60 replies to this topic

[grahamf]

I think the carts ended up holding up to 32MB. In the early days might have been more 8-16. Earthbound was 24 and Super Mario RPG claimed to use a 32MB cart. So they could have used more even early on.

It's the reason why almost all SNES games used MIDI even though the SNES had a decent audio chip.

 

On the bright side it meant Nintendo got into the habit of scripted cutscenes instead of disappointing videos (what the game could've looked like if the hardware supported it)

[3Dude]

Ryudo, on 01 Jan 2014 - 02:24 AM, said:
I think the carts ended up holding up to 32MB. In the early days might have been more 8-16. Earthbound was 24 and Super Mario RPG claimed to use a 32MB cart. So they could have used more even early on.

Not MB Mb, as in not Megabytes but megabits, divide megabits by 8 to get the megabytes. A 32 Megabit cart was 4 Megabytes.

And while edram CAN go as high as the guy in the video is saying, that doesnt mean it is. In order to get bandwidth like that, you would need to have each cell bussed pretty high. We have the chip die shot, and while Im not going to destroy my eyes trying to count the pins for the bus on the edram blocks, It looks pretty clear that there arent enough individually bussed blocks of edram to reach that bandwidth unless you had a pretty.... ridiculously wide bus on each block.

I remember holding out hope on the main ram, because you just couldnt see how it was split up in that casing, but we contacted the manufacturer and they made absolutely sure there was no doubt... But here, that just doesnt seem necessary, its not covered, and we can actually see how the ram is organized. And it just doesnt look like its in the cards for a riduculous high bandwidth like that.

[JoshZebra]

Just going to toss out the fact that Nintendo has always been good with compression of their games. Example Wii Game data size uncompressed for say Smash Brawl was about 7 gig Compressed was about 3gb 3.5gb (been a while since I messed with it). I will agree that Nintendo is good at saving space since they never go with the cutting edge in lieu of game innovation as far as one function or another, at least with the Wii and Wii U.Not sure why you single out the Kinect as the reason it doesn't run games in native 1080p. The function of it should have no play in the way most games run. I could see this being argued if the game had heavy integration and use of the sensors input for game play display rendering it could limit the game output but for games such as COD where it has none that I know of it shouldn’t be an issue at all. But who knows how its coded in the OS, for all I know the thing is on all the time for whatever reason.

 

 

 

As far as power of the Wii U its not really a debate when you get down to the numbers, its slower than both the XB One and PS4 by a fair margin. Its GPU is about 300Mhz slower than the Xb One or PS4s GPU's.

 

As for CPU playing a part in graphics these days your info might be a bit out of date. With the intro of coding for the GPU directly with things like CUDA and other GPU languages the GFX really do come down to GPU speed. The CPU is going to carry the system when it comes down to physics calculations and that group of functions but for shinny its 90% GPU.

The kinect is integrated into the OS and is on at all times.  And I said the processor speed isn't the sole reason of how good the graphics are, thou it plays a big part.  While most meshs are pre loaded in and stored in the VRAM, a lot of how much is on screen at once comes down to processing power and loading how much these new games do at 1080p is a big ask especially when the kinect is taking up ram even when it is not used and also that the Xbox system is more of a multitasking system whereas the PS4 is more game focused.  However neither is a negative. 

 

As for the Wii U, it is slow compared to its rivals but that doesn't mean it isn't powerful.  As long as it can keep up with new releases it will be fine.  I really fail to see why technical specs these days has become such a big thing.  Software makes the system and Nintendo have never been short of good software.

[Goodtwin]

The edram is currenty estimated to be either 35 GB/s or 70GB/s.  Im guessing 70GB/s because that would be in line with how they are using it.  Its enough for the frame buffer/z-buffer to never saturate bandwidth requirements, making bandwidth a non issue for the gpu.  This allows the main memory to act as a read only memory for the most part, meaning the 12.8GB/s to the DDR3 can be used for textures and assetts without sharing bandwidth with Z-buffer calls.  Whatever the real numbers are, it does not appear that the gpu is bandwidth starved.

[3Dude]

Just going to toss out the fact that Nintendo has always been good with compression of their games. Example Wii Game data size uncompressed for say Smash Brawl was about 7 gig Compressed was about 3gb 3.5gb (been a while since I messed with it). I will agree that Nintendo is good at saving space since they never go with the cutting edge in lieu of game innovation as far as one function or another, at least with the Wii and Wii U.Not sure why you single out the Kinect as the reason it doesn't run games in native 1080p. The function of it should have no play in the way most games run. I could see this being argued if the game had heavy integration and use of the sensors input for game play display rendering it could limit the game output but for games such as COD where it has none that I know of it shouldn’t be an issue at all. But who knows how its coded in the OS, for all I know the thing is on all the time for whatever reason.
 
