Wii U Must Support An Equivalent of Direct X 11/Open GL 4.2

If you look up the specs for any next-generation game engine you will see that there is at least one thing they all have in common, Direct X 11/Open GL 4.2 support. The only other major commonality seems to be a focus on multiprocessor (around 20 processors) support. Rallying support for an equivalent of Direct X 11/Open GL 4.2 functionality is likely much more feasible than asking Nintendo to add a 20-core processor to the Wii U.

If the Wii U releases without support for an equivalent of DirectX 11/OpenGL 4.2, then it would be in a similar situation as the 3DS releasing without a second slide pad. Except I don't think an expansion would be able to fix it.

It seems fairly obvious that the next generation development efforts are based around DirectX 11/OpenGL 4.2 functionality (Feel free to include any engines that I may have left out):

Epic Games' Unreal Engine 4
id Software's id Tech 6
Crytek's CryENGINE 4
DICE's Frostbite 3
Techland's Chrome Engine 6
CD Projekt's RED Engine 2
Capcom's MT Framework 3
Square-Enix's Luminous Engine
Valve's Source Engine

I can't emphasize enough how critical this is. As long as the Wii U can support DirectX 11/OpenGL 4.2 level functionality and features, it should be able to compete with the new systems that Microsoft and Sony will eventually release. Of course the Wii U can run ports of games developed for the PS3 and 360, but the Wii U's ability to run the next-gen engines, at their full capability, will secure its position as a viable console for developers to release their future multiplatform games onto during the upcoming generation of consoles.

If the Wii U can handle the next-gen game engines that require a DirectX 11/OpenGL 4.2 level of functionality and features, then it will enjoy the multiplatform support that the PS3 and 360 had. If the Wii U cannot run the next-gen engines, then it will suffer from having a similar level of multiplatform support that the Wii had.

You do realize many of the engines you mentioned won't be out for years, rite?

For example id Tech 6 is supposedly so demanding it wouldn't run even on the best PCs todays.

And while DX11 support would be nice, I'm quite confident good devs will find ways to reproduce the visual quality of stronger hardware.

I mean the Wii supports only DX7 yet it's best-looking games look far better than what any DX7 graphics card on the PC did.

obligatory wiiu wont use DX :P. i think the chances of the wiiu having 20 processors is pretty much nill (any other console for that matter also). at best it may have 6 cores (and hopefully those will have 2 threads a piece). i reckon itll be 4 though (8 threads). as for the GPU. well the rumour is a radeon HD 4000 series GPU. that does include a tesselator. but its a DX10.1 level GPU. however ninty are no strangers to tinkering so it could be a heavily modified and upgraded 4000 series....closer to a 5000 series. or the rumour may be completly bogus...hard to say. is it critical though? no. as long as its not DX9 levels it should be ok. the problem with the wi is it doesnt support any standards really. all its tricks require low level assembly and are custom built by ninty and AMD. so devs cant reuse any code. it technically supports an older version of openGL but performance is crap. so to port a PS3/360 game to the wii needs a complete rewrite of lower level systems (and new textures and so on). the 3DS, despite being less powerful than the wii, is easier to port from the PS3/360 to the 3DS. hell the 3DS even has some sort of tesselator in it (good ol maestro). making an engine that runs on DX10 and DX11 hardware is much easier than making an engine run on DX11 and DX9. the latter needs to seperate rendering systems...the former can use fallbacks. so unlike porting from PS3/360 to the wii, porting from the PS4/720 to the wiiu should be much easier even if there is a large power gap and the other consoles support full DX11 type features. devs will still be able to use a lot of the same code accross all platforms. it would be nice if the wiiu does support all the latest tricks though. in some cases (like tesselation) it certainly makes sense to support them as they will save money.osan0

Thank you. You have provided a very informative response. This issue has me concerned for the future, but your answers alleviate much of my worries. I appreciate it.

