60 replies to this topic

[joutei]

I just had to register and ad to this conversation. 

 

Tessellation is a important part of the new Generation of gaming. 

1. You can develop games faster: 

Think of minecraft, blockey as hell, not a good looking game by any standards, with tessellation(built in the GPU) the artist could basically get a round head(real head) only by using the GPU, no remodeling need.

2. The polygon count is low:

Making less stress on CPU and GPU focusing on other stuff to make your game look good, also getting down production time, letting the dev have more time on story and level design. 

3. Cheaper to make:

To OP raising a valid question about the capabilities of the wiiU, Luckely it has at least Computer structuring witch is a really important part of the "NG" consoles aswell, however if they aren't going to support GPU tessellation built in they are going to have to make more modeling work to make the game look good, hurting the devs and make them not want to release on the wiiU. Who would want to play a minecraft game when the same game look like fable on xbox8 and ps4 (using extremes but about right, look into the unity engine heaven demo with and without tess).

 

Only thing holding back game progress is the PS3 and xbox360 right now, using this hi polygon games with no tessellation(not GPU integrated) to make them look good, and they are, but hogging resources, making hi CPU cost on ports to PC. Im afraid the Ps3 and x360 not going to die anytime soon and in turn slowing down progress of the new gen. They need to stop supporting last gen fast! or noone going to understand why you should upgrade to the new consoles.

 

Btw ps3,nintendo=openGL(modeficed) xbox=dx(modeficed)  

dx11 features go along hand in hand with the openGL 4

Unity is saying it supports openGL 3.3(for wiiU) right now, updates are coming in the future.

[BrosBeforeGardenTools]

DX11 is good but overrated.

[Socalmuscle]

Surprised to see this erroneous thread resurrected.

Basically it starts off with the premise that a flavor of the Unity engine (also employed by PS4) is limited to Direct x 10 features or equivalent. For that particular flavor of Unity, that is true.

What is not true is that the "lite" version of the engine ("want DX11? Pay up" motivator) is indicative of hardware limitations regarding the platforms it runs on: PS4 and Wii U (probably new xbox as well).

The wii U already does tesselation and has already shown off DX 11 equivalent effects. The Wii U in most if not all cases won't be using the Direct X 11 API and neither will ps4 but both will be using a compatible shader version and a combination of Open GL and custom APIs which do the same things as DX11.

The end.

In the end, whether purposeful or in ignorance, the OP erroneously related features of a stripped down game engine version to the hardware capabilities of the platforms it runs on: ps4 and wii u.

[Arkhandar]

Surprised to see this erroneous thread resurrected.

Basically it starts off with the premise that a flavor of the Unity engine (also employed by PS4) is limited to Direct x 10 features or equivalent. For that particular flavor of Unity, that is true.

What is not true is that the "lite" version of the engine ("want DX11? Pay up" motivator) is indicative of hardware limitations regarding the platforms it runs on: PS4 and Wii U (probably new xbox as well).

The wii U already does tesselation and has already shown off DX 11 equivalent effects. The Wii U in most if not all cases won't be using the Direct X 11 API and neither will ps4 but both will be using a compatible shader version and a combination of Open GL and custom APIs which do the same things as DX11.

The end.

In the end, whether purposeful or in ignorance, the OP erroneously related features of a stripped down game engine version to the hardware capabilities of the platforms it runs on: ps4 and wii u.

 

There is no "lite" version whatsoever of Unity on Wii U. If you're a registered Wii U developer you get ALL Unity Wii U features for FREE. So I don't the ""want DX11? Pay up" motivator" at all.

 

And yes, I was wrong about tessellation since it was already available at the time of DX10 GPUs, so the Wii U is perfectly capable of that.

 

But one thing is for sure: Unity wasn't capable of bringing DX11 equivalent features to the Wii U. And I doubt that will change in the future since Unity 4 (Wii U version also) already supports DX11 on PC.  

[alan123]

so if the developers & publishers stop making PS3 & X360 games the games on the WiiU will be on par with the PS4 6 X720 ?

[Alex Atkin UK]

But one thing is for sure: Unity wasn't capable of bringing DX11 equivalent features to the Wii U. And I doubt that will change in the future since Unity 4 (Wii U version also) already supports DX11 on PC.  

 

What a silly argument.  Of course Unity is more mature on PC and able to utilise the full functionality sooner, its the top priority and the primary platform.

 

I see no reason at all why they wouldn't bring more features to the Wii U version, but it takes much more time to do so as they are having to learn a new API and potentially even write to the metal to access all the functionality.  That is the whole point of an engine, to have a common API for multiple platforms.  If it WASN'T a tricky thing to do then there wouldn't be any point in it in the first place.

[MorbidGod]

Will it blend?

