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Forums - Nintendo Discussion - Wii U's eDRAM stronger than given credit?

curl-6 on 05 March 2014
SubiyaCryolite said:



If Fast Racing Neo is anything like Distance (above) or its (free) predecessor Nitronic Rush with glorious 4K textures and all that "hidden potential" unleashed I'll be impressed. Otherwise, I wont.

I don't consider the WiiUs architecture to be exotic at all. Its an evolution of what's been on the market for over a decade, with standard enhancements. Theres no new technology in the system. Nothing game changing. No CELL, No Emotion Engine, No Shaders, No split memory, No TEV units, Shaders are standard even on the 3DS, Its Graphics API is basically a custom implementation of OpenGL. I really don't see what the barrier to the systems "full potential" is.

All the WiiUs so called 1080p games are turning out to be 720p, only Smash will end up sticking to its promise. And thats only because that game isn't doing anything graphically demanding. Its basically brawl with better textures. Im willing to bet one month sig control that Kart will be 720p.

Going through cinemablend claiming that the U has more 1080p games than the One and 4 is laughable. Them claiming that the U handles 1080p "at ease" is flat out BS. The eDRAM can be fast, I don't dispute that at all. But just like DX11 enhancements and GPGPU this will have minimal effect on both 1st and 3rd party games. Even with 32MB eDRAM Nintendo's own games use FXAA over MSAA for petes sake.

People in this camp have issues grasping tech. Even before Bayo2s latest trailer I said it being 1080p60 was impossible. I got the usual "common sense" from the apologists, the so called "confirmations". Lo an behold, the game is clearly 720p. It doesn't take a genius programmer to have a good understanding of what a console can and can't do a year after its release. With so many 1st and 3rd party games to analyse.

The PS3 suffered in many multiplats. To be expected, everyone knows the RSX as a GPU is weaker than the Xenon. All the sony fanboys screaming lazy devs at the time where just clueless. Even when Sonys 1st partys pulled off tricks with the cells SPUs the 360 was never far behind. Thats how tech works, numbers don't lie, framerates don't lie, resolutions don't lie. No amount of spin will change anything. The 7th gen systems not being left behind in the dust by the U even after a whole YEAR means one thing and one thing only.

For the few games that run better on the U, the gap between that and the 360 version is usually as large as the gap between the 360 and the PS3 version. The U has better FXAA in trine 2 than the 360? The 360 has better FXAA than the PS3 version. The Wii U is locked 720P? The 360 drops its resolution less times than the PS3 version. Wii U has better splash effects, oh wow. Kind of like the better alpha and reflections on the 360 version of Resident Evil 5? Such a significant difference. OMG generational leap confirmed! *facepalm*

Nintendo's own current games aren't far above their own launch games so this launch port "common sense" line is ridiculous. 720p60fps with FXAA then and now. Whats the hold up?

Let's be honest, no matter what FAST Racing Neo looks like, you're going to downplay it. Your mind is already made up.

There's nothing particularly exotic about the PS4 or Xbox One's hardware either but I bet you don't think they're maxed out. And they at least have games built from the ground up to push them. (Killzone and Ryse)

Nintendo have no interest in pushing tech; they just want to make Wii/3DS games with shiny HD coat of paint, which is what all their games so far are, technically speaking.

And third parties want to spend as little time and money as possible on Wii U, so they  copy + paste PS3/360 assets over and shove code designed for one architecture onto another without proper optimization. For pete's sake, the console has more than twice as much RAM and they're almost all using PS3/360 textures, (proof of laziness) after Criterion said it was easy to run PC grade textures on Wii U in Need for Speed Most Wanted.

How can a console reach its full potential when not one single dev has made a game from the ground up to push its limits? 



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Zoombael on 05 March 2014

Woohoo!

 

The Wii U is saved! Spread the word to all four corners of the world!



Hunting Season is done...

SubiyaCryolite on 05 March 2014
curl-6 said:

Let's be honest, no matter what FAST Racing Neo looks like, you're going to downplay it. Your mind is already made up.

