Wii U specs leaked

I didn't see a thread on this, sorry if there is one

Wii U Daily and Destructoid are reporting that a Japanese developer who is porting a game from the PS3 to the Wii U has given them information on the Wii U's hardware specs

They are as follows

-Quad Core CPU @ 3Ghz

-Two separate dev kits with 768MB RAM and one with 1GB RAM, split between the CPU and GPU

I'm trying to post the link, but GS won't let me

Go to wiiudaily dot com and it will be on the front page, as well as on Destructoid too

Thoughts?

I didn't see a thread on this, sorry if there is one

Wii U Daily and Destructoid are reporting that a Japanese developer who is porting a game from the PS3 to the Wii U has given them information on the Wii U's hardware specs

They are as follows

-Quad Core CPU @ 3Ghz

-Two separate dev kits with 768MB RAM and one with 1GB RAM, split between the CPU and GPU

I'm trying to post the link, but GS won't let me

Go to wiiudaily dot com and it will be on the front page, as well as on Destructoid too

Thoughts?

Why so little ram. Its not expensive

we are probably going to get into another debate here TC :P. specs from march according to the article. pretty old. its been pretty well rumoured (which is all we have to work on with these things) that the specs have been in quite a flux since e3...especially around ram. this notion of having ram embedded with the CPU also seems odd. sure it offers tons of bandwidth..but to the CPU. its not the CPU that needs it but the GPU. mind you if the wiiu is a SOC then it would make a lot of sense. muchos bandwidth for CPU and GPU :D. the complete lack of information on the GPU seems odd though. if a dev was going to leak specs one of the first things they would leak is that surely? so im treating this as both out of date and bogus. assuming its true though..if its just quad core and 768MB or a gig a ram then itll be a console that pretty much shows what the other 2 should have been in the first place. maintaining a 720P/30FPS performance level will be much easier with PS3/360 levels of visuals. there would be room for improvement beyond that without sacreficing performance. but its not a massive improvement over the PS3 and 360 (though knowing the GPU spec would make that statement more definate). IF (and thats is purposefully a big if) sony and/or MS decide to go the usual console route of 10X as powerful then they will leave it in the dust pretty easily and porting between the wiiu and PS4/720 will again be a pain. thats only assuming its true though and its hard to say how close it is to final. im guessing (using the scientific methodology of the hunch :P) that the CPU spec is pretty much spot on. 4 cores, 2 threads per core (i know its not mentioned there mind) would be about right. i think itll be faster than 3GHz though..maybe 3.4 or 3.6 (though to keep heat managable ninty may be more focused on instructions per clock rather than raw clock speed). i think the ram will go over the GB mark but not much over. i dont think there going to go with a SOC so i dont think itll have the ram embedded with the CPU. not all of it anyway. i know it was mentioned that the CPU would have lots of memory but i think they were talking about a very generous cache in the CPU.osan0

I know they are old, but I'm not saying they are true. If they are, I'm happy. But I doubt that if these were at any point true specs, I doubt they go much higher at all. My guess is 1GB RAM.

After the 3DS price fiasco, maybe Nintendo is taking the Wii approach again and wanting a profitable console from day one less than $300, I dunno.

Why so little ram. Its not expensive

LaytonsCat

[QUOTE="osan0"]we are probably going to get into another debate here TC :P. specs from march according to the article. pretty old. its been pretty well rumoured (which is all we have to work on with these things) that the specs have been in quite a flux since e3...especially around ram. this notion of having ram embedded with the CPU also seems odd. sure it offers tons of bandwidth..but to the CPU. its not the CPU that needs it but the GPU. mind you if the wiiu is a SOC then it would make a lot of sense. muchos bandwidth for CPU and GPU :D. the complete lack of information on the GPU seems odd though. if a dev was going to leak specs one of the first things they would leak is that surely? so im treating this as both out of date and bogus. assuming its true though..if its just quad core and 768MB or a gig a ram then itll be a console that pretty much shows what the other 2 should have been in the first place. maintaining a 720P/30FPS performance level will be much easier with PS3/360 levels of visuals. there would be room for improvement beyond that without sacreficing performance. but its not a massive improvement over the PS3 and 360 (though knowing the GPU spec would make that statement more definate). IF (and thats is purposefully a big if) sony and/or MS decide to go the usual console route of 10X as powerful then they will leave it in the dust pretty easily and porting between the wiiu and PS4/720 will again be a pain. thats only assuming its true though and its hard to say how close it is to final. im guessing (using the scientific methodology of the hunch :P) that the CPU spec is pretty much spot on. 4 cores, 2 threads per core (i know its not mentioned there mind) would be about right. i think itll be faster than 3GHz though..maybe 3.4 or 3.6 (though to keep heat managable ninty may be more focused on instructions per clock rather than raw clock speed). i think the ram will go over the GB mark but not much over. i dont think there going to go with a SOC so i dont think itll have the ram embedded with the CPU. not all of it anyway. i know it was mentioned that the CPU would have lots of memory but i think they were talking about a very generous cache in the CPU.bonesawisready5

I know they are old, but I'm not saying they are true. If they are, I'm happy. But I doubt that if these were at any point true specs, I doubt they go much higher at all. My guess is 1GB RAM.

