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Rumor: Wii U final specs
- Thread starter EatChildren
- Start date
Well at least the Wii U has twice the memory badwidth of the OG Xbox.
DonMigs85
Member
The DDR1 in the Xbox only had about 75% bandwidth efficiency though.
GameCube's had the lowest latency, PS2 the highest.
But the PS2's 4MB eDRAM had a massive 48GB/sec of bandwidth (no texture compression though).
GameCube's 3MB 1T-SRAM had an aggregate bandwidth of 15.6GB/sec.
Thunder Monkey
Banned
And?
I feel lied to.
Thunder Monkey
Banned
If the GPU even has marginal improvements that is still likely. And of course the versatility of the 32MB eDram pool.
I'd still say that it's more likely than not.
It's not like a 480p 360 caliber scene is going to constrain the system more than it already is.
The bird demo from E3 2011 had two scenes being rendered--one on the television, and one on the gamepad.
ZombiU and Arkham City, even, render the scene twice at times (the special vision things, I forget what they're called).
Thunder Monkey
Banned
Don't think anyone knows. Seems like it would be silly to spend effort other than downsampling if it's literally just the same picture.
BLOPs 2 shows a different scene on the TV and the pad though, as do other games, so the claim that it can show two high quality scenes at once seems true.
The Abominable Snowman
Member
PS2 was better at motion blur than Xbox. Certain effects are just able to be pulled off easier on the updated architecture of the R700 with less of a hit. If there were scenes with tons of hd textures and transforms/lighting effects to thrash the RAM, the Wii U would choke much earlier than the HD twins.
shinra-bansho
Member
Detective Vision.
I believe DF said the framerate was choppy in the bird demo with some scenes. Of course it's just a tech demo.
Yes, it was also on 1st run dev kits that were underclocked and overheating, Ideaman and others have confirmed that multiple engines have seen as much as 5FPS increase in their engines between v4 and v5 of the dev kits.
Oh so the dev kits DID get better as time went on?
mckmas8808
Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
Thanks. So is there any low end estimations on what the bandwidth of Orbis and Durango might have?
The Abominable Snowman
Member
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_device_bandwidths#Random_access_memory
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_device_bandwidths#Video_RAM
Rumors suggest GDDR3 minimum, GDDR5 maximum
So you've totally missed CoD BLOPS II? Gamepad and TV, launch title, seemingly running at a good clip.
Most rumours on here suggest a lot of DDR3, with some people claiming/assuming they'll move to DDR4 when its available.
PS4 was supposed to be 2GB GDDR5 until MS started including large amounts of cheaper memory (DDR3) and Sony, not wanting to be left too far behind in memory amounts, are apparently now going for something similar.
Wouldn't surprise me to see DDR3 on a 128bit bus for the main memory on at least one of them (30-40GB/s).
You could always open up your WiiU, make or find a small hole to lead the antenna through. Once you have it externally, i think it will be easier to boost the range.
But the system was touted as a 1080p machine.
Either that was an exaggeration, a late change(down grade) in design, or, we don't fully understand how the RAM is setup.
Thunder Monkey
Banned
It does output 1080p image. It seems this is enough to "check that box" for Nintendo.
It's been discussed so much in the WUST's that we're probably going to be stuck with 720p for most WiiU games, especially if they are having intricate use of the gamepad in terms of different 3d images being rendered for it.
If i'm not mistaken even IdeaMan who has hyped the system a lot, said that with high gamepad utilization we should expect 720p Xbox360 level graphics with some added effects.
Why some people chose to overhype themselves is another thing. Considering the size of the console and the power consumption i think it is safe to expect 360 performance overall, maybe with some added effects.
Personally i think that WiiU to 360 is kinda like 3DS to PSP in terms of graphics differences, graphics will be better but not much better than the best of 360. (compare Re:R to God Of War for the psp, the difference is there, but not that enormous)
I have "hyped" (*) the system for what it was planned to be, and what it is: solid and balanced for pretty 720p content. And i only relayed the words of sources who worked on exclusives. Some of their projects are released, and got no technical issues as they rather properly used the hardware. And as you said, yes, i warned since february that the Wii U will be a 720p-centered console.
For the rest, it's already not on part for launch titles, some are managing a Xbox360'ish content on the TV and another one in 480p on the gamepad, it's a testimony that the system is more capable, and considering the huge learning curve studios had with the console during this last year, an even clearer gap for the second generation titles is a given.
(*) = forgetting the several concerns i've pointed at, like the struggle to remain at 30fps for a game using the gamepad intensively in a v4 dev kit context, the resources draw of the DRC which nobody talked before, all this "rushed" OS/Online/Miiverse layer that a lot doubted and which was confirmed by those last week events, etc.
Yeah i should have used quotes in the word hyped, but i didn't mean that you ever sounded unrealistic. Anyone who frequented in the WUST's for sure can agree that the expectations were pretty much that the console would be a little more capable than the 360, mostly because of the more modern gpu and maybe some Nintendo-like customizations.
The unfortunate thing is that so far most ports run worse than the original games, which is a bit of concern to me, they might be rushed but it's not very promising for the future of the console.
