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Forums - Gaming Discussion - 720 will Decide if WiiU RAM is enough.

happydolphin on 17 April 2013
Netyaroze said:

What we saw at the presentation is just the beginning. There are many new features that next gen consoles can use to their full potential that will change graphics alot. Uncharted will still look good but it will look old at one point.  Every gen has its limitations that become appearent after we see the next gen. This will happen again. People just don't know what else can be improved once they see it PS3/360 games will look dated. 

That's true. Then again it is also the beginning for the U, so odds are its juices have yet to be squeezed out of it, so to speak.

And yes it is exciting when you think of the possibilities for PS420.

@Rafux. I know, but my argument is diminishing returns, which means that as time passes there will be less of such instances of "oh, if only we could do _this_". Also, there comes a point where simulation may not be the best answer for a given scene, or where detail may not be required (due to objects being out of focus). With all that in mind, I'm not sure the future will require such intensive requirements.



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happydolphin on 17 April 2013
Sal.Paradise said:
happydolphin said:

I really dislike that pic about the triangles. If they have 10 times the number available to them, they are not just going to use the same character model as before but smooth in the edges. They'll be able to, for example, give him more elaborate hair, more elaborate clothes, more minute facial details and so on. Very misleading. 

Sal, here's a better one maybe:

PS3 no less.

2005 to 2010 (HR) is a factor of 10. 2010 to 2013 (Beyond) is a factor of 2. Look at the improvements compared to the jump in polys.



RazorDragon on 17 April 2013
Netyaroze said:
RazorDragon said:
Captain_Tom said:

LOL no it doesn't!  I play it maxed out 100% and it only uses around 1500MB-1800MB.  They then tried to fit that into 256MB.  What happened?  The PS3 and especially the 360 version can't even hold a steady 25 FPS:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLLWtgVglTE

This is all while having some butt-ugly textures.   So yeah your future for the Wii U looks great.  I can't wait to see what happens to console versions of games when 2+ GB is standard (Which it will be by next year).


RAM has almost nothing to do with framerate. The 360 and PS3 versions can't hold 25FPS because the GPU and CPU are outdated compared to current PC specs. If you try to run, for example, Crysis on a HD 4870 512MB GPU and then on a HD 4670 1GB GPU, which card will run the game with better framerates? It's obvious that the HD 4870 will run it much better, even with less RAM. About the butt-ugly textures, that may be because PS3 and 360 lack RAM, but in the framerate department, it doesn't matter at all how much RAM you have.


Not necessarily.

 

Ram has a lot to do with framerates. Ram bandwith is directly related to framerates. If you have a Titan/I7 PC with DDR2 you would still just get 2 fps because the Ram would be too slow to deliever the data to the GPU.

 

Ram amount also has something to do with framerates. This is a problem that plagues consoles. Games today on consoles are mostly limited through Ram size. If there is not enough ram space like 360/PS3 for example the GPU has to compress and decompress the data it reads and writes to the Ram or else it wouldn't fit into the limited space. This costs GPU time and thats often the reason for the bad framerates on consoles.


Maybe I didn't expressed my thoughts in the best way. I was talking about the amount of RAM, not the bandwidth, which, as you mentioned, can greatly affect the performance of the GPU. You're also right about the RAM amount, altough, in the end, it also comes to how much power the GPU has. If PS3/360 GPUs were more powerful by current standards, compressing and decompressing data to VRAM wouldn't affect framerates as significantly as it does today, even if the same amount of VRAM was available.

Anyway, I found a few tests comparing 1GB vs 2GB versions of the same GPU running the same game. Not sure if it helps the discussion, but I thought it would be nice sharing the images:



Netyaroze on 17 April 2013
happydolphin said:

Now you're just getting me excited. Stop it! Lulz :)

But again, looking at those Unreal demos it shows me that all that stuff is possible today, minus the smoke, minus the lights, minus some of the finer detail. The David Cage stuff is, I admit, very impressive. Then again so is Beyond. So again diminishing returns. 

