the Dreamcast because of its shiny version of Tony Hawk 2...
Black Ops 2 and Assasin's Creed 3 will probably look ok on Wii U...
But Black Ops 3 and Assasin's Creed 4? Wii U is gonna be the worst version when its competitors move to the next gen.
Which is why I say ports are irrelevant. A nice bonus for now, but not something to really buy the console for.
You mean the version with the worst graphics?, lets not make the mistake of assuming that will necessarily make it the worst version.
DonMigs85
Member
If we're lucky, it'll be kinda like comparing the PS1 version of Tony Hawk 2 to the Dreamcast one. Much uglier, but same core gameplay.
High bandwidth is needed for shuffling and changing around textures, and using a lot of transparencies eats it for lunch.
It's also a big limiting factor for super and multi-sampling anti-aliasing.
Vulcano's assistant
Banned
If COD next gen is a real next gen shooter, then the number of players, and the size of levels could be the issue.
Knowing Activision they can just keep milking the same versions in HD.
The gap wont be on the level of Dreamcast to Xbox.
BocoDragon
or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
It's not just "graphics". In all likelihood Assassin's Creed 4 and its ilk will be doing things on PS4/720 that aren't even possible on Wii U. The port might be so downgraded that it's not even the same game... or it might not be released at all.
One way or another, the future of Wii U is original games. This porting from PS360 thing will be a footnote in its history.
Do not buy it for multiplatform titles alone. You will be dissapointed in the years to come.
Yeah... it'll probably be bigger.
DonMigs85
Member
We can't be too sure.
If the other machines have at least 4GB total RAM and GPUs in the neighborhood of a Radeon 7970 (or even a mere 5870)... It will be a big difference.
With the extensive use of Direct X11 variant APIs it just might be.
Apophis2036
Banned
It's strange, out of all the older PS360 ports i expected NG3 to be the best performing, simply because they were spending so much time actually improving the core game.
Why they wouldn't throw some AA on it and clean up the textures while they were at it really surprises me, maybe they ran out of it's development budget, or time, or maybe a combo of both.
I wouldn't expect ANY of the other multi platform games to look or run any better on WiiU, BO 2, AC3, Fifa 13, Madden 13, Sonic Racing 2 ect are fast, cheap ports for launch to try and get another few hundred thousand sales on a new platform.
WiiU getting next gen multi platform games will be far more to do with companies willing to bother rather than the hardware being able to handle them imo.
A lot also depends on how many consoles they get out before March next year, if they can get close to a 10 million install base the console will be very hard to ignore.
The power gap will likely be 4x at most from WiiU-PS4/720 rather than the 10+x the Wii-PS360 was.
I think Watch Dogs will be the first game to show any real leap in terms of difference between the PS360 and WiiU versions but there is already talk of it appearing on PS4/720 at launch so those will obviously be the best looking / running console versions.
Why they wouldn't throw some AA on it and clean up the textures while they were at it really surprises me, maybe they ran out of it's development budget, or time, or maybe a combo of both.
I wouldn't expect ANY of the other multi platform games to look or run any better on WiiU, BO 2, AC3, Fifa 13, Madden 13, Sonic Racing 2 ect are fast, cheap ports for launch to try and get another few hundred thousand sales on a new platform.
WiiU getting next gen multi platform games will be far more to do with companies willing to bother rather than the hardware being able to handle them imo.
A lot also depends on how many consoles they get out before March next year, if they can get close to a 10 million install base the console will be very hard to ignore.
The power gap will likely be 4x at most from WiiU-PS4/720 rather than the 10+x the Wii-PS360 was.
I think Watch Dogs will be the first game to show any real leap in terms of difference between the PS360 and WiiU versions but there is already talk of it appearing on PS4/720 at launch so those will obviously be the best looking / running console versions.
No if we're lucky they'll do something good with the WiiU GamePad and the game will have its plus points that could arguably make it the better version despite worse graphics, like comparing PES on Wii and 360 (but with a smaller difference in the graphics department). I'm not saying I have a lot of confidence in Activision doing that, just saying that worse graphics doesnt neccesarily mean a worse game when the two systems have there own unique features.