For the ports, i totally agree, see the discussion we have on the other thread. It's incredibly short-sighted and prejudicial. It would be very interesting to have the insight of some studios behind those Wii U versions, to concretely see what are the reasons for those issues (i know the "lol lazy studios who aren't coding/using properly the Wii U specifics" argument but then it was the role of Nintendo to ensure that hardware-wise and SDK-wise, they offered a console proficient enough for those many small porting teams behind these projects to make perfect ports and which would easily take advantage for at the very least small visual improvements of the 2x memory, more eDram, cache, more modern architecture, etc.)
Like, for example, Black Ops 2 which has two screen multiplayer on the pad and TV?
What's the issue?
360 and PS3 are also 1080p machines. And what, like 5 retail games are actually natively rendered at that resolution to this day.
the graphics have alot of compromises in gamepad+tv gameplay much the same as split screen does, as noted by GB
I look at it this way: end-of-generation super-optimized PS3/360 code is running mostly OK on brand new unknown hardware. Compare AC3 to AC1 (which wasn't even a launch game, or Halo 4 to Halo 3). There's a huge visual jump there. What if they had tried to port AC3 (from PC or something) to 360 for the 360 launch? How well could they have gotten it to run? Probably not very well.
It's less than I hoped for, but I assume it will get better.
It's less than I hoped for, but I assume it will get better.
Industry sourcessss
I dunno, dude above said he can "almost guarantee" wii u has more shaders..
And what happens when games start using the second gamepad?
Nintendo had to take that into consideration.
Exactly. If the hardware is only on par with the HD twins, it is still as unknown as those were when they launched. Of course, some techniques are universal, but the point remains. If they had tried to port COD:BOII to 360 at launch, it would have looked like CODII. The other way around, i doubt WiiU would have suffered had they tried to port PDZ, CODII or Kameo to the WiiU.
I wouldn't call slight framerate drops in a two screen-co-op+online game "a lot of compromises."
I have a problem with that, what makes you say that the devs haven't actually targeted the lowest common denominator and from there, only spent the next five years trying to add a layer of eye candy on that? I am not sure AC's code or Batman's code use efficiently every memory pointer available on both consoles otherwise they would have the IQ of Halo 4 and The Last of Us.
In other words, the code that WiiU must digest is probably not highly optimized for 360/PS3.
Shin Johnpv
Member
I don't trust posters on GAF. Sorry but let's not forget everyone who thought the initial video that they unveiled the Wii U with looked worse then the PS360 versions........when that video was showing the PS360 versions. The developer has gone on record saying that the Wii U version has more going on graphically. You can believe them or wait for a DF comparison.
Smurfman256
Member
Yeah, these guys are pulling it out of their asses. They just need to bitch and whine about something becasue they can't sleep well at night otherwise.
KojiKnight
Member
Comparing highly optimized multi-plat games to highly optimized single-plat titles isn't an apples to apples comparison.
Smurfman256
Member
So, the new "Xbox Durango specs" are in. Xbox World has supposedly talked to several devs and this is what they said it has:
Quad core processor with "4 logical cores divided between the 4 hardware cores" (just screams POWER7)
8GB of RAM (most likely DDR3 clocked at 1600MHz [if they didn't decide to go for 8GB of DDR3 @ 800MHz])
Blu Ray drive.
Microsoft is supposedly going the Aple route with nameing it and is just calling it "Xbox" (like THAT won't get people confused).
Debate!
Quad core processor with "4 logical cores divided between the 4 hardware cores" (just screams POWER7)
8GB of RAM (most likely DDR3 clocked at 1600MHz [if they didn't decide to go for 8GB of DDR3 @ 800MHz])
Blu Ray drive.
Microsoft is supposedly going the Aple route with nameing it and is just calling it "Xbox" (like THAT won't get people confused).
Debate!
Yeah. Like I said, it's not as obvious as the horrible ports of Batman, Mickey, etc.
The Abominable Snowman
Member
Wrong thread, with some bad info. The rag said "8GB of RAM" which you interpreted as DDR3. The rag also posted what they think it'll look like. You believe that too?
cyberheater
PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 Xbone PS4 PS4
What about the GPU.
The Abominable Snowman
Member
I doubt it. and don't believe this is the right thread for this either.
Smurfman256
Member
Nope! Not a word. Just showing an example of over-hype which, myself included, many people fell into with the Wii U. The only good I can see of Nintendo releasing ANOTHER massively-underpowered console is, if it bombs and it only sells 20 million units, at least Iwata could get fired and someone who understands that devs need powerful consoles to work with.
They said nothing.cyberheater said:
Why go with 8GB of ram and use slow ram? Almost all of it would be used only as cache. Just doesn't make any sense at all.
Even the fastest ddr3 would only use 200MB per frame. Using another 1.5 GB for cache, you are left with at least 5 GB that are pretty much useless.
Why do devs need the almighty powerful console though? You already have people claiming production costs doubling that of today for next gen. Don't get me wrong, in a perfect world, it'd be great.
I would honestly be happy with the visuals we get today on the PS360 in true 1080p. The HD twins can't even put out true native 720p most of the time.
I know they aren't mutually exclusive but if production costs went into more innovative, exciting gameplay elements (story, mechanics, etc), rather than trying to claim graphic superiority maybe we can get back to playing games, rather than interactive movies.