89 replies to this topic

[Soul]

You should REALLY be accepted to Neogaf.

People should stop guessing UE4's requirements ... we have no grounds on talk for that, there are no default sets of demos or any target specs at all.

First of all, the engine doesn't require much to run, the question is HOW it's going to run, how many GFX features could be used, to what extent those features can be used, what kind of fidelity, polygons, ..etc etc.


The fact why the UE4 is reserved for next gen is not any hardware technical requirement, it's subjective/business choice to puch the console vendors for better hardware.

The engines has no GPU requirements it self AT ALL. The engine can RUN, regardless if wiiU is on par or not ... as longs as the CPU is fast enough for the load of the engine code to make it run , it'll run ... but OBVIOUSLY they won't support some legacy CPU instructions that were in early 90' ... all of the last 10 years of CPU instructions should be supported.


The fact that we know WiiU will be modern hardware feature-wise like 2009-2010 - that means it's not far from current PC hardware - UE4 is so obvious it doesn't even have to be confirmed.

Can this people GET it.
Just like detention at school on the greenboard:

ENGINE IS NOT A GRAPHICS DEMO
ENGINE IS NOT A GRAPHICS DEMO ; ENGINE IS BAREBONE EXE WITHOUT ASSETS OR ANY RENDERING OR ANY MODELS OR ANYrainbow JUST A WIREFRAME BLACK-WHITE SCREEN WITH DEBUG CONSOLE ...

The questions is HOW is it going to run ... how not if. For god sakes.


"Features" are:

CPU instruction (MMX, SSE, AMD-V, ...etc)
Example

ENGINE does not RELY on GPU stuff at all - simple switch turns all rendering off. That's how dedicated servers work, you don't need a GPU there. (except motherboard vga to connect the monitor obviously)

GPU features: ATI 7970 Example

• GCN Architecture
  
  • 32 compute units (2048 Stream Processors)
  • 128 Texture Units
  • 128 Z/Stencil ROP Units
  • 32 Color ROP Units
  • Dual Geometry Engines
  • Dual Asynchronous Compute Engines (ACE)
• PCI Express 3.0 x16 bus interface
• DirectX® 11-capable graphics
  
  • 9th generation programmable hardware tessellation units
  • Shader Model 5.0
  • DirectCompute 11
  • Accelerated multi-threading
  • HDR texture compression
  • Order-independent transparency
• OpenGL 4.2 support
  
  • Partially Resident Textures (PRT)
    
    • Ultra-high resolution texture streaming
• Image quality enhancement technology
  
  • Up to 24x multi-sample and super-sample anti-aliasing modes
  • Adaptive anti-aliasing
  • Morphological Anti-Aliasing (MLAA)
  • 16x angle independent anisotropic texture filtering
  • 128-bit floating point HDR rendering
• AMD Eyefinity multi-display technology -> (WiiU confirmed, up to 3 displays)
  
  • Up to 6 displays supported with DisplayPort 1.2 Multi-Stream Transport
  • Independent resolutions, refresh rates, color controls, and video overlays
  • Display grouping
  • Combine multiple displays to behave like a single large display
• AMD App Acceleration³
  
  • OpenCL 1.2 Support
  • Microsoft C++ AMP
  • DirectCompute 11
  • Double Precision Floating Point
  • AMD HD Media Accelerator
    
    • Unified Video Decoder (UVD) -> (WiiU undeniable)
      
    • H.264
    • VC-1
    • MPEG-2 (SD & HD)
    • MVC (Blu-ray 3D)
    • MPEG-4 Part 2 (DivX/Xvid)
    • Adobe Flash
    • DXVA 1.0 & 2.0 support
  • Enhanced Video Quality features
    
    • Advanced post-processing and scaling
      
    • Deblocking
    • Denoising
    • Automatic deinterlacing
    • Mosquito noise reduction
    • Edge enhancement
    • 3:2 pulldown detection
  • Advanced video color correction
    
    • Brighter whites processing (Blue Stretch)
    • Independent video gamma control
    • Flesh tone correction
    • Color vibrance control
    • Dynamic contrast
    • Dynamic video range control

[*]AMD HD3D technology -> (WiiU confirmed, 3D capability, not all sub-features)

