45 replies to this topic

[Plutonas]

I remember a very recent announcement by nintendo, that all developers will have free tools from Nintendo to built their games for wii U, that means nintendo have their own engines that probably developers didnt have access in the past.. Or at least, all developers... that shows me, that maybe nintendo sale this programs in the past? so nobody cared about it?

Edited by Orion, 17 April 2012 - 06:42 AM.

[Gameboysoadvance]

just so you know sony does not own blu ray it is just a common misconception

Open mouth...insert foot.

http://forums.highdefdigest.com/high-def-disc-faqs/91283-who-owns-blu-ray.html

[neverwinteru]

Open mouth...insert foot.

http://forums.highde...ns-blu-ray.html

If by foot you mean mine ,and by mouth you mean yours than sure carry on.

http://www.blu-ray.c...uray_developers

http://www.blu-raydi...m/en/index.aspx

http://en.wikipedia....isc_Association

http://www.edn.com/a...Collaborate.php

http://www.blu-raydi...ssociation.aspx

In no way does sony OWN blu-ray as a whole

Edited by That Guy, 17 April 2012 - 11:40 AM.

[Gameboysoadvance]

If by foot you mean mine ,and by mouth you mean yours than sure carry on.

http://www.blu-ray.c...uray_developers

http://www.blu-raydi...m/en/index.aspx

http://en.wikipedia....isc_Association

http://www.edn.com/a...Collaborate.php

http://www.blu-raydi...ssociation.aspx

In no way does sony OWN blu-ray as a whole

Just Owning a piece causes everyone else to pay you

[Plutonas]

till the prices drop, blu ray is the most useless piece of pc hardware out there. But very necessary for the consoles instead. Nobody will buy a blu ray for his pc, except if he wants to say "I have a blu ray" lol

the machine and the discs, are more expensive than the HDD's and HDD's are much much worth it and better.

the good quality discs costs alot of money, and if we say that a 2tb hdd costs 130 euro, you need 50x 50gigs discs or 100x25gigs discs to get the same capacity.. But unfortunately triple or 4-5 times the HDD price. I made a research recently because I wanted one for backups, when I start looking for discs, I read so many bad user comments for the cheap discs, that you didnt even want to try buy them!!! The better quality discs cost about 10 euro per disc.. lol

as for the consoles, I hope they will start using this capacity in the new games.. very exited for that..

Edited by Orion, 17 April 2012 - 12:21 PM.

[neverwinteru]

Just Owning a piece causes everyone else to pay you

the point was Sony doesnt own Blu-ray and no one is forced to pay them anything they share as they have entered a partnership with over 100 companies.

till the prices drop, blu ray is the most useless piece of pc hardware out there. But very necessary for the consoles instead. Nobody will buy a blu ray for his pc, except if he wants to say "I have a blu ray" lol

the machine and the discs, are more expensive than the HDD's and HDD's are much much worth it and better.

the good quality discs costs alot of money, and if we say that a 2tb hdd costs 130 euro, you need 50x 50gigs discs or 100x25gigs discs to get the same capacity.. But unfortunately triple or 4-5 times the HDD price. I made a research recently because I wanted one for backups, when I start looking for discs, I read so many bad user comments for the cheap discs, that you didnt even want to try buy them!!! The better quality discs cost about 10 euro per disc.. lol

as for the consoles, I hope they will start using this capacity in the new games.. very exited for that..

The disc format is doomed anyway considering the fact that by 2025 well be close to an all digital society

Edited by That Guy, 17 April 2012 - 12:25 PM.

[TriForce_3]

I think Wii U is going to be more powerful than PS360, and in some cases clearly so. Once we see a game built from the ground up using the Wii U. Think how Uncharted looks on PS3. Most of the rumors(coming from sources verified in the industry) point to the Wii U being optimized for 3rd party engines. I don't see them having to do a lot of optimizing to run current gen engines personally. While games won't look as good as their PC counterparts(nobody should expect a console game to look better than top of the line PC games IMO), games that are built from the ground up on the Wii U should outclass PS360 if the small tidbits of information coming in is correct

As far as overheating and the 4850 are concerned in the OP, I have faith in Ninty. They always put out rugged consoles and remember the GPU isn't going to be an 'Off-The-Shelf' 4850. It's going to be a custom GPU that is likely similar in power to a 4850.

While it's great to see a screenshot of AC3, Darksiders II(really hyped for that game), etc.... the true test will be a game built from the ground up to take full advantage of the Wii U's HW.

The disc format is doomed anyway considering the fact that by 2025 well be close to an all digital society

If not before then

Edited by TriForce_3, 17 April 2012 - 12:29 PM.

[Plutonas]

I am an old fashioned guy, so I am against digital thing, internet is very fragile and companies are trying to take over it.. And I dont trust bubbles.. I want something in my hands.. Bubbles pop..

as for tinforce_3, forget about ps3 and xbox360, this consoles are unexistant, wii U is up to 3-4 times better than that.. U will see at E3. Also ps4 is 4 times better than the current.. so I dont think ps4 is going to be stronger from wii U, wii U will have a better CPU, and ps4 some extra graphical power.. (some)... same games and same quality all of them. So in this generation the winner is, whoever have the best and user friendly features..
As I dont think xbox will make it with ONLY digital distribution or forcing users to have internet access, and pay extra fees to play online! (who think about this methods!! Such a disturbing personality..) Force you pay bills and pay fees as well to play online! ... This features are not friendly.. And they cost alot of extra money to the end user... It is not just bad.. its disturbing.

Edited by Orion, 17 April 2012 - 12:35 PM.

[King_Bowser_Koopa]

As someone who works in the technology industry I think the likelihood of this happening is extremely low. First of all, DirectX is a Microsoft proprietary technology. For anyone to use it, they'd need to be running a Windows based OS, which I seriously doubt Nintendo will run on the Wii U.

What is more likely is using the latest OpenGL technology.

You can see OpenGL compared to DirectX on Youtube:


(Left side of video is OpenGL and right side is DirectX 11)

As you can see, there is very little difference.

[Nollog]

Console developers don't really need to use API's and it was never a stretch imo that Wii U would be compatible with directx 11.
They don't just grab a hd4850 off amd's shelf and slap it in a console.

Pretty much everything else I had to say was said already.

