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Rumor: Wii U final specs

V

Van Owen

Banned
JoelFB said:
As part of the development team, I'd very much like to see some evidence too. :) Couldn't quite find anything in the Giant Bomb thread (didn't browse it all).

Trine 2: Director's Cut should be using slightly higher graphics settings on Wii U than Trine 2 on the other consoles - nothing really major but a tiny bit. Also the new Goblin Menace expansion levels simply wouldn't run on the other consoles right now, they're more demanding than the normal campaign levels and we've done a lot of optimizations on Wii U to make them run well. The only possibility I can think of for "effects missing" is that if we've had to optimize the Goblin Menace levels we've accidentally disabled some effects for the main campaign too. But let's see some real evidence first and I can provide the tech answer (or semi-tech, I'm no programmer myself). If some effects are truly missing, we'll fix it in an update. :)

Also I have to apologize to North American gamers - we actually wanted to have a small discount at launch but sadly that wasn't possible just yet. We're going to have it in Europe but of course that's no consolation to NA gamers. Sorry!

Anyhow I hope those who buy the game enjoy it very much! :)


Best,
Joel
Frozenbyte
Click to expand...

These dudes seem to think it's mostly related to the lighting.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=44493294&postcount=9465

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=44493286&postcount=9464

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=44493257&postcount=9462

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=44493274&postcount=650

I only own the PC version so I can't say for certain.
 
D

Donnie

Member
DieH@rd said:
Well... they literally went to AMD and asked for the most slowest and oldest part they can produce. I really dont think they could have gone worse than this [although they somehow managed to put beyond worst case scenario hardware in 3DS IMHO].
Click to expand...

They went to AMD in 2008/9 and asked to base a custom chip on their newest currently released GPU. But don't let reality spoil your fun.
 
B

beril

Member
DieH@rd said:
Well... they literally went to AMD and asked for the most slowest and oldest part they can produce. I really dont think they could have gone worse than this [although they somehow managed to put beyond worst case scenario hardware in 3DS IMHO].
Click to expand...

The 3DS GPU is really pretty awesome
 
J

jerd

Member
Van Owen said:
These dudes seem to think it's mostly related to the lighting.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=44493294&postcount=9465

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=44493286&postcount=9464

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=44493257&postcount=9462

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=44493274&postcount=650

I only own the PC version so I can't say for certain.
Click to expand...

I think we all know that "some guys on GAF said..." doesn't exactly cut it. Lots of people have stupid agendas or biases around here. I'm not saying you're wrong because I don't know (Trine is still in my backlog so haven't even looked into Trine 2 yet), just that we would probably need a little more evidence.
 
D

Donnie

Member
beril said:
The 3DS GPU is really pretty awesome
Click to expand...

Its not programmable pixel shader based so to some its automatically worse than any chip that is. I've seen many a poster talk about how Nintendo should have just used a "superior" GPU like SGX535. That GPU had a nice feature set, but it doesn't have the oompth to use them for modern effects. See just about any smartphone game in history, static everything.
 
B

beril

Member
v1oz said:
Not when you compare it to Power VR chips in budget cell phones. Even in terms of battery life.
Click to expand...

Yes it is. Obviously it's rendering to a lower resolution than most smartphones, but for that resolution it's a beast. Even with 4x AA, Gunman Clive is running at an average of about 120 fps when I turn off VSync. It took some optimisation to reach that point, but mostly CPU related, and a lot of much more expensive smarthpones can hardly run it at 30 fps.
 
V

Van Owen

Banned
jerd21 said:
I think we all know that "some guys on GAF said..." doesn't exactly cut it. Lots of people have stupid agendas or biases around here. I'm not saying you're wrong because I don't know (Trine is still in my backlog so haven't even looked into Trine 2 yet), just that we would probably need a little more evidence.
Click to expand...

Yeah, it's definitely not as definitive as say the horrendous ports of Batman and Epic Mickey.
 
D

Donnie

Member
beril said:
Yes it is. Obviously it's rendering to a lower resolution than most smartphones, but for that resolution it's a beast. Even with 4x AA, Gunman Clive is running at an average of about 120 fps when I turn off VSync. It took some optimisation to reach that point, but mostly CPU related, and a lot of much more expensive smarthpones can hardly run it at 30 fps.
Click to expand...

