By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close

Forums - Gaming - Shin’en talks Wii U RAM

EricFabian said:
jonathanalis said:

So, they already know where wii U is?

lets say that ps360 = 0

Xone = 10

where is wii U? at 5?


ps30 - 0

wii u - 5

xone - 9

ps4 - 10

pc - +8000

 

Lets make a comparison relative to the top end PC GPUs (Used Nvida) to see were the consoles sit when using the raw numbers.

PS3/360 ------------ 350GF* ----------- (7.77%)  LVL 0.7

WiiU ----------------- 350GF ----------- (7.77%)  LVL 0.7

X1 -------------------- 1,230GF -------- (27.33%) LVL 2.7

PS4 ------------------ 1840GF ---------- (40.88%) LVL 4

PC - AMD/Nvidia = 4300/4500GF  - (100%) - LVL 10

 

Lets do it again without PC, and compare the other consoles relative to the PS4.

PS3/360 ------------ 350GF* ----------- (19.02%) LVL 1.9 

WiiU ----------------- 350GF ------------ (19.02%) LVL 1.9

X1 -------------------- 1,230GF --------- (66.85%) LVL 6.7

PS4 ------------------ 1840GF ----------- (100%)    LVL 10

*This is the most realistic number I've been able to find, however, the PS3/360 has a much older GPU architecture with less features, DX9, so flop for flop the WiiU would be some what more capable bearing mind that it has a much newer architecture with increased features, DX10.

 

So If we have the PS3/360 represent zero and the PC represent ten, then things look like this.

PS3/360 - 0                             |                 With out PC =   PS3/360 - 0

WiiU ----- 1                              |                                             WiiU ----- 2

X1 -------- 3                              |                                             X1 -------- 7

PS4 ------ 4                               |                                             PS4 ------ 10

PC ------- 10

 

No matter how you splice it, the WiiU comes out looking bad. Still. it was a fun little number game, I just decided to go a bit deeper rather than just simply taking a guess....perhaps that wasn't part of the game, but oh welp, the numbers are the numbers.



Around the Network
farlaff said:
Egann said:
The GPU is enough to render both the TV screen and the gamepad in 1080p 60 FPS without being optimized. This means the PS4 and XB1 are massive hardware overkill. Their biggest advantages over the Wii U isn't their power, but that no developer will ever have to optimize the game's code. My gut is that the PS4 and XB1 will see some horribly written code relying on the hardware's power to run it by brute force. Only third party developers with a gigantic reputation for optimizing to hardware will even bother.

Which basically means Square Enix and nobody else.

It's the old axiom "what Intel giveth, Microsoft taketh away" although in this case, Microsoft and Sony are doing the giving, and EA and Epic are doing the taking away.

The only question left on the table is if 2 GB of RAM is enough. We seem to have reasonably established the GPU and CPU are sufficient. Still, if the Wii U can manage with that meager GPU to run two screens at full power, chances are that 2 GB is also "enough."

I like this post. It reflects many things I 've been wondering about. :) But talking memory issues, remember when the 64 got the Memory Pack that produced so good visuals in, say, Star Wars Pod Racer (great game with awful AI)? As you said, the greater difference in the 3 consoles seems to be RAM. Is there any possibility Nintendo can upgrade the U's memory?

I relate this comment to a certain scenario I had in the past. I had (still have) a PC with pretty good specs, the only problem was the RAM, I only had 4 GB and I was working my ass off saving money for this University I was going to, so I couldn't afford to upgrade, but I've looked on some site once about uses for old USB flashdrives now that I had lots laying around. and I found out that you can use a feature called ReadyBoost on Windows Vista/7 that uses the USB flashdrives memory as RAM, so I plugged in my old 4 GB Flash Drive, and to this day I'm running games fine. maybe they could do something similar to the Wii U with an 8/16 GB SD Card? now that I think about it, they did have a Memory Pak for the N64 didn't they?



walsufnir said:
farlaff said:
Egann said:

Maybe, but why upgrade hardware when a firmware update can do the same thing? With a system as low power as the Wii U, you don't necessarily need a RAM chip to pretend you have additional memory. Just convert 2 or 4 GB of the Wii U flash memory into SWAP and suddenly the Wii U has as much "RAM" as the XBox One. Especially if there's CPU power to spare and you can dedicate a whole core to flipping memory between memory pools, and this article implies there's more than enough for that.