[TriForce_3]

I am an old fashioned guy, so I am against digital thing, internet is very fragile and companies are trying to take over it.. And I dont trust bubbles.. I want something in my hands.. Bubbles pop..

as for tinforce_3, forget about ps3 and xbox360, this consoles are unexistant, wii U is up to 3-4 times better than that.. U will see at E3. Also ps4 is 4 times better than the current.. so I dont think ps4 is going to be stronger from wii U, wii U will have a better CPU, and ps4 some extra graphical power.. (some)... same games and same quality all of them. So in this generation the winner is, whoever have the best and user friendly features..
As I dont think xbox will make it with ONLY digital distribution or forcing users to have internet access, and pay extra fees to play online! (who think about this methods!! Such a disturbing personality..) Force you pay bills and pay fees as well to play online! ... This features are not friendly.. And they cost alot of extra money to the end user... It is not just bad.. its disturbing.

I agree that it's much stronger then PS360. I think you're misunderstanding what I'm saying. I think some of the games will look similar simply because they are ports from the HD Twins. Those won't be nearly as impressive as a game built from the ground up that takes full advantage of all of the Wii U's capabilities. For example, look at Uncharted on the Playstation compared to some of the ports.

So Darksiders II may look a little better than the PS360 counterparts but when we see a game built from the ground up that takes full advantage of Wii U it will show the true power of the system.

Console developers don't really need to use API's and it was never a stretch imo that Wii U would be compatible with directx 11.
They don't just grab a hd4850 off amd's shelf and slap it in a console.

Pretty much everything else I had to say was said already.

Exactly. No reason to be concerned about hd4850's over heating since they won't use an "off-the-shelf" hd4850. It will be a custom version that may have similar specs but won't be a hd4850 in most aspects.

Edited by TriForce_3, 17 April 2012 - 06:46 PM.

[Joshua]

I remember a very recent announcement by nintendo, that all developers will have free tools from Nintendo to built their games for wii U, that means nintendo have their own engines that probably developers didnt have access in the past.. Or at least, all developers... that shows me, that maybe nintendo sale this programs in the past? so nobody cared about it?

I believe one of the free tools was access to the Havok physics engine.

[Plutonas]

I agree that it's much stronger then PS360. I think you're misunderstanding what I'm saying. I think some of the games will look similar simply because they are ports from the HD Twins. Those won't be nearly as impressive as a game built from the ground up that takes full advantage of all of the Wii U's capabilities. For example, look at Uncharted on the Playstation compared to some of the ports.

So Darksiders II may look a little better than the PS360 counterparts but when we see a game built from the ground up that takes full advantage of Wii U it will show the true power of the system.

All gaming machines and pc have something in common, the engines that the games are built.. If you take an import from xbox360 to pc, we have the ability to increase settings and quality of the game, and that makes it better.. The same things we are going to see for 1 or 1 and half year after wii U release, in wii U... imports, that wii U will have high settings and the other consoles, low settings (Except the PC)..

here is a small example ... a very popular example, for what I mean.. So basically nintendo is making a huge bet for this 1 year time they got.. to earn as many pc gamers and enthusiasts they can, increase wii U sales and become the base platform for the developers. If nintendo makes that happen, whatever the other consoles have inside them, is going to be pointless.. Thats why everybody expects to see wii U in action.. It would be stupid enough for sony and microsoft to represent a huge leap consoles from Wii U, because at this generation at least, they got a huge lesson ... And paid a huge price.



So basically for at least 1 year, only exclusives will be a bit different and more advanced than the other games.. From the point orbis and 720 released, I believe or I want to believe, that wii U will be the platform to built their games.. And tweak them in the other console versions..

Edited by Orion, 18 April 2012 - 05:43 AM.

[Stewox]

I think Wii U is going to be more powerful than PS360, and in some cases clearly so. Once we see a game built from the ground up using the Wii U. Think how Uncharted looks on PS3. Most of the rumors(coming from sources verified in the industry) point to the Wii U being optimized for 3rd party engines. I don't see them having to do a lot of optimizing to run current gen engines personally. While games won't look as good as their PC counterparts(nobody should expect a console game to look better than top of the line PC games IMO), games that are built from the ground up on the Wii U should outclass PS360 if the small tidbits of information coming in is correct

As far as overheating and the 4850 are concerned in the OP, I have faith in Ninty. They always put out rugged consoles and remember the GPU isn't going to be an 'Off-The-Shelf' 4850. It's going to be a custom GPU that is likely similar in power to a 4850.

While it's great to see a screenshot of AC3, Darksiders II(really hyped for that game), etc.... the true test will be a game built from the ground up to take full advantage of the Wii U's HW.



If not before then

The fact that the industry was sucking performance out of the current generation for so long is simply because the consoles games are to be developed from ground up - they have the low-level advantage of programming access to developers.

3rd party games will not be using full WiiU potential and there will always be some 3rd party games that will not have the programming skills to fully push the technology , especially the early 3rd party games, optimizing takes time since it's delicate and harder. You can expect stuff from ID Software to obliterate the competition in 3rd party sector. First parties will obviously be the highest quality as that's nintendo we're talking about.

You can't compare console to PC - you can only come to a technical theoretical equivalents - having that in mind - the end performance potential is 40 to 60% higher simply because the PC hardware is extremely inefficient with it's OS, API and Driver overhead.

It's not the developers that would not optimize PC games - THERE IS NOTHING TO OPTIMIZE ON PC, nothing the devs can do, they just do with what they can, some devs do a better job in the challenge than others obviously. This shows you how it doesn't matter how good your codebase is and how good of a developer you are, look what happend to Rage, id software had no choices, it was out of their reach, it's all about the DRIVERS.

The point also is - those that make APIs and Drivers and Operating Systems(windows), aren't game developers.

The idea of "WiiU" being "optimized for 3rd party engines" is totally silly .. that's journalist-style misunderstanding when handing out second hand information.

