Support NeoGAF

[Van Owen]

What was nuts exactly ?, even from early WUST's people were saying at most the console would have 2GB's of Ram, a slower than PS360 CPU and maybe a 1TF GPU, as time went on the GPU figure came down to around the 600 GFLOPs range which BG settled on.

The console doesn't look far off what people predicted tbh.

We will see if he was right but no one ever said WiiU was some kind of 10x power leap beast of a console that had a 2TF GPU, 4GB's of Ram and a faster CPU than PS360. We all knew Nintendo don't compete in the tech arms race anymore, nor should they imo.

Make up whatever you want to make yourself feel smug though lol...

Please. The majority of people thought it would be a good leap over current gen. Not 720 PS4 levels, but a noticeable jump. As it stands, Wii U is struggling to keep up with 2005 year hardware.

And don't get me started on the people that thought the Power 7 Watson supercomputer CPU was going to be amazing...

 

[nikatapi]

Please. The majority of people thought it would be a good leap over current gen. Not 720 PS4 levels, but a noticeable jump. As it stands, Wii U is struggling to keep up with 2005 year hardware.

And don't get me started on the people that thought the Power 7 Watson supercomputer CPU was going to be amazing...

Quick to jump to conclusions my friend. These are just launch games most of which were built by small teams on continuously changing dev kits.
I'm not saying that WiiU is a powerhouse, but we will see better looking games i believe, the GPU has more modern features and some devs have said that it is capable of effects not seen on current gen consoles.

Of course most of the games now are not impressive or what some of us might expected, but i don't think we should start jumping to conclusions about the hardware's capabilities.

 

[cyberheater]

Please. The majority of people thought it would be a good leap over current gen. Not 720 PS4 levels, but a noticeable jump. As it stands, Wii U is struggling to keep up with 2005 year hardware.

Absolutely. Lots of hypocrites who are now claiming they knew it was going to be a underpowered system from the start.

As soon as I started seeing Arkam's posts and a few tidbits on B3D. I knew the next gen dream was up for WiiU.

 

[Instro]

I'm just glad I don't have egg on my face.

I always expected that for me Wii U would be just another system for Nintendo games, and I know 720 and PS4 will be huge jumps that I want out of new consoles (and I have a good PC), but some of the people in the speculation threads were just nuts.

Such conviction.

 

[StevieP]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias

 

[ozfunghi]

Absolutely. Lots of hypocrites who are now claiming they knew it was going to be a underpowered system from the start.

As soon as I started seeing Arkam's posts and a few tidbits on B3D. I knew the next gen dream was up for WiiU.

I don't know who these hypocrites are supposed to be, but what has been said since WUST2, is at least double the RAM, GPU of about 2 to 3 times as powerful (or as efficient... both Wsippel and BG even contemplated the possibility of a SPU starved GPU with loads of fixed function shaders instead for a while). The CPU has always been the X factor.

Furthermore, Arkam had no hands-on experience himself and was giving second hand info, because he isn't working on the technical side of console development. Given Nintendo's track record with memory, his story wasn't that believable. Now we know the RAM lacks bandwidth, but i am still sure we don't know all there is to it. Because it is unlike Nintendo to gimp hardware, especially memory, in a sense that it is unbalanced. People were quick to judge the GCN as well, yet it turned out, 12 million poly's somehow beat 60+ million poly's. And advanced effects were possible for those willing to figure out the TEV units.

 

[cyberheater]

I don't know who these hypocrites are supposed to be, but what has been said since WUST2, is at least double the RAM, GPU of about 2 to 3 times as powerful (or as efficient... both Wsippel and BG even contemplated the possibility of a SPU starved GPU with loads of fixed function shaders instead for a while). The CPU has always been the X factor.

Furthermore, Arkam had no hands-on experience himself and was giving second hand info, because he isn't working on the technical side of console development. Given Nintendo's track record with memory, his story wasn't that believable. Now we know the RAM lacks bandwidth, but i am still sure we don't know all there is to it. Because it is unlike Nintendo to gimp hardware, especially memory, in a sense that it is unbalanced. People were quick to judge the GCN as well, yet it turned out, 12 million poly's somehow beat 60+ million poly's. And advanced effects were possible for those willing to figure out the TEV units.

