Topic: Wii's hardware

[mantidor]

I didnt see a thread about it, so Im making one related to the hardware, forgive me if theres already another one, I couldnt find it.

First I wanted to point out the Elebits dev talked about a physics unit of some sort and that that helped them with the development of the title, he probably let that slip when he shouldnt, but its a very interesting thing indeed.

I also have curiosity regarding the optical media, is it confirmed that its DVD? any info regarding the load times? I remember that one of the advantages of GC's small storage media was faster load times, I dont know if the tecnology is ready to give us better load times with full size DVDs now.

[ProtoNY]

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Originally posted by: mantidorFirst I wanted to point out the Elebits dev talked about a physics unit of some sort and that that helped them with the development of the title, he probably let that slip when he shouldnt, but its a very interesting thing indeed.

That is a very interesting point.  I didn't even notice that.  But now that you mention it, maybe that partially explains why the explosions in Project Hammer look better than any that I have seen on a console (as far as being real-time).  Very interesting indeed.

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I also have curiosity regarding the optical media, is it confirmed that its DVD? any info regarding the load times? I remember that one of the advantages of GC's small storage media was faster load times, I dont know if the tecnology is ready to give us better load times with full size DVDs now.

I only remember seeing that it was a 12cm media.  On the hardware page on the Wii site, they do show what appears to be a full size DVD, although they just refer to it as "Optical Media"

Wii Hardware Page

I am not entirely convinced that the good Gamecube load times were just because of the media, though.  Going into the production of the Gamecube, I thought that they had mentioned that they had provided some optimizations and canned routines in the API to assist in that department.  But, I am not 100% on that.

--Proto  

[Spak-Spang]

Mantidor:  Since the games were demos that were being run I don't think we can truly know about load times yet.  We don't even know 100% if games were being run on actual hardware or development kits yet.  And the games could have been loaded into a harddrive or RAM or something so that they ran smoother and faster for E3 demos to go quicker.

I guess we are still in a wait and see.  Though the physics comments were interesting that you brought up.  Is that actual hardware though, or perhaps software tools to help develop games?  Either way its good to know.

[mantidor]

heres the link

http://revolution.ign.com/articles/708/708155p1.html

"IGN: Is the hardware as easy to use on the Wii as it was with the GameCube? The two systems are very similar is structure we're told.

Konami: Yes, the structure is very similar to GameCube, but you already knew that. The development was not that difficult, as the Wii system has built in physics simulation. That helped the process."

[Bloodworth]

At the briefing on Tuesday, Iwata spent a good deal of time complaining about load times on other systems, and said that the Wii is designed to load extremely quickly.

[Bill Aurion]

That's great to hear, considering I was worried that the switch to more standard media would be a problem...

As for the physics simulation, I've seen people throw around the idea of the graphics card doing some physics stuff (ATi has said they themselves that they are working on that aspect) but it's not something I'm personally interested in...At the moment, at least...  

[Requiem of Darcness]

Mantidor, from my understanding the Wii does not use DVDs. Like the GC it uses a custom disc medium. Given how easily DVDs are pirated and Nintendo's usually exception anti-piracy methods, I doubt they would put their games on such an unsecure medium. The Wii discs are 12cm discs with a 8GB capacity based on what I've been able to find out.

[The Omen]

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The Wii discs are 12cm discs with a 8GB capacity based on what I've been able to find out.

I believe that's dual layer, and the norm will be 4.7GB.   Which sounds an awful bunch like a dvd.

[jasonditz]

Iwata's right (big surprise), I was fiddling with a 360 the other week at Best Buy and i was aghast at just how long it takes to load a single-level demo. I mean, it's one thing to say the Gamecube loads faster than the PS2, but the fact that the 360 is only incrementally faster than the PS2 (with admittedly, more to load) and the Cube still seems a lot faster... it's just shocking.

Of course, Nintendo's always been about the load time... that's why they were so hesitant to go to optical media in the first place. And then, when they did, they went with a smaller, and therefore faster loading, mini-disc. The graphics of the original Resident Evil wouldn't have been impossible on the PS2, and on the Xbox they would've required the hard drive.

I'm interested in seeing how they manage to keep loadtimes to a minimum with a 12cm disc. But I have no doubt they will, they wouldn't have done it if they couldn't do it right.

[jasonditz]

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Originally posted by: The Omen

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The Wii discs are 12cm discs with a 8GB capacity based on what I've been able to find out.

I believe that's dual layer, and the norm will be 4.7GB.   Which sounds an awful bunch like a dvd.

Yeah, but as with the GC discs, which sounded an awful lot like mini-DVDs, they will doubtless be wholly incompatible with existing DVD readers. My guess is they'll spin like GC discs instead of DVDs, which was part of why GC discs were so hard to pirate.

[Ian Sane]

"At the briefing on Tuesday, Iwata spent a good deal of time complaining about load times on other systems, and said that the Wii is designed to load extremely quickly."

