Wii U, PS3 and X360 won't be getting Unreal Engine 4

[Eerpow]

Wish we knew how capable the GPU is exactly, I'm thinking that the things needing scaling down aren't visual effects but rather things like polygon count and textures due to the CPU. Much like the 3DS which is capable of excellent shading and effects like bumpmapping but still don't match the Wii when it comes to raw computational power.

 

[Rydian]

You can do SSAO in WebGL. This is because WebGL supports all OpenGL ES 2.0 features. It's not something that is truly that demanding in modern hardware.

Example 1: http://alteredqualia.com/three/examples/webgl_postprocessing_ssao.html
Example 2: http://codeflow.org/entries/2011/oct/25/webgl-screenspace-ambient-occlusion/

I consider WebGL a "HTML5" feature, in any case.

Assuming that the hardware supports OpenGL 2.0.
<EDIT> Though I did specify just a software rasterizer... </EDIT>

But this situation is about what to do when the hardware doesn't support certain things. Do you leave those features in the engine anyways, or remove them to reduce the size of the game and increase performance? To which level for both of those depends on the feature in question, but it's not uncommon for differing hardware sets to work differently enough that one has a decided disadvantage versus another, even if the disadvantaged one is newer.

Like the loading times in the FF Anthology games for the PSX, whereas the SNES had no loading times due to being cart-based.

things like polygon count and textures

Those would fall in the court of the people making the individual game, not the people who head the engine, so unfortunately I think it's not the case.

 

[Veiva]

Assuming that the hardware supports OpenGL 2.0.
<EDIT> Though I did specify just a software rasterizer... </EDIT>

But this situation is about what to do when the hardware doesn't support certain things. Do you leave those features in the engine anyways, or remove them to reduce the size of the game and increase performance? To which level for both of those depends on the feature in question, but it's not uncommon for differing hardware sets to work differently enough that one has a decided disadvantage versus another, even if the disadvantaged one is newer.

In regards to you specifying a software rasterizer, nothing serious in use today uses software rasterizers. Even then, Unreal could be ported to use a software rasterizer--it just wouldn't be in any way playable. So I don't see the point... Unreal is a very scalable engine, and features don't have to be "removed" to increase performance. Rather, they can just be unused. That's the great thing about modern rendering pipelines.

Also, hardware that doesn't support OpenGL 2 is hard to find nowadays. My netbook supports OpenGL 3 (to be exact, OpenGL 3.3) reasonably well. Embedded devices largely use ES2 chips. Even Intel IGP from the past few years have at least supported OpenGL 2 (much of the more recent ones, such as the embedded GPUs on i3/i5/i7 hardware even supports OpenGL 3). You can assume pretty well that any hardware worth targeting supports OpenGL 2 features, if not OpenGL 3. Similarly, if hardware supports GL3 it surely supports DirectX 10.1 if not higher (in the case of Intel's embedded GPUs).

 

[Hielkenator]

My point is that SO MANY games run on Unreal Engine that not having it is a seriously bad thing. Yeah, it might get some non-Unreal games, but to say it'll be getting just as much support as its competition when it's not running Unreal Engine is just flat out wrong. You're just trying too hard to promote the Unreal Engine as just "brown shooters" when in reality it runs everything from Arkham Asylum to Bioshock to Alice: Madness Returns to Mass Effect to Lollipop Chainsaw.

Also I just threw down the complete opposite of a "war promoting propaganda shooter" so take off the tin foil hat.

We were talking about the fourth UE generation, the games you mention are the third generation, which is fully supported.
I'm not fortune telling like you do. time will see how UE4 will be implemented for all home consoles.
In the end developers choose what they'll use.

Wish we knew how capable the GPU is exactly, I'm thinking that the things needing scaling down aren't visual effects but rather things like polygon count and textures due to the CPU. Much like the 3DS which is capable of excellent shading and effects like bumpmapping but still don't match the Wii when it comes to raw computational power.

