Nvidia Tegra not for next DS, for next Wii

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So, ever since the news broke that nVidia and Nintendo have hopped in bed together, the story has been that Tegra was headed to DS. Now, maybe that's true, and it's a rumor I think makes a lot of sense.

BUT, what if it's on the wrong track? For example, recently Miyamoto said that the next Wii would be HD capable, but that it would also follow the Wii's track of being low power with a small form factor (both of which are good goals).

Now, doing a little reading, it appears that Tegra is in fact *quite* powerful, under the circumstances, with its sole incarnation thus far being capable of 720p video (which is more than plenty for a handheld and is in fact the "sweet spot" for both Xbox 360 and PS3, which only have limited ability to do 1080p games natively.) Some sources believe that this next DS may, in fact, be powered by Tegra 2, which is only a couple of months out and promises to use even less power while increasing performance.

Add to that a number of rumors recently discussing the Wii HD, including netflix mentioning that they may wait for the Wii HD to launch in 2010 before shipping a compatible client.

Depending on what they do-for example,speed and type of memory, etc., this could put a very low power, low cost system that approaches the capabilities of 360 and PS3. I'd say that from what we've seen so far in the market, they don't really *need* to leave those two in the dust, just arrive at a place where games from PS3 and 360 can be easily ported to Wii HD. As for controls, that's another discussion.

Without going into TOO much research and essay-writing, anybody think there's merit to the possibility of it being Wii, and not DS (or if you prefer, in addition to DS) getting the Tegra treatment? See it making sense, given what we know about Nintendo, their statements about future plans, and the market at large?
 
Playing a video codec at 720p is a lot easier then rendering a 3D game at 720p. Tegra is weak and only makes sense for a mobile platform like DS and Zune HD. So no I think there is little merit for Wii getting tegra if they want it to play any games outside of tetris in HD.
 
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Like JohnleMVP said - plus - they'll probably go with the same chip manufacturer (ATI right?) for the graphics solution so they can maintain backward compatibility.

I'm assuming that if Nintendo's next home console is indeed called Wii HD it will fully support Wii software... to do anything less would be pretty lame.
 
so is it safe to say the Wii will only be competing against the ps3 and 360 and not their successors?
 
Wow, misleading thread titles FTL. It needs to be "nVidia Tegra not for next DS, but for next Wii?"

That said, given Nintendo's current strategy, they may as well just toss in a scaler chip, up the clocks and RAM, and do Gamecube v3.
 
Wow, misleading thread titles FTL. It needs to be "nVidia Tegra not for next DS, but for next Wii?"

That said, given Nintendo's current strategy, they may as well just toss in a scaler chip, up the clocks and RAM, and do Gamecube v3.

Yeah, I evidently didn't hit the question mark, but thought I had.

I disagree that a scaler chip is the way to go, because it wouldn't be able to address the need for increased texture memory or polygon processing.

From above, I have to say that you're wrong-Tegra is *not* weak at all. It's true that processing HD video at any resolution is easier than rendering a lot of polygons, but numerous benchmarks have claimed that even the existing Tegra is more powerful than the current Wii, and Tegra 2 is rumored to be 4-6x more powerful.

As to the other question, do we assume that Wii HD will compete against PS3 and 360, I think that's a very real possibility. My reason for thinking this is that in the light of both MS and Sony preparing to dive headlong into motion control systems, and how expensive it was to even launch this generation at all (particularly for developers on the software side, and for Sony on the hardware side) I believe they are going to try and milk their consoles for as long as possible.

It's also true that the public at large-of which hardcore gamers are NOT representative-has so far been plenty happy with the graphics the existing Wii offers, so if Nintendo can produce something that more or less matches the video (and to a lesser extent, audio) fidelity of what you get with PS3 and 360, that'll be "good enough" for the market at large, as long as it can come in at a reasonable price range, and ideally remain backward compatible.