The actual news was that Epic Games pushed nintendo for better hardware specs, and nintendo accepted, that's when the V5 kits bit a bit more powerful than expected .. along with the massive V4 kit spec bump.
So it was a spec bump - that's all - there is nothing "optimized" to be done - that wrong perception. The CPU has instructions that it is planned to have, that's a custom IBM chip co-developed by nintendo, The GPU has the features and machine code that it has, there is no "code for 3rd party engines" in there - it's not how the whole technology works - the API will be obviously full-proof, it's not like API would be bad .. this is not something that can be taken lightly - it would affect all games and every single piece of software using it. Nintnedo historically does a good job on the stability and quality of the hardware, nintendo uses a custom OPENGL and probably OPENAL(audio) for their machines - they will have to write / replace the whole API since the new console - making an API is definitely a job that is being developed throughout the consoles development. then there's the SDK which is not going to be finalized until release and these kinds of stuff get regularly updated after the console release, a serious bug is what they cannot accept - that won't affect just one engine, but everything. People need to stop seeing unreal engine as "special", just because of the popularity and their mod tools which i really don't like by the way (i like the sandbox approach from crytek far more than the wireframe weirdness in UDK). UE3 is very old now. IDTech5 and Cryengine 3 are better.


The middle ware is what the middleware is - if the middleware is crap - the games will be crap.
The game is what developers make - if developers are crap - the game is crap.
If the free middleware is not good enough - developers can purchase other or make their own.

The system is totally as the system is - modern hardware - there is no silly and unnecessary cutbacks in the machine code that would only allow for example: "16 bit color"

Everything depends on what is put on TOP of the system. The ease of development will be improved by better API developed by nintendo. Free Middleware is intended for certain 3rd Party developers who have little kills and resources to tackle making their own tools, it's intended for the APP and WiiUWare market that's because those indie developers obviously don't have the skills to make advanced dev tools, so they have to purchase commercial middleware which doesn't guarantee to work best - 3rd party developers will now be able to get this for free on WiiU making it very attractive and also spend that money on making a better game, which in turn ups the quality standard on the WiiU and can potentially contribute to better success - that can drive forward the popularity and therefore sales of the system.


The word "middleware" was coined because these pieces of software are EXTREMELY hard to make and only the best of programming teams can do a really good job. That's why dedicated companies were founded who focus only on the development tools and the basis of the games, one of those basis is a physics engine, for example Havok.


Game devs like EPIC and ID Software and Crytek don't rely on middleware that much - they use perforce for codebase and a few other different things, which is not really the thing that impacts the actual platform hardware ,but it really is up to the developer skill and resources to make that as high quality as possible - Carmack said that one of those Code Analysis license tools costs about 50.000$ and id Software used 3 different code analysis tools to make sure their game is super bug-less. Static code analysis is not optimizing - it's only to get rid of bugs - programmer errors. Here's an example PVS-Studio did for the recently released Doom3 source code: http://www.viva64.com/en/b/0120/

The industry usually doesn't make custom modelling tools - they use stuff like Maya, 3Dsmax and zBrush, these tools are usually not regarded as middleware because they don't interfere with the actual platform hardware and the game code. So you guys also need to know in which cases "middleware" term applies to the software - as a product. The software that is custom created at the studio is just software or dev tools, they don't call their own stuff "middleware" , middleware is usually a product / package that is done by another company and licensed / sold.


Nintendo probably has it's own custom "middleware" (which is software - it's a physics engine, development kits(modelling, mapping) , codebase (perforce) , code analysis (PVS-studio) , everyone can make his own, nothing special for experienced programmers)

The most used middleware is obviously the physics engine - these stuff is not sold like a plug-in object code, it's source code and licensed ... it can be modified and optimized so that rule "crap developer = crap game" is totally valid. It doesn't really matter what big super duper expensive "middleware" you put in your game - it won't work if you don't know how to properly implement it and make sure you don't screw up in a different area that would make the game run like crap while it's not even the middleware that would be faulty.

The "unoptimized middleware can kill the system" is a debatable statement. It doesn't kill the system it kills the games, system is fine. The middleware is the cause obviously, but this problem comes from situations where a developer purchases a lot of development tools that may not be as optimized for the system - those devs then have to work on already unoptimized development tools and the game cannot end up any better. Better developers can choose to have custom proprietary stuff making it from scratch, or are able to modify the existing middleware to fix it's flaws.


The bottom line is - whatever you do not properly program it can run as bad as a 10 year old game. WiiU will be technically more powerful than the X360 in many ways. The games will immediately look better on it, without even the violent optimizing that has yet to come, if gearbox software can make it, anyone can, gearbox software isn't really the pusher of the tech industry but they aren't bad at all, the Aliens Colonial marines being at the level gearbox described "best version on consoles" - this is a total confirmation that the much more experienced developer companies will get even better results.



Finally to conclude:
I just want to explain that the argument of optimizing engines in a way people think is against the laws of technology and also other things:
- Nintendo cannot optimize 3rd party engines: they don't have authorization to the proprietary code.
- EPIC licenses engines to other developers, but nintendo's tech is very rarely relied on third parties (except physics like havok) , they prefer their own proprietary stuff which they do not license to anyone.
- The optimization from a lower software level to some higher software engine is impossible - it goes against laws of physics and mathemathics and logic, and how the tech works. The optimization is done with the developer of the game. It solely relies on the game and what the game has inside (middleware) is totally not hardware's problem and hardware, nor API, nothing from nintendo can make up for a crappy programmed software. It's all game developers fault, obviously, if you have a stable system that doesn't RROD, but that's something else .. i talking about the aspect of situation without the low-probability variables, nintendo always makes polished systems so that's totally not a reason to worry about.

If UE3 will run like crap - it's UE3's fault.

[Gameboysoadvance]

The fact that the industry was sucking performance out of the current generation for so long is simply because the consoles games are to be developed from ground up - they have the low-level advantage of programming access to developers.

3rd party games will not be using full WiiU potential and there will always be some 3rd party games that will not have the programming skills to fully push the technology , especially the early 3rd party games, optimizing takes time since it's delicate and harder. You can expect stuff from ID Software to obliterate the competition in 3rd party sector. First parties will obviously be the highest quality as that's nintendo we're talking about.

You can't compare console to PC - you can only come to a technical theoretical equivalents - having that in mind - the end performance potential is 40 to 60% higher simply because the PC hardware is extremely inefficient with it's OS, API and Driver overhead.

It's not the developers that would not optimize PC games - THERE IS NOTHING TO OPTIMIZE ON PC, nothing the devs can do, they just do with what they can, some devs do a better job in the challenge than others obviously. This shows you how it doesn't matter how good your codebase is and how good of a developer you are, look what happend to Rage, id software had no choices, it was out of their reach, it's all about the DRIVERS.

