Nintendo Wii vs Original Xbox

[PearlJam]

sc94597: I'm sorry but you don't know what you're talking about and from here on out I'm not replying to anything you say on the subject. Anyone who would speak so expertly on the subject like you're trying to do, would know the difference between Normal mapping and Bump mapping without me having to point it out. Bump mapping is something that the very first wave of Xbox games were using, and most Wii games still don't use this. Even those that do are using different methods that just achieve a similar look, not the same effects.

About Halo 2 vs Metroid Prime games. You're still not understanding the resources being used here. Metroid Prime games usually have areas that are being streamed into the active memory which is one of the advantages of having super fast memory, but like you said they aren't very populated. On screen characters with AI and vehicles as well as different guns with actual geometry for bullets (not sprites) as well as different physics for each type of gun and enemy take up more resources and power to pull off than empty landscapes that are being streamed in with not much else. The more intense MP scenes are usually in corridors or rooms. That's why MP looks better, you don't have as much going on. On top of that enemies in MP are simpler creatures. When you fight bigger bosses, that's all that's really going on. Classic case of art over technology.

Viper1: It's still a rail shooter, and far more controlled than most other gaming environments. I haven't seen anything in that game that impresses me, considering it's on rails. If it was a FPS or TPS you might have a point, and even then it doesn't show anything (shaders) that Xbox couldn't match or do better. You seem to be confusing scripted behaviors (easy to do with rail shooters) with actual AI and Physics. These things are just easier to do when constricted, otherwise there wouldn't be rails.

And I disagree, I think the Wii has a more efficient GPU. I just see it as a very outdated design that can perform more efficiently, considering the fact that it's barely faster and not as advanced as the XGPU. It's like comparing the top of the line GPU from an older generation, to a medium range GPU from a newer generation that can simply do better/more effects and has built in hardware support. The XGPU itself was a slightly older design with pixel/vertex shaders added from an upcoming line of cards. It's still more adavanced than what is in either GC/Wii, just not as fast. The Wii GPU is faster, but it doesn't have enough of an advantage to make up for what it doesn't have.

dahuman: People use SC as an example, because it's one of the few games that showed the real difference between the previous gen of consoles. That being shader capability and performance. The GC simply couldn't do the same game with the same effects all running at the same time. This is the advantage you get from having this tech built it, and not having to do everything yourself in software. Using the excuse that it is a PC engine doesn't cut it. If the GC could handle it, they would have gotten a downgraded Xbox port, instead of an upgraded PS2 port.