 
 
As far as power of the Wii U its not really a debate when you get down to the numbers, its slower than both the XB One and PS4 by a fair margin. Its GPU is about 300Mhz slower than the Xb One or PS4s GPU's.
 
As for CPU playing a part in graphics these days your info might be a bit out of date. With the intro of coding for the GPU directly with things like CUDA and other GPU languages the GFX really do come down to GPU speed. The CPU is going to carry the system when it comes down to physics calculations and that group of functions but for shinny its 90% GPU.
 
 
For whom ever is attacking the guy that said his buddy was in the dev side and said it was PS4 then Wii U then Xb one as far as raw numbers goes it might not play this way. I have no access to a Wii U/PS4/XB One dev kit so I can't say for sure but if he does have that buddy I would have to guess he is taking into account the Multi-Tasking the XB One is doing. With the amount of background tasks that Microsoft has said without accounting for the OS or other tasks this line up could very well be true when it comes down to how much of the system you can use on running games.
 
On the other hand I want to say like most people here the Wii U will fall behind as the other two systems get bugs worked out and optimize the OS.
 
But I guess I should ramble my way back to the topic of the thread, the power of the Wii U. I feel the real power of the system is not in the spec speeds of the system but in the way they will get used. Unlike Sony or Microsoft devs it seems that big guns for Nintendo take the time to utilize every flop of the GPU/CPU, rendering and compressing textures and skins to save on GPU stress and focus on the game not the bells and whistles such as in game DVR function, overly social integration (lets be honest Facebook/Twitter/whatever doesn't need to know you just beat a lvl on a game or unlocked something every 10 min) and online function that's only there to help sell DLC.
 
When fighting of what it can and can't do remember it all comes down to clean coding by the dev and optimization!
 
 
Some qucik reading for XB one and PS4 specs
http://www.extremete...u-and-gpu-specs
http://www.techpower...ox-one-gpu.html
http://www.techpower...ystation-4.html
 
Wii U specs
http://www.techpower.../wii-u-gpu.html
http://www.ign.com/a...tails-uncovered

Wii u clearly doesnt use CUDA. But I have seen a few things. I know the wii u has 3 shader variaties, vertex and pixel of course, and then geometry. Geometry shaders are far more advanced than anything ps360 has... And can actually be used fairly flexibly for compute.... But are a bit dated compared to actual compute shaders.

Geometry shaders can indeed be used for their namesake. In fact they are particularly good at polygon subdivision (tesselation)... However, with how much the wii u has dedicated to them, using them for the whole geometry show would be a really bad idea. The large bulk of wii u's geometry should still come from the cpu.

What the gpu can do from there is further sub divide those raw cpu made polygons, smart use of this is going to be pretty key. Adaptive tesselation is a DUMB use of ANY manner of tesselation, and the fact its somehow become synonymous with tesselation itself irritates me to no end.

As for ps4xbone being pretty wasteful, I have to agree... On the cpu end. Those netbook cores arent that great to begin with, rely exceedingly heavily on concurency... When not all things (particularly things that show up pretty often in gaming) can actually benefit from paralellization, actually have at least 1 core taken away for non gaming smut... The only thing they have going for them over that roided out tricore 750 is an actual simd engine... And im becoming less and less convinced theres a huge difference their core vs core.Whatever floating point enhancements nintendo made to the 750 for the cube, and evolved into whats on those espresso cores seems to be taking care of business just fine.

It can run bink 2, which is, as advertised on the rad tools website, 85% SIMD, at full 1080p resolution. Whatever they did to that fpu is taking care of business just fine.

GPU end though, Its pretty overpowered by xboneps4, those gcn cores are not only greatly outnumbering the wii u's units, they are considerably more effecient than the vliw5 nintendo is using.... Unless nintendo has created a custom system for swapping under utilized/waiting on dependencies vliw loads that the worlds never seen.

And putting the entire system on a single peice of silicons makes for some nice effeciency as well.

[snipethewolf]

Wii u clearly doesnt use CUDA. But I have seen a few things. I know the wii u has 3 shader variaties, vertex and pixel of course, and then geometry. Geometry shaders are far more advanced than anything ps360 has... And can actually be used fairly flexibly for compute.... But are a bit dated compared to actual compute shaders.