If Nintendo really gets into a memory pickle, that's what they'll do.

Cool, never knew it could be done. How's that possible?


This wonderful tech is called "paging". Given that PS4 and Xbone both have 500G disks, this is just brilliant. Oh wait, swapping is the hell for everything that computes... Especially with traditional hard-drives.


Wii U has flash memory, though, which means access times are as fast as DRAM's, compared to the >9ms acess times traditional 7200RPM HDs have. Of course, read/write speed would still be big a problem, but as ReadyBoost on Windows already told us, paging can be done if you use flash memories.



jake_the_fake1 said:

 

Lets make a comparison relative to the top end PC GPUs (Used Nvida) to see were the consoles sit when using the raw numbers.

PS3/360 ------------ 350GF* ----------- (7.77%)  LVL 0.7

WiiU ----------------- 350GF ----------- (7.77%)  LVL 0.7

X1 -------------------- 1,230GF -------- (27.33%) LVL 2.7

PS4 ------------------ 1840GF ---------- (40.88%) LVL 4

PC - AMD/Nvidia = 4300/4500GF  - (100%) - LVL 10

 

Lets do it again without PC, and compare the other consoles relative to the PS4.

PS3/360 ------------ 350GF* ----------- (19.02%) LVL 1.9 

WiiU ----------------- 350GF ------------ (19.02%) LVL 1.9

X1 -------------------- 1,230GF --------- (66.85%) LVL 6.7

PS4 ------------------ 1840GF ----------- (100%)    LVL 10

*This is the most realistic number I've been able to find, however, the PS3/360 has a much older GPU architecture with less features, DX9, so flop for flop the WiiU would be some what more capable bearing mind that it has a much newer architecture with increased features, DX10.

Comparison with PS3 is meaningless in terms of GFLOPS since it uses Nvidia parts compared to everyone else, Nvidia performance per FLOPS  = / = AMD/Ati performance per FLOPS. 360's Xenos is around 240 GFLOPS (@ 500mhz) with DX9 tech. Xenos alone for the most part outperforms the 400 GFLOPS RSX (@550 mhz) (Xenos has more advantages to RSX than RSX to Xenos), and Wii U is likely around 350 GFLOPS (@550mhz) like you have there with newer tech than both (DX 10.1/11 (reported to have some DX11 - like features), but GX2 doesn't exactly use DX, more like a custom OpenGL), so how would Wii U equal the same as PS360 exactly? Even at 176 GFLOPS (like apparently some people believe) it would still beat PS360 GPUs with efficiency alone even if it were by a smaller amount. 

Yes, I noted your * remark, but you're keeping Wii U's GPU at the exact same level as PS360 when it most certainly isn't. 



Lol. I can't believe people seriously think they know how many GFLOPS the Wii U is. If the guys and girls over at Neogaf and Beyond3D can't figure it out, what makes you think you can? Not that it matters anyway. It's the games that matter, and Mario Kart looks sick.



Around the Network
Locknuts said:
Lol. I can't believe people seriously think they know how many GFLOPS the Wii U is. If the guys and girls over at Neogaf and Beyond3D can't figure it out, what makes you think you can? Not that it matters anyway. It's the games that matter, and Mario Kart looks sick.

Well several guys @ NeoGaf and B3D speculate it to be either 176 GFLOPS or 352 GFLOPS, and apparently they think everything is that simple. No, I don't have exact numbers, I'm just using what I know from people who think they know about total FLOPS amount. Either way, we know that Latte is undoubtly more capable than either PS360 GPUs, even if the 176 GFLOPS metric were true. Devs constantly talked of Latte having more power anyway, but we don't know how much. Apparently some people think they can look at metrics from off-shelf GPUs and apply all of that to Latte, which unfortunately for them is not how it works considering how custom the GPU is. For all we know, Nintendo could have customized the amount of shaders per cluster and not have used the 20 or 40 like some do (therefore, FLOPS wouldn't be either 176 or 352), but apparently Nintendo can't do that because they're Nintendo. 

