15 replies to this topic

[Mike12Nite]

I know there is a very slim chance of something as drastic as this happening, but there is still a posibility that something similar will happen down the road for the system (at least for the RAM). Either way lets imagine Nintendo finds a way to shrink the OS when a game opens (something similar to the Vita OS) and allows a significant boost in available RAM for games and overclocks the GPU (I mention this just because the system runs so cool), I'm just curious about what you guys think the games will look like after an upgrade like this.

 

With 1.9GB of RAM and 32MB of eDRAM for games and the GPU going from 550MHZ to 620MHZ, how big of an upgrade do you think we'd see in games going by how games like Bayonetta 2 look now.

 

 

Again I know there's a slim chance of something this drastic happening but just for the sake of discussion. Fantasize with me why don't yah! . So looking at the current games on Wii U, what parts of the games would see a significant upgrade? Would PS4/X1 games be able to run easier on the system? Would the upgrade be negligable?

 

I personally think a decent upgrade in the amount of RAM would do wonders for the visuals of open world games like Xenoblade Chronicles X and Zelda U. With an upgrade in RAM we'd see even higher resolution textures in these already large open worlds. Xenoblade's textures become very blurry when you get up close to them, the floor/grass textures also aren't very good. I'd imagine a boost in RAM this big would fix this problem and some.

 

 

 

And although Zelda has a stylized design, it still uses realistic textures for most surfaces, so we'd probably get hgiher resolution textures and bigger draw distances. I'm not sure what an overclock to the GPU would allow, but maybe more particle affects (the game is already using impressive particle effects) and better shaders. Or higher resolutions.

 

 

 

Interested to hear your opinions on this and what possiblities would open up. Do you think with this upgrade the Wii U would be able to run closer versions of othe HD twin's games? Obviously it won't be on the'r level.

 

Just for comparison's sake here are some of the HD twims/PC game screenshots

 

Witcher 3

 

 

Assasin's Creed Unity

 

I know the Wii U wouldn't be running these games at this level of fidelity, but would it be able to run a respectable port with this upgrade? Or do you think it wouldn't make much of a difference.

 

Sorry for the super hypotheical thread, it's just something I've thought about for a while and would liek to see what other people think.

 

[the gamz girnalizt]

The thing with Xenoblade Chronicles X is that the game is not finished yet. It could look a lot better in the final product.

 

Also, the boost could make Mario Kart 8 run at 60FPS instead of 59FPS.

[Mike12Nite]

Yeah this is true. I'm actually pretty certain it'll get a decent upgrade in visuals since it has a year of development left. Not sure if you're joking about the mario kart thing but I've read that that's a glitch rather than a performance issue with the hardware. I do wish they aded some damn AA to the game.

[Nollog]

they'll look the same.

[Raiden]

Pretty sure Xenoblade X be the largest open world RPG of the 2015 crop of open world games. Not to mention I don't think Witcher 3 will have many sky scraper sized enemies or a lot of online and 20 foot mechs. Lot more going on in XBX.

[cadrethree]

Nintendo might have a better shot to up it's visuals with killer software design tools.  It's sounds like most HD twins developers don't want to take the time to make their game engines run with the GPU instead of the CPU's like last generation.  All Nintendo can do is has the best game design tools that anyone has ever had so the developers don't have to think or struggle to port a game over from the HD twins.  

[Mahmoodinho98]

Give devs 900mb of ram is good idea but am not sure about overclocking, overclocking usually reduces the life of a specific component and Nintendo is known to provide high quality hardware.

But I think if the cooling system can take it then why not since 70mhz is not really that much

[GAMER1984]

Devs would still compain, we wont get more games, and there would still be delays

[Raiden]

Give devs 900mb of ram is good idea but am not sure about overclocking, overclocking usually reduces the life of a specific component and Nintendo is known to provide high quality hardware.

But I think if the cooling system can take it then why not since 70mhz is not really that much

1GB > 900MB plus the 35MB on the GPU

[grahamf]

How much of a difference would it really make? The Wii U is very good at streaming large assets quickly enough to compensate for the less RAM, and most advantages by adding more ram could also be done by optimizing the game to stream better. If we were talking about another 2GB than sure that might help more, but the system would probably not be able to process all of the additional data fast enough to make streaming a bottleneck. And what advantage is a paltry 70Mhz? That might be more likely to cause a noticeably negative impact from sync issues or glitches from code expecting a slightly slower processor.

[Mahmoodinho98]

1GB > 900MB plus the 35MB on the GPU

Remember that you need some for the os

[Raiden]

Remember that you need some for the os

Yeah WiiU has 2GB total and 1GB reserved for the OS. Leaving the WiiU with 1GB for games and the GPU helps with it's 35MB which is great.