• Stereoscopic 3D display/glasses support
• Blu-ray 3D support
• Stereoscopic 3D gaming
• 3rd party Stereoscopic 3D middleware software support

[*]AMD CrossFire™ multi-GPU technology²

• Dual, triple or quad-GPU scaling

[*]Cutting-edge integrated display support

• DisplayPort 1.2
  
  • Max resolution: 4096x2160 per display
  • Multi-Stream Transport
  • 21.6 Gbps bandwidth
  • High bit-rate audio
  • 2560x1600p60 Stereoscopic 3D
  • Quad HD/4k video support
• HDMI® (With 4K, 3D, Deep Color and x.v.Color™)
  
  • Max resolution: 4096x2160
  • 1080p60 Stereoscopic 3D
  • Quad HD/4k video support
• Dual-link DVI with HDCP
  
  • Max resolution: 2560x1600
• VGA
  
  • Max resolution: 2048x1536

[*]Integrated HD audio controller (WiiU probably has an separate audio DSP, not confirmed)

• Output protected high bit rate 7.1 channel surround sound over HDMI with no additional cables required
• Supports AC-3, AAC, Dolby TrueHD and DTS Master Audio formats

[*]AMD PowerPlay™ power management technology

• Automatic power management with low power idle states -> (Allready a standard for consoles, mobiles)

[*]AMD PowerTune technology⁴

• Intelligent TDP management technology
• Dynamic clockspeed/performance enhancement for games

[*]AMD ZeroCore Power⁴

• Ultra-low idle power when the system’s display is off
• Secondary GPUs in an AMD CrossFire™ configuration power down when unneeded

[/list]POWER is:

• X MHz Clock
• X MHz Memory Clock
• X GB Main Memory
• X GB GPU Memory
• X GB/s memory bandwidth
• X TFLOPS Single Precision compute power
• X GFLOPS Double Precision compute power
• X Texture Filrate
• X Pixel Filrate
• X Bus width

----------------------------------------------------

POWER = DEMO REQUIREMENTS
FEATURES = ENGINE REQUIREMENTS (they can disable stuff on-fly and not use it, ANY ENGINE is adaptable ("scalable" as you say)

There is no such thing as this SO-CALLED "scalability" in engines ... they can do what the heck they want in their studio with soruce code, it's all a QUESTION of "is it worth it" for the studio so they decide if they(any devs) want to make a new version and adapt it further - and I know for a reason they (epic) are purposelly FORCING the industry to get better hardware by not "scaling" down their engine ... they(epic) do i publicly, vocally, everywhere, they (epic) were talking on the Game deloper choice award how crap Xbox360 would be with 256 MB RAM if Epic wouldn't force microsoft to add 256 more. This "scaling" down doesn't apply to an ENGINE for Wii sakes, scaling down is usually the term used the ASSETS/DATA of the textures that can't work on less powerful hardware. Scaling down is a much more time consuming process to re-configure all of those textures and re-compress them, re-configure and re-process all the models, adjust other effects that take pixel processing ... testing ... it's a rainbowload of a process compared to engine adaptation of turning off a certain gfx feature so the engine can run without problems. WiiU will probably and OBVIOUSLY not run the same exact version of the engine as other hardware, every engine is a version adapted to the system hardware, PCs obviously have all those on-top stuff turned on for GPU stuff, i mean, these are the basics of the tech industry if you even want to be saying anything at all about hardware speculation ... learn to learn!!!
While making engine to run and adapt to for example "oh this hardware doesn't have AA, so i need to switch it off for my engine to initalize" is a MODIFICATION OF FEW LINES OF CODE IN 10 seconds/minutes + compiling.

People think software engines are like instant-products ... it's not a freaking hamster wheel, which can only have 2 modes: working, not working.

And this is just adaptation of the engine i talked ... the feature wise. The easiest thing ever. But there's the catch, as engines are running multiplatform , that doesn't mean the ENGINE is a multiplatform engine, the engine HAS multiple versions, and on the PC you don't have the console code there, come engines are but not all, Crytek's probably is on the PC since they have the editor that supports console connection but probably disabled for modders, but the console engines that you get on the DVD definitely don't have any PC code since that would .... so they actually have to have multiple versions and rewrittent engines at the studio ... builds after builds;

And also there are release and debug versions as well ... so half of the engine version aren't even released, stuff like they use on PC to write console code...
So you have(example): PC ver, X360 ver, PS3 ver, WiiU ver, PC internal console development, and all those builds for each of those ...