Out of interest do you know any of the details of the configuration of the GPU?, like pixel pipes, number of vertex shader units?
 
D

Donnie

Member
Phazon said:
Record a bit of the same footage on both the Xbox360 and Wii U and compare?
Click to expand...

That would certainly solve some of these problems with people basing things on hearsay and others not believing them. Unfortunately in 99% of cases these kind of comments seem to be made based on no direct comparison.
 
D

DrWong

Member
Van Owen said:
Yeah, it's definitely not as definitive as say the horrendous ports of Batman and Epic Mickey.
Click to expand...
Fairplay it's not for you it seems. How can you still say such a thing - "it's definitely not as definitive as" - when a dev' of the game just told us this version is "slightly" improved with some stuff not possible on the other consoles?
 
V

v1oz

Member
Donnie said:
Which PowerVR chips? Have you ever seen a full 3D game on a budget phone with dynamic lighting or even dynamic shadows?
Click to expand...
Games on cell phones tend not to have dynamics lighting and shadows because the hardware is poorly optimized for games with slow memory designed around low power consumption. And there is a thick layer of abstraction on the OS. But the games still look better because the chips have more modern features like shaders and produce prettier pixels. The image quality difference is night and day. 2D games look super slick too.

Even the old SGX535 did a respectable job on the Need for Speed games.
 
L

Lonely1

Unconfirmed Member
v1oz said:
Not when you compare it to Power VR chips in budget cell phones. Even in terms of battery life.
Click to expand...

I was going to respond to this, but looks like beril is already on the case :). If you wanna throw shit at the 3DS design, the CPU is first on line. Now, that's slow.

v1oz said:
Even the old SGX535 did a respectable job on the Need for Speed games.
Click to expand...

And Pica200 did an awesome job on Resident Evil: Revelations. And remember, the 3DS was 2010 hardware. It was competing with the SGX535; Tegra II was delayed. Are Tegra 3, Mali400, Adreno 205 and MC SGX543 more powerful per Watt? Yes, by a big margin. Too bad they weren't an option for the device due timing.
 
T

The Abominable Snowman

Member
DrWong said:
Fairplay it's not for you it seems. How can you still say such a thing - "it's definitely not as definitive as" - when a dev' of the game just told us this version is "slightly" improved with some stuff not possible on the other consoles?
Click to expand...

Take a look at the games being compared. Trine 2 looks great but lets not all act like the scenes are that complex in comparison to some of the other games out there...
 
J

JoeFu

Banned
ozfunghi said:
So what. If it looks better, there is no need for bias and calling worse. Makes me question all the other "stories" out there.
Click to expand...

Remember the E3 that used 360 footage for upcoming Wii U games, but somehow looked worse to people? Its probably the same people.
 
S

Smurfman256

Member
Quick question: when the X-rays come out (for anyone who is willing to shell-out $200 to buy the photos)for the GPU, will anyone actually be able to count how many SPs it has?
 
S

shinra-bansho

Member
RedSwirl said:
So we know what the exact GPU is now?
Click to expand...
We have measurements of the die size.

Speculation on EDRAM amount, apparently leaving ~100mm^2 for the GPU?

Coupled with information on power draw while gaming, albeit with NSMBU which may not be particularly stressing.

At least it's more concrete information for rumors and speculation than previously.
 
Meesh

Meesh

Member
So with what little info is avail, and based on what you guys agree on, where does the wiiu sit with current hd consoles. Just wondering if I'm actually going to see a difference between my MH3 portable hd and MHTri Ultimate. Can someone fill a noob in??
 
O

ozfunghi

Member
Evilink said:
So with what little info is avail, and based on what you guys agree on, where does the wiiu sit with current hd consoles. Just wondering if I'm actually going to see a difference between my MH3 portable hd and MHTri Ultimate. Can someone fill a noob in??
Click to expand...

The jury is still out on that one. Not enough info on the CPU and GPU.

The RAM is at least doubled (might increase if Nintendo streamlines its OS), but it is slower. The GPU is generally thought to be quite a bit more potent, but the CPU is rather different and difficult to compare. Word is that it runs a lot slower than the HD twins, is less of a floating points champ, but it is also out of order, and helped out by other processors such as the DSP that can take care of the sound. It also has a sizable chunk of eDRAM (32MB).