Geometry shaders can indeed be used for their namesake. In fact they are particularly good at polygon subdivision (tesselation)... However, with how much the wii u has dedicated to them, using them for the whole geometry show would be a really bad idea. The large bulk of wii u's geometry should still come from the cpu.

What the gpu can do from there is further sub divide those raw cpu made polygons, smart use of this is going to be pretty key. Adaptive tesselation is a DUMB use of ANY manner of tesselation, and the fact its somehow become synonymous with tesselation itself irritates me to no end.

As for ps4xbone being pretty wasteful, I have to agree... On the cpu end. Those netbook cores arent that great to begin with, rely exceedingly heavily on concurency... When not all things (particularly things that show up pretty often in gaming) can actually benefit from paralellization, actually have at least 1 core taken away for non gaming smut... The only thing they have going for them over that roided out tricore 750 is an actual simd engine... And im becoming less and less convinced theres a huge difference their core vs core.Whatever floating point enhancements nintendo made to the 750 for the cube, and evolved into whats on those espresso cores seems to be taking care of business just fine.

It can run bink 2, which is, as advertised on the rad tools website, 85% SIMD, at full 1080p resolution. Whatever they did to that fpu is taking care of business just fine.

GPU end though, Its pretty overpowered by xboneps4, those gcn cores are not only greatly outnumbering the wii u's units, they are considerably more effecient than the vliw5 nintendo is using.... Unless nintendo has created a custom system for swapping under utilized/waiting on dependencies vliw loads that the worlds never seen.

And putting the entire system on a single peice of silicons makes for some nice effeciency as well.

 

I was just trying to say that I hope Nintendo has moved in a direction that allows them to utilize new techniques in utilizing GPU’s that have now become common in gaming. Such as using CUDA to program directly for the GPU vs having to pass all the code form the OS to the GPU.

 

 

I totally agree that it comes down to software or just hardware in making a successful system. Dreamcast how I wish you were here still…

 

 

I will bow out of this conversation since it seems your going a little too much into the nuts and bolts of GPU/GFX tech then my limited knowable. I will leave with just saying lets cross our fingers that Nintendo starts releasing big 1^st party titles and not just dolling them one little by little.

[3Dude]

I was just trying to say that I hope Nintendo has moved in a direction that allows them to utilize new techniques in utilizing GPU’s that have now become common in gaming. Such as using CUDA to program directly for the GPU vs having to pass all the code form the OS to the GPU.
 
 
I totally agree that it comes down to software or just hardware in making a successful system. Dreamcast how I wish you were here still…
 
 
I will bow out of this conversation since it seems your going a little too much into the nuts and bolts of GPU/GFX tech then my limited knowable. I will leave with just saying lets cross our fingers that Nintendo starts releasing big 1^st party titles and not just dolling them one little by little.

Well, the reason I specifically stated not using cuda is because cuda is nvidia, and nintendo is using amd/ati.

[snipethewolf]

I know I know, I should have made it clear it was just an example I haven't looked into if ATI/AMD has come out with something similar or else I would have said it. I've been kind of an Nvidia fan boy for some time and honeslty haven't watched the direction that ATI/AMD has been moving in, I know I should since they get a better bang for the buck but what can I say.

[Nintyfan86]

What confuses me to this day is the quality of 360/PS3 ports. If, at launch, those games were running on one core (or was in 2?), in a rushed and non-optimized environment, and now we are seeing the same type of issues?

 

This is a confusing way of expressing it, but I would presume the developers now have all resources open to them, more than twice the ram, 3x the edram, a modern gpu with more power, but the games are not showing this versus their counterparts. 

 

I realize this is not as simple as moving a game from your Steam library to a PC with different specs. However, is it really this difficult to put out a better product when it is compared side to side with a weaker system's version? It does not make sense, sending an inferior product out to die like this (no advertising, worst port), when they could promote their other versions or put the funds toward making products that will sell. 

[grahamf]

What confuses me to this day is the quality of 360/PS3 ports. If, at launch, those games were running on one core (or was in 2?), in a rushed and non-optimized environment, and now we are seeing the same type of issues?

 

This is a confusing way of expressing it, but I would presume the developers now have all resources open to them, more than twice the ram, 3x the edram, a modern gpu with more power, but the games are not showing this versus their counterparts. 

 

I realize this is not as simple as moving a game from your Steam library to a PC with different specs. However, is it really this difficult to put out a better product when it is compared side to side with a weaker system's version? It does not make sense, sending an inferior product out to die like this (no advertising, worst port), when they could promote their other versions or put the funds toward making products that will sell. 

IIRC there's a critical component on the Wii U that's asynchronous while crappy ports are synchronous, causing a bottleneck.