After the 3DS price fiasco, maybe Nintendo is taking the Wii approach again and wanting a profitable console from day one less than $300, I dunno.

I know they are old, but I'm not saying they are true. If they are, I'm happy. But I doubt that if these were at any point true specs, I doubt they go much higher at all. My guess is 1GB RAM.

After the 3DS price fiasco, maybe Nintendo is taking the Wii approach again and wanting a profitable console from day one less than $300, I dunno.

osan0

CPU is supposed to be a power7, not a powerPC. this from IBM themselves. also take a look at the embedded CPU ram part. its fake.

bonesaw why u post fake news?

If they are the real specs, then that's not too bad at all, I like they're going with a gig of ram, consoles have always been starved.

That much embedded Ram would make the console bigger than my Room and cost more than my house.

That much embedded Ram would make the console bigger than my Room and cost more than my house.

painguy1

[QUOTE="painguy1"]

That much embedded Ram would make the console bigger than my Room and cost more than my house.

Wii-U4Fun

....embedded CPU RAM is WAY more expensive than traditional RAM. so no its not BS

I wont believe anything until nintendo reveals it, which they wont.

No way they release this thing with on a gig of ram. No way at all.FPSfan1985

[QUOTE="FPSfan1985"]No way they release this thing with on a gig of ram. No way at all.Human-after-all

[QUOTE="Human-after-all"][QUOTE="FPSfan1985"]No way they release this thing with on a gig of ram. No way at all.painguy1

thats really up to MS and sony (and again just noteing that these specs are wrong overall). rumbeling from them are indicating that both want to be more conservative on the hardware front to save a few quid.

so if the PS4 and 720 only have 12 threads and 2 GB of ram with something like a low end 6000 series radeon for a GPU then the wiiu will be fine for multiplats. they wont look as good on the wiiu but it wont cost devs an absolute fortune to rebuild the game for it.

but if the PS4 and 720 follow the usual path (which would bring ram to around 4GB with above 20 processing threads on the CPU and a GPU with features that dont even exist yet on the PC) then ninty will be back to square one. so thats going to be very interesting to see. the PC is a non issue...with multiplat being dominant amongst third parties it doesnt really matter how big the gap is between PCs and consoles (unfortunately :( ).

EDIT: 4GB for next gen IF on the usual path. 8GB if they are clinically insane :P.

Wii U is gonna need more than 1gb if they Nintendo wants to future proof even the slightest bit

painguy1

[QUOTE="painguy1"]

Wii U is gonna need more than 1gb if they Nintendo wants to future proof even the slightest bit

Sepewrath

i don't know why people keep taking this RAM argument out of proportion. somewhere between 1-2GB would be a very ideal amount. notice how i siad "the slightest bit". I never siad future proof 80 years into the future. No one is proposing 8gb, 50gb or w/e. a simple 1gb however would not be very good.

To get a general idea if u look PC game memory usage they've already passed teh 1gb margin(this is not including OS memory usage). Crysis uses 1.2GB, BF3 uses 1.5GB, SC2 uses 1.2GB. Aside from Crysis take note that these are not very open games. I'm sure with console optimization some of those numbers will go down, but the point is that games are getting bigger. If Nintendo wants to keep up a little bit some extra RAM won't hurt. Imagine the wonders 1.5gb of RAM can do for a Zelda game in terms of size and detail? Imagine what more RAM can do for Pikmin?

If you look at all the games we have today most of them are very linear(FFXIII comes to mind).The lack of RAM keeps them from being more open. Despite the linear gameplay and levels the consoles still have to stream data to the memory which is just embarrassing. Crysis 2 is another perfect example of what happens to games when the platform lacks RAM. Unless you guys still want linear games more RAM is important. once again im not proposing 80billion gb of RAM, but undershooting memory isn't very smart either.

On a sidenote windows7 after a fresh install takes 300-500mb of RAM.

"Do we want linear games?" You speak as if there is a choice. The amount of ram has nothing to do with that, the thing could have an infinite amount of ram and 95% of games would still be completely linear. The two have nothing to do with each other. I don't know what you think would happen if consoles had more ram, but it wouldn't change much, given that--1 would be plenty, 2 would be great. Anymore would be unnecessary. Sepewrath

There is a choice, and RAM has everything to do with that. If more RAM is available then developers have more options. Right now devs have to choose between lower quailty gfx(less VRAM usage) and bigger worlds(more RAM usage) or better gfx(more VRAM usage) and linear levels(less RAM usage). It's a very simple concept. Since this gen made such a huge leap in graphics the focus has been on better visuals, but if more RAM was available they could do both. As we approach the point of diminishing returns there is only so much left that we can do in terms of visuals. The only other thing left to improve on is the scale of games. Every dev is complaining about RAM, and for some reason you're acting like its not important. I just don't get how you could disregard such an important aspect of computing? Just for reference a 1080p image with 2xaa will be roughly 32mb of Data. Funny how that matches up with the 32mb of edram rumor in the power7 :P just realized that. This is assuming a forward renderer btw, not deferred. Anyway, Crysis at 1080p takes up a total of 500mb of VRAM alone

The ram seems extremely lacking. 2gb doesn't cost much these days, seriously. We'll find out what the real numbers are soon enough. E3 2012 isn't that far away. I wouldn't put much stock in rumors.

