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Wii Hardware Discussion


Ashley

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Look obviously Miyamoto is going to say that and for the record the vast majority of honest developers have complained a bit about specs, especially people like Free Radical who were disappointed it was way below the requirements for Haze. All signs point to it being just as weak as the specs we currently have suggest, nothing on the system looks "twice as good" as a Gamecube game. Mario Galaxy is pretty but a big step from RE4? I don't think so. That's the only game that even really looks like a noticible "jump" either.

 

For anyone who hasn';t seen it here's the IGN specs by the way , although they also posted similar specs information in December 2005 actually (the only major difference being Nintendo originally planned to have more RAM than ended up in the final system). So in fact, it's been a whole year since IGN first revealed what some people only accept now.

 

Those specs are incomplete, what do they tell us?

Clockspeed and amount of RAM, that's it.

We still don't really know how much power it has.

 

Most games were rushed out on GC Hardware apart from Red Steel,

has the TEV unit been upgraded? How many pixel pipelines?

What's the bus speed? etc.

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This is an odd question I know, but would it be possible to play the Wii in bed?

 

I ask this because I have a nice lil TV opposite my bed which I like to play my games on, and for the GC era, it's worked like a dream. But after seeing the slashy slashy nature of Zelda on the Wii, I was curious as to if it would be possible to properly playing in a kind of propped/prone position.

 

Thank You

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This is an odd question I know, but would it be possible to play the Wii in bed?

 

I ask this because I have a nice lil TV opposite my bed which I like to play my games on, and for the GC era, it's worked like a dream. But after seeing the slashy slashy nature of Zelda on the Wii, I was curious as to if it would be possible to properly playing in a kind of propped/prone position.

 

Thank You

 

Hmm, it'd be kinda hard. I hear Harvest moon is perfectly playable whilst wanking to be on-topic slightly.

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This is an odd question I know, but would it be possible to play the Wii in bed?

 

I ask this because I have a nice lil TV opposite my bed which I like to play my games on, and for the GC era, it's worked like a dream. But after seeing the slashy slashy nature of Zelda on the Wii, I was curious as to if it would be possible to properly playing in a kind of propped/prone position.

 

Thank You

 

Yup. You can.

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Those specs are incomplete, what do they tell us?

Clockspeed and amount of RAM, that's it.

We still don't really know how much power it has.

 

Most games were rushed out on GC Hardware apart from Red Steel,

has the TEV unit been upgraded? How many pixel pipelines?

What's the bus speed? etc.

"A hardware-accelerated recirculating programmable texture blender/shader arrangement circulates computed color and alpha data over multiple texture blending/shading cycles (stages) to provide multi-texturing and other effects. Up to sixteen independently programmable consecutive stages, forming a chain of blending operations, are supported for applying multiple textures to a single object in a single rendering pass...

 

...The number of recirculations may be limited in a particular implementation in view of real-time rendering timing constraints, but a reasonable number of recirculation stages (e.g., fifteen) can provide great flexibility in implementing a variety of complex shading models."

 

This patent is from 2002, two years after flipper's completion.

 

Anyway... probably multiple TEV's pipelines (dunno how much). Also this patent content seems to confirm that these TEV pipelines are "real" pixel shaders now.

 

This explains why most 3rd party games look just like gamecube attemps. That's because they are using the hardware like a overclocked gamecube would (it can be used like that since it's backwards compatible), with engines made for gamecube, (i.e. havok, unreal engine, jade engine, madden engine) these only support and exploit the GC TEV pipeline, evidence of this is that first party games; Mario Galaxy, and Metroid Prime 3 (among others) look so much better.

 

Lastly... I believe Red Steel is just a gamecube optimized unreal engine 2.5 game with extra MHz and really timed stuff in there (for something running through middleware). But it doesn't really use the hardware extra features, in E3 they were making the transition from GC to Wii making red steel a game for GC at roots, and I doubt EPIC upgraded their engine and optimized it to wii; by contrast this engine had a specially (more) optimized version for xbox; unreal engine 2.x(box)...

 

Mario Galaxy and metroid should be already running in near final prototype Wii hardware at E3, the ammount of stuff going on in there would kill the gamecube. Zelda was really running at a gamecube with wiimote though. and wii sports and other games were running at a gc with a extra RAM bank. It was a time of transition.

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click

 

Good news, (I said it would happen), explains why NoE released boxart shot.

 

PAL GETS PLASTIC CASE!!!??? :bouncy: :bouncy: :bouncy: :bouncy: :bouncy: :bouncy: :bouncy: :bouncy: :bouncy: :bouncy: :bouncy: :bouncy: :bouncy:

 

This has made me very happy if true... But does it apply to all PAL regions, United Kingdom, All Countries In Europe, Australia and New Zealand?

