16 replies to this topic

[Desert Punk]

We still don't know the final specification of the Wii U. Nintendo don't make a loss on consoles and the Wii U console itself is quite small only marginally bigger than the Wii. I've read comments from developers that have sounded at times its less powerful, the same power or more powerful than 360/PS3.

For example the GPU will more than likely be bottom of the range similar to Xbox 360 and may be underclocked to prevent overheating in the Wii U case but the fact it will be using slightly later technology and have more high speed video memory will give it advantages. One comment I've read is it can use higher resolution textures.

Until we get a final specification we won't really know the power of the console. Remember the Wii was launched well after the original Xbox and yet was far less powerful.

Nintendo were happy to use PS3/360 graphics to showcase the Wii U at E3. You would think if the console was as powerful as modern PCs they would have used PC graphics to showcase Wii U graphics. I think we need to put our realistic hats on.

I do believe Skyrim will be fantastic on Wii U though and as its got to come later to the format it will probably come with many of the bugs already fixed. Bethedsa games always seem to have major issues and require patches. I just hope the patches the Wii U version will need don't fill up the Wii U's flash memory.

[Jikayaki]

We still don't know the final specification of the Wii U. Nintendo don't make a loss on consoles and the Wii U console itself is quite small only marginally bigger than the Wii. I've read comments from developers that have sounded at times its less powerful, the same power or more powerful than 360/PS3.

For example the GPU will more than likely be bottom of the range similar to Xbox 360 and may be underclocked to prevent overheating in the Wii U case but the fact it will be using slightly later technology and have more high speed video memory will give it advantages. One comment I've read is it can use higher resolution textures.

Until we get a final specification we won't really know the power of the console. Remember the Wii was launched well after the original Xbox and yet was far less powerful.

Nintendo were happy to use PS3/360 graphics to showcase the Wii U at E3. You would think if the console was as powerful as modern PCs they would have used PC graphics to showcase Wii U graphics. I think we need to put our realistic hats on.

I do believe Skyrim will be fantastic on Wii U though and as its got to come later to the format it will probably come with many of the bugs already fixed. Bethedsa games always seem to have major issues and require patches. I just hope the patches the Wii U version will need don't fill up the Wii U's flash memory.

Nothing supposedly from developers have placed Wii U at or below current HD consoles. For the most part developers aren't willing to talk about graphical horse power and more than likely Nintendo has told them to say nothing regarding this issue. How the console relates in power to the other HD consoles has been practically a no comment issue. Practically all developers have said is that it is an HD console and that its architecture fits their current business model. Currently by piecing together information regarding current Dev Kits that's leaked it seems because of a heating issue they had to be down clocked because under too large a load the kits crashed. Otherwise the GPU for instance is supposedly from multiple rumors within the range of a Radeon HD 4850. We'll have a better idea of the consoles actual abilities sometime this month once the new Dev Kits get into the hands of developers willing to leak info.

The Wii wasn't far less powerful than the Xbox. In fact it was noticeably more powerful than the Xbox. The only capability Wii lacked was programmable shaders a feature Nintendo at the time really didn't like.

Nintendo apparently used PS3 and Xbox 360 footage because Wii U footage available to them from 3d party developers wasn't noticeably better than the PS3 and Xbox 360 footage. This was Nintendo trying to prevent the issue that occurred to Microsoft when showing early Xbox 360 footage that lead to the belief that Xbox 360 wasn't noticeably more powerful than Xbox. Many of the rumors regarding the GPU should allow Wii U to play any modern PC game at high. Perhaps it would of been smart to showcase some of the latest PC games as an example of what the console is capable of, but it is obvious that their focus was the controller.

[Desert Punk]

Nothing supposedly from developers have placed Wii U at or below current HD consoles. For the most part developers aren't willing to talk about graphical horse power and more than likely Nintendo has told them to say nothing regarding this issue. How the console relates in power to the other HD consoles has been practically a no comment issue. Practically all developers have said is that it is an HD console and that its architecture fits their current business model. Currently by piecing together information regarding current Dev Kits that's leaked it seems because of a heating issue they had to be down clocked because under too large a load the kits crashed. Otherwise the GPU for instance is supposedly from multiple rumors within the range of a Radeon HD 4850. We'll have a better idea of the consoles actual abilities sometime this month once the new Dev Kits get into the hands of developers willing to leak info.

