Metro: Last Light Developer Dumps on Wii U

[Yopaz]

Im curious about something, and im Defidentally sure the escapist community would be happy to fill me in, but isn't the wii u cpu on par with the 360 and ps3?? I have not been keeping up, pc gamer elites and what-not.

It should noted that the Wii U is a new system so having hardware equivalent to last gen's systems is nothing to be proud of.

I wish more people understood this fact instead of stupidly defending a blatantly underpowered console.

You should note I'm not calling it a terrible system, I'm calling it 6 years late to the party.

While the Wii U is underpowered for a next generation system this still doesn't make much sense though.

They are complaining that the Wii U is weak, yet they don't complain about the two systems which are only slightly different. It's like I said that I hated Intel Pentium 4 and decided that I prefer Intel Celeron D.

OT: Is anyone really surprised that the creators of Metro 2033 aren't satisfied with Wii U's hardware? Optimal settings for Metro 2033 are incredibly high. I am surprised that they are releasing for consoles at all. Oh well, if I decide to get this it will be for PC anyway. I have a preference towards mouse and keyboard on this kind of game.

 

[slacker2]

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[ThePuzzldPirate]

So for those people calling bullshit on the dev's statement or for those assuring everyone in the thread that the wiiU is more powerful than it's counterparts: What ARE the wiiU's specs? Because, judging from the confidence of your posts, we should expect nothing less from you than knowing the full specs of the new console.

Now normally I would accept what every developer has said but with all if them contradicting themselves, I'm going to go with what Nintendo has confirmed. It is a Power7 processor with either a AMD APU equivalent to 4XXX graphics with 2 gigs of ram. What as been found out from tear down is the ram is pretty stock yet has a beefy eDRAM that we don't know how fast it is. Now I'm not going to argue that this thing is stronger, it is just like it will be weaker than the other two companies boxes when they come out. For people who are using ports as to prove this console being weak clearly don't know how both development and business works and should educate themselves a bit.

 

[slacker2]

I doubt it has a power 7 cpu. Power 7's are high performance chips with a large size and thermal footprint, more appropriate for servers and workstations and, even though it's conceivable that one could be fitted in a console, in the end the wiiU's CPU is 37mm^2, while an 8 core power 7 is a 560mm^2 monster. Even if you reduced that to one core, it would still easily dwarf the wiiU's cpu die.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6465/nintendo-wii-u-teardown
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/POWER7

By comparison, the 2010 xbox 360 cpu is at least 2 times bigger, or at least it should be considering the 2008 65nm variant is around 135mm^2, so it should be at least half the size on 45nm.

edit: looks like hammer beat me to it.

 

[Lono Shrugged]

Remember the old wii days after release when every second game was a lazy port with terrible graphics and bad BAD motion controls. So yeah go team Metro as far as I'm concerned. Because whatever about the hardware I am reading it as "we don't want to do a lazy port"

 

[Vivi22]

Also, the only "Dev" that is straining under the WiiU's limits is this company that had a hard time making a game on the Xbox 360, and who is owned by a company that is going bankrupt. A lot of companies have been praising the WiiU's capabilities; Ubisoft [http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/multimedia/display/20121115155334_Ubisoft_Happy_with_Nintendo_Wii_U_Technology_Not_Happy_with_the_Price.html], Activision [http://www.videogamer.com/wiiu/call_of_duty_black_ops_2/news/wii_u_is_a_big_step_in_the_right_direction_for_activision_titles_including_call_of_duty.html], Team Ninja [http://n4g.com/news/1119833/team-ninja-on-wii-u-hardware-bringing-qte-free-ninja-gaiden-3-to-ps3-and-360], Gearbox [http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2012/05/gearbox_wii_u_is_a_powerful_powerful_machine] and even Valve [http://www.1up.com/news/wii-u-valve-games-could-be-match] (Yes, the Valve) have praised the WiiU in terms of Specs. We don't have to worry about Specs.