Everything that osan0 said with one slight correction: the Power7-based CPU will have 4 SMTs per core. That, combined with at least 16Mb eDRAM will fly like **** off a shovel. Even if IBM and Nintendo only give developers 3 usable cores it's still going to run rings around the Cell and completely obliterate the Xenon. Shader Model 4.1 support will be fine although I'm expecting the custom Radeon HD GPU to have improved tesselation. You have to remember that the APIs for console GPUs are custom ones rather than being the bog-standard OpenGL APIs used for PC hardware, so you'll have some improvements made. A great deal of people are under the misapprehension that console GPUs being better performers than the equivalent PC GPUs is all down to the hardware being tailored to suit a console's needs but it's actually a combination of hardware and software being tailored.

So far, it sounds like Wii U will only have Direct X 10.1 equivalent hardware.

So far, it sounds like Wii U will only have Direct X 10.1 equivalent hardware.

Blade8Aus

So far, it sounds like Wii U will only have Direct X 10.1 equivalent hardware.

Blade8Aus

Does it honestly matter that much?

Look at the first Crysis on the PC - it uses DX10 and looks better than 90% of modern games. Not to mention The Witcher 2 which is DX9 only yet looks amazingly good.

[QUOTE="Blade8Aus"]

So far, it sounds like Wii U will only have Direct X 10.1 equivalent hardware.

DeX2010

[QUOTE="Blade8Aus"]

So far, it sounds like Wii U will only have Direct X 10.1 equivalent hardware.

nameless12345

Does it honestly matter that much?

Look at the first Crysis on the PC - it uses DX10 and looks better than 90% of modern games. Not to mention The Witcher 2 which is DX9 only yet looks amazingly good.

I think it matters because without that support for that DX11 type of hardware (or probably even more then DX11), it makes it difficult for developers to port there engines over in the long run.

[QUOTE="nameless12345"]

[QUOTE="Blade8Aus"]

So far, it sounds like Wii U will only have Direct X 10.1 equivalent hardware.

magnax1

Does it honestly matter that much?

Look at the first Crysis on the PC - it uses DX10 and looks better than 90% of modern games. Not to mention The Witcher 2 which is DX9 only yet looks amazingly good.

I think it matters because without that support for that DX11 type of hardware (or probably even more then DX11), it makes it difficult for developers to port there engines over in the long run.

Not really. DX10.1 certified hardware still supports tesselation and if they don't want to bother they can simply cut out the more advanced effects. Powerful DX10 hardware would be better than weak DX11 hardware.

Technically, the Xbox supported DX8 while GameCube DX7 and PS2 only DX6. But was there really a generational difference between the three? You know the answer yourself if you gamed on them.

Technically, the Xbox supported DX8 while GameCube DX7 and PS2 only DX6. But was there really a generational difference between the three? You know the answer yourself if you gamed on them.

nameless12345

And Xbox also got games like Doom 3 because it supported that. That's my point. Not that it'll look a lot better, but that it will support more engines for a longer time and thusly get a lot more ports from the PC, or other consoles.

Also, the Xbox had a ton of DX9 features in it. It might've been as close to DX9 as DX8.

Technically, the Xbox supported DX8 while GameCube DX7 and PS2 only DX6. But was there really a generational difference between the three? You know the answer yourself if you gamed on them.

nameless12345

Christ on a **** bike. PLEASE STOP TALKING ABOUT DIRECTX ON NON-MICROSOFT CONSOLES. IT NEVER HAS HAPPENED AND NEVER WILL HAPPEN. You'll have DirectX features thanks to there being an overlap of features between OpenGL and DirectX but you will NEVER get DirectX support on a console by Sony or Nintendo.

Christ on a **** bike. PLEASE STOP TALKING ABOUT DIRECTX ON NON-MICROSOFT CONSOLES. IT NEVER HAS HAPPENED AND NEVER WILL HAPPEN. You'll have DirectX features thanks to there being an overlap of features between OpenGL and DirectX but you will NEVER get DirectX support on a console by Sony or Nintendo.

[QUOTE="nameless12345"]

Technically, the Xbox supported DX8 while GameCube DX7 and PS2 only DX6. But was there really a generational difference between the three? You know the answer yourself if you gamed on them.

magnax1

And Xbox also got games like Doom 3 because it supported that. That's my point. Not that it'll look a lot better, but that it will support more engines for a longer time and thusly get a lot more ports from the PC, or other consoles.

Also, the Xbox had a ton of DX9 features in it. It might've been as close to DX9 as DX8.

