200 replies to this topic

[ZeLdAfOrEvEr]

It's definitely the best looking version among the three consoles. 

I did a side-by-side comparison with the X360 (offscreen photos): 

 

[Goodtwin]

Thats the best comparison I have seen yet.  When the game is in motion, your not going to notice a huge difference, but its cool to see a legit comparison.  It is better at least, unlike just about every other port so far. 

[ameritt]

It's definitely the best looking version among the three consoles. 

I did a side-by-side comparison with the X360 (offscreen photos): 

 

It looks like the shadow's and lighting aren't there in the Wii U version though

[routerbad]

It looks like the shadow's and lighting aren't there in the Wii U version though

They are there, you can see a shadow cast on the farthest building out.  The lighting is coming from the left in the 360 image, and from the right in the Wii U image, meaning the one missing shadow you are referring to would be cast in a different direction.

 

EDIT: Looks like the building that is casting the shadow in the 360 version is not there at all in the Wii U version, at least from this perspective.  Have to see it in motion to see the lighting effects.

Edited by routerbad, 28 March 2013 - 10:45 PM.

[alan123]

the graphics might be better, but it's a pity the game in general is so poor.

[routerbad]

the graphics might be better, but it's a pity the game in general is so poor.

Yeah I don't know, I haven't played it yet, though I've seen several videos of it.  These games don't appeal to everyone.  The game is decent, but not groundbreaking in any sense.

[3Dude]

ameritt, on 28 Mar 2013 - 04:20, said:It looks like the shadow's and lighting aren't there in the Wii U version though




They are. Its a different time of day, so the sun, and thus the shadows are cast at different angles.

Look at the trees in the wii u version screen.

[PyroKinesis]

Almost picked this game up when it was $30 on Origin, because I heard fantastic things about it, but then I remembered I am terrible at racing games. Something about not using the brakes...

[ameritt]

ameritt, on 28 Mar 2013 - 04:20, said:It looks like the shadow's and lighting aren't there in the Wii U version though




They are. Its a different time of day, so the sun, and thus the shadows are cast at different angles.

Look at the trees in the wii u version screen.

Ah yes. good point. haha thanks  I will definitely be picking this game up when my lack of money streak discontinues

[Desert Punk]

The eurogamer face off is up and to be honest I can't really tell the difference looking at the videos. PS3, 360 and wii u all look great to me.

 

http://www.eurogamer...-wii-u-face-off

 

What it does say is the wii u frame rate is the best and this is for me is one of the most important things.

 

Seems to say some of the textures used are PC high res textures rather than all.

 

Online is weaker on wii u for some reason with a maximum of 6 instead of 8 players.

 

PS3 still has the best soundtrack with a high quality 7.1 LPCM soundtrack.

 

Not really my sort of game. The sort of game I only buy when its a fiver as I'll probably only play it 3-4 hrs before moving on.

 

It is really nice to see a wii u face off where the wii u version is the winner though.

 

PC version rules though. I'm sort of thinking about updating my PC. Its getting a bit dated now.  Something that will run this game at 1080p 60fps with full detail is probably achievable for about £300-350.

[routerbad]

The eurogamer face off is up and to be honest I can't really tell the difference looking at the videos. PS3, 360 and wii u all look great to me.

 

http://www.eurogamer...-wii-u-face-off

 

What it does say is the wii u frame rate is the best and this is for me is one of the most important things.

 

Seems to say some of the textures used are PC high res textures rather than all.

 

Online is weaker on wii u for some reason with a maximum of 6 instead of 8 players.

 

PS3 still has the best soundtrack with a high quality 7.1 LPCM soundtrack.

 

Not really my sort of game. The sort of game I only buy when its a fiver as I'll probably only play it 3-4 hrs before moving on.

 

It is really nice to see a wii u face off where the wii u version is the winner though.

 

PC version rules though. I'm sort of thinking about updating my PC. Its getting a bit dated now.  Something that will run this game at 1080p 60fps with full detail is probably achievable for about £300-350.

They still call out the CPU core clocks as a limiting factor, which is as disingenuous as it is ignorant of how the CPU operates.  Halfway decent article, but they still claim that other consoles pull ahead in areas, which anyone who's played the game on both X360 and Wii U can tell you is not the case.

[Goodtwin]

They still call out the CPU core clocks as a limiting factor, which is as disingenuous as it is ignorant of how the CPU operates.  Halfway decent article, but they still claim that other consoles pull ahead in areas, which anyone who's played the game on both X360 and Wii U can tell you is not the case.

