Sonic Runn..er wait... "SSMB YOU CREATED A TIME PARADOX!"

[Narukami07]

^Its better than having another butchered version ala-UnWiished by incompetent side-teams like Dimps. The Hedgehog Engine already looks beautiful on current gen hardware, even FFXV on the PS4 looks like fine-whine despite it's engine utilizing a customized Crystal Tools hybrid that was engineered for 7th gen hardware.

I think the Wii U version will be fine... as long as they don't try to shoe-horn in useless Gamepad-based gimmicks. Unless it's a bonus game, I don't want to tilt or waggle things in a mainstream Sonic game.

 

I think Sega learned their lesson after patching Wisp controls in SLW.

[TheDanimator]

Yeah, people are totally underestimating the power of the WII U
I do not believe the experience will be that different.

[Indigo Rush]

The thing is, if they do that then the game will not look as pretty on the PS4 and Xbox One.

Re-read what I said, please. The additions to said versions would be to pretty it up. "Adding more polygons, more detailed textures, etc."

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

Yeah, people are totally underestimating the power of the WII U

 

What else is new?

[Scar]

Yeah, people are totally underestimating the power of the WII U

This is said a lot these days.

Still not entirely sure what it means...

I do not believe the experience will be that different.

There should be no differences in how the game functions. Only differences will likely be graphical, unless of course SEGA shunts in arbitrary Wii U gamepad usage in there out of obligation.

[TheDanimator]

What it means is that just because the Wii was so inferior graphically to the other consoles

people think the Wii U is just as far behind.
While in many ways the Wii U is technically inferior, I really believe that the fact that it can run games at 1080 HD alone is enough for it to be FAR less obvious than it was with the wii.

The wii u can produce graphics like this...

Does the next Sonic game really need to be any better looking for any console?

[Mando-Whirl-Wind]

What it means is that just because the Wii was so inferior graphically to the other consoles

people think the Wii U is just as far behind.

While in many ways the Wii U is technically inferior, I really believe that the fact that it can run games at 1080 HD alone is enough for it to be FAR less obvious than it was with the wii.

The wii u can produce graphics like this...

Does the next Sonic game really need to be any better looking for any console?

oh dont gorget, thats the FIRST trailer, the second was even more impressive, and this game is a JRPG, which is much more complex an organism than a platformer

 

Does require som effort and optimations though

[Meta77]

The wii u is a next gen system and it can do some nice things. But people really have got to stop trying to say it can do the same things the ps4 or one can. It is just not going to happen.

[Indigo Rush]

No one here saying they are equal. What we are saying is that the technological divide between Nintendo and the others is much smaller than most make it out to be. The Wii U is far more capable than people give it credit for, so it's not unreasonable to expect the next multiplatform Sonic games to look very similar across all consoles, Wii U included.

 

Not the 3DS versions, though. Dimps'll always screw that up.

[Solkia]

really guys

 

are we really doing this

 

Sonic games aren't Crysis. It's not going to take a shit load of power to run.

 

Wii U, PS4, and Xbone are nowhere near similar levels of tech, but they aren't as wide of a gap as the last generation was.

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

really guys

 

are we really doing this

 

Sonic games aren't Crysis. It's not going to take a shit load of power to run.

 

Wii U, PS4, and Xbone are nowhere near similar levels of tech, but they aren't as wide of a gap as the last generation was.

This right here. Shame it still apparently isn't common enough knowledge.

[Conando]

The PS4 isn't available in Brazil? What about Wii U and Xbox One?

 

The PS4 and Wii U are available in Brazil as far as I know, but that's not the issue. The issue with Brazil is that the hardware and game prices are beyond the point of ridiculous. It's why console modding and piracy is so common there. If not that, it's PC gaming.

[Sami]

Hey everyone! I see we're discussing console specs and how they compare to each other. Super! Thankfully, due to knowing the exact specs of each system, we no longer have to make judgments based purely on how trailers and screenshots "look" in comparison to each other. Because of this, I thought I'd go ahead and make a post I could use as a reference, and hopefully aid others in understanding our games on a more technical level. I'm not going to use this as an opinion piece, but just wanted to relay some information for those interested in that line of discussion.
 
I've made sure to discuss how this all relates to the next Sonic game in order to keep it relevant to the topic at hand. 
 
 
So without further ado, let's begin! 
 