People really thing the engine is just one EXE (version) and it get slapped on hardware. *Oh UE4 is supposably not scalable according to Epic saying "it's next gen only" , so it cannot be scaled-down for WiiU ... supposably WiiU is not next gen* <- Guy looking at the UE4 GPU Demo specs to make this assumption.

I think some people on neogaf really do not want to believe WiiU will smash the competition so they're not learning at all with the counter-productive thinking.


An ENGINE can run ANYWHERE you WANT it to run. The matter is HOW. Enforce this statement into the brain!
If WiiU would be like 10yr old hardware that the effort wouldn't be practically and financially worth it - they won't do it - but that doesn't mean it's not possible technically. These "requirements" and "scalability" is just PR crap, they won't tell you what's going behind the scenes, but none of the developers tells as much what goes behind scenes as john carmack does ... you can watch all of the quakecon2011 videos on youtube.

(okay i wasn't planning to go that far, but when i start something it's hard to stop me to get out whats on my mind)

Somebody please post this on neogaf for any of those who still don't get it there because i see this everywhere.

[Nollog]

I'm not going to comment on all that wall, because I'm never going to read it, but skimming over it I sadfaced a few times.
I will comment on the engine comment though.

You've got to weigh the cost of modifying your game to fit hardware against the potential for profit and a return on your investment.
The newer and more similar a component is, the less work you need to do to make your game work properly on that component.

[Joshua]

Yeah honestly haptic feedback is best as a peripheral.

If you make haptic feedback a peripheral than hardly anyone other than Nintendo themselves will utilise it.

[Desert Punk]

I believe we need to factor in the form factor of the wii U. Its smaller than PS3 and the slim 360, a fair bit smaller being only marginally larger than the original wii. Its the gpu in the 360 and PS3 that has caused the reliability problems due to running hot and the hot/cold cycle of use and in the small case of the wii U its clear to me that the wii U GPU will need to be something fairly cool running etc so fairly low performance. However there is far less restriction with the cpu as it generates far less heat and is a far smaller piece of silicon. I personally think it the cpu in the wii U could be something as low as a dual core powerpc chip at 2ghz because I think it will be integrated on the same silicon as the gpu but really there is far less restriction here and hopefully we might get something as powerful as a quadcore at 3ghz or more realistically quadcore at 2ghz.

You have to remember that the ps3 cell is a nightmare to optimise and get all spu's working together and then it has to share memory bandwidth and ends up with much of its potential performance lost due to various issues. The 360 performs better in many ways but still there is a memory bandwidth limitation as the gpu and cpu are seperate chips. The later slim 360 put both gpu and cpu on the same silicon as a cost reducing measure but couldn't benefit from the increased bandwidth because it had to remain compatible with earlier 360 models which had seperate chips.

The wii cpu at 2ghz with 2 cores could still remain competitive with the 360 and ps3 in cpu terms if it shares the same silicon as the gpu because of huge memory bandwidth and the console will make use of faster more modern memory chips.

I know many people here disagree that the wii U will use such low specification hardware but even if it turns out they do they have no reason to be disappointed as that hardware will achieve far more than you will expect thanks to improved integration of the circuitry and faster memory chips.

[Plutonas]

Ibm already announced a quad power 7 cpu with lots of cache inside L1 L2 L3 (up to 16mb).. unique.

The gpu matters me most. The only thing AMD said, (wii U accommodates a very modern and reach gpu chipset).. that tells me nothing.. Even Iphones accommodate a modern gpu.. lol I want specs!! Wii u looks small but its length is big.. very long console, that gives space for the gpu and gpu cooler though... I hope its not passive.. lol But with this size, no way to have HDD inside.. I hope nintendo will consider a faster port for HDD than usb2 ports.. USB2 ports are low voltage and not recommended for big file transfers, how about playing and installing huge games inside...

Edited by Orion, 14 April 2012 - 08:30 AM.