[3Dude]

What confuses me to this day is the quality of 360/PS3 ports. If, at launch, those games were running on one core (or was in 2?), in a rushed and non-optimized environment, and now we are seeing the same type of issues?
 
This is a confusing way of expressing it, but I would presume the developers now have all resources open to them, more than twice the ram, 3x the edram, a modern gpu with more power, but the games are not showing this versus their counterparts. 
 
I realize this is not as simple as moving a game from your Steam library to a PC with different specs. However, is it really this difficult to put out a better product when it is compared side to side with a weaker system's version? It does not make sense, sending an inferior product out to die like this (no advertising, worst port), when they could promote their other versions or put the funds toward making products that will sell.

It is when your port team consists of like 5 people who spent 5 months on the port.

[Nollog]

 I do have that buddy he is working on Treachery in Beatdown City for Vita ATM and another title in the planning stages I am contributing to(not working on..no just small input on some story bits..very small input) I did say later tho I overstated and was my fault what he said. It was not like he knows it to be true was just his opinion and like a b-hole everyone has one.

 

This will maybe come across as boasting but also have a friend who works at Mad Otter. Before that he was IT for many years. I will  not claim this is fact..and I know this is he said she said thing. I ran that video of the trucker

this one. He said what he says makes mostly sense. That's no confirmation. Just another opinion. I wish i knew this stuff myself so I did not have to rely on others and relay stuff as it comes off as a goof and a bit of a tw*t on my part. Which is not my intention.

 

http://fast.shinen.com/neo/

RISC isn't about memory footprint, CISC (x86 is one) isn't about draining memory, it's like that on PC because of Windows only really.

ppc is better than x86 for consoles, but because of the rainbow x86 has dragged along since 1970 a lot of which is absolutely useless, and serves only to clutter the instruction set, and drain power form things like cache, which was designed to cover for some of those shortcomings.

[Goodtwin]

With all these critics that use the lack luster ports as proof that the Wii U is a total dog, most of them believing that its actually less capable than the PS3 and 360, I would say to them, do you honestly believe if Bayonetta 2 were to be ported to the 360 and PS3 by an outsourced developer with a limited amount of time that the results would be great?  Anytime you have some serious fundamental differences, and software that is optimized for the strengths of one piece of hardware while avoiding the weaknesses, that may not transition very well to another piece of hardware, even if that hardware a bit more capable overall.  Imagine if the a game were developed for Wii U that really leaned heavily on the edram.  Im talking serious optimization to make the most of it.  The games fundamental foundation is built around it.  Now try and port that game to the PS3 and 360 in 6 months and let me know how it goes.  Would that make the Wii U significantly more powerful than the 360 and PS3?  No, of course not, but it goes the other way as well.  There are some serious fundamental differences, and its hard to leverage software designed around the strengths of another console. 

[Nintyfan86]

It is when your port team consists of like 5 people who spent 5 months on the port.

That is the thing. Short term, you can generate an ROI by dumping a small investment into these games and putting them out there. Long term, the core audience will be somewhere else. Meanwhile, Nintendo's audience, which may not be exactly the same as the other platforms', is not growing in the way of interest for your products (forget about the quality of the product and look at the lack of advertising as a prime example).

 

My overall business philosophy coincides with common sense-do not waste resources unless you intend for something of value to occur.

 

With the Wii U, these third parties put their stuff out there at launch, and then gave up. Almost as if they expected an overnight turnaround for these genres on the platform. I am not sure Nintendo did their best to work with third parties, but the initial effort, from the outset, would have been a long term investment for publishers.  

 

This line of reasoning is why their overall about face makes so little sense to me, and why we have 5 man port teams in the first place. 

[Poptartboy]

That is the thing. Short term, you can generate an ROI by dumping a small investment into these games and putting them out there. Long term, the core audience will be somewhere else. Meanwhile, Nintendo's audience, which may not be exactly the same as the other platforms', is not growing in the way of interest for your products (forget about the quality of the product and look at the lack of advertising as a prime example).

My overall business philosophy coincides with common sense-do not waste resources unless you intend for something of value to occur.

With the Wii U, these third parties put their stuff out there at launch, and then gave up. Almost as if they expected an overnight turnaround for these genres on the platform. I am not sure Nintendo did their best to work with third parties, but the initial effort, from the outset, would have been a long term investment for publishers.

This line of reasoning is why their overall about face makes so little sense to me, and why we have 5 man port teams in the first place.

Yeah absolutely right in my opinion.