. Anyway, Crysis at 1080p takes up a total of 500mb of VRAM alone painguy1

[QUOTE="painguy1"]. Anyway, Crysis at 1080p takes up a total of 500mb of VRAM alone Wii-U4Fun

Most modern games take up that amount of VRAM nowadays. Does that mean they are all unoptimized? Try harder.

[QUOTE="Wii-U4Fun"][QUOTE="painguy1"]. Anyway, Crysis at 1080p takes up a total of 500mb of VRAM alone painguy1

Most modern games take up that amount of VRAM nowadays. Does that mean they are all unoptimized? Try harder.

This gen MS lost over a billion dollars because they went from 256 mb ram to 512 mb at the request of Epic. Who suffered for that? Epic or MS?

And I very much doubt either Sony or MS will want to take the kind of losses they made this gen.

Console companies don't pack as much parts into a console as they can and then think about price. They have a price in mind and they put in what they can.

3rd party devs will ***** and whine then go on to do nice things with the hardware. Graphics whores will look at PC hardware and say the consoles don't have enough then go on to fight about which ones have the best versions when they see the games.

It was the same for previous gens and it'll be the same for next gen.

I agree with the other guy. Instead of bigger worlds (worlds are plenty huge already), we need denser worlds.

And calm yourself. No one is 'trying hard' for anything here.

[QUOTE="painguy1"]

[QUOTE="Wii-U4Fun"] Crysis is terribly optimised, so that doesn't mean much.Wii-U4Fun

Most modern games take up that amount of VRAM nowadays. Does that mean they are all unoptimized? Try harder.

This gen MS lost over a billion dollars because they went from 256 mb ram to 512 mb at the request of Epic. Who suffered for that? Epic or MS?

And I very much doubt either Sony or MS will want to take the kind of losses they made this gen.

Console companies don't pack as much parts into a console as they can and then think about price. They have a price in mind and they put in what they can.

3rd party devs will ***** and whine then go on to do nice things with the hardware. Graphics whores will look at PC hardware and say the consoles don't have enough then go on to fight about which ones have the best versions when they see the games.

It was the same for previous gens and it'll be the same for next gen.

I agree with the other guy. Instead of bigger worlds (worlds are plenty huge already), we need denser worlds.

And calm yourself. No one is 'trying hard' for anything here.

MS lost money because of hardware failures not because of adding extra RAM. More RAM will allow large dense worlds not one or the other. You guys are so used to seeing only 1 type that u can't imagine both being combined.

[QUOTE="Wii-U4Fun"]

[QUOTE="painguy1"]

Most modern games take up that amount of VRAM nowadays. Does that mean they are all unoptimized? Try harder.

painguy1

This gen MS lost over a billion dollars because they went from 256 mb ram to 512 mb at the request of Epic. Who suffered for that? Epic or MS?

And I very much doubt either Sony or MS will want to take the kind of losses they made this gen.

Console companies don't pack as much parts into a console as they can and then think about price. They have a price in mind and they put in what they can.

3rd party devs will ***** and whine then go on to do nice things with the hardware. Graphics whores will look at PC hardware and say the consoles don't have enough then go on to fight about which ones have the best versions when they see the games.

It was the same for previous gens and it'll be the same for next gen.

I agree with the other guy. Instead of bigger worlds (worlds are plenty huge already), we need denser worlds.

And calm yourself. No one is 'trying hard' for anything here.

MS lost money because of hardware failures not because of adding extra RAM. More RAM will allow large dense worlds not one or the other. You guys are so used to seeing only 1 type that u can't imagine both being combined.

http://www.1up.com/news/epic-games-cost-microsoft-billion ( can't insert the damn link without html problems).

Over a billion dollars. Console RAM doesn't come cheap.

And like I said, the consoles will get sufficient RAM for what prices they are targetting. I'm expecting 2-3 GBs from MS and Sony.1-1.5 GBs from Nintendo.

Wether devs choose to have denser worlds, 1080p at 60fps, better AI, etc over bigger-less-densely-packed-worlds, 1080p/720p @ 30fps, crappy AI, etc is all their choice.

And I think until we have quantum computing in consoles, or we evolve to cloud gaming exclusively, most devs will sacrifice better resolution, fps, etc for shinier graphics and effects.