118 replies to this topic

[Goodtwin]

So its pretty much exactly what I figured they were using the edram for, frame buffers, and as some of you may know, they are a huge bandwidth hog.  This essentially means that the pipeline to the main memory is nearly one way, and has the 12.8GB/s bandwidth for read only.  This makes the latency of the ram more important, because bandwidth is not such an issue with the main memory, the edram is alleviating a ton of the burden thanks to doing the frame buffers there. 

 

Thank goodness for Shin'en, they have been willing to speak out on the Wii U, and how things actually work with the console.  Some people will want to dismiss these guys because they are a small developer, but they are basically 5 guys who are as talented as anyone in the industry.  On a technical level, they are very very good. 

[MorbidGod]

On a related note Nintendo seriously needs to try and Buy these guys. I know they are like an offical unoffical nintendo devs but Nintendo needs to make it offical. At least give them a franchise that they are stuck with(F-Zero) and let them give the fans something new.

I'd play me some F-Zero if they made the game.

[3Dude]

So its pretty much exactly what I figured they were using the edram for, frame buffers, and as some of you may know, they are a huge bandwidth hog.  This essentially means that the pipeline to the main memory is nearly one way, and has the 12.8GB/s bandwidth for read only.  This makes the latency of the ram more important, because bandwidth is not such an issue with the main memory, the edram is alleviating a ton of the burden thanks to doing the frame buffers there. 
 
Thank goodness for Shin'en, they have been willing to speak out on the Wii U, and how things actually work with the console.  Some people will want to dismiss these guys because they are a small developer, but they are basically 5 guys who are as talented as anyone in the industry.  On a technical level, they are very very good.

Shin'en is Abyss.

But yeah, this is basically really exactly what we needed to know, the way the system is set up, the wii u's 'slow' main ram bandwidth is effectively a little more than twice what ps360 could utilize because it has edram psychotic bandwidth with 3x the capacity and half the latency of 360's edram (ps3 gots nothin) doing the frame buffer in a single pass, with a little over half the capacity still left over.... Leaving the main ram.... Completely free, unlike the ps360, which had to sacrifice large chunks of its main rams bandwidth to compensate.

[DexterousGecko]

Shin'en is Abyss.

But yeah, this is basically really exactly what we needed to know, the way the system is set up, the wii u's 'slow' main ram bandwidth is effectively a little more than twice what ps360 could utilize because it has edram psychotic bandwidth with 3x the capacity and half the latency of 360's edram (ps3 gots nothin) doing the frame buffer in a single pass, with a little over half the capacity still left over.... Leaving the main ram.... Completely free, unlike the ps360, which had to sacrifice large chunks of its main rams bandwidth to compensate.

Question then, what difference does that make in practice with a game? No sarcasm, I'm honestly curious.

[3Dude]

Question then, what difference does that make in practice with a game? No sarcasm, I'm honestly curious.

More unique textures, more texture layers, higher res textures, better aa better af, more unique assets simultaneously larger faster cpu scratch pad, more simultaneous unique ai routines, bigger areas farther draw distance. More post op effects. a lot more.

Basically the stuff X and bayo 2 are doing that the ps360 simply cant.

And those are just scratching the surface.

Go look at the original condemned, a game universally appluaded for its visuals. It was just scratching the surface, look at the last of us.

Its going to be all right.

[Socalmuscle]

On a related note Nintendo seriously needs to try and Buy these guys. I know they are like an offical unoffical nintendo devs but Nintendo needs to make it offical. At least give them a franchise that they are stuck with(F-Zero) and let them give the fans something new.

 

 

On a related note Nintendo seriously needs to try and Buy these guys. I know they are like an offical unoffical nintendo devs but Nintendo needs to make it offical. At least give them a franchise that they are stuck with(F-Zero) and let them give the fans something new.

 

Actually, F-Zero would be right up their alley.  and with more resources from Nintendo, it would be insane. I can't see them adding too much in the way of staff, but in terms of time and money, I can see them running with much bigger things.

[DexterousGecko]

More unique textures, more texture layers, higher res textures, better aa better af, more unique assets simultaneously larger faster cpu scratch pad, more simultaneous unique ai routines, bigger areas farther draw distance. More post op effects. a lot more.

Basically the stuff X and bayo 2 are doing that the ps360 simply cant.

And those are just scratching the surface.

Go look at the original condemned, a game universally appluaded for its visuals. It was just scratching the surface, look at the last of us.

Its going to be all right.

I'm getting excited about X, i have to admit that looks better than anything I have on ps3. I didn't realize it at first because I've been pc gaming recently, but I went back to the ps3, and yah, something about rose tinted glasses and all that.

 

How effectively can the Wii U push up the fps? like is 60 going to be possible for skyrim style of games?