There's nothing particularly exotic about the PS4 or Xbox One's hardware either but I bet you don't think they're maxed out. And they at least have games built from the ground up to push them. (Killzone and Ryse)

Nintendo have no interest in pushing tech; they just want to make Wii/3DS games with shiny HD coat of paint, which is what all their games so far are, technically speaking.

And third parties want to spend as little time and money as possible on Wii U, so they  copy + paste PS3/360 assets over and shove code designed for one architecture onto another without proper optimization. For pete's sake, the console has more than twice as much RAM and they're almost all using PS3/360 textures, (proof of laziness) after Criterion said it was easy to run PC grade textures on Wii U in Need for Speed Most Wanted.

How can a console reach its full potential when not one single dev has made a game from the ground up to push its limits? 

"Let's be honest, no matter what FAST Racing Neo looks like, you're going to downplay it. Your mind is already made up." no I wont, depends on if it outclasses the PS360.

"How can a console reach its full potential when not one single dev has made a game from the ground up to push its limits? " BS, the other systems dont need ground up games to display their potential. The U has had a year and the situation is still the same.

 If Nintendo wont push the hardware then who the hells job is it to? Super Mario Galaxy didnt push the Wii right? DKCR? Brawl? MP3 Corruption? Please.

90% of the games with XBox textures dont have high res textures on the PC! Mass Effect 3 and Dark Siders come to mind.  Console exclusive games with tons of textures like Tekken (custom clothes/many environments) with no PC ports cant just magically switch on "high res textures". They where built that way! Doesnt stop them from being able to run at a higher framerate or resolution now does it? Why doesnt the U do that? Because it CANT.

 Open world games are more complex, upgrading all 256x256 or 512x512 textures to 1024x1024 or 2048x2048 would MORE than double the RAM usage! a 256x256 png is 26.3KB, the same image at 512x512 is 88.3KB, at 1024x1024 285KB, at 2048x2048 438KB. Yes, just doubling textures doesnt work! Those are pngs by the way, raw texture formats are similar to BMP and use more space. 

A PC Game like Skyrim and Dragon Age II require 1GB cards to enable high res textures, system RAM takes care of the rest. Yet you expect the U to easily manage that and the world/assets in 1GB of shared RAM?

AC IV (PC) only has a single slider for textures. MWU only targetted buildings and roads. Black Flag has a lot more variety in that regard. Tweaking what should and shouldn't be high res on the U would be a problem. Rather than turning everything up on the PS4 and One without a second thought. You really think max textures will fit within a GB of RAM? Furthermore, are Black Flags textures actually ugly or low res? I say no, I own the game btw.

 Textures are the only thing you can fall back on as "proof" of laziness. Yet the constant framedrops, "1080p games" actually being 720p, developers complaining about the CPU and visuals that 99.99% of the time on par with the last gen mean absolutely nothing to you.



I predict that the Wii U will sell a total of 18 million units in its lifetime. 

The NX will be a 900p machine

Clyde32 on 05 March 2014
Hynad said:
curl-6 said:
Hynad said:
curl-6 said:
SubiyaCryolite said:

They don't produce favourable results when the architecture is of similar strength. Like 360 ports weren't favourable for the PS3 early in the gen.

When it comes to cross gen ports, they always perform better on the newer hardware. For some reason, you don't want to understand this.


That is because of how different the hardware is. The XO and PS4 are so similar to each other. 



bonzobanana on 05 March 2014
curl-6 said:
SubiyaCryolite said:



If Fast Racing Neo is anything like Distance (above) or its (free) predecessor Nitronic Rush with glorious 4K textures and all that "hidden potential" unleashed I'll be impressed. Otherwise, I wont.

I don't consider the WiiUs architecture to be exotic at all. Its an evolution of what's been on the market for over a decade, with standard enhancements. Theres no new technology in the system. Nothing game changing. No CELL, No Emotion Engine, No Shaders, No split memory, No TEV units, Shaders are standard even on the 3DS, Its Graphics API is basically a custom implementation of OpenGL. I really don't see what the barrier to the systems "full potential" is.

