Hackers Discover Wii U's Processor Design and Clock Speed

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Hackers Discover Wii U's Processor Design and Clock Speed

Posted by Soulskill on Friday November 30, 2012 @06:24AM from the fodder-for-fanboy-flame-fest dept.

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."

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Perhaps Horsepower No Longer Equals Next Gen? by eldavojohn · 2012-11-30 06:25 · Score: 4, Insightful

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.

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My work here is dung.
1. Re:Perhaps Horsepower No Longer Equals Next Gen? by flimflammer · 2012-11-30 07:12 · Score: 2
  
  I'm not a console user by any stretch of the imagination but some people prefer not to have a moving target for gaming. A single low-cost investment + games is preferable to many people than what us PC users deal with.
  It hasn't been too bad with games generally being designed for consoles first keeping PC requirements down, but that's not always the case.
2. Re:Perhaps Horsepower No Longer Equals Next Gen? by Applekid · 2012-11-30 07:14 · Score: 2
  
  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).
  I don't see the console gaming industry going back to cartridges. They've had many generations enjoying absurdly cheap production costs on optical media.
  
  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.
  While true, the reality is that they're already behind the curve. How many games will be able to be ported from the other competing next generation systems without major refactoring and potentially reduced in features? Did Nintendo even tell their premiere 3rd party developers what to expect, or did they make them buy dev kits to find out how underpowered it is only after they took their money? The fact that these specs haven't been released until today tells me, no, since they would have definitely leaked before launch.
  I guess one could argue that you don't want a bunch of ports on your system, but most people can't afford to buy all the consoles and will choose whichever they can expect to get most of the games they want to play. This will, once again, turn into "and then there's the Nintendo port" that's a radically different game, since at that point it's cheaper to start fresh than adapt. And a lot of studios won't even bother, I suspect, leaving yet another Nintendo generation filled with shovelware and crap kid games that are dirt cheap to make because they're so bad.
  
  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.
  SLI and Crossfire makes sense for computers which are mostly open platforms. They're designed to be upgradeable and expandable. Game consoles certainly aren't, and the only point to playing on a console instead of a PC is that you have a standard core of hardware available to you. You don't have to test your software on a variety of hardware, just that given platform.
  
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  More Twoson than Cupertino
3. Re:Perhaps Horsepower No Longer Equals Next Gen? by hairyfeet · 2012-11-30 07:15 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  What everybody seems to be ignoring is the target demographic for the wii U which is NOT the hardcore shooter crowd.
  Is this a weak CPU? Yep, but for the casual games Nintendo is making their money on you aren't gonna see ragdolls and physics up the butt so a powerful CPU makes zero sense, its not ragdolls and fireball effects and physics that sell to the casual crowd, its easy to pick up games that everybody can play without having twitch reflexes.
  So I truly see this as much ado about nothing, with only misguided fanbois that expected the big N to make "one console to rule them all" getting butthurt when they find the Wii U can't play games that the X360 can...well duh! The X360 shooter crowd isn't their target demographic! To use a /. car analogy it would be like getting pissy that the Ford fiesta can't take a new Porsche on in the quarter, its just not built for that market, isn't for that market, and just as Ford isn't building the Fiesta for the drag strip so too is the big N not building their consoles for the Gears Of Killzone, Modern Halo crowd.
  
