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Hackers Discover Wii U's Processor Design and Clock Speed
MojoKid writes "Early, off-the-record comments from game developers indicated that the Nintendo's Wii U console horsepower was on par with, or a bit behind the Xbox 360 and PS3, which raised questions about just how 'next-generation' the Wii U would be. Now, Wii and PS3 hacker Hector Martin (aka Marcan) has answered some of these questions and raised a few others. According to his findings, the Wii U's CPU is a triple-core design clocked at 1.24GHz. Marcan identifies the base design as a PowerPC 750, which makes sense. Nintendo used PowerPC 750-derived processors in both the GameCube and the Wii. Retaining that architecture for the Wii U would simplify backwards compatibility and game development. Now factor in the GPU, which is reportedly clocked at 550MHz. Some have favored the Radeon HD 4000 series as a basis for the part; I still think a low-end Radeon 5000, like Redwood Pro, makes more sense. That GPU was built on 40nm, measured 104mm sq, clocked in at 649MHz, and had a 39W TDP. The die size discrepancy between the Wii U and Redwood Pro would account for the 32MB of EDRAM cache we know the Wii U offers. Nintendo may have propped up a relatively weak CPU with considerably more GPU horsepower."
Early, off-the-record comments from game developers indicated that the Nintendo's Wii U console horsepower was on par with, or a bit behind the Xbox 360 and PS3, which raised questions about just how 'next-generation' the Wii U would be.
The other possibility is that the consoles experience diminishing returns past the horsepower the modern systems are at for most of the game developer's needs. After enjoying the Wii, the XBox 360 and the Playstation 3, I'm more concerned about the media type they select for the discs as swapping three DVDs to play one game on the XBox 360 is unacceptable when it fits on one PS3 disc. For the love of Zelda, I suspect that popping an SSD into an XBox 360 and running everything from that and forgetting the optical drive would make everything faster (and, yes, I know you then would only be able to do that with downloaded games linked to your profile and not the installed discs that require a disc in the drive to run).
Nintendo may have propped up a relatively weak CPU with considerably more GPU horsepower.
Like the reader comment on that Ars Technica article notes, raw CPU speed hasn't always equaled winning in the console department.
And, frankly, I'm a little disappointed that Sony, Nintendo or Microsoft haven't done a little innovating and created their own technology like SLI/Crossfire to connect several cheap GPUs for their heavy graphics lifting on their machines. I mean their CPU/GPU pairs make it look like we should really start addressing these things with a different name just like RAM started being called cache when it was fast and nestled up against or integrated with the CPU. I guess I'm not really a hardware guy but I feel like we've actually moved toward less inventive ideas for consoles. While that's been good for some aspects (I was able to flash the security sector of a HDD and install it myself on my XBox 360 to add storage) it seems like the architecture has gotten lazy and inbred to just do whatever desktops are doing.
My work here is dung.
Nintendo's target market is young, and casual gamers. Not hardcore, bleeding edge, gamers of the Playstation and Xbox generations.
new things for game play that were not possible in the last gen consoles and I'm not talking about "Real Life Graphics"
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Weak CPU alongside a decent GPU does work relatively well, so long as whatever program you're using utilizes the GPU.
Nintendo will get my money purely because of their software; mario (inc paper mario series), zelda, metroid, pikmin, pokemon and a dozen other's that were purely first or second party exclusives. The vast majority of x-box and ps3 games I can play with much better graphics on my pc. The x-box and ps3 don't really offer anything beyond what a pc is capable of, where as Nintendo consoles do.
really?
nintendo should have put more hardware into the actual console and not used that tablet thingy they ship with it. just write an android/IOS app to run on the cheapest tablets and connect to the console like MS is doing with Smartglass.
I always thought, playing was about fun and not horsepower. Maybe the incapability to distinguish between those two explains a lot about what happens on the streets ;-).
In my opinion, limitations on the CPU side will be compensated by using Open CL in the GPU. But it is just too soon for adapting SDKs, so I bet it will get much better FPS, as the GPU gets proper usage.
And who wants to try and develop an app [for game graphics display] that works across all the varieties of tablets out there?
Someone like OnLive perhaps?
Do you have any idea how big that compatibility matrix is?
Let's see: there's iOS and Android, and what else really? The advantage of the Wii U GamePad is that it also incorporates traditional physical buttons, unlike everything that isn't the Xperia Play (or the forthcoming Archos GamePad).
The Wii U seems intresting but consoles have to last half a decade. In 5 years, this thing will be so obsolete it just won't be funny anymore. Lets not forget that Nintendo started losing money because their GAME sales per console are low. They do sell a LOT of consoles but fewer games per console then their competitors. And consoles are like printers, the real money is the ink/games.
The problem is that the rest of the industry is moving on, I have seen multiple reviews by xbox friendly gaming sites that roundly admit Far Cry 3 is best on the PC.
Claiming that the Wii U will win because it is cheap forgets that PC games are cheaper and tablet/phone games are even cheaper. Going for the budget market means competing with games that cost $0 to 5 dollars. Going for the budget market competing with games with 2048x1440 screens with something like 800xXXX which is what the Wii U remote has... that is insane. EVEN cheap drugstore Android tablets have a higher resolution. And they are a LOT cheaper. And so are their games.
