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Wii Specs Official? Pfff, get the truth in here.
Topic Started: Aug 1 2006, 09:44 PM (115 Views)
Shaheer
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Blood Generation

*This is not written by me* I found it

Yep, they're true.

...wait, what?

First, let's start with the basics, including a fundamental problem: backwards compatibility. Achieving backwards compatibility is an uphill battle, unless you are willing to waste a console's budget by including the entire previous system within the new one. (Achieved with some success in the PS2; the GBC processor was included to process sound in the GBA, and the DS's secondary processor is the GBA's main processor at double speed.) Although this can be done, it is far from an effective solution.

Nintendo is aiming for the one true, bulletproof way of achieving backwards compatibility: Make the exact same thing, just faster. It is mandatory that the CPU stay the same, at most a few new instructions could be added that GCN games could ignore. The GPU must also stay the same, with similar minimal editions. There can be no emulation like the real thing.

This leaves us with two areas for Nintendo to improve: clock speed and capacity.

The Wii's FSB has been bumped up to 243 Mhz, exactly 1.5 times the previous 162 Mhz, and it's CPU still has a multiplier of 3. 729 Mhz may sound slow, but we are talking about an ultra-small pipeline processor here. 4 stages for integer and 7 stages for floating point, all RISC out-of-order no less.

Similar to how a 1.8 Ghz Core 2 slaughters a 2.4 Ghz Athlon 64 which in turn can slaughter a 3.0 Ghz Pentium 4, the ultra-swift pipeline allows fewer clocks to do more work. Fools will of course continue to compare a 729 Mhz Wii CPU to a 3.2 Ghz PPE, but the informed will know that the Wii does not have a bulky 21-stage pipeline that is prone to latency delays, often two-cycles. Is the 360 and Cell more "powerful"? Yes, of course their heavily multi-threaded designed allow for more raw computation. However, the difference is much less than some wish to imply.

And Wii compared to the original Xbox? Why does this keep coming up? The Pentium III/Celeron hybrid gets destroyed by the custom 750CXe that runs the same speed.

The GPU is also 1.5 times faster, given that it runs 1:1 with the FSB. Honestly, we know little about the GPU. However, the DSP is still integrated, and the memory bus is proportionally increased by 1.5x, still maintaining it's 1:2 ratio seen in the cube. Naturally.

So, what is left to be improved? RAM. The cube had 16 MB of memory, 40% of it's total, in the form of a slow (half bus-speed) DRAM bank accessible only by the DSP, for sake of storing sound data. We now have (apparently) 64 MB of speedy GDDR3 RAM, accessible by the CPU and GPU. This large increase in capacity is identical and proportional to that of the 360 and PS3. If the old 16 MB unit is still kept as a sound buffer (has to be fore BC, and it would help Wii software with sound), that gives us 24 + 64 + 16 = 104. Bingo.

In conclusion, the Wii is a reasonable evolution upon the efficiency beast that we call Gamecube. It is 1.5 times faster in all regards, a very straightforward solution to ensure backwards compatibility will providing more power for Wii titles. (RAM has a much more substantial increase, as excess RAM and bandwidth can be more easily ignored in running legacy titles.) Given that the Wii is still rendering images at the same resolution, this is more than enough power, far exceeding that of the original Xbox. All this while consuming very little power and making very little head, making the unit able to fit in such an impossibly small unit. (Most of which is taken up by the DVD drive!) Nintendo will indeed be able to keep up with the 360 and PS3, but the question everyone ought to be asking is one beyond numbers and clock speeds: can the 360 and PS3 keep up with the Wii?
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marklaw
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GO FLAMES GO

uh
u put this in news?
Jinzo: well nintendo wants to get rid of the kiddy image i Guess

Guylebrown:and in doing so drones need to highlight every possible quote that involves nintendo not having a kiddy image
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marklaw
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GO FLAMES GO

but either way, great read. This really clears up any wii speculation
Jinzo: well nintendo wants to get rid of the kiddy image i Guess

Guylebrown:and in doing so drones need to highlight every possible quote that involves nintendo not having a kiddy image
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Xecutioner379
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This has to be the Videogame Post of the year.
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Eternal S0rr0w
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whoever wrote this is really smart in gaming. However ya I was thinking Wii was X box 1.5 but it looks like it's doing a lot of things and is a big improvement.
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Nemesis
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Living life! :D

wall of text.
CHILL OUT ZONE

卐卐卐卐卐卐卐卐卐卐卐卐卐卐卐卐卐卐卐

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"If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred
minus one day, so I never have to live without you."

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meowmixmaster
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Meowmixing

wow drones just covering up by making up some random bs specs out of their ass and trying to make the wii better then it is. BS
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Uzumaki Naruto
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meowmixmaster
Aug 2 2006, 10:31 AM
wow drones just covering up by making up some random bs specs out of their ass and trying to make the wii better then it is. BS

those r the nintendo specs
but anyway lets wait for someone who knows his computers like wave or somebody to approve this
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Xecutioner379
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Yeah I already do.
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nintendrone
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meowmixmaster
Aug 2 2006, 10:31 AM
wow drones just covering up by making up some random bs specs out of their ass and trying to make the wii better then it is. BS

go cry more
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GuyLeBrown
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i still dont buy it even if its true my wii excitement level stays at 0
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moomoofarm
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Moomoo!!!!!

Wii makes me go WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
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Shaheer
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Blood Generation

those are official and make sense.
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+_+
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I have a question though. I heard Gamecube could do normal mapping but it didn't have enough memory. Xbox used normal mapping (Halo 2, Doom 3, Half-Life 2, Far Cry, Chronicles of Riddick). So Wii will be able to do it too right? Or is there anything preventing it? What about the unreal 3 engine. We really haven't heard a true answer yet about it. I'm assuming it uses pixel shader 3.0. Gamecube/Xbox would have had maybe pixel shader 2.0?
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Neji
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Byakugan

???
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