From a PC standpoint it's nothing fancy but, remember it's NOT a PC, Nintendo has always used it's own structure which could compensate the system in terms of what the system can do comparing to other home consoles.

 

[JoostinOnline]

I don't think that any games do yet, but it has the ability. I'm not too surprised, most everything has been ports so far.

I was wrong on this. I know AT LEAST these games run in native 1080p:
Monster Hunter Tri Ultimate
Batman: Arkham City Armored Edition
ZombiU
Assassin's Creed 3

There are probably more, I just checked and found those four.

 

[Rydian]

In regards to you specifying a software rasterizer, nothing serious in use today uses software rasterizers.

The fact that you need to limit the discussion to an objective word like "serious"... isn't that a bit one-sided? For example I have handled a few servers in my time, and outside a Linux distro built on an Ubuntu base or something, the majority of servers tend to have nothing but a framebuffer driver installed.

Consider Minecraft. It's a multiplayer game, with dedicated server software. This software can be run on home computers and dedicated servers just as easily, and is cross-platform. So this server software often needs to run in an environment with no graphical hardware acceleration, including a total lack of OpenGl support.

Now, unlike most games, light levels play a critical role in the game. They determine where and when monsters can spawn, and affect plant growth for food. However in a multiplayer environment, the server needs to be able to do and pass block light calculations to the players. So all the original lighting calculations need to be done on the CPU, without any GPU assistance. Once those original calculations are done the clients can just take that info and use their GPUs to display it in varying levels of niceness.

This screenshot was taken in an older version of Minecraft, multiplayer. Nobody else was in the area I was in, so the are wasn't loaded by the server. I went over there, so the server started loading up those chunks of land and doing the light calculations. And it fucked up, as you can see. The right line of torches does not give out light as far as the left line.

This is not just graphical, however. The server messed up the lighting calculations, and until my client causes a recalculation (affecting the lighting near that area somehow), monsters will be able to spawn in it, if there were crops there they wouldn't grow there at night, etc.

And to get back to the main point, stripping versus disabling...
minecraft.jar for 1.5.1 is 5.3MB.
minecraft_server.jar for 1.5.1 is 2.3MB.
A few megabytes is not much and asset removal is likely a good bit of it (don't need the textures on the server implementation, etc.), but it is over 50% savings on disk space for just the binary.

And hey, what about GBC/GBA games? Stereo was only available via headphones for a long time, so most games went with mono sound, because stereo was more expensive (speaking in terms of resources, not specifically cost).

Even then, Unreal could be ported to use a software rasterizer--it just wouldn't be in any way playable.

... unless they removed certain features.

For example, I played Quake II with the software rasterizer (yes, games back then had that natively) on my Windows 98 machine because my SiS 530 didn't support the right stuff for hardware acceleration. And it ran playably on my AMD K6-2 clocked at 475MHz.

Now, granted, I was presented with this...

Opposed to this...

Because features like dynamic lighting and texture smoothing were not supported on my hardware. Also note the lack of the decal on the window to the right, water transparency was missing, etc.

But the game ran, it ran playably, and I beat it multiple times like that. This is an example where stripping features out of the just renderer makes it run playably on simpler hardware, while keeping the option for the features in the game itself, so people with better hardware could use them.

So I don't see the point... Unreal is a very scalable engine, and features don't have to be "removed" to increase performance. Rather, they can just be unused. That's the great thing about modern rendering pipelines.

Okay, I think this is the source of the confusion. Here's what I'm talking about.

Removed: Not done by default in the distributed binary, and no options added to enable it. Akin to minecraft_server.jar not doing rendering and presenting a totally different UI.
Disabled: Optionally removed for compatibility with older/weaker systems. Akin to having multiple rendering options.

And I think what you're talking about is removing the ability to add heavier features from the SDK/development environment in total.

 

[Foxi4]

Look at that hate wagon go. Wheeeee!