If developers really take advantage of the hardware, probably WiiU will be able to outshine the current HD twins by about 20% of a jump towards "next-gen"... seriously, it's too soon. But in theory, the hardware "should" be able to produce games slightly out of reach for PS360, yet far from PS4/720 level. Or at least that's what most here are guessing, i believe.
 
A

Apophis2036

Banned
Im sure a few of us who have followed the speculation threads over the past year are feeling a bit let down but here is a thought.

A large percentage of us are buying WiiU for Nintendo games, shouldn't we be comparing WiiU to the Wii instead of PS360 since Nintendo don't make games for those consoles ?.

Even if WiiU's GPU is 350 GFLOPs, that means its still almost 30 times as powerful as the Wii GPU !.

It also has a much faster Tri Core version of it's CPU, 1.9 GB's more Ram than Wii and the added bonus of some eDRAM.

There is also the bonus of games running in HD, the tablet controller, pro controller, friends lists, Miiverse, Off screen play, Nintendo Tvii, the Browser, the new Eshop ect.

Try and relax until early next year, we have Wonderful 101, Rayman Legends, Pikmin 3, Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate, Wario Ware, Lego City Undercover and Bayonetta 2 to look forward to and then E3 which is where im sure we will finally get to see the likes of 3D Mario, Zelda, Metroid, Mario Kart, Starfox, Smash Bros and Retro & Monolith's new games.

Big name first party games are going to look incredible on the console, of that there is no doubt imo.

There is a ton to look forward to on WiiU no matter how 'under powered' it is :D.
 
Meesh

Meesh

Member
ozfunghi said:
The jury is still out on that one. Not enough info on the CPU and GPU.
Click to expand...
Ok, cool, thanks. In all honesty it's hard for me to imagine 20 percent better looking monsters lol my ps3 does a pretty nice job..but I welcome it with open arms!! Oh man....I really should learn this techie stuff
 
O

ozfunghi

Member
Evilink said:
Ok, cool, thanks. In all honesty it's hard for me to imagine 20 percent better looking monsters lol my ps3 does a pretty nice job..but I welcome it with open arms!! Oh man....I really should learn this techie stuff
Click to expand...

To really know for sure, we're going to have to wait for either complete specs, or either a developer that puts in a real effort and gets to know the hardware... which is exactly what the problem is with all these shoddy launch ports.
 
Efren is G.O.A.T.

Efren is G.O.A.T.

Member
Apophis2036 said:
Im sure a few of us who have followed the speculation threads over the past year are feeling a bit let down but here is a thought.

A large percentage of us are buying WiiU for Nintendo games, shouldn't we be comparing WiiU to the Wii instead of PS360 since Nintendo don't make games for those consoles ?.

Even if WiiU's GPU is 350 GFLOPs, that means its still almost 30 times as powerful as the Wii GPU !.

It also has a much faster Tri Core version of it's CPU, 1.9 GB's more Ram than Wii and the added bonus of some eDRAM.

There is also the bonus of games running in HD, the tablet controller, pro controller, friends lists, Miiverse, Off screen play, Nintendo Tvii, the Browser, the new Eshop ect.

Try and relax until early next year, we have Wonderful 101, Rayman Legends, Pikmin 3, Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate, Wario Ware, Lego City Undercover and Bayonetta 2 to look forward to and then E3 which is where im sure we will finally get to see the likes of 3D Mario, Zelda, Metroid, Mario Kart, Starfox, Smash Bros and Retro & Monolith's new games.

Big name first party games are going to look incredible on the console, of that there is no doubt imo.

There is a ton to look forward to on WiiU no matter how 'under powered' it is :D.
Click to expand...


Only one word for that.......YESSSSSSSS!
 
R

Ramblin

Banned
Apophis2036 said:
Im sure a few of us who have followed the speculation threads over the past year are feeling a bit let down but here is a thought.

A large percentage of us are buying WiiU for Nintendo games, shouldn't we be comparing WiiU to the Wii instead of PS360 since Nintendo don't make games for those consoles ?.