And the N64 got games like Perfect Dark, which would have a hard time running on the PS1/Saturn. The problem with those future engines the TC is mentioning is that they really are "next-gen". Not even the best DX11 supporting hardware of today would run them well and we won't see them for years. By the time DX11 hardware probably won't be relevant at all and we'll move into realtime ray-tracing and voxel technologies.

The Xbox supported DX8.1 but not DX9.

Christ on a **** bike. PLEASE STOP TALKING ABOUT DIRECTX ON NON-MICROSOFT CONSOLES. IT NEVER HAS HAPPENED AND NEVER WILL HAPPEN. You'll have DirectX features thanks to there being an overlap of features between OpenGL and DirectX but you will NEVER get DirectX support on a console by Sony or Nintendo.

thesnowdog2005

I agree, the type of effects GC and PS2 could do would never be possible via Direct X. OpenGL is far more flexible (if the devs are willing to explore the hardware). Direct X is mainly a PC thing.

Yup, I think a lot of the confusion stems from OpenGL and DirectX 'borrowing' from each other. Tesselation, for example, has been a part of OpenGL for quite a while now...I think it started with Shader Model 4.0 but I will stand to be corrected! And just to confuse things even further lol, the APIs used in console development aren't even your bog standard OpenGL APIs...they're custom-built for each console by the platform holders. I'm fully expecting Nintendo's API to have greatly improved tesselation for starters.thesnowdog2005

People are doing a mistake comparing PC and console hardware in the first place. On the PC, Direct X is a must because you have a ton of different hardware to develop for while on the consoles they can make games "direct to metal" since the hardware is fixed. Also, fixed hardware means they can exploit it to much greater extent than they can exploit PC hardware.

[QUOTE="magnax1"]

[QUOTE="nameless12345"]

Technically, the Xbox supported DX8 while GameCube DX7 and PS2 only DX6. But was there really a generational difference between the three? You know the answer yourself if you gamed on them.

nameless12345

And Xbox also got games like Doom 3 because it supported that. That's my point. Not that it'll look a lot better, but that it will support more engines for a longer time and thusly get a lot more ports from the PC, or other consoles.

Also, the Xbox had a ton of DX9 features in it. It might've been as close to DX9 as DX8.

And the N64 got games like Perfect Dark, which would have a hard time running on the PS1/Saturn. The problem with those future engines the TC is mentioning is that they really are "next-gen". Not even the best DX11 supporting hardware of today would run them well and we won't see them for years. By the time DX11 hardware probably won't be relevant at all and we'll move into realtime ray-tracing and voxel technologies.

The Xbox supported DX8.1 but not DX9.

Acutally, the Xbox doesn't use any specific version of Direct X. It uses some variant of it, which is in between 8 and 9 (as I said before) It's not really even directx, but if you were to try and label it it would contain a lot of the features of 9, but not all, so it's fair to say it's in between 8 and 9.

As for them not running them well, that might not be the case, but they will still get a version of the game if the console has the hardware to run them. Just like the 360 got BF3 6 years after it's launch.

[QUOTE="nameless12345"]

[QUOTE="magnax1"]

And Xbox also got games like Doom 3 because it supported that. That's my point. Not that it'll look a lot better, but that it will support more engines for a longer time and thusly get a lot more ports from the PC, or other consoles.

Also, the Xbox had a ton of DX9 features in it. It might've been as close to DX9 as DX8.

magnax1

And the N64 got games like Perfect Dark, which would have a hard time running on the PS1/Saturn. The problem with those future engines the TC is mentioning is that they really are "next-gen". Not even the best DX11 supporting hardware of today would run them well and we won't see them for years. By the time DX11 hardware probably won't be relevant at all and we'll move into realtime ray-tracing and voxel technologies.

The Xbox supported DX8.1 but not DX9.

Acutally, the Xbox doesn't use any specific version of Direct X. It uses some variant of it, which is in between 8 and 9 (as I said before) It's not really even directx, but if you were to try and label it it would contain a lot of the features of 9, but not all, so it's fair to say it's in between 8 and 9.

Xbox supports DX8.1 functions, which is better than GeForce 3 and even GF4, but is not compatible with DX9. Here you can see:

Link