The point also is - those that make APIs and Drivers and Operating Systems(windows), aren't game developers.

The idea of "WiiU" being "optimized for 3rd party engines" is totally silly .. that's journalist-style misunderstanding when handing out second hand information.

The actual news was that Epic Games pushed nintendo for better hardware specs, and nintendo accepted, that's when the V5 kits bit a bit more powerful than expected .. along with the massive V4 kit spec bump.
So it was a spec bump - that's all - there is nothing "optimized" to be done - that wrong perception. The CPU has instructions that it is planned to have, that's a custom IBM chip co-developed by nintendo, The GPU has the features and machine code that it has, there is no "code for 3rd party engines" in there - it's not how the whole technology works - the API will be obviously full-proof, it's not like API would be bad .. this is not something that can be taken lightly - it would affect all games and every single piece of software using it. Nintnedo historically does a good job on the stability and quality of the hardware, nintendo uses a custom OPENGL and probably OPENAL(audio) for their machines - they will have to write / replace the whole API since the new console - making an API is definitely a job that is being developed throughout the consoles development. then there's the SDK which is not going to be finalized until release and these kinds of stuff get regularly updated after the console release, a serious bug is what they cannot accept - that won't affect just one engine, but everything. People need to stop seeing unreal engine as "special", just because of the popularity and their mod tools which i really don't like by the way (i like the sandbox approach from crytek far more than the wireframe weirdness in UDK). UE3 is very old now. IDTech5 and Cryengine 3 are better.


The middle ware is what the middleware is - if the middleware is crap - the games will be crap.
The game is what developers make - if developers are crap - the game is crap.
If the free middleware is not good enough - developers can purchase other or make their own.

The system is totally as the system is - modern hardware - there is no silly and unnecessary cutbacks in the machine code that would only allow for example: "16 bit color"

Everything depends on what is put on TOP of the system. The ease of development will be improved by better API developed by nintendo. Free Middleware is intended for certain 3rd Party developers who have little kills and resources to tackle making their own tools, it's intended for the APP and WiiUWare market that's because those indie developers obviously don't have the skills to make advanced dev tools, so they have to purchase commercial middleware which doesn't guarantee to work best - 3rd party developers will now be able to get this for free on WiiU making it very attractive and also spend that money on making a better game, which in turn ups the quality standard on the WiiU and can potentially contribute to better success - that can drive forward the popularity and therefore sales of the system.


The word "middleware" was coined because these pieces of software are EXTREMELY hard to make and only the best of programming teams can do a really good job. That's why dedicated companies were founded who focus only on the development tools and the basis of the games, one of those basis is a physics engine, for example Havok.


Game devs like EPIC and ID Software and Crytek don't rely on middleware that much - they use perforce for codebase and a few other different things, which is not really the thing that impacts the actual platform hardware ,but it really is up to the developer skill and resources to make that as high quality as possible - Carmack said that one of those Code Analysis license tools costs about 50.000$ and id Software used 3 different code analysis tools to make sure their game is super bug-less. Static code analysis is not optimizing - it's only to get rid of bugs - programmer errors. Here's an example PVS-Studio did for the recently released Doom3 source code: http://www.viva64.com/en/b/0120/

The industry usually doesn't make custom modelling tools - they use stuff like Maya, 3Dsmax and zBrush, these tools are usually not regarded as middleware because they don't interfere with the actual platform hardware and the game code. So you guys also need to know in which cases "middleware" term applies to the software - as a product. The software that is custom created at the studio is just software or dev tools, they don't call their own stuff "middleware" , middleware is usually a product / package that is done by another company and licensed / sold.


Nintendo probably has it's own custom "middleware" (which is software - it's a physics engine, development kits(modelling, mapping) , codebase (perforce) , code analysis (PVS-studio) , everyone can make his own, nothing special for experienced programmers)

The most used middleware is obviously the physics engine - these stuff is not sold like a plug-in object code, it's source code and licensed ... it can be modified and optimized so that rule "crap developer = crap game" is totally valid. It doesn't really matter what big super duper expensive "middleware" you put in your game - it won't work if you don't know how to properly implement it and make sure you don't screw up in a different area that would make the game run like crap while it's not even the middleware that would be faulty.

The "unoptimized middleware can kill the system" is a debatable statement. It doesn't kill the system it kills the games, system is fine. The middleware is the cause obviously, but this problem comes from situations where a developer purchases a lot of development tools that may not be as optimized for the system - those devs then have to work on already unoptimized development tools and the game cannot end up any better. Better developers can choose to have custom proprietary stuff making it from scratch, or are able to modify the existing middleware to fix it's flaws.


The bottom line is - whatever you do not properly program it can run as bad as a 10 year old game. WiiU will be technically more powerful than the X360 in many ways. The games will immediately look better on it, without even the violent optimizing that has yet to come, if gearbox software can make it, anyone can, gearbox software isn't really the pusher of the tech industry but they aren't bad at all, the Aliens Colonial marines being at the level gearbox described "best version on consoles" - this is a total confirmation that the much more experienced developer companies will get even better results.



Finally to conclude:
I just want to explain that the argument of optimizing engines in a way people think is against the laws of technology and also other things:
- Nintendo cannot optimize 3rd party engines: they don't have authorization to the proprietary code.
- EPIC licenses engines to other developers, but nintendo's tech is very rarely relied on third parties (except physics like havok) , they prefer their own proprietary stuff which they do not license to anyone.
- The optimization from a lower software level to some higher software engine is impossible - it goes against laws of physics and mathemathics and logic, and how the tech works. The optimization is done with the developer of the game. It solely relies on the game and what the game has inside (middleware) is totally not hardware's problem and hardware, nor API, nothing from nintendo can make up for a crappy programmed software. It's all game developers fault, obviously, if you have a stable system that doesn't RROD, but that's something else .. i talking about the aspect of situation without the low-probability variables, nintendo always makes polished systems so that's totally not a reason to worry about.

If UE3 will run like crap - it's UE3's fault.

I think I get it. So if third-party developers use Nintedo's API(tools) then they should

The fact that the industry was sucking performance out of the current generation for so long is simply because the consolesLp games are to be developed from ground up - they have the low-level advantage of programming access to developers.

