If Wii U could do PS4 graphics at 720p, would that be enough for you?

[bonzobanana]

curl-6 said:

bonzobanana said:

Trine 2 is a 2D game that arguably could be done on even android boxes to a reasonable level. It certainly has low cpu requirements. Also Im not saying Xenoblade Chronicles X doesn't benefit from streaming from usb I'm saying its streaming is inferior to 360 and PS3 that can deliver streaming data faster based on having higher bandwidth sata connections. We don't know the full spec of the wii u gpu. It is likely only 176 gflops, yes its later architecture, enhanced feature set and fast connection to a 32MB pool of eDRAM means its probably outperforms ps3 and 360 on every level however in raw gflops performance both ps3 and 360 are superior but in fairness I know in one generation update alone there was a 30% increase in performance thanks to improved architecture and much of the improved feature set reduces the workload of the gpu elsewhere. An easy win for the wii u but there is a possibility based on their raw gflops performance they might have one or two benefits. Lets not forget the cell processors of the ps3 have direct connection to the graphics memory as well as main memory so can be used to enhance the gpu. In fact many of the wii u's enhanced gpu features may be do-able as cell sub-processes.

Also don't forget the memory bandwidth of the wii u is very low at 12.8gb/s and shared by a background operating system that uses 1GB of memory! That is a lot of memory dedicated to the background much more than ps3 and 360. The two pools of ps3 memory means close to 50GB/s of bandwidth and not restricted to a little 32MB pool either but 2 256MB pools.

Anyway you don't even need to analyse spec its clear to see that the wii u performs horribly for cpu intensive games. The same so called lazy developers don't seem to have a problem with wii u for games that need good gpu resources but little cpu resources and gpu's are far more complicated than cpu's to utilise so if they are achieving good results with the wii u gpu why on earth would they struggle with a dated cpu that goes back to the last century that's already been used in two previous consoles. It makes absolutely no sense at all.

Main RAM bandwidth does not bottleneck Wii U because memory-intensive CPU and GPU work can be done out of eDRAM. For a 720p system, 32MB is more than enough.

Even with its bloated OS, you still have 1GB of memory for  games on Wii U; on PS3/360 you have less than 500MB. And on PS3, you had to split that into two pools, with neither system nor graphics RAM able to exceed a mere 256MB.

And don't make the mistake of thinking that because Trine 2 has 2D gameplay that it is not demanding. PS3/360 could not run the Wii U version without downgrades: http://www.geek.com/games/ps3-360-cant-cope-with-trine-2-wii-u-graphics-1521231/

Well firstly obviously Trine 2 runs fine on ps3 and 360 just at a lower resolution.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4ccoKg3G0s

However graphically Rayman Legends is as good surely and that game runs at 1080p 60fps on all three consoles ps3, 360 and wii u with no slowdown.

I'm not sure you fully understand memory bandwidth. If you have a 2GB of memory and a bandwidth of 12.8gb/s (gigabits) thats makes 1.6 gigaBytes per second. so takes 1.25 seconds to write to its whole memory. Where as the  360 would take 0.2 seconds and the ps3 0.1 seconds for cpu memory and 0.08 seconds for gpu but it has two channels so is written concurrently so 0.1 seconds is the time. Clearly both wii u and 360 have a faster pool of eDRAM but you seem to be ignoring that low bandwidth is shared by a larger pool of main memory. wii u memory bandwidth is very, very low. 

The two big issues for wii u are cpu performance and memory banwidth. Some of the issues seen in wii u with slowdown may not just be cpu related but also memory bandwidth.

Many games are cut down compared to ps3 and 360 versions, some are even lower resolution (sonic transformed), others have missing graphic detail (darksiders II plus others), most have inferior frame rates and when I say inferior I don't mean 1 or 2 frames I mean often 10s of frames. Even games like Need for speed most wanted which is one of the few games with enhanced visuals (some of the improved textures from the pc version) the game doesn't play as well because Nintendo didn't fit analogue triggers and more importantly online racing has a cut down number of players (6 on wii u compared to 8 I think on ps3/360). So even for that game the cpu issue rears its head. 

The wii us is a perfectly fine console but when people describe it as more powerful than ps3 and 360 it is really annoying because on so many levels it simply isn't and for almost every game that is on all three consoles the wii u is the weakest version. I just find it really annoying to keep reading that rubbish on various forums. Both 360 and PS3 have a greater claim on being higher performance than wii u. Both have a range of technically more impressive games than wii u by a large margin. The games written for the ground up for ps3 with the cell operating at full capacity (many early multiformat games didn't even utilise the additional cell processors) it looks amazing. Jaw dropping visuals. Same for 360 it has some very impressive exclusive games perhaps not quite as impressive as the ps3 exclusives but it benefits from generally better multiformat games. 

I own two wii u consoles I'm not speaking from ignorance but the reality of seeing all these consoles in action.