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Forums - Gaming - What if developers had access to 100% of the power in the consoles?

TheLegendaryWolf on 19 June 2014

The problem is the extremely high cost of development to make it to 100%.



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Never on 19 June 2014
Conina said:
Never said:
One of the more interesting things about the wii u hardware is how it offloads the os onto a dual core 1 gig arm processor so not to hog resources.

The OS of the Wii U doesn't hog resources? The OS has a footprint of 50% of the RAM! Only half of the 2 GB RAM are available for games.

The 360 had an OS-footprint of 6% (32 MB of 512 MB), the bloated OS-footprint of the PS3 is reduced to 10% (50 MB of 512 MB) since 2009: http://community.eu.playstation.com/t5/PS3-General/PS3-OS-memory-footprint-slashed/td-p/9874872

So... does the Wii U switch off the main processor outside off a game to save power consumption (idling in the main menu, eShop, internet browser, netflix...) and only uses the ARM processor? Obviously not... besides standby the WiiU always takes the same amount of power, no matter if a game is running or if it idles: 28 - 33 watt

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6465/nintendo-wii-u-teardown

https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Nintendo+Wii+U+Teardown/11796


Don't missunderstand me. I'm not making a case for the Wii U's power. Nor was I refering to it hogging ram which I'm well aware of. However, yes, the os is running on the Arm processer taking it off the cpu when playing games. It's an interesting solution to the issue.

I would imagine the wii u menu runs on the main cpu so you wouldn't expect to see any power improvement there. However, handling the os, notificaions, updates, downloads etc will keep the main processer free whilst playing games.



VanceIX on 19 June 2014
JOKA_ said:
VanceIX said:
JOKA_ said:
kitler53 said:
no friends list
no messaging
no game invites
no chat rooms
no custom soundtracks
no background downloads and updates
no trophies
no sharing of screenshots and videos
no netflix
...
no thank you

This.  We would get a 'meh' increase in how our games play and lose all the conveniences of the OS

A 30% increase is hardly meh. That's 1080p, 60fps with larger game worlds, faster loading, better physics, etc.

How did we survive without an OS running constantly back in the golden age of gaming (PS2 era)?

Also, I'll include my quote again, showing that you'd hardly be losing a lot of those features.

VanceIX said:

kitler53 said:
no friends list

You can have that without the OS running constantly. An individual game can access your friends list and then allow you to play with them.

no messaging

There will still be an OS, just won't be running while playing a game. You can message people out of game. Not a lot of people use the messaging app to any real extent anyway.

no game invites

See point 1

no chat rooms

OK, this one I see. Still, there are other ways to contact people.

no custom soundtracks

? Alright... I'll take 60fps games with improved AI, graphics, worlds, etc. over custom soundtracks.

no background downloads and updates

Once again, you can do that while in standby mode.

no trophies

And why not? You don't need an entire OS running to hadle trophies. 

no sharing of screenshots and videos

I have a PC for that. Also, I would rather have better games than screenshots and videos. Just me though. A video capture card software for those who really need to capture those moments can be bought too.

no netflix

Once again, there are literally hundreds of devices that can do Netflix. I don't want my games gimped because I absolutely have to have my video game console do Netflix.

...
no thank you

Points in bold.


Eh its 2014, I think that people (myself included) expect a lot of things that you are going 'meh' at like background downloading and custom soundtracks.

 

Also I'm no programmer, but I don't think its as simple as "You can have that [friends list] without the OS running constantly. An individual game can access your friends list and then allow you to play with them." if the game is using 100% of the console.  I wouldn't want to go back to the PS2 days of having separate friend's lists for each game *shudders*

I'm with you, don't get me wrong. I don't support completely removing the OS. I was just putting it out in terms of what could be.

I am, however, in favor of removing Netflix, streaming, uploading, etc. capabilities in-game while retaining basic, barebone OS capabilities for switching to a different application and also retaining network functionality.



                                                                                                               You're Gonna Carry That Weight.

Xbox One - PS4 - Wii U - PC

Teeqoz on 19 June 2014
David_Hernandeez said:
"knock off hundred of gigs of RAM" they don't even have a hundred.


lol. an entire game could be streamed to your ram had you had such awesomness in your consoles. just wait for the PS6!