Arkam was basically hounded out of the forum by a vast percentage of the WUST. It was shameful behaviour. Just because he was telling the truth and most of WUST didn't want to hear it. Yeah. Lots of hypocrites.

 

[phosphor112]

Specualtions ran wild in here. I said optimistically 3x the power, but seeing how slow the ram is (at least they have plenty of eDRAM) this confirms my thoughts. Then again, these theoretical numbers don't matter much until we see things happen in the real world.

 

[QaaQer]

Arkam was basically hounded out of the forum by a vast percentage of the WUST. It was shameful behaviour. Just because he was telling the truth and most of WUST didn't want to hear it. Yeah. Lots of hypocrites.

It wasn't pretty.

 

[Plinko]

It wasn't pretty.

Even the most anti-nintendo fans on here and in this thread couldnt have predicted how weak that CPU is.

As I've said before--it makes no logical sense.

 

[Fourth Storm]

Arkam was basically hounded out of the forum by a vast percentage of the WUST. It was shameful behaviour. Just because he was telling the truth and most of WUST didn't want to hear it. Yeah. Lots of hypocrites.

Alright alright, we've been hearing this all week. Why not call out individual posters instead of the WUST as a whole? Let's see some quotes! To me, it's no different than people calling out the "GAF hivemind." It's an oversimplification and implies that all Nintendo fans/Wii U speculators think exactly alike. Half the arkam bashers are probably banned by now anyway.

 

[QaaQer]

Alright alright, we've been hearing this all week. Why not call out individual posters instead of the WUST as a whole? Let's see some quotes! To me, it's no different than people calling out the "GAF hivemind." It's an oversimplification and implies that all Nintendo fans/Wii U speculators think exactly alike. Half the arkam bashers are probably banned by now anyway.

Or someone could just ask Arkam why he left the wusts. I'm not re-reading those things.

 

[User Name Here]

Quick to jump to conclusions my friend. These are just launch games most of which were built by small teams on continuously changing dev kits.
I'm not saying that WiiU is a powerhouse, but we will see better looking games i believe, the GPU has more modern features and some devs have said that it is capable of effects not seen on current gen consoles.

Of course most of the games now are not impressive or what some of us might expected, but i don't think we should start jumping to conclusions about the hardware's capabilities.

That I bet will run at low fps a portion of the time. :/

 

[Plinko]

Alright alright, we've been hearing this all week. Why not call out individual posters instead of the WUST as a whole? Let's see some quotes! To me, it's no different than people calling out the "GAF hivemind." It's an oversimplification and implies that all Nintendo fans/Wii U speculators think exactly alike. Half the arkam bashers are probably banned by now anyway.

I questioned Arkam because of how ridiculous it sounded.

Because it was ridiculous. Unfortunately, it was true.

 

[Van Owen]

Alright alright, we've been hearing this all week. Why not call out individual posters instead of the WUST as a whole? Let's see some quotes! To me, it's no different than people calling out the "GAF hivemind." It's an oversimplification and implies that all Nintendo fans/Wii U speculators think exactly alike. Half the arkam bashers are probably banned by now anyway.

So many argued with me and said I was trolling when I was just being logical that there's too many to name.

 

[cyberheater]

I questioned Arkam because of how ridiculous it sounded.

Because it was ridiculous. Unfortunately, it was true.

Yes. I remember those heady days. Days when hope was alive. The rumoured spec pointed to a machine that was a big jump from current gen. Easily doing current gen ports. Of course the WiiU version would always be the best looking version.

And maybe even powerful enough to be within reach of the PS720. And then Arkam came along and basically said it's just a 720p machine and not that powerful and the WUST ate him alive. It was just not possible that the machine could be that gimped. Loads of folks said it was technically impossible that in some critical areas it would under perform and Xbox 360. Impossible. Absolutely no way.

