‘Wii U Specs Fit Perfectly Together, GPU Several Generations Ahead of Current Gen’ - Shin'en Dev

Iran White writes:
When HDWarriors.com reached out to Shin'en Multimedia, to interview them, it was to gain a better understanding of how they go about putting such a great looking game such as Nano Assault Neo on the Wii U, to find out more about the Wii U's inner workings, and how it 'Punches above its weight'. Thanks to Manfred Linzner and the Shin'en team, we do understand a bit better.

[sherimae2413]

ofcourse it needs to be ahead even just barely... with ps360..
besides nintendo should be ashamed if its not...
and how can they call it "next-gen" if not

[fr0sty]

"Several generations ahead"... is that why Dice said they were disappointed with the performance of their Frostbite 2 engine tests on Wii U, so they never even bothered to try to port Frostbite 3 to it?

The GPU is about equal to what was in my laptop 4 years ago. The CPU is even worse. The games tell the tale better than any paid-off dev could. So far not a single thing has come out for Wii U that has made me think "PS3 couldn't handle this.".

[mudmax]

Wow you must be some type of hardware engineer or something huh.

[lilbroRx]

That is false. The GPU is 2011 tech.

Dice said what they said because of their affiliation with EA and EA doesn't like Nintendo. Nothing more. Reality is they didn't even try to get it to work. They said this if you actually read it.

Fact is that there are at least three games that have been confirmed impossible on the PS3/360 without downgrades because the Wii U 's strength.

Your haters fantasy world of the Wii U being weaker than your preferred companies hardware is just that. Fantasy. The Wii U is much stronger than your PS3 and the 360.

The only problems is that the architecture is extremely different and ported code will not work property. You have to build the code to the Wii U's specifications.

[Cubits]

If Shin'en is paid off, then EA would be the opposite of that.

I mean, they DID show BF3 in the Wii U "sizzle reel" at E3. And c'mon, crysis 3 was ready to release on the console, and cryengine isn't exactly lacking.

I call shennanigans on the FB2 problems.

[sherimae2413]

@lilbroRx

ok ok the wii u is much more powerful than ps360...
and it should have....

but you must be also in your own fantasy world if you think
its as powerful or much powerful than the PS4 and XB-1

what youre going to say next?..... power isnt everything right?
and its about games, right? well say that to nintendo and start releasing those games that supposed to be released by the launch window and start courting those third parties ^_^

[ABizzel1]

@fr0sty

The GPU in the Wii U is better than te PS360, but not by much power-wise. It's better thanks to being newer tech and having more advances features built into. It's DX10 capable as well vs. the PS360's semi-DX9 nature, so the Wii U can produce better graphics than the PS360.

You also have to remember Wii U will be 1 year old come this holiday season, whereas PS360 will be 7 and 8 years old, so they've had plenty of time to max those consoles out while the Wii U is new ground for Nintendo as is HD gaming.

That being said it goes to show that Nintendo needs to up their power next-gen, because being compared to the previous gen almost a year in isn't a good look.

The reason Frostbite 3 was having problems is beacuse of 2 things:

1. It's a CPU heavy engine, which is true due to advanced destructibility, heavy physics, and other CPU intensive calculations and the Wii U CPU is significantly weaker than PS360's.

2. EA and most 3rd party developers don't make money on the Wii U selling core games, so why bother porting your best "core" engine to a console where you can't make money.

@lilbroRx

"That is false. The GPU is 2011 tech."

Actually that's false it's based on the 4650m which is 2009 tech (developed in 2008 released January 2009), but since Nintendo made some modest adjustments I'd give you 2010 at best.

[Theyellowflash30]

Abizzel, I respect your opinion, but I disagree that Frostbite 2 was having any problems on Wii U.

EA are the masters of bullshit, and they have you hooked. Army of Two runs on the Frostbite 2 engine and that game looks and plays like Shit.

CryEngine 3 is heavily CPU dependent as well, and is stronger than the Frostbite engine, it runs no problem on Wii U.

EA can't make any money on Wii U because they don't feel like trying on Wii U. Madden, Mass Effect are some of the laziest ports I've ever seen.

