30 replies to this topic

[Eskimo_sam]

can anyone please elaborate on the gpgpu.
i want details ppl!!

[Usman Mohammad]

GPGPU is not dual GPU, iwata saying it's a GPGPU isn't really saying much well considering this tech has been in PC graphics cards for years (Intel Quick Sync, Nvidia Cuda, AMD APP and OpenCL). I don't know if it impacts games or not, but what GPGPU does it's a feature of the GPU that allows it to compute things that normal a CPU would do. It puts less strain on the CPU and in somecases the work being done gets done faster. This is common in Video encoding programs and video editting suites that allow rendering and encoding to be done on the GPU.

It's similar to what Nvidia Physx does, normally Phsyx is done on the CPU but if you have an Nvidia card that is Physx capable (which is properietary tech but uses the GPGPU model) it will also be able to do the calculations on the GPU putting less strain on the CPU.

[Keviin]

Still doesn't say much to me..

[Tom]

Basically a graphics chip that is capable of doing things a processor should, so the processor will have less of a workload.

I'm sorry for having to dumb-down what you said, Usman.

Edited by Tom, 13 September 2012 - 02:09 AM.

[Usman Mohammad]

Still doesn't say much to me..

It isn't meant to, but I think this maybe the first in a console, I'm not 100% but seems like it.

Basically a graphics chip that is capable of doing things a processor should, so the processor will have less of a workload.

I'm sorry for having to dumb-down what you said, Usman.

I couldn't explain it properly anyway so thanks.

[3Dude]

Its a general purpose graphics processing unit.

Traditionally gpu's were highly specialized for performance in graphics rendering (hence the name) and this sucked donky dingles at general purpose instructions like integer performance.... Things like ai and physics performed like poo on gpu's.

Not so recently, gpus that cpuld also perform general purpose tasks without severely compromising their graphical performance were introduced.

This means it can take that load off the cpu allowing the cpu to focus on other things.

This basically means the wii u will have trouble with ports of 360/ps3 games from idiot publishers who expect 4-5 devs to simply slap ps3/360 optimized code onto wii u and expect it to run peachy.

It also means the wii u is future proofed for durango and ps4, as this is the system architecture they are going with.

Wii u should be capable of receiving any most any multiplat hame next gen, with just scaling of graphical fidelity.

[Desert Punk]

It certainly doesn't mean the wii u will compete with durango and ps4 because we have no details on performance again. It does mean that the main cpu workload will be reduced or shared somehow between gpu and cpu and means a performance gain but it still no indicator of the actual performance of the wii u in real terms. Nintendo are denying us a full specification with performance figures so we will have to rely on leaks for that information or just the results with our own eyes. Its certainly good news and the announcement of 2GB of total memory has me optimistic that perhaps at a later date the operating system can be optimised and perhaps reduce its memory requirements. Perhaps later wii u games will benefit from 1.25GB or even 1.5GB of main memory. I believe the 3DS started with more of a bloated operating system but optimising reduced its size and cpu requirements.

I wonder if the operating system being so large will need more cpu resources though.

[3Dude]

It certainly doesn't mean the wii u will compete with durango and ps4 because we have no details on performance again. It does mean that the main cpu workload will be reduced or shared somehow between gpu and cpu and means a performance gain but it still no indicator of the actual performance of the wii u in real terms. Nintendo are denying us a full specification with performance figures so we will have to rely on leaks for that information or just the results with our own eyes. Its certainly good news and the announcement of 2GB of total memory has me optimistic that perhaps at a later date the operating system can be optimised and perhaps reduce its memory requirements. Perhaps later wii u games will benefit from 1.25GB or even 1.5GB of main memory. I believe the 3DS started with more of a bloated operating system but optimising reduced its size and cpu requirements.

I wonder if the operating system being so large will need more cpu resources though.

We already have confirmed early devkits of durango and ps4 leaked. The ball park is known, and they both sport gpgpus and non mind blowing cpus (jaguar).