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  ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
4. Re:Perhaps Horsepower No Longer Equals Next Gen? by suomynonAyletamitlU · 2012-11-30 07:26 · Score: 2
  
  And, frankly, I'm a little disappointed that Sony ... 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
  The Cell processor (what that powers the Sony PS3) is a processor tech designed by Sony and if I remember right is meant to hook a whole bunch of fairly small GPU-like units (vector processors) together, usable for general programming rather than mostly graphics.
  It's one of the reasons the PS3 cost so much, along with blu-ray. And the reason the cell processor cost so much is because Sony the R&D themselves instead buying off-the-shelf parts. If any of the console companies "does a little innovating" in hardware, they will have similar R&D costs.
  Additionally, if the only (or just the first) place that these technologies exist is on a such platform, such as Sony with the Cell processor, it becomes a pain to program for that platform, and ESPECIALLY to port programs from one console to the next.
5. Re:Perhaps Horsepower No Longer Equals Next Gen? by JDG1980 · 2012-11-30 07:42 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  I guess one could argue that you don't want a bunch of ports on your system, but most people can't afford to buy all the consoles and will choose whichever they can expect to get most of the games they want to play. This will, once again, turn into "and then there's the Nintendo port" that's a radically different game, since at that point it's cheaper to start fresh than adapt. And a lot of studios won't even bother, I suspect, leaving yet another Nintendo generation filled with shovelware and crap kid games that are dirt cheap to make because they're so bad.
  Nintendo's games are actually much more popular than the FPS/MMORPG crap on other consoles and the PC. Not being able to port this garbage is probably a net plus – Nintendo is going for a completely different (and larger) demographic. There is more to life than young men in the 14-25 age bracket.
  If the allegedly underpowered hardware of the Wii U offends you, congratulations – you're not the target audience.
6. Re:Perhaps Horsepower No Longer Equals Next Gen? by squiggleslash · 2012-11-30 08:25 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  I have to say that I haven't seen any significant increases in 3D graphics quality since Unreal Tournament 2003(/4) which used to run fine on a single core 800MHz G3 and a cheap Radeon 7500 graphics card. I'm not going to suggest that there have been no improvements since, and I'm aware that engines such as those in GTA 4 and SRTT push things forward in other ways, such as world size, that are necessarily intensive, but I'm having a hard time believing that this CPU is underpowered even for "hardcore shooters".
  It seems to be that GPU and the amount of memory available to the GPU is what matters right now. If Nintendo has a decent enough GPU (and I'm not seeing broad criticism of it) then is there really a problem?
  
  --
  You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
7. Re:Perhaps Horsepower No Longer Equals Next Gen? by thetoadwarrior · 2012-11-30 08:54 · Score: 2
  
  The weaker console often wins. The PS2 was weaker than the xbox (not sure about the gamecube though RE4 looked better on the GC), the PSX was weaker than the N64 and the Wii was significantly under powered compared to the competition. Nintendo's portables have always been the least powerful and have dominated portable gaming.
  
  The reality is most people do care about the games more than the processing power.
8. Re:Perhaps Horsepower No Longer Equals Next Gen? by na1led · 2012-11-30 09:08 · Score: 2
  
  Faster and more power is great, but I think I'd rather have a gaming system that is quiet instead sounding like my hoover vacuum, and not putting out more heat than my rotisserie. I hate using my XBOX for any extended period of time, afraid it's going to peal the paint off my furniture.
  
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  -- By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
9. Re:Perhaps Horsepower No Longer Equals Next Gen? by HaZardman27 · 2012-11-30 10:09 · Score: 2
  
  But, when a seven year old console sells better during your brand new console's launch week
  I haven't bothered to do the research, so I could be mistaken here, but is it possible that that is due to the normal launch-week unit shortages? Typically new consoles almost immediately sell out the entirety of their first shipment.
  
  --
  Apparently wizard is not a legitimate career path, so I chose programmer instead.
10. Re:Perhaps Horsepower No Longer Equals Next Gen? by wisty · 2012-11-30 11:58 · Score: 2
  
