Hardware Vigil: Wii U hardware "on par with current generation"

[Midna]

yes I left it on purpose, both parts are a little contradictory.
The hardware is on par, but they could have improved it visually but decided not to.

Sounds like lazy developers to me. They got the time, there is no confirmed release date for the Wii U as of yet and if they are getting closer to completing the game, there is no excuse for fine tuning it to meet the consoles performance capabilities. I just get the feeling that they don't want to bother with the extra time making a game that makes the 360 and PS3 versions look like utter crap, but then again, that will probably happen with all multiplatform games after the Wii U releases.

Considering we are probably 2 years away from seeing new consoles from Microsoft and Sony where the only real performance gains they are going to get are in load times and graphics enhancements such as lighting and textures, as well as improved frame rates with higher polygon and texture rates. Completely silly not to promote the Wii U as being a step ahead of Sony and Microsoft, but hey, 3rd party developers are not known for working hard on multiplatform games.

>Every multiplat PS3 game runs at 360 level
This stuff makes me a little mad.

 

[Foxi4]

Why are people so insistent on saying that all the PS3 and XBox360 need is more RAM? Their GPU's are in the stoneage for today's standards - even if they had more RAM they would not run contemporary games on "Ultra" settings like a high-end PC would, which is the very *aim* of a console developer - offer good quality for a smaller price.

The WiiU has more RAM - check. Better GPU (likely) - check. What more could we want?

 

[DSGamer64]

[media]http://media.gamerea...ersII_29571.mp4[/media]

I watched the interview myself (use the above link) and the quotes from the OP aren't enough to tell the full story. He said that as the game director, he's in charge of the narrative and other story-related stuff. He doesn't deal with technical side of things.

The guy asked him about multiplatform development and he said "Ummm... you know... honestly, it's not real transparent from my perceptive." which further proves that. Considering he isn't involved with working on the game from the technical side of things, he's the wrong person to be making this comment. When he said that the console was on par with the PS3/360, he was probably saying that to fit alongside the companies claim that the game will look the same on all platforms.

The actual technical director at Vigil already said that the Wii U was more powerful in a quote from a previous interview.

When we asked Bonstead if he thought it was possible that the Wii U version of Darksiders II would be the best version of the game, he said, "Yeah, just because the hardware is more powerful and it will have some extra features that I think will actually be useful to people playing the game. With it’s controller, [the Wii U version of Darksiders II] might be the best version of the game."

http://www.gameinfor...ksiders-ii.aspx

So uh, case closed?

Yeah that solves this one. Marvin Donald probably said that it's on par because he knows they didn't have to put an inferior version on Wii U. Still, I hope he's wrong when he says there will be no "uprez"ing going on.

What he means but no "uprez'ing" is that the Wii-U has enough RAM to do full 1080P native, the PS3 and the 360 could both do full 1080P with the chips they have but they do not have enough RAM to pull it off with some exceptions of course and even 720P on the PS3 and 360 most of those games are upscaled. (usually running some weird res like 560P or something.)

This is the reason I think the next gen is going to be weird... The Wii-U while not featuring cutting edge tech, features enough tech that adding more tech to "beat the Wii-U" is only going to be an exercise in fanboyism. The difference in graphics will not really be visible to the human eye. Realistically Sony and Microsoft could just add RAM to the PS3 and the 360 release them like Nintendo did the Wii and that would be the last jump in graphics until the next gen of TV's get launched.

Maybe the next gen will finally feature those 10 year lifespans lol

No, I don't think that is the case. RAM really only has it's uses to a certain point, in desktop graphics chips the more memory you have, the higher your resolution can go as well as multiple monitor use puts less strain on your card when you have more VRAM (though multiple cards is more ideal for temperatures). While technically the 360 and PS3 could run the same games at a higher resolution with more graphics memory, they are still hindered by the fact that their graphics technology is based on very old technology so their games even with the lower resolutions, are lacking a lot of textures in order to do it.

The 360 and PS3 are effectively running at modified HD resolutions and not 1080p, while the games themselves have been modified to run them smoothly as well.

Also, the 360 uses a modified X1800/1850 card by ATI which is ancient by today's standards. At least the Wii U using something a little more modern.

 

[Midna]

Why are people so insistent on saying that all the PS3 and XBox360 need is more RAM? Their GPU's are in the stoneage for today's standards - even if they had more RAM they would not run contemporary games on "Ultra" settings like a high-end PC would, which is the very *aim* of a console developer - offer good quality for a smaller price.

The WiiU has more RAM - check. Better GPU (likely) - check. What more could we want?

We want it to be underpowered, which is why we post news like this without fact checking and then collectively say "I figured as much".