A few things: first, 4A games aren't owned by THQ. Their game is only being published by them. Second, they have limited resources. Even more so because THQ is the publisher. They can't simply double the size of their team to get ports done on every console. They have to work with the people they have to get things finished, and if that means they've chosen to go with the two platforms they know, as well as port it to another platform with a number of users about equal with the 360, rather than a new console with a somewhat more unknown audience, I can hardly blame them. Also worth noting is that every company you mentioned praising the Wii U's specs have far more resources at their disposal. Either because they're some of the largest game publishers in existence, or because they are working for/with them.

But perhaps most importantly, we don't have a lot of information here. We don't know what they mean when they say the Wii U CPU is slow. They could mean that it doesn't have many cores, or simply that the cores are relatively underclocked compared to the other consoles and PC's. We also don't know where the bottlenecks in their code are. Maybe there are not insignificant number of singlethreaded processes in Last Light which require cores with a decent clock speed for optimal performance and the Wii U simply isn't there in that regard. It may be perfectly fine in other respects like number of cores, GPU performance, RAM, and probably would be perfectly fine if they were developing primarily for it so they could work around it's limitations. But I can see how companies could easily run into issues trying to port to a completely different hardware architecture. Especially when they're a small developer who can't rely on publisher support right now.

Point is, the situation is rarely as clear cut as it seems, particularly where hardware is concerned. A lot of things factor into how well it will run a given game.

 

[Adon Cabre]

Im curious about something, and im Defidentally sure the escapist community would be happy to fill me in, but isn't the wii u cpu on par with the 360 and ps3?? I have not been keeping up, pc gamer elites and what-not.

This is actually incredibly unclear at the moment. But most estimates put it at more powerful than either the 360 or PS3. But Nintendo has not released all the information about it, which seems suspect. And considering it has a much more modern and a pretty powerful GPU (in relative terms), this what should matter as the GPU is where almost all of the stress is placed if you go by the first Metro game. But, it is what it is. It seems more likely that it's a manpower issue more than anything to me, but who am I to argue with random Chief Technical Officer guy.

Someone actualy answered me completely unbiased? Am i in the right forum? Anyways, thanks. Back to Borderlands 2 on PC

GPU renders Graphics, but it's CPU that crunches data and carries the weight of that GPU. This is why the PS3 was more capable than the XBox 360 with developing bigger and higher graphic games. (It's why the Xbox360 requires 4 disks to play Final Fantasy XIII, and the PS3 just one). From what I've been reading on the net, the Wii-U has a slight edge on GPU than either "Last Gen" consoles, but it's CPU deficient-self means a graphical down grade for the bigger and higher quality games, because the processor just cannot handle the crunch.

The PS3 also had an advantage with blue ray, which helped share the memory and processing load. The Wii-U does not use this tech, I'm guessing its so that they can charge lower prices -- $300 from the start compared to the PS3's hefty $500+ price upon it's launch.

What that means is that it's probably not going to play UBisoft's "Watchdogs", Konami's "Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes" or Krytec's (however it's written) "Crysis 3". (Then again, if you want the high end graphical advantage, you'll probably need a PC anyhow).

Personally, I want an experience in a game; but then again, I'd rather have a mid-tier last gen console than something new and-soon-to-be-outdated in all tech categories. The Wii-U is trying to contract developers for games while most stand at an awkward distance, waiting for more PS4 and 720 specs to unleash their vision. Actually, I'm very close to going PC right now, but that's some months away; at least, until I get a better understanding about those PS3 exclusives coming out in 2013 -- i.e The Last Guardian, Remember Me, the Last of us, Lightning Returns, and those two paranormal games.

Who the hell cares about Mario with the future line up of higher graphical and bigger games squeezing the last gen models for every shred of power.



How strange is it that the Wii U comes with an 8 Gb Memory. That tells me that Nintendo is all about a financial bottom line, not necessarily working for the advantage of ambitious developers. Can't have any graphical or game updates unless you buy 64 GB flashdrive or portable hard drive, but what the hell!

 

[xPixelatedx]

Personally, I want an experience in a game; but then again, I'd rather have a mid-tier last gen console than something new and-soon-to-be-outdated in all tech categories.

I am trying to find the sense in that comment, and I am failing.

Who the hell cares about Mario with the future line up of higher graphical and bigger games squeezing the last gen models for every shred of power.

