Game Developer Raises Concern About Wii U CPU Speed

[razor512]

With the Xbox 360, most games are rendered at 720p but the textures are an even lower resolution. furthermore, they use pretty creative tricks to get the games, objects close by are rendered in their full mesh and a little further they use really basic meshes, and even further is just as simple image. (due to differences in PC hardware they cant really do that trick)

even with all of that, they can only manage 720p in most cases. If the wii u turns out to be slower, then they may not be able to to offer even current xbox 360 graphics and still offer 720p.

that console may be only able to offer HD content while offering only slightly better graphics than the current wii, and at 720p or 1080p resolutions.

 

[_Pez_]

I thinking to buy the next console just to play Mario and maybe try smash brothers... and that's it.

 

[back_by_demand]

This guy obviously doesn't understand CPUs
...
A P4 clocked at 3.4ghz is massively slower than a Core i7 clocked at 2.8ghz, the clock speed race ended over 7 years ago and nobody won

 

[Khimera2000]

Here's hoping that they do well. The thing that i'm wondering is if this thing will feel dated sooner then the other next gen consoles. Ya the Wii U will be able to play every engine now relatively well, I am just wondering if it will be able to compete (VS its next gen competitors) four years down the road.

Not liking the 4 hour battery for the controller BTW.

 

[blubbey]

[citation][nom]ashesofempires04[/nom]Not buying Wii U[/citation]
The thing about it though is that the other consoles' specs are (if the rumours are true) genuinely bad for a gaming device that's going to be released in 2013. The best reports I've seen for the Nextbox gives it a 6670. Granted, rumours are not official and I'll wait until they are actually released to properly judge them, but still. If you want a 'truly' next gen console, you won't get it (and once again, if the rumoured specs are true, the Wii U with its 6770 is looking to be the best option).

I haven't bothered looking at any rumours for a little while however so I may be out of the loop.

 

[aggroboy]

[citation][nom]11796pcs[/nom]Am I the only one here that thinks the Wii U is sort of cool and won't fail? It's a casual console, it doesn't need a fast CPU. Nintendo proved with the Wii that they could sell a slow device and make it a hit. All a faster CPU would bring would be heating problems (something that plagues the XBOX 360). I have never heard of a Wii console dying and that in itself is a good thing to have your product be known for. If the Wii U is marketed correctly I'm sure it'll be a hit. And considering how rapidly the casual market is growing I don't think Nintendo will have any problems finding buyers for the U.[/citation]
The casual market is growing towards social network games and mobile device apps.

 

[NAG3LT]

[citation][nom]razor512[/nom]With the Xbox 360, most games are rendered at 720p but the textures are an even lower resolution. furthermore, they use pretty creative tricks to get the games, objects close by are rendered in their full mesh and a little further they use really basic meshes, and even further is just as simple image. (due to differences in PC hardware they cant really do that trick)even with all of that, they can only manage 720p in most cases. [/citation]

The trick you describe is the usage of models with different level of detail (LOD) depending on a distance. This kind of optimisation doesn't require fixed hardware at all, and almost all 3D games on PC use it to some extent.

 

[shawn808]

Thats fine, more probability that the Wii U will be emulated on the dolphin.

I am all ready playing Zelda in 1080p with AA.

 

[mhtsgr9]

nothing surprising in it...

 

[freggo]

I don't see the problem.
If the hardware is not fast enough, make your game for different hardware.
Not supporting hardware is an effective way of getting the manufacturer's attention.
If you bend backwards to make it work the Manufacturer will have no reason to upgrade the hardware as it is obviously 'working'.

 

[shinmalothar]

The thing about the Wii U (from what I have heard) is that the CPU and GPU have to render to two screens, the main display and the controller screen.

I'm not an expert on these types of things but I'm guessing rendering completely separate visuals on two different screens can soon sap the processing power.

I've seen various comparison videos for Assassins Creed 3 etc and although not very conclusive, the Wii U version still looked the best in my eyes so its not all bad.

 

[queenfan]

Until we see the Wii U hardware we really can't say. However, I'm a bit surprised given this is stated by IBM to be what is in Watson, making it a Power 7 variant.
Even a Quad Core Power 7 should be 3.2ghz and have IPC per core better than PS3 and XB360. Maybe it's clocked at 2ghz, but IPC should still outstrip them.