  People have to understand the cycle of game genres.
  1) When a new platform comes out, the early games take advantage of the new platform. They are cheap to make, and there are a few runaway hits.
  2) After there's a few runaway hits, the big players copy those hits, and flesh them out a bit (with better stories, graphics, and artwork).
  3) Eventually, the genre matures. You need AAA graphics. However, the hardcore players won't touch the game if it's too easy, and casual gamers won't play a game that's too hard, so the audience is fractured. There's money to be made, but it's no longer a gold rush.
  Nintendo likes to get in early. They control the platform, so they have a good chance of having a few early hits. Then they can leverage their franchises (Mario, Zelda) to win as the genre matures. Finally, they can focus on the next generation, while other big studios worry about keeping hardcore gamers happy.
You are not Nintendo's target market by who_stole_my_kidneys · 2012-11-30 06:28 · Score: 5, Insightful

Nintendo's target market is young, and casual gamers. Not hardcore, bleeding edge, gamers of the Playstation and Xbox generations.
1. Re:You are not Nintendo's target market by iggymanz · 2012-11-30 06:40 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  the hardcore bleeding edge gamers I know build their own PC for > $3K
2. Re:You are not Nintendo's target market by gr3yh47 · 2012-11-30 06:45 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Nintendo's target market WAS Young, and casual gamers, and you are taking for granted that being a hardcore gamer means that you must want the best graphics, and it's just wrong. Games used to be HARD. HARD HARD HARD, like not meant to be finished by most people. and FUN. because back then they didnt have excellent graphics to prop themselves up on (thus having to focus on FUN) and couldnt fit 40 hours of pretty easy content on their media (thus being HARD to extend the life of the game) IMO true hardcore gamers care about gameplay more than anything. With the Wii U specifically, Nintendo is actually opening up their target audience to include mature (Zombi U, Arkham City, COD:BO2) while games like Mighty Switch Force! Hyper-Drive Edition and Nano-Force NEO will appear to hardcore gamers looking for a challenge. Don't take for granted that the tablet is a gimmick. Zombi U was unfortunately misunderstood and is an awesome game that makes great use of the tablet, and even ports like Batman and BO2 make excellent use of the tablet controller to provide functionality in a way that can't happen on other systems. On top of that and despite all the fears leading up to launch, Nintendo actually knocked the online aspect out of the park as Miiverse is incredible and much better than I've seen on any other console. And yes, Devs don't figure out how to properly utilize console hardware right away. 1080p@60fps is plenty for me, now bring on the FUN because that's all I care about
3. Re:You are not Nintendo's target market by PPalmgren · 2012-11-30 07:04 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  Sorry, but no one serious about playing any kind of FPS will move from a PC to a console. The mouse is an exponentially better precision device than a controller.
4. Re:You are not Nintendo's target market by JDG1980 · 2012-11-30 07:48 · Score: 2
  
  Nintendo's target market is young, and casual gamers.
  The Wii was also very popular with older gamers as well – some of whom were people who grew up with Nintendo franchises like Mario and Zelda, and some of whom had no video game experience at all but enjoyed simple activities like Wii Fit.
  Take a look at this Wikipedia article on video game sales figures: the best-selling Wii games are far outselling the top Xbox 360 and PS3 titles.
  The truth is that FPSes and MMORPGs are actually a relatively niche interest, but since they appeal to the coveted teenage/young-adult male demographic, they get a lot more press than they deserve.
5. Re:You are not Nintendo's target market by darkain · 2012-11-30 10:12 · Score: 2
  
  About the whole "Games used to be HARD" comment... It quickly reminded me of this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1ZtBCpo0eU
Never really been about horsepower by Ginger_Chris · 2012-11-30 06:34 · Score: 5, Interesting

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.
1. Re:Never really been about horsepower by darjen · 2012-11-30 07:20 · Score: 2
  
  Seconded. I am a very occasional/casual game player myself, and I've never really been a huge fan of the FPS genre. When I was a kid growing up, I always loved mario and zelda. If I wanted to play games with better graphics, I would buy myself a better video card and use my PC. Now that I'm 35 and can afford it, I mosty just don't bother.
2. Re:Never really been about horsepower by tepples · 2012-11-30 07:21 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  A dedicated BD/DVD player is under $70 now at Walmart, and only the godawfully expensive launch PS3s play SACD. Besides, did SACD ever become popular?
3. Re:Never really been about horsepower by Cinder6 · 2012-11-30 07:49 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  This is why I bought a Wii U. I can already play 90% of 360 and PS3 games on my gaming PC (and they will look nicer to boot, have modding abilities, etc.), but I can't play Nintendo's exclusives anywhere else. When I considered it that way, it was a no-brainer.
  