That is the problem with aiming for the bottom, there is always someone willing to go even lower. How are you going to sell expensive games to an audience that buys their console hardware because it is the cheapest? Especially since it ain't the cheapest...
One of the things that made the 3DS such a disappointment was that frankly is just looked hopelessly obsolete. And that is okay, if you make brilliant games but... well, evenyone knows the 3DS line-up was poor. And the Wii U? Zombie U reviews are to mixed to tell and the rest is the type of game that is bought at christmas and then no other games are bought for the entire year.
Yes, Nintendo makes a profit after selling just one game but that just means they are dying a little more slowly, in business, you can only survive on tiny profits if you are certain they keep coming. You ain't certain of that in the game industry so you need to big winners to compensate for the slow times.
The Wii-U is an interesting idea but Sony can do the same thing with the PSP and or a tablet and the same goes for MS. And then the Wii-U remote will rapidly look very old fashioned indeed.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Precision yes, speed not necessarily.
A shooter game with a wii-style remote in a guntroller on a 50" TV may actually do quite well compared to a mouse on a 21" or less computer screen. While the wiimote itself might be less accurate in many cases, it may also be a faster "twitch" response (and in many cases, more fun IMHO).
Now if you talk about RTS, I have yet to see any console controller that does well for these (although perhaps the touch-screen may prove useful).
And for most major console developers, fun is third
That isn't likely to change soon, given how Nintendo refuses to open up development on its platform even to the extent that Microsoft opened Xbox 360 to Indie Games.
Some games require more horsepower, especially moving forward in time.
Having insufficient horsepower means less selection, which means the console is a bit less useful (and IMHO less fun).
Nintendo releases a lot of fun games, but traditionally a lot of fun non-Nintendo games haven't been available on their consoles due to lack of horsepower or related issues. Already since WiiU has come out, a bunch of games that have been available on other consoles have been added to the catalogue.
True fps masters shun keyboard-mouse and use mouse-mouse. With keyboard-mouse you only have unlimited turning speed. But with mouse-mouse you have unlimited turning speed and unlimited *movement* speed! Any good player can then twitch instantly through any level. Meanwhile the knuckle-dragging keyboard users have to press a button to move. Those noobs don't have a chance. Let alone the console mouth-breathers who have to press a stick to move and press a stick to turn. Lol. Noobs.
One last thing: Sometimes I wonder; "Is that someone's signature? Or do they type that at the end of each post?"
Nintendo has never incorporated bleeding edge processors into their design, rather focusing on games and weird peripherals. It seems to have worked for them so far, so why change?
I was told to be patient with the 3DS, that it would get better. Still waiting!
When running Wii homebrew in "Wii mode", the clock rate is much lower. What an absolute surprise.
A good game is not determined by how many polygons the GPU can handle or how fast the processor is, it about the quality of the game. A good game with a decent story and sub par graphics is much better then a game with great graphics and a crap story. I have never liked a game solely because it was realistic and the explosions were so real.
Unreal Engine 3's default deathmatch build runs like gangbusters on my devkit, pardon me while I express doubts that Espresso is not even running at twice Broadway's clock rate. Marcan's smart, but my money is on him missing an internal clock multiplier.
If this proves anything, the ghz number doesn't mean much. So it's apparently half the speed of the xbox and PS3 and yet it's already producing graphics on par with those systems. if the ghz was the be all and end all them it shouldn't be able to do that.
Cool, it can do a bunch of obsolete stuff involving optical disks, which people did 10-15 years ago before hard disks got big enough. That is sooo awwsumm.
You could try covering representative devices of low and high density, small and large size, etc., and starting with the most popular devices such as the last two iPad versions, last two Kindle Fire versions, and the Nexus 7 tablet.
It's funny that you used the Fiesta as your counterpoint; Ken Block doesn't seem to mind pitting his Fiesta against Porches in rallycross events. I think this strengthens your analogy - not every car is built for drag racing, you've got to use it for what it was intended.
"Space Exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." -Buzz Aldrin
As a new Wii-U owner, I'm pretty sure this console is super lots about the gamepad. To the point where I'm a bit worried that they've put so much effort into the porting of games that don't have a shiny interface pad. Nintendo has defined THEIR OWN SPACE again, and as before, they will have a hard time filling it.
The pad is pretty magnificent to look upon, and I'm pretty sure a decent amount of the launch price attempts to offset such a pricey addition.
The problem is: if you make a top shelf game for Xbox and Sony, porting it to the Wii-U will leave you with this big piece of underutilized or unused hardware. The less creative will just put their pause screen options there (possibly taking them from the main screen), but even the most creative will have to spend dev dollars to make use of the screen, or look like they don't care much about it. If you instead choose to make a game for the Wii-U, one that makes good use of the screen, you probably won't be able to put it anywhere else.
Nintendo like, ALWAYS does this. They basically assume that some of the best names in gaming (of which they are one) will gather together and support whatever their new hardware idea is, and work that into their design. But in practice, many of the big players aren't willing to gamble on that.
Summary: The pad is a huge part of this experience. Ninja Gaiden whatever isn't improved by the pad. If F-Zero WhateverX doesn't come out with an engine tweaking function on the pad, or the ability to rebalance shields or something, then the bad will be called a "gimmick" and then everyone will just talk about the Wii-U's CPU/GPU and other stuff it can't really compete on anyway.