All the WiiUs so called 1080p games are turning out to be 720p, only Smash will end up sticking to its promise. And thats only because that game isn't doing anything graphically demanding. Its basically brawl with better textures. Im willing to bet one month sig control that Kart will be 720p.

Going through cinemablend claiming that the U has more 1080p games than the One and 4 is laughable. Them claiming that the U handles 1080p "at ease" is flat out BS. The eDRAM can be fast, I don't dispute that at all. But just like DX11 enhancements and GPGPU this will have minimal effect on both 1st and 3rd party games. Even with 32MB eDRAM Nintendo's own games use FXAA over MSAA for petes sake.

People in this camp have issues grasping tech. Even before Bayo2s latest trailer I said it being 1080p60 was impossible. I got the usual "common sense" from the apologists, the so called "confirmations". Lo an behold, the game is clearly 720p. It doesn't take a genius programmer to have a good understanding of what a console can and can't do a year after its release. With so many 1st and 3rd party games to analyse.

The PS3 suffered in many multiplats. To be expected, everyone knows the RSX as a GPU is weaker than the Xenon. All the sony fanboys screaming lazy devs at the time where just clueless. Even when Sonys 1st partys pulled off tricks with the cells SPUs the 360 was never far behind. Thats how tech works, numbers don't lie, framerates don't lie, resolutions don't lie. No amount of spin will change anything. The 7th gen systems not being left behind in the dust by the U even after a whole YEAR means one thing and one thing only.

For the few games that run better on the U, the gap between that and the 360 version is usually as large as the gap between the 360 and the PS3 version. The U has better FXAA in trine 2 than the 360? The 360 has better FXAA than the PS3 version. The Wii U is locked 720P? The 360 drops its resolution less times than the PS3 version. Wii U has better splash effects, oh wow. Kind of like the better alpha and reflections on the 360 version of Resident Evil 5? Such a significant difference. OMG generational leap confirmed! *facepalm*

Nintendo's own current games aren't far above their own launch games so this launch port "common sense" line is ridiculous. 720p60fps with FXAA then and now. Whats the hold up?

Let's be honest, no matter what FAST Racing Neo looks like, you're going to downplay it. Your mind is already made up.

There's nothing particularly exotic about the PS4 or Xbox One's hardware either but I bet you don't think they're maxed out. And they at least have games built from the ground up to push them. (Killzone and Ryse)

Nintendo have no interest in pushing tech; they just want to make Wii/3DS games with shiny HD coat of paint, which is what all their games so far are, technically speaking.

And third parties want to spend as little time and money as possible on Wii U, so they  copy + paste PS3/360 assets over and shove code designed for one architecture onto another without proper optimization. For pete's sake, the console has more than twice as much RAM and they're almost all using PS3/360 textures, (proof of laziness) after Criterion said it was easy to run PC grade textures on Wii U in Need for Speed Most Wanted.

How can a console reach its full potential when not one single dev has made a game from the ground up to push its limits? 

Clearly the PS4 and Xbox One GPU's are hugely more powerful than wii u whatever the feature set. The wii u is likely to be at 176 gflops performance or close to it and the ps4 is up at 1800gflops over 10x as much.

Need for speed most wanted only had some improved textures and the game had lower cpu requirements.

The fact remains that the evidence so far dictates the wii u is very low powered and that evidence comes from every angle. Your belief that it is more powerful is not based on any evidence or current information. Your belief that the developers are lazy or not properly developing games on wii u again is your belief again wihtout any evidence. The evidence dictates that ALL developers achieve low performance results on wii u unless its a type of game with low cpu requirements or mainly 2D.

If there was just one game that actually proved the wii u was powerful that would be something but not a single game that doesn't look weak. Yes there are attractive games but games that are technically ambitious that work well on wii u amount to zero currently. Both PS3 and 360 are technically more impressive consoles and the ps4 and xbox one are a big jump above those in gpu power and memory.