 

Eurogamer is very skeptical when it comes to Wii U.  Its nothing new.  I dont think they are completely biased, but I do think that some of the bad stigma that has been placed onto the Wii U makes it into their articles.  The haters arent going to stop hating even if Retro shows up with something at E3 that blows everything we have seen on 360 and PS3 out of the water.  Some people want to dislike Nintendo products before they even play them.  The CPU arguement is becoming a joke.  Need for Speed Nitro on Wii was a 60fps game.  The load on the CPU isnt "that" much greater with NFS:MW on Wii U.  If the CPU is hitting 100%, its because the code isnt properly optimized.  This is a racer with a limited number of vehicles on the street, it shouldnt be taxing the CPU.  Keep in mind that Criterion never even mentioned the CPU in their interview.  They said they were having  issues getting their game to run well on the GPU, but after Nintendo got them updated dev kits and tools, they were "quickly" able to get the game running full speed.  I have become more and more concinved that the GPU and CPU have as much in common with off the shelf parts as the CPU and GPU in the Gamecube and Wii had with off the shelf parts, and thats practically nill.  Takeda from Nintendo even mentioned how the hardware labors on the memory, and if the developer isnt optimizing properly for the edram and cpu cache, then their performance is likely to suffer. 

 

I just watched the comparison videos, and they drastically improved the look of th game at night.  The lighting on the Wii U version is far more impressive than the texture upgrades the game got.  It does look like the framerate is a little less stable than the 360/PS3 versions, but in gameplay it rarely drops more than a couple of frames.  I am a framertate whore, but your not going ot notice a couple of frames.  When it drops to 22 fps, then yea, your going ot notice that, but that looks like a very rare occasion. 

 

Give Criterion credit.  They were able to essentially create the definitive version in about 3 months.  They finished the 360/PS3 build, went on vacation for the holidays, and then came back and hammered out the Wii U version in 3 months.  Keep in mind that Criterion has been optimizing games for the 360/PS3 for over 6 years.  Remember what 360/PS3 games looked like at launch?  If the pinacle of 360/PS3 performance is the starting point for Wii U, thats not to bad at all. 

Edited by Goodtwin, 29 March 2013 - 10:49 AM.

[routerbad]

Eurogamer is very skeptical when it comes to Wii U.  Its nothing new.  I dont think they are completely biased, but I do think that some of the bad stigma that has been placed onto the Wii U makes it into their articles.  The haters arent going to stop hating even if Retro shows up with something at E3 that blows everything we have seen on 360 and PS3 out of the water.  Some people want to dislike Nintendo products before they even play them.  The CPU arguement is becoming a joke.  Need for Speed Nitro on Wii was a 60fps game.  The load on the CPU isnt "that" much greater with NFS:MW on Wii U.  If the CPU is hitting 100%, its because the code isnt properly optimized.  This is a racer with a limited number of vehicles on the street, it shouldnt be taxing the CPU.  Keep in mind that Criterion never even mentioned the CPU in their interview.  They said they were having  issues getting their game to run well on the GPU, but after Nintendo got them updated dev kits and tools, they were "quickly" able to get the game running full speed.  I have become more and more concinved that the GPU and CPU have as much in common with off the shelf parts as the CPU and GPU in the Gamecube and Wii had with off the shelf parts, and thats practically nill.  Takeda from Nintendo even mentioned how the hardware labors on the memory, and if the developer isnt optimizing properly for the edram and cpu cache, then their performance is likely to suffer. 

And that is where the 720 comes in.  It will have a similar memory hierarchy, though the edram may not be on die with the GPU, but on MCM.  Eventually they will figure out how to use the memory hierarchy to their advantage and I think the joke will be on the haters when they do.

[3Dude]

routerbad, on 29 Mar 2013 - 02:45, said:They still call out the CPU core clocks as a limiting factor, which is as disingenuous as it is ignorant of how the CPU operates.  Halfway decent article, but they still claim that other consoles pull ahead in areas, which anyone who's played the game on both X360 and Wii U can tell you is not the case.


The only area i saw where any other version pulled ahead anywhere was on multiplayer number. Which is true, and analog triggers, which while true is irrelevant to the situation.


While they did state they had a concern about the lower clocked cpu and expected trouble because of it, citing back to when they began to create the fake narrative, they then went on to state this false narrative doesnt hold any water.