 

[Psionic Roshambo]

Why are people so insistent on saying that all the PS3 and XBox360 need is more RAM? Their GPU's are in the stoneage for today's standards - even if they had more RAM they would not run contemporary games on "Ultra" settings like a high-end PC would, which is the very *aim* of a console developer - offer good quality for a smaller price.

The WiiU has more RAM - check. Better GPU (likely) - check. What more could we want?

Basically because they are DX9 parts and while ancient DX10 and DX11 really didn't add much graphically. I believe 11 added some of the volumetric stuff.

Nothing to keep the 360 or the PS3 from doing native 1080P it they had enough RAM, I doubt your average person is going to look at a Wii-U game and a PS3 or 360 game and say "OMG The Wii-U blows the other two away!" Wii-U games are going to look better then PS3 or 360 games but not by a huge margin so thats why some people believe just adding some RAM to the PS3 and the 360 could work. Pull a Wii on Nintendo this time around so to speak.

We have hit a wall in terms of graphics for the time being, the Wii-U hits that wall quite nicely, I will be in line outside my local Toys R Us on launch day for the Wii-U.

 

[Qtis]

Why are people so insistent on saying that all the PS3 and XBox360 need is more RAM? Their GPU's are in the stoneage for today's standards - even if they had more RAM they would not run contemporary games on "Ultra" settings like a high-end PC would, which is the very *aim* of a console developer - offer good quality for a smaller price.

The WiiU has more RAM - check. Better GPU (likely) - check. What more could we want?

Basically because they are DX9 parts and while ancient DX10 and DX11 really didn't add much graphically. I believe 11 added some of the volumetric stuff.

Nothing to keep the 360 or the PS3 from doing native 1080P it they had enough RAM, I doubt your average person is going to look at a Wii-U game and a PS3 or 360 game and say "OMG The Wii-U blows the other two away!" Wii-U games are going to look better then PS3 or 360 games but not by a huge margin so thats why some people believe just adding some RAM to the PS3 and the 360 could work. Pull a Wii on Nintendo this time around so to speak.

We have hit a wall in terms of graphics for the time being, the Wii-U hits that wall quite nicely, I will be in line outside my local Toys R Us on launch day for the Wii-U.

Have you played Crysis 2 or Mass Effect 3 on the PS3/360? Those two games are good examples that we haven't hit a wall in terms of graphics for the time being. The games look awesome, but lose fps easily with a huge amount of objects visible. Saying the graphics side has hit a wall since the PS3/360/WiiU could display HD graphics is kinda like saying there is no way to improve consoles since they can display a picture in 1080p. Not absolute, but the thought comes to mind very easily. Adding lighting effect, shadows and the likes can consume the power of a new console easily. It's a matter of how you make the game to look. More powerful hardware = possibility for better graphics and smoother gameplay.

 

[Psionic Roshambo]

Why are people so insistent on saying that all the PS3 and XBox360 need is more RAM? Their GPU's are in the stoneage for today's standards - even if they had more RAM they would not run contemporary games on "Ultra" settings like a high-end PC would, which is the very *aim* of a console developer - offer good quality for a smaller price.

The WiiU has more RAM - check. Better GPU (likely) - check. What more could we want?

Basically because they are DX9 parts and while ancient DX10 and DX11 really didn't add much graphically. I believe 11 added some of the volumetric stuff.

Nothing to keep the 360 or the PS3 from doing native 1080P it they had enough RAM, I doubt your average person is going to look at a Wii-U game and a PS3 or 360 game and say "OMG The Wii-U blows the other two away!" Wii-U games are going to look better then PS3 or 360 games but not by a huge margin so thats why some people believe just adding some RAM to the PS3 and the 360 could work. Pull a Wii on Nintendo this time around so to speak.

We have hit a wall in terms of graphics for the time being, the Wii-U hits that wall quite nicely, I will be in line outside my local Toys R Us on launch day for the Wii-U.

Have you played Crysis 2 or Mass Effect 3 on the PS3/360? Those two games are good examples that we haven't hit a wall in terms of graphics for the time being. The games look awesome, but lose fps easily with a huge amount of objects visible. Saying the graphics side has hit a wall since the PS3/360/WiiU could display HD graphics is kinda like saying there is no way to improve consoles since they can display a picture in 1080p. Not absolute, but the thought comes to mind very easily. Adding lighting effect, shadows and the likes can consume the power of a new console easily. It's a matter of how you make the game to look. More powerful hardware = possibility for better graphics and smoother gameplay.