I'm a wii u owner but I don't like telling people the wii u is something it isn't. I've got many games now and I can see the performance level. Overall its just about matching 360 and PS3 levels overall but a little bit below most of the time. People need to know this so they can make an informed choice about purchasing a wii u. I'm not going to tell them its something its not.



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megafenix on 05 March 2014
starworld said:
TheLegendaryWolf said:
starworld said:
TheLegendaryWolf said:
starworld said:
curl-6 said:
starworld said:

so what are you saying the graphics techniques that they have learned in the past 8 years can't be applied to the wiiu. 

They can be applied to Wii U to degree. I'm simply saying that devs will still need to learn Wii U's hardware and develop from the ground up for it to show what it can really do, just like any console. A lot their experience over the past 8 years has been with PS3/360, and that will only get them so far on a system with very different architecture.


I really don'y undersstand what nintendo was thinking, they knew they needed to make a console that can at the very least run 360/ps3 with out effort, to get more developers to make games for it, instead they chose to put there money into making a smaller, more effeciante console, a gpu that does 360/ps3 games at 1080p would have cost them 30$.

It can run far better than XB360/PS3 when utilised correctly and not a quick port.

did you miss the part where i said with out effort. frankly it should'nt take much to run 360/ps3 ports, a 320 sp gpu runs 360/ps3 ports at 1080p or at a much higher framerate with out effort/optimization, its also a huge turn off for developers, they want to make the next best thing, and they love to make amazing graphics, you can't blame them for not being excited.


The architecture of the WiiU is significantly different from XB360/PS3 and has to be coded differently for it to run smoothly.

thats not true, wiiu has way more in common with 360 then ps3 has, for instansts they both have amd gpu's, although wiiu is reported to have less gflops, its suppose to be better cause its more modern/efficientl, then you have almost the same ram set up, although wiiu main banwidth is slower, its's edram more then makes for it, the only thing that very different is the cpu. the super nes and genesis were very different as well but guess what, super nes ran games better almost all the times, samething with xbox, games that would lead on p2/gamecube would run on xbox better, except for rare occasions, this excuse is wiiu being different architcure is silly, its basically the wiiu cpu being weak, and the gpu being a tad better then what we have with 360/ps3. 

 

even if wiiu is more efficient that wont suffice to gt your ports work with just 176gigaflops, thats impossible cause the ports dont take profit of the new harwdare features on the ports, even less with the ineficient engines used for it and that were made compatible on the go an also the fact that developers are not used to the system

 

performance aint going to do difference when not used, so no, 176gigaflops is impossible to get your ports work

why do you think eventhough 360 was less powerful had the best version of bayonetta while ps3 had the worse and with half the framerate?

if that happened to a system that was known for years and had good engines available, why would a less poweful system against 360 would do any better with less power, not even having good optimized engines and not many years around for developers to know the system?

 

thats impossible, a more advanced efficient system wont do anything with 176gigaflops under those ciscunstances and being a port, for ports to work under those cisrcunstances you need a more powerful system, thats for sure. Wiiu power should be about 400 to 500 gigaflops, thats not just beacuse lazy ports work, but also due that the gpu die size is similar to the redwood xt

 

wiiu may have things in common with 360, but the gpu is very different, have you at least have checked out how many things have changed since the rv600 to r700?

if you did you would know that the architecture is very different, could provide that article here but is better if you search it for a change



tanok on 05 March 2014
megafenix said:
starworld said:
TheLegendaryWolf said:
starworld said:
TheLegendaryWolf said:
starworld said:
curl-6 said:
starworld said:

so what are you saying the graphics techniques that they have learned in the past 8 years can't be applied to the wiiu. 

They can be applied to Wii U to degree. I'm simply saying that devs will still need to learn Wii U's hardware and develop from the ground up for it to show what it can really do, just like any console. A lot their experience over the past 8 years has been with PS3/360, and that will only get them so far on a system with very different architecture.