YES! LOL

[jonjonjon]

i thought the wii u gpu only had pixel shader 4.1 and directx 11 requires pixel shader 5.0. it was confirmed that the wii u gpu is using RV770 and a close match to a 4650/4670. so i am not sure how it would fully support dx11. i do get a good laugh out of the people who claim the wii u has pc like graphics. the wii u graphics are more 360/ps3 then high end pc. the wii u can't even run at 1080p in complex 3D games. no UE4 or frostbite 3 for wii u. i hope nintendo has a lot of good first party games. poor wii u.

 

[routerbad]

There is no "lite" version whatsoever of Unity on Wii U. If you're a registered Wii U developer you get ALL Unity Wii U features for FREE. So I don't the ""want DX11? Pay up" motivator" at all.

 

And yes, I was wrong about tessellation since it was already available at the time of DX10 GPUs, so the Wii U is perfectly capable of that.

 

But one thing is for sure: Unity wasn't capable of bringing DX11 equivalent features to the Wii U. And I doubt that will change in the future since Unity 4 (Wii U version also) already supports DX11 on PC.  

Wii U will support the ENTIRE FEATURESET of Unity 4.  The tools don't support the full feature set yet.  Unity is capable of bringing DX11 equivalents to the Wii U if it hasn't already.

i thought the wii u gpu only had pixel shader 4.1 and directx 11 requires pixel shader 5.0. it was confirmed that the wii u gpu is using RV770 and a close match to a 4650/4670. so i am not sure how it would fully support dx11. i do get a good laugh out of the people who claim the wii u has pc like graphics. the wii u graphics are more 360/ps3 then high end pc. the wii u can't even run at 1080p in complex 3D games. no UE4 or frostbite 3 for wii u. i hope nintendo has a lot of good first party games. poor wii u.

Wii U GPU has SM5.0, it isn't a 4XXX series GPU, it is a completely custom GPU based on the HD6XXX shaders.  Frostbite3 and UE4 could very well run on WiiU if the publishers brought it there, the capability has been there from the beginning.  It also supports CryEngine3.

 

You really are pitiful at something as simple as competent trolling.

Edited by routerbad, 06 May 2013 - 11:43 AM.

[3Dude]

i thought the wii u gpu only had pixel shader 4.1 and directx 11 requires pixel shader 5.0. it was confirmed that the wii u gpu is using RV770 and a close match to a 4650/4670. so i am not sure how it would fully support dx11. i do get a good laugh out of the people who claim the wii u has pc like graphics. the wii u graphics are more 360/ps3 then high end pc. the wii u can't even run at 1080p in complex 3D games. no UE4 or frostbite 3 for wii u. i hope nintendo has a lot of good first party games. poor wii u.

 

 

Direct X requires pixel shader, because, like direct X, 'pixel shader' is owned by microsoft.

 

So no, of course wii u will not have pixel shader anything.

 

And image resolution >< graphical effects. They are two entirely different things.

[MorbidGod]

i thought the wii u gpu only had pixel shader 4.1 and directx 11 requires pixel shader 5.0. it was confirmed that the wii u gpu is using RV770 and a close match to a 4650/4670. so i am not sure how it would fully support dx11. i do get a good laugh out of the people who claim the wii u has pc like graphics. the wii u graphics are more 360/ps3 then high end pc. the wii u can't even run at 1080p in complex 3D games. no UE4 or frostbite 3 for wii u. i hope nintendo has a lot of good first party games. poor wii u.

It was never confirmed. It was rumored that was the card they started with, but we don't know what they added.

[routerbad]

Direct X requires pixel shader, because, like direct X, 'pixel shader' is owned by microsoft.

 

So no, of course wii u will not have pixel shader anything.

 

And image resolution >< graphical effects. They are two entirely different things.

Because it will be using a version of OpenGL, it will support GLSL, and fragment shaders, but yes, ShaderModel5 and PixelShader5 are proprietary.

[Goodtwin]

I think most people gave up on trying to directly compare the Wii U gpu to an off the shelf product.  The fact is, Criterion made mention that they were having trouble getting the "GPU" to run at an acceptable framerate.  Not the CPU, not the memory, but the GPU.  If this were an off the shelf HD4*** or HD5550 GPU, getting things running well would not have been a mystery.  The updated information and tools allowed them to go from having trouble getting a 360/PS3 level game running at an acceptable framerate, to being able to make an upgraded port with a more stable framerate.  This all happened over a period of about 3 months.  Its obvious that the GPU is using some unconventional tech. 

[Arkhandar]

Wii U will support the ENTIRE FEATURESET of Unity 4.  The tools don't support the full feature set yet.  Unity is capable of bringing DX11 equivalents to the Wii U if it hasn't already.

Wii U GPU has SM5.0, it isn't a 4XXX series GPU, it is a completely custom GPU based on the HD6XXX shaders.  Frostbite3 and UE4 could very well run on WiiU if the publishers brought it there, the capability has been there from the beginning.  It also supports CryEngine3.

