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Forums - Nintendo - Wii U specs are surprising, says Sonic developer, specifically the GPU and memory

Baron on 12 September 2012
Viper1 said:
Alby_da_Wolf said:
Viper1 said:
Alby_da_Wolf said:

As I wrote, exclusives should have no problems, rather devs used to Wii's 90-100MB total RAM should feel like in Heaven (so we should expect wonders from those that already did them with far less RAM). I should add some things: graphics should be OK, GPU is more powerful and feature-rich, so just reserving 0.5GB to graphics should make them noticeably better than current gen. And about system RAM and multiplats, those originally developed on Wii U or systems with even less RAM should be fine too, and even games developed for PCs with 2GB RAM should be fine, as those 2GB take into account that Windows can easily eat 1GB. So the only problems could arise on games with huge levels and large numbers of interactive objects if originally developed on systems with more main RAM. About PC games ports, troubles could start for those with 3GB or more MINIMUM RAM requirements. So we talk about quite a narrow subset of all the possible games, as such PC games would have the PC as their main platform anyway, while for games developed on consoles, Wii U, being released first could be often the original platform of multiplats, while in other cases, devs could probably take into account WiiU limits to maximize their game audience. And for graphics, no problem at all again, as engines are scalable widely enough up and down, graphics RAM size difference between WiiU and competitors will be a lot smaller in percentage than the one between Wii and HD twins, not to mention that 1080p will be the target res of the vast majority of TVs next gen, higher res will be niche for years, so it will be at most optional for games, if considered at all.
So yes, small RAM could surely create some problems, requiring additional work for porting some multiplats, but in a very limited number of cases.

Part of the reason I made my statement is because too few of us are considering the advances in features like Texture Streaming and Sparse Voxel Octree.   Texture Streaming greatly reduces the need for RAM to store lots of textures locally.  They get dumped onto a faster medium like a hard drive (a flash based scratch pad is even better and the Wii U has 8 GB of flash memory), are decompressed and them streamed into the scene as needed.  SVO is an Level Of Detail system that generates not just textures but geometry in real time based on distance from view.

Yes, and this makes a lot of sense, as even with huge video RAM, large worlds could have more textures overall than what can be loaded at a time. Anyhow, I'm not a graphics whore, 0.5GB video RAM is fine for me, I was a lot more worried for main RAM, as it could affect gameplay (dynamic loading can almost do miracles in this case too, but sometimes it isn't enough, particularly if resources and/or dev time are scarce), but 1GB on platforms with lean OS' like consoles should be fine in most cases too. Then there are wizards like those at CDProjekt RED that can squeeze a game like The Witcher 2 in a 512MB total RAM console, and well, for them it looks like 1.5GB total RAM should be vast and comfortable like a royal palace.

Agreed.

Too many of us are equating their home computer RAM to console RAM and thinking all factors are equal and a new console in this day and age should come with no less than 6 GB because that'w what the average PC comes with now.

You could almost analogize the situation with a sports car's top speed.   It may be able to hit 200 MPH (6 GB) but you'll never take it there.  Not even close.   If, according to local traffic laws, 75 MPH (1.5 GB) is all you are legaly allowed to travel....then 200 MPH (6 GB) is irrelevant for practical usage.

That's not entirely accurate. Nowadays there are plenty PC games that use (almost) 6 GB of RAM. Battlefield 3 on 1080p @ Ultra settings for instance will utilize 6 or more GB's of RAM.

The difference between PC's and consoles is the heavy OS and the dozens of processes running in the background while playing a game. Where Windows 7 requires 1 GB of RAM minimum (the 64 bit version requires 2 GB's even) a console OS uses a lot less. I reckon 512 MB of system memory is more than sufficient for any console.

What is most important with consoles is video memory. At the time of the 360's launch, normal graphics cards had 256 MB of memory and the high end ones had 512 MB. That's why the 360 and PS3 also had 512. That's what was deemed sufficient for any game. Off course back then the most common gaming resolution was 1024x768. Now the most common gaming resolution is 1080p. 2.6 times larger than 1024x768. The result of that can be seen with today's GPU's. Budget cards are equipped with 1 GB and high end cards feature 2 or even 3 GB's of RAM. With that in mind and the performance of the 360 and PS3 @ their launch in mind I think we can say that a console with 1 or 1.5 GB's of video memory, like the Wii U is rumored to have, will be sufficient for 1080p gaming.

I expect the next XBox and Playstation to have between 2 and 4 GB's of video memory as I expect the next series of graphics cards will also have that amount of RAM.



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HappySqurriel on 12 September 2012
Baron said:

That's not entirely accurate. Nowadays there are plenty PC games that use (almost) 6 GB of RAM. Battlefield 3 on 1080p @ Ultra settings for instance will utilize 6 or more GB's of RAM.