3rd party games will not be using full WiiU potential and there will always be some 3rd party games that will not have the programming skills to fully push the technology , especially the early 3rd party games, optimizing takes time since it's delicate and harder. You can expect stuff from ID Software to obliterate the competition in 3rd party sector. First parties will obviously be the highest quality as that's nintendo we're talking about.

You can't compare console to PC - you can only come to a technical theoretical equivalents - having that in mind - the end performance potential is 40 to 60% higher simply because the PC hardware is extremely inefficient with it's OS, API and Driver overhead.

It's not the developers that would not optimize PC games - THERE IS NOTHING TO OPTIMIZE ON PC, nothing the devs can do, they just do with what they can, some devs do a better job in the challenge than others obviously. This shows you how it doesn't matter how good your codebase is and how good of a developer you are, look what happend to Rage, id software had no choices, it was out of their reach, it's all about the DRIVERS.

The point also is - those that make APIs and Drivers and Operating Systems(windows), aren't game developers.

The idea of "WiiU" being "optimized for 3rd party engines" is totally silly .. that's journalist-style misunderstanding when handing out second hand information.

The actual news was that Epic Games pushed nintendo for better hardware specs, and nintendo accepted, that's when the V5 kits bit a bit more powerful than expected .. along with the massive V4 kit spec bump.
So it was a spec bump - that's all - there is nothing "optimized" to be done - that wrong perception. The CPU has instructions that it is planned to have, that's a custom IBM chip co-developed by nintendo, The GPU has the features and machine code that it has, there is no "code for 3rd party engines" in there - it's not how the whole technology works - the API will be obviously full-proof, it's not like API would be bad .. this is not something that can be taken lightly - it would affect all games and every single piece of software using it. Nintnedo historically does a good job on the stability and quality of the hardware, nintendo uses a custom OPENGL and probably OPENAL(audio) for their machines - they will have to write / replace the whole API since the new console - making an API is definitely a job that is being developed throughout the consoles development. then there's the SDK which is not going to be finalized until release and these kinds of stuff get regularly updated after the console release, a serious bug is what they cannot accept - that won't affect just one engine, but everything. People need to stop seeing unreal engine as "special", just because of the popularity and their mod tools which i really don't like by the way (i like the sandbox approach from crytek far more than the wireframe weirdness in UDK). UE3 is very old now. IDTech5 and Cryengine 3 are better.


The middle ware is what the middleware is - if the middleware is crap - the games will be crap.
The game is what developers make - if developers are crap - the game is crap.
If the free middleware is not good enough - developers can purchase other or make their own.

The system is totally as the system is - modern hardware - there is no silly and unnecessary cutbacks in the machine code that would only allow for example: "16 bit color"

Everything depends on what is put on TOP of the system. The ease of development will be improved by better API developed by nintendo. Free Middleware is intended for certain 3rd Party developers who have little kills and resources to tackle making their own tools, it's intended for the APP and WiiUWare market that's because those indie developers obviously don't have the skills to make advanced dev tools, so they have to purchase commercial middleware which doesn't guarantee to work best - 3rd party developers will now be able to get this for free on WiiU making it very attractive and also spend that money on making a better game, which in turn ups the quality standard on the WiiU and can potentially contribute to better success - that can drive forward the popularity and therefore sales of the system.


The word "middleware" was coined because these pieces of software are EXTREMELY hard to make and only the best of programming teams can do a really good job. That's why dedicated companies were founded who focus only on the development tools and the basis of the games, one of those basis is a physics engine, for example Havok.


Game devs like EPIC and ID Software and Crytek don't rely on middleware that much - they use perforce for codebase and a few other different things, which is not really the thing that impacts the actual platform hardware ,but it really is up to the developer skill and resources to make that as high quality as possible - Carmack said that one of those Code Analysis license tools costs about 50.000$ and id Software used 3 different code analysis tools to make sure their game is super bug-less. Static code analysis is not optimizing - it's only to get rid of bugs - programmer errors. Here's an example PVS-Studio did for the recently released Doom3 source code: http://www.viva64.com/en/b/0120/

The industry usually doesn't make custom modelling tools - they use stuff like Maya, 3Dsmax and zBrush, these tools are usually not regarded as middleware because they don't interfere with the actual platform hardware and the game code. So you guys also need to know in which cases "middleware" term applies to the software - as a product. The software that is custom created at the studio is just software or dev tools, they don't call their own stuff "middleware" , middleware is usually a product / package that is done by another company and licensed / sold.


Nintendo probably has it's own custom "middleware" (which is software - it's a physics engine, development kits(modelling, mapping) , codebase (perforce) , code analysis (PVS-studio) , everyone can make his own, nothing special for experienced programmers)

The most used middleware is obviously the physics engine - these stuff is not sold like a plug-in object code, it's source code and licensed ... it can be modified and optimized so that rule "crap developer = crap game" is totally valid. It doesn't really matter what big super duper expensive "middleware" you put in your game - it won't work if you don't know how to properly implement it and make sure you don't screw up in a different area that would make the game run like crap while it's not even the middleware that would be faulty.

The "unoptimized middleware can kill the system" is a debatable statement. It doesn't kill the system it kills the games, system is fine. The middleware is the cause obviously, but this problem comes from situations where a developer purchases a lot of development tools that may not be as optimized for the system - those devs then have to work on already unoptimized development tools and the game cannot end up any better. Better developers can choose to have custom proprietary stuff making it from scratch, or are able to modify the existing middleware to fix it's flaws.


The bottom line is - whatever you do not properly program it can run as bad as a 10 year old game. WiiU will be technically more powerful than the X360 in many ways. The games will immediately look better on it, without even the violent optimizing that has yet to come, if gearbox software can make it, anyone can, gearbox software isn't really the pusher of the tech industry but they aren't bad at all, the Aliens Colonial marines being at the level gearbox described "best version on consoles" - this is a total confirmation that the much more experienced developer companies will get even better results.



Finally to conclude:
I just want to explain that the argument of optimizing engines in a way people think is against the laws of technology and also other things:
- Nintendo cannot optimize 3rd party engines: they don't have authorization to the proprietary code.
- EPIC licenses engines to other developers, but nintendo's tech is very rarely relied on third parties (except physics like havok) , they prefer their own proprietary stuff which they do not license to anyone.
- The optimization from a lower software level to some higher software engine is impossible - it goes against laws of physics and mathemathics and logic, and how the tech works. The optimization is done with the developer of the game. It solely relies on the game and what the game has inside (middleware) is totally not hardware's problem and hardware, nor API, nothing from nintendo can make up for a crappy programmed software. It's all game developers fault, obviously, if you have a stable system that doesn't RROD, but that's something else .. i talking about the aspect of situation without the low-probability variables, nintendo always makes polished systems so that's totally not a reason to worry about.