A lot of people who want to have fun? Something the PS3 and Xbox have been very lacking on in their AAA department. Before borderlands 2 came out I have not bought a single game for my 360 this year (outside of XBL arcade games). Nintendo always focuses on just making a fun games, and there are a lot of people who still appreciate that taste, especially now in this era of everything having to be grim-dark, try-hard mature cinematic experiences. Nintendo is pretty out of the loop on handling console wars, and they make terrible business decisions all the time. The only reason they are still around is because they have zero competition. The Xbox was never about the flavor of games Nintendo provides, and when they attempted (Viva Pinata and Kameo) they failed miserably, and while the PlayStation library once had dozens of franchises that could have competed, Sony has abandoned almost all of them in favor of becoming a near mirror image of the current 360. I have no doubt the 720 and PS4 will be amazingly powerful systems, but I doubt the game selection they offer is going to be altered in any way.

How strange is it that the Wii U comes with an 8 Gb Memory. That tells me that Nintendo is all about a financial bottom line, not necessarily working for the advantage of ambitious developers. Can't have any graphical or game updates unless you buy 64 GB flashdrive or portable hard drive, but what the hell!

Or you could just not get the white wiiU, haha.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

I think the main problem here is that they do not have the money to make a decent port.

 

[Mr.Mattress]

A brand new console matches 7 year old ones? Amazing!

Time is not an excuse, The game should look infinitely better on the Wii U by virtue of it being a new console, but it doesn't, because instead of using new hardware, they used 6-7 year old hardware that's at best matching what we have already.

Refer to my post here please:

Fun fact: A Consoles Graphics improve dramatically over time. Here's an example:


This is one of the first launch titles for the Xbox 360, Condemned. Notice at how terrible it looks: It looks just like an Xbox/Gamecube/High Graphic PS2 game. Plus, it's impossible to run this game in 720p, something the Xbox 360 can do quite well. Compare it to Condemned 2:


Looks so much better, doesn't it? Characters eyes move, the graphics can be in 720p, the characters are more expressive, there's better use of the areas (Debris, coloration, etc), hair looks real, and the enemies are much more expressive/creative.

With time, the WiiU will go from "Looking slightly better then PS3", to "Holly Crud! These Graphics are so beautiful!!"

SNIP

No, it will not. I was going to say something about the insane number of tricks developers have to use to make their console games look decent, but it's simpler than that. The WiiU is not much stronger than the current gen of consoles, and the PC plowed through the capabilities of the Xbox360 and the PS3 at the very least as early as 2007. The Wii-U will be straight up never be able to recreate the lighting effects of Metro2033. The best case scenario is the games end up looking something like Crysis (2007). And then the question of the CPU rises.

Except it's not [http://www.nowgamer.com/news/1689397/slow_cpu_will_shorten_wii_us_life_dice_dev.html] the only [http://www.lazygamer.net/xbox-360/wii-u-cpus-challenging-devs/] dev. Graphically, the console is definitely more powerful. Other than that, it's not clear but there's nothing to be overjoyed about.

First, it is much stronger then modern day consoles. Second, I already said that the WiiU won't have games that look like the most advance Computer games today.

Your first link is using Metro's Developers, the only company that is actually complaining about the WiiU. Your second link says that Tecmo has minor troubles with CPU but that they still make a better looking game. They made Warriors Orochi 3 for the system, so they aren't ragging on it like 4A is. Therefor, yes, 4A is the only developer that is saying the CPU is crap; Tecmo is saying that it has minor issues but that they worked with it and made a pretty decent game out of it.

Also, to everyone who said my video was Biased, please refer to these Non-Biased Videos:

 

[Eri]

First, it is much stronger then modern day consoles. Second, I already said that the WiiU won't have games that look like the most advance Computer games today.

Your first link is using Metro's Developers, the only company that is actually complaining about the WiiU. Your second link says that Tecmo has minor troubles with CPU but that they still make a better looking game. They made Warriors Orochi 3 for the system, so they aren't ragging on it like 4A is. Therefor, yes, 4A is the only developer that is saying the CPU is crap; Tecmo is saying that it has minor issues but that they worked with it and made a pretty decent game out of it.