The difference between PC's and consoles is the heavy OS and the dozens of processes running in the background while playing a game. Where Windows 7 requires 1 GB of RAM minimum (the 64 bit version requires 2 GB's even) a console OS uses a lot less. I reckon 512 MB of system memory is more than sufficient for any console.

What is most important with consoles is video memory. At the time of the 360's launch, normal graphics cards had 256 MB of memory and the high end ones had 512 MB. That's why the 360 and PS3 also had 512. That's what was deemed sufficient for any game. Off course back then the most common gaming resolution was 1024x768. Now the most common gaming resolution is 1080p. 2.6 times larger than 1024x768. The result of that can be seen with today's GPU's. Budget cards are equipped with 1 GB and high end cards feature 2 or even 3 GB's of RAM. With that in mind and the performance of the 360 and PS3 @ their launch in mind I think we can say that a console with 1 or 1.5 GB's of video memory, like the Wii U is rumored to have, will be sufficient for 1080p gaming.

I expect the next XBox and Playstation to have between 2 and 4 GB's of video memory as I expect the next series of graphics cards will also have that amount of RAM.

The output resolution has only had a significant impact on the graphics card's memory in the early days of 3D graphics cards ...

1080p is (roughly) 2 million pixels and even with a 32bit buffer each screen buffer you use is only going to take up (roughly) 8MB of memory. Between double buffering, a Z-Buffer, and (potentially) other buffers for effects it is likely that a game displaying at 1080p is using between 32MB and 64MB of memory for buffering; which represents less than 5% of memory in these new graphics cards.

From my (very limited) understanding, the bulk of graphics card memory is used up by the graphics card caching and buffering models and textures because of the cost associated with reading these assets from the "slow" memory and transferring this data across the PCI-e bus. Since consoles tend to use a unified memory architecture that is made up of the higher speed GDDR memory there are significant reductions in the need for caching. This is one of many reasons why a console doesn't require as much memory as a similar PC.



Viper1 on 12 September 2012
Baron said:

That's not entirely accurate. Nowadays there are plenty PC games that use (almost) 6 GB of RAM. Battlefield 3 on 1080p @ Ultra settings for instance will utilize 6 or more GB's of RAM.

The difference between PC's and consoles is the heavy OS and the dozens of processes running in the background while playing a game. Where Windows 7 requires 1 GB of RAM minimum (the 64 bit version requires 2 GB's even) a console OS uses a lot less. I reckon 512 MB of system memory is more than sufficient for any console.

What is most important with consoles is video memory. At the time of the 360's launch, normal graphics cards had 256 MB of memory and the high end ones had 512 MB. That's why the 360 and PS3 also had 512. That's what was deemed sufficient for any game. Off course back then the most common gaming resolution was 1024x768. Now the most common gaming resolution is 1080p. 2.6 times larger than 1024x768. The result of that can be seen with today's GPU's. Budget cards are equipped with 1 GB and high end cards feature 2 or even 3 GB's of RAM. With that in mind and the performance of the 360 and PS3 @ their launch in mind I think we can say that a console with 1 or 1.5 GB's of video memory, like the Wii U is rumored to have, will be sufficient for 1080p gaming.

I expect the next XBox and Playstation to have between 2 and 4 GB's of video memory as I expect the next series of graphics cards will also have that amount of RAM.

Have you ever seen the look one someones face when they think you don't know what you're talking about?  I'm making that face right now.

It's a 32 bit application so it would never use more than 3.5 GB to begin with.  AND I've never seen anyone use more than 1.8 GB

Open Task Manager and check the memory usuage of the BF3 executable.



The rEVOLution is not being televised

lilbroex on 12 September 2012

That is true. The limit of 32 bit addressing is 4 GB.



Baron on 13 September 2012

Viper1 said:

Baron said:

That's not entirely accurate. Nowadays there are plenty PC games that use (almost) 6 GB of RAM. Battlefield 3 on 1080p @ Ultra settings for instance will utilize 6 or more GB's of RAM.

The difference between PC's and consoles is the heavy OS and the dozens of processes running in the background while playing a game. Where Windows 7 requires 1 GB of RAM minimum (the 64 bit version requires 2 GB's even) a console OS uses a lot less. I reckon 512 MB of system memory is more than sufficient for any console.

What is most important with consoles is video memory. At the time of the 360's launch, normal graphics cards had 256 MB of memory and the high end ones had 512 MB. That's why the 360 and PS3 also had 512. That's what was deemed sufficient for any game. Off course back then the most common gaming resolution was 1024x768. Now the most common gaming resolution is 1080p. 2.6 times larger than 1024x768. The result of that can be seen with today's GPU's. Budget cards are equipped with 1 GB and high end cards feature 2 or even 3 GB's of RAM. With that in mind and the performance of the 360 and PS3 @ their launch in mind I think we can say that a console with 1 or 1.5 GB's of video memory, like the Wii U is rumored to have, will be sufficient for 1080p gaming.