If UE3 will run like crap - it's UE3's fault.

I think I get it. So if third-party developers use Nintedo's API(tools),which Nintendo is now letting developers use for free, instead of a UE3 engine, then games will turn out alot better; and no matter what engine is used, being Nintendo or third party, if the developers lack the skills to fully utilize these API's then the games will turn out to be a reflection of the level of API knowledge of the developer. Is that what your saying?

[TriForce_3]

All gaming machines and pc have something in common, the engines that the games are built.. If you take an import from xbox360 to pc, we have the ability to increase settings and quality of the game, and that makes it better.. The same things we are going to see for 1 or 1 and half year after wii U release, in wii U... imports, that wii U will have high settings and the other consoles, low settings (Except the PC)..

here is a small example ... a very popular example, for what I mean.. So basically nintendo is making a huge bet for this 1 year time they got.. to earn as many pc gamers and enthusiasts they can, increase wii U sales and become the base platform for the developers. If nintendo makes that happen, whatever the other consoles have inside them, is going to be pointless.. Thats why everybody expects to see wii U in action.. It would be stupid enough for sony and microsoft to represent a huge leap consoles from Wii U, because at this generation at least, they got a huge lesson ... And paid a huge price.

[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQ_1mcnH2yQ"]http://www.youtube.c...h?v=xQ_1mcnH2yQ[/url]

So basically for at least 1 year, only exclusives will be a bit different and more advanced than the other games.. From the point orbis and 720 released, I believe or I want to believe, that wii U will be the platform to built their games.. And tweak them in the other console versions..

Agreed. Basically the ports could look better but I wouldn't expect 3rd party developers to put the time and effort into making the Wii U version look much better thant he HD Twins counterparts. However, a game built from the ground up on the Wii U to take full advantage of the technology will definitely look better.

The fact that the industry was sucking performance out of the current generation for so long is simply because the consoles games are to be developed from ground up - they have the low-level advantage of programming access to developers.

3rd party games will not be using full WiiU potential and there will always be some 3rd party games that will not have the programming skills to fully push the technology , especially the early 3rd party games, optimizing takes time since it's delicate and harder. You can expect stuff from ID Software to obliterate the competition in 3rd party sector. First parties will obviously be the highest quality as that's nintendo we're talking about.

You can't compare console to PC - you can only come to a technical theoretical equivalents - having that in mind - the end performance potential is 40 to 60% higher simply because the PC hardware is extremely inefficient with it's OS, API and Driver overhead.

It's not the developers that would not optimize PC games - THERE IS NOTHING TO OPTIMIZE ON PC, nothing the devs can do, they just do with what they can, some devs do a better job in the challenge than others obviously. This shows you how it doesn't matter how good your codebase is and how good of a developer you are, look what happend to Rage, id software had no choices, it was out of their reach, it's all about the DRIVERS.

The point also is - those that make APIs and Drivers and Operating Systems(windows), aren't game developers.

The idea of "WiiU" being "optimized for 3rd party engines" is totally silly .. that's journalist-style misunderstanding when handing out second hand information.

The actual news was that Epic Games pushed nintendo for better hardware specs, and nintendo accepted, that's when the V5 kits bit a bit more powerful than expected .. along with the massive V4 kit spec bump.
So it was a spec bump - that's all - there is nothing "optimized" to be done - that wrong perception. The CPU has instructions that it is planned to have, that's a custom IBM chip co-developed by nintendo, The GPU has the features and machine code that it has, there is no "code for 3rd party engines" in there - it's not how the whole technology works - the API will be obviously full-proof, it's not like API would be bad .. this is not something that can be taken lightly - it would affect all games and every single piece of software using it. Nintnedo historically does a good job on the stability and quality of the hardware, nintendo uses a custom OPENGL and probably OPENAL(audio) for their machines - they will have to write / replace the whole API since the new console - making an API is definitely a job that is being developed throughout the consoles development. then there's the SDK which is not going to be finalized until release and these kinds of stuff get regularly updated after the console release, a serious bug is what they cannot accept - that won't affect just one engine, but everything. People need to stop seeing unreal engine as "special", just because of the popularity and their mod tools which i really don't like by the way (i like the sandbox approach from crytek far more than the wireframe weirdness in UDK). UE3 is very old now. IDTech5 and Cryengine 3 are better.


The middle ware is what the middleware is - if the middleware is crap - the games will be crap.
The game is what developers make - if developers are crap - the game is crap.
If the free middleware is not good enough - developers can purchase other or make their own.

The system is totally as the system is - modern hardware - there is no silly and unnecessary cutbacks in the machine code that would only allow for example: "16 bit color"

Everything depends on what is put on TOP of the system. The ease of development will be improved by better API developed by nintendo. Free Middleware is intended for certain 3rd Party developers who have little kills and resources to tackle making their own tools, it's intended for the APP and WiiUWare market that's because those indie developers obviously don't have the skills to make advanced dev tools, so they have to purchase commercial middleware which doesn't guarantee to work best - 3rd party developers will now be able to get this for free on WiiU making it very attractive and also spend that money on making a better game, which in turn ups the quality standard on the WiiU and can potentially contribute to better success - that can drive forward the popularity and therefore sales of the system.


The word "middleware" was coined because these pieces of software are EXTREMELY hard to make and only the best of programming teams can do a really good job. That's why dedicated companies were founded who focus only on the development tools and the basis of the games, one of those basis is a physics engine, for example Havok.


Game devs like EPIC and ID Software and Crytek don't rely on middleware that much - they use perforce for codebase and a few other different things, which is not really the thing that impacts the actual platform hardware ,but it really is up to the developer skill and resources to make that as high quality as possible - Carmack said that one of those Code Analysis license tools costs about 50.000$ and id Software used 3 different code analysis tools to make sure their game is super bug-less. Static code analysis is not optimizing - it's only to get rid of bugs - programmer errors. Here's an example PVS-Studio did for the recently released Doom3 source code: http://www.viva64.com/en/b/0120/

The industry usually doesn't make custom modelling tools - they use stuff like Maya, 3Dsmax and zBrush, these tools are usually not regarded as middleware because they don't interfere with the actual platform hardware and the game code. So you guys also need to know in which cases "middleware" term applies to the software - as a product. The software that is custom created at the studio is just software or dev tools, they don't call their own stuff "middleware" , middleware is usually a product / package that is done by another company and licensed / sold.


