118 replies to this topic

[Socalmuscle]

if cpu was clock speed wouldnt every cpu on earth be the same >>>>>>>>>>>>>suggestion<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

so we have two idnentical cpus but 1 is 1 instruction per clock at 4 ghz the other is 5 instructions per clock at 2ghz and has a huge catch memory.....

is the 4ghz more powerful LOL @ CLOCKSPEED fanboys !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! is a 1.6ghz 4xcore power7 the same as a 4xcore intel atom cpu if it ran at 1.6ghz also

is a ARM 9 at 200mhz the same as a ARM A9 at 200mhz

example broadway 2 instructions per clock @ 729mhz = 1458 instructions

a tri core at 45nm and 5 instructions per clock and 1.6ghz =24000 instructions clearly a jump of around 16 x that of broadway

a broadway cpu has 22gb peak internal bandwidth a tri core @ 1.6ghz would have 300 gb bandwidth theres many areas of performance not just clock speed

a 3mb catch would be 12 x bigger than broadway i love how ignorent people are and as if it matters the clock speed is lower

Hey, buddy...

Just curious....

Is your name "getagripfanboys" on another forum?
http://systemwars.com/forums/index.php?/topic/95756-source-wii-us-cpu-cores-are-basically-overclocked-broadway-gekko-processors/page__st__150

Just wondering because of the caps lock problem, article quote and linking characteristics, and the tremendous love of GameCube/Wii tech.

And... Is your ip from work?

Edited by Socalmuscle, 17 July 2012 - 07:31 PM.

[silverismoney]

no its not

[MorbidGod]

Thats a completely unfair comparison, Call of Duty 3 is a multiformat game that came out on ps2, original xbox, wii, ps3 and 360 and shares assets and is not a launch title anyway and that video is grotty quality too Call of duty 2 would be a better example. Processor speed does matter a lot but architecture is also important. Clearly the wii u's limitation of running games at 720p which it shares with 360 and PS3 indicates its power level. It would be super easy for a more powerful console to run 360/PS3 games at a native 1080p but the wii u can't do that. Is it really that hard to work out the wii u isn't that powerful looking at the evidence we have got so far?

PS3 and xbox runs most games under 7 2 0, but even if that is not true, the Wii u is not limited to 720p. The launch titles will be, yes, but the Wii u is capable of running native 1 0 8 0 p. The launch titles probably started it's life in 7 2 0 p due to the Dev kits having less pee then the actual console.

Correction, less power. Not less pee. L o l And just to clarify, i heard on these forums that current gen games don't always run in 7 2 0 p. So if that is not true, oh well. My point still stands.

[Desert Punk]

PS3 and xbox runs most games under 7 2 0, but even if that is not true, the Wii u is not limited to 720p. The launch titles will be, yes, but the Wii u is capable of running native 1 0 8 0 p. The launch titles probably started it's life in 7 2 0 p due to the Dev kits having less pee then the actual console.

Correction, less power. Not less pee. L o l And just to clarify, i heard on these forums that current gen games don't always run in 7 2 0 p. So if that is not true, oh well. My point still stands.

The PS3 is 720p for most games, it struggles to do the same anti-aliasing as the 360 at times because of its weaker gpu but when properly programmed for something like wipeout it can do 1080p but that game drops resolution under load. For less ambitious games it can do 1080p no problem like 2D platform games etc. 360 does occasionally render sub 720p but it has the built in hardware upscaler to take it to 720p or 1080p. The 360 has 10 megabytes of very fast embedded video memory and a superior gpu to ps3 which means in many ways its superior but the 10 megabyte limit means that its not quite as capable of doing 1080p as well as ps3 for action games, again 1080p for 2D games no problem. Wii u again is a 720p console for ambitious action games and 1080p for less ambitious titles.