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  If you can't convince them, convict them.
4. Re:Never really been about horsepower by thygate · 2012-11-30 08:37 · Score: 2
  
  Motion Carried. I haven't played on my 360 for years now. I went back to PC, and this cheap i5 box with a gforce gt 320 far outperforms MS and Sony consoles. And most important of all I don't have to pay up $60 for the same game, and can usually get them for $10 on Steam sale a few months later. I do however still play nintendo every now and then for their legacy games, like mario kart, zelda, etc..
you want me to pay for a 40nm chip in 2012? by alen · 2012-11-30 06:39 · Score: 2

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.
1. Re:you want me to pay for a 40nm chip in 2012? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-11-30 06:49 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  You mean that they should have made exactly the same console that their competitors will make, and therefore have absolutely no distinguishing characteristic of their own? (And, in fact, just compound the fact that they are behind in their online setup?) Nintendo learned that that strategy didn't work very well with GameCube.
  And do you understand that you cannot just send console-generated video to a regular tablet without incurring lots of latency? Might be okay for some games, but definitely not for anything fast action. If you want the tablet to generate the video, then the cheapest ones will not generate much that looks so good. And who wants to try and develop an app that works across all the varieties of tablets out there? Do you have any idea how big that compatibility matrix is?
2. Re:you want me to pay for a 40nm chip in 2012? by tlhIngan · 2012-11-30 07:16 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  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.
  The problem is latency. It's incredibly difficult, but the Wii U's screen latency on the tablet is practically real time (I think I heard 1 frame latency). So much so that yes, you CAN game on it.
  The latency using your smartphone is much higher - it's why smartglass and such don't display in-game information that changes immediately but can tolerate a delay. You certainly can't "remote play" using your smartphone without incurring a half-second of display lag.
3. Re:you want me to pay for a 40nm chip in 2012? by damnbunni · 2012-11-30 09:55 · Score: 2
  
  Er what? The GameCube wasn't as powerful as the Xbox, but it was more powerful than the Playstation 2.
  I have a few games on both the Cube and the PS2, and in each case the Cube version looks better and runs smoother.
Strange by mseeger · 2012-11-30 06:42 · Score: 4, Insightful

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 ;-).
1. Re:Strange by EnsilZah · 2012-11-30 06:57 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Yeah, just the other day I was out on da streets minding my own business and suddenly a harras (had to look that one up) of horses sporting butterfly knives come out of nowhere and takes all my valuables with threats to my person.
  When will this horsepower on the streets ever stop?
it's not the cpu that counts by Khashishi · 2012-11-30 07:34 · Score: 3, Insightful

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?
1. Re:it's not the cpu that counts by aNonnyMouseCowered · 2012-11-30 13:49 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Yes, an ex-Nintendo developer even had a name for this philosophy of building hardware using non-bleeding edge components:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunpei_Yokoi#Lateral_Thinking_with_Withered_Technology
Re:OnLive; buttons by CityZen · 2012-11-30 07:41 · Score: 2

> Let's see: there's iOS and Android, and what else really?
You're not a developer, I see. You need to multiply all the commonly-used versions of iOS and Android by all the different base hardware platforms, then figure out other factors such as screen size & density and platform-specific quirks. Compound that by the fact that new OS versions and new hardware platforms come out every month, and you've got quite an impressive matrix, assuming you care about supporting them well.
It's about the gamepad by cfalcon · 2012-11-30 10:00 · Score: 2

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.