[Desert Punk]

I don't think its been confirmed what the cpu is except its from IBM. Remember even if a wii U development system had this configuration that doesn't confirm the final console will have it. I certainly hope its true though. I think if the wii U has the gpu and cpu as seperate silicon then its more likely the wii U will have a quadcore cpu but if they go for both gpu and cpu on the same chip then I feel the cpu performance will be much lower. I think Nintendo would like the idea of combining everything onto one piece of silicon with gpu, gpu memory, cpu and either cpu cache or full cpu memory on the same silicon. Its more likely I guess if they went for 768M system memory they could get it all on the same chip. The thing about combining everything on one chip is it both saves money and adds extra performance as long as chip yields are high.

[Plutonas]

IBM said its a watson cpu with triple more cache inside than the other consoles.. watson cpus are power 7 and the smallest model of this family of cpus is the quad core (the minimum cache this cpu can have is 4mb and max 16 mb, 4mb per core). After all, this virtual controller needs that, or else it couldnt perform as a virtual controller, but as a split screen instead.

I mean to turn the controller around and see different stuff from what you actually see in the tv. It needs cpu power. It acts as 2 different consoles in 1.. I hope u get the point. And thats the proof of it, that it has a strong CPU.

For example if sony ps4 comes with this A8-3850 by amd cpu, it will not be able to do this stuff, because this cpu is 4 core - 4 thread.. its not like 4 core / 16 thread, as watson quad core cpu.. (ps4 = 4 tasks at the same time and wii U 16 tasks at the same time).. But maybe nintendo will cut 1 core... 3 core / 12 threads... We dont know about that.. But If i consider that wii U may support 2 of this controllers at the same time.. Then i want to believe that nintendo will not cut 1 core from the cpu, because the cpu is needed!!! more like 3 individual screens with different content...

A new video came up today from cry engine 3.4 that is up an running on Wii U... it looks brilliant.. http://mynintendonew...-cryengine-3-4/

And the tessellation is really good. The dof is amazing.. (depth of field)

Edited by Orion, 15 April 2012 - 12:58 PM.

[Soul]

That was beautiful and I was watching on terrible quality wii. Can't wait to see UE4 now.

IBM said its a watson cpu with triple more cache inside than the other consoles.. watson cpus are power 7 and the smallest model of this family of cpus is the quad core (the minimum cache this cpu can have is 4mb and max 16 mb, 4mb per core).  After all, this virtual controller needs that, or else it couldnt perform as a virtual controller, but as a split screen instead.

I mean to turn the controller around and see different stuff from what you actually see in the tv.  It needs cpu power. It acts as 2 different consoles in 1.. I hope u get the point. And thats the proof of it, that it has a strong CPU.

For example if sony ps4 comes with this A8-3850 by amd cpu, it will not be able to do this stuff, because this cpu is 4 core - 4 thread.. its not like 4 core / 16 thread, as watson quad core cpu..  (ps4 = 4 tasks at the same time and wii U 16 tasks at the same time).. But maybe nintendo will cut 1 core... 3 core / 12 threads... We dont know about that..  But If i consider that wii U may support 2 of this controllers at the same time.. Then i want to believe that nintendo will not cut 1 core from the cpu, because the cpu is needed!!!  more like 3 individual screens with different content...

A new video came up today from cry engine 3.4 that is up an running on Wii U...   it looks brilliant..  http://mynintendonew...-cryengine-3-4/  

And the tessellation is really good.  The dof is amazing.. (depth of field)

[Gameboysoadvance]

It might not be as far fetched as you guys might thing / and this is the continuation of the speculation towards proving the power behind it, hopefully anyway it goes the &quot;over 1000 GFLOPS&quot; remains true over the course of time ... it would be rightdown stupid if not totally wasteless of the potential behind such a console to be less powerful but offer such array of services that this rumor promises.

Now lets get into detail, these kinds of rumors written in such way historically are valid, but to understand it ... thats the key, its shocking and thats why it seems unbelieveable.

But remember, this rumor is very significant to what you people have responded yet, I am so at a loss that i cannot post on neogaf to share these, anyone on neogaf plese copy all this qute there, but it shouldnt be what the other guys like bgassasin know, im just going to explain the rumor now, for others who might not see the significance in this, however this is still speculation so dont blame me but its high probablity that we bet on.