If the wii u was as powerful as many are suggesting it should be able to do 1080p versions of 360/PS3 720p titles easily but it can't. A typical pc game that runs at 60fps for 720p would drop to something like 30-40fps for 1080p mode at the same settings. The wii u has 32 megabytes of high speed embedded video memory so really has no memory limitations for 1080p. If 10 megabytes is sufficient for 360 to do 720p then 32 megabytes is surely enough for 1080p. Despite this increase in video memory the wii u can't achieve 1080p for games like those on 360 and PS3.

Clearly the wii u is not powerful because it can not even achieve ps3/360 graphics rendered at 1080p. A very small step up in performance especially when you consider it has over 3x as much high speed embedded video memory as 360 which means memory isn't the issue.

[MorbidGod]

The PS3 is 720p for most games, it struggles to do the same anti-aliasing as the 360 at times because of its weaker gpu but when properly programmed for something like wipeout it can do 1080p but that game drops resolution under load. For less ambitious games it can do 1080p no problem like 2D platform games etc. 360 does occasionally render sub 720p but it has the built in hardware upscaler to take it to 720p or 1080p. The 360 has 10 megabytes of very fast embedded video memory and a superior gpu to ps3 which means in many ways its superior but the 10 megabyte limit means that its not quite as capable of doing 1080p as well as ps3 for action games, again 1080p for 2D games no problem. Wii u again is a 720p console for ambitious action games and 1080p for less ambitious titles.

If the wii u was as powerful as many are suggesting it should be able to do 1080p versions of 360/PS3 720p titles easily but it can't. A typical pc game that runs at 60fps for 720p would drop to something like 30-40fps for 1080p mode at the same settings. The wii u has 32 megabytes of high speed embedded video memory so really has no memory limitations for 1080p. If 10 megabytes is sufficient for 360 to do 720p then 32 megabytes is surely enough for 1080p. Despite this increase in video memory the wii u can't achieve 1080p for games like those on 360 and PS3.

Clearly the wii u is not powerful because it can not even achieve ps3/360 graphics rendered at 1080p. A very small step up in performance especially when you consider it has over 3x as much high speed embedded video memory as 360 which means memory isn't the issue.

I just don't see how you can know that based of the little we know.

[Desert Punk]

I just don't see how you can know that based of the little we know.

Thats the point though isn't it, the little we do know includes the fact it can't render PS3/360 type games at 1080p at least at launch. This is a huge indicator of real power of the console. At the moment we don't know fully why it can't achieve this small improvement but its clear it has this limitation. Surely Nintendo would love to demonstrate the console was more powerful than current gen if it could. If Nintendo were producing a powerful console they would be demanding 1080p versions of existing games not 720p versions and Nintendo themselves have stated 720p for their own games.

[MorbidGod]

Thats the point though isn't it, the little we do know includes the fact it can't render PS3/360 type games at 1080p at least at launch. This is a huge indicator of real power of the console. At the moment we don't know fully why it can't achieve this small improvement but its clear it has this limitation. Surely Nintendo would love to demonstrate the console was more powerful than current gen if it could. If Nintendo were producing a powerful console they would be demanding 1080p versions of existing games not 720p versions and Nintendo themselves have stated 720p for their own games.

All I can say is this. It is clear the Wii U is more powerful, enough for Gearbox to say things like, "It's pretty clear to us that the best-looking console version of Aliens: Colonial Marines is going to be on the Wii U." And more recently with Dealspwn.com, "If Borderlands 2 was on the Wii U, the thing I would be most excited about is inventory management: it would be amazing on that, it would just be fantastic. And I think the artwork would look really good, with the way they can deal with the resolutions and textures, I think it's a really good console."