Dude... There's "Hate Train" and there's "truth" - the WiiU owners are missing out on a lot of third-party core games these days, it's hard to deny that.

"Always" had poor 3rd party support? NES and SNES say "hi."

Except y'know, that was ages ago. N64 had no third-party support, the Gamecube had no third-party support, the Wii had third-party support in the form of Shovelware and the WiiU is in agony.

 

[emigre]

Dude... There's "Hate Train" and there's "truth" - the WiiU owners are missing out on a lot of third-party core games these days, it's hard to deny that.

Except y'know, that was ages ago. N64 had no third-party support, the Gamecube had no third-party support, the Wii had third-party support in the form of Shovelware and the WiiU is in agony.

Christ Foxi4Sony, I don't know what planet you're on but third party support on a consoles released over twenty years ago, is completely relevant to today's market.

 

[ShadowSoldier]

Dude... There's "Hate Train" and there's "truth" - the WiiU owners are missing out on a lot of third-party core games these days, it's hard to deny that.

Except y'know, that was ages ago. N64 had no third-party support, the Gamecube had no third-party support, the Wii had third-party support in the form of Shovelware and the WiiU is in agony.

It's missing out on some games, not all of them. It's still getting and has good third party support so far.

 

[TripleSMoon]

Except y'know, that was ages ago. N64 had no third-party support, the Gamecube had no third-party support, the Wii had third-party support in the form of Shovelware and the WiiU is in agony.

Christ Foxi4Sony, I don't know what planet you're on but third party support on a consoles released over twenty years ago, is completely relevant to today's market.

I wasn't arguing that third party support on 20 year old consoles meant anything today. I was simply pointing out that the person I was responding to was objectively wrong when he said "Nintendo has never had third party support." Keyword, "never."

This might astound you guys, but "forever" and "20 years ago" are not synonymous. Plus I specifically mentioned in the exact same comment, "Nintendo has had shoddy 3rd party support since the N64, there's no denying that."

 

[emigre]

I wasn't arguing that third party support on 20 year old consoles meant anything today. I was simply pointing out that the person I was responding to was objectively wrong when he said "Nintendo has never had third party support." Keyword, "never."

This might astound you guys, but "forever" and "20 years ago" are not synonymous. Plus I specifically mentioned in the exact same comment, "Nintendo has had shoddy 3rd party support since the N64, there's no denying that."

Dude, hyperbole.

 

[Guild McCommunist]

It's missing out on some games, not all of them. It's still getting and has good third party support so far.

"Some games".

Just most of them.

Its missed so many crucial releases since its launch.

Like I'm sorry but you're REALLY going into straight up denial when it missed SO MANY releases.

 

[ShadowSoldier]

"Some games".

Just most of them.

Its missed so many crucial releases since its launch.

Like I'm sorry but you're REALLY going into straight up denial when it missed SO MANY releases.

OH HAI GUILD HOW U DEWIN!? BEEN A WHILE SINCE WE HERD FRUM U

 

[Deleted_171835]

So to sum up this thread, nintendo's doomed?

 

[TripleSMoon]

Dude, hyperbole.

Yeah, I know. Just felt like pointing it out, just in case.

"Some games".

Just most of them.

Its missed so many crucial releases since its launch.

Like I'm sorry but you're REALLY going into straight up denial when it missed SO MANY releases.

Sorry, but I gotta agree with Guild here, Shadow. There's just no way to deny that the Wii U is missing so many freaking 3rd party titles... Is it understandable for a console launch? Maybe partially. But regardless of the reason, there's just no way to deny that the Wii U's third party support is just terrible right now.

So to sum up this thread, nintendo's doomed?

You have to say it in a really growly Christian-Bale-as-Batman voice. NintenDOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMED...

 

[Eerpow]

And just to add nothing to a conversation that shouldn't have been here in the first place:
Nintendo has had great 3rd party support on portables.

 

[Gahars]

OH HAI GUILD HOW U DEWIN!? BEEN A WHILE SINCE WE HERD