Yes you can make something that can consume any amount of hardware you throw at it, the issue comes in at $$$. Are people willing to pay out the nose for that kind of tech?
For instance there is a fantastic video floating around of some graphics that make the current gen of consoles look like crap but it runs on a PC equipped with 4 top of the line graphics cards, so in graphics cards alone your looking at like 1200+ dollars.

We have hit a wall in terms of what you can get for around 300 bucks, and only adding more hardware/money can bypass that.

If you want a good example of software that can bring any hardware to its knee's all you need to do is load up 3DMark'11 and watch as your PC becomes a slide show at some points (unless your running a really good rig.)

http://www.3dmark.com/3dmark11/

 

[DarkShadow96]

Knew it'd be the same as the current gen.

Man it was annoying to read the developers note.

 

[KingVamp]

Knew it'd be the same as the current gen.

Man it was annoying to read the developers note.

We want it to be underpowered, which is why we post news like this without fact checking and then collectively say "I figured as much".

So, I'm guessing that you didn't read the thread?

 

[Deleted member 473940]

Whats up with all the "you know"?
I dont know fucking NOTHING.. aint got a WiiU yet, you know!

As for the hardware.. well, the real comparison is with the next microsoft and sony consoles
We shall see how far ahead they go in front of WiiU.

 

[ThePowerOutage]

Based on what I understand, the, you know, the resolution and textures and polycounts and all that stuff, we're not going to being doing anything to uprez the game, but we'll take advantage of the controller for sure.

This makes it sound like "We can't really be bothered to make the resolutions different, but we could if we wanted.", not "we can't make the graphics better than the current gen due to hardware restrictions." IMHO.

 

[DiscostewSM]

Why are people so insistent on saying that all the PS3 and XBox360 need is more RAM? Their GPU's are in the stoneage for today's standards - even if they had more RAM they would not run contemporary games on "Ultra" settings like a high-end PC would, which is the very *aim* of a console developer - offer good quality for a smaller price.

The WiiU has more RAM - check. Better GPU (likely) - check. What more could we want?

Basically because they are DX9 parts and while ancient DX10 and DX11 really didn't add much graphically. I believe 11 added some of the volumetric stuff.

Nothing to keep the 360 or the PS3 from doing native 1080P it they had enough RAM, I doubt your average person is going to look at a Wii-U game and a PS3 or 360 game and say "OMG The Wii-U blows the other two away!" Wii-U games are going to look better then PS3 or 360 games but not by a huge margin so thats why some people believe just adding some RAM to the PS3 and the 360 could work. Pull a Wii on Nintendo this time around so to speak.

We have hit a wall in terms of graphics for the time being, the Wii-U hits that wall quite nicely, I will be in line outside my local Toys R Us on launch day for the Wii-U.

A color framebuffer expanded from 720p to 1080p (assuming 24-bit color) only requires an extra few megabytes. Add a few more for the depth buffer. RAM is not the issue with getting PS3/360 games to run at 1080p. It's the GPU. If it's having a hard time rendering a scene at 720p, it'll have an even harder time with 1080p because the GPU has to processed a whole lot more pixels. How many more? About 2.25x more, and don't forget that each pixel goes through multiple rendering stages.

 

[Psionic Roshambo]

Why are people so insistent on saying that all the PS3 and XBox360 need is more RAM? Their GPU's are in the stoneage for today's standards - even if they had more RAM they would not run contemporary games on "Ultra" settings like a high-end PC would, which is the very *aim* of a console developer - offer good quality for a smaller price.

The WiiU has more RAM - check. Better GPU (likely) - check. What more could we want?

Basically because they are DX9 parts and while ancient DX10 and DX11 really didn't add much graphically. I believe 11 added some of the volumetric stuff.

Nothing to keep the 360 or the PS3 from doing native 1080P it they had enough RAM, I doubt your average person is going to look at a Wii-U game and a PS3 or 360 game and say "OMG The Wii-U blows the other two away!" Wii-U games are going to look better then PS3 or 360 games but not by a huge margin so thats why some people believe just adding some RAM to the PS3 and the 360 could work. Pull a Wii on Nintendo this time around so to speak.

We have hit a wall in terms of graphics for the time being, the Wii-U hits that wall quite nicely, I will be in line outside my local Toys R Us on launch day for the Wii-U.

A color framebuffer expanded from 720p to 1080p (assuming 24-bit color) only requires an extra few megabytes. Add a few more for the depth buffer. RAM is not the issue with getting PS3/360 games to run at 1080p. It's the GPU. If it's having a hard time rendering a scene at 720p, it'll have an even harder time with 1080p because the GPU has to processed a whole lot more pixels. How many more? About 2.25x more, and don't forget that each pixel goes through multiple rendering stages.