That's nothing really new though.  They said the same thing about the Cube and for the most part they were right, at least regarding first party titles.

[mantidor]

for the most part? I dont recall any GC having bad loading times, even third parties, the longest ones were RE Zero and still they didnt get close to 5 seconds.

Other bit about the hardware is the battery life of the remote. Sony said their controller was going to last six hours, I was ready to start laughing about it because compared to the impressive battery life of the wavebird the ps3 controller is a joke, but what if the remote is the same? I mean it even has rumble and also motion sensing, do this consume battery life a lot? and is it going to be recharchable batteries or what?

[KDR_11k]

Eternal Darkness has awfully long load times. Phantasy Star Online was pretty bad, too (especially after playing the PC version first which didn't even have loading screens, you just used the teleporter and arrived a second later).

[Ian Sane]

"for the most part? I dont recall any GC having bad loading times, even third parties, the longest ones were RE Zero and still they didnt get close to 5 seconds."

Did you completely avoid any third party ports?  I rarely found them in games made with the Cube in mind but PS2 and Xbox ports usually had them.  But then I consider 5 seconds a long load time so maybe I just noticed them more.

[BlackNMild2k1]

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Originally posted by: mantidor
for the most part? I dont recall any GC having bad loading times, even third parties, the longest ones were RE Zero and still they didnt get close to 5 seconds.

Obviously you never played Turok: Evolution, load times crept upwards of 20-30 seconds sometimes. The game itself wan't bad, but the load times for re-starting a level after dying made the game unbearable and therefore unplayable.

[couchmonkey]

EA's games are the worst for load times.  Simpsons' Hit and Run had 10-12 seconds and I think the SSX and James Bond games are in the 5-10 second range.

Edit:  I played Burnout Revenge on the Xbox 360 the other night and yes, the load times are pretty bad, I'd say at least 5 seconds.  I think it depends partially on the developer's determination to lower load times.  I've heard that even the original Playstation had games that took less than 5 seconds to load.  I think it's partially a matter of not cramming as many textures and stuff into every level. Nintendo's first-party GameCube games have pretty blurry textures most of the time, but the games load really fast.  Coincidence?

The physics thing sounds interesting. Also, whatever happened to the big to-do everyone had about Wii having out-of-order instruction sets vs. in-order for the other two consoles?  I guess with all the extra power they have, in-order isn't such a big deal, or what?

[ruby_onix]

I think they said during the "Wii24" online thing that the Wii will be one of those systems that's powered up all the time, just in sleep mode, like the PS2, and that will contribute to shorter startup times (like the PS2, LOL).

[Ceric]

All the games that are mention are for the most part ports it seems.  Megaman X collection has bad initial load times.  I personally thinks it's timered or something.  I can't see that little of a game taking so long to load unless the emulator is doing emulation of another sort as well.

[TMW]

By "initial" do you mean before the game starts?

Thats cause its loading the entire game before you start.  

[IceCold]

From what I played of Def Jam, it had awful, awful load times. Awful.

[Ceric]

Maximum Size of a SNES Cartridge: 32 Mbits
Average Data rate of a DVD drive: Typical data rates for DVD movies range from 3–10 Mbit/s

I didn't realize DVD was so slow...

[Dinzy]

DVD movies run at 1x.  a 12 or 16x drive is well 12 or 16 tmes faster.  The gamecube had like 24megs of ram so at say 2MB/s you can fill it all up in 12sec.  Or in other words low ram = low load times.  

[OverHeat]

The idea of the storage medium not being DVD is interesting. Given that, with an attachment, the Wii is supposed to play DVD movies I would assume that it /will/ be DVD's. Is it really feasible/cost-effective to essentially have two drives in one? The fact that it will also run GCN disks also complicates things... as far as I knew, those /were/ mini-DVD's. Its just that mini DVDs werent commercially available at the time, making them safer. Meh. I suppose we will know for sure in a few more months.

[stevey]

"Other bit about the hardware is the battery life of the remote. Sony said their controller was going to last six hours, I was ready to start laughing about it because compared to the impressive battery life of the wavebird the ps3 controller is a joke, but what if the remote is the same? I mean it even has rumble and also motion sensing, do this consume battery life a lot? and is it going to be recharchable batteries or what?"

The wiimote wont have buit-in recharchable battieries or be able to use internally chargable battery and some more bad news:

"The Wiire asked Barr if the Wii controller battery life will be similar to that of the GameCube's WaveBird. "Absolutely not," said Barr, further explaining the amount of information sent with the Wii controller is substantially greater than the WaveBird's data transfer. The Nintendo WaveBird lasts for approximately 100 hours when using standard alkaline batteries"

Start buying lots of AA bateries.

[Crimm]

How boneheaded is Nintendo not to make the unit contain an internal recharchable battery?
It's not like it would be hard!  I mean, cordless phones have done it for over 20 years!