Frostbite 3 not on Wii U due to poor Frostbite 2 tests

[Azies]

Suprised this kind of comment gets past. Thank you for such an impromptu and indeed constructive post.

Glad you enjoyed it. I'm not really a fanboy of any console, it's just an observation. ...smartass. :p

[spaceelf]

Crytek already had a very good version of Crysis 3 running on the system running PC assets and stuff but EA canned it right before it was to go gold

Alright capn I'm not going into unsourced quotes and unverfiiable performance claims.

'Yerli: We did have Crysis 3 running on the Wii U. We were very close to launching it. But there was a lack of business support between Nintendo and EA on that. Since we as a company couldn?t launch on the Wii U ourselves ? we don?t have a publishing license ? Crysis 3 on Wii U had to die.'

http://venturebeat.com/2013/03/01/crytek-chief-puts-on-his-warface-interview/#Q3E2sCO6TDMg6VwY.99

There is nothing there that says EA was ever behind the project in the first place, so you can't definitively say they canned it. They simply chose not to pursue it.

[notuptome2004]

Alright capn I'm not going into unsourced quotes and unverfiiable performance claims.

'Yerli: We did have Crysis 3 running on the Wii U. We were very close to launching it. But there was a lack of business support between Nintendo and EA on that. Since we as a company couldn?t launch on the Wii U ourselves ? we don?t have a publishing license ? Crysis 3 on Wii U had to die.'

http://venturebeat.c...sCO6TDMg6VwY.99

There is nothing there that says EA was ever behind the project in the first place, so you can't definitively say they canned it. They simply chose not to pursue it.

Yes they did Cann it because well guess what they dont want to make games for the Wii U cause they dont like Change and dont want to mess with the system and support it they are just lazy and Nintendo would never say no to something as big as Crysis coming to the Wii U .

[spaceelf]

Yes they did Cann it because well guess what they dont want to make games for the Wii U cause they dont like Change and dont want to mess with the system and support it they are just lazy and Nintendo would never say no to something as big as Crysis coming to the Wii U .

How can you cancel a project you never supported in the first place? This must be via some magic I don't understand. You're making the connections that make you happy when there's no data to support it.

[notuptome2004]

How can you cancel a project you never supported in the first place? This must be via some magic I don't understand. You're making the connections that make you happy when there's no data to support it.

exactly they never supported it because thet didnt think the Wii U had the power to run such games and or engines or what ever ya wish to call it and Crytek showed them it ran well and prolly even better then PS360 and yet EA siad No because had they siad yes it show they was wrong about the system because guess what they claim Frostbite 2 engine ran like crap on the system but i doubt they tried since the cry engine 3 is far more robust

[TheLegendOfMart]

I'm not saying whether you're wrong or right, but has there ever been a decent source for that claim? Or are we still quoting one post from some random guy on twitter as a hard fact?

The CPU in Wii U is based on the 'Broadway' CPU in the Wii which was based on the 'Gekko' Gamecube CPU, three cores/threads clocked at 1.24GHz with a bit more cache than the Wii which has a theoretical peak of 15GFLOPs

The 360 CPU has three cores with SMT which means 6 threads clocked at 3.2GHz which has a theoretical peak of 100GFLOPs

The PS3 CPU has two cores with SMT which means 4 threads clocked at 3.2GHz but also has 8 SPEs which generate 26GFLOPs each, it has a theoretical peak of 230GFLOPs

You can't directly compare the power but for arguments sake we will and as we've seen GFLOPs aren't everything, the PS3 CPU on paper is twice as fast as 360 CPU, but in reality its a complicated bit of hardware to optimise and code for. But even when you take that into account the Wii U CPU is FAR weaker than consoles that are 6+ years old. It does have a saving grace of a far newer GPU rumoured to be based on AMD 4770.

I think Nintendo have made a big mistake basing the CPU on the same/similar architecture as its previous underpowered consoles for the sake of backwards compatibility, it could have had a for more powerful CPU and this discussion would have been moot.

It's no surprise companies don't want to put the resources into porting their engines considering the lack of power and relatively weak sales.

[notuptome2004]

The CPU in Wii U is based on the 'Broadway' CPU in the Wii which was based on the 'Gekko' Gamecube CPU, three cores/threads clocked at 1.24GHz with a bit more cache than the Wii which has a theoretical peak of 15GFLOPs

The 360 CPU has three cores with SMT which means 6 threads clocked at 3.2GHz which has a theoretical peak of 100GFLOPs

The PS3 CPU has two cores with SMT which means 4 threads clocked at 3.2GHz but also has 8 SPEs which generate 26GFLOPs each, it has a theoretical peak of 230GFLOPs

You can't directly compare the power but for arguments sake we will and as we've seen GFLOPs aren't everything, the PS3 CPU on paper is twice as fast as 360 CPU, but in reality its a complicated bit of hardware to optimise and code for. But even when you take that into account the Wii U CPU is FAR weaker than consoles that are 6+ years old. It does have a saving grace of a far newer GPU rumoured to be based on AMD 4770.