The big problem with your whole argument is that some games DO run at 1080P on the PS3 and the 360 and PC's with close to the same hardware (albeit with more VRAM.) also can play games at 1080P the main issue is textures, at high res they eat up the RAM like nothing else. Want photo realism in games? Easy enough just use photo's as textures for everything but you will also need a few hundred GB's of RAM.

It's not the GPU that is having the issues, the programmers have been having issues trying to cram enough textures into a 256MB space (less then 256 actually but thats a separate issue.)

http://www.escapistm...HD-Texture-Pack

The link above is a great example, the reason one looks better than the other is due to the high res textures. The reason you have to install them to the hard drive is that the disk drive isn't fast enough to stream them into RAM. If you had more RAM that wouldn't be an issue and the system wouldn't need to even stream from the hard drive saving even more resources so instead of waiting for textures from a slow drive they would already be there ready to draw.

Limited amounts of RAM like I said.

 

[Foxi4]

The big problem with your whole argument is that some games DO run at 1080P on the PS3 and the 360 and PC's...

If your argument is that PC's and their console counterparts run the exact same games with the exact same polycount then stop right there. To properly port a PC game, drawing distance is decreased and polycount is slightly cut to limit the amount of calculations as much as possible. This isn't just an issue of RAM, this is an issue of all hardware combined. The 360 is on its last feet and the PS3 is barely holding up - if you refute that, you refute the obvious.

 

[DiscostewSM]

Why are people so insistent on saying that all the PS3 and XBox360 need is more RAM? Their GPU's are in the stoneage for today's standards - even if they had more RAM they would not run contemporary games on "Ultra" settings like a high-end PC would, which is the very *aim* of a console developer - offer good quality for a smaller price.

The WiiU has more RAM - check. Better GPU (likely) - check. What more could we want?

Basically because they are DX9 parts and while ancient DX10 and DX11 really didn't add much graphically. I believe 11 added some of the volumetric stuff.

Nothing to keep the 360 or the PS3 from doing native 1080P it they had enough RAM, I doubt your average person is going to look at a Wii-U game and a PS3 or 360 game and say "OMG The Wii-U blows the other two away!" Wii-U games are going to look better then PS3 or 360 games but not by a huge margin so thats why some people believe just adding some RAM to the PS3 and the 360 could work. Pull a Wii on Nintendo this time around so to speak.

We have hit a wall in terms of graphics for the time being, the Wii-U hits that wall quite nicely, I will be in line outside my local Toys R Us on launch day for the Wii-U.

A color framebuffer expanded from 720p to 1080p (assuming 24-bit color) only requires an extra few megabytes. Add a few more for the depth buffer. RAM is not the issue with getting PS3/360 games to run at 1080p. It's the GPU. If it's having a hard time rendering a scene at 720p, it'll have an even harder time with 1080p because the GPU has to processed a whole lot more pixels. How many more? About 2.25x more, and don't forget that each pixel goes through multiple rendering stages.

The big problem with your whole argument is that some games DO run at 1080P on the PS3 and the 360 and PC's with close to the same hardware (albeit with more VRAM.) also can play games at 1080P the main issue is textures, at high res they eat up the RAM like nothing else. Want photo realism in games? Easy enough just use photo's as textures for everything but you will also need a few hundred GB's of RAM.

It's not the GPU that is having the issues, the programmers have been having issues trying to cram enough textures into a 256MB space (less then 256 actually but thats a separate issue.)

http://www.escapistm...HD-Texture-Pack

The link above is a great example, the reason one looks better than the other is due to the high res textures. The reason you have to install them to the hard drive is that the disk drive isn't fast enough to stream them into RAM. If you had more RAM that wouldn't be an issue and the system wouldn't need to even stream from the hard drive saving even more resources so instead of waiting for textures from a slow drive they would already be there ready to draw.

Limited amounts of RAM like I said.

Are you seriously assuming a reference like 1080p refers to texture quality? Because you're leading your argument towards that, which is incorrect on all accounts. 1080p is shorthand for a progressive display mode that renders a high-definition image with 1080 horizontal lines. It has nothing to do with textures.

I'll refer you to here to help you understand.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1080p

 

[Deleted User]

Makes another underpowered console.
>Zumba Fitness.

 

[Midna]

Knew it'd be the same as the current gen.

Man it was annoying to read the developers note.

We want it to be underpowered, which is why we post news like this without fact checking and then collectively say "I figured as much".

So, I'm guessing that you didn't read the thread?

I... what?

Edit: Oh, you were talking to him, not me.

