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

Forums - Nintendo - Nintendo Wii vs Original Xbox

sc94597 on 24 July 2009
PearlJam said:
sc94597: Riddick didn't use bump mapping, it used normal mapping and that was a huge deal back then. It had more to do with the evolution of programming techniques than it did with the actual hardware and showed what you could pull off with a programmable pipeline that wasn't even supposed to be able to do those effects. And if you don't even know the difference between the two, tell me why I should even reply to your posts anymore when the subject we are discussing is shaders?

I won't argue about your other points, I already said that the Wii is more powerful than Xbox but that has more to do with the CPU and memory not the shader capabilities. The GC CPU was a little better than the Xbox CPU, so why would the Wii CPU be weaker? I don't think Metroid Prime 3 looked equal to Halo 2, it looked better but I don't remember environments being as big or as populated. I also didn't see AI as complex or as many moving characters on screen at once. But I could be wrong, give me specific levels that you remember being larger and more open than the stuff in Halo 2.

Educate yourself about the different forms of "mapping" that are used before you even talk about it. You might begin to see the point I'm trying to make. And you'll understand why I say that the Wii can't do all the effects as well, so it uses different effects altogether that are actually less resource hungry.

I know the differences between Bump Mapping, Normal Mapping, and Parallax mapping at least. I was just recalled that wrong.  As for Metroid Prime 3, the outdoor areas of elysia was larger than most areas I remember in Halo 2, and Norion had big areas well . Metroid Prime 2 had quite a few large areas too.  I agree on it not being as populated though.



Around the Network
PearlJam on 24 July 2009

dahuman: You seem to understand how some things work, which is why I don't understand why you are debating this. Yes the reason some 360 games look better than their PS3 counterparts is because of ease of development and DirectX, not because of the actual hardware. Don't forget that the reason why the PS3 got a last minute GPU from nVidia was because of shaders. As powerful as the Cell might be, it was absolute shit when it came to shaders. So no matter how many polys and physics it could push, it would never come close to graphically matching the 360, if it wasn't for the GPU addition.

Look at it this way, Microsoft is known for bloatware and inefficiency. And your basing what the Xbox could do on Microsoft's software and API, not the actual hardware. Since DirectX and downgraded PC engines was what devs used for Xbox and it was easier, people never exploited what the Xbox could really do. Take all the middleware and easy shortcuts out of the picture, if people were forced to work with the actual hardware and use the most efficient techniques (not the easiest and fastest) you would see what the Xbox could really do. This is what people had to do with GC and PS2 to get good results, you didn't need to do the same with Xbox for similar results. If they really wanted to exploit the Xbox, they would have taken a different approach.

Riddick wasn't the end-all game, it was the very beginning of what the system could do. If the system was around longer and had been more successful, we might have seen its' true potential.



dahuman on 24 July 2009
PearlJam said:
dahuman: You seem to understand how some things work, which is why I don't understand why you are debating this. Yes the reason some 360 games look better than their PS3 counterparts is because of ease of development and DirectX, not because of the actual hardware. Don't forget that the reason why the PS3 got a last minute GPU from nVidia was because of shaders. As powerful as the Cell might be, it was absolute shit when it came to shaders. So no matter how many polys and physics it could push, it would never come close to graphically matching the 360, if it wasn't for the GPU addition.

Look at it this way, Microsoft is known for bloatware and inefficiency. And your basing what the Xbox could do on Microsoft's software and API, not the actual hardware. Since DirectX and downgraded PC engines was what devs used for Xbox and it was easier, people never exploited what the Xbox could really do. Take all the middleware and easy shortcuts out of the picture, if people were forced to work with the actual hardware and use the most efficient techniques (not the easiest and fastest) you would see what the Xbox could really do. This is what people had to do with GC and PS2 to get good results, you didn't need to do the same with Xbox for similar results. If they really wanted to exploit the Xbox, they would have taken a different approach.