Anyway, just a curiosity and a theory. I do agree that Tegra works best as a DS idea, however, I don't think that it's outside the realm of reason for it to be able to work with a Wii console as well.
 
Tetra is a small single chip solution so it makes a lot of sense for a mobile platform with limited space and power. Physical size is not as much as a factor for the Wii so it doesn't need expensive small components. It cost more to make something small and powerful vs just powerful. The Wii currently uses an IBM Power PC CPU and a ATI GPU. Is the Tegra more powerful then both of these processing units put together? Mind sharing a link about how powerful Tegra is? As stated previously changing the Architecture (PowerPC to ARM) is going to cause issues for backwards compatibility with regular Wii games. There's a reason Sony was putting the previous generation of Playstation in their new consoles, because emulation isn't easy.

As for Tegra 2 sure anything is possible power wise, but the architecture problem still exist.
 
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Tetra is a small single chip solution so it makes a lot of sense for a mobile platform with limited space and power. Physical size is not as much as a factor for the Wii so it doesn't need expensive small components. It cost more to make something small and powerful vs just powerful. The Wii currently uses an IBM Power PC CPU and a ATI GPU. Is the Tegra more powerful then both of these processing units put together? Mind sharing a link about how powerful Tegra is? As stated previously changing the Architecture (PowerPC to ARM) is going to cause issues for backwards compatibility with regular Wii games. There's a reason Sony was putting the previous generation of Playstation in their new consoles, because emulation isn't easy.

As for Tegra 2 sure anything is possible power wise, but the architecture problem still exist.

I'm between classes at the moment, but I'll find those links and post them later when I have a bit more time. You're absolutely correct that the architecture issue presents a potential problem, and that emulation is not, in fact, easy. I understand what you're saying about something small and powerful being more expensive, and that's true; however, Tegra is small, powerful and, relatively speaking, fairly cheap.

Anyway, gotta run, more later. Good points :)
 
Nintendo is releasing a 2d side scroller for their home console this month called "Super Mario Brothers." I wonder if it will be like Punch Out where it's the exact same game as the original. Or Mario Kart where 75% of it is re-used material.

I don't know how they get away with it. The more recycled shit Nintendo throws at consumers, the faster it's bought up. The answer is, there's no reason for them to update the hardware. They didn't with the Wii and look how that's worked out.
 
Nintendo is releasing a 2d side scroller for their home console this month called "Super Mario Brothers." I wonder if it will be like Punch Out where it's the exact same game as the original. Or Mario Kart where 75% of it is re-used material.

I don't know how they get away with it. The more recycled shit Nintendo throws at consumers, the faster it's bought up. The answer is, there's no reason for them to update the hardware. They didn't with the Wii and look how that's worked out.

It's called you do what sells games. Halo is one of the most overrated games of all time yet people bought up all three of those. What about GTA? COD games? RE? Madden? Looks like same shit, different day to me. Nintendo isn't the only one doing this. Sony and Microsoft and all the developers all rehash everything. It's the way of the world because people buy what they consider fun no matter how much re-used material is there.

OT - Tegra will be the next generation DS. Not the Wii. Nintendo Wii may have sold but they did catch a lot of flak for not being HD. That will be corrected and you can be sure Nintendo will do it correctly and not half-assed. Especially after seeing MS fail with quality control and Sony fail on trying to push expensive new technology.
 
It's called you do what sells games. Halo is one of the most overrated games of all time yet people bought up all three of those. What about GTA? COD games? RE? Madden? Looks like same shit, different day to me. Nintendo isn't the only one doing this. Sony and Microsoft and all the developers all rehash everything. It's the way of the world because people buy what they consider fun no matter how much re-used material is there.

OT - Tegra will be the next generation DS. Not the Wii. Nintendo Wii may have sold but they did catch a lot of flak for not being HD. That will be corrected and you can be sure Nintendo will do it correctly and not half-assed. Especially after seeing MS fail with quality control and Sony fail on trying to push expensive new technology.