And Gearbox isn't the only developer singing praise. The one developer who questioned it, was Namco, and that developer actually went on his twitter angry at the media for twisting his meaning. We also know that first gen Xbox 360 games were not all that impressive. In fact, going back to GCN's Eternal Darkness, which started it's life in the N64, the graphics were horrible compared to Twilight Princess, what was at the end of the GCN's life. Looking even at the 360, Perfect Dark looks like horse dump compared to Halo 4. And you know what, Nintendo's Super Awesome Project^[1] in 2016 will look leads better then ZombiU, which started it's life on Xbox 360 and Wii U dev kits. So as you can see, my point is exactly that: We don't know much, but what we do know matches what happens in other generations (graphics not being much better then previous gen's starting out) and developers saying the Wii U is "defaintly next-gen".

[1]: Insert future title that hasn't been announced and may not be in development yet.

[Dragon]

Thats the point though isn't it, the little we do know includes the fact it can't render PS3/360 type games at 1080p at least at launch. This is a huge indicator of real power of the console. At the moment we don't know fully why it can't achieve this small improvement but its clear it has this limitation. Surely Nintendo would love to demonstrate the console was more powerful than current gen if it could. If Nintendo were producing a powerful console they would be demanding 1080p versions of existing games not 720p versions and Nintendo themselves have stated 720p for their own games.

Or it's just lazy porting.

[Socalmuscle]

Or it's just lazy porting.

Not to mention late system revisions as is Nintendo's annoying way.

It's not the lack of power that stops Nintendo from showing it off. It is the lack of TIME with that power.

And the fact that Nintendo games are almost never amazing graphically.

The third party games are all ports just about and that explains those, despite the fact they still look better (Arkham having higher res textures, higher polygon models for main characters and buildings, etc., Assassins' Creed's sharper textures, better lighting, etc.) even though not much has been changed in the engine to suit the newer, superior hardware.

No matter how powerful the hardware, it will only display what you tell it to.

There is no argument. Look at the PC versions of those same games. Then look at the PC version of Crysis 2 compared to the old PS3 and 360 versions.

Done.

And the Wii U versions of Arkham and Assassin look better than the PC version (as will the Aliens game), so that argument is asinine.

A year after launch, you will see some serious next gen business in terms of Wii U graphics. In the meantime, enjoy the still superior graphics of the Wii U (without the system breaking a sweat), the great Nintendo exclusives, the revolutionary GamePad, and the fact that you will currently own the most powerful games console on earth.

Edited by Socalmuscle, 19 July 2012 - 11:45 AM.

[3Dude]

Thats the point though isn't it, the little we do know includes the fact it can't render PS3/360 type games at 1080p at least at launch. This is a huge indicator of real power of the console. At the moment we don't know fully why it can't achieve this small improvement but its clear it has this limitation. Surely Nintendo would love to demonstrate the console was more powerful than current gen if it could. If Nintendo were producing a powerful console they would be demanding 1080p versions of existing games not 720p versions and Nintendo themselves have stated 720p for their own games.

Guy, you cant just throw code made for one system architecture on another and expect it to run better because the systems more powerful.

What you are talking about isnt porting, its emulation.

The hardware isnt even finished yet, its missing entire components.

Hell devs just got use of the dsp a few days ago. Thats huge.

None of your speculation pans out, because, quite frankly its based on preconcieved notions.

[Desert Punk]

Guy, you cant just throw code made for one system architecture on another and expect it to run better because the systems more powerful.

What you are talking about isnt porting, its emulation.

The hardware isnt even finished yet, its missing entire components.

Hell devs just got use of the dsp a few days ago. Thats huge.

None of your speculation pans out, because, quite frankly its based on preconcieved notions.

Clearly that isn't emulation and I have no idea why you have used that word. A PS3 or 360 game will have a pack of resources/data written in a transferable language and have graphic, sound data that can be utilised by the conversion to wii u that isn't emulation and its incredibly ridiculous to include that word here.

Again the hardware better be finished, surely its close to starting manufacture if not started already, it has to build up numbers for launch. We are in late July, the launch is expected in October/November, it will need to be distributed via land but first it needs to be transported by water that could take about a month from its manufacturing base in China (Foxconn). Before they can even start manufacturing the specific components like gpu, cpu have to be manufactured and many specialist parts require manufacturing. The idea that the hardware hasn't been finalised is clearly ridiculous at this stage.

