Wii HD in 2011?

[Hellfire]

GT4 didn't do proper 1080i, the PS2 didn't have close to the amount of power for that. Apparently they composed the picture out of a normal 480i/p picture (not upscaling per se). The Xbox games are all 'true' HD games.

 

@ D_prodigy: It's not surprising, the Wii and GameCube hardware setups simply weren't designed to do that. The actual framebuffer simply doesn't allow anything above 480p to be rendered on it, there's not enough space.

What GT4 did was field rendering, which form what I gathered, it had 540 lines of "half textures" alternating, making 1080i. I dunno, I'm just looking it up now lol

I read that even the firmware prevents the Wii from outputting more than 480p, maybe to discourage pointless experimentation?

 

I'm gonna have to chip in with another noobish comment, but isn't it a given that the 360 can pump out games in 1080p? It comes as no surprise to me anyway.

360 games are usually 720p (sometimes a little lower), I don't know of any other game that has higher resolutions, but I could be wrong. Point is, most people think 360 is locked at 720, it isn't.

[pedrocasilva]

Dante, actually GC surpassed the "6-12 million polygon" thing on day one; and at 15 million poligons per second @ 60 frames no less (Rogue Squadron 2). and... it's throughput was indeed 21 to 30 million polygons per second in Rogue Squadron 3. (and where does that put the Wii :p)

 

The 202 MHz GPU to 162 Mhz can be discussed to hell and back too; to be thruthful... we don't know if it was cut at all, as the core was actually pretty fresh for what it was (so it wasn't due to heat problems I guess); and I reckon the CPU was bumped to 485 MHz on GC up from 405 Mhz, that's a important fact too, since the console worked in multiples, thus... if the speed was

 

405/2=202.5 MHz GPU

 

485/2=242.5 MHz GPU

 

And now... that increment could very well pose a problem for the original manufacturing process... And If we kept the original clock for the GPU, without being in a direct multiple... well you'd loose the advantage and create some bottlenecks that they were trying to avoid.

 

This was probably heavily tested too, and they eventually decided CPU was more important. Possible reasons for that? First the RAM, we don't have enough information but was the 202 MHz RAM bus presented like the 162 Mhz one (who is infact DDR presented in single data clock, and hence actually DDR333@324Mhz) or ~101 MHz? (making up 202 Mhz DDR from the final spec) if that was the case then the final spec is simply better... and if they were infact using 202 MHz DDR, we'd have DDR400 at place, who was freaking fast for 2001 (way above what was used at the time, really). Bare in mind that Xbox 1 used DDR200 (in short 100 MHz RAM with double data rate, making up for DDR200, not DDR333 let alone DDR400)

 

Then there's other reason of why the system could be CPU constrained rather than GPU constrained that lies with Vertex processing, but I won't go into detail with that, let's just say that they could take a lot of stress to the CPU, and making the CPU stronger could allow for stuff like better geometry while actively removing a bottleneck.

 

 

As for resolutions... It's besides the power issue, Flipper and Xbox's GPU were for good and bad pretty close in features, even if those were applied in different ways, but they were different architectures, and that means they had different advantages, with flipper taking the lead in stuff like texturing and textured polygons, hence real time polycounts (not raw ones though, which means that geforce 3 had a big hit at texturing), but as for disavantages... GC couldn't do HD at all, unless we wanted to use more than the framebuffer while doing it (and we had little RAM already), same for the Wii actually, also, even if it did HD chances are, it should have a bigger hit doing 720p and up than Xbox did, why? because Xbox used a off the shelf PC GPU.

 

GC had embedded RAM for framebuffer on the GPU though, something that Xbox lacked, hence that slow and handycapped unified DDR200 RAM had to have portions borrowed for framebuffer and Z-buffer, and that issue was even worse with 720p obviously.

 

Well, I think I covered most stuff being discussed here.

[Hellfire]

That's the kind of post I was waiting for. Excellent.

[david.dakota]

forget specs for a moment, how could any console completely negate load times, while remaining disk media? Thats what Nintendo need to concentrate on- there load times are killing me!

[pedrocasilva]

forget specs for a moment, how could any console completely negate load times, while remaining disk media? Thats what Nintendo need to concentrate on- there load times are killing me!

Blame developers, seek times are a little higher since we're using 11 cm DVD's, but should be mostly compensated by the higher speed of the drive and the fact you now have more and faster RAM to pre-fetch stuff (typically we'd be using the 16 MB 81 MHz DRAM now we'd be using GDDR3)... that and access to 64 MB of flash for buffering.