That being said, the cpu is likely designed around extraneous activity like miiverse and video streaming on the side while gaming.... While the gpgpu takes the load off things that can't be paralellized and thus require raw grunt.

[Desert Punk]

I really think the wii u performance is lower than people are expecting. The power consumption peak figure of 75W is very low with an average of 42W. That puts it below 360 and PS3 however I realise it has no hard drive power demands. The graphics on show at nintendo direct were quite clear and looked current gen or much less in places apart from Trine that looked beautiful but was only a 2D scrolling game and not something that would push the hardware.

I don't think the next Xbox or playstation are going to be as impressive as many hoped but we don't know yet as the final hardware is so far away but I'm sure they will comfortably outperform the wii u by a huge margin.

I think price will be a factor for me. I wouldn't pay £250 for the basic console package but would for the premium package. However I'm likely to change my mind as we get closer to launch but at the moment the videos of the games and Nintendo's refusal to release any real technical information about the gpu/cpu has me thinking I'd rather wait and see what happens.

It would be quite easy to create a video of the best ps3 or 360 games that makes the wii u look very dated from what is shown so far. Not for 2D graphics though which look great on wii u but for actual 3D type games.

At this point I'm not even convinced the wii u could deliver ambitious games like Skyrim.

[Alex Atkin UK]

At this point I'm not even convinced the wii u could deliver ambitious games like Skyrim.

I suspect the Wii U would run Skyrim very well indeed. You have to bear in mind that they are having serious problems getting it to work on PS3 properly due to lack of RAM. A big open-world game like that, its likely that RAM is its biggest limiting factor rather than CPU power.

The power consumption of the Wii U may be low, but the PS3/Xbox 360 also have had their power consumption slashed by about half over their lifetime. Nintendo on the other hand are not aiming as high-end to begin with so already benefit from the improvements in manufacturing the GPU, then on top of that they have whatever effort they themselves put into getting the heat/power down even further.

It seems generally to be considered that the Wii U IS more powerful than current generation consoles on the GPU but less on the CPU. That could almost certainly be offset by running the physics, the random tree generation, etc, on the GPU that on Xbox/PS3 run on the CPU. There is a LOT of optimisation that could go into Skyrim on the Wii U and I really hope they do consider porting it.

The physics on Arkham City are supposed to be far more fluid on the Wii U, the theory again being that its been switched over to the GPU.

Bottom line, you cannot compare the Wii U GPU to a PC as they are not as power optimised. You should be looking more at gaming laptops which even then still cannot be as efficient as a dedicated gaming console as manfacturers just want to get the latest hardware out to the market ASAP and make as much money as possible. Console manufacturers however have to think more long term and can make some of the money back on game sales, so they can put a lot more effort into optimising the hardware and OS.

[The Lonely Koopa]

I really think the wii u performance is lower than people are expecting. The power consumption peak figure of 75W is very low with an average of 42W. That puts it below 360 and PS3 however I realise it has no hard drive power demands. The graphics on show at nintendo direct were quite clear and looked current gen or much less in places apart from Trine that looked beautiful but was only a 2D scrolling game and not something that would push the hardware.

I don't think the next Xbox or playstation are going to be as impressive as many hoped but we don't know yet as the final hardware is so far away but I'm sure they will comfortably outperform the wii u by a huge margin.

I think price will be a factor for me. I wouldn't pay £250 for the basic console package but would for the premium package. However I'm likely to change my mind as we get closer to launch but at the moment the videos of the games and Nintendo's refusal to release any real technical information about the gpu/cpu has me thinking I'd rather wait and see what happens.

It would be quite easy to create a video of the best ps3 or 360 games that makes the wii u look very dated from what is shown so far. Not for 2D graphics though which look great on wii u but for actual 3D type games.

At this point I'm not even convinced the wii u could deliver ambitious games like Skyrim.

Do you Know how stupid that sounds I mean really If you know anything about tech you would have facepalmed at your own statement .

Edited by The Lonely Koopa, 13 September 2012 - 12:15 PM.