As for pre-conceived notions its already been stated what the wii u will be running games at 720p;

http://wiiudaily.com...es-run-in-720p/

As you can see even a 2D mario platformer is shown in 720p.

A DSP is a digital signal processor often used to describe a component that has limited and specialist functionality, like the DSP in some Snes carts, the DSP in the Atari Falcon for sound processing. You make it sound like the DSP will somehow transform the wii u into some sort of amazing powerhouse of a computer. Its likely a audio DSP like that in the wii to offload some work from the cpu and unlikely to be a GPU enhnancement.

[3Dude]

Clearly that isn't emulation and I have no idea why you have used that word. A PS3 or 360 game will have a pack of resources/data written in a transferable language and have graphic, sound data that can be utilised by the conversion to wii u that isn't emulation and its incredibly ridiculous to include that word here.

Again the hardware better be finished, surely its close to starting manufacture if not started already, it has to build up numbers for launch. We are in late July, the launch is expected in October/November, it will need to be distributed via land but first it needs to be transported by water that could take about a month from its manufacturing base in China (Foxconn). Before they can even start manufacturing the specific components like gpu, cpu have to be manufactured and many specialist parts require manufacturing. The idea that the hardware hasn't been finalised is clearly ridiculous at this stage.

As for pre-conceived notions its already been stated what the wii u will be running games at 720p;

http://wiiudaily.com...es-run-in-720p/

As you can see even a 2D mario platformer is shown in 720p.

A DSP is a digital signal processor often used to describe a component that has limited and specialist functionality, like the DSP in some Snes carts, the DSP in the Atari Falcon for sound processing. You make it sound like the DSP will somehow transform the wii u into some sort of amazing powerhouse of a computer. Its likely a audio DSP like that in the wii to offload some work from the cpu and unlikely to be a GPU enhnancement.

No, its not ridiculous to use the word here, because what YOU are talking about, simply exporting the assets STILL requires the code to be rewritten and optimized for new architecture. Just because you ca run the same coding language, like say some c base, on any processer under the sun DOESNT mean you can simply slap the same code from one processer to another and expect tge same performance.

Which is EXACTLY what you are demanding , an instant turn around on new architecture, can only be done by having a system so ridiculously overpowered that ir can run unoptimized code designed for a different architecture.

Might as well be emulation.

Yes, dsp's are for specific, and limited
tasks, so the benefit is DIRECTLY proportional to WHAT that task is.

As you thoughtlessly mentioned earlier, somehow, without a light bulb going off, and seeing what was about to happen, a good use for dsp's in game systems is as a systems audio processor, which is exactly what its being used for.

The dsp developers just got access to is the wii u's dedicated sound processor.

And if you dont think freeing up audio is a HUGE deal, I dont have words to express that magnitude of failure.

The 3ds cpu gets up to a 50% increase in usable cycles a second when it uses its dsp as opposed to running audio through the cpu.


Before a few days ago, devs had to run the audio through the cpu on the wii u.


And the cube got a 50% increase in cpu power literally right before production. This kind of stuff is not uncommon.

In fact the wii u changed processors so drastically in april that it broke library compatability from previous sdk's.

The blunt truth of it all is, you seem to have only memorized enough definitions and buzzwords to rationalize your pre concieved notions, and spread legitimate sounding misinformation to people who wouldnt know what you are talking about anyways.

Edited by 3Dude, 20 July 2012 - 07:48 AM.

[SleepyGuyy]

its different architecture, doesnt really affect the overall power, no one seems to understand that

Architecture is important though. The PS3's architecture prevents some devs from using it's full power because it takes too long to program for it. So it dumbs down many of the games that could do more.

