supernihilist said:
bonzobanana said:
supernihilist said:
bonzobanana said:
So much denial of reality in this thread.
Whatever the wii u is capable of its doing it now. While Nintendo may not have released the spec to the general public (because its so terrible) developers will have full information. Same cpu architecture as before, well documented low end modern gpu (likely mobility design), a small amount of high speed embedded memory and low bandwidth main memory. Nothing amazing, all a very cheap design. Performance poor for modern ambitious games but perfectly adequete for cartoon graphics and a huge generational leap from the wii.
For those who think the wii u is powerful why not wait until there is some evidence to support your view (you'll be waiting a long time) before commenting. It just looks ridiculous to write about the power of the wii u when its generally beaten for most games by ps3 and 360. I might as well write about the 360 being close to the power of the xbox one or the ps3 being close to the performance of the power of the ps4 both stupid statements but no different to claiming the wii u is powerful.
At this point in time both ps3 and 360 have a wider choice of technically far more impressive games than wii u and ultimately thats what matters.
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lol, thats funny comin from u
if anything, WiiU chipset is too expensive by Nintendo standards
remember its everything on the same MCM and eDram is on die too
everything is packed together for low latency and maximize eDram performance
ss. stop telling people they are in denial when u dont have a clue
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Why on earth would the wii u chipset be expensive, its on the same fabrication process as the current 360 and PS3 and not on the more advanced process (28nm) that the ps4 and xbox one use. It's cheap to say the least and is only run at a low speed so yields will be ultra high, even cheaper again. The 360 and PS3 cpu's are running at 3.2ghz not the 1.25ghz of wii u.
PS4 apu size at 28nm is 19x18.3mm (348mm2)
Xbox one apu is the same at (348mm2)
wii u cpu is 32.7mm2 at 45nm so would be equivilant of about 20mm2 at 28nm
wii u gpu is 156.21mm2 at 40nm so 109mm2 at 28nm so combined is 137mm2 or getting close to a third of the size of ps4/xbox one and running at a slower speed and paired with very slow external memory.
The wii u die size is less than ps3 and 360 too and again runs the cpu side much, much slower than them.
That is the cold hard truth of wii u.
If however Nintendo had paid out for a 28nm process they could have massively improved its performance while still producing a compact console. They could have added more cpu and gpu resources and produced a console cleanly between 360/PS3 and PS4/Xbox one in performance. Instead we have a console below 360/ps3 that is only really usable for Nintendo's own exclusive games.
Lets say they had put in 128MB of external GDDR5 memory and dedicated more silicon to gpu and cpu resources they would again have had something more competitive.
The fact Nintendo went so cheap with a 40/45nm process same as ps3/360 models is why thy console is mostly performing below 360 and PS3.
If you believe the wii u gpu and cpu being close together gives improved latency etc then you must really be impressed with ps4 and xbox one as the gpu and cpu are actually on the same silicon and so in theory can have even faster memory bandwidth without the restraints of external data connection.
Again there is absolutely no basis for believing the wii u is powerful which ever direction you approach it from but the real test is how it actually performs and its clearly nonsense to pretend a console is powerful when in the real world it is struggling to perform above consoles that were first available about 8 years ago.
Nintendo have done wonders getting respectable performance out of very cheap components but that performance level is still below that of 360 and PS3 most of hte time.
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LOL. not a single clue. go to Gaf or Beyond and read the full WiiU tech threads. then come back so we can talk like equals.
WiiU is a fully custom chip with custom parts on a unique set up. period
and thats expensive. this is no off the shelf part like PS4.
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What your talking about is part of the chipset being utilised for wii compatibility and the high speed mpeg compression of the screen so it can be wirelessly sent to the gamepad. These elements further erode the available space for unique wii u enhanced gpu functionality. This is no different to the 3DS having the DS functtionality also on the same chipset. This isn't good for the wii u performance level its bad. Your making custom sound like a good thing but its another part of the reason why the wii u performs to such a low level. Neither the ps3 or 360 have to hardware emulate a previous console gpu for compatibility.
If your implying there is some huge cost to integrating the old wii gpu chipset, 2 meg frame buffer and 1meg texture cache and a mpeg compressor with the radeonn gpu and 32MB of embedded memory then what is your basis for believing this? There are huge variations of chips on the market for mobile phones, tablets, laptops etc that integrate different parts on to their silicon. There are custom silicon designs everywhere. The licensing cost for Nintendo using a low end mobility radeon gpu will be tiny compared to Microsoft and Sony licensing the latest AMD APU design. The wii cpu code runs directly on one of the wii u's cpu's so no issue there. Are Microsoft claiming huge costs because they removed some of the gpu compute units so they could put in 32MB of embedded memory instead because they weren't using GDDR5 memory? Does that mean the wii u and xbox one are better than ps4 because the ps4 APU is closer to the original design that AMD came up with with less customisation. Are you saying Microsoft's modification to the AMD APU makes their APU hugely more expensive than the PS4 APU because they have modified the design more? Again what is your basis for believing this?
Of course the reality is Nintendo wanted to keep wii compatbility and needed space for the mpeg compression engine so it went into the wii u gpu. The messy nature of where all the bits are in the chip is probably due to the final design stage of the chip. Normally a design engineer will alter the location of parts of the chip to make sure the thermal properties are correct. I.e. the heat generated is distributed evenly across the surface for superior reliability. Maybe the nature of how the wii u gpu is just that final stage that all chips go through.
Unless of course you have some alternate theory that the customisation added some special amazing powers that will only be shown in games perhaps 1-2 years from now.
Wii u gpu;
Low end radeon gpu (probably mobility design) performance level likely 176 gflops
wii gpu 12 gflops used for wii compatibility and gamepad display. 12 gflops is in wii mode, used in wii u mode probably 30 gflops approx
2meg frame buffer (wii mode and gamepad screen)
1meg texture cache (wii mode and gamepad screen)
32MB eDRAM
High speed mpeg compression
minor arm processors for various tasks
The great feature is the huge bandwidth from the gpu to the 32MB of eDRAM but this still will not make up for the low cpu power, low bandwidth external memory and the low performance level of the gpu.
Anyway the important thing for anyone who likes to have a realistic view is simply look at how the wii u is performing. It's not a conspiracy the developers aren't going out of their way to make the wii u look bad and the console itself is fairly basic and easy to develop for. For simple cartoon graphics and games with low cpu requirements the wii u will punch above 360 and PS3 slightly but for games requiring more cpu resources the wii u will struggle to match them in detail and/or frame rate. You can look at specs and the case against the wii u is compelling there but you don't need them just look at the wii u performance level.