 

[Psionic Roshambo]

Why are people so insistent on saying that all the PS3 and XBox360 need is more RAM? Their GPU's are in the stoneage for today's standards - even if they had more RAM they would not run contemporary games on "Ultra" settings like a high-end PC would, which is the very *aim* of a console developer - offer good quality for a smaller price.

The WiiU has more RAM - check. Better GPU (likely) - check. What more could we want?

Basically because they are DX9 parts and while ancient DX10 and DX11 really didn't add much graphically. I believe 11 added some of the volumetric stuff.

Nothing to keep the 360 or the PS3 from doing native 1080P it they had enough RAM, I doubt your average person is going to look at a Wii-U game and a PS3 or 360 game and say "OMG The Wii-U blows the other two away!" Wii-U games are going to look better then PS3 or 360 games but not by a huge margin so thats why some people believe just adding some RAM to the PS3 and the 360 could work. Pull a Wii on Nintendo this time around so to speak.

We have hit a wall in terms of graphics for the time being, the Wii-U hits that wall quite nicely, I will be in line outside my local Toys R Us on launch day for the Wii-U.

A color framebuffer expanded from 720p to 1080p (assuming 24-bit color) only requires an extra few megabytes. Add a few more for the depth buffer. RAM is not the issue with getting PS3/360 games to run at 1080p. It's the GPU. If it's having a hard time rendering a scene at 720p, it'll have an even harder time with 1080p because the GPU has to processed a whole lot more pixels. How many more? About 2.25x more, and don't forget that each pixel goes through multiple rendering stages.

The big problem with your whole argument is that some games DO run at 1080P on the PS3 and the 360 and PC's with close to the same hardware (albeit with more VRAM.) also can play games at 1080P the main issue is textures, at high res they eat up the RAM like nothing else. Want photo realism in games? Easy enough just use photo's as textures for everything but you will also need a few hundred GB's of RAM.

It's not the GPU that is having the issues, the programmers have been having issues trying to cram enough textures into a 256MB space (less then 256 actually but thats a separate issue.)

http://www.escapistm...HD-Texture-Pack

The link above is a great example, the reason one looks better than the other is due to the high res textures. The reason you have to install them to the hard drive is that the disk drive isn't fast enough to stream them into RAM. If you had more RAM that wouldn't be an issue and the system wouldn't need to even stream from the hard drive saving even more resources so instead of waiting for textures from a slow drive they would already be there ready to draw.

Limited amounts of RAM like I said.

Are you seriously assuming a reference like 1080p refers to texture quality? Because you're leading your argument towards that, which is incorrect on all accounts. 1080p is shorthand for a progressive display mode that renders a high-definition image with 1080 horizontal lines. It has nothing to do with textures.

I'll refer you to here to help you understand.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1080p

No need to even read your link, sure 1080P referes to res, but guess what? You need something to umm show at that res.... using a 48X48 texture for some ones face on a 1080P display is going to look like dog crap when the face takes up half the screen right?

See textures DO make a difference

---

 

[Midna]

Professor X is at least partially right. Higher resolutions require better quality textures which require more vRAM

 

[Foxi4]

Point me to the part I mention anything about polycount....

Edit: After reading over your post a little more, to add to what I just said about not talking about polycounts, I just wanted to say on the subject polycounts and draw distance.... really? You do realize that most modern engines clip the hell out that stuff so something that consists of 10,000 polygons up close is like 8 polygons from a distance.

Edit 2: Completely agree that the PS3 and the 360 are really outdated, imagine trying to run a PC with 512MB's of total RAM these days? let alone running a game. Now try and tell me a 3 core 6 threaded 3.2Ghz CPU or a 1 core 2 threaded CPU with 7 SPU's is outdated? Or that Direct X10 or 11 added fantastic features over DX9.... Yeah the hardware besides the RAM is still fine. Add a couple of GB's of RAM and those machines would be on sale today as a home PC no problem what so ever.
Hell phones are running more RAM these days.

This is just the impression I got after reading your post. Consoles do not run a heavyweigh OS - they don't really require alot of RAM as there isn't really alot going on in the background. They're machines truly different then the average smartphone or computer. While designing consoles you focus on the amount of floating point operations they can execute so that they're more graphically capable, you'll be able to jam the textures somewhere, plus you can always stream content anyways hence the smaller amount of RAM available. With a heavy OS, the situation is different. Moreover, smartphone RAM is much slower then the RAM you see in consoles. In general you can go in either of two ways - high capacity RAM or fast bus RAM. On consoles a faster bus simply works better.

The fact that they have less RAM doesn't mean they're less capable - they just work in a different fashion. I do agree though that as of today they require both more GPU power and more RAM/VRAM.