Sorry, still super busy and gotta run to work, but I don't think going with Tegra for a console-at least from what I've read so far-would be any more half-assed than what PS3 and 360 have done. If it can push a similar level of detail to what those consoles can-that's good enough, as long as they can do it on the cheap.

I think your latter point virtually guarantees that Nintendo will NEVER try to do what Sony did with PS3. Hell, I think PS3 guarantees that *Sony* will never again try to do that. It's just not worth losing $5,000,000,000 and counting :p
 
Yeah, I evidently didn't hit the question mark, but thought I had.

I disagree that a scaler chip is the way to go, because it wouldn't be able to address the need for increased texture memory or polygon processing.

From above, I have to say that you're wrong-Tegra is *not* weak at all. It's true that processing HD video at any resolution is easier than rendering a lot of polygons, but numerous benchmarks have claimed that even the existing Tegra is more powerful than the current Wii, and Tegra 2 is rumored to be 4-6x more powerful.

As to the other question, do we assume that Wii HD will compete against PS3 and 360, I think that's a very real possibility. My reason for thinking this is that in the light of both MS and Sony preparing to dive headlong into motion control systems, and how expensive it was to even launch this generation at all (particularly for developers on the software side, and for Sony on the hardware side) I believe they are going to try and milk their consoles for as long as possible.

It's also true that the public at large-of which hardcore gamers are NOT representative-has so far been plenty happy with the graphics the existing Wii offers, so if Nintendo can produce something that more or less matches the video (and to a lesser extent, audio) fidelity of what you get with PS3 and 360, that'll be "good enough" for the market at large, as long as it can come in at a reasonable price range, and ideally remain backward compatible.

Anyway, just a curiosity and a theory. I do agree that Tegra works best as a DS idea, however, I don't think that it's outside the realm of reason for it to be able to work with a Wii console as well.

You should quit smoking crack. If tegra2 is in the wii, it will be a failure.


The tegra2 is NOT fast, nothing even close to what a ps3 or xbox360 can do. As a next gen console it would be a failure... tegra was made for mobile devices, the sheer thought of putting it in a living room console is idiotic at best.
 
You should quit smoking crack. If tegra2 is in the wii, it will be a failure.


The tegra2 is NOT fast, nothing even close to what a ps3 or xbox360 can do. As a next gen console it would be a failure... tegra was made for mobile devices, the sheer thought of putting it in a living room console is idiotic at best.

Strong words from somebody who clearly doesn't understand what he's even saying. Tegra, yes, was developed to target low power mobile devices. Power in this case referring to how much energy they consume, not to what their capabilities are.

Today's Tegra is ALREADY more powerful than the Wii. The next Tegra, scheduled for release in February, is said to be 4-6x as powerful as the current version. You're correct to say it's still not on par with 360 and PS3-after all, it's only packing Geforce 6 class hardware (PS3 uses Geforce 7 class, 360 somewhere in the range between 7 and 8 due to the more advanced shader architecture). However, the 2010 model of Tegra is based on Geforce 9 technology and dual-core Coretex A9 processors.

There are more important reasons to suspect this won't happen for Wii HD-for one, it'd make backward compatibility difficult, maybe impossible, without dropping in existing Wii hardware in the same package.

There are plenty of good reasons to suspect that this-or a similar move, perhaps using an ATI solution similar to what Tegra offers, that make a lot of sense. Nintendo has already been clear that the next Wii, while sporting HD capability, will continue to focus on being small form factored with a low power chipset. That makes ANY significant advance in mobile graphics technology a contender, because that's *precisely* the hardware that's built for small form factors and low power consumption.

I fully understand your reasons for feeling the way you do. I once felt the same way as well. I understand you'd be disappointed in this level of graphical advancement as compared to the kind you perceive in PS3 and 360. And as a consequence of following your kind of logic I believed DS would fall to PSP and that, as much as I think the control scheme of Wii was brilliant, that the graphical horsepower failings would cause the complete and utter annihilation of the platform in the marketplace.