I think Nintendo have made a big mistake basing the CPU on the same/similar architecture as its previous underpowered consoles for the sake of backwards compatibility, it could have had a for more powerful CPU and this discussion would have been moot.

It's no surprise companies don't want to put the resources into porting their engines considering the lack of power and relatively weak sales.

No the PS3 has a single Core PPE a and NO SMT threading at all and only 7 SPEs that all share and clash for the main CPU resources .

Now as far as the Wii U CPU goes it is based on the Power 750 series chips that are rated to go as high as 1.8ghz so if the rumor of a updated clock speed after 3.0 update is true i would assume it running now 1.8ghz . now it is a Tri-core system heavily modified CPU cores with huge amount of cach and refinements for performance the Wii U GPU is capable of GPGPU functionality so even if the CPU as you may think is weak which i really dont think as speed or ghz dont matter this day and age but because the GPU has GPGPU capabilities this means CPU code can be done on the GPU causing the CPU to be more efficient and less stress on it

[TheLegendOfMart]

My bad I thought it was dual core, I got confused with two way SMT. It is a single core but it does have SMT so two threads and it does have 8 SPEs but one is reserved for security all of which are capable of executing two instructions in parallel.

The GFLOPs number is correct though and I'm not comparing the clock speeds, just telling them as a matter of fact.

The Wii U clock speed increase is just a rumour and GPGPU isn't some magic bullet that plugs the LARGE gap left by the CPU.

The GPU isn't exactly amazing either, 320 stream processors, 16 TMUs and 8 ROPS compared to something midrange like 7850 which has 1024 stream processors, 64 TMUs and 32 ROPS.

[notuptome2004]

My bad I thought it was dual core, I got confused with two way SMT. It is a single core but it does have SMT so two threads and it does have 8 SPEs but one is reserved for security.

The GFLOPs number is correct though and I'm not comparing the clock speeds, just telling them as a matter of fact.

The Wii U clock speed increase is just a rumour and GPGPU isn't some magic bullet that plugs the LARGE gap left by the CPU.

The GPU isn't exactly amazing either, 320 stream processors, 16 TMUs and 8 ROPS compared to something like 7850 which has 1024 stream processors, 64 TMUs and 32 ROPS.

the GPU we really donty know the full specs but even if it was those specs do you realize how far more advanced that is compared to the PS360 chips combined . the 360 ran the very first generation unifead shader based architecture with 48 streaming shaders the PS3 is off the shelf slightly tweaked Nvidia Geforce 7800 series chip from 2004 with a fixed number of shader and vertex shader pipelines the Wii U GPU is massive amounts more powerful not because of the amount of streaming processors or shader it has but because it is 4 to 5 Generations newer then the 360 GPU 4 to 5 years of advancements

Example the 360 GPU is based on or what would lead to the X1000 series cards but if you could compare it to any it be the x1900 possiably but between the X1000 cards and the 2k cards AMD made some vast performance improvements

now for GPGPU while yes it is not magical it can reduce CPU usage allot and take away some of the load and stress and Run some good code on it such as physx and or other stuff

[Blackhearted]

The CPU in Wii U is based on the 'Broadway' CPU in the Wii which was based on the 'Gekko' Gamecube CPU, three cores/threads clocked at 1.24GHz with a bit more cache than the Wii which has a theoretical peak of 15GFLOPs

That's exactly the bit i was talking about. All that stuff came from some guy on twitter who, last i checked, immediately turned around and refused to say how he came up with the clock speed. Which immediately made me not as easy to beleive him as so many others were.

My bad I thought it was dual core, I got confused with two way SMT. It is a single core but it does have SMT so two threads and it does have 8 SPEs but one is reserved for security all of which are capable of executing two instructions in parallel.

The GFLOPs number is correct though and I'm not comparing the clock speeds, just telling them as a matter of fact.

The Wii U clock speed increase is just a rumour and GPGPU isn't some magic bullet that plugs the LARGE gap left by the CPU.

The GPU isn't exactly amazing either, 320 stream processors, 16 TMUs and 8 ROPS compared to something midrange like 7850 which has 1024 stream processors, 64 TMUs and 32 ROPS.

Another small correction to the ps3 spe count: One was also disabled for yields. Resulting in 7 total with 6 available for games.