[yewles1]

@ABizzel1

"Actually that's false it's based on the 4650m which is 2009 tech (developed in 2008 released January 2009),"

Not even THAT, the people that went inside the console discover r600 registers that making more akin to a 3850 - 3870, 2007 tech.

https://mobile.twitter.com/...

[fr0sty]

@Abizzel1

That's what I was getting at. PS3/360 are using 7 year old tech, but due to having a more balanced architecture (as far as CPU to GPU power ratio is concerned, ignoring the many other unbalanced aspects), the PS3/360 are still able to not only compete but in some ways exceed a system released last year.

Your system is only as powerful as it's slowest component, so even with a more advanced GPU the Wii U is crippled by a slow CPU. Wii U can do some visual effects you won't find on PS3/360 due to it using a more modern DirectX feature set, but you still have a GPU that was in laptops 4 years ago being held back by a CPU that has not been getting any praise from the development community. That in no way is several generations ahead of current gen consoles.

[TruthbeTold]

Yewles, those old registers couldn't possibly be related to backwards compatibility with much older tech now could they? :p

[yewles1]

@TruthbeTold

"Yewles, those old registers couldn't possibly be related to backwards compatibility with much older tech now could they? :p"

WHAT??? When was 2001 tech related to r600? Original Wii's GPU was an upgrade from the original ArtX Flipper architecture for the Gamecube. How is a Radeon HD 3850 comparable to a Gamecube or original Wii GPU?

[Wolfbiker]

Youtube 'Monolithsoft X'

http://www.youtube.com/watc...

[BLow]

Well, I guess the PS4 and the ONE is several several generations ahead of current gen. Ha...take that Nintendo.

[herbs]

What he means by several generations ahead is that current generation consoles had DX9 comparable GPUs and the Wii U is most likely DX11 comparable. So much misinformation and assumptions regarding the Wii U specs.
In regards to the rumored memory speeds of 12.8 Gb that's assuming there is only one bus when both the Wii and GameCube had 2 which would double that number also this doesn't factor in the 32 Mb of super fast expensive Edram which is also used as a buffer to supercharge memory speeds. The 360 uses 10Mb for the exact same reason and that is factored in to achieve its 22Gb memory speed.
In terms of CPU performance we all know the Wii Us is rather under-clocked but when it can process more than double the instructions per cycle and has lots of cache it more than makes up for it. Hope all you haters read this :p all said and done the Wii U is very likely to be 2X as powerful as current gen it just needs lots of optimization.

[akaihana86plus]

It is next gen whether you like it or not, and let me ask, have you programmed a game for wiiU?, how can you be sooo sure about being "barley" ahead of "PS360"??

[RTheRebel]

Sony Drone go to sleep ;)

[jcnba28]

"GPU Several Generations Ahead of Current Gen"

I'll wait for the haters to damage control this one...

[sherimae2413]

but its games says otherwise, specially the multiplats
oh.... i forgot lots of multiplats from "next gen" are skipping it
well... dont look at me those devs says it :p

[lilbroRx]

I didn't know multiplats had souls and brains to be able to decide to skip anything.

I thought the developers made that decision out of pure preference and bias.

[Theyellowflash30]

sherimae, that's because most of the ports are rushed and lazy, based off of Xbox 360 code

[RAFFwaff]

thats because most 3rd party ports are lazy xbox 360. the wii U's architecture is completely freakin different.

[Hicken]

Be careful, sherimae; they'll say you're just trolling.

These devs, in particular, have been in the headlines a lot, making claims on the Wii U's capabilities that seem to contradict claims by other devs.

That's rather telling, all by itself.

[grailly]

I think I don't have the same definition of "generation"…

this is what we can hear these devs say on a daily basis: "I'm much younger than my parents, I sure am a few generations younger than they are"

[SugarSoSweet]

lies

[Jadedz]

"You need to take advantage of the large shared memory of the Wii U, the huge and very fast EDRAM section and the big CPU caches in the cores."

The proof is in the pudding (as Nano Assault for the Wii U showcases).

[Locksus]

Do you remember how PS3's and 360's launch games looked back then? Compare them to the current games. The difference in graphics is huge.
And Wii U's launch games are looking much better visually than PS3's did in 2007.