[Desert Punk]

No, its not ridiculous to use the word here, because what YOU are talking about, simply exporting the assets STILL requires the code to be rewritten and optimized for new architecture. Just because you ca run the same coding language, like say some c base, on any processer under the sun DOESNT mean you can simply slap the same code from one processer to another and expect tge same performance.

Which is EXACTLY what you are demanding , an instant turn around on new architecture, can only be done by having a system so ridiculously overpowered that ir can run unoptimized code designed for a different architecture.

Might as well be emulation.

Yes, dsp's are for specific, and limited
tasks, so the benefit is DIRECTLY proportional to WHAT that task is.

As you thoughtlessly mentioned earlier, somehow, without a light bulb going off, and seeing what was about to happen, a good use for dsp's in game systems is as a systems audio processor, which is exactly what its being used for.

The dsp developers just got access to is the wii u's dedicated sound processor.

And if you dont think freeing up audio is a HUGE deal, I dont have words to express that magnitude of failure.

The 3ds cpu gets up to a 50% increase in usable cycles a second when it uses its dsp as opposed to running audio through the cpu.


Before a few days ago, devs had to run the audio through the cpu on the wii u.


And the cube got a 50% increase in cpu power literally right before production. This kind of stuff is not uncommon.

In fact the wii u changed processors so drastically in april that it broke library compatability from previous sdk's.

The blunt truth of it all is, you seem to have only memorized enough definitions and buzzwords to rationalize your pre concieved notions, and spread legitimate sounding misinformation to people who wouldnt know what you are talking about anyways.

@3dude

You really aren't making any sense. Just about every console has a dedicated sound chip taking the load of the main cpu. Clearly you don't have a clue about what you are writing but you keep writing. The wii u may have a DSP dedicated to sound which is part of the silicon of another major chip or may have an independent sound processor it calls a DSP but it doesn't matter. Even the Megadrive dedicated a Z80 chip to sound processing.

The idea that somehow current wii u videos of games show less performance because the developers have only just got information regarding the dsp audio processor shows unbelievable stupidity.

Do you remember the original wii where fanboys wrote on forums how the wii was somehow much more powerful than people realised and later games would show it to be a a much more capable console.

Again its excuses, excuses, excuses. Do you think every console manufacturer except Nintendo and the wii u has had 100% performing consoles well before launch? Look at the body of evidence available of what the wii u is capable of.

Most of the videos we have seen so far are from development hardware which is going to be seriously more powerful in some regards to the final wii u. Most development kits exceed the specification of the final model which is costed down in comparion.

This has to be one of the most pathetic excuses ever that the console audio dsp wasn't ready so the wii u currently is showing lack of power. Its a real facepalm moment and shows your complete lack of connection with reality.

How the hell did the Gamecube get a 50% increase in power before production. They actually revised its specifcation downwards from something like 525-550mhz speed to 486mhz to increase yields on the cpu and lower costs! As a rule specifications go down not up at the last minute. The original xbox was going to get a 300mhz gpu but it ended up at 233mhz.

Why not try to add some realism and TRUTH to your posts?

You keep replying to my posts with complete rubbish, its getting really irritating at least do some research before posting.

[3Dude]

@3dude

You really aren't making any sense. Just about every console has a dedicated sound chip taking the load of the main cpu. Clearly you don't have a clue about what you are writing but you keep writing. The wii u may have a DSP dedicated to sound which is part of the silicon of another major chip or may have an independent sound processor it calls a DSP but it doesn't matter. Even the Megadrive dedicated a Z80 chip to sound processing.

The idea that somehow current wii u videos of games show less performance because the developers have only just got information regarding the dsp audio processor shows unbelievable stupidity.

Do you remember the original wii where fanboys wrote on forums how the wii was somehow much more powerful than people realised and later games would show it to be a a much more capable console.

Again its excuses, excuses, excuses. Do you think every console manufacturer except Nintendo and the wii u has had 100% performing consoles well before launch? Look at the body of evidence available of what the wii u is capable of.