The game has a rock solid framerate, WITH vsync on so NO screen tearing, no sporatic frame dips like on ps360, and any reproducable dips, the wiiu version ALWAYS kept a commanding lead in fps.

Add on top of that cpu demanding tasks that can be spammed on a whim, like manipulating ai, or removing/adding every vehicle on the road without so much as a stutter...

And it becomes pretty apparant that this three months time port is putting all the bs surrounding the cpu to shame.

But their is more here. The wii u's load times are too fast for the established narrative. Its faster than the ps3, and on par with the 360 when reading from disc.

The problem with that is that its supposed to be impossible according to the established 'narrative'. Something ive known for a while now. And had comfirmation for since x was shown.

According to the narrative, the wii u's main ram, the 2Gb ddr3 only has a bandwidth that is roughly half that of the ps360.

While this can be circumvented from impacting gameplay via a competent memory heiarchy, getting that data off disc or drive and into those embedded pools requires a trip through the main ram, at its bandwidth on its way to edram caches.

In order to fill that ram pool, and move it to the edram, you need to utilize that low bandwidth.

That would require the wii u to take roughly twice as long as the ps3 to load, because of its main memory bandwidth limitation (cant take assets off disc with gpuedram, or move it from ram to edram at edram bw).

Which means the 'established' wii u main memory bandwidth numbers are wrong. There is absolutely no way around this. This is something that just cant happen any other way.

Weve had signs pointing to it for months, developers who said it wasnt true but were ignored here... But now, it cant be ignored.

Wii u's bandwidth for its main memory is at least twice as high as 12.8 GB a second.

The mistake likely occured in 1 of 2 ways.

The people doing the teardown dont understand the difference between ddr3 and gddr3.

Gddr3 is an enhanced form of gddr2, it can be clocked higher. Its double pumped.

ddr3 was a new technology. Gddr5 is an advanced form of ddr3, it can be clocked higher. Both are quad pumped.

If this was the mistake made, they would only account for the ram counting as 2x the clock instead of the actual 4x for ddr3.

effectively doubling the bandwidth stated.

Or, it could have simply been mislabeled chips.

While certainly not an everyday occurance, it happens quite a bit more than one would think. Typically the cause is a large quantity is needed, and typically the only difference is a flashed bios or firmware... take a whole store of finishec components, reflash em, and ship em, with the old labels.

Either way, the ram ruse ends here.

A memory heiarchy is fantastic, but there are some things that rely on just a part, instead of the whole, its one of the cons of using a heiarchy. Thats what we would be looking at here. Load times and streaming from main ram. Cant be done at edram bw, has to go through main ram.

But here, those cons should have shown through somewhere... But they didnt. Something has to give, and its not going to be the game actually DOING it thats false.

Edited by 3Dude, 30 March 2013 - 10:44 AM.

[Desert Punk]

Christ 3dude now your claiming driving games need a high amount of cpu resources?!?!

 

You do realise driving games play much the same as the old consoles like ps1, they really don't require much cpu resources its all about how fast the gpu can shift polygons and textures etc. This game is the ideal game for the wii u, high gpu requirements, low cpu requirements and its exactly why the wii u is performing well here. Its not like its anything new either, just about everyone expected the wii u to do well in this genre from the very beginning even those who know the wii u cpu is weak.

 

What exactly do you think needs the cpu power?

 

Even the dreamcast could do fantastic racing games with good AI with a incredibly weak 200mhz risc cpu by modern standards.

 

 

Why do you think games like gran turismo have been possible on ps1 and ps2 which have relatively poor cpu resources.

 

Consoles have been capable of full on 3D racing games for a long time.

 

I mean even the 3do had need for speed with a 12mhz arm chip.

 

 

The reason the ps3 has a rare frame rate advantage over the 360 is probably because Criterion have so much spare cpu capacity that they have used to the cell processor to take work off the main gpu to increase graphic thru-put.

Edited by Desert Punk, 30 March 2013 - 03:00 PM.

[3Dude]

Desert Punk, on 30 Mar 2013 - 09:00, said:Christ 3dude now your claiming driving games need a high amount of cpu resources?!?!
You do realise driving games play much the same as the old consoles like ps1, they really don't require much cpu resources its all about how fast the gpu can shift polygons and textures etc. This game is the ideal game for the wii u, high gpu requirements, low cpu requirements and its exactly why the wii u is performing well here. Its not like its anything new either, just about everyone expected the wii u to do well in this genre from the very beginning even those who know the wii u cpu is weak.
What exactly do you think needs the cpu power?
Even the dreamcast could do fantastic racing games with good AI with a incredibly weak 200mhz risc cpu by modern standards.