I was wrong. And so are you.
 
I agree that Tegra is already more powerful than the wii. But that is only due to tightly woven hardware. Do it wrong and the games will be absolute crap.

Also there is absolutely NO way they are abandoning backwards compatibility. I mean NO way. For one the ability to play gamecube games was a HUGE plus which calmed parents fears about massive amounts of RCA cable switching for the young ones. And two the mainstay Wii games will continue to sell and people are not going to ditch the wii unless they can play the same games on the Wii2

Tegra and Nvidia are out of the race for this one. Ati 5x series is basically a given at this point. It has enough power to ensure full 1080p rendering that will ensure it will beat the 360 which will be its prime nemesis in its price range. CPU is going to be IBM not just for BC but because IBM is known for not frakking up Nintendo orders.

Tegra 2 is going for the next DS. That has far more market potential anyway.
 
I agree that Tegra is already more powerful than the wii. But that is only due to tightly woven hardware. Do it wrong and the games will be absolute crap.

Also there is absolutely NO way they are abandoning backwards compatibility. I mean NO way. For one the ability to play gamecube games was a HUGE plus which calmed parents fears about massive amounts of RCA cable switching for the young ones. And two the mainstay Wii games will continue to sell and people are not going to ditch the wii unless they can play the same games on the Wii2

Tegra and Nvidia are out of the race for this one. Ati 5x series is basically a given at this point. It has enough power to ensure full 1080p rendering that will ensure it will beat the 360 which will be its prime nemesis in its price range. CPU is going to be IBM not just for BC but because IBM is known for not frakking up Nintendo orders.

Tegra 2 is going for the next DS. That has far more market potential anyway.

Well, I agree with you that there is NO WAY they'll abandon backward compatibility, but then again, I thought there was NO WAY Sony would abandon backward compatibility after they hammered on it as critical for all those years, and yet here we are, in a world where PS3 is not backward compatible with PS2 *at all* in the newest iterations.

In any case, I do tend to agree overall that it seems more likely that Nintendo will continue with ATI and IBM for their next home console, however, I wouldn't be willing to state that definitively; some of the statements they've made are very much in line with this kind of possibility. At the very least, whatever they give us will, no doubt, remain a small, power efficient form factor. Besting PS3 and 360 with even today's mid-range stuff is easy money and can be done cheaply, after all.

Anybody know if AMD is working on a Tegra-style equivalent?
 
AMD has no time to compete against Nvidia in super low power. There is some interest in ARM implementations but at best these will be high power cores designed for less battery but more CPU umph..

PS3 was forced to abandon backwards comparability due to costs. The PS3 is a mess using stuff that is supposed to be in a server closet. The new Wii is likely to use a mid range 5x series type ATI GPU. Plenty to do whatever Mario was to stomp on next. I would say if they play their cards right it would cost less per unit then the first Wiis.
 
AMD has no time to compete against Nvidia in super low power. There is some interest in ARM implementations but at best these will be high power cores designed for less battery but more CPU umph..

PS3 was forced to abandon backwards comparability due to costs. The PS3 is a mess using stuff that is supposed to be in a server closet. The new Wii is likely to use a mid range 5x series type ATI GPU. Plenty to do whatever Mario was to stomp on next. I would say if they play their cards right it would cost less per unit then the first Wiis.

I would say that might be a good idea. I would, however, say that there's nothing in PS3 that's remotely server-class. I know what you mean, though: Cell is a prime CPU to use for certain kinds of tasks like encoding/decoding of video and audio.
 
Well the Cell has been used in Servers since IBM did co-develop it.

I know. I've worked on servers with Cell in corporate environments for testing purposes. Ultimately we rejected them because they ran too hot and didn't really give us enough benefit for the cost and additional overhead of management (the management tools on the Linux distro weren't that great, and very little was really optimized for the CPU's).
 