Most of the videos we have seen so far are from development hardware which is going to be seriously more powerful in some regards to the final wii u. Most development kits exceed the specification of the final model which is costed down in comparion.

This has to be one of the most pathetic excuses ever that the console audio dsp wasn't ready so the wii u currently is showing lack of power. Its a real facepalm moment and shows your complete lack of connection with reality.

How the hell did the Gamecube get a 50% increase in power before production. They actually revised its specifcation downwards from something like 525-550mhz speed to 486mhz to increase yields on the cpu and lower costs! As a rule specifications go down not up at the last minute. The original xbox was going to get a 300mhz gpu but it ended up at 233mhz.

Why not try to add some realism and TRUTH to your posts?

You keep replying to my posts with complete rubbish, its getting really irritating at least do some research before posting.

@3dude

You really aren't making any sense. Just about every console has a dedicated sound chip taking the load of the main cpu. Clearly you don't have a clue about what you are writing but you keep writing. The wii u may have a DSP dedicated to sound which is part of the silicon of another major chip or may have an independent sound processor it calls a DSP but it doesn't matter. Even the Megadrive dedicated a Z80 chip to sound processing.

The idea that somehow current wii u videos of games show less performance because the developers have only just got information regarding the dsp audio processor shows unbelievable stupidity.

Do you remember the original wii where fanboys wrote on forums how the wii was somehow much more powerful than people realised and later games would show it to be a a much more capable console.

Again its excuses, excuses, excuses. Do you think every console manufacturer except Nintendo and the wii u has had 100% performing consoles well before launch? Look at the body of evidence available of what the wii u is capable of.

Most of the videos we have seen so far are from development hardware which is going to be seriously more powerful in some regards to the final wii u. Most development kits exceed the specification of the final model which is costed down in comparion.

This has to be one of the most pathetic excuses ever that the console audio dsp wasn't ready so the wii u currently is showing lack of power. Its a real facepalm moment and shows your complete lack of connection with reality.

How the hell did the Gamecube get a 50% increase in power before production. They actually revised its specifcation downwards from something like 525-550mhz speed to 486mhz to increase yields on the cpu and lower costs! As a rule specifications go down not up at the last minute. The original xbox was going to get a 300mhz gpu but it ended up at 233mhz.

Why not try to add some realism and TRUTH to your posts?

You keep replying to my posts with complete rubbish, its getting really irritating at least do some research before posting.

Yes I remember the wii. I told them it was,physically impossible to have 'hidden power' in the wiis thermal envelope. I was called an xbox fanboy much like I was by your counterpart (hes basically a pro nintendo version of you, guessing from my observations in that thread.) When I told him the things the box could do that the cube and wii couldnt.

The cubes clock speed WAS decreased, but not to the final spec you mentioned, it was considerably lower, but that didnt magically net it an increase in power. However the cubes cpu clock speed was raised in the final devkit to its shipping spec. which is why its roughly 40 50% faster than the second to last beta kit.

Yes the Genesis used an audio dsp. Most old consoles did. Sony used to make Nintendos.

So uh, why didnt you use a more modern console in your example? Like maybe psx, or ps2, or xbox, or ps3 or 360. Oh, because they dont HAVE dedicated audio processors. they run a software solution for audio through the cpu. Which is great in many ways. Having xaudio 2 and xact cross platform with windows in the 360s infancy was brilliant. You can do a LOT with a software solution that a hardware solution cant. But its a tradeoff, with the biggest one being audio is now a large resource overhead on the cpu. Only Nintendo still utilizes dedicated audio dsp's for its sound. Wow, that makes your whole point irrelevent.... and REALLY stupid.

Since the wii u HAS a dedicated audio processor, that means NOT using it takes away cpu cycles, as devs are forced to use,a software solution.