Why do you think games like gran turismo have been possible on ps1 and ps2 which have relatively poor cpu resources.
Consoles have been capable of full on 3D racing games for a long time.
I mean even the 3do had need for speed with a 12mhz arm chip.

The reason the ps3 has a rare frame rate advantage over the 360 is probably because Criterion have so much spare cpu capacity that they have used to the cell processor to take work off the main gpu to increase graphic thru-put.




Wow, you have truly outdone yourself this time. And even at your most ridiculous, you were only able to find one thing to change the subject of to make a strawman. You seem to be reaching the limits of the crap you can make up.

Do you seriously think nothing has changed between dreamcast and modern times physics simulation? Really?

Im not even going to persue this because its not only laughably pathetic, its a completely different topic. Than the one in my post.


Which of those games you showed allow a god mode with a second player removing or adding massive amounts of animated assets, each with an ai routine, some with advanced ai and pathfinding, instantly, at the touch of a switch, without a single stutter?

Oh none of them? WOW you mean you werent even thinking about that? WOW you missed the ENTIRE TOPIC OF WHAT YOU WEREVTRYING TO RESPOND TO?

Ha ha. You suck at this.

I dont want to hurt your head, but i just want to leave you with this...

If the ps3 version has a better framerate than the 360 because of the cpu, then how do you explain the wii u having a more solid framerate than the ps3?




oh, oh no.... HES GONNA BLOW!!!!

Edited by 3Dude, 30 March 2013 - 03:15 PM.

[Desert Punk]

Wow that video at the end really made your case didn't it? An effect of a man's head inflating like a balloon really showed me how you have a comprehensive understanding of the wii u.

 

You do realise the exact same game is on the vita which has about the same cpu resources as an original xbox. Your whole argument is so utterly biased and stupid it is frankly unbelievable.

 

You are totally clueless, mainly I think because you simply won't believe what you don't want to because you are that much of a fanboy.

 

Look 3dude if you want to believe the wii u is powerful enough to take on the ps4 and xbox 720 then you believe it, no one will stop you but what is the point? If you look at earlier postings on here by me or neogaf or numerous other places everyone knew the wii u should perform a bit better for this type of game. For you to then use this as evidence that the wii u cpu isn't weak makes no sense at all. There is a long history of consoles with weak cpu's still being very respectable for driving games.

[3Dude]

Desert Punk, on 30 Mar 2013 - 10:18, said:Wow that video at the end really made your case didn't it? An effect of a man's head inflating like a balloon really showed me how you have a comprehensive understanding of the wii u.
You do realise the exact same game is on the vita which has about the same cpu resources as an original xbox. Your whole argument is so utterly biased and stupid it is frankly unbelievable.
You are totally clueless, mainly I think because you simply won't believe what you don't want to because you are that much of a fanboy.
Look 3dude if you want to believe the wii u is powerful enough to take on the ps4 and xbox 720 then you believe it, no one will stop you but what is the point? If you look at earlier postings on here by me or neogaf or numerous other places everyone knew the wii u should perform a bit better for this type of game. For you to then use this as evidence that the wii u cpu isn't weak makes no sense at all. There is a long history of consoles with weak cpu's still being very respectable for driving games.



....
.....

You havent figured out yet that that feature we keep talking about over and over again is a wii u version exclusive, and thus, not on the 360, ps3, or vita version, have you?

Yes, racing games typically arent very demanding as most things are only breifly seen then discarded.

Some racing games, are a different story, like most wanted, which takes place in an open persistant world (whoopsie punk, know what you are arguing about).

However thats not the point. The point was, after having done everything the ps3/360 games had, they had so much overhead left over they were able to keep adding feature after feature, such as the god mode i keep bringing up that basically lets you edit quite a bit of the game in realtime while someone else plays.

I gave you many chances, and you never had a clue throughout the whole ordeal.

You are done here.

Edited by 3Dude, 30 March 2013 - 05:54 PM.

[routerbad]

routerbad, on 29 Mar 2013 - 02:45, said:They still call out the CPU core clocks as a limiting factor, which is as disingenuous as it is ignorant of how the CPU operates.  Halfway decent article, but they still claim that other consoles pull ahead in areas, which anyone who's played the game on both X360 and Wii U can tell you is not the case.