I mean how ridiculous of EA to think they can put out 2 half arsed sports titles, the 3rd game in a trilogy, and a 5 month late racing game and expected those to have sold well.

To me if 3rd parties had put in real effort as promised I think the games and the system would be selling much better, and ultimately would have given these companies more opportunities to sell games.

The more consoles out there, the more people there are to buy your product.

[Nintyfan86]

Yeah absolutely right in my opinion.

I mean how ridiculous of EA to think they can put out 2 half arsed sports titles, the 3rd game in a trilogy, and a 5 month late racing game and expected those to have sold well.

To me if 3rd parties had put in real effort as promised I think the games and the system would be selling much better, and ultimately would have given these companies more opportunities to sell games.

The more consoles out there, the more people there are to buy your product.

I appreciate your response. The comment in bold really hits home. If we consider EA, the full priced ME3, at a time when others were getting the trilogy, and the sports examples make you wonder who, exactly, is running a company like that. NFS was a great port in many respects, but, again, it was late. No Crysis 3 (even though this one was in development) and Madden was interesting to say the least. 

 

How about not releasing DLC? Third parties seem to think of Nintendo's platforms as a vacuum, and in this vacuum, no one has other systems or internet access. I cannot blame them, because Nintendo seems to do the same sometimes with respect to every territory that is not Japan. 

 

Ubisoft seemed to try, yet they pulled back after AC3. I presume this title did not do so well. 

 

There are other factors, but generally, Nintendo has to be the catalyst to set out with a vision that allows third parties to be a part of it. Right now, it seems like they are inadvertently giving third parties the chance to bring quality ports over (My position is a cheaper console will generally be the entry point for the market, and many will wait on the other machines provided they can get the similar experience, or rather, wait for MS and Sony's heavy hitters and get a Wii U now along with software).

 

Unless I am missing something, the industry, and Nintendo, missed a large opportunity to make money over the past year. 

[3Dude]

Nintyfan86, on 03 Jan 2014 - 1:12 PM, said:
That is the thing. Short term, you can generate an ROI by dumping a small investment into these games and putting them out there. Long term, the core audience will be somewhere else. Meanwhile, Nintendo's audience, which may not be exactly the same as the other platforms', is not growing in the way of interest for your products (forget about the quality of the product and look at the lack of advertising as a prime example).

My overall business philosophy coincides with common sense-do not waste resources unless you intend for something of value to occur.

With the Wii U, these third parties put their stuff out there at launch, and then gave up. Almost as if they expected an overnight turnaround for these genres on the platform. I am not sure Nintendo did their best to work with third parties, but the initial effort, from the outset, would have been a long term investment for publishers.

This line of reasoning is why their overall about face makes so little sense to me, and why we have 5 man port teams in the first place.

Heres your problem. You are thinking like someone who wants their company/studio to grow organically and compete by making great products that people want to buy and become loyal to because of their high quality.... And you assume the same about publishers like EA.

That is exactly the kind of thing these studios you are talking about have spent the past 7-8 years doing everything in their power to kill. That is what AAA gaming is all about, destroying this kind of game making philosophy, and wiping its memory from the minds of anyone left playing games.

EA doesnt make any money like an actual game studio does, EA has no organic growth, EA's profit all comes from aquisitions, and the consequent liquidations.

Why do you think EA has more kills than a serial killer? EA hasnt been able to make a truly great game to save their lives since the late 80's/early 90's. Thats why their yearly advertising budget is sitting around A BILLION DOLLARS. EA stays in business by getting rid of the competition, buying them, gutting them, and making sure the talent that leaves cant compete in the arms race for mainstream gaming anymore by moving the goalposts WAAAAAAAYYYYYY out of reach of studios that want/can only make good games without silly pony expendatures in top notch voice acting and ridiculous cinematics.

Lets take a look at EA's Kill count.

1987 Batteries Included† hardware and software developer (responsible one of the first word processor applications actually)

July 1, 1991 Distinctive Software Inc. Video game developer (Afterburner, altered beast, metal gear nes...)

September 21, 1992 Origin Systems (**** you EA, **** you. Ultima father of ALL RPG's, final fantasy, dragon quest, they all mimmicked ultima to begin with, wing commander, the REAL shock series, god dammnit ea, burn in hell.)