[3Dude]

I'm getting excited about X, i have to admit that looks better than anything I have on ps3. I didn't realize it at first because I've been pc gaming recently, but I went back to the ps3, and yah, something about rose tinted glasses and all that.
 
How effectively can the Wii U push up the fps? like is 60 going to be possible for skyrim style of games?

I dont know. Depends on how much of a balance the dev wants to strike between visual fidelity and fps. Nintendos typically surprisingly good with getting both.

I wouldnt imagine monolith soft is concerned with 60 fps, as its not a game thats gameplay would benifit from the extra responsiveness of double the refresh rate, and its gameplay mechanic of discovery would benefit much more from putting those resources into more complex features/geometry to explore in creative ways.

[DexterousGecko]

I dont know. Depends on how much of a balance the dev wants to strike between visual fidelity and fps. Nintendos typically surprisingly good with getting both.

I wouldnt imagine monolith soft is concerned with 60 fps, as its not a game thats gameplay would benifit from the extra responsiveness of double the refresh rate, and its gameplay mechanic of discovery would benefit much more from putting those resources into more complex features/geometry to explore in creative ways.

I guess it's too much to hope that consoles are going to be able to even come close to high end pc's. Thanks for the info. I'll still be getting X either way.

[3Dude]

I guess it's too much to hope that consoles are going to be able to even come close to high end pc's. Thanks for the info. I'll still be getting X either way.

Not remotely close. Less so with every passing day.

Though I do think it will matter less. The law of diminishing returns doesnt just work in favour of wii u to ps4/xbone. It will lessen the effects of what all that extra power can distingushably do over xbone and ps4....,(and then theres the fact pc's will be held back by having ps4bone being the lead sku).

The machines are, all around so powerful that the most impressive games may come down to art talent and hr size, rather than raw power.

[cupoftea]

DexterousGecko, on 19 Jul 2013 - 06:48 AM, said:Was the gamecube more powerful than the ps2? I can't remember...


vastly so MASSIVLY SO it wasnt just power it was way way better hardware

it was massivly more efficient too

1024x600p with2x AA = 10MB Wii u has 32mb edram plus more edram and sram on the gpu its huge 35mb total

1080p can be just about done in 16mb of edram wiiu has 32mb its also confirmed this catch can feed the cpu witch has 3mb edram of its own

32mb per frame vs 10mb no contest

x360 total fast ram 11mb cpu-gpu

wiiu total fast ram 38mb cpu-gpu

[DexterousGecko]

Not remotely close. Less so with every passing day.

Though I do think it will matter less. The law of diminishing returns doesnt just work in favour of wii u to ps4/xbone. It will lessen the effects of what all that extra power can distingushably do over xbone and ps4....,(and then theres the fact pc's will be held back by having ps4bone being the lead sku).

The machines are, all around so powerful that the most impressive games may come down to art talent and hr size, rather than raw power.

Well, maybe that means they'll actually have to start getting creative with ideas, indie devs will have more even footing, and interesting games will start coming out more. I'm all for that. Although this whole new voxel art thing I'm not 100 percent sold on.

[SoldMyWiiUAndLeftTheForums]

Finally, well this is awesome news, c'mon Wii U!

[Arkhandar]

Even if the main RAM is completely free, doesn't it leave like only 400 MB @ 30fps or 200 MB @ 60 fps of data available per frame (which is the case of Mario Kart 8) ?

Edited by Arkhandar, 20 July 2013 - 09:18 AM.

[3Dude]

Even if the main RAM is completely free, doesn't it leave like only 400 MB @ 30fps or 200 MB @ 60 fps of data available per frame (which is the case of Mario Kart 8) ?

12.8/30 or 60 would get you around the numbers you specified.

Kind of. Though its not nearly as bad as it sounds. Its not like it only has only 200Mb available per frame, thats just how much can be transferred from the 1Gb holding pool per frame... And, its more than ps360 got, as their main mem bandwidth was destroyed by having to compensate the frame buffers and other bandwidth hogs via main mem bandwidth. Its why screen tearing was so horrible on those systems.

However, the most repeatedly used textures, will be kept in the leftover room of the edram, with a bandwidth in the triple digits, so even the heaviest hitting bandwidth hogs of texture assets are removed from clogging that bandwidth.

[Arkhandar]

3Dude, on 21 Jul 2013 - 07:01 AM, said:12.8/30 or 60 would get you around the numbers you specified.

Kind of. Though its not nearly as bad as it sounds. Its not like it only has only 200Mb available per frame, thats just how much can be transferred from the 1Gb holding pool per frame... And, its more than ps360 got, as their main mem bandwidth was destroyed by having to compensate the frame buffers and other bandwidth hogs via main mem bandwidth. Its why screen tearing was so horrible on those systems.