Even if WiiU's GPU is 350 GFLOPs, that means its still almost 30 times as powerful as the Wii GPU !.

It also has a much faster Tri Core version of it's CPU, 1.9 GB's more Ram than Wii and the added bonus of some eDRAM.

There is also the bonus of games running in HD, the tablet controller, pro controller, friends lists, Miiverse, Off screen play, Nintendo Tvii, the Browser, the new Eshop ect.

Try and relax until early next year, we have Wonderful 101, Rayman Legends, Pikmin 3, Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate, Wario Ware, Lego City Undercover and Bayonetta 2 to look forward to and then E3 which is where im sure we will finally get to see the likes of 3D Mario, Zelda, Metroid, Mario Kart, Starfox, Smash Bros and Retro & Monolith's new games.

Big name first party games are going to look incredible on the console, of that there is no doubt imo.

There is a ton to look forward to on WiiU no matter how 'under powered' it is :D.
Click to expand...

I agree. It doesn't look like ass on an HDTV, that's enough for me...except the price, I'll be waiting for at least one price cut.
 
J

jerd

Member
Apophis2036 said:
Im sure a few of us who have followed the speculation threads over the past year are feeling a bit let down but here is a thought.

A large percentage of us are buying WiiU for Nintendo games, shouldn't we be comparing WiiU to the Wii instead of PS360 since Nintendo don't make games for those consoles ?.

Even if WiiU's GPU is 350 GFLOPs, that means its still almost 30 times as powerful as the Wii GPU !.

It also has a much faster Tri Core version of it's CPU, 1.9 GB's more Ram than Wii and the added bonus of some eDRAM.

There is also the bonus of games running in HD, the tablet controller, pro controller, friends lists, Miiverse, Off screen play, Nintendo Tvii, the Browser, the new Eshop ect.

Try and relax until early next year, we have Wonderful 101, Rayman Legends, Pikmin 3, Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate, Wario Ware, Lego City Undercover and Bayonetta 2 to look forward to and then E3 which is where im sure we will finally get to see the likes of 3D Mario, Zelda, Metroid, Mario Kart, Starfox, Smash Bros and Retro & Monolith's new games.

Big name first party games are going to look incredible on the console, of that there is no doubt imo.

There is a ton to look forward to on WiiU no matter how 'under powered' it is :D.
Click to expand...

Yeah anyone who was Wii exclusive this gen should still be thrilled with the results, and it really shouldn't bother anyone who wasn't Wii exclusive. Considering Wii U is running late gen PS360 games (albeit not too well at the moment), it should be something like a gen and a half jump visually for Wii exclusive gamers. Likely even a little more once Nintendo's finest release their games.

Tears For Fears said:
Same I'll buy it when it's $150.
Click to expand...

So around Wii 3's launch then?
 
Z

z0m3le

Banned
CPU: I've been thinking, what if only one core is an advanced Wii CPU, and the others are more like PPE, smaller cheaper cores designed to give the main CPU some more multitasking power. Sort of like a streamlined modern "cell" (without the extra SIMD units to push extra graphics) something of this sort combined with the DSP, multicore ARM cpu and GPGPU could handle just what it needs to without being overly burdened by processes that are done better on dedicated silicon.

It would likely be clocked slower, but if we are talking about ~2ghz, that would be uniquely powerful, in a way that wouldn't run last gen HD console ports well. (I am calling them last gen based on their design and the fact that the next gen has started, it's not meant as an attack against the very powerful but slightly outdated XB360/PS3)

GPU: There is a huge difference between Xenos and R700, one that even at the same GFLOPs numbers, couldn't compete directly, my guess is based on what BGassassin gathered for us over the last year and a half, but I assume the GPU to be 480 shaders clocked under 600MHz, something like 512GFLOPs (532MHz)

The advanced effects might be easily mimicked on PS3/360, but it's a work around that draws more power in the end than R700 was meant to do. I would imagine the GPU in Wii U's case is close to PS2 vs XBox comparisons, it's still a far cry from PS2 to PS3 that others were expecting, but Wii U's software will end up being a noticeable improvement considering how well the PS3 and 360 has been optimized over the last 6 and 7 years. It's just going to take a year or two to get there.