 

It sure didn't appear to be a problem for Nintendo games so far (taking the dual layer in Smash Bros aside)

[Grazza]

forget specs for a moment, how could any console completely negate load times, while remaining disk media? Thats what Nintendo need to concentrate on- there load times are killing me!

 

I couldn't agree more. Perhaps the Xbox 360 has the perfect solution, in how (after the dashboard update) you will be able to fully install any game onto the hard drive.

 

Maybe this is why Zelda: Twilight Princess has such bad loading times? I own both versions now and the Wii version is just as slow. I'm inclined to think the Wii version was just ported back in every way.

[Hellfire]

I couldn't agree more. Perhaps the Xbox 360 has the perfect solution, in how (after the dashboard update) you will be able to fully install any game onto the hard drive.

 

Maybe this is why Zelda: Twilight Princess has such bad loading times? I own both versions now and the Wii version is just as slow. I'm inclined to think the Wii version was just ported back in every way.

No, the games won't be fully installed in the HDD, you'll still need the disc. Even when you installed games in the first one (dont remember if through modding or not), even though the loading times got smaller it certainly didn't provide a perfect solution.

 

TPs loadings aren't bad, of course that if the game as made ground up for Wii it could've been faster, but they're still fast and not insufferable by any means.

[Grazza]

No, the games won't be fully installed in the HDD, you'll still need the disc. Even when you installed games in the first one (dont remember if through modding or not), even though the loading times got smaller it certainly didn't provide a perfect solution.

 

I thought you only needed the disc for anti-piracy reasons?

 

TPs loadings aren't bad, of course that if the game as made ground up for Wii it could've been faster, but they're still fast and not insufferable by any means.

 

They were very bad compared to Wind Waker (which, of course, is the only other disc-based Zelda) and all previous Zeldas. It does seem to me that the Wii is a lot worse than the GameCube with loading times. In Metroid Prime 3, for example, you have to wait in front of every door before it opens (ie. the room loads), whereas you didn't in Metroid Prime.

 

What I'm saying about Twilight Princess, is that I think the code was written to suit the Wii's loading times, and could have been faster if it was a pure GameCube game.

[pedrocasilva]

In Metroid Prime 3, for example, you have to wait in front of every door before it opens (ie. the room loads), whereas you didn't in Metroid Prime.

Well, the data doing back and forth in there shouldn't even be compared though, metroid prime had mostly 64x64 textures at place, with lots of tiling meaning they wouldn't have diferent textures for every corner, instead they'd invest in geometry, like cracks... now Metroid Prime 3? 512x512 textures and loads more at place.

 

I won't say loadings couldn't be better (I dunno) but I'll say there's a lot more data being loaded in there.

[Mundi]

No, the games won't be fully installed in the HDD, you'll still need the disc. Even when you installed games in the first one (dont remember if through modding or not), even though the loading times got smaller it certainly didn't provide a perfect solution.

 

The disc is needed for pirate reasons as far as I know.

 

I remember seeing a video about the dashboard update and it showed GTA4 installed on it and the file size was over 6-7 gigs which I guess would be the size of the whole game me thinks.

[pedrocasilva]

The disc is needed for pirate reasons as far as I know.

AFAIK that is correct.

[Hellfire]

I thought that wasn't the only reason. Still, loadings won't magically go away, but it is a great step forward.

 

TP loadings are longer than WW, which is completly normal considering the much bigger amount of data. Worst != bad

[Grazza]

This is not really related to hardware, but would people like slightly more barren overworlds if it made the game more immersive?

 

A good game to play for anyone who doesn't like loading times is Shadow of the Colossus. There is a short, real-time cut-scene to introduce each colossus, and a cutscene loads up after you've defeated each one, but you'll be too exausted to notice! Other than that, there are no noticeable loading times. It really is a brilliant game.

 

I suppose Wind Waker uses this idea too. They're probably my two favourite games of last gen.

[Hellfire]

This is not really related to hardware, but would people like slightly more barren overworlds if it made the game more immersive?

 

A good game to play for anyone who doesn't like loading times is Shadow of the Colossus. There is a short, real-time cut-scene to introduce each colossus, and a cutscene loads up after you've defeated each one, but you'll be too exausted to notice! Other than that, there are no noticeable loading times. It really is a brilliant game.

 

I suppose Wind Waker uses this idea too. They're probably my two favourite games of last gen.