In hindsight. I can understand it. But they were still dark dark days.

At least you have the integrity to admit it. I applaud you.

 

[cyberheater]

Alright alright, we've been hearing this all week. Why not call out individual posters instead of the WUST as a whole? Let's see some quotes!

I can't be bothered. To much work to shame them. But I know who they are.

To me, it's no different than people calling out the "GAF hivemind." It's an oversimplification and implies that all Nintendo fans/Wii U speculators think exactly alike. Half the arkam bashers are probably banned by now anyway.

Some are. Lots aren't.

 

[tenchir]

There wasn't? I thought Wii's DSP ran at 121.5Mhz (x6 = 729Mhz = CPU clock). Hence my comment earlier about 266Mhz being a bit high.

Technically there was a DSP, but it is part of the Hollywood GPU package. The Hollywood package contained a lot of stuff besides the main GPU such as an ARM chip that does a lot of I/O work of the GC/Wii. Since the DSP is part of Hollywood, I assume that it runs at the same bus clock as everything else.

edit: I dig a little further and it seems that GC had a 81Mhz DSP, that was integrated into Hollywood(for the Wii) and it probably has the same speed too. Updating my original post to add DSP 81Mhz to GC/Wii and ARM 243Mhz for Wii.

My new guess for the specs:

CPU 1620Mhz(162x10)
GPU speed 486Mhz(162x3)
RAM 810Mhz(162x5) <- I am unsure of this because of bus clock and memory clock.
DSP 162Mhz
ARM 243Mhz(162x0.5) <- You would need this for Wii compatibility reason if it doesn't do anything else for the Wii U.

 

[Fourth Storm]

I questioned Arkam because of how ridiculous it sounded.

Because it was ridiculous. Unfortunately, it was true.

Oh for sure, there was nothing wrong with questioning his info at the time. After he was verified by EatChildren, though, people would have been wise to take him a bit more seriously. Still, with all the vague info going around then and the various dev kits in existence, it was possible to hold out that Nintendo would address the situation or had already.

 

[Van Owen]

Even during the latest Iwata Asks one of the Wii U's hardware engineers said he was most proud of the CPU, and a bunch of people used that as proof that the previous "slow" claims were unfounded lol.

 

[Plinko]

Even during the latest Iwata Asks one of the Wii U's hardware engineers said he was most proud of the CPU, and a bunch of people used that as proof that the previous "slow" claims were unfounded lol.

How can you blame them?

Anonymous devs said something, and a hardware engineer said otherwise. It's not hard to see why people believed it.

 

[beril]

Even the most anti-nintendo fans on here and in this thread couldnt have predicted how weak that CPU is.

As I've said before--it makes no logical sense.

How weak is it? has any new actual information about the CPU been released since the beginning of this threads? Apart from some launch titles having slowdowns and some developers complaining about the cpu, with varying degrees of bluntness

 

[ColdBlooder]

I'm just glad I don't have egg on my face.

I always expected that for me Wii U would be just another system for Nintendo games, and I know 720 and PS4 will be huge jumps that I want out of new consoles (and I have a good PC), but some of the people in the speculation threads were just nuts.

Sony PS3s CELL CPU -> 230.4 GFLOPS

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_3_hardware


Rumor has it PS4 will use an A10 APU from AMD ->


Fastest A10 to date -> 121.6GFLOPS (@100W already, CPU flops only)

Source: http://www.rage3d.com/reviews/fusion/amd_a10_5800k_launch_review/

 

[StevieP]

How weak is it? has any new actual information about the CPU been released since the beginning of this threads? Apart from some launch titles having slowdowns and some developers complaining about the cpu, with varying degrees of bluntness

No new leaks anywhere as far as I know.