[Venoxn4g]

thats what some people fail to understand.. it's just Wii U's first games, later they 'll look amazing when devs will get adapted with hardware, even now Nano Assault Neo looks amazing, well it's Shinen after all :)

[isarai]

I keep seeing devs say this but i see no proof, in fact all proof proves otherwise. Doesn't mean i don't like the console(in fact i plan on buying a Wii U), but don't try to make it out to be something it clearly isn't.

[TruthbeTold]

Let's keep in mind though, that not only haven't any AAA, ground up games been released yet on Wii U, there hasn't even been any fully revealed yet. It's very sad, as obviously Nintendo has made some blunders with this launch. But we can't judge what the console is capable of very objectively by only looking at what's been released so far.

[PigPen]

Monolith Soft X game and the Zelda E3 demo is proof for me. How about the bird in the garden demo. Of course porting a Wii U game from inferior hardware (Xbox360/Playstation 3) with its GPGPU won't do it justice. All AAA games takes years to make and if you want to see the Wii U's power you'll have to wait.

[mudmax]

Can't wait for Retro to prove you naysayers wrong. It's gonna be IN YO FACE sucka.

[lilbroRx]

The proof is Trine 2: Director's Cut, NFS Most Wanted U, and Deus Ex: Director's Cut.

All of those games have graphical/performance enhancements that were not possible on the last gen consoles confirmed by devs.

[PopRocks359]

Funny how devs who have successfully made their games better looking on Wii U say it's more powerful and these bozos call them liars.

Then we have EA who couldn't give a rat's ass about producing any engine work on Wii U while saying it's weaker than a 360... and one of their devs, Criterion, makes Need for Speed look better on Wii U than on the other consoles.

These haters are so fickle, they will dive straight down to the bottom of the barrel to find SOMETHING with which they can use to vilify this console and the company that made it. It's nothing short of depressing.

[mamotte]

Wh.. it's the second positive article about the WiiU today, wich is weird in N4G. Was the Xbone that effective?

[mudmax]

Actually there have been a few positive ones recently.

[ThaBlackBaron]

watch the asinine Fanboys troll in here AND scream lies even though their game is visual prof, yet any other developer states anything its the truth because its negative towards Wii U LOL

Fanboys and Drone Need to GET OVER IT! Wii U is Next Gen and VERY Capable! Theres nothing you can say to Stop that LOL

[BrianC6234]

What? The Wii U isn't even close to next gen. Get over it!!!!!!!

[yewles1]

Shin'en is now going overboard in PR...

[jcnba28]

Oh really? And how many articles have we seen on this site from sony developers praising the PS4 acting like it's going to be the second coming of Christ? lol

[PopRocks359]

@yewles1

Look at all this reverse damage control. Are the hater tears a-flowin' yet?

[RAFFwaff]

and you are going overboard on the dougnuts, dude.....

[ZeekQuattro]

Damn!! lol

[2EHO]

They didn't say anything crazy if you knew what was there. You can't just throw PS360 code at Wii U and expect it to outdue them. The Wii U isn't a power console is a tech console. What do I mean? Its closer in "power" to PS360 but as far as techniques available to iuse the power that's where its "generations ahead". Yeah you can blame nintendo for going custom but I'm sure they had their reasons. The games built from the ground with engine to support this console will be glorious. And no I'm not saying its on the same level as ps4 and xbox1... Shit its running launch games at almost parity just revealed some were using only two of its cores. Wii U will be just fine.

[GraveLord]

Wow. There's nothing to say here but you are LIARS. You should be ashamed of yourself. No amount of bias should excuse this kind of flat-out lying.

[PygmelionHunter]

Your comment... It's one of those times when you realize that irony can be heavier than gravity itself...

[Munnkyman]

I really cant wait for nintendo direct in june and e3 to see games made for the wii u. Thats when we will actually see what this system is capable of.

[Wolfbiker]

the gaming community gets more and more shallow and ignorant every year

[Apex13]

I read so much blah blah blah comments on here. The thing plays games like it says in the tin and they look nice. Who cares anymore? It's like the entire time when the wii was around you read about but games look bad on the wii etc get over it. Aghhhhhhh

[Apex13]

Gamers are becoming so whinny it's annoying