 
RAM - 
 
 
PS4 - 8 GB GDD5
 
XB1 - 8 GB DDR3
 
Wii U - 2 GB DDR3
 
 
The parity in RAM between the systems is actually quite vast this generation, in large part due to the PS4's use of the relatively new GDDR5 format. GDDR5 was commercially introduced just this year, and is able to compute data at an exponentially faster rate than DDR3, which is the format used in both the Xbox One and Wii U. The Playstation 4 and Xbox One are somewhat comparable to each other due to having at least the same amount of RAM to work with, though the PS4's speed difference means it's capable of loading higher resolution textures and objects on screen in a shorter amount of time. The Wii U trails far behind them, with only 1/4 the amount of RAM, and only in DDR3. The RAM difference between the PS4 and Wii U is, surprisingly, even larger than that of the PS3 and Wii.
 
 
What this means for games
 
 
You know how Sonic Unleashed and Generations sometimes bug out if you find ways to skip the "checkpoint" areas in each level, where the game is programmed to load the next segment of the area? Or how the 1000 Heartless Battle in Kingdom Hearts II only actually had about twenty enemies on screen at a time? Those are some of the methods developers use to utilize the RAM they have to work with on consoles. With more RAM, game developers are able to load bigger levels, load higher resolution textures, and display more objects on screen at the same time. The reason why open world games like Skyrim and Grand Theft Auto look so poor in comparison to games like The Last of Us and Tomb Raider is because, as open world games, they're required by default to load large segments of environment geometry and objects such as cars, people, and whatever else, while more linear games do not have to do this. While the CPU and GPU are responsible for the data calculations and rendering of the graphics on screen, all of this information has to come from the data stored in the RAM.
 
 
The parity between the PS4 and XB1 can be seen in Tomb Raider Definitive Edition, where the PS4 version of the game has markedly better textures than its XB1 counterpart, while also running at a much higher framerate. This is very likely due to the GPU being able to retrieve data from the RAM at a much faster rate.
 
 
One fact worth noting is that this makes it very difficult for developers to use their new tools on the other systems while still catering to the Wii U. In fact, for open world games like Final Fantasy XV it'd be impossible without having to rework the game's coding. Wii U ports of games will have to have all textures compressed, and be recoded to load a smaller amount of objects and areas at a time. While a true 1000 Heartless Battle might actually be possible now on PS4 and XB1, it'd likely have to be completely reprogrammed for Wii U.
 
 
What this means for Sonic
 
 
In this particular instance, not much. It's doubtful that any Sonic games in the near future will have much impressive texture-work to display in the first place, and it's not likely they'll need to be able to load level geometry any faster than they did in previous games. You'll probably see faster loading times on PS4 and much slower load times on Wii U, but that's about it.
 
 
CPU - 
 
 
PS4 - Single-chip x86 AMD "Jaguar" processor, 8 cores
 
XB1 - 8 Core Microsoft custom CPU
 
Wii U - Tri-Core PowerPC "Espresso" CPU
 
 
Remember how I mentioned the 1000 Heartless Battle earlier as an example of a game utilizing RAM? That’s only part of the process in rendering that part of the game. Using that particular example again, we can talk about what the CPU’s role is in gaming as well. Now, while RAM is certainly important in rendering large areas and objects on screen, this is only because that’s where the data for all of these assets lie. Without a proficient CPU, the RAM can’t actually do a thing with all of this data on its own. Think of it as a storage distribution center, with the number of bytes being akin to physical space (8GB vs 2GB), and the speed being the vehicles used to transport the data to the unit that will use it (GDDR5 vs DDR3).
 
 
The CPU is responsible for handling a game’s AI, physics, audio, and hit detection. It’s also pivotal in online play, as it processes and transfers the information on each system on the network, and is also responsible for judging exactly what the GPU should be rendering at any given time.
 
 
Ultimately, the CPU, while not as important a factor as the GPU, must still be powerful enough to be “sufficient”. If it isn’t, you get an effect called “bottlenecking”, where the CPU is not actually capable of keeping up with the more powerful GPU. In Layman’s terms, you could have the most powerful GPU in the world, but if you’re running it concurrently with a Pentium 4 it’s not going to reach even an inch of its potential.
 
 
The PS4 and XB1 are very close here, with the XB1 being a smidge faster. It’s not enough of a difference to mean anything, however.
 
 
Unfortunately, the Wii U suffers from bottlenecking. The CPU itself is simply a reworked update to the Broadway chip used in the Wii, which was a tweaked and overclocked update to the GameCube’s Gekko processor. This is why you may have seen people stating that the Wii U is “built with 90’s hardware” – while this statement isn’t entirely true, it does hold some basis in reality as the Gekko project was started in 1999, and it does still hold as the base for the Wii U’s CPU. The unit itself is not as powerful as those in the PS3 and Xbox 360.
 
