Alex Atkin UK

I heard that the force power down feature from the Wii was included in the Wii U update.  Foexample, if a game freezes, you can hold down the power button for a while and the console shuts down.  Anyone know if this is true?

 

You mean the feature I mentioned on page 1?

You would think the thread titled "Wii U update is live!" would be a clue.

 

Hidden Things added in Update is also a not so subtle hint that obviously people have updated.

Steam can't be that friendly, its taken MONTHS to get Pinball Arcade greenlit despite the fact its on pretty much every other platform already.

 

Even now I expect the Wii U version to get released before the Steam one.

As above, the transition from PS360 to PS4Next should actually help the Wii U as they will need to continue developing games for both generations for some time yet.

 

If you are making a game for all those systems it may very well make more sense to have the Wii U as the primarily platform, because it fits right in the middle.  It has the shaders and other advanced GPU effects of the PS4Next, but in other ways comes closer to PS360.  So porting in either direction should be easier from Wii U.

 

However, far more importantly, why on earth are they still bothering to report a single word Michael Pachter says?  Has he ever been remotely right about anything?  He is the comic relief of the industry.

It just makes sense all round. 

 

It always seemed rather unlikely that games like Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed could basically be the same game as running on PS360 but with better textures, if it didn't have increased RAM bandwidth to actually access those higher resolution textures.  The more detailed the textures, the more memory bandwidth you need.  Upon switching from the Wii U version to the Xbox 360 one, I'm sure I noticed a reduction in graphical effects on a few levels too.  Although I found the frame rate more constant on Xbox 360, likely down to the fact the game really was launched on too many platforms and as the Wii U was the easiest to hit the target frame rate, it seems they slacked off on a few sections where it takes a real nose dive (eg the NiGHTS level).

 

Then there is LEGO City Undercover which a lot of people seem to be complaining doesn't look impressive graphically.  I admit, my first impression was really bad, the frame rate was so low it initially gave me a headache and I had to enable the frame-doubling on my TV to compensate (but it adds horrible latency).  Over time I adjusted to it and started to appreciate some of its charm, especially as a first-gen title.

 

The texture work in particular is superb, not a single blocky texture in the whole game that I saw.  I'm fairly convinced its using tessellation as the hills and banks are really smooth compared to PS360.  Of course it has some bugs too and the draw distance/depth of field effect is something I hate.  But it certainly shows off things I just do not see could have been possible without greater memory bandwidth.

I would settle for a USB to Gamecube adapter so I can use my existing controllers. 

 

They already exist for PC although they are rare and when I got one, it didn't work right.  But it means there are designs already out there Nintendo could buy cheaply as I'm pretty sure mine just had a manufacturing defect due to being manufactured poorly.

You obviously skipped Xbox 360 where we can already keep our profile, save games AND downloadable games on a USB stick and use them on any console, as long as you are signed into your account online.

 

The only difference is you are proposing a USB stick that effectively is an unlock key for the game, allowing you to sell it on later if you get bored with the game.

 

However that still means you have to swap them when you want to play a different game, plus it would be more expensive to manufacture.

 

Far cheaper to just let us put our games and saves on a standard USB stick with DRM locking them down to our profile.  Of course, Nintendo couldn't even manage to GIVE US a profile, so there isn't much chance of that.  Quite frankly, the way the Wii U handles digital content utterly sucks and there is no good reason for it.

Personally, I have had more fun with this generation than I ever have before.

 

I used to quickly get bored with games where you couldn't save your progress, where their difficulty meant I got stuck and never got any further.  I like the fact there are so many games which are forgiving for people who aren't expert gamers, but remain fun due to their story and design.

 

I also feel the too many shooters argument is invalid, the problem isn't how many shooters there are but that a few franchises are being milked the death.  You just have to look at how many racing games there are and how varied they also are to see that you can have a lot of the same game type without them all being carbon copies of each other. (although granted, sometimes that happens there too)

 

I have to admit I do miss the fact there seems to be few platformers these days, even fewer that are actually any good.  Then again, third-person games have become something of a mix between 3D platformers and adventure games.  So the definition of a platformer is pretty hard to narrow down these days.  Personally,  I don't like the new Rayman games, I somewhat liked the 3D ones although they are still far short of my favourites (Conker, Starfox Adventures).

 

Let's not forget, the current-gen had the excellent LEGO games.  They played far better on Xbox/PS3 than other platforms and I am hugely looking forward to LEGO City Undercover on Wii U in a few days (annoying UK release date).

Like I have said before, I think as games come to Xbox Next which based on the rumours is VERY similar in design to the Wii U (relying on 32MB GPU RAM and DDR3 system RAM) that the Wii U will gain more support as it should be easier to port from next-gen than current.

 

However I am still concerned that in a year or two, games will be taking advantage more of the much larger RAM and GPU power on the PS4/Xbox and Wii U may suffer then. 