Nintendo is not going to change hardware for the next Wii, they are going to use their current chip technology beefed up. To use different hardware means that they will have troubles maintaining BWC......look what Sony and MS had to do to get theirs (emulation and including PS2 components)
 
Nintendo is not going to change hardware for the next Wii, they are going to use their current chip technology beefed up. To use different hardware means that they will have troubles maintaining BWC......look what Sony and MS had to do to get theirs (emulation and including PS2 components)
Arguably, Microsoft proved that software emulation was actually the way to go - they had compatibility issues, sure, but they also were able to make the old games higher-resolution at zero per-unit cost.

But, of course, not everyone has Microsoft's in-house development capabilities.
 
Arguably, Microsoft proved that software emulation was actually the way to go - they had compatibility issues, sure, but they also were able to make the old games higher-resolution at zero per-unit cost.

But, of course, not everyone has Microsoft's in-house development capabilities.

Both good points, though I think it's worth noting that prior to this console generation, Nintendo never gave much of a thought to BC, at least not outside of their portable systems. That said, I DO think that they will want to keep Wii BC (not just with software, but with peripherals) in their next system.

Obviously, this is all pure speculation, but what I expect we'll see in the end is an AMD/ATI built system that can run existing software but also perform more advanced HD rendering and effects like what we see on PS3 and 360. I don't think they'll leapfrog those two by much. Likely their best bet will be to barely surpass the two on graphics capability, but add more RAM, likely also using the GPU for physics processing (which will, I suspect, be more important as motion control evolves.)
 
Arguably, Microsoft proved that software emulation was actually the way to go - they had compatibility issues, sure, but they also were able to make the old games higher-resolution at zero per-unit cost.

But, of course, not everyone has Microsoft's in-house development capabilities.

the big N has 100% backwards compatability with game cube titles (except those that require a specific accessory such as the GBA player that do not work with the wii for obvious reasons) Only the PS3 with all the PS2 hardware have 100% compatability and MS solution is on a game by game basis.

So my original statement stands the big N got it right and has shown that having the hardware needed is the best way to go. Sony also had it right with the PS2 being bc with the ps1
 
Arguably, Microsoft proved that software emulation was actually the way to go - they had compatibility issues, sure, but they also were able to make the old games higher-resolution at zero per-unit cost.

But, of course, not everyone has Microsoft's in-house development capabilities.

Except it took a long ass time for them to do the BC emulation. They released a few games in the beginning and every few months added to the list and eventually pretty much stopped doing any BC updates since it cost money for them to pay people to do these BC updates.

M$ didn't chose this path by choice, it was pretty much their only option since they had a bad relationship with NVidia.
 
the big N has 100% backwards compatability with game cube titles (except those that require a specific accessory such as the GBA player that do not work with the wii for obvious reasons) Only the PS3 with all the PS2 hardware have 100% compatability and MS solution is on a game by game basis.

So my original statement stands the big N got it right and has shown that having the hardware needed is the best way to go. Sony also had it right with the PS2 being bc with the ps1

I understand your feeling, and I love that Nintendo has kept full BC this gen, but I think it's fair to say that both MS and Sony have demonstrated that while BC is nice, it's hardly what you'd call a requirement. 360 and PS3 gamers are trucking along just fine; in fact, PS3 is selling better now than it *ever* did with BC inside. That's not causal, of course, merely anecdotal (the price drop and slim version have had a far bigger impact).
 
Except it took a long ass time for them to do the BC emulation. They released a few games in the beginning and every few months added to the list and eventually pretty much stopped doing any BC updates since it cost money for them to pay people to do these BC updates.

M$ didn't chose this path by choice, it was pretty much their only option since they had a bad relationship with NVidia.

Umm, that they chose this path pretty much guarantees it was by choice, my friend :). There's no doubt though, it would have been an easier row to hoe if they had stuck with nvidia, but at the time 360 was being prepped, ATI was, simply enough, more advanced.
 