The only area i saw where any other version pulled ahead anywhere was on multiplayer number. Which is true, and analog triggers, which while true is irrelevant to the situation.


While they did state they had a concern about the lower clocked cpu and expected trouble because of it, citing back to when they began to create the fake narrative, they then went on to state this false narrative doesnt hold any water.

The game has a rock solid framerate, WITH vsync on so NO screen tearing, no sporatic frame dips like on ps360, and any reproducable dips, the wiiu version ALWAYS kept a commanding lead in fps.

Add on top of that cpu demanding tasks that can be spammed on a whim, like manipulating ai, or removing/adding every vehicle on the road without so much as a stutter...

And it becomes pretty apparant that this three months time port is putting all the bs surrounding the cpu to shame.

But their is more here. The wii u's load times are too fast for the established narrative. Its faster than the ps3, and on par with the 360 when reading from disc.

The problem with that is that its supposed to be impossible according to the established 'narrative'. Something ive known for a while now. And had comfirmation for since x was shown.

According to the narrative, the wii u's main ram, the 2Gb ddr3 only has a bandwidth that is roughly half that of the ps360.

While this can be circumvented from impacting gameplay via a competent memory heiarchy, getting that data off disc or drive and into those embedded pools requires a trip through the main ram, at its bandwidth on its way to edram caches.

In order to fill that ram pool, and move it to the edram, you need to utilize that low bandwidth.

That would require the wii u to take roughly twice as long as the ps3 to load, because of its main memory bandwidth limitation (cant take assets off disc with gpuedram, or move it from ram to edram at edram bw).

Which means the 'established' wii u main memory bandwidth numbers are wrong. There is absolutely no way around this. This is something that just cant happen any other way.

Weve had signs pointing to it for months, developers who said it wasnt true but were ignored here... But now, it cant be ignored.

Wii u's bandwidth for its main memory is at least twice as high as 12.8 GB a second.

The mistake likely occured in 1 of 2 ways.

The people doing the teardown dont understand the difference between ddr3 and gddr3.

Gddr3 is an enhanced form of gddr2, it can be clocked higher. Its double pumped.

ddr3 was a new technology. Gddr5 is an advanced form of ddr3, it can be clocked higher. Both are quad pumped.

If this was the mistake made, they would only account for the ram counting as 2x the clock instead of the actual 4x for ddr3.

effectively doubling the bandwidth stated.

Or, it could have simply been mislabeled chips.

While certainly not an everyday occurance, it happens quite a bit more than one would think. Typically the cause is a large quantity is needed, and typically the only difference is a flashed bios or firmware... take a whole store of finishec components, reflash em, and ship em, with the old labels.

Either way, the ram ruse ends here.

A memory heiarchy is fantastic, but there are some things that rely on just a part, instead of the whole, its one of the cons of using a heiarchy. Thats what we would be looking at here. Load times and streaming from main ram. Cant be done at edram bw, has to go through main ram.

But here, those cons should have shown through somewhere... But they didnt. Something has to give, and its not going to be the game actually DOING it thats false.

Well said.

Wow that video at the end really made your case didn't it? An effect of a man's head inflating like a balloon really showed me how you have a comprehensive understanding of the wii u.

 

You do realise the exact same game is on the vita which has about the same cpu resources as an original xbox. Your whole argument is so utterly biased and stupid it is frankly unbelievable.

 

You are totally clueless, mainly I think because you simply won't believe what you don't want to because you are that much of a fanboy.

 

Look 3dude if you want to believe the wii u is powerful enough to take on the ps4 and xbox 720 then you believe it, no one will stop you but what is the point? If you look at earlier postings on here by me or neogaf or numerous other places everyone knew the wii u should perform a bit better for this type of game. For you to then use this as evidence that the wii u cpu isn't weak makes no sense at all. There is a long history of consoles with weak cpu's still being very respectable for driving games.

You really have nothing but straw men propping up your argument.  You can't compare PS1 and PS2 driving simulators to today's sims.  It doesnt work that way.  50 PS1's wouldn't be able to handle the physics calculations alone of a modern racing sim.

 

It doesn't matter which platforms have the game, because the Wii U version is the only one that allows modifying lighting, AI, traffic, textures and performance perameters (car switching) on the fly.

[Phanto]

Ok, confess! Which one of you took Phanto as your EA Origin Account name? Not cool, man. Not cool! I have a backup identity, but no one gets the reference of Botwoon (If you do get the reference I consider you one of the coolest Nintendo fans ever).