 
What this means for Sonic
 
 
This really depends on what the developers want to do with the next game. If they decide to use the Wii U as the base for development and then up-port to the other two systems, we won’t see much of a difference at all. If they do decide to utilize more of the other systems’ power, however, it could mean that the Wii U will be treated to an entirely different game by a different developer, much like how Sonic Unleashed was handled.
 
 
GPU –
 
 
PS4 - AMD Radeon Graphics Core Next engine w/ 1152 shaders
 
 
XB1 - 853 MHz AMD Radeon GPU w/ 768 shaders
 
 
Wii U - AMD "Latte" 550 MHz GPU w/ 320 shaders
 
 
 
You could say I saved the best for last. While no game can run in the complete absence of RAM and a CPU, the single most important player is the GPU. Everything you see on screen – objects, textures, enemies, and literally everything else is rendered by the GPU. Without a GPU, you don’t have anything to actually display the data on the disc. Sure, you can have the RAM store everything and the CPU calculate it all behind the scenes, but that doesn’t really mean much when you can’t see any of it.
 
 
The PS4 is on top in this aspect by a very clear margin. Its GPU is about 50% more powerful on paper than that of the Xbox One, and exponentially more powerful than that of the Wii U.
 
 
Out of all three, this is probably the most straightforward part to follow. Developers can do more ambitious things with their games, and games can be displayed at higher resolutions and framerates.
 
 
What this means for Sonic
 
 
Again, this depends entirely on how the game is built. It’s certainly possible (and I would say likely) for them to build the game on Wii U and use the extra processing power of the PS4 and Xbox One to render the game at 1080p and 60fps (plus a few added effects like particle physics, if they add that), assuming the Wii U version will be the 720p/30fps we’ve grown accustomed to last generation.
 
 
If they do decide to utilize the extra processing power of the XB1 and PS4, however, the Wii U version will likely be down-ported or developed standalone by a different team. This process is obviously a lot more expensive, but you can see this with games like Titan Fall, where the porting process is handled entirely on its own in order for the game to take advantage of more powerful hardware.
 
 
While the first scenario I mentioned will likely suffice for a game in 2015, doing it again a few years later will likely result in a game that can’t compete with the competition in the graphics department on other systems. It all depends on whether or not Sonic Team is ambitious enough to attempt pushing the envelope like they did with Unleashed, really.
 
 
Conclusion –
 
 
I really hope that everyone enjoyed reading this post, and will take some of this into account when discussing specs in the future. I definitely enjoyed writing it, and I feel like I learned a lot about computing by doing so. I enjoy discussions about games and consoles very much, and I legitimately hope that I’ve made a half-decent resource for those who want to be factually correct with their discussions.
 
 
If anyone more knowledgeable than myself spots an inaccuracy, I’ll be happy to correct it and be better informed in the future.
 
 
Hopefully we can move away from blanket statements about specs and talk about the game itself soon. Maybe E3?
 
 
 

(And a tl;dr for those who understandably don’t want to read the whole thing and don’t care to take part in the discussion) –

 
 
PS4 and Xbox One are in the same ballpark as each other, with the PS4 being roughly 50% more powerful. The difference can already be seen today with Tomb Raider DE being rendered at 60fps one PS4 and only 30fps on XB1, and Call of Duty Ghosts running at native 1080p on PS4 but only 720p on Xbox One.
 
 
Wii U is in the same ballpark as the PS3 and Xbox 360, with a GPU that is noticeably more capable than those of the other two. However, the poor CPU holds it back from using this power in any game that isn’t custom-built with the Wii U in mind. In general, it hovers around the same area as them as a result. It’s hard to say which is definitively more capable as it’s all on a game-by-game basis.

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

Not to be rude Discoid, but I think a lot of us were already aware of those specs.

[Sami]

Not to be rude Discoid, but I think a lot of us were already aware of those specs.

 

I'm impressed at how fast you read my post.

 

It's merely informative. For those interested.

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

I'm impressed at how fast you read my post.

Helps that I've already seen and heard such a bazillion times what with the merry-go-round Wii U discussions.

 

Bottom-line, we get the point; it's easier for you to fathom the Wii U getting a gimped Sonic game, because "ALL hail to the goddamn specs".

[Brad]

Lovely post Discoid~ there was a lot of those specific things that I personally didn't know so it was a great read for me. 