 

On the up side, Nintendo should pumping out gamers by then and hopefully some third parties will be writing more the Wii Us own strengths rather than relying on ports.  So its not all bad.

Pretty sure they were referring to the fact that if the new owner ever goes online on the console then Nintendo can trace it to their ISP and blacklist it from being able to go online, or even brick it.

Please post here next time: http://thewiiu.com/f...-hardware-help/

Seriously whats with the forum police lately?  Personally, I find it far more disruptive than people posting in the wrong category.  Its not like there is much to talk about, hardware wise, anyway.

No, it does not work like that. Yes, it says 15 volts and five amps, yes that technically comes out to 75 watts output, but NO, that doesnt all make it to the system.

I was being VERY generous with conversion loss, as effeciency averages around 75%, which would get 56 watts.

I am getting really, REALLY tired of all this bs directed at marcan. Where was your mother doging at team twiizer when they hacked the wii? Where was your mother doging about the no leak no disclosure policy when they gave you the homebrew channel? The media player?

Where was your calling hector and/team twiizers incompetent moron hackers who dont know what they were doing when they gave wii users unbrickable wiis?

You werent mother doging then when code was withheld.

Only now that its convenient for you guys and your fantasies, now twiizers are a bunch of clowns who dont know what they are doing.

This crap is REALLY starting to piss me off.

Except most of the conversion loss is in the AC to DC stage, the 75W output is AFTER that and in fact I pointed out that for 75W output its not unusual to have drawing 90W input.
So thinking purely about the DC to DC stage, if you look at the specs for the PicoPSU at around the same power capabilities, its 86% efficient at 1A and 96% efficient at 5A.  

Taking that as a guideline it would mean at full load the Wii U could actually use 72W, although its unlikely Nintendo bundled a PSU that was ever expected to be maxed out so its probably less than that.  But even if we assume we end up with only 65W, that still implies the Wii U is not being maxed out, which you even said yourself is likely.

As for the clock speed argument, you seem to be glossing over the fact that even hackers are human, they make mistakes.

What about how Wii homebrew stopped working with newer Wiimotes because whoever reverse engineered how to talk to the Wiimotes, got it wrong.  Yes it worked, but it wasn't they way Nintendo was talking to them so when Nintendo changed the later Wiimotes, it broke compatibility with the old method - as it was never intended to work like that.

They are human beings, reverse engineering hardware/software which is designed to obfuscate what is going on.  They could easily be reading the clock speed from the wrong place.  Heck, even on PC when developing open source drivers, developers often mess up things because of having to reverse engineer something and it turns out they went about it the wrong way.  I can't even get the on-board voltage sensors to display right on my motherboard.  I even have a motherboard where I had to disable power management because the OFFICIAL drivers for the Intel Ethernet chipset, don't work properly.  Intel once released a CPU with a major bug that caused things to crash, human beings make mistakes.

So no, I am not BSing him at all, I highly respect the work of the hackers, they allowed me to have my games installed on the HDD for Xbox and Wii.  However taking any leak obtained purely via hacking/reverse engineering as outright fact is just plain silly.  You never know what they might discover tomorrow that completely contradicts what they though they knew yesterday.  Not least the fact if Nintendo DID underclock in the firmware, would a hacker even be able to find out the native clock speed?

Very few pieces of technology have the bandwidth requirements of the Wii U.  Which is where there could potentially be a problem, as if there WAS another device on the same radio spectrum that DOES have the same sort of bandwidth requirements, it could conflict.

Also, while it might "seem" that most technology doesn't have problems, it doesn't mean there aren't problems.  Its quite common for people to have issues connecting devices to WiFi, or video senders belonging to your neighbors knocking out your WiFi entirely.  However I am still skeptical the Wii U GamePad problems are related to any of these things, it seems more likely its an actual fault in the hardware.

Yeah, I guess it was both partys' faults... Theirs for having a game that crashes (actually, NSMBU has never crashed for me) and, in turn, causes you to unplug the console, and yours for doing just that -- unplugging it. It's probably a good idea to just let your console update and leave it alone from now on.

Nope, this is entirely Nintendos fault as if there is ANY risk of the console bricking due to crashing or powering down during DOWNLOADING an update, they should be taking all precautions, just like the PS3 and Xbox 360 do.

I disagree that it should necessary though, it SHOULD be possible to download in the background and then install later.

Its worth noting, both PS3 and Xbox 360 updates can be downloaded to a USB stick on the PC and then updated that way.  So CLEARLY there is no good reason to not be able to download in the background.

I have seen it flash once or twice, VERY briefly, easy to miss.  In its current state, its pretty much useless IMO.  I would much prefer a simple popup like on PS3/Xbox 360 for when your friends come online.

Because it told you when you had messages from your friends.

I never used the functionality on the Wii because its online was so poor.  However with Wii U being more socially oriented I would finally use such a function, only they removed it.  That just sucks.