Sony PS3s CELL CPU -> 230.4 GFLOPS

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_3_hardware


Rumor has it PS4 will use an A10 APU from AMD ->


Fastest A10 to date -> 121.6GFLOPS (@100W aready)

Source: http://www.rage3d.com/reviews/fusion...launch_review/

Don't do this. The new Sony/MS CPUs will almost undoubtedly be weaker with vectorized/floating point stuff (i.e. "flops") than their previous generation counterparts, but will be almost certainly be better at general purpose code than either the PPE and the Wii U CPU as well (AMD's bobcat is a good place to start if you want to look at comparisons available on the 'net between CPUs).

 

[Durante]

How weak is it? has any new actual information about the CPU been released since the beginning of this threads?

Well, one thing we know now that we didn't know for certain a few days ago is that its total transistor count is roughly the same as a single core of Xenon. That's pretty significant, and (especially together with the total system power consumption) puts a hard ceiling on its performance.

 

[ColdBlooder]

No new leaks anywhere as far as I know.



Don't do this. The new Sony/MS CPUs will almost undoubtedly be weaker with vectorized/floating point stuff (i.e. "flops") than their previous generation counterparts, but will be almost certainly be better at general purpose code than either the PPE and the Wii U CPU as well (AMD's bobcat is a good place to start if you want to look at comparisons available on the 'net between CPUs).

As far as i know, that also applies to Wii Us CPU.

How much better? We don´t know

 

[Maxrunner]

what the hell is wusts?

 

[Cosmonaut X]

Well, one thing we know now that we didn't know for certain a few days ago is that its total transistor count is roughly the same as a single core of Xenon. That's pretty significant, and (especially together with the total system power consumption) puts a hard ceiling on its performance.

When did this come out? Must have missed that one.

 

[v1oz]

What were those rumours of extra hardware Nintendo wanted on the GPU for lighting and other calculations?

 

[ohlawd]

what the hell is wusts?

Wii U Speculation Threads.

 

[nikatapi]

what the hell is wusts?

Wii U speculation threads.
edit: Beaten.

We have to admit that many people in the speculation threads (including me) expected at least a noticeable improvement over the current hd consoles. And it still remains quite unthinkable that Nintendo would release a console which would in some cases seem weaker than 6-7 year old hardware. I hope Nintendo has some games in the pipeline which will ease the concerns a bit, Nintendo Land, NSMBU and ZombiU don't seem like anything special.

 

[cyberheater]

what the hell is wusts?

WiiU speculation threads.

EDIT: Thrice beaten.

 

[Meelow]

Sony PS3s CELL CPU -> 230.4 GFLOPS

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_3_hardware


Rumor has it PS4 will use an A10 APU from AMD ->


Fastest A10 to date -> 121.6GFLOPS (@100W already, CPU flops only)

Source: http://www.rage3d.com/reviews/fusion/amd_a10_5800k_launch_review/

ColdBlooder don't put your self in this situation let Van Owen keep saying what he wants, nothing will convince him other wise.

 

[Apophis2036]

Don't do this. The new Sony/MS CPUs will almost undoubtedly be weaker with vectorized/floating point stuff (i.e. "flops") than their previous generation counterparts, but will be almost certainly be better at general purpose code than either the PPE and the Wii U CPU as well (AMD's bobcat is a good place to start if you want to look at comparisons available on the 'net between CPUs).

You are NOT allowed to point out that PS4 and most Prob the 720's CPU's will be worse in certain regards to PS360's CPU !!!!! .

 

[Mantorok]

what the hell is wusts?

lol

 

[StevieP]

You are NOT allowed to point out that PS4 and most Prob the 720's CPU's will be worse in certain regards to PS360's CPU !!!!! .

I'm not pointing it out. The switch to standardized x86 CPUs did that for me. Thing is, whatever Jaguar variant is being proposed for the final consoles will still be beefier than the Wii U CPU probably is, if even by virtue of there being more of them (4 or 8 depending on the console and the rumour)

 

[Maxrunner]

lol

Ok lol, it sounded like some kind of cleap sweep team or something.

 

[Neo C.]

what the hell is wusts?

Not a place you want to visit. Some fans just went overboard with their expectations.

 

[Durante]

When did this come out? Must have missed that one.

Anandtech's Wii U teardown, for one.