Riddick wasn't the end-all game, it was the very beginning of what the system could do. If the system was around longer and had been more successful, we might have seen its' true potential.

You know, the truth is, if the xbox has a more efficient design and faster memory, I probably wouldn't argue with you on that besides the faster CPU on the Wii, but the Wii has made a lot of efficient changes from the already efficient gamecube design on top of an improved GPU instruction set so it's a machine where everything works as one which I just can't say about the Xbox since it's just, not as efficient, especially on the memory front which is really important and would impact graphics performance heavily when it comes to more demanding effects.



ElRhodeo on 24 July 2009

Are you guys working in games development? Cause I'd really love to hear actual developers tell us about their experiences with the different systems. I don't think you can accurately judge a console's developer friendliness in theory alone.



Currently playing: NSMB (Wii) 

Waiting for: Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Wii), The Last Story (Wii), Golden Sun (DS), Portal 2 (Wii? or OSX), Metroid: Other M (Wii), 
... and of course Zelda (Wii) 
dahuman on 24 July 2009
ElRhodeo said:
Are you guys working in games development? Cause I'd really love to hear actual developers tell us about their experiences with the different systems. I don't think you can accurately judge a console's developer friendliness in theory alone.

oh that's easy, the Wii is a fucking pain in the ass to work with lol, there you have it.



Around the Network
z101 on 24 July 2009
CatFangs806 said:
They both have the same processing speed of 733MHZ. Don't know about the ram or graphics card, though.

The Wii has CPU Speed of 729 Mhz, the Xbox1 733 Mhz. The GPU of the Wii runs at 243 Mhz, the Xbox1 GPU with 233 Mhz.

But it doesn't really matter, because they have different CPUs and a different technical design overall. The Xbox1 has an slowly working Pentium Processor. The PowerPC CPU in the Wii is much, much faster. The Wii has also more and much faster RAM than the Xbox1.

On top of that the Wii GPU is very different from the standard PC-GPUs that are used in the Xbox1, Xbox360 or PS3. The Wii GPU has no "shader" like the other GPUs but it has TEV (Texture Enviroments) that are able to do shader like effects but works far more efficient and use a lot less ram and cpu/gpu power for the effects.

The Data-Transport-Busses of the Wii System are much faster too. Worth Mentioning: 24 MB of the 88 MB Wii RAM are super fast 1T-SRAM that is faster than GDDR3 RAM that is used in Xbox360 and PS3.

All in all the Wii has far more Power than the Xbox1, but the system is (very much like the PS3) unfamiliar to programmers that learnend programming on the pc. The Xbox360 is, after all, a dumbed down PC and the programmers could use all it's power from the start on.

 



Things I like: Magic-Alchemist - The magic iPhone, Android and browser game:

www.magic-alchemist.com/

List of Nintendo Switch games (german):
http://www.zimmer101.de/nintendo-switch-spiele/

Viper1 on 24 July 2009
Graves said:
SubiyaCryolite said:
Oh yeah, look at Silent Hill Shattered Memories. Thats just a taste of what the Wii can do, did the Xbox have a game as good looking as that?

Shattered Memories is also for the PS2. The Wii version probably won't look much better.

Wii is the lead console, not the PS2.







PearlJam said:
This is too much to reply to, so I'll try to touch on it all.

Viper1: Rail shooters use some of the simplest AI, since it's just you and a shooting gallery. The enemies don't need to be programmed with generic AI that includes environments outside of the tiny area you are in and they don't need behavior like flanking, chasing, hiding (outside of the immediate cover that is in the given scene) and many other reactions that come from an uncontrolled environment. Same with physics, you are limited to the area and geometry in front of you and you don't need to program for anything outside of the immediate scene. Even if you have the same enemy in a different scene, you can have strict AI and Physics for that specific scene and not have to use general purpose AI and Physics that have to take into account anything that can happen with all the possibilities of a particular level.