However, the most repeatedly used textures, will be kept in the leftover room of the edram, with a bandwidth in the triple digits, so even the heaviest hitting bandwidth hogs of texture assets are removed from clogging that bandwidth.


Yeah, I know it's not really that bad, especially considering the fact that most game will have V-Sync enabled which is a big plus to me xD And no point in having much more bandwidth than that since the GPU can only handle so much. It's a nice balance system, and lantency is much more important in this case.

Edited by Arkhandar, 21 July 2013 - 07:58 AM.

[cupoftea]

WIIU IS THE LOWEST LATENCY GAMING DEVICE EVER MADE even beating gamecube and wii

 

FACT AMD APU's are very high latency and ram bottle necking

 

IBM POWER MCM is very low latency and free of bottlenecks BIG HUGE PHAT DIFFERANCE IN DESIGN STANDARDS

 

wiiu has a custom from scratch video gaming game centric MCM /////ps4 and xbone have hacked APUs based on VERY SLOW NON GAMING SYSTEM ON CHIPS *fact*

 

 

look at ps4s hacked memory system its insulting

 

slowest latency ram they could have chose,,no edram or custom fast ram catches of any kind,,bottlenecked high latency bus system and a cpu bus that gpu data has to share and ether go thru cpu catch or thu a slow by-pass ITS A HACK JOB PURE AND SIMPLE

 

ITS CHEAP SONY DID IT """ON THE CHEAP"""

GFLOPS YOU SAY SONY HHHHHHHHMMMmmmmmmmm!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

SIMPLE TRUTH ""YOU CANNOT PROCESS WHAT ISNT THERE """"

 

WIIU MCM CATCH LIKE LATENCY VS AMD SOC APU OUTRAGOUS LATENCY

 

WIIU DDR3 WITH CUSTOM PRE FETCH = LOW LATENCY VS PS4 GDDR5 WITCH IS EXTREAMLY HIGH LATENCY

 

wiiu edram and sram multipul catches and confirmed cpu access to gpu edram = CATCH LIKE LATENCY vs ps4s read and write out to main ram for EVERYTHING high latency

 

this is so simple sony are lying thru there teeth high latency apu high latency bus and high latency ram and tiny catches !!!!!!!!

 

wiiu low latency ram low latency catches low latency mcm and low latency scratch pad edram for both cpu and gpu

 

 

 

SUB 5NS LATENCY vs 200NS LATENCY =40 x faster for wiiu MCM SPEEDS

 

sub 20ns latency ddr3 with custom pre fetch wiiu vs 200ns gddr5 ps4

 

simple truth

Edited by cupoftea, 21 July 2013 - 10:36 PM.

[wombateer]

I know this might sound a real dumb question, I'm not a tech junkie at all, but with all these numbers being thrown around, what happens when Nintendo come along and refine the OS, and possibly unlock another 500 meg of RAM. Will developers need to re-write/patch software for that change? Do gaming engines like, re-calculate, automatically for more resources?   

[cupoftea]

Even if the main RAM is completely free, doesn't it leave like only 400 MB @ 30fps or 200 MB @ 60 fps of data available per frame (which is the case of Mario Kart 8) ?

no because again your ignoring the facts ITS ALL ON MCM THE MAIN  RAM ISNT USED AS YOUR THINKING

 

its used a s a feeder not a MAIN RAM your rendering etc is ON CHIP as long as you have space to catch disc/drive data into thats all you need

 

devs have already stated wiiu ram is kinda unlimited in that regards YOUR STREAMING IN not main ram processing at all

I know this might sound a real dumb question, I'm not a tech junkie at all, but with all these numbers being thrown around, what happens when Nintendo come along and refine the OS, and possibly unlock another 500 meg of RAM. Will developers need to re-write/patch software for that change? Do gaming engines like, re-calculate, automatically for more resources?   

no because each game works withion its own standards any re formating of os is auto matic etc

 

so lets say nintendo says in a direct we have found 10% more processing power for devs to use and have unlocked 512mb of extrra ram its up to devs if they want to use it

 

it has no bearing on us playing those games they simply just work

Edited by cupoftea, 21 July 2013 - 10:58 PM.

[Mewbot]

I know this might sound a real dumb question, I'm not a tech junkie at all, but with all these numbers being thrown around, what happens when Nintendo come along and refine the OS, and possibly unlock another 500 meg of RAM. Will developers need to re-write/patch software for that change? Do gaming engines like, re-calculate, automatically for more resources?   

The games won't automatically change for more resources (unless the dev designed it like that, but they don't).

 

You might get a dev putting out an update for the game that makes it use the full RAM available, but it will never "re-calculate" automatically.