Am_I_Evil
06-04-06, 03:00 PM
Graphics:
Although by many accounts Nintendo stole the show at this year's E3 with an impressive Wii showing, the graphics of the Wii games were far from impressive. That said, we spoke with an ATI representative who explained that what we saw was just the "tip of the iceberg." The "Hollywood" GPU may be more powerful than we think.
While Microsoft and Sony are busy pushing polygons and stressing high-definition content, Nintendo has let graphics take a "backseat," if you will, to the unique functionality of the Wii-mote. Many people who viewed and played Wii games at E3 this year would tell you that the visuals looked roughly on par with what users already see on their GameCubes.
But that doesn't mean that Wii games will simply look like GameCube titles using a unique control method. Nintendo already told us that the hardware being used at E3 was not finalized. Moreover, during the show GameDaily BIZ met with ATI, which is providing the "Hollywood" GPU for the Wii, and John Swinimer, Senior Public Relations Manager of Consumer Products, emphasized that the Wii architecture is capable of producing far better results than what we've witnessed thus far. "I think what you saw [on Wii] was just the tip of the iceberg of what the Hollywood chip can bring to the Nintendo Wii," he said.
http://biz.gamedaily.com/industry/feature/?id=12859
"specs": there was info at the link but it was edited at Ubisoft's request....then a day later it was taken down due to Ubisoft's request....this is the info just copied and pasted from there onto another forum before it was deleted....is an interview with Ubisoft Paris
http://www.easynintendo.net/viewtopic.php?t=9
EN: How about the Wii hardware? What are the specs?
XP: Although i cannot give you exact numbers at this time i can give you a rough idea about the power of the machine. I would compare the graphics chip to somewhere inbetween the ATI Radeon X1400 and the Radeon X1600, and the CPU to between the AthlonXP 2400+ and the AthlonXP 3000+.
EN: Can you tell us how much memory at what speed the Wii has?
XP: I cannot say how much memory the Wii has, but its running at 650mhz.
EN: As we saw in many current-gen titles, 480p can result in significant jaggies. Can we expect AA and AF from Ubisoft's Wii titles?
XP: Red steel will have 4x Antialiasing and 8x Anisotropic Filtering.
EN: We've been hearing a lot of consistent talk about 60fps at 480p widescreen from other developers. Is this something we'll see a lot of on Wii?
XP: I believe so yes.
EN: Why is this target so easy to hit?
XP: The hardware is totally free of bottlenecks, nothing is slowing us down.
EN: For us graphics *****s, what kind of sweet graphical effects will we see in Red Steel or Rayman that we haven't
seen in Gamecube games?
XP: We have alot of self shadowing going on, also we will have some normal maps and bump maps things like that.
EN: Could you possibly tell us anything specific about the Wii GPU?
XP: I can tell you that it has double the number of pixel pipelines (of gamecube), and that it processes physics. It really takes a huge load off of the cpu.
EN: Is the T&L setup fixed function like it was on the gamecube?
XP: No, fully programmable.
EN: How much Edram does it have?
XP: 2MB for the framebuffer 2MB for the Zbuffer and 4MB for texture cache. Unfortunately I am out of time, id like to come back for another interview sometime.
Although by many accounts Nintendo stole the show at this year's E3 with an impressive Wii showing, the graphics of the Wii games were far from impressive. That said, we spoke with an ATI representative who explained that what we saw was just the "tip of the iceberg." The "Hollywood" GPU may be more powerful than we think.
While Microsoft and Sony are busy pushing polygons and stressing high-definition content, Nintendo has let graphics take a "backseat," if you will, to the unique functionality of the Wii-mote. Many people who viewed and played Wii games at E3 this year would tell you that the visuals looked roughly on par with what users already see on their GameCubes.
But that doesn't mean that Wii games will simply look like GameCube titles using a unique control method. Nintendo already told us that the hardware being used at E3 was not finalized. Moreover, during the show GameDaily BIZ met with ATI, which is providing the "Hollywood" GPU for the Wii, and John Swinimer, Senior Public Relations Manager of Consumer Products, emphasized that the Wii architecture is capable of producing far better results than what we've witnessed thus far. "I think what you saw [on Wii] was just the tip of the iceberg of what the Hollywood chip can bring to the Nintendo Wii," he said.
http://biz.gamedaily.com/industry/feature/?id=12859
"specs": there was info at the link but it was edited at Ubisoft's request....then a day later it was taken down due to Ubisoft's request....this is the info just copied and pasted from there onto another forum before it was deleted....is an interview with Ubisoft Paris
http://www.easynintendo.net/viewtopic.php?t=9
EN: How about the Wii hardware? What are the specs?
XP: Although i cannot give you exact numbers at this time i can give you a rough idea about the power of the machine. I would compare the graphics chip to somewhere inbetween the ATI Radeon X1400 and the Radeon X1600, and the CPU to between the AthlonXP 2400+ and the AthlonXP 3000+.
EN: Can you tell us how much memory at what speed the Wii has?
XP: I cannot say how much memory the Wii has, but its running at 650mhz.
EN: As we saw in many current-gen titles, 480p can result in significant jaggies. Can we expect AA and AF from Ubisoft's Wii titles?
XP: Red steel will have 4x Antialiasing and 8x Anisotropic Filtering.
EN: We've been hearing a lot of consistent talk about 60fps at 480p widescreen from other developers. Is this something we'll see a lot of on Wii?
XP: I believe so yes.
EN: Why is this target so easy to hit?
XP: The hardware is totally free of bottlenecks, nothing is slowing us down.
EN: For us graphics *****s, what kind of sweet graphical effects will we see in Red Steel or Rayman that we haven't
seen in Gamecube games?
XP: We have alot of self shadowing going on, also we will have some normal maps and bump maps things like that.
EN: Could you possibly tell us anything specific about the Wii GPU?
XP: I can tell you that it has double the number of pixel pipelines (of gamecube), and that it processes physics. It really takes a huge load off of the cpu.
EN: Is the T&L setup fixed function like it was on the gamecube?
XP: No, fully programmable.
EN: How much Edram does it have?
XP: 2MB for the framebuffer 2MB for the Zbuffer and 4MB for texture cache. Unfortunately I am out of time, id like to come back for another interview sometime.