RAM: The RAM is 2-3 times faster than Wii, a 480p console, considering the scaling here, it seems Wii U was designed for 720p (roughly the same scale over 480p that the RAM speed has increased.)and with 2GBs of RAM, at this speed, and keeping the GPU/CPU fed by much faster EDRAM, it's reasonable to assume less bottlenecking, and better looking games.

Lastly: Software is moving into this directing in the next generation, we will end up having to wait for specs, but the Wii U is very different than the PS3/360, and if rumors are true, we are looking at a similar shift with PS4/XB3.
 
O

Oblivion

Fetishing muscular manly men in skintight hosery
Apophis2036 said:
Im sure a few of us who have followed the speculation threads over the past year are feeling a bit let down but here is a thought.

A large percentage of us are buying WiiU for Nintendo games, shouldn't we be comparing WiiU to the Wii instead of PS360 since Nintendo don't make games for those consoles ?.

Even if WiiU's GPU is 350 GFLOPs, that means its still almost 30 times as powerful as the Wii GPU !.

It also has a much faster Tri Core version of it's CPU, 1.9 GB's more Ram than Wii and the added bonus of some eDRAM.

There is also the bonus of games running in HD, the tablet controller, pro controller, friends lists, Miiverse, Off screen play, Nintendo Tvii, the Browser, the new Eshop ect.

Try and relax until early next year, we have Wonderful 101, Rayman Legends, Pikmin 3, Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate, Wario Ware, Lego City Undercover and Bayonetta 2 to look forward to and then E3 which is where im sure we will finally get to see the likes of 3D Mario, Zelda, Metroid, Mario Kart, Starfox, Smash Bros and Retro & Monolith's new games.

Big name first party games are going to look incredible on the console, of that there is no doubt imo.

There is a ton to look forward to on WiiU no matter how 'under powered' it is :D.
Click to expand...

In all honesty, as much as I enjoy reading about things like mhz, and floating points and all that crap, at the end of the day I really don't think (and I'm speaking only for myself here) it would make much of a difference whether Wii-U turns out to be 20% better or 20% worse than the PS360. I was at E3, and I saw Arkham Asylum and AC3 and even if they may be worse on Wii-U, it wasn't that much worse that I would think that it would be that far from the HD twins.

As you said, I think everyone can agree that the Wii-U is a massive jump from the Wii at the very least. Even something like NSMBU, which doesn't look like it's giving the system a workout, is a DRASTIC improvement from Wii game (HD resolution and lack of jaggies alone went a LONG way), and was a much bigger jump than say NSMB DS ---> NSMB: Wii. And all those games were done by a graphics guys from the C-team at Nintendo. I imagine EAD Tokyo will utterly floor everyone with the next Mario as will the Zelda team if the demo was anything to go by.

Of course, I don't mean to sound like I want to be too easy in trying to excuse Nintendo.
I wanted Wii-U to not only be a massive leap over the Wii, but the PS360 as well. I knew that was a tall order, but the Wii-U turned out to be about as good as I figured it would be more or less.
 
O

Oblivion

Fetishing muscular manly men in skintight hosery
So I was just browsing randomly and I came across this article from April where some developers said they weren't so hot on the GPU:

This developer is not alone in their opinion. Another developer at a major company confirmed this point of view. "Yeah, that's true. It doesn't produce graphics as well as the PS3 or the 360," said the source. "There aren't as many shaders, it's not as capable. Sure, some things are better, mostly as a result of it being a more modern design. But overall the Wii U just can't quite keep up."
Click to expand...

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articl...ess-powerful-than-ps3-xbox-360-developers-say

Thoughts?
 
R

Ryoku

Member
Oblivion said:
So I was just browsing randomly and I came across this article from April where some developers said they weren't so hot on the GPU:

This developer is not alone in their opinion. Another developer at a major company confirmed this point of view. "Yeah, that's true. It doesn't produce graphics as well as the PS3 or the 360," said the source. "There aren't as many shaders, it's not as capable. Sure, some things are better, mostly as a result of it being a more modern design. But overall the Wii U just can't quite keep up."
Click to expand...

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articl...ess-powerful-than-ps3-xbox-360-developers-say

Thoughts?
Click to expand...

The bolded, I can almost guarantee that it's not true.
 
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