The next XBox and Playstation won't have anything near 7970-level GPUs. The PS4 is widely expected to have something akin to a downclocked 7850/7870 and the XBox3 is expected to come in lower than that. They'll both certainly be noticeably more powerful than the Wii U, but some people are expecting far too much out of them.
Chiggs
Gold Member
It will be an Ocean-sized difference, but at least Nintendo will have their best franchises running in HD--that's going to mean a lot.
Oh, interesting. Especially regarding AA.
Also, this question just occurred to me. How much memory was dedicated to the Wii's OS?
BocoDragon
or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
The same could be said for Wii. The Wiimote might make a multiplatform title better on Wii than on PS3 and 360. But how many times did that even happen? So few, because the Wii wasn't even equipped to handle most of the games developed on PS360. History will repeat itself here.
Hard as it might be to picture now if you're not a high end PC gamer, but there will be all sorts of PS4/720 games coming in the next years that the Wii U will simply not be capable of running. Even if they can make a greatly downgraded version on Wii U, will the gamepad screen gimmick they tack on make it the better version? I doubt you'll think so in 2014, 2015, etc etc.
None, Wii didn't had a traditional OS. Everything had to be coded and ran in-game.
You are correct. It will be larger.
Transparencies are expensive because of overdraw. When you draw 10 semi-transparent smoke things on top of each other you are drawing over the same pixel 10 times. This is why many games do transparencies at half or even quarter res.
This is also why when you shoot a rocket launcher in EDF and run through the smoke you get 10 FPS.
Texture speed and memory aren't much of a factor, a transparent texture is still just a texture. It may have an alpha channel and a different compression level but at the same time a dude's face may have 6 or more different texture maps associated with it while a particle may have one or two. And most particles are going to use the same texture or texture atlas, so if you are drawing a bunch of smoke it's not like you need a ton of extra texture memory.
This is also why when you shoot a rocket launcher in EDF and run through the smoke you get 10 FPS.
Texture speed and memory aren't much of a factor, a transparent texture is still just a texture. It may have an alpha channel and a different compression level but at the same time a dude's face may have 6 or more different texture maps associated with it while a particle may have one or two. And most particles are going to use the same texture or texture atlas, so if you are drawing a bunch of smoke it's not like you need a ton of extra texture memory.
Don't be too sure. Those games first have to be made and take advantage of the new hardware, and that's probably gonna be more expensive than it was this generation (accoding to epic) - which in the end will probably draw guite a lot of developers away from AAA+ titles, back to normal AA titles.
How would that define a Dreamcast to XBox leap? XBox was DX8, programmable pixel/vertex shaders while Dreamcast was DX6 level (didnt even have fixed function T&L let alone programmable). Xbox had over 9 times the pixel fillrate and 18 times the texel fillrate. Even taking Dreamcasts effective fillrates with overdraw the differences were massive. Memory bandwidth was 8x higher on Xbox and it could push about 20x as many polygons.
No... Do some research into the differences between Dreamcast and XBox. Outside of RAM amount we wont be seeing those kind of differences.
The Wii couldn't run engines like UE3 - not because of power - but because of the architecture. It couldn't even run DX8-level games, let alone DX9-level.
The Wii U does not have this problem. Epic said UE4 could be ported over to it, for instance. Once a multi-plat game engine is running on a system, it's then a matter of scaling the assets to maintain a targeted framerate.
frankie_baby
Member
No it won't
8GB NextBox!
Stuff like this won't be possible on Wii U without a Direct X11 variant API... And of course, power to run it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWvgETOo5ek
That game and Engine is coming for the 360 and Ps3...
lwilliams3
Member
Wow, I didn't know the tech difference was that huge.
I believe, though, that most people are comparing the DC vs Box for the visual difference..though even that may be a bit arguable considering how good game graphics are compared to that generation.
And yet we're getting respectable ports on 7 year old hardware. HOW BOUT DAT SHIIIIT
People who say this is going to be "wii all over again" tend to not really understand what made the wii an outlier. The Wii U - PS4/720 gulf will be very large, and I know there will be quite a few games simply not possible on wii u. But there will likely be many more that could be ported if developers gave a damn. Will they? Given precedent, likely not, but the future is still pretty uncertain. The next generation is not going to resemble this one or any generation before it, that's for damn sure.