Nintendo probably has it's own custom "middleware" (which is software - it's a physics engine, development kits(modelling, mapping) , codebase (perforce) , code analysis (PVS-studio) , everyone can make his own, nothing special for experienced programmers)

The most used middleware is obviously the physics engine - these stuff is not sold like a plug-in object code, it's source code and licensed ... it can be modified and optimized so that rule "crap developer = crap game" is totally valid. It doesn't really matter what big super duper expensive "middleware" you put in your game - it won't work if you don't know how to properly implement it and make sure you don't screw up in a different area that would make the game run like crap while it's not even the middleware that would be faulty.

The "unoptimized middleware can kill the system" is a debatable statement. It doesn't kill the system it kills the games, system is fine. The middleware is the cause obviously, but this problem comes from situations where a developer purchases a lot of development tools that may not be as optimized for the system - those devs then have to work on already unoptimized development tools and the game cannot end up any better. Better developers can choose to have custom proprietary stuff making it from scratch, or are able to modify the existing middleware to fix it's flaws.


The bottom line is - whatever you do not properly program it can run as bad as a 10 year old game. WiiU will be technically more powerful than the X360 in many ways. The games will immediately look better on it, without even the violent optimizing that has yet to come, if gearbox software can make it, anyone can, gearbox software isn't really the pusher of the tech industry but they aren't bad at all, the Aliens Colonial marines being at the level gearbox described "best version on consoles" - this is a total confirmation that the much more experienced developer companies will get even better results.



Finally to conclude:
I just want to explain that the argument of optimizing engines in a way people think is against the laws of technology and also other things:
- Nintendo cannot optimize 3rd party engines: they don't have authorization to the proprietary code.
- EPIC licenses engines to other developers, but nintendo's tech is very rarely relied on third parties (except physics like havok) , they prefer their own proprietary stuff which they do not license to anyone.
- The optimization from a lower software level to some higher software engine is impossible - it goes against laws of physics and mathemathics and logic, and how the tech works. The optimization is done with the developer of the game. It solely relies on the game and what the game has inside (middleware) is totally not hardware's problem and hardware, nor API, nothing from nintendo can make up for a crappy programmed software. It's all game developers fault, obviously, if you have a stable system that doesn't RROD, but that's something else .. i talking about the aspect of situation without the low-probability variables, nintendo always makes polished systems so that's totally not a reason to worry about.

If UE3 will run like crap - it's UE3's fault.

Seems like your arguing over semantics

[Nollog]

Nintendo's API is a part of the devkit.
They don't release engines or middleware to my knowledge.
The onus is on Unreal Engine's mother (Epic) to optimise the engine for use on the system, and they do that on every system they sell it on.

[Narcidius]

@stewox
not sure about the exact impetus for this explanation... but everyone who's confused about the issue should definitely read your post in its entirety.

@gameboysoadance
er... like nollog said, not exactly. an api is only a part of a dev kit (it's not an engine) - really, just a library or set of specifications that allow software compontents to communicate with one another. Unreal Engine (or CryEngine for that matter) uses the DirectX API for its PC version... what stewox is pointing out is that it's up to the 3rd parties to optimize their software for the WiiU, rather than Nintendo's job to "optimize" its hardware for 3rd party engines (whatever that would mean).

[Stewox]

Seems like your arguing over semantics

Yes, i hate when it's wrong - it boggles the mind

@stewox
not sure about the exact impetus for this explanation... but everyone who's confused about the issue should definitely read your post in its entirety.

@gameboysoadance
er... like nollog said, not exactly. an api is only a part of a dev kit (it's not an engine) - really, just a library or set of specifications that allow software compontents to communicate with one another. Unreal Engine (or CryEngine for that matter) uses the DirectX API for its PC version... what stewox is pointing out is that it's up to the 3rd parties to optimize their software for the WiiU, rather than Nintendo's job to "optimize" its hardware for 3rd party engines (whatever that would mean).

And that is common knowledge - there was just nobody to point that out -

Optimizing is done via "assembly injects" or bypassing or writting a

The point of bypassing the API is that you can write your own assembly code and overwrite the fixed instructions - it's a way of making your own code where something in the API was not provided.
A simple example is to imagine the API like a dictionary - it won't have all the words in the existance - the developer can put in new words in and "meaning/explanations"

But you can't do that on the PC - drivery are proprietary, DirectX is proprietary ... developers cannot edit them, nor bypass them. They are bound to whatever the API has and what the drivers support.

So if you have tesselation on the PC GPU and API, driver doesn't support it - you can't have it - but on consoles you can pretty much write your own driver essentially - and that's why developers are able to suck out everything the HARDWARE has because they have the access to the lowest level to the hardware. Consoles are closed systems that's why this is allowed - PCs are open, and everyone tends to secure their property and copyright.

You can check one of the Carmacks interviews - He talks about APIs/drivers in first half of the video

Jump to 2:37 to hear about GPU Race question - and drivers. But he talks about the overhead issues throughout the whole interview.


You can see what low-level access can do - when used properly the hardware can be much faster than you would ever imagine. (NGP = Vita)
https://twitter.com/...655938016837632
He talks about the Vita hardware in the below E3 2011 interview - when talking about nintendo - he says how easy it is to port big PS3 titles to Vita with only simple GFX cuts.


Here is an E3 2011 interview where John Carmack talks about WiiU for the first time - good news. If IDTech5 can run why UE4 wouldn't.
http://www.youtube.c...dsEtr-TY#t=242s
Will auto-jump to the timeline where the nintendo talk begins.

Here is a older interview where Carmack says how easy is to make up-scale ports (like Darksiders 2) but actually wanting the most of the system by building on it from ground up is a massive engeneering process.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=gshkNXDFz6c#t=424s
So ... it's quite obvious that most 3rd party WiiU games will be upscaled ports and mid-generational bolt ons. WiiU will be capable of much more.