And what exactly makes the GAF or B3D people more of a higher pedistal than tech people elsewhere? (considering how you stated that if they don't know, how can I or anyone else know?) If I had exact numbers from the official specs and access to the documentation, I could easily figure it out as any tech person of those two sites can, but there just aren't much in a way of usefull numbers, only speculation. It would be the best (or worst) thing in the world if there were to be a leak of exact specs though. 

And yeah, Mario Kart does look great btw! 



jake_the_fake1 said:
EricFabian said:
jonathanalis said:

So, they already know where wii U is?

lets say that ps360 = 0

Xone = 10

where is wii U? at 5?


ps30 - 0

wii u - 5

xone - 9

ps4 - 10

pc - +8000

 

Lets make a comparison relative to the top end PC GPUs (Used Nvida) to see were the consoles sit when using the raw numbers.

PS3/360 ------------ 350GF* ----------- (7.77%)  LVL 0.7

WiiU ----------------- 350GF ----------- (7.77%)  LVL 0.7

X1 -------------------- 1,230GF -------- (27.33%) LVL 2.7

PS4 ------------------ 1840GF ---------- (40.88%) LVL 4

PC - AMD/Nvidia = 4300/4500GF  - (100%) - LVL 10

 

Lets do it again without PC, and compare the other consoles relative to the PS4.

PS3/360 ------------ 350GF* ----------- (19.02%) LVL 1.9 

WiiU ----------------- 350GF ------------ (19.02%) LVL 1.9

X1 -------------------- 1,230GF --------- (66.85%) LVL 6.7

PS4 ------------------ 1840GF ----------- (100%)    LVL 10

*This is the most realistic number I've been able to find, however, the PS3/360 has a much older GPU architecture with less features, DX9, so flop for flop the WiiU would be some what more capable bearing mind that it has a much newer architecture with increased features, DX10.

 

So If we have the PS3/360 represent zero and the PC represent ten, then things look like this.

PS3/360 - 0                             |                 With out PC =   PS3/360 - 0

WiiU ----- 1                              |                                             WiiU ----- 2

X1 -------- 3                              |                                             X1 -------- 7

PS4 ------ 4                               |                                             PS4 ------ 10

PC ------- 10

 

No matter how you splice it, the WiiU comes out looking bad. Still. it was a fun little number game, I just decided to go a bit deeper rather than just simply taking a guess....perhaps that wasn't part of the game, but oh welp, the numbers are the numbers.

Xbox360 gpu is 240 gf as far as I know. and wii u's gpu is certainly above 350 gf. your post is beyond nonsense.



forethought14 said:
Locknuts said:
Lol. I can't believe people seriously think they know how many GFLOPS the Wii U is. If the guys and girls over at Neogaf and Beyond3D can't figure it out, what makes you think you can? Not that it matters anyway. It's the games that matter, and Mario Kart looks sick.

Well several guys @ NeoGaf and B3D speculate it to be either 176 GFLOPS or 352 GFLOPS, and apparently they think everything is that simple. No, I don't have exact numbers, I'm just using what I know from people who think they know about total FLOPS amount. Either way, we know that Latte is undoubtly more capable than either PS360 GPUs, even if the 176 GFLOPS metric were true. Devs constantly talked of Latte having more power anyway, but we don't know how much. Apparently some people think they can look at metrics from off-shelf GPUs and apply all of that to Latte, which unfortunately for them is not how it works considering how custom the GPU is. For all we know, Nintendo could have customized the amount of shaders per cluster and not have used the 20 or 40 like some do (therefore, FLOPS wouldn't be either 176 or 352), but apparently Nintendo can't do that because they're Nintendo. 

And what exactly makes the GAF or B3D people more of a higher pedistal than tech people elsewhere? (considering how you stated that if they don't know, how can I or anyone else know?) If I had exact numbers from the official specs and access to the documentation, I could easily figure it out as any tech person of those two sites can, but there just aren't much in a way of usefull numbers, only speculation. It would be the best (or worst) thing in the world if there were to be a leak of exact specs though. 

And yeah, Mario Kart does look great btw! 

no, neogaf guys see parts that resemble several gpus. the haters simply picked the lowest one and started spreading it's the one inside wii u.



ok GameBoy is better than Wii U. Everyone will be happy now?



orniletter said:
RED DEAD REDEMPTION !!!

I don't get what you're saying...

Is this about a certain member that starts with Ninja and ends with Blade?