KojiKnight
Member
Fun fact, there isn't a single name in the industry that has stated the Wii U doesn't have DX11 equivalency... we do, however, have a couple who have said it does (including Unity)
How does that contradicts what Donnie Said? Does Half-life 2 and Doom 3 can run on the Dreamcast? At least that game is running on level Dx9.0c hardware.
Bony Manifesto
Member
And that's probably what the Wii U versions of next-gen games will be like.
The point is that, unlike the current generation, developers will be able to create cut-down builds of these games for Nintendo's console without having to recode everything from scratch.
And yet we're getting respectable ports on 7 year old hardware. HOW BOUT DAT SHIIIIT
People who say this is going to be "wii all over again" tend to not really understand what made the wii an outlier. The Wii U - PS4/720 gulf will be very large, and I know there will be quite a few games simply not possible on wii u. But there will likely be many more that could be ported if developers gave a damn. Will they? Given precedent, likely not, but the future is still pretty uncertain. The next generation is not going to resemble this one or any generation before it, that's for damn sure.
I'm being generous here.
Current Gen was choking on DX9 stuff in Crysis 2 while it runs in 60fps on PC.
Crysis 3 in Direct X11 mode is choking some PCs.
Heh, well I can see Xbox3/PS4 having as much as 3GB for games 4GB at an absolute stretch. Which vs WiiU (if it stays at 1GB) is very similar to the difference between DC and XBox. But I cant see any other likely similarities. Architectures between the two will be much closer and performance differences wont be as drastic unless Sony/MS suddenly decide to more than double the specs we've heard about.
That doesnt answer my question. Not being able to run a game with the same level of graphics fedelity is one thing. Not even being able to run the engine is another. Dreamcast was a completely different animal to XBox, much more so than DX10.1 vs DX11.
At best the Wii U can run the 360/PS3 DX9 variant versions in at least 60fps and HD with proper coding.
But damn... It's going to be cinematic on Wii U with that DirectX11 type stuff.
b-b-but i thought once consoles get high end PC parts, they're going to make current gen games look like poop. POOP ON A STICK. How could Crysis 3 be tough on PCs when it's going to look like a ps1 game in about a year's time?
Ok, I'm being obnoxious. Anywho, how does crysis 2 choke on DX9 stuff? I thought it ran pretty well and looked quite alright on my 360. I've always felt it was silly how people go on and on about how high end PC stuff (or future PS4/720 innards) will run stuff that's impossible on Wii U. But PC development is all about scalability (though unfortunately not always about optimization). Do people really think Wii U is going to produce visuals that are worse than the lowest settings on future PC games? I guess a more important question is how long until every PC game requires a dx11 ubercard? Crysis 2's required at minimum a DX10 card, and yet it ran perfectly fine on 7 year old, DX9 equivalents. So what gives, eh?
Exactly, like how DDR/2/3/etc is rated X but actual MHz is much lower. DDR2 400 is 100Mhz for example while DDR2 800 is 200mhz yet they are rated various ways like PC-3200 or PC-6400, or even the DDR 400/800 nomenclature for that matter.
How much of that is actually related to DX11? The main features are tesselation and compute shaders. The WiiU GPU is pretty much guarenteed to have a tesselation unit, but maybe not as powerful or as flexible as the DX11 standard, and Iwata has specifically mentioned doing GPGPU stuff. Power of course is a completely different matter.
Im not sure I get your point here. Why would it be able to run a DX9 engine at best when its features will be over DX10.1 level? Hope you dont think Im trying to argue for the sake of it, just trying to understand your point of view.
I'm going by the current crop of console ports.
Well as they say, there's only one way to find out. Crytek has to put Crysis 3 on Wii U to test the power.
Of course it can run it. I was talking about the Next Gen stuff that won't appear on the 360/PS3.
Two things. 1) Wasn't it confirmed from Crytek that Wii-U could run CryEngine3? 2)
Don't kill me, but none of the stuff they showed there seems like a huge leap from what the 360/PS3 can do right now. D: