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

teigaga on 24 August 2012
Crono141 said:
The 1.5 or 1 gb of RAM will allow this thing to smoke just about anything. Look at all that was achieved on PS360 with 512. I would be very surprised if the the CPU was ever maxed out in either the 360 or the PS3. Ram was the big bottleneck.

I've been doing PC builds for myself for something like 15 years now. The most recent GPU I replaced was a Radeon 4850 (single stack). Let me tell you, that one radeon still can take anything I throw at it, from CIV 5 to skyrim, and make it look amazing. If the WiiU gets a gpu based on it (or even one more advanced), its not going to have ANY problem pushing 1080p visuals.

I honestly don't see what PS360 can upgrade for a reasonable cost that will significantly overshadow WiiU. I heard that Sony was putting 4k support in the PS4, which I think is very foolish. Everyone just got done rebuying 1080p tvs. There was a huge debate for a very long time whether the human eye could even distinguish between 720p and 1080p at 10 feet. If this rumor is true, look again to a 599 us dollar console with features that nobody will be able to use without dropping 2+ thousand on new equipment. As far as Microsoft, they're more concerned with owning the living room as a set top box that also plays games than they are pushing the envelope.

WiiU may indeed end up being the weakest new platform. But it will be the weakest on the same scale that the PS2 was the weakest. The differences will be minor and negligible when price is factored in.


The fact that the ps4 may support 4k doesn't actually give a real indication of its eventual cost. A system the power and cost of the 360 could arguable run a ps2 game at 4k if designed so. The significance is in the balance between the resolution being dispayed, put against the complexity of the game being run. If it was reported that the ps4 would run the samaritan demo at 4k then I would agree with you on the unavoidable cost, but they simply said it will support the resoultion, just as the orginal xbox supported 720p but virtually no games ran at that res. 4k will likely be reserved for blu-ray movies and smaller games/downloadable games.

Also I think Wii U difference will be greater then the ps2 difference If Starwars 1313 is the starting point for the 720/ps4. Also most reports idicate that the wii U is 1.5x the ps3, whilst the 720 and ps4 are aiming for 6-8x the power. All speculation but the amount of evidence is undeniable.



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curl-6 on 24 August 2012
lilbroex said:
curl-6 said:
I've been worried since I heard that 512MB was going to be reserved for the OS, that leaves what, 1GB for gaming? It's double the HD twins, but I'd been hoping for more.


The 512 that is reserved for the OS is not part of the 1.5 that is for gaming.

Where was this reported?



phenom08 on 24 August 2012

@Teigaga and where did you read any of that. Even if you are right they will once again have very expensive price tags which didn't exactly help them much this Gen. Have you ever asked yourself, if we aligned the Wiis launch to before the 360s launch, like the WiiU is lauching before it's competitors, how would today's landscape look. The deficit between them would be even greater. You guys seem to forget this. The Xbox releasing before the Wii helped them way more than HD gamers give credit to. I honestly hope you are right by the way. It only means they will lose this Gen like last Gen.



Crono141 on 24 August 2012
teigaga said:
Crono141 said:
The 1.5 or 1 gb of RAM will allow this thing to smoke just about anything. Look at all that was achieved on PS360 with 512. I would be very surprised if the the CPU was ever maxed out in either the 360 or the PS3. Ram was the big bottleneck.

I've been doing PC builds for myself for something like 15 years now. The most recent GPU I replaced was a Radeon 4850 (single stack). Let me tell you, that one radeon still can take anything I throw at it, from CIV 5 to skyrim, and make it look amazing. If the WiiU gets a gpu based on it (or even one more advanced), its not going to have ANY problem pushing 1080p visuals.

I honestly don't see what PS360 can upgrade for a reasonable cost that will significantly overshadow WiiU. I heard that Sony was putting 4k support in the PS4, which I think is very foolish. Everyone just got done rebuying 1080p tvs. There was a huge debate for a very long time whether the human eye could even distinguish between 720p and 1080p at 10 feet. If this rumor is true, look again to a 599 us dollar console with features that nobody will be able to use without dropping 2+ thousand on new equipment. As far as Microsoft, they're more concerned with owning the living room as a set top box that also plays games than they are pushing the envelope.

WiiU may indeed end up being the weakest new platform. But it will be the weakest on the same scale that the PS2 was the weakest. The differences will be minor and negligible when price is factored in.


The fact that the ps4 may support 4k doesn't actually give a real indication of its eventual cost. A system the power and cost of the 360 could arguable run a ps2 game at 4k if designed so. The significance is in the balance between the resolution being dispayed, put against the complexity of the game being run. If it was reported that the ps4 would run the samaritan demo at 4k then I would agree with you on the unavoidable cost, but they simply said it will support the resoultion, just as the orginal xbox supported 720p but virtually no games ran at that res. 4k will likely be reserved for blu-ray movies and smaller games/downloadable games.

Also I think Wii U difference will be greater then the ps2 difference If Starwars 1313 is the starting point for the 720/ps4. Also most reports idicate that the wii U is 1.5x the ps3, whilst the 720 and ps4 are aiming for 6-8x the power. All speculation but the amount of evidence is undeniable.


I agree, they could say that 4k is "supported" just to say it is supported.  But then this metric becomes meaningless because the horsepower hasn't really been increased that much.

Just checked out the 1313 gameplay trailers at youtube (720p).  It looks pretty, but it doesn't look like anything that would be impossible for a console with as much ram as WiiU has.  The technical aspects are up in the air, since we don't know what shader tech WiiU's gpu will have (just because its based on a radeon 4850 doesn't mean it won't have expanded instructions).  And even if it can't pull it off all the way, it can pull it off well enough to fake it, just like PS2 did for the high tech games it couldn't quite run.

The way I perceive things, after the GC/Xbox/PS2 generation, Sony and MS said to themselves "We really need to wow the consumer with the next gen.  Not just improve a bit, but really wow them."  So they went 1.5 generations up with Xbox/PS3.  Nintendo said "There's no reason to spend so much on a console that advanced at this time.  Almost no one has the TV to be able to support it at this time anyway."  So they went a 0.5 generations up with the wii tech, and innovated in the control space.  This left them a whole generation behind the competitors, which excluded a lot of the games the other folks got.  But they got buy ok.  Now, I believe that Nintendo is going 1.5 generations up from Wii, and I think that Xbox/PS3 is only going to manage to go up 0.5 gen this time and still remain affordable/profitable.  This puts everybody at the same place, generationally speaking.  WiiU wins on cost and first party titles.  They get the same 3rd party as everybody else.



Check out my Youtube Let's Play channel here.

teigaga on 24 August 2012
lilbroex said:
Crono141 said:
lilbroex said:
curl-6 said:
I've been worried since I heard that 512MB was going to be reserved for the OS, that leaves what, 1GB for gaming? It's double the HD twins, but I'd been hoping for more.


The 512 that is reserved for the OS is not part of the 1.5 that is for gaming.


I hadn't heard this.  In fact, what I had heard was that the Dev Kits at 1.5 gb of ram, and that it was likely that it would be reduced for the production unit.

Where did you hear this becaue I never have.

Every rumor and leak i've read has the dev kit listed as having 3 gigs of ram.

All of the reports I've seen say that the dev kit is 3GB



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Crono141 on 24 August 2012
teigaga said:
lilbroex said:
Crono141 said:
lilbroex said:
curl-6 said:
I've been worried since I heard that 512MB was going to be reserved for the OS, that leaves what, 1GB for gaming? It's double the HD twins, but I'd been hoping for more.


The 512 that is reserved for the OS is not part of the 1.5 that is for gaming.


I hadn't heard this.  In fact, what I had heard was that the Dev Kits at 1.5 gb of ram, and that it was likely that it would be reduced for the production unit.

Where did you hear this becaue I never have.

Every rumor and leak i've read has the dev kit listed as having 3 gigs of ram.

All of the reports I've seen say that the dev kit is 3GB


My bad, I was confused about the dev kits ram, then.  1.5 gb is plenty for the console.  It may even have 2.



Check out my Youtube Let's Play channel here.

Galaki on 24 August 2012

Awesome. I was a bit worried that the WiiU maybe weaker than SNES.



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WiiBox3 on 24 August 2012
happydolphin said:
I can't wait till the haters eat crow.


I prefer blackbirds in my pie.



teigaga on 24 August 2012
Crono141 said:
teigaga said:
Crono141 said:
The 1.5 or 1 gb of RAM will allow this thing to smoke just about anything. Look at all that was achieved on PS360 with 512. I would be very surprised if the the CPU was ever maxed out in either the 360 or the PS3. Ram was the big bottleneck.

I've been doing PC builds for myself for something like 15 years now. The most recent GPU I replaced was a Radeon 4850 (single stack). Let me tell you, that one radeon still can take anything I throw at it, from CIV 5 to skyrim, and make it look amazing. If the WiiU gets a gpu based on it (or even one more advanced), its not going to have ANY problem pushing 1080p visuals.