Lets see why this rumor actually could fit with the whole final thing of a rumored 1TF capable console, first its the rumors source, the manufacturing ... that information is likely to be someone that works in a factory like foxconn or where the GPU and CPU chips may have been made, but since the scope of the rumor is weider that might indicate the source is probably at the factory where the consoles get their final assembly since he knows surprisingly a lot of thing besides the hardware, no idea but if for some reason a chance is that this source is from a GPU or CPU factory that has his own knowledge of details he purposelly did not share might even confirm the idea of GPU and CPU being manufactured closely the so called fishkill partnership ... (your going to follow my posts im not going to explain what we know all over again about fishkill) So we can eliminate this idea since the probability is very low to the rumors scope that it shows us otherwise about the origin of the source ... this kind of rumor is a textbook one and mostly gets out from the packagin plants, the person behind it know the FACTS but he is not completely necessary for this person to be a super TECH DETECTIVE geek so the description that he gives is subjectively DISTORTED, parts of the rumor might appear contradictory to what we all hope for, thats why i so pointed it out last big post, if you do not have the experience to analyze the rumors you will percieve them wrong.


This specific part i can point out is when he says that the "CPU and GPU nintendo choosed are economical" in this case the source might have further knowledge of the specifics but the describes it as such, this does not mean that the hardware is bad, the source describes it as such compared to something he knows but not that we know what he's comparing it to specifically, one thing is for sure, he definitely doesn't compare that to current generation and if he does that would speak he has no idea about tech but the source has idea about tech he just lets a bit out without revealing too much as that would also confirm exact location of the leak and much easier for nintendo ninjas to pinpoint.


The next example is "Cutting production costs to maximize profits is Nintendo’s main concern with the Wii U" - notice the "production" word ... it is very important what production signifies, it does not indicate that all the performance will be cut back ... this proves the historical nintendo's policy, the smalles process possible so that the production of the chips is as efficient as possible that might also back up the far fetched 28nm node while i won't go that far my self so im still settling on 32nm from the fishkill theory looks more plausible than one single rumor about 28nm which is a quite old now though i frogot exactly the tech he mentioned was something that was not compatible with other rumors.
So don't think that this means they would cut all hardware and make the thing dumbed down and crappy ... nope, one of the most significant production costs reductor is the process node because the smaller you're chips are the more you can fit on a signle waffer, nintendo's quality design=better yields(percent of how many chips actually work fine, per waffer), faster supply, less waste, less time to meet demand.


The 300$ mark comes as to no surprise - heavily predicted by myself and others. For those who still don't understand, the capabilities of the system would push the console to 350, but nintendo choosed to not repeat 3DS scenario so it goes back down to 300$ and if that means not making profit, so be it, nintendo hinted this them sefls. They might not be making profit in the early launch period of some months but it definitely will be worth it for 1 year leap and boost as well as later cheaper tech such as NFC tech dropping by 400% in the near future as well as the production overall, chips and LCDs and all that comes down a bit for a nicely timed price drop around PS4720 launch. They obviously won't loose that much money, the system will cost probably the same number in euros , so 300€ is 406$. The more dollar is useless the more europeans passively suffer for it, stupid planet we live in, blame the banker elite.

"Nintendo got a bargain price on the custom GPU and CPU that the Wii U uses." - This could be significant, because it may prove the fishkill partnership of CPU and GPU being manufactured at the same facility with partnership of GlobalFoundries(AMD), IBM and ATI(AMD), as well as the low production costs of the chips as they developed them to be, the word custom just adds on what we know. Might sound far fetched, but the bargain might come because IBM might actually use GloFo fab to make those CPU chips as AMD would use to make GPUs and normally there wasn't any connection with the IBM and AMD , but it looks like that im merely speculating, looks like GloFo is pleased that AMDs connection with the GPU also brought in another customer IBM ... so somethings fishy going on there, i won't say its exactly like this i need to think about it more, but looks like some big win was accomplished for the newly opened plant at fishkill - Also AMD made GloFO with an indie saudi tech investment company, the investment company then bought out AMDs share and GloFo became fully independent, still AMDs ties are there, however some executives were leaving GloFo ... which might not mean anything bad, maybe they weren't good and were replaced, but if this is good for nintendo then great!