[Noonabites]

We already have confirmed early devkits of durango and ps4 leaked. The ball park is known, and they both sport gpgpus and non mind blowing cpus (jaguar).

That being said, the cpu is likely designed around extraneous activity like miiverse and video streaming on the side while gaming.... While the gpgpu takes the load off things that can't be paralellized and thus require raw grunt.

Links for leaks please. ^^

[Arkhandar]

I really think the wii u performance is lower than people are expecting. The power consumption peak figure of 75W is very low with an average of 42W. That puts it below 360 and PS3 however I realise it has no hard drive power demands. The graphics on show at nintendo direct were quite clear and looked current gen or much less in places apart from Trine that looked beautiful but was only a 2D scrolling game and not something that would push the hardware.

I don't think the next Xbox or playstation are going to be as impressive as many hoped but we don't know yet as the final hardware is so far away but I'm sure they will comfortably outperform the wii u by a huge margin.

I think price will be a factor for me. I wouldn't pay £250 for the basic console package but would for the premium package. However I'm likely to change my mind as we get closer to launch but at the moment the videos of the games and Nintendo's refusal to release any real technical information about the gpu/cpu has me thinking I'd rather wait and see what happens.

It would be quite easy to create a video of the best ps3 or 360 games that makes the wii u look very dated from what is shown so far. Not for 2D graphics though which look great on wii u but for actual 3D type games.

At this point I'm not even convinced the wii u could deliver ambitious games like Skyrim.

Edited by Arkhandar, 13 September 2012 - 04:06 PM.

[Socalmuscle]

Ouch!

Btw, the skyrim on ps3 trouble isn't just due to ram. It's also due to polygon performance.

The wii u would slap skyrim assets around like it was wet laundry that had to be beat dry on a clothesline.

Anyone who thinks the wii u would have any trouble with what the old consoles are doing needs to think a bit.

Properly written code for wii u can handle much more than what's on the 360/ps3. Much more. And that's not just due to ram either.

Edited by Socalmuscle, 13 September 2012 - 10:41 PM.

[thehappening]

IWATA ISNT REALLY SAYING MUCH OK IF YA SAY SO AS I ROLL EYES

its general purpose gpu aka the gpu is capable of general purpose code like a cpu it actually goes further than that think of a gpgpu as a gpu a cpu and a steamer for media and sound they can do all of these things even at the same time TRUE GPGPU THAT IWATA IS """"""""""""CLEARLY DISCRIBING"""""" is when its all tightly intergrated and the programmer developer etc will use the gpu far more and code can be spread across the gpu streamers etc and the cpu and the gpu can be part of the cpu code pipeline and the cpu can be part of the gpu pipe line

wiiu is 100% GPGPU theres cpu like code on the gpu and cpu will likely run a lot of gpu code remember the gekko / broadway core was CUSTOM with graphics burst pipes and on cpu custom effects FULLY PROGRAMMABLE so the cpu and the gpu could be doing graphics or one or the other both or one could be doing physics

WII U is using a very powerful gpu and clearly gp-gpu and threading via shaders is going to be how things are done devs will need to polish engines to gpgpu standards

so a cpu heavy engine would need converting to gpgpu its vastly more efficent than cpu over there gpu over here type coding its ether system on chip or its system on package

the 32MB EDRAM is likely more than a gpu buffer its likely for general purpose code also


xbox 360 was NOT gp gpu no matter what the fan zombis tell u

Edited by thehappening, 13 September 2012 - 11:56 PM.

[3Dude]

I wouldn't say wii u is using a 'very powerful' gpu, But its certainly far from bad, whatever its original base was.

Gotten several reports from different places stating the things gx2 is using at the very least, several of the same features touted in dx11. Several artists working on wii u games have literally changed their tune on the console after the latest sdk version.

So definately pretty dang good.

I wouldn't get unrealistically hyped though

[Desert Punk]

Do you Know how stupid that sounds I mean really If you know anything about tech you would have facepalmed at your own statement .