The Wii wasn't far less powerful than the Xbox. In fact it was noticeably more powerful than the Xbox. The only capability Wii lacked was programmable shaders a feature Nintendo at the time really didn't like.

Nintendo apparently used PS3 and Xbox 360 footage because Wii U footage available to them from 3d party developers wasn't noticeably better than the PS3 and Xbox 360 footage. This was Nintendo trying to prevent the issue that occurred to Microsoft when showing early Xbox 360 footage that lead to the belief that Xbox 360 wasn't noticeably more powerful than Xbox. Many of the rumors regarding the GPU should allow Wii U to play any modern PC game at high. Perhaps it would of been smart to showcase some of the latest PC games as an example of what the console is capable of, but it is obvious that their focus was the controller.

How on earth do you consider the Wii noticably more powerful than Xbox? The xbox had high resolution graphics upto 1080i resolution, 32bit colour not 24bit colour, true 5.1 sound, a more advanced gpu, a faster cpu, 64meg of main memory not 24meg plus 3 meg video, a built in hard drive with the ability to cache in extra game data quickly. How are you gauging the Wii has more power than the Xbox? I've got both and the best Xbox graphics easily beat the wii. Games like Soul Caliber II run at 720p on xbox. Some games run at 1080i. Have you actually seen Far Cry on the original xbox? Still a stunning game visually.

[Jikayaki]

How on earth do you consider the Wii noticably more powerful than Xbox? The xbox had high resolution graphics upto 1080i resolution, 32bit colour not 24bit colour, true 5.1 sound, a more advanced gpu, a faster cpu, 64meg of main memory not 24meg plus 3 meg video, a built in hard drive with the ability to cache in extra game data quickly. How are you gauging the Wii has more power than the Xbox? I've got both and the best Xbox graphics easily beat the wii. Games like Soul Caliber II run at 720p on xbox. Some games run at 1080i. Have you actually seen Far Cry on the original xbox? Still a stunning game visually.

The 64MB of unified memory within the Xbox was for everything while the 88MB on Wii is split. The unified memory is superior that's certainly not something I'm arguing, but if you think all that 64MB is for GPU work you need to do more research. On average I doubt Wii has less memory available to the GPU, and at the resolutions used by the Wii it really doesn't matter. Wii's GPU however is superior in some ways to the Xbox while inferior in others. Overall however the Wii is more powerful than the Xbox its not even arguable. The only significant advantage the Xbox had over the Wii is programmable shaders. A hard drive hardly has anything to do with the capabilities of a console so that's a mute point. Developers choosing not to really push the Wii really doesn't make this any less true. I'm gauging the Wii's power based on info that's been found by various sources. You have to realize that in real life applications the Xbox wasn't extremely more powerful than Gamecube and the enhancements to the architecture from Gamecube to Wii as lack luster as the console was surpassed what was actually capable on the Xbox.

[Desert Punk]

The 64MB of unified memory within the Xbox was for everything while the 88MB on Wii is split. The unified memory is superior that's certainly not something I'm arguing, but if you think all that 64MB is for GPU work you need to do more research. On average I doubt Wii has less memory available to the GPU, and at the resolutions used by the Wii it really doesn't matter. Wii's GPU however is superior in some ways to the Xbox while inferior in others. Overall however the Wii is more powerful than the Xbox its not even arguable. The only significant advantage the Xbox had over the Wii is programmable shaders. A hard drive hardly has anything to do with the capabilities of a console so that's a mute point. Developers choosing not to really push the Wii really doesn't make this any less true. I'm gauging the Wii's power based on info that's been found by various sources. You have to realize that in real life applications the Xbox wasn't extremely more powerful than Gamecube and the enhancements to the architecture from Gamecube to Wii as lack luster as the console was surpassed what was actually capable on the Xbox.

Firstly the extra 64 megabytes on the wii is buffer memory for the dvd drive and sound. The gamecube only had 16meg of slow buffer memory but it only had to buffer a single layer 1.4GB optical disc. The wii makes use of a full dvd disc so it was increased. The xbox replaces the dvd buffer memory with 768meg of cached hard drive memory for each game. Remember the hard drive itself has some cache memory. So that 64 meg is there because of a lack of hard drive and its still much slower but does mean the wii can load level data continously and doesn't need to pause to load new level data in the same way as the dreamcast for example.