When architecture actually changes for progress, instead of just a shrink down and higher clock, when its priority changes, the processor will still be more powerful, but it is fairly common that it WONT outperform its predecessor on programs optimized for it.

A relevant example is arm11 vs arms cortex. Arm 11 programs run faster on an arm 11 than on a cortex a8 or a9. But the cortex series is VASTLY more powerful.

Your problem seems to be an understanding of what exactly power is. You tend to thoughtlessly use,measurements derived from simple formulas using raw spec info devoid of real world considerations, or benchmarks that are far past obsolete.

Benchmarks have changed consistantly.throughout time, because they quickly become useless. Theres a reason computer scientists nicknamed mips 'meaningless indication of processer speed' and 'meaningless information on performance for salespeople'.

After mips was largely declared an obsolete and worthless measurement of performance, flops were looked too.

FLOPS quickly also became a poor measure of performance, as they dont take into account io or memory performance.


Graphic cards and game consoles often report a FLOPS rating that is much higher than that of a general purpose processor. Such ratings have to be treated with caution. Often, these ratings are based on the performance of a single texture filtering unit that performs a simple computation very fast. Creating a very favourable, very misleading peak flop performance. Which benchmark is used is VERY important. Something tells me you dont make that distinction.

Once again the world is moving on.
Since most 3d graphics operations are highly parralelizable, (look up Amdahls law), clock speed for the purpose of prioritizing flops isnt such a huge deal anymore, and processors are moving into prioritizing the power of general purpose (which is NOT as highly parralelizable) over flops. Thats not saying flop performance wont increase mind you.

So a program written for an architecture with high flop output and piss poor gp isnt going to simply run on an architecture prioritizing gp. Which is the issue Tekkens producer brought up.

Which by the way, he went on record saying he NEVER said what was reported in this article, that his words were taken out of context, twisted, and blown out of proportion.

Which means this whole fiasco is done son.

[Foot]

I FIGURED OUT WHY!!!!
(Btw if someone said this already, sorry...)

So the Wii U uses a Power based CPU. These types of CPU's are designed for servers, AND as many of you may know, Server CPU's are clocked slightly lower than typical CPU's.

Server CPU: Roughly 2.1 GHz to 3.0 GHz
Typical CPU: Roughly 3.0 GHz to 3.9 GHz

AND while the server CPU is slightly lower-clocked, speed isn't the primary execution it was designed for. Instead, it was to handle better Multi-Tasking and System Stability, and considering the Wii U has to handle a MASSIVE online infrastructure,and Support for Multiple Monitors (Wii U Gamepads), it will be AMAZINGLY more POWERFUL and STABLE for developers to work with over Xbox and Playstation, regardless of Clock-Speed.

Oh, and a +, he noted that it's only SLIGHTLY underclocked. Meaning that it will be one of the fastest Power CPU models, and the best performance.

[Soul]

I think people are too obsessed with the title "next-gen" being all about uber-leaps in graphics, guess what? graphics won't be that much better, unlike when the Nintendo 64 was released and gave us all 3d graphics. We aren't re-entering the 16/32 bit era's again lol.

All it is, is better lighting and what not..so who really cares? Thankfully I don't know much about all this tech talk so I see consoles for what they are, not for every little detailed spec in the machine, If it gives me great games, new gameplay and appealing graphics then I'll take one.

Next gen textures and tesselation is what we want to see. Do you think the Wii U could run Cryengine 3 Titanic mod in at least 40 FPS?

[3Dude]

I FIGURED OUT WHY!!!!
(Btw if someone said this already, sorry...)

So the Wii U uses a Power based CPU. These types of CPU's are designed for servers, AND as many of you may know, Server CPU's are clocked slightly lower than typical CPU's.