Xbox's emulation sucks. Sure you can play Halo 1 and 2 and whatever has Microsoft game studios plastered all over it. But outside of it almost none of my games worked with emulation.

Nintendo is not going to software emulation (Outside virtual console of course) they are going to want ALL their blockbuster hits playable with ONE console. Doing anything otherwise means they are SOL for Gamecube and Wii titles. And on top of that Tegra is not meant for heavy emulation (N64 will just about saturate the ARM11 core on Tegra 1)

ATI and IBM core for Wii2 is a given. Just beefed up and 40/45nm
 
Xbox's emulation sucks. Sure you can play Halo 1 and 2 and whatever has Microsoft game studios plastered all over it. But outside of it almost none of my games worked with emulation.

Nintendo is not going to software emulation (Outside virtual console of course) they are going to want ALL their blockbuster hits playable with ONE console. Doing anything otherwise means they are SOL for Gamecube and Wii titles. And on top of that Tegra is not meant for heavy emulation (N64 will just about saturate the ARM11 core on Tegra 1)

ATI and IBM core for Wii2 is a given. Just beefed up and 40/45nm

Actually, 360's emulation is VERY good. I own close to 60 original Xbox games, and all but about 8 of them work fine. It's flat out dishonest to say that nothing but MGS titles work.

That said, I tend to agree on one point-that Nintendo won't want to do emulation for BC-but to disagree on another. There is virtually no chance that their next system will simply be a "beefed up" iteration of what they already have. It may incorporate the instruction sets, but whatever else is true, the gamecube architecture has played itself out with the Wii, and simply cannot be a serious HD contender in its current incarnation, and no simple die shrink is going to achieve that.

You're right that Tegra isn't meant for heavy emulation; but sans being privy to any agreements about technology sharing, we have no way to know what other bits may be involved. I still think an ATI/IBM chip is most likely (console vendors always go with IBM chips because IBM is *cheap*), but if there is something that's HD capable yet can work at low power in a small form factor in development at AMD/ATI, I haven't been able to find so much as a morsel of info about it.
 
Nintendo is not going for serious HD contender its going for HD period. Therefore whatever is in place now while going 45nm will work fine.

Tegra 2 has absolutely NO way to emulate post N64 titles its getting a powerful core and graphics but emulation requires massive amounts of computing power that even modern quad cores cant handle many of. No bits involved are going to change that. (The OpenPandora chugs on even N64 as does just about every mobile phone and lower powered PC out there)

Seriously drop any commonality?, drop any hope of emulation of post N64 titles?, Force devs of major games to develop HD titles on ARM? That is a recipe for disaster and one Nintendo just inst going to take. Wii2 will sell just fine by just going to even 720P and HDMI
 
Umm, that they chose this path pretty much guarantees it was by choice, my friend :). There's no doubt though, it would have been an easier row to hoe if they had stuck with nvidia, but at the time 360 was being prepped, ATI was, simply enough, more advanced.

My point was that M$ felt Nvidia basically screwed them on Xbox 1 chip cost, which eliminated Nvidia as an option for X360. This is a big reason M$ went the emulation route. Ati wasn't necessarily better, Nvidia and M$ just didn't have a good relationship after Xbox 1.
 
My point was that M$ felt Nvidia basically screwed them on Xbox 1 chip cost, which eliminated Nvidia as an option for X360. This is a big reason M$ went the emulation route. Ati wasn't necessarily better, Nvidia and M$ just didn't have a good relationship after Xbox 1.

MS does not really need that much emulation anyway. The 360 is known as a power console and those who want to play Xbox 1 games still will likely keep their Xbox 1 for better compatibility.

Wii on the other hand make bukus of sells just on having virtual console and ability to play most GC games at start. They arent giving that up.

It will be IBM/ATI again. Tegra 2 for the new gameboy which at 480p will be able to do close to 360s graphics not exactly there but close. (Edit I am talking at 480p here 360 has to be able to go 720 or even 1080 which requires MUCH more than 480 rendering)
 
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