I honestly don't see what PS360 can upgrade for a reasonable cost that will significantly overshadow WiiU. I heard that Sony was putting 4k support in the PS4, which I think is very foolish. Everyone just got done rebuying 1080p tvs. There was a huge debate for a very long time whether the human eye could even distinguish between 720p and 1080p at 10 feet. If this rumor is true, look again to a 599 us dollar console with features that nobody will be able to use without dropping 2+ thousand on new equipment. As far as Microsoft, they're more concerned with owning the living room as a set top box that also plays games than they are pushing the envelope.

WiiU may indeed end up being the weakest new platform. But it will be the weakest on the same scale that the PS2 was the weakest. The differences will be minor and negligible when price is factored in.


The fact that the ps4 may support 4k doesn't actually give a real indication of its eventual cost. A system the power and cost of the 360 could arguable run a ps2 game at 4k if designed so. The significance is in the balance between the resolution being dispayed, put against the complexity of the game being run. If it was reported that the ps4 would run the samaritan demo at 4k then I would agree with you on the unavoidable cost, but they simply said it will support the resoultion, just as the orginal xbox supported 720p but virtually no games ran at that res. 4k will likely be reserved for blu-ray movies and smaller games/downloadable games.

Also I think Wii U difference will be greater then the ps2 difference If Starwars 1313 is the starting point for the 720/ps4. Also most reports idicate that the wii U is 1.5x the ps3, whilst the 720 and ps4 are aiming for 6-8x the power. All speculation but the amount of evidence is undeniable.


I agree, they could say that 4k is "supported" just to say it is supported.  But then this metric becomes meaningless because the horsepower hasn't really been increased that much.

Just checked out the 1313 gameplay trailers at youtube (720p).  It looks pretty, but it doesn't look like anything that would be impossible for a console with as much ram as WiiU has.  The technical aspects are up in the air, since we don't know what shader tech WiiU's gpu will have (just because its based on a radeon 4850 doesn't mean it won't have expanded instructions).  And even if it can't pull it off all the way, it can pull it off well enough to fake it, just like PS2 did for the high tech games it couldn't quite run.

The way I perceive things, after the GC/Xbox/PS2 generation, Sony and MS said to themselves "We really need to wow the consumer with the next gen.  Not just improve a bit, but really wow them."  So they went 1.5 generations up with Xbox/PS3.  Nintendo said "There's no reason to spend so much on a console that advanced at this time.  Almost no one has the TV to be able to support it at this time anyway."  So they went a 0.5 generations up with the wii tech, and innovated in the control space.  This left them a whole generation behind the competitors, which excluded a lot of the games the other folks got.  But they got buy ok.  Now, I believe that Nintendo is going 1.5 generations up from Wii, and I think that Xbox/PS3 is only going to manage to go up 0.5 gen this time and still remain affordable/profitable.  This puts everybody at the same place, generationally speaking.  WiiU wins on cost and first party titles.  They get the same 3rd party as everybody else.

I think the truth about the wii was that nintendo simply were'nt confident enough to compete with the 360 and ps3 on power, Had the gamecube been a success and sold 40m+ I think the wii would have been closer to the strength of the 360. I think with the wii U they may possibly be of the mind set that  all 90m wii owners are patiently waiting for nintendo to release a system in HD as opposed to simply buying a ps3/360. Either that or what you suggested. 

The problem is the success of the ps3/360 (140m combined) is largely down to more traditional/core gaming titles. I don't think a 0.5 upgrade in graphics is going to convince the guys who buy these games (COD, Assasins Creed, Halo, GTA, Uncharted, Final fantasy) to buy a new system, so I think they (sony especially) have no choice but to take that full Leap towards HQ CGI quality visuals, and I feel the Wii U will be left out. Sony/MS could try and innovate as nintendo did with the wii but I can't see what they could really bring to the table. Xbox has Kinect, so there  is potential kinect 2 will blow our minds but I think we will likely just see higher accuracy, which I don't think is needed for most of the games which use kinect. And sony have nothing.... the point is I think Sony/MS will realise this and max out the power of their consoles. Which by late 2013/2014 that may not be as expensive as one imagines it to be now.



HappySqurriel on 24 August 2012

Personally, I'm waiting for a big budget exclusive game developed from the ground up for the Wii U before I judge its performance; and (most likely) this will be from a developer within Nintendo working on one of their big franchises. Hopefully Nintendo will show off a Metroid or Zelda (or something) on September 13th.

The reason I don't want to judge the system now is the same reason I didn't judge the XBox 360 based on games like Gun

 

Most of the games we are judging the Wii U's performance by have been developed with the PS3 and XBox 360 in mind, and the Wii U is getting a (relatively) inexpensive port where most of the development resources are (probably) being used to take advantage of the new controls.