I was also watching my roomie play Darksiders 2 and it looked much better than darksiders which my other roomie was playing on 360, but it was just more crisp, clear and pretty, kind of like wearing a better set of prescription glasses after wearing the same glasses for a few years. It's nice for sure but it isn't the be all end all of gaming.

I agree the improvements are exciting, but it's not like it'll make the stuff unplayable on the U and that's what I was trying to say. For COD Wii it did make a huge difference, like wearing the wrong prescription of glasses. Here, it's 21/20 vision rather than say idk 20/25 vision. The thing is still playable, it just isn't as nice.

If that compromise isn't reasonable we'll just have to agree to disagree, or until more is seen from both systems. I'm going to get a U and a PS4/720 (one or the other depending on certain factors), but in the end I'm not sure this graphics thing will be more than eye candy at this stage in the game (the industry as a whole). We're reaching a point soon where new consoles won't be needed. I'm pretty sure of that.


The point were we don't need consoles is still very far away imo. There are things nobody ever tried because the performance just isn't there. The rendering techniques Avatar used like Raytracing is still along way off PS6 eventually.. We could have a 1000 Teraflop console with 4 Terabyte Ram and we would still run into limitations. Videogames can theoretically be as complex as life itself. And every jump opens new and never before seen possibilities. Gamedesign very slowly evolves unlike graphics and with new possibilities, new game concepts come and motivate people to spend money. At the same time creating content gets easier with new technologies. This gen will be very interesting. Games are a slowly evolving medium and aslong as technology keeps on going we will always get to see stuff we haven't before.

 

I am already fed up with the state of games today and I am looking forward to changes in the next 6 years.



S.T.A.G.E. on 17 April 2013
happydolphin said:
S.T.A.G.E. said:

Look, I love the games that are coming out as well (especially from Sony) and they are pumping out great graphics and worlds but its time to take it a step further and devs have been proving their case in spades. I was questioning their motives just like you because I didnt expect such a leap in graphics. If you're a PC gamer this isn't that big of a leap, if you're a console gamer it's pretty damn big. I had to watch my roommate play the same games I was playing on console with a fully loaded PC and it is sad how much we missed out on graphically and when it comes to fluidity in these games. Now with next gen tech they will be pushing even more like animations, lighting, shading polygons, (quantic dream: Emoting), 

David Cage at the PS4 unveiling talking about next gen emotion and that its now finally possible physically to show emotion properly (also the jump in graphics from all of their games to the PS4's hardware polygon count). He stated that the quality reserved for CG films is now available on consoles in games.:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tw1l_C4kXrg

Unreal 4 tech demos (as per your Gears of War comment):

(Newest) Infiltrator demo (2013):http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bLOi3mo9NE

(Oldest) Samartian demo (2011):http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdwHrCT5jr0

Next gen is waiting. Theres nothing to hold it back now. This is what I have been waiting for from games or at least close to it.

Now you're just getting me excited. Stop it! Lulz :)

But again, looking at those Unreal demos it shows me that all that stuff is possible today, minus the smoke, minus the lights, minus some of the finer detail. The David Cage stuff is, I admit, very impressive. Then again so is Beyond. So again diminishing returns. 

I was also watching my roomie play Darksiders 2 and it looked much better than darksiders which my other roomie was playing on 360, but it was just more crisp, clear and pretty, kind of like wearing a better set of prescription glasses after wearing the same glasses for a few years. It's nice for sure but it isn't the be all end all of gaming.

I agree the improvements are exciting, but it's not like it'll make the stuff unplayable on the U and that's what I was trying to say. For COD Wii it did make a huge difference, like wearing the wrong prescription of glasses. Here, it's 21/20 vision rather than say idk 20/25 vision. The thing is still playable, it just isn't as nice.

If that compromise isn't reasonable we'll just have to agree to disagree, or until more is seen from both systems. I'm going to get a U and a PS4/720 (one or the other depending on certain factors), but in the end I'm not sure this graphics thing will be more than eye candy at this stage in the game (the industry as a whole). We're reaching a point soon where new consoles won't be needed. I'm pretty sure of that.


We always agree to disagree. It's like you're tearing at my soul on purpose.



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happydolphin on 17 April 2013
Netyaroze said:

The point were we don't need consoles is still very far away imo. There are things nobody ever tried because the performance just isn't there. The rendering techniques Avatar used like Raytracing is still along way off PS6 eventually.. We could have a 1000 Teraflop console with 4 Terabyte Ram and we would still run into limitations. Videogames can theoretically be as complex as life itself. And every jump opens new and never before seen possibilities. Gamedesign very slowly evolves unlike graphics and with new possibilities, new game concepts come and motivate people to spend money. At the same time creating content gets easier with new technologies. This gen will be very interesting. Games are a slowly evolving medium and aslong as technology keeps on going we will always get to see stuff we haven't before.

 

I am already fed up with the state of games today and I am looking forward to changes in the next 6 years.

I guess it all depends on how real is real enough for this or that user, how much is enough. The excitement I get from avatar is as good as the excitement I get from watching Disney's Tarzan. Both are made with very different techs with very different requirements.

David Cage is a proponent of emotion. Does emotion truly require 1 to 1 simulation for absolutely everything to convey the meaning and world of the game?

That's where I believe there may be some exaggerated emphasis on the technological side of the medium versus the communicative side of the medium (what it tries to convey).



Sal.Paradise on 17 April 2013
happydolphin said:

Sal, here's a better one maybe:

PS3 no less.

2005 to 2010 (HR) is a factor of 10. 2010 to 2013 (Beyond) is a factor of 2. Look at the improvements compared to the jump in polys.

Definitely a better example! Although they couldn't have found a worse picture of Ellen if they'd tried lol. What someone should really do is take proper high res in-game pics of these models for comparison, that would be interesting. 



happydolphin on 17 April 2013
Sal.Paradise said:
happydolphin said:

Sal, here's a better one maybe:

PS3 no less.

2005 to 2010 (HR) is a factor of 10. 2010 to 2013 (Beyond) is a factor of 2. Look at the improvements compared to the jump in polys.

Definitely a better example! Although they couldn't have found a worse picture of Ellen if they'd tried lol. What someone should really do is take proper high res in-game pics of these models for comparison, that would be interesting. 

@Bold. Lol, I know :)

And I agree that would make it much clearer to understand the scale of the improvements versus poly jump.



happydolphin on 17 April 2013
S.T.A.G.E. said:

We always agree to disagree. It's like you're tearing at my soul on purpose.

That's probably because I'm torn myself. I'm not even sure with all this we exchanged whether I'm right or you are to be completely honest.

I just don't know. To be totally honest, I believe the answer lies somewhere in the middle. Simulation can only do so much, eye candy IS nice, and WiiU can offer a scaledown version without making the games unplayable or completely undesirable (though even this one is subjective and depends on taste/ability to spend). An exception might exist in what Cage is attempting to do, that is offer true human emotion using Computer Graphics. Less detail would hinder that.



Zero999 on 17 April 2013

Just another thing. 3ds is about the same raw power as wii (realy underpowered against the x360), but thanks to similar architeture and programable shaders it can receive downgraded versions of games built for the x360. the most recent case was castlevania, wich was developed in hd,high polygon and texture quality, and then reduced to fit 3ds capabilities.

Now just a hint: wii u is A LOT closer to ps4/nextbox than 3ds is to 360, of course it will receive multiplatform games with small to moderate (but still irrelevant) downgrades. third party's would have done that to wii if they could, thinking they'll waste the money oportunity on wii u is wishful thinking.