That really really depends on the game, some can benefit from it others not really. SoTC used the same assets everywhere and you're always outside, so there's no reason for loadings, but it worked perfectly for the game. TP has plenty of different things to load when you change area, but still, it's like what, 1/2 seconds? You look at Okami though, that's another story, the loadings are longer and a shame they couldn't cut them down in the Wii version.

[DCK]

If Flash memory and the likes are going to drop in prices as much as they are doing today, there is a chance Nintendo might go for cartridges again next time around.

 

Probably not though, Nintendo will probably go for a mixed disc-based/dowloadable content model. If Nintendo puts in a big enough SSD, they can make loading times virtually vanish.

[Grazza]

You look at Okami though, that's another story, the loadings are longer and a shame they couldn't cut them down in the Wii version.

 

Yes, unfortunately, Okami is not one of the smoothest-flowing games. I particularly found it jarring when the camera would look up to the sky every nightfall/daybreak, presumably to load the different "events" of night and day.

 

This sort of stuff matters to me much more than graphics. I take it this is more to do with the CPU and RAM rather than the GPU?

 

By the way, Tech Radar has an interesting interpretation of the rumour in this thread: http://www.techradar.com/news/gaming/consoles/nintendo-secretly-shopping-wii-2-to-devs-473051

 

They should call it the Aitch Wii.

[Hellfire]

Loading speed has to from where the game is getting data from, since it first comes from the DVDs, and the DVD read speed is slower than the speed of CPU, RAM etc, there's a bottleneck, making things even slower. The GPU I suppose can also be a problem, although not the biggest one, if it takes time rendering, in addition to the time it took loading the data, things get even slower. Information has to travel between the whole hardware basically, so everything can add up I suppose. I'm not as knowledgeable in tech as I should be so I can be off.

[DCK]

Basically loading stuff is getting stuff from disk to RAM (the GPU only comes in at that point). So the more memory, the more you can load - Sony has equipped the PSP Slim with twice the memory just to reduce loading times, actually. Also, read speed makes a difference, and also seeking time. The Wii is mostly slower loading games than the GameCube not because games are more rescource intensive, but because the laser has to cover larger distances seeking for the right piece of data. Also, the Wii's disk drive is rather slow at 6x speed. A slim disk drive like that could easily be 10x or 12x.

[Hellfire]

Yeah, I also think they could have made a much faster drive. I mean, it's not like it's uber evolved technology, it actually makes some noise, so they were clearly cutting costs.

[Grazza]

Thanks for the info. The reason I thought of RAM was mainly Majora's Mask. The technical difference between that and Ocarina of Time was 4MB of extra RAM, and it was brilliant how it allowed the machine to juggle everyone's movements over three days. Okami, on the other hand, seemed to be able to "juggle" less information.

 

Wouldn't it be great to have a huge amount of RAM on the Wii 2, combined with a maximum speed DVD drive (as long as it was quiet) and maybe a big hard drive/flash memory to work with as well?

[DCK]

The best scenario for the Wii2 is to have a large amount of flash memory (which is super fast) expanded with some hard drive to have all the stuff loaded on. But that would make it pretty expensive, and people would have move their own games into fast memory, so that wouldn't work.

 

The Wii2 can't use DVDs anymore, there's just too little space on them. Perhaps they can use small GameCube-like disks, and then try to fit some ~30 GB of data on them with something like Blu-ray technology. That would work well.

[Shino]

Dual layered BluRay mini discs. Nice. Or maybe even Hd-dvd tech, must be cheap now that it lost the war.

[Hellfire]

Dual layered BluRay mini discs. Nice. Or maybe even Hd-dvd tech, must be cheap now that it lost the war.

Pff, please that's so last gen

Nintendo, the Japanese maker of the market-leading Wii videogame console, co-signed for a patent on holographic storage and may be gearing up for development of this high-capacity storage concept.

[Shino]

That would be so awesome, but I really don't see why Nintendo made this move, it doesn't fit AT ALL with the current strategy. And if anything they'll use it for internal storage, as I imagine it can fit hundreds of gigabytes of information in a 1cm^2.

[Hellfire]

That would be so awesome, but I really don't see why Nintendo made this move, it doesn't fit AT ALL with the current strategy. And if anything they'll use it for internal storage, as I imagine it can fit hundreds of gigabytes of information in a 1cm^2.

Nintendo always thinks WAAAAAAY ahead.