Also, to everyone who said my video was Biased, please refer to these Non-Biased Videos:

Much stronger is factually wrong. I don't even know how you can try to objectively say that. At best, it matches the output of current consoles. It won't look much better in the future either because the hardware won't allow it. Sure, once they have more time to optimize they will look better, but not by that much, because again, the hardware is 7 years old. That is a factual statement.

 

[Mr.Mattress]

Much stronger is factually wrong. I don't even know how you can try to objectively say that. At best, it matches the output of current consoles. It won't look much better in the future either because the hardware won't allow it. Sure, once they have more time to optimize they will look better, but not by that much, because again, the hardware is 7 years old. That is a factual statement.

Please tell me then; If it is Factually Wrong that the WiiU is much stronger then the modern day consoles, how come you can't objectively say it? I already told you, with age comes experience: Condemned for the Xbox 360 looks just like an Xbox game. If this were 2006, then I could tell you it is factually wrong to say the Xbox 360 is stronger then the Xbox. However, just look at how things change with age: Condemned 2 for the 360 looks so much better. And no, the WiiU is not using 7 year old hardware: The WiiU is using 5-3 year old tech. And how, pray tell, will the hardware say "Yeah, I don't want my games to look better then they do now"? You don't think Developers will learn how to make games look better for the WiiU? You don't think Nintendo would fine tune the WiiU's hardware within a year of now? It's absurd to make such factually wrong claims as you are making. Every console gets better with age, no matter what parts they are using. Your being factually wrong.

 

[Eri]

Much stronger is factually wrong. I don't even know how you can try to objectively say that. At best, it matches the output of current consoles. It won't look much better in the future either because the hardware won't allow it. Sure, once they have more time to optimize they will look better, but not by that much, because again, the hardware is 7 years old. That is a factual statement.

Please tell me then; If it is Factually Wrong that the WiiU is much stronger then the modern day consoles, how come you can't objectively say it? I already told you, with age comes experience: Condemned for the Xbox 360 looks just like an Xbox game. If this were 2006, then I could tell you it is factually wrong to say the Xbox 360 is stronger then the Xbox. However, just look at how things change with age: Condemned 2 for the 360 looks so much better. And no, the WiiU is not using 7 year old hardware: The WiiU is using 5-3 year old tech. And how, pray tell, will the hardware say "Yeah, I don't want my games to look better then they do now"? You don't think Developers will learn how to make games look better for the WiiU? You don't think Nintendo would fine tune the WiiU's hardware within a year of now? It's absurd to make such factually wrong claims as you are making. Every console gets better with age, no matter what parts they are using. Your being factually wrong.

Did you read what I said? I just finished telling you that they will no doubt get better looking, but I expressed doubts about it being a whole bunch better looking. And if it was true it was using hardware only 3-5 years behind and not 6-7 years, the games wouldn't look the same as a ps3/360 no matter how unoptimized. They would blow them away.

 

[Adon Cabre]

Who the hell cares about Mario with the future line up of higher graphical and bigger games squeezing the last gen models for every shred of power.

A lot of people who want to have fun? Something the PS3 and Xbox have been very lacking on in their AAA department. Before borderlands 2 came out I have not bought a single game for my 360 this year (outside of XBL arcade games). Nintendo always focuses on just making a fun games, and there are a lot of people who still appreciate that taste, especially now in this era of everything having to be grim-dark, try-hard mature cinematic experiences. The Xbox was never about the flavor of games Nintendo provides, and when they attempted (Viva Pinata and Kameo) they failed miserably, and while the PlayStation library once had dozens of franchises that could have competed, Sony has abandoned almost all of them in favor of becoming a near mirror image of the current 360.

I don't know your idea of Fun, but in general, the PS3 and Xbox360 aren't trying to catch Nintendo's crowd. There's too much other competition now from cellphone to tablet games. And if you haven't seen the lineup for 2013 and beyond, Sony and Microsoft want to offer something more rich and deeper than your basic Angry Birds. This is the idea that they are locking into.