The moto of this is - hardware is worthless without software. And hardware is much more powerful than software, it struggles to keep up with the technology, because software

Linux - on the other hand, has very high-quality code. There's a story about Wine, the Windows emulator on Linux, a developer said that they were forced to write buggy code just so the windows games would work.

So there you have it why PC games are so buggy - Windows is buggy to begin with, then the drivers, the closed off APIs ...

I think I get it. So if third-party developers use Nintedo's API(tools),which Nintendo is now letting developers use for free, instead of a UE3 engine, then games will turn out alot better; and no matter what engine is used, being Nintendo or third party, if the developers lack the skills to fully utilize these API's then the games will turn out to be a reflection of the level of API knowledge of the developer. Is that what your saying?

No and Yes ... i will quote the parts where you're correct and where not. Sorry if my long post was confusing - but i did not mention the news and the deal about free middleware - i thought everyone following supposed to know that. I am personally not been following closely for a year this stuff - but i have spent enormous amounts of time researching everything that happend via all those neogaf threads starting with march of this year - reading stuff from beginning - i just had timeout in holidays so i pretty much don't do anything else on the internet except wiiu - don't even play anything. So i pretty much all the stuff covered.

If youd ask me 2 months ago i wouldn't have an idea. It's like a few weeks only that i covered enouhg information that i finally know everything what happend in past and now can follow present events.


Nollog summarized it correctly very quickly for you.

Console Manufacturers like Nintendo do not SELL OR LICENSE any of their engines or tools (API and SDK is NOT middleware). Unreal Engine 3 is NOT nintendo's propery. It is EPIC Games property.

People seem to think that UE3 is the only engine in the world. It's like all the cars and vehicles in the worlds would run on the same exact motor from Honda or something.

I think I get it. So if third-party developers use Nintedo's API(tools),which Nintendo is now letting developers use for free, instead of a UE3 engine, then games will turn out alot better; and no matter what engine is used, being Nintendo or third party, if the developers lack the skills to fully utilize these API's then the games will turn out to be a reflection of the level of API knowledge of the developer. Is that what your saying?

RED = That is very wrong - Nintendo does not produce these middlewares (physics engines, codebase, static analysis tools) - They provide the SDK with the customized openGL low-level API.

BLUE = the term "will" denotes 100% future certanity, the term "can" should be used here, because you can see it depends on how much effort you put into it and your programming skills.

GREEN = Correct - it also true if the developer even knows how to program good so he can bypass the API and write customized code - this is optimization - and it's hard! API is used for the purpose of making it easier/faster, but with that, there are limitations what API can do - consoels have the advantage of not having to rely on an API - while PCs do not have that luxury currently, the biggest reason why PC games are so buggy, slow, inefficient.

RED UNDERLINED: - This is so wrong ... Unreal Engine 3 is a 3rd-party engine in this case - it has nothing to do with nintendo nor anyone else than EPIC GAMES. Unreal Engine 3 is licensed by EPIC to other developers who pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for being able to use and modify it for their own games. It doesn't matter to the hardware how many games use UE3 engines - it's not bound to one particular engine (that would be stupid). Also the whole statement context is wrong, the engine is not API. There are several completely different things here.

FREE MIDDLEWARE: This is a business deal with the several middleware companies and nintendo. A developer that doesn't have skills to create his own tools, or he doesn't have the money, resources, time ... he can invest and buy a middleware program that will help him create his game. He normally goes to a company and buys the software he needs for whatever particular platforum as long as the middleware supports that platforms he plans to release a game.
Nintendo went directly to those companies that 3rd party developers would, and obviously paid them so they would get licenses, and then nintendo would give these licenses to 3rd party developers for free. This is a way of how they want to attract new developers to the new system - nintendo is investing in 3rd party support as we speak - this is one of the ways - but nintendo has to pay money to middleware companies - the terms of these contracts are confidential and not released for public.
Now this deal is only for nintendo consoles - if you want to make a game for WiiU - you get free middleware - but you won't get these if you don't develop your games on nintendo console - so if you want to release the game for PS360 then you would have to buy the middleware your self with your own money(example, other console manufacturers might have other deals)

For example Microsoft provides /analyze (static analysis tools) to Xbox 360 developers FOR FREE! But if you want the same tools on the PC - you'd have to pay 10.000$ bucks for it. (this is a way of making X360 software less buggy cause the general public blames microsoft for crappy X360 games, but nobody blames microsoft for any crappy PC games)

HAVOK PRESS RELEASE: http://www.havok.com...wiiU-developers
AUTODESK PRESS RELEASE: http://investors.aut...9438&highlight=


It doesn't matter how good of developer you are when it comes to the PC - if drivers are crap the game is crap, there is NOTHING the developer can do to fix it, only the hardware manufacturer who owns it's rights to proprietary drivers can fix it. A very very good example of that is the release of the game RAGE by Id Software which was a total "clusterWii" said JC.

Rage game was a very high-quality peice of software - very stable and bug-less. The crap OpenGL drivers released by AMD were the sole cause of the game's erratic behavior and countless performance issues as well as crashes.
IdTech5 engines from id software does not use DirectX - it uses OpenGL - AMD/ATI opengl have always been bad.

John Carmack the main programmer engineer at Id Software who is the Einstein of programming, was not able to do a thing, he just provided AMD the information about the issues, and he could only make hacks in the game to WORKAROUND the driver issues - but he can't fix the drivers directly - he can only sit and wait for AMD Catalyst Driver team to fix the issues. So if this was on consoles - Carmack could go in and fix it him self - And Carmack is pushing the PC industry to allow developers to make low-level stuff. Heck that's why you don't have these issues on the consoles, console games don't run that good just because "their hardware is the same" - if consoles would have the same driver issues as PC they would have the same problems.

Edited by Stewox, 19 April 2012 - 05:42 AM.

[Keviin]

^
"Here is an E3 2011 interview where John Carmack talks about WiiU for the first time - good news. If IDTech5 can run why UE4 wouldn't."

Is ID Tech5 that good? I've looked up some screenshots of Rage and while it looks quite amazing for a current gen game (dat clouds! http://media.teamxbo.../1250708202.jpg and some nice rocks/shadows http://www.pcgamesha...90325093927.jpg ) I don't think it could compare with what UE 4 is likely to be. UE 3.5 impressed me more than IDT5.