The wii has 24 meg of main memory and 3 meg of video memory. 2meg of video memory is the frame buffer and 1meg for textures. The 2meg limits the resolution of the wii to 480p and the 1meg texture memory creates heavy restrictions on the amount of textures that can be used. Hence why many of the wii's best games are cartoon type graphics due to the texture limitation.

Xbox has 64meg of unified memory of which upto 12meg can be used for graphics. I guess that would be needed for 1080i games. Most games only use about 6meg I believe. 3 meg frame buffer and 3 meg textures I guess. Remember the Xbox has 32bit colour where as wii is only 24bit colour so xbox needs 33% extra memory for the frame buffer.

If you want to believe the wii is more powerful than the original xbox back it up with facts. You haven't made any case at all. Of course the hard drive is important. Maybe you believe the powerpc chip at 720mhz is more powerful than the Celeron at 733mhz in the xbox. Benchmarks proof otherwise. The xbox gpu is much more powerful than the gamecube/wii gpu.

The wii has more memory bandwidth overall but its a very limited console. The soundchip in the xbox was state of the art for the time producing a huge number of channels and with true 5.1 sound, the wii has a 2 channel sound chip.

There is nothing like Half life 2 on the wii. That game on the xbox had a full physics engine. We are certainly going off topic with the discussion but its clear the wii is inferior. Can you think of a single wii game with realistic graphics that is superior on wii to a similar title on xbox? Something like Call of Duty 3 on the wii has lost the excellent 5.1 soundtrack, its lost the 32bit colour range and been downgraded to 24bit colour. Some of the detail in the game is missing to fit into the 24meg memory of the wii. Treyach really went to town with the wii version and it's the wii's most successful first person shooter selling over 2 million copies but its still inferior to the xbox version. Far Cry is far superior to Call of Duty 3 on xbox but it would be unfair to compare Far Cry xbox to Far Cry Wii.

The fact is people assumed the wii was more powerful than xbox because it came out later, the reality is that it isn't. Many xbox games are hugely ambitious and the likes of which have never been seen on the wii due to limited memory and lack of hard drive.

Just to summarise;

Xbox is best for;

GPU
CPU
Memory
hard drive
sound

wii is best for

memory bandwidth

[Jikayaki]

Firstly the extra 64 megabytes on the wii is buffer memory for the dvd drive and sound. The gamecube only had 16meg of slow buffer memory but it only had to buffer a single layer 1.4GB optical disc. The wii makes use of a full dvd disc so it was increased. The xbox replaces the dvd buffer memory with 768meg of cached hard drive memory for each game. Remember the hard drive itself has some cache memory. So that 64 meg is there because of a lack of hard drive and its still much slower but does mean the wii can load level data continously and doesn't need to pause to load new level data in the same way as the dreamcast for example.

The wii has 24 meg of main memory and 3 meg of video memory. 2meg of video memory is the frame buffer and 1meg for textures. The 2meg limits the resolution of the wii to 480p and the 1meg texture memory creates heavy restrictions on the amount of textures that can be used. Hence why many of the wii's best games are cartoon type graphics due to the texture limitation.

Xbox has 64meg of unified memory of which upto 12meg can be used for graphics. I guess that would be needed for 1080i games. Most games only use about 6meg I believe. 3 meg frame buffer and 3 meg textures I guess. Remember the Xbox has 32bit colour where as wii is only 24bit colour so xbox needs 33% extra memory for the frame buffer.

If you want to believe the wii is more powerful than the original xbox back it up with facts. You haven't made any case at all. Of course the hard drive is important. Maybe you believe the powerpc chip at 720mhz is more powerful than the Celeron at 733mhz in the xbox. Benchmarks proof otherwise. The xbox gpu is much more powerful than the gamecube/wii gpu.

The wii has more memory bandwidth overall but its a very limited console. The soundchip in the xbox was state of the art for the time producing a huge number of channels and with true 5.1 sound, the wii has a 2 channel sound chip.