 

You really are pitiful at something as simple as competent trolling.

Source?

[routerbad]

Source?

GDC 2013.  It has been talked about here for quite a while, I leave the source gathering to you.  Here's a hint (@timfollowsyou).  Wii U developer license comes free with Unity 4 Pro, Wii U will receive all 4.x updates, Freemium is support (engine free with developer license, devs pay for support, Ubuntu style support structure).  

[Arkhandar]

GDC 2013.  It has been talked about here for quite a while, I leave the source gathering to you.  Here's a hint (@timfollowsyou).  Wii U developer license comes free with Unity 4 Pro, Wii U will receive all 4.x updates, Freemium is support (engine free with developer license, devs pay for support, Ubuntu style support structure).  

That still doesn't prove that most DX11 equivalent features are available on Wii U.

 

Have you even looked at the 4.1 and 4.1.2 changelogs?  There is no mention of DX11 equivalent features being available on Wii U whatsoever.

 

Most changes have to do with the API, bug fixing and ease of use, rarely graphics related.

Edited by Arkhandar, 07 May 2013 - 11:12 AM.

[BrosBeforeGardenTools]

That still doesn't prove that most DX11 equivalent features are available on Wii U.
 
Have you even looked at the 4.1 and 4.1.2 changelogs?  There is no mention of DX11 equivalent features being available on Wii U whatsoever.
 
Most changes have to do with the API, bug fixing and ease of use, rarely graphics related.

There's no use arguing with them. They may not have the truth, but they are good arguers who will argue until they have to stop for air.

[routerbad]

That still doesn't prove that most DX11 equivalent features are available on Wii U.

 

Have you even looked at the 4.1 and 4.1.2 changelogs?  There is no mention of DX11 equivalent features being available on Wii U whatsoever.

 

Most changes have to do with the API, bug fixing and ease of use, rarely graphics related.

That isn't the point, they stated during the keynote that all features of Unity 4 Pro would be available on the Wii U "in the future", which means they are still working on optimization and feature parity.

 

We have already seen DX11 equivalent features in use on WiiU, so it's support of those features is a moot point to argue.

 

By the way have you seen the changelog between DX10 and 11?  Most of that is pipeline optimizations and workflow efficiency, not a whole lot of new graphical effects, just making things run better on the same hardware.

Edited by routerbad, 07 May 2013 - 11:29 AM.

[Arkhandar]

That isn't the point, they stated during the keynote that all features of Unity 4 Pro would be available on the Wii U "in the future", which means they are still working on optimization and feature parity.

 

We have already seen DX11 equivalent features in use on WiiU, so it's support of those features is a moot point to argue.

 

By the way have you seen the changelog between DX10 and 11?  Most of that is pipeline optimizations and workflow efficiency, not a whole lot of new graphical effects, just making things run better on the same hardware.

No. What they said was that all future 4.x updates to Unity would consequently be available on Wii U. Those are two different things.  

 

That's why I was (still am to some point) a little worried about the GPU's efficiency to run more modern multiplatform games (PS4/Next Xbox).

 

If the last 6 years of multiplatform game development is anything to do by, then these games will probably be made from the ground up utilizing DX11 (DX9 was what we saw last-gen) and then ported to other consoles (with their respective API).

 

See, one of the reasons that made multiplatform developers step out of the Wii was that its GPU only supported approximately DX7-level features, and porting a DX9-level game would be either too expensive or it would simply ruin the game's structure. 

[routerbad]

No. What they said was that all future 4.x updates to Unity would consequently be available on Wii U. Those are two different things.  

 

That's why I was (still am to some point) a little worried about the GPU's efficiency to run more modern multiplatform games (PS4/Next Xbox).

 

If the last 6 years of multiplatform game development is anything to do by, then these games will probably be made from the ground up utilizing DX11 (DX9 was what we saw last-gen) and then ported to other consoles (with their respective API).

 

See, one of the reasons that made multiplatform developers step out of the Wii was that its GPU only supported approximately DX7-level features, and porting a DX9-level game would be either too expensive or it would simply ruin the game's structure. 

That wasn't a reason for "stepping out" of the Wii, the platform was hard to make money on, based on sales and the restrictions in place that Nintendo refused to remove that cost money to work with.  It's always all about money.

 

As far as whether WiiU will run "DX11 equivalent" effects, it already is.  NintendoLand shows this, and Unity mentioned during the keynote that Unity4 Pro on WiiU would have feature parity with the PC engine through 4.x updates in the future, in not so many words.  

 

You also have to remember that there aren't that many DX11 specific effects, DX11 was basically DX10 with more efficient subroutines that made development faster and used less hardware resources, making it possible to do more with less.  Very important on PC when they were getting ready to release ARM based devices with DX11 on it.