You are NOT allowed to point out that PS4 and most Prob the 720's CPU's will be worse in certain regards to PS360's CPU !!!!! .

Someone saying this to StevieP amuses me.

Thing is, whatever Jaguar variant is being proposed for the final consoles will still be beefier than the Wii U CPU probably is, if even by virtue of there being more of them (4 or 8 depending on the console and the rumour)

I think it's also very likely that they'll be faster by virtue of simply clocking higher (in addition to there being more of them).

 

[ColdBlooder]

ColdBlooder don't put your self in this situation let Van Owen keep saying what he wants, nothing will convince him other wise.

Well these are official, hard numbers. I think it takes Nintendo to show what Wii U can do.

Like Gaben didn´t have any good words for PS3 in 2008 and he brought Portal 2 over in 2011...

Same situation could be with Wii U aswell.

But no matter whats true and what not. Wii U will find its market. Miiverse/Netflix on it are frickin awesome and will attrackt alot of people!

 

[Plinko]

Not a place you want to visit. Some fans just went overboard with their expectations.

To be quite honest, most of that discussion was civil and reasonable. They were decent threads.

 

[Apophis2036]

To be quite honest, most of that discussion was civil and reasonable. They were decent threads.

The most popular threads on Gaf of all time ?, 1 million+ views for each one and the max post limit reached on all of them except the last !.

 

[Plinko]

The most popular threads on Gaf of all time ?, 1 million+ views for each one and the max post limit reached on all of them except the last !.

I'll bet the next PS/MS system threads hit that level, too. People get excited about new consoles.

 

[Neo C.]

To be quite honest, most of that discussion was civil and reasonable. They were decent threads.

I've learned quite a lot, that's true, but it was quite hard to separate reasonable statements from wishful thinking. I don't understand why some fans seem to like eating crows so much.

 

[Fourth Storm]

What were those rumours of extra hardware Nintendo wanted on the GPU for lighting and other calculations?

Seems like exactly that - rumors. Nintendo has focused on lighting in their own titles (which use relatively simple geometry and textures) and there are probably at least enough SPUs on the GPU to add some decent lighting on top of existing 360 engines if devs so choose. But I think the whole "fixed function" thing was bogus.

 

[Meelow]

Well these are official, hard numbers. I think it takes Nintendo to show what Wii U can do.

Like Gaben didn´t have any good words for PS3 in 2008 and he brought Portal 2 over in 2011...

Same situation could be with Wii U aswell.

But no matter whats true and what not. Wii U will find its market. Miiverse/Netflix on it are frickin awesome and will attrackt alot of people!

I 100% agree with you, but some people don't like hearing this stuff.

 

[Van Owen]

Sony PS3s CELL CPU -> 230.4 GFLOPS

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_3_hardware


Rumor has it PS4 will use an A10 APU from AMD ->


Fastest A10 to date -> 121.6GFLOPS (@100W already, CPU flops only)

Source: http://www.rage3d.com/reviews/fusion/amd_a10_5800k_launch_review/

Ah, flops. Can't believe the importance people kept putting in gflops and tflops.

You know Sony isn't going to use a weaker CPU, so what are you trying to accomplish?

 

[SpoonyBard]

Seems like exactly that - rumors. Nintendo has focused on lighting in their own titles (which use relatively simple geometry and textures) and there are probably at least enough SPUs on the GPU to add some decent lighting on top of existing 360 engines if devs so choose. But I think the whole "fixed function" thing was bogus.

Fixed function stuff could be for Gamecube/Wii sw to use.

 

[soulassssns]

Happy Native-American Genocide Day!

Cheers!

There is no connection between Thanksgiving and the slaughter of the native Indians.

I'm also 100% sure it has nothing to do with the WiiU and its specs.

 

[GhostTrick]

Ah, flops. Can't believe the importance people kept putting in gflops and tflops.

You know Sony isn't going to use a weaker CPU, so what are you trying to accomplish?

They could. It depends on what term you mean weaker. Cell/Xenon can beat an i7 in some areas.