There is nothing like Half life 2 on the wii. That game on the xbox had a full physics engine. We are certainly going off topic with the discussion but its clear the wii is inferior. Can you think of a single wii game with realistic graphics that is superior on wii to a similar title on xbox? Something like Call of Duty 3 on the wii has lost the excellent 5.1 soundtrack, its lost the 32bit colour range and been downgraded to 24bit colour. Some of the detail in the game is missing to fit into the 24meg memory of the wii. Treyach really went to town with the wii version and it's the wii's most successful first person shooter selling over 2 million copies but its still inferior to the xbox version. Far Cry is far superior to Call of Duty 3 on xbox but it would be unfair to compare Far Cry xbox to Far Cry Wii.

The fact is people assumed the wii was more powerful than xbox because it came out later, the reality is that it isn't. Many xbox games are hugely ambitious and the likes of which have never been seen on the wii due to limited memory and lack of hard drive.

Just to summarise;

Xbox is best for;

GPU
CPU
Memory
hard drive
sound

wii is best for

memory bandwidth

Your still not getting it. Certainly there are some features the Xbox GPU has that the Wii's doesn't, but overall in raw capability the Wii surpasses the overall capabilities of the Xbox. The hard drive on the Xbox isn't capable of acting like RAM. You can load game data onto the hard drive and pull it directly from there, but you still have to run game data through the slower memory bandwidth. It may or may not be faster to load data from the hard drive I'd have to do further research than I think this topic requires. A hard drive hardly has any effect on the capability of a console its a nice feature that's quite welcomed in the case of the PS3 because of the slow Blu-Ray drive, but its not going to magically improve a console's capabilities. Wii is a console only meant for standard definition obviously and fixed function so the feature set of Hollywood and Xbox's GPU is quite different. You again have to understand that regardless of what you may find on the Xbox's GPU in real world situations because of one restraint or another it wasn't considerably more powerful than the Gamecube. Architecture improvements and a higher clock more than makes up the difference. The largest advantage of the Xbox over the Wii your going to find is programmable shaders. Its possible as quoted by devs to reproduce the shader effects of the Xbox, but most don't bother to do so.

Its been considerably more difficult to search up some of those old threads and news releases regarding the capability of the Wii compared to the Xbox than I thought it would be, but still using Google you should be able to find sources that explains why Wii is technically more powerful than Xbox in far more detail than I can. The CPU Broadway is more powerful and regardless of its own limitations Hollywood has several advantages and technically capable of more in regards of real world situations. The Wii simply hasn't been pushed graphically. Majority of third party developers focus more on making Wii games as cheaply as possible since they haven't been historically successful on the console and many developers have admitted to the fact they don't really try to push the console.

Edited by Jikayaki, 14 July 2011 - 05:49 AM.

[Desert Punk]

On almost every single basis I can think of the Xbox beats the wii. Its beats it on graphics, its beats it on sound, it beats it on ambitious games, its beats it on specification. The wii has some great games that the xbox doesn't like Mario Galaxy and at the end of the day Microsoft doesn't have brilliant Nintendo designed games but the wii is still technically inferior.

Even on graphics you can split how many areas the xbox beats the wii.

Its beats it on maximum resolution, it beats it on colour depth, it beats it on video memory, it beats it on visual effects/features, it beats it on polygon output, it beats it on texturing.

The reason I'm not getting it, is because there is nothing to get.

I don't see the point of pretending the wii is more powerful than it is. What does this achieve and why do it? Why can't we be realistic about what the wii is and what its capable of? Same for the Wii U we know Nintendo have a history of producing low spec consoles at high prices so we should be careful about the Wii U. It may be a powerhouse of a console or it may be technically poor.

Many people bought the wii thinking it was more powerful than it was and many were disappointed by it and of course many were happy with its specification and didn't care. People deserve to know how powerful Nintendo consoles are, its not a reason not to buy the console its just being forewarned about what the console is truly capable of especially if Nintendo prices it highly.

We just need to be realistic and not declare the Wii U as more powerful than ps3/360 until we see the proof.

[Happy Monk]

On almost every single basis I can think of the Xbox beats the wii. Its beats it on graphics, its beats it on sound, it beats it on ambitious games, its beats it on specification. The wii has some great games that the xbox doesn't like Mario Galaxy and at the end of the day Microsoft doesn't have brilliant Nintendo designed games but the wii is still technically inferior.

Even on graphics you can split how many areas the xbox beats the wii.