As for the wii u gpu. Not counting improvments from the newer architecture, 320sp@550mhz would make it a bit more powerful than the 360s gpu( i only quote the 360's gpu as it's generally accepted that the ps3's gpu is weaker than the 360's). And if the code was suitable for it, that could(in theory) allow the gpu to make up for the cpu's weakness in floating point while still delivering the same level of visuals as the other two consoles.

[TheLegendOfMart]

That's exactly the bit i was talking about. All that stuff came from some guy on twitter who, last i checked, immediately turned around and refused to say how he came up with the clock speed. Which immediately made me not as easy to beleive him as so many others were.

Not just "some guy on twitter", he is a well known Wii hacker and got access to the Wii U OS/Hardware. Which was corroborated by NeoGAF buying Wii U reverse engineered CPU/GPU X-Rays from Chipworks.

[Blackhearted]

Not just "some guy on twitter", he is a well known Wii hacker and got access to the Wii U OS/Hardware. Which was corroborated by NeoGAF buying Wii U reverse engineered CPU/GPU X-Rays from Chipworks.

I remember seeing a die shot of the gpu sometime a while back, haven't seen one of the cpu though. Even so, i'm pretty sure those shots can't confirm clock speeds. And well known or not, he needs more evidence on that bit of info than just his word alone.

[slapfacemcdougal]

No the PS3 has a single Core PPE a and NO SMT threading at all and only 7 SPEs that all share and clash for the main CPU resources .

Now as far as the Wii U CPU goes it is based on the Power 750 series chips that are rated to go as high as 1.8ghz so if the rumor of a updated clock speed after 3.0 update is true i would assume it running now 1.8ghz . now it is a Tri-core system heavily modified CPU cores with huge amount of cach and refinements for performance the Wii U GPU is capable of GPGPU functionality so even if the CPU as you may think is weak which i really dont think as speed or ghz dont matter this day and age but because the GPU has GPGPU capabilities this means CPU code can be done on the GPU causing the CPU to be more efficient and less stress on it

If the rumor is true about the Wii U CPU speed after the update, then the CPU is now running at 3Ghz.

http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2013/05/rumour_the_recent_wii_u_system_update_has_boosted_clock_speeds

[TheLegendOfMart]

I remember seeing a die shot of the gpu sometime a while back, haven't seen one of the cpu though. Even so, i'm pretty sure those shots can't confirm clock speeds. And well known or not, he needs more evidence on that bit of info than just his word alone.

If the rumor is true about the Wii U CPU speed after the update, then the CPU is now running at 3Ghz.

http://www.nintendol...ed_clock_speeds

The Starbuck sets the bus frequency (the Latte's SYSPLL) and configures Espresso's multiplier (via configuration pins) and it's stuck there. The bus clock is ~248MHz (almost the same as the Wii, which used a ~243MHz system bus), but the processor bus is wider. In Wii U mode, the multiplier is 5, while in Wii mode it is 3 (and with SYSPLL set to ~243MHz instead of ~248MHz).

The code that sets the Espresso clock multiplier pins in the Cafe2Wii compatibility bootstrap (C2W_SetEspressoPLLConfigGPIO, part of the Wii U mode Starbuck code) sets both a GPIO labeled "ESP10Workaround" and an unknown bit in another register. Unfortunately, toggling the former myself (which is possible in Wii mode) doesn't seem to cause the Espresso to come up with 5x multiplier, and the latter is locked and cannot be changed in Wii mode as far as I can tell (the locking mechanism is unknown, but it might just lock itself when that bit is flipped).

Also, sorry, but a 750 at 2-2.5GHz is insane. You don't get to just stick an old microarchitecture into a newer process and triple the clockspeed. 729MHz to 1.24GHz is the kind of sensible clockspeed bump that we expected. I can guarantee that the Espresso isn't going to switch to a higher clockspeed while in Wii U mode; you guys need to just accept the fact that it runs at 1.24GHz already.

Posted on NeoGAF from some fail0verflow hackers blog.

248 x 5 = 1.2GHz

[spaceelf]

exactly they never supported it because thet didnt think the Wii U had the power to run such games and or engines or what ever ya wish to call it and Crytek showed them it ran well and prolly even better then PS360 and yet EA siad No because had they siad yes it show they was wrong about the system because guess what they claim Frostbite 2 engine ran like crap on the system but i doubt they tried since the cry engine 3 is far more robust

No, all it shows is they didn't want to spend money on marketing and supporting it (aside from production costs.) And Nintendo didn't want to spend the money on marketing it either. So they said why bother spending money we won't get back?

Otherwise you read like the ravings of a lunatic, so I'm outta here.