[3Dude]

Well for starters you can kiss at least one or two of miiverse, internet browser, and eshop from suspend menus goodbye. They arent taking the whole Gb, and they most certainly have a lot of room to be optimized... but they arent fitting in 100Mb in any kind of enjoyable responsive functional state, and if you think they take a long time NOW... But... I would be okay with that with end gen games provided they explain on the box or something the mode the game runs in will limit suspend activities in favour of game runtime resources. Its something I would like on the 3ds where every Kb matters...

But on the wii u... I dont see it being that big of a deal.

The extra 900Mb of ram will allow a bigger tank to store more texture variety, or higher res textures like you brought up up... but thats really about it, and even though you have a bigger holdng tank, the exit of that tank (Front side bus to the embedded ram and then processors) wont be getting any faster or wider, so that could get tricky to use the extra capacity.

As for the gpu... Overclocking the gpu such a tiny amount when it has such a 'modest' shader count really isnt going to do much, it most certainly wont more than double your rops fillrate which is what you would need to go from 720p to 1080p without compromising fidelity. ANd it certinly wont allow the wii u to come anywhere near close to ps4/xbone particle levels, those particles are like that because the systems have a lot, lot, LOT more (and more effecient) shader cores than wii u with nothing currently better to do.

Writing your own graphics drivers out of fully platform optimized assembler will do you worlds of orders of magnitude more good in that regaurd than an overclock.

 

The system just seems really really well designed and balanced, to the point its not losing large amounts of performance to a bottle neck, which could then be 'uncorked' with an overclock or ram capacity increase, so your performance gains would be pretty negligible.

As fort he examples you gave, the wii u doesnt need a faster gpu or more ram to do that at a lesser graphical fidelity. It could easily handle both of those (At lesser graphical quality, lower res textures, lower polycounts etc), provided they were made for the platform and not crapped out in a 20 layer overhead dip of middleware.

Gpu work can be scaled back quite far, and with platform specific tailoring and baking, it could still look quite nice 'for' wii u.

Its the cpu that will really be what holds games like these back... and contrary to early unsubstantiated popular belief, that little 750 frankenstein they got in wii u is kind of a pint sized bad arse... Certainly capable of remaining competitive with 3 of the 8 ps4/bone jaguar codes in many areas. Wii u would have no problem with the amount of draw calls and executables required for the new witcher or assassins creed experience,  which just leaves scaling back the visuals.

Just look at the Zelda gifs of blowing grass you posted. The system is surprisingly rocking at draw calls. Consoles always have low overhead for draw calls, but the wii u in particular seems to be quite capable in this regaurd.

To put things in perspective, Sucker punch was bragging about 10,000 draw calls a frame at 30fps, extrapolated into 30,000 instances (using the same model/textures numerous times, in this case, the 10,000 assets were repeated another 20,000 times to fill the scene with 30,000 objects) for ps4's infamous second son.

Shin en, Which consists of 5 dudes has their wii u engine for fast racing neo pulling 10,000 draw calls a frame, at 60fps (Twice as many draw calls a second as second son on ps4) with 300,000 instances.

 

Of course, they are very very different games, with different resource needs and over heads, and the assets themselves differ in complexity, but regaurdless, it is very impressive any which way you slice it.

[the gamz girnalizt]

-snip-

Do you think Xenoblade Chronicles X will have less pop-in once the game is finished?

[3Dude]

Do you think Xenoblade Chronicles X will have less pop-in once the game is finished?

Yes and no. And dependant on whats being talked about and what specifically you and others did or did not notice.

Im defaulting with the ground foilage, as thats whats usually brought up here.

Actual 'pop in' is part of the streaming engine and allows the detailed world to exist at that scale while enabling xenoblades instant travel feature. There will always be pop in when instant traveling or other uses of the same streaming tech like instant camera changes for low level cutscenes. This can be mitigated, but likely isnt very high on the priority list, because no one really cares about it considering it only happens in specific instances which are already an expected break from immersion (cut scene, teleport) and the massive benefits of no/low loading insta landmark travel, and the (now restricted to camp beds or something?) ability to change the time of day far exceed the second or two to load lower priority assets.

The other actual pop in occurs at a designated 'lod' line where the game decides to start filling gras, with a gradual fade in instead of a distracting 'pop'. This appears to be quite far in X, and is not something you will notice unless actively looking for the point.


Z buffer misses, are most likely what the vast majority are poiinting out as 'pop in'. This is the grass in the foreground randomly dissapearing and appearing very close to the camera, sometimes right next to the player or even in front of the player, and definately not at a consistent designated cut off point.

This is a mistake that culls things like foilage that is mistakenly labeled as occluded (behind something or off screen) due to a variety of reasons like say less than optimal prediction systems.

These will almost assuredly be much much improved.

[BrosBeforeGardenTools]

Can I revive this old thread because the question is pretty good?

You would probably have to add 50% more shaders, TMUs, and ROPs to the GPU, something easier said than done, and add another 1GB RAM, before you'd start to see a difference. And it would just allow you to go from 720p to 900p in certain games that actually need more power.