"They are cutting costs in the Wii U’s hardware to build back confidence in investors" - that's a silly statement, they don't work for the "apple hippie investor" that jumps on and off thinking the company will break and make a quick buck , they don't understand nintendo. The investors will have to wait and have patience, nothing is done to please their impatience, nintendo will never sacrifice them selfs for some stupid analyst. And that's why nintendo is my favourite company.
Thats what the source thinks ... but his opinion here is weak, and first of all, cutting back on the hardware doesn't mean anything to be concerned with, it could be a plastic we all know it'll be a balance, we all know it'll not be the super duper 599$ console, and nobody of the tech guys expects wiiu to be more powerful in the next gen, we should expect to know it'll be the least powerful but the still open question is, by how much. Who the heck cares about 20% ... first-parties will finally get what they deserve no matter what.
What i understand from this, that nintendo won't PIMP the console where theres no need for, there won't be any cuts in the CORE hardware that we all heard it got bumped up and Epic's push for more RAM rumored this year.


"Nintendo wants investors to view Wii U as a less risky proposition" - dismiss this, this is a subjective assumption, it might be wrong, it might be correct, or somewhere in the middle - it's the source "pimp" words on what he thinks, not a real leak of what would nintendo say. Moving on ...


"There is a bigger focus on downloadable content, applications, video content, digital distribution, and services to create a stream of revenue." - This is again the pimp words, a summary, to make the whole rumor more something, or a mere re-confirmation of what we allready know so no surprise here but good to hear. The whole thing sounds more likely a good info but also pimped with buzz words for the investors them selfs, this rumor for the investors actually - the stupid investors who can dig anything up and belive on the get go so ... the cutting down means nothing for us, it's a statement that makes investors feel good as they might think theyll get more profit from it - dismiss this, it does NOT mean CPU and GPU would be crap - and investors won't get that much since we all suspect it'll not be that profitable on launch.


The 180$ cost is materials only - marketing, research, packaging , mass production, retail, shipping, box contents, etc etc etc. So it's not that far fetched - as i said, the source signified only the stuff the investors would go "ecstatic" ... and for a stupid apple investor seeing 180 cost and 300 sell point - "oh that would mean great profit ya ya ya" .... that's just to get the stock price up for E3 HYPE! whoever done this rumor ... god knows - no such profit at all people, don't buy the shock buzz, look what the source is saying "between the lines" as i explained, this is one of those rumors ... textbook example that can confuse almost everyone.

Aswell the info might be handed around and other people might added those parts of views - do not see this rumor as something that one person planned it in his booknote and then released it - taking every sentence as separate is the key aswell.

Wow. You lost me at GPU. Get this people, Nintendo did not buy a custom gpu. They choose a gpu to use as a base for their on gpu. Nintendo and an AMD team together would have to work on this. Noone inside of any manufacturing plant would have vast knowledge of the functionality of a "Custom" gpu(not anyone at the lower level at least). Plus the part about Nintendo wanting to cut cost to show investors they can make a profit(or what ever you were babbling about) is total CRAPPPppppppppp!!!! Investors watched the Wii make a killing only to later be forgetting about by third-party developers who were taking their blockbuster titles, running on their sofisticated engines to Microsoft and Sony missing out on the chance to make money off of blockbuster titles like MW3. I dont think investors are going to put their money into anything that's only going to be undone once the competition release their next consoles. The Wii U won't be cheap. $300-350 price after taking a loss which will have nothing to do with the cost of the parts inside. If this person has actually sat down and taking the complete Wii U apart including the WiiPad(buttons and screen included) and the price of the software installed was included in his part by part break down which includes the numerous technologies that Nintendo has licensed to put inside the Wii U, comes up with $150, I'll by everyone on this forum a Wii U.

[Generic Hero]

If this person has actually sat down and taking the complete Wii U apart including the WiiPad(buttons and screen included) and the price of the software installed was included in his part by part break down which includes the numerous technologies that Nintendo has licensed to put inside the Wii U, comes up with $150, I'll by everyone on this forum a Wii U.

I'm going to hold you to that.