 

If they really want to make a similar experience across all platforms its looking like they'll have to develop it primarily for Wii U and then for PS4 and Xbone go the extra mile to take advantage of the extra power they can provide. I'm guessing it'll all go towards fasting loading and texture/graphic quality anyhow. 

[Sami]

Bottomline,we get the point; it's easier for you to fathom the Wii U getting a gimped Sonic game.

 

That's not the point at all... I completely avoided talking about what I personally hope for and want them to do with the game for the sole purpose of making the post as objective and informative as possible.

 

Did you even read what I said?

 

Lovely post Discoid~ there was a lot of those specific things that I personally didn't know so it was a great read for me. 

 

If they really want to make a similar experience across all platforms its looking like they'll have to develop it primarily for Wii U and then for PS4 and Xbone go the extra mile to take advantage of the extra power they can provide. I'm guessing it'll all go towards fasting loading and texture/graphic quality anyhow.

 

Thank you! I'm happy to help. 

 

And yes, that's absolutely correct. Tomb Raider is actually quite a fantastic example of how far they can go with that, as the game's performance on Wii U would probably be very similar to that of the PS3 and 360. 

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

That's not the point at all... I completely avoided talking about what I personally hope for and want them to do with the game for the sole purpose of making the post as objective and informative as possible.

Then what was the point?

[Solkia]

My gaming PC has:

 

Radeon 7770 (junk)

Athlon X4 750k (so awful that it probably bottlenecks a fucking 7770)

4GB DDR3 (awful)

A75 chipset (are you joking)

 

It runs Sonic Generations flawlessly with everything ay max at 1920 x 1080

 

The Wii U's GPU is a modified Radon 5000 series GPU, which is about similar strength.

 

The usage of RAM for Generations isn't much different either

 

Unless Sonic team plans on taking the realism to fucking asinine and style clashing extremes, which I doubt they can even get a budget that big, whatever specs the PS4 and Xbone have aren't going to mean a goddamn thing for Sonic.

 

Litterally the only thing that might be a hinderance is the CPU, and even then Sonic games don't utilize many cores and the clock speed of of the processors aren't too different disregarding boost clock.

 

It's really not a big of a deal how oh so weak the Wii U is, because the games most likely aren't going to progress visually any time soon.

[Conando]

I find it unlikely that they'll do anything other than up port the Wii U version. Unless goddamn Dimps rears its ugly head again. I mean, they're not going to budget a Sonic game in such a way that they can make it use the power of the PS4 and Xbone like FF XV, this is SEGA we're talking about here.

 

(Their latest Arcade Board's GPU is a 545 GTX for Christ's sake)

[Red Cap]

I kinda doubt that Sonic Team is gonna go crazy on the graphics for the next game. It'll look nice, but it probably won't look much better than SLW.

[Sami]

My gaming PC has:

 

Radeon 7770 (junk)

Athlon X4 750k (so awful that it probably bottlenecks a fucking 7770)

4GB DDR3 (awful)

A75 chipset (are you joking)

 

It runs Sonic Generations flawlessly with everything ay max at 1920 x 1080

 

The Wii U's GPU is a modified Radon 5000 series GPU, which is about similar strength.

 

The usage of RAM for Generations isn't much different either

 

Unless Sonic team plans on taking the realism to fucking asinine and style clashing extremes, which I doubt they can even get a budget that big, whatever specs the PS4 and Xbone have aren't going to mean a goddamn thing for Sonic.

 

Litterally the only thing that might be a hinderance is the CPU, and even then Sonic games don't utilize many cores and the clock speed of of the processors aren't too different disregarding boost clock.

 

It's really not a big of a deal how oh so weak the Wii U is, because the games most likely aren't going to progress visually any time soon.

 

To be fair, Sonic Team were very ambitious with Unleashed back in 2008. Sonic Generations is a game that runs on very old hardware and it's completely up to them whether or not the next game will utilize the new consoles' technology, as I said in my post.

 

Personally, I hope they do, but I'd also be satisfied with something akin 1080p/60fps Generations on the PS4 and XB1. 

[Solkia]

Another thing, the difference from 45 FPS to 60FPS isn;t that noticeable. In the offchance that the Wii U really does hinder performance of the game, they could just drop the framrate a bit and nothing would change.

[Conando]

I think you're hoping a bit too much, the budget to fully use the PS4/Xbone to their fullest, and then produce an entirely different Wii U version due to that, is pretty much the opposite of how SEGA operates,