Its beats it on maximum resolution, it beats it on colour depth, it beats it on video memory, it beats it on visual effects/features, it beats it on polygon output, it beats it on texturing.

The reason I'm not getting it, is because there is nothing to get.

I don't see the point of pretending the wii is more powerful than it is. What does this achieve and why do it? Why can't we be realistic about what the wii is and what its capable of? Same for the Wii U we know Nintendo have a history of producing low spec consoles at high prices so we should be careful about the Wii U. It may be a powerhouse of a console or it may be technically poor.

Many people bought the wii thinking it was more powerful than it was and many were disappointed by it and of course many were happy with its specification and didn't care. People deserve to know how powerful Nintendo consoles are, its not a reason not to buy the console its just being forewarned about what the console is truly capable of especially if Nintendo prices it highly.

We just need to be realistic and not declare the Wii U as more powerful than ps3/360 until we see the proof.

Hang on a second. That is utter rubbish, The Wii was the cheapest of the 3 (especially now), the N64 was the most powerful of the 3, the SNES was the most powerful, (i think) the NES was cheaper. The DS was less powerful than the PSP, but is a lot cheaper, and the 3DS is a lot more powerful than the PSP, and is cheaper than the Vita. I don't know where you got that garbage from.

The Wii is more powerful, It does not take extra power to upscale a console's resolution, no XBOX game was natively 720p or 1080i, you can upscale the wii if you really wanted too. The fact of the matter is, the Wii can slightly out perform the original XBOX, not by much, but enough. Sure the Xbox had Halo 2, but the textures popped up. The wii has Metroid prime 3, and Other M. Saying the Xbox is more powerful is just ignorant.

Also, to get back on point, Skyrim on the Wii U would be fantastic!

Edited by Happy Monk, 14 July 2011 - 02:39 PM.

[Desert Punk]

Hang on a second. That is utter rubbish, The Wii was the cheapest of the 3 (especially now), the N64 was the most powerful of the 3, the SNES was the most powerful, (i think) the NES was cheaper. The DS was less powerful than the PSP, but is a lot cheaper, and the 3DS is a lot more powerful than the PSP, and is cheaper than the Vita. I don't know where you got that garbage from.

The Wii is more powerful, It does not take extra power to upscale a console's resolution, no XBOX game was natively 720p or 1080i, you can upscale the wii if you really wanted too. The fact of the matter is, the Wii can slightly out perform the original XBOX, not by much, but enough. Sure the Xbox had Halo 2, but the textures popped up. The wii has Metroid prime 3, and Other M. Saying the Xbox is more powerful is just ignorant.

Also, to get back on point, Skyrim on the Wii U would be fantastic!

You come across as a complete idiot when you state someone else's reply is garbarge but then fill your post with false information. Nintendo have been selling low spec hardware at high prices for sometime now. The gamecube was the last competitive console with price vs specification. Nintendo do not make a loss on hardware and consoles like the wii have been hugely profitable purely on hardware sales alone.

The 3DS isn't a lot more powerful than the psp and certainly a comparison of psp and 3DS games shows the 3DS may have a small graphic edge but often the gameplay mechanics are much more simplified on 3DS and the games are much smaller. Remember the PSP resolution is higher. The psp isn't graphically weak even if 3DS is marginally better, its games are upto 1.8GB in size. In its fastest mode both cpu cores run at 333mhz and the gpu at 166mhz.



Also Resistance Retribution shows quite a lot of power in the handheld.



Neither of these games are run at 333mhz full on I believe although I believe the psp generally will go to 333mhz for decompressing code for short periods of time. These are 222mhz games.

There is no evidence at all to show the 3DS is more powerful than PSP generally they are about the same level but in comparing games the psp appears to be much more powerful overall however as 3DS game cartridges increase in size and developers get more familar with the hardware it should increase and the 3DS will be more competitive.


The xbox has quite a few 720p and 1080i games, these aren't upscaled they are fully rendered at these resolutions. Not only that but they are in 32bit colour and have full 5.1 sound.

List of titles here;

http://web.archive.org/web/20060404110141/http://hdtvarcade.com/xboxlist.htm

Again I don't see the point of living in denial about these things. If you think the wii is more powerful than xbox then explain that factually pointing to the specification you think is superior to xbox. There is no point to just saying wii is more powerful despite the specification clearly showing otherwise. Same with 3DS. Why not be realistic? If I've got the specification wrong made some sort of factual error then point that out.