We will know soon I guess.

 

[homerhellboy223]

Typo found that the editor needs to see: "Nintendo needs to before the launch of the Wii U." I think you forgot a word similar to "see" after the word "to".

 

[master9716]

A Celeron 520 runs BF3 @ the same Fps as 3770k , CPU speed is irrelevant - There are some games that are cpu bound but those are usualy made by develepers that make crapy looking games like Modern warfare.

 

[powerincarnate]

I would think that Harada knows by now that pure clockspeed isn't everything and knew about a 3.4 GHz prescott vs. a 3.4 GHz core I7 Ivy Bridge now. So I'm going to take him at his word when he says the clock speed of the CPU is slower and therefore makes it a bit less than the 360 and PS3

Someone mentioned that the Wii U would have a 6770, but last I check, I thought they were getting a GPU based on the 4000 generation of Radeons, not the 6000 generation. I doubt that they would have a stronger GPU than Sony or Microsofts next console, and I seriously doubt they would pair a strong GPU with a Weak CPU, which would cancel out the GPU's strength since it would have to wait for the CPU all the time.

For the ones saying well we aren't truly getting next gen if we are getting 6000 series GPUs or at best one of the low end 7000 series GPUs. This has been mentioned over and over again. Due to not having to deal with Windows, and due to not having to deal with tons of combination of CPU, motherboard, RAM, and GPUs, consoles are able to fully specialize and fully optimize so that their comperable hardware goes a lot further than a PCs comperable hardware. Plus, with the success of the 360 and PS3, PC games have been stunted by the presence of consoles anyways. The days of PC games looking way way way better than console games have been mostly over as they tend to just be higher resolutioned, better textured, and AA applied version of the console game, as oppose to games that are made just for PC and push the envelope. Finally, look at what happened when Crytek pushed the envelope in 2006. Clearly Crysis looked better than anything the consoles would ever do, but it saw somewhat limited sales, and it ran bad. You have some 2011 even some 2012 GPU and CPU top of the line combination that still couldn't run Crysis well with max everything and at 1920 x 1200 or even worse 2560 x 1600. In the end, Crysis was ok, but if they didn't focus so much on graphics and actually gave the game better gameplay and storyline it would have been better.

Finally, as I alluded to in the first paragraph, Nintendo hasn't pushed the envelope since coming late to the game with the N64 and therefore getting their butts kicked in that generation. As a business they are content to making money, even if they don't push the envelope. All iphones that were released, especially the early ones, were significantly weaker than the competition in either RAM, CPU clockspeed, GPU or a combination of such. Despite that, they clearly make the most profit and help propel Apple to being the most valuable company in the world. Though I'm not interested in Nintendo games (to kiddish for me), I see no reason to think they are somehow going to fail. As for graphics, The CPU and GPU is further burdened by the presence of the controller screen, and if you have two, it is going to be even worse. So they'll be HD, or maybe something like 600P upscaled to 720P, but just have lower textures, eliminate AA and tweak the presence or absence of shadows, draw distance and other complex stuff. They'll be ok. the Wii was essentially an XBOX 1, and now the Wii U is essentially going to be and XBOX360. A full generation behind, but still will be successful.

 

[mbieker21]

Fuck consoles generally, but especially fuck Nintendo.

 

[Lyrick]

The last set of rumors I saw implied Nintendo was using an IBM Power7 based quad core CPU, that Architecture in general should be quite a jump from the CPU found in the Xbox 360. Other than trying to program specific features coupled with the actual clock frequency, I couldn't foresee any issues with actual performance or it being a hindrance on graphical throughput.

 

[lp231]

After checking out the NFS HP 2010 on Wii, there is no surprise the Wii U is also crap.
http/www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcDT80GQ2lU
The video above is just a comparison to show how bad the Wii is and not saying the PS3 is better as I play games on a PC.

 

[Sunius]

Not so surprising, it's a console after all

 

[demonhorde665]

"Nintendo is already facing quite a bit of headwind and doubt that it can deliver a game console that can upgrade the Wii and offer a compelling alternative to Microsoft's Kinect.?"


you are making a joke saying this right ? I mean crap the kinect is the biggest broke PoS I've ever had the displeasure of trying.