By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close
Never on 19 June 2014
Edit Thread
Conina said:
Never said:
One of the more interesting things about the wii u hardware is how it offloads the os onto a dual core 1 gig arm processor so not to hog resources.

The OS of the Wii U doesn't hog resources? The OS has a footprint of 50% of the RAM! Only half of the 2 GB RAM are available for games.

The 360 had an OS-footprint of 6% (32 MB of 512 MB), the bloated OS-footprint of the PS3 is reduced to 10% (50 MB of 512 MB) since 2009: http://community.eu.playstation.com/t5/PS3-General/PS3-OS-memory-footprint-slashed/td-p/9874872

So... does the Wii U switch off the main processor outside off a game to save power consumption (idling in the main menu, eShop, internet browser, netflix...) and only uses the ARM processor? Obviously not... besides standby the WiiU always takes the same amount of power, no matter if a game is running or if it idles: 28 - 33 watt

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6465/nintendo-wii-u-teardown

https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Nintendo+Wii+U+Teardown/11796


Don't missunderstand me. I'm not making a case for the Wii U's power. Nor was I refering to it hogging ram which I'm well aware of. However, yes, the os is running on the Arm processer taking it off the cpu when playing games. It's an interesting solution to the issue.

I would imagine the wii u menu runs on the main cpu so you wouldn't expect to see any power improvement there. However, handling the os, notificaions, updates, downloads etc will keep the main processer free whilst playing games.