BlkPaladin said:
Sort of but not really. Let's use an RPG for an exaple. When setting up the display for a game you can set up a number of different canvases to send the information to. So the inventory screen would be on one and the game on another. In normal games you would dump the inventory canvas into reserve memory until need. With the Wii U you would have it update but by using threading you can throattle down the update of the second canvas so it doesn't use as much memory. So if it is an inventory screen ala LoZ you can have it update when either the client or the game uses it. (A new item added, changing) So the only time the contoller is using resources is when it updatesy. For things like FPS radar HUD it would be updated a little more fequently then a stationary, but not as often as the main screen.
The thing is when the TV is being used the information displayed on the controllers will never be graphically intensive. Unless you are doing some parascope type stuff with the controller screen. But at that time you can troatle down the updates to the main screen to give extra resources to the controller.
The problem here is what most developers complained about the PSP vs the DS. It is hard to make games that make use of "all" the bells and whistles of the tech the console has. The thing is you don't have to.
Sorry if this wasn't word correctly I just got off of work and didn't have enough sleep yesterday so my thinking is a little more abstract than it usually is.
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An inventory is a dynamic list (array), either stored in a data file or memory when in use. An array consumes memory depending upon how large it is. The more items in the list, the more memory consumed. So, if the Wii U controller is displaying the inventory screen, it is using up resources of the console. From everything I understand, the Wii U is just a monitor. A monitor is a dumb display, as opposed to a smart display which has some type of computational ability. The Wii U tablet controller isn't streamed raw data, it's streamed graphical data much like WI-FI connected TVs. So all the processing power and memory used to generate that information (the inventory list) is being used up on the console. That's expensive. Using the tablet controller will take away resources that could otherwise be used by the game to make it play or function better.
If you don't think memory is important, sit down with PS3 Skyrim players about any bugs they've encountered with that game after about 40 hours of game play. That bug has to do with just maintaining a laundry list like an inventory too, but it can cripple the game play once you've encountered the right series of quests, skills, and magical powers. That has nothing to even do with screen presentation, just what impact your character has on the given situation in the game. And you think it's no skin off of someones back to keep real-time an inventory or some other display? Anything displayed in real-time will take resources. Will an inventory be CPU intensive as say a periscope type feature? No, but it will require both system and graphic memory to maintain, GPU time slices to keep the display fresh, and occasionally CPU time when the inventory is used or updated (items added or deleted). For the most part, not having an inventory on the tablet would reduce the amount of resources used for it significantly. The inventory wouldn't have to be persistently in memory, it a function would be activated to add or remove items to the file, but that would only ever be called when adding, removing, or using an item. A far more conservative approach to resource management than displaying something that might get updated every ten to 15 minutes of game play.
And no, don't kid yourself, you didn't just come up with a bad example of how to use the tablet display. It's a good example, one I myself used earlier in a reference to Fallout and the Pip-Boy. That doesn't mean it isn't resource intensive and game developers don't have to seriously consider whether for their game and the resources the game needs that it's appropriate to throw resources away to a game function that may not add value to the game play, but is just a neat use of the technology.
If, for example Bethesda's recent update to Skyrim to include Kinect voice commands meant the overall game suffered as a result, would it have been wise to add them and use that feature? No, of course not.
I'm not saying nor implying developers won't take advantage of the Wii U hardware, I'm saying they have to consider how they take advantage of it seriously and whether it helps, harms, or hinders the game play.