Its not all about specification its about games but I do believe people should know the specification and know exactly what a console is potentially capable of. Many people at the beginning thought the wii was as capable as 360 or PS3 because a lot of fanboys went about on forums hyping up its potential making all sorts fo false claims. Why not be realistic instead?

[Auzzie Wingman]

Heretic? Heretic! HERETIC!!!

BURN THE HERET - *looks at avatar*

Don't worry people, it's all cool people. It's so cool, it's ICE cold.

There is no heretic in the house.

Edited by Auzzie Wingman, 18 July 2011 - 06:42 PM.

[Happy Monk]

Both those PSP games look good. But neither of them look as good as the Resident Evil games for the 3DS, or Street Fighter, or Kid Icarus or Super Mario, or Luigi's mansion 2, or Animal Crossing, and this is in the first year of the 3DS, the games will look great at the end.
That link you posted doesn't prove anything, yes XBOX games can be played in 720p (even 1080i) but that still doesn't mean anything, they weren't made to be played at that resolution, none of them were, the only reason you say the XBOX is more powerful than the Wii is because it was (by a fair distance) the most powerful console at the time of its release, and the Wii isn't. You remember how great the games looked back then, and can't step away from that. The same for the PSP.
The 3DS is more powerful than the PSP, the fact that it can already out perform it in its early stages of life proves this, sure those PSP and XBOX games look good, but neither of them (especially the PSP) look as good as Wii games. Every single XBOX game I've ever seen just looks murky and rather nasty, sure it could do 5.1 surround, but back then that was incredibly expensive!
Your first comment confuses me... The Wii ain't expensive. Especially not now, and neither was the DS (that launched at around £100), just because they make a profit doesn't mean it's expensive, I'm sure the Wii U will look and sound expensive when it comes out, because Nintendo will make a profit, its called business.
And, last point before I leave you to play XBOX, you're the one in denial, someone arguing about it as much as you (even bringing it up in the first place) prove this. Maybe we are both in denial, and the Wii isn't as powerful as the Wii U

[BazzDropperz]

-

Edited by BazzDropperz, 13 July 2014 - 10:49 PM.

[Josh89]

Well, if the original Xbox was more powerful than the Wii, then just name a single Xbox game that looks better than Mario Galaxy 2.

[The Lonely Koopa]

Well, if the original Xbox was more powerful than the Wii, then just name a single Xbox game that looks better than Mario Galaxy 2.

the problem I have with this is mario galaxy 2 and 1 for that matter is that it really not that good looking its more of a trick when inspected up close the textures are really bad and blurred but the boss models are decent the water I was disappointed in the most with mario galaxly 2 the first ones water was much better aswell as sunshines.

[Andy]

Why are we even arguing over the wii and original XBox?

[The Lonely Koopa]

Why are we even arguing over the wii and original XBox?

Boredom thier not much to talk about.

[Desert Punk]

Well, if the original Xbox was more powerful than the Wii, then just name a single Xbox game that looks better than Mario Galaxy 2.

Thats not the game to compare to Xbox. Cartoon graphics like Mario Galaxy are much easier for systems to create because the textures are simple and not realistic. Most modern gpu's are pushed hard to create realistic visuals with realistic textures. Cartoon graphics are pretty easy to do.

I don't think the xbox really cut it as a platform for err... platform games but the only one I can think of that had some effort put into the graphics was an update of an N64 game but it was a massive update with much improved textures.



Again don't forget this game has a full 32bit colour palette not 24bit like Mario Galaxy and is also creating a full 5.1 soundtrack. You can't just dismiss these extras as non important. If the xbox only had to use 24bit colour and 2 channel sound it would free up many resources which could mean extra complexity in the game world due to spare cpu power and memory.

Why are we even arguing over the wii and original XBox?

Basically I made the point that the wii came after the original xbox but was less powerful than it so its possible the Wii U could come after 360/PS3 and still be equal or inferior to the performance of these models. Then of course someone disagreed about the wii being less powerful than xbox and I made the case for the xbox being more powerful based on both its specification and the games available. It just sort of escalated from there.

Its been spun off now wisely by a moderator so those interested in the topic can read/reply and it doesn't impact on the main purpose of the original thread.