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PearlJam on 24 July 2009
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This is too much to reply to, so I'll try to touch on it all.

Viper1: Rail shooters use some of the simplest AI, since it's just you and a shooting gallery. The enemies don't need to be programmed with generic AI that includes environments outside of the tiny area you are in and they don't need behavior like flanking, chasing, hiding (outside of the immediate cover that is in the given scene) and many other reactions that come from an uncontrolled environment. Same with physics, you are limited to the area and geometry in front of you and you don't need to program for anything outside of the immediate scene. Even if you have the same enemy in a different scene, you can have strict AI and Physics for that specific scene and not have to use general purpose AI and Physics that have to take into account anything that can happen with all the possibilities of a particular level.

You can't possibly compare the kind of AI you would need in a FPS or a TPS with the many X factors, to a rail shooter where everything is controlled and limited.

If you really need me to explain this, I can't help you. When you get a better understanding of how it works, then come back and discuss. Or better yet, explain it yourself and tell me why you believe that a rail shooter doesn't need simpler AI and Physics as I seem to be the only one having to explain myself.

And Wii might have more pipelines, but it's still a fixed function pipeline that basically uses the same setup as the GC. I've been told that the transition guide from Wii to GC was about ten pages with no major changes, if you can prove otherwise let me know.

sc94597 you are arguing that Wii is more powerul, which I already stated. The point I'm trying to make is that it can't handle shaders as well, which it can't. N64 had certain effects built-in that PS2 didn't, that didn't make it more powerful. I have as much evidence to support my claims as you do to support your claims, otherwise let me see it.

dahuman no I'm not thinking about PC/Xbox, I'm talking about specific effects that are standard outside of DirectX as well. Direct X just simplifies the process, you're trying to make it sound like DirectX is more than just Microsoft's API. You need to understand that DirectX and hardware with built-in support will always be more efficient and give better results than programming everything yourself and doing it in software. Forget about Shader Model 2.0 for a second, Xbox's XGPU itself had more programmable pipelines, GC and Wii both have a fixed function pipeline so your theory about an ever improving graphics set is not valid.

The only real examples that look better are rail shooters, because those games require less programming and less resources and can give better results on lesser hardware. And even then I don't see better shader effects, I see better geometry and possibly animation.