You do realise the wii u is using the same fabrication size as the current models of ps3 and 360 at around 40/45nm and the optical drive is faster consuming more current. It also has to supply power to 4x as much memory and also a small amount of power to 8 or 32 gigabytes of flash memory. You can actually use power consumption as a rough gauge to performance. Clearly powerful PCs require a lot of power to run powerful cpu's and gpu's and there is a direct connection between performance and power consumption. It really is staggering that anyone could be so utterly void of intellect that they don't realise this and yet criticise others when they are completely clueless what they write. Extra circuitry requires more power, how can anyone not realise this. If the wii u was using a 32nm fabrication process then clearly it could perform to a higher level using the same power but its not, its using a low cost 40/45nm fabrication process and this has already been stated. If you don't understand any of this why even comment because you just look like an utter vegetable especially when you are offensive and don't understand what you are criticising.

[The Lonely Koopa]

You do realise the wii u is using the same fabrication size as the current models of ps3 and 360 at around 40/45nm and the optical drive is faster consuming more current. It also has to supply power to 4x as much memory and also a small amount of power to 8 or 32 gigabytes of flash memory. You can actually use power consumption as a rough gauge to performance. Clearly powerful PCs require a lot of power to run powerful cpu's and gpu's and there is a direct connection between performance and power consumption. It really is staggering that anyone could be so utterly void of intellect that they don't realise this and yet criticise others when they are completely clueless what they write. Extra circuitry requires more power, how can anyone not realise this. If the wii u was using a 32nm fabrication process then clearly it could perform to a higher level using the same power but its not, its using a low cost 40/45nm fabrication process and this has already been stated. If you don't understand any of this why even comment because you just look like an utter vegetable especially when you are offensive and don't understand what you are criticising.

I guess you could be possible right But why would Nintendo even decide to go with that if your specs information is true couldn't you get better specs for cheeper or is it cause they had the specs planned so far ahead they didn't want to change them . I hope what you are saying is false though since it would be just as power if not a bit weaker than the 360 even with that extra ram.

[3Dude]

I guess you could be possible right But why would Nintendo even decide to go with that if your specs information is true couldn't you get better specs for cheeper or is it cause they had the specs planned so far ahead they didn't want to change them . I hope what you are saying is false though since it would be just as power if not a bit weaker than the 360 even with that extra ram.

Hopings not going to do anything, 75 watts max is 75 watts. Release 360 was 175 watts.

I could have sworn I said thiz over and over and over agaon that this thing wasn't going to be a powerhouse and not to have (glances up) CERTAIN PEOPLE WHO ALWAYS POST IN CAPS not overhype nonsense to get people hyped to ridiculous levels.

That being said, the low power draw doeant mean same power or weaker as ps3 or 360.

Yes its made on the same process as the revised hdtwins, but its architecture is also 6-7 years newer, not simply shrunk to a smaller process. It gets more performance per watt than ps3/360.

That being said, the wii u having a hardware jump like last gens hdtwins had over ps2/box is out of the question, again power draw is a very telling specification.

If you were looking at a power jump similar to last gen, you'd have power draw similar to last gen.

[Alex Atkin UK]

Power draw is definitely not the whole picture. I upgraded my PC GPU from the 8800GTS which used around 115w to a GT240 which uses about 65w and is slightly more powerful GPU wise.

Then there is the fact that generally the only PCs which concentrate on optimising power efficiency are laptops and tablets, so its not good comparing to desktop GPUs. Depending on how much Nintendo tweaked the architecture of the GPU from the stock its clear there is plenty of potential for reducing power draw.

Also, I believe a big reason Nintendo wanted to keep the specs low is not just cost, but form factor.

One of the big selling points of the Wii is that its size and relatively silent operation, made it fit in the living room without being intrusive.

When I first got my Xbox 360 I HATED how noisy it was, I don't think the Wii would have sold anywhere near as well if it had been as big or noisy.

I'm certainly hoping the Wii U will not be significantly louder than the Wii, it will make it awesome for Netflix which I am currently running on a PS3 Fat which is annoyingly loud.