I expect the next XBox and Playstation to have between 2 and 4 GB's of video memory as I expect the next series of graphics cards will also have that amount of RAM.

Have you ever seen the look one someones face when they think you don't know what you're talking about?  I'm making that face right now.

It's a 32 bit application so it would never use more than 3.5 GB to begin with.  AND I've never seen anyone use more than 1.8 GB

Open Task Manager and check the memory usuage of the BF3 executable.

Oops. I meant with Battlefield 3 system memory usage can go up to 6 GB's. As for never seeing anyone use more than 1.8 GB, I have had plenty of times where memory usage in Windows alone passes 2 GB. I've got a total of 12 GB's and on average 16% of that is in use when I'm in desktop. That's already 1.9 GB's for just running my system. With Battlefield my memory usage goes up to 45%. Or about 5.4 GB's.

The output resolution has only had a significant impact on the graphics card's memory in the early days of 3D graphics cards ...

With today's cards there's a clear difference between 2GB and 3GB cards. The nVidia GTX680 is faster than a 7970 (the original one) when it comes to 1080p gaming but when the resolution is enhanced to 1440p or 1600p or Eyefinity the 7970 comes out on top.

So clearly, there's an advantage to be had with increasing video memory.



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Viper1 on 14 September 2012
Baron said:

Viper1 said:

Have you ever seen the look one someones face when they think you don't know what you're talking about?  I'm making that face right now.

It's a 32 bit application so it would never use more than 3.5 GB to begin with.  AND I've never seen anyone use more than 1.8 GB

Open Task Manager and check the memory usuage of the BF3 executable.

Oops. I meant with Battlefield 3 system memory usage can go up to 6 GB's. As for never seeing anyone use more than 1.8 GB, I have had plenty of times where memory usage in Windows alone passes 2 GB. I've got a total of 12 GB's and on average 16% of that is in use when I'm in desktop. That's already 1.9 GB's for just running my system. With Battlefield my memory usage goes up to 45%. Or about 5.4 GB's.

The output resolution has only had a significant impact on the graphics card's memory in the early days of 3D graphics cards ...

With today's cards there's a clear difference between 2GB and 3GB cards. The nVidia GTX680 is faster than a 7970 (the original one) when it comes to 1080p gaming but when the resolution is enhanced to 1440p or 1600p or Eyefinity the 7970 comes out on top.

So clearly, there's an advantage to be had with increasing video memory.

But a console is not a PC.  You need to look at just the BF3.exe file in Task Manager to see how much memory it is actually using.

Now look what you said in your second reply.  Only AFTER you exceed 1920 x 1080 resolution does having the higher RAM card matter.   Since none of the consoles will render games higher than 1080p...see where I'm going with that?



The rEVOLution is not being televised

Baron on 14 September 2012
Viper1 said:
Baron said:

Viper1 said:

Have you ever seen the look one someones face when they think you don't know what you're talking about?  I'm making that face right now.

It's a 32 bit application so it would never use more than 3.5 GB to begin with.  AND I've never seen anyone use more than 1.8 GB

Open Task Manager and check the memory usuage of the BF3 executable.

Oops. I meant with Battlefield 3 system memory usage can go up to 6 GB's. As for never seeing anyone use more than 1.8 GB, I have had plenty of times where memory usage in Windows alone passes 2 GB. I've got a total of 12 GB's and on average 16% of that is in use when I'm in desktop. That's already 1.9 GB's for just running my system. With Battlefield my memory usage goes up to 45%. Or about 5.4 GB's.

The output resolution has only had a significant impact on the graphics card's memory in the early days of 3D graphics cards ...

With today's cards there's a clear difference between 2GB and 3GB cards. The nVidia GTX680 is faster than a 7970 (the original one) when it comes to 1080p gaming but when the resolution is enhanced to 1440p or 1600p or Eyefinity the 7970 comes out on top.

So clearly, there's an advantage to be had with increasing video memory.

But a console is not a PC.  You need to look at just the BF3.exe file in Task Manager to see how much memory it is actually using.

Now look what you said in your second reply.  Only AFTER you exceed 1920 x 1080 resolution does having the higher RAM card matter.   Since none of the consoles will render games higher than 1080p...see where I'm going with that?


Yes, I see what you're getting at. I also never said consoles would need 6 GB's of RAM. I simply said 6 GB of RAM in a PC is not always sufficient for gaming.

 

The Wii U's 1 GB of video memory for games however will be more than sufficient to run current games in 1080p.



Kynes on 29 November 2012

 

Where are Baron and Lilbroex when you need them? As said by some of us, very low frequency to reduce the power consumption. The CPU frequency is as low as 1.25 GHz, and the GPU frequency 550 MHz.