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Castlevania creator “Iga” on the Wii: “I am still thinking of all the possibilities, but right now I am thinking about all the systems the next game could be on. For me, the Wii controller doesn’t yet connect with the core gameplay of Castlevania. I definitely don’t want to make a game with gimmicky controls where you swing the controller like a whip, so I’ll have to think about it longer.” :rolleyes:

 

I'm sure I saw that months ago?

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Guest Stefkov
PAL GETS PLASTIC CASE!!!??? :bouncy: :bouncy: :bouncy: :bouncy: :bouncy: :bouncy: :bouncy: :bouncy: :bouncy: :bouncy: :bouncy: :bouncy: :bouncy:

 

This has made me very happy if true... But does it apply to all PAL regions, United Kingdom, All Countries In Europe, Australia and New Zealand?

 

Sweet. The paper case cut down on price in the US, but we're paying more that the US, in terms of conversions (arent we?) so a plastic case is awesome news.

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Rumor is that with the DVD version of the Wii comes an HDTV compatible system. We also have hints that Nintendo could supply both in a nice little firmware update.

In a recent interview with USA Today Reggie hints at HD

 

“Tough choices about not including a DVD player at the start, tough choices about not including high-definition capability at the start. That’s because we wanted a mass-market price, and we believe the market will validate those decisions come launch day on this Sunday.”

 

So if we are to fill in the blanks, not including a DVD player at the start = 2007, then not including High-Definition capability = Sooner or later an update.

 

Game Informer got in touch with Nintendo PR which replied explaining that if Microsoft could enable 1080P with a firmware update, then Nintendo might be able to do the same thing. Nintendo proved it could update firmware this weekend when each system sold at launch had to update its firmware to enable SD card management.

 

So I got to thinking why would Nintendo launch a new Premium version of the Wii? Answer is they won't they will use the same version but with two big differences DVD playing and HD capabilities then just charge more for it. Makes sense right?

 

Well if they could do that why wouldn't they sell it through it's own online Wii store? They could sell the DVD player update for around 20 dollars and it'll get bought. But where to set the price for HD capability. My guess is around 50 dollars that way it will be about the same price as the Xbox 360 and in essence have the same features.

 

*Please take everything mentioned here with a grain of salt since much of this is speculation upon little known details.

 

Wii'reGamers.Com

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I don't see how the Wii can become HD with a firmware update?!!!

 

The 360 renders everything in HD regardless of whether you have a HDTV if you don't it is scaled down on your TV. It has all the necessary processing power in there to do this, and the recent update to 1080p is obviously just they've found some way of pushing it further, but fact remains it is just making the already HD picture better.

 

But surely the Wii doesn't have the power in it to scale up to HD? and surely not via a download? because if it has the hardware in their why not make it to use from day one.

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Well if they could do that why wouldn't they sell it through it's own online Wii store? They could sell the DVD player update for around 20 dollars and it'll get bought.

Wii'reGamers.Com

 

I think that is possibly the best idea I've heard since it was said the Wii won't have DVD playback. I mean think about it, the Wii has a DVD drive, it can read DVDs fine since that's what the games are stored on. Now look at a computer, most computers have DVD drives, but you need to install a DVD playback codec to play a DVD movie. I think Nintendo could possibly release something like this through Wii ware. The question is, however, will they go down this road or will they do a Nintendo DS to Nintendo DS Lite style thing and charge you the price of a full console to get the new features?

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I think that is possibly the best idea I've heard since it was said the Wii won't have DVD playback. I mean think about it, the Wii has a DVD drive, it can read DVDs fine since that's what the games are stored on. Now look at a computer, most computers have DVD drives, but you need to install a DVD playback codec to play a DVD movie. I think Nintendo could possibly release something like this through Wii ware. The question is, however, will they go down this road or will they do a Nintendo DS to Nintendo DS Lite style thing and charge you the price of a full console to get the new features?

 

I don't know if its even possible this way, as i read someone saying here that maybe the Wii's disc reader won't pick up dvds, which confused me as i thought that everything should be fine as they are stored on dvds. To me, it sounds like you just need the software to play it.

 

The DS DSlite thing is a bit different, as that was a complete redesign. A much sexier shape.

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But surely the Wii doesn't have the power in it to scale up to HD? and surely not via a download? because if it has the hardware in their why not make it to use from day one.

 

The 480p option could be expanded on, but probably only for the menu and similar stuff.

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I was more just aiming for the fact that underneath it all it's the same console and it still plays the same games (even although it is much sexier :love: )

 

In that case, i agree with ya. :)

 

I wonder if many people will be put off buying the Wii for a while, for the Dvd-enhanced version. Provided that it doesnt come through an upgrade via Wii Ware.

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