You can't possibly compare the kind of AI you would need in a FPS or a TPS with the many X factors, to a rail shooter where everything is controlled and limited.

If you really need me to explain this, I can't help you. When you get a better understanding of how it works, then come back and discuss. Or better yet, explain it yourself and tell me why you believe that a rail shooter doesn't need simpler AI and Physics as I seem to be the only one having to explain myself.

And Wii might have more pipelines, but it's still a fixed function pipeline that basically uses the same setup as the GC. I've been told that the transition guide from Wii to GC was about ten pages with no major changes, if you can prove otherwise let me know.

sc94597 you are arguing that Wii is more powerul, which I already stated. The point I'm trying to make is that it can't handle shaders as well, which it can't. N64 had certain effects built-in that PS2 didn't, that didn't make it more powerful. I have as much evidence to support my claims as you do to support your claims, otherwise let me see it.

dahuman no I'm not thinking about PC/Xbox, I'm talking about specific effects that are standard outside of DirectX as well. Direct X just simplifies the process, you're trying to make it sound like DirectX is more than just Microsoft's API. You need to understand that DirectX and hardware with built-in support will always be more efficient and give better results than programming everything yourself and doing it in software. Forget about Shader Model 2.0 for a second, Xbox's XGPU itself had more programmable pipelines, GC and Wii both have a fixed function pipeline so your theory about an ever improving graphics set is not valid.

The only real examples that look better are rail shooters, because those games require less programming and less resources and can give better results on lesser hardware. And even then I don't see better shader effects, I see better geometry and possibly animation.

1.  I was speaking of Dead Space: Extraction specifically which does much more than just look straight down a corridor.   The focus moves around and the enemies are more interactive with their environment than most games.  Don't forget the limb factor - enemies change their actions based on having certain limbs blown off.  Then thee are the zero gravity stages which wouldn't be possible without some decent physics.

 

2. I think I can sum up much of what you're trying to say regarding Wii and Xbox.  Wii has a more efficient CPU while the Xbox has a more efficient GPU.



The rEVOLution is not being televised

Graves on 24 July 2009
dahuman said:
Graves said:
SubiyaCryolite said:
Oh yeah, look at Silent Hill Shattered Memories. Thats just a taste of what the Wii can do, did the Xbox have a game as good looking as that?

Shattered Memories is also for the PS2. The Wii version probably won't look much better.

it's also on the PSP, so both looking like a PSP game confirmed? didn't think so.


Wow, great logic. I guess we'll ignore Wii and PS2 releases are typically very similar.

LordTheNightKnight on 24 July 2009
Graves said:
dahuman said:
Graves said:
SubiyaCryolite said:
Oh yeah, look at Silent Hill Shattered Memories. Thats just a taste of what the Wii can do, did the Xbox have a game as good looking as that?

Shattered Memories is also for the PS2. The Wii version probably won't look much better.

it's also on the PSP, so both looking like a PSP game confirmed? didn't think so.

Wow, great logic. I guess we'll ignore Wii and PS2 releases are typically very similar.

Try the developers said the Wii is the source platform, and the others will be downgraded to fit.



A flashy-first game is awesome when it comes out. A great-first game is awesome forever.

Plus, just for the hell of it: Kelly Brook at the 2008 BAFTAs

Graves on 24 July 2009
LordTheNightKnight said:
Graves said:
dahuman said:
Graves said:
SubiyaCryolite said:
Oh yeah, look at Silent Hill Shattered Memories. Thats just a taste of what the Wii can do, did the Xbox have a game as good looking as that?

Shattered Memories is also for the PS2. The Wii version probably won't look much better.

it's also on the PSP, so both looking like a PSP game confirmed? didn't think so.

Wow, great logic. I guess we'll ignore Wii and PS2 releases are typically very similar.

Try the developers said the Wii is the source platform, and the others will be downgraded to fit.


Oh okay, well than I guess the Wii version will look amazing in comparison.