There will always be a simple crowd meant for your Twilights, Scary Movies and slap-stick romance comedies. But there will also be a more mature audience for Gladiator, Braveheart, Kingdom of Heaven, Lord of the Rings, and Blade Runner to provide a deep, rich experience. That's my audience, and that's how I believe these consoles are generally perceived.

Nintendo is pretty out of the loop on handling console wars, and they make terrible business decisions all the time. The only reason they are still around is because they have zero competition.

I don't understand Nintendo. They've virtually upgraded to Last Gen hardware -- and for what? Like I explained in the earlier post, there are already limitations for the Wii-U. It won't be perceived as a hardcore console in two years ? and no one seems to like that cumbersome hand-device. I think it's going the way of the PSVita -- big dreams and hopes for developers to jump on board, but there will be too many risks, costs and details to care about.

I have no doubt the 720 and PS4 will be amazingly powerful systems, but I doubt the game selection they offer is going to be altered in any way.

I doubt the hardware itself will be the highlight of the PS4. Technology seems to be converging. Look for other Media to take center stage.

 

[Blind Sight]

A developer that doesn't know to make an optimized game complains about hardware power.
If he CPU was that weak, why is the Aliens developer saying how the WiiU version is the best working and best looking version, excluding the PC ofc.

As much as I adore Gearbox, they often claim to have the sun in their grasp and that doesn't exactly pan out.

Randy Pitchford seems to be on a Molyneaux 2.0 path at the moment. I love Borderlands and all, but there's still that whole Duke Nukem...thing.

I can't recall who said it, but someone in the industry who's friends with Pitchford recently said he's a great guy and he respects him massively, but Pitchford can spin anything with his bullshit haha.

 

[Baron von Blitztank]

Talk about misleading titles!
I was expecting to see a man dropping actual feces on a games console here and now I'm disappointed!

I got a pre-emptive boner for nothing...

 

[slacker2]

I hope the mods don't mind me linking to another gaming forum, but there is an interesting discussion going on on neogaf regarding A4's attempt at clarifying their initial statement (also with insights from other devs).

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=500913

Apparently, guys from DICE and Omega Force have also expressed some dissatisfaction with the WiiU's hardware...

 

[OldNewNewOld]

The part you are missing is the fact that it is easier to port a game from PC onto Xbox than it is to port it over to WiiU or PS3.

Actually it's not.
Trine Director's Cut developer said that making a PC version work on the WiiU requires few hours of work and that the WiiU is currently the easiest console to develop for.

The problem is that most games are made for the 360 and then ported to other systems. The WiiU has a more similar architecture to a PC than to the 360 and porting requires some work. They need to make sure that the games uses the eDRAM which is incredibly fast and big (32MB of eDRAM is a lot). Nintendo has a history of making a weird combination where 1 part is weak, but the other is strong to offset the weakness. In this case the WiiU ram is slower than the RAM of the PS360, but it has much more and a much faster eDRAM to offset it. A game that loads everything into the RAM memory will run slower on the WiiU than on the other 2 consoles, but if they make use of the eDRAM, the WiiU version will run faster and smoother.

We have seen a lot of incompetent developer/publisher forcing bad ports and judging a console based on a bad port is stupid. If we did that, the PC would be considered shit-tier simply because a lot of ports are bad and unoptimized. The most recent one that comes to my mind would be Dark Souls. A PC that is 20 times stronger than the 360 and it still has some serious problems with the game.

We have Tekken, Trine, Scribblnauts, ZombiU, Blops2 that run better on the WiiU or can't even run on other consoles (Trine Director's Cut would require a downgrade in graphics in order to run at all on the other 2 consoles).

There are far to many false rumors about the WiiU that have been proven wrong on numberus times, yet those spreading them are far to loud and those proving them wrong simply can't get their 5 minutes in the spot light to explain shit.

 

[White-Death]

I think this is because in Ukraine nobody bloody owns a console of any sort,Ukraine is a strictly PC gaming master race country.

 

[OldNewNewOld]

Are you going to show the unbiased videos showing the extreme slowdown of Arkham City on the WiiU where it drops to a single digit framerate now? Or are you going to admit you are not even fucking close to being unbiased?

Do you really think that a bad port proves anything?