I really don'y undersstand what nintendo was thinking, they knew they needed to make a console that can at the very least run 360/ps3 with out effort, to get more developers to make games for it, instead they chose to put there money into making a smaller, more effeciante console, a gpu that does 360/ps3 games at 1080p would have cost them 30$.

It can run far better than XB360/PS3 when utilised correctly and not a quick port.

did you miss the part where i said with out effort. frankly it should'nt take much to run 360/ps3 ports, a 320 sp gpu runs 360/ps3 ports at 1080p or at a much higher framerate with out effort/optimization, its also a huge turn off for developers, they want to make the next best thing, and they love to make amazing graphics, you can't blame them for not being excited.


The architecture of the WiiU is significantly different from XB360/PS3 and has to be coded differently for it to run smoothly.

thats not true, wiiu has way more in common with 360 then ps3 has, for instansts they both have amd gpu's, although wiiu is reported to have less gflops, its suppose to be better cause its more modern/efficientl, then you have almost the same ram set up, although wiiu main banwidth is slower, its's edram more then makes for it, the only thing that very different is the cpu. the super nes and genesis were very different as well but guess what, super nes ran games better almost all the times, samething with xbox, games that would lead on p2/gamecube would run on xbox better, except for rare occasions, this excuse is wiiu being different architcure is silly, its basically the wiiu cpu being weak, and the gpu being a tad better then what we have with 360/ps3. 

 

even if wiiu is more efficient that wont suffice to gt your ports work with just 176gigaflops, thats impossible cause the ports dont take profit of the new harwdare features on the ports, even less with the ineficient engines used for it and that were made compatible on the go an also the fact that developers are not used to the system

 

performance aint going to do difference when not used, so no, 176gigaflops is impossible to get your ports work

why do you think eventhough 360 was less powerful had the best version of bayonetta while ps3 had the worse and with half the framerate?

if that happened to a system that was known for years and had good engines available, why would a less poweful system against 360 would do any better with less power, not even having good optimized engines and not many years around for developers to know the system?

 

thats impossible, a more advanced efficient system wont do anything with 176gigaflops under those ciscunstances and being a port, for ports to work under those cisrcunstances you need a more powerful system, thats for sure. Wiiu power should be about 400 to 500 gigaflops, thats not just beacuse lazy ports work, but also due that the gpu die size is similar to the redwood xt

 

wiiu may have things in common with 360, but the gpu is very different, have you at least have checked out how many things have changed since the rv600 to r700?

if you did you would know that the architecture is very different, could provide that article here but is better if you search it for a change


you stole the words of my mouth

certainly no matter how efficient the system is, having 176gigaflops wont be wnough for ports to work and they are working despite that the system hadnt been out for many years or tha the ports used an engine tailored and optimized for wii u and also that these ports are lazy and have not maxed the wiiu, so if you are not maxing out those supposed 176gigaflops, how do you expect the ports to work?

 

no, you need a more powerful system to match the older consoles that have been out for years and have good engines and developers are familiar with w talking  about ports from them to wiiu



megafenix on 05 March 2014

gamecube edram from nec, a technology of 2000 had like 512bits for 1MB of edram, why would wii u that uses mor modern edram from nec could not pack 1024bits or more per blocks of 4MB?

seriously please just use your head
renesas alreayd mentioned wii u uses the best technologies from that plant of nec and also shinen prices the edrm bandwidth and speed,



tanok on 05 March 2014

power and banwidth arent the main problem, its third party support due to the wiiu sales



TheLegendaryWolf on 05 March 2014
megafenix said:
gamecube edram from nec, a technology of 2000 had like 512bits for 1MB of edram, why would wii u that uses mor modern edram from nec could not pack 1024bits or more per blocks of 4MB?

seriously please just use your head
renesas alreayd mentioned wii u uses the best technologies from that plant of nec and also shinen prices the edrm bandwidth and speed,


Exactly. Also, Shin'en is a capable and inteligent developer that has potential of becoming a successful 3rd Party studio one day.