Server CPU: Roughly 2.1 GHz to 3.0 GHz
Typical CPU: Roughly 3.0 GHz to 3.9 GHz

AND while the server CPU is slightly lower-clocked, speed isn't the primary execution it was designed for. Instead, it was to handle better Multi-Tasking and System Stability, and considering the Wii U has to handle a MASSIVE online infrastructure,and Support for Multiple Monitors (Wii U Gamepads), it will be AMAZINGLY more POWERFUL and STABLE for developers to work with over Xbox and Playstation, regardless of Clock-Speed.

Oh, and a +, he noted that it's only SLIGHTLY underclocked. Meaning that it will be one of the fastest Power CPU models, and the best performance.

Kinda. While their is definately a huge difference in priority between the POWER,line and the xustom powermac power pc's used,in xenon and cell, Nintendos not using a straight POWER cpu. They are having a customized cpu based off of the POWER technology.

I dont think nintendo is going this route because they want a server system for miiverse... But because the POWER line has strong real world performance.

Heres the deal with the 360, and kinda the ps3 as well sense they actually.share the same powerpc core cpu.

IBM advertised a cpu core and pitched it based on the concept of a through the roof theoretical flop performance per dollar.

So microsoft and sony, using the same core cpu engaged in a flop war, Microsoft went tricore sony went with 7 spus.

So the flop war began, 1 tflop 2 tflops... But aside from flops general perfomance of those cpus sucked.

The problem is the core itself is a very narrow
2-issue in-order execution core, featuring a 64KB L1 cache (32K
instruction/32K data) and either a 1MB or 512KB L2 cache (for Xenon or Cell,
respectively). Supporting SMT, the core can execute two threads
simultaneously similar to a Hyper Threading enabled Pentium 4. The Xenon
CPU is made up of three of these cores, while Cell features just one.

Now, stuff like this is great for ripping out flops.... But not much else.

But people or SOOOO fixated on flops. Theyre practically meaningless.

What about all those Flops?
I hear it over and over again people are obsessed with the peak theoretical performance of the CPU. Ever since the
announcement of the Xbox 360 and PS3 hardware way back when, people have been set on
comparing Microsoft's figure of 1 trillion floating point operations per
second to Sony's figure of 2 trillion floating point operations per second
(TFLOPs). And its still happening. Everyone should know for a fact that these numbers
are meaningless, but just in case you need some reasoning for why, let's
look at the facts.

First and foremost, a floating point operation can be anything; it can be
adding two floating point numbers together, or it can be performing a dot
product on two floating point numbers, it can even be just calculating the
complement of a fp number. Anything that is executed on a FPU is fair game
to be called a floating point operation. So those operations used,to benchmark that theoretical peak flop could be COMPLETELY,useless to real world gaming.

Floating point power doesnt mean diddly squat if you want to run general purpose code.

When a manufacturer is talking about peak floating point performance
there are a few things that they aren't taking into account. Being able to
process billions of operations per second depends on actually being able to
have that many floating point operations to work on. That means that you
have to have enough bandwidth to keep the FPUs fed, no mispredicted
branches, no cache misses and the right structure of code to make sure that
all of the FPUs can be fed at all times so they can execute at their peak
rates. Not to mention that the requirements for
hitting peak theoretical performance are always ridiculous; caches are only
so big and thus there will come a time where a request to main memory is
needed, and you can expect that request to be fulfilled in a few hundred
clock cycles, where no floating point operations will be happening at all.

The hard cold reality is the xenon and cell had fantastic looking peak performance, they couldnt get anywhere near it in real world performance.

The wiiu being slightly lower clocked then xenon or cell is meaningless.

The wii u cpu has been confirmed to be an out of order processor. Thats a huge deal. That alone already means its going to destroy xenon and cell in real world performance. But its not going to perform like a narrow in order processor. Code optimized for that is simply not going to run as well.

[Grooseland]

I was called an xbox fanboy much like I was by your counterpart (hes basically a pro nintendo version of you, guessing from my observations in that thread.) When I told him the things the box could do that the cube and wii couldnt.

Thanks?