November 14, 1994 DROsoft Software distributor (bought out and destroyed to remove competition for software distribution in Spain)

February 6, 1995 Bullfrog Productions (**** you again EA, populous, syndicate, dungeon keeper)

March 8, 1995 Kingsoft GmbH Software distributor (Bought out and destroyed by EA to remove competition for software distribution to Germany)

January 29, 1996 Manley & Associates Video game developer (used to make some of the actually GOOD licensed games for nes/snes)

June 4, 1997 Maxis Video game developer and publisher (Screw you sideways EA, Sim city, the sims, back when they were good, aka pre ea)

April 2, 1998 Tiburon Entertainment Video game developer (used to make awesome sports games, now churns out crap like madden yearly updates)
April 8, 1998 Vision Software Software distributor (Bought and destroyed to remove competition from distributing software to africa)

July 28, 1998 ABC Software Software distributor (Bought and destroyed by EA to remove competition from distributing software to Switzerland and Austria)

August 17, 1998 Westwood Studios; other studios of Virgin Interactive Entertainment Computer and video game developers (Die in fire EA, amazing studio, probably best known for command and conquer. You know, before EA turned it to crap.)

September 8, 1999 PlayNation Developer of online entertainment USA — PlayNation (cool online tech company. They dont do anything cool anymore)

November 22, 1999 Kesmai Video game developer and online game publisher (pioneers of massively multiplayer online gaming, air warrior and legends of kesmai to name a couple)

February 24, 2000 DreamWorks Interactive Video game developer (formerly danger close, best known for the medal of honor series, you know, before EA made it go completely to crap.)

February 28, 2001 pogo.com Family games website USA — pogo.com [30] (Because EA needs to be able to crap on every aspect of gaming)

June 11, 2002 Black Box Games Sports and racing video game developer (Need for speed, you know, before EA made it go to crap)

October 16, 2003 Studio 33 Racing video game developer (once part of the amazing psygnosis, known for awesomeness like wipe out, before Sony bought psygnosis, and EA raped the leftovers)

February 13, 2004 NuFX Sports video game developer (NBA street series... Before EA tunred it into crap)


July 28, 2004 Criterion Software Video game developer (This is a fresh one EA just finished completely killing, raping and skinning, and now has a completely new studio wearing the skinned carcass of the criterion name, as the heads of the real studio fled EA to bank upon the newfound feasibility of crowd funding, known for burnout, before, yeah, EA made it go to crap)

July 27, 2005 Hypnotix Video game developer (made all kinds of whacky zany unique games, like deer avenger... youre the DEER hunter, hunting rednecks, you know, until ea turned them into a crap factory forced to churn out yearly updates and other mind numbing content)


December 8, 2005 JAMDAT Mobile Mobile entertainment developer (Because ea NEEDS to be able to crap on anyone who plays games on anything)

July 20, 2006 Mythic Entertainment Computer game developer (great RPG studio, dragons gate, tempest, Rolemaster, you know, until ea turned them to crap) Might as well throw bioware in here as well, as after EA was done murdering/raping these two they threw the remains in the wood chipper together. Hope you enjoyed that mass effect 3 ending, EA gives you their regaurds, via crapping in their hands and smearing it in your face of course.

August 23, 2006 Phenomic Game Development Real-time strategy game developer GER — became EA Phenomic

October 2, 2006 Digital Illusions CE (DICE) Video game developer SWE (Formerly the demo scene masters FUTURE CREW!!!!! Screw you EA, most famous for battlefield, which has gone straight down the crapper since EA's aquisition, to the glitchy, unplayable garbage mess of a game battlefield 4, that is getting EA sued by its investors for releasing a product so broken they feel its making them look bad. FINALLY!!!! I cant think of anyone worthwhile from future crew who still remains with DICE.)

Eh... One more...


July 12, 2011 PopCap Games Mobile video game developer and publisher (Whats that? you liked peggle? Thats too bad, EA is already doing everything in their power to turn it to crap, along with everything else great these guys have or would have done.)



Now, do you think publishers like EA give a crap about developing brand loyalty by delivering high quality products? Nope, they just throw a billion dollars in advertising at people and get multi millions of people to BUY GAMES THAT DONT EVEN WORK, and completely overshadow other studios work because of the reputation the raped skinned carcass they are parading around on a stick used to have, and the massive advertising budget they throw all over the place. And then make money by aquisitions, which also has the benefit of making sure there is are less around to make a better competing product.

They dont care.

[Nintyfan86]

Heres your problem. You are thinking like someone who wants their company/studio to grow organically and compete by making great products that people want to buy and become loyal to because of their high quality.... And you assume the same about publishers like EA.

That is exactly the kind of thing these studios you are talking about have spent the past 7-8 years doing everything in their power to kill. That is what AAA gaming is all about, destroying this kind of game making philosophy, and wiping its memory from the minds of anyone left playing games.

EA doesnt make any money like an actual game studio does, EA has no organic growth, EA's profit all comes from aquisitions, and the consequent liquidations.

Why do you think EA has more kills than a serial killer? EA hasnt been able to make a truly great game to save their lives since the late 80's/early 90's. Thats why their yearly advertising budget is sitting around A BILLION DOLLARS. EA stays in business by getting rid of the competition, buying them, gutting them, and making sure the talent that leaves cant compete in the arms race for mainstream gaming anymore by moving the goalposts WAAAAAAAYYYYYY out of reach of studios that want/can only make good games without silly pony expendatures in top notch voice acting and ridiculous cinematics.

Lets take a look at EA's Kill count.

1987 Batteries Included† hardware and software developer (responsible one of the first word processor applications actually)

July 1, 1991 Distinctive Software Inc. Video game developer (Afterburner, altered beast, metal gear nes...)

September 21, 1992 Origin Systems (**** you EA, **** you. Ultima father of ALL RPG's, final fantasy, dragon quest, they all mimmicked ultima to begin with, wing commander, the REAL shock series, god dammnit ea, burn in hell.)

November 14, 1994 DROsoft Software distributor (bought out and destroyed to remove competition for software distribution in Spain)

February 6, 1995 Bullfrog Productions (**** you again EA, populous, syndicate, dungeon keeper)

March 8, 1995 Kingsoft GmbH Software distributor (Bought out and destroyed by EA to remove competition for software distribution to Germany)

January 29, 1996 Manley & Associates Video game developer (used to make some of the actually GOOD licensed games for nes/snes)

June 4, 1997 Maxis Video game developer and publisher (Screw you sideways EA, Sim city, the sims, back when they were good, aka pre ea)

April 2, 1998 Tiburon Entertainment Video game developer (used to make awesome sports games, now churns out crap like madden yearly updates)
April 8, 1998 Vision Software Software distributor (Bought and destroyed to remove competition from distributing software to africa)

July 28, 1998 ABC Software Software distributor (Bought and destroyed by EA to remove competition from distributing software to Switzerland and Austria)

August 17, 1998 Westwood Studios; other studios of Virgin Interactive Entertainment Computer and video game developers (Die in fire EA, amazing studio, probably best known for command and conquer. You know, before EA turned it to crap.)

September 8, 1999 PlayNation Developer of online entertainment USA — PlayNation (cool online tech company. They dont do anything cool anymore)

November 22, 1999 Kesmai Video game developer and online game publisher (pioneers of massively multiplayer online gaming, air warrior and legends of kesmai to name a couple)

February 24, 2000 DreamWorks Interactive Video game developer (formerly danger close, best known for the medal of honor series, you know, before EA made it go completely to crap.)

February 28, 2001 pogo.com Family games website USA — pogo.com [30] (Because EA needs to be able to crap on every aspect of gaming)

June 11, 2002 Black Box Games Sports and racing video game developer (Need for speed, you know, before EA made it go to crap)

October 16, 2003 Studio 33 Racing video game developer (once part of the amazing psygnosis, known for awesomeness like wipe out, before Sony bought psygnosis, and EA raped the leftovers)

February 13, 2004 NuFX Sports video game developer (NBA street series... Before EA tunred it into crap)


July 28, 2004 Criterion Software Video game developer (This is a fresh one EA just finished completely killing, raping and skinning, and now has a completely new studio wearing the skinned carcass of the criterion name, as the heads of the real studio fled EA to bank upon the newfound feasibility of crowd funding, known for burnout, before, yeah, EA made it go to crap)

July 27, 2005 Hypnotix Video game developer (made all kinds of whacky zany unique games, like deer avenger... youre the DEER hunter, hunting rednecks, you know, until ea turned them into a crap factory forced to churn out yearly updates and other mind numbing content)


December 8, 2005 JAMDAT Mobile Mobile entertainment developer (Because ea NEEDS to be able to crap on anyone who plays games on anything)

July 20, 2006 Mythic Entertainment Computer game developer (great RPG studio, dragons gate, tempest, Rolemaster, you know, until ea turned them to crap) Might as well throw bioware in here as well, as after EA was done murdering/raping these two they threw the remains in the wood chipper together. Hope you enjoyed that mass effect 3 ending, EA gives you their regaurds, via crapping in their hands and smearing it in your face of course.

August 23, 2006 Phenomic Game Development Real-time strategy game developer GER — became EA Phenomic

October 2, 2006 Digital Illusions CE (DICE) Video game developer SWE (Formerly the demo scene masters FUTURE CREW!!!!! Screw you EA, most famous for battlefield, which has gone straight down the crapper since EA's aquisition, to the glitchy, unplayable garbage mess of a game battlefield 4, that is getting EA sued by its investors for releasing a product so broken they feel its making them look bad. FINALLY!!!! I cant think of anyone worthwhile from future crew who still remains with DICE.)

Eh... One more...


July 12, 2011 PopCap Games Mobile video game developer and publisher (Whats that? you liked peggle? Thats too bad, EA is already doing everything in their power to turn it to crap, along with everything else great these guys have or would have done.)



Now, do you think publishers like EA give a crap about developing brand loyalty by delivering high quality products? Nope, they just throw a billion dollars in advertising at people and get multi millions of people to BUY GAMES THAT DONT EVEN WORK, and completely overshadow other studios work because of the reputation the raped skinned carcass they are parading around on a stick used to have, and the massive advertising budget they throw all over the place. And then make money by aquisitions, which also has the benefit of making sure there is are less around to make a better competing product.

They dont care.

First and foremost, I appreciate the response. Your contributions always add incalculable value to the discussions and to our education on the industry as a whole. 

 

Your right, this is my problem. From what I am understanding, there is a bell curve of people that play anything with a brand on it. These people will not notice a dramatic shift in quality over time. In other words, they will buy the sequels without thought (Let's refer to them as the Madden Market). 

 

EA is counting on the Madden Market, or 75% of the bell curve, to continuously feed their growth. Consequently, from what I am seeing, a large portion of this market considers themselves hardcore. From a spending and playtime standpoint, they probably are. However, hardcore, in my book, means you are willing to try things outside of your comfort zone (my dad falls into a more casual side of this. He loves COD campaigns and games like that, but will not play Mario. He also plays phone games, so long as they are themed for his age group. He is bias against different themes. Although he does not buy many games or play very long.).

 

The problem I see with EA's strategy can be seen with the declining revenue in the COD series. Sure, EA has Respawn now but when they are done 'gutting it' over a cycle, they will have a portfolio that is almost ubiquitous with its offerings. Battlefield, Titanfall, sports games, arcade racers, etc., all of which, outside of Titanfall, are exactly what you speak of. They have opened themselves up to exploits presented by a rapidly changing market. I am, of course, referring to the resurgence of indie games, made possible by crowd funding, that will be there to capitalize on a lack of quality.

 

Of course, the problem here is that they will not be organized. EA, MS, Sony, Ubi, and Activision have made sure to condition the market to over-saturation.  Project Cars and Star Citizen, for example, could drop to critical acclaim, yet the market is used to making the majority of the money in the first few weeks, and then moving on to the next game. We would need a release per month in order to match the schedules of the big 3. 

 

When you look at the PC scene, and the influx of indie games, there appears to be that push for quality with the 25% of the bell curve left to care. 

 

I guess my ramblings are coming to the conclusion of suggesting that there is a shortsighted approach to this model, and it will lead to failure at some point, as this monopoly, unless artificially propped up, will be broken by those doing the opposite. In a way, that is why we are fortunate for the Wii U's condition, as it forces a different outlook. Imagine if those 100 million Wii owners upgraded and added to this nightmare. 

[3Dude]

The edram is currenty estimated to be either 35 GB/s or 70GB/s.  Im guessing 70GB/s because that would be in line with how they are using it.  Its enough for the frame buffer/z-buffer to never saturate bandwidth requirements, making bandwidth a non issue for the gpu.  This allows the main memory to act as a read only memory for the most part, meaning the 12.8GB/s to the DDR3 can be used for textures and assetts without sharing bandwidth with Z-buffer calls.  Whatever the real numbers are, it does not appear that the gpu is bandwidth starved.

I think tradition has us barking up the wrong tree. Weve been so busy scrutinizing how many people can fit on the bus that we havent considered the bus only has to go down the street instead of two cities over.

Its time to think about a low latency graphics pipe line, and how to organize data to maximize throughput.

[Grooseland]

Mass Effect 3 was a very good port though. Yes, it was idiotic for EA to release the trilogy and to exclude some DLC. Even Nintedo Power claimed that it run at 1080p.

 

Days later Straight Right (the developer in charge of the port) clarified that it ran native 720p but the Wii U upscaled it beautifully to 1080p. 

 

They also said:

 

“We’ve really enjoyed working on the Wii U. It’s a powerful, versatile machine and fairly painless to code for. From an architecture standpoint it’s straightforward and really just allows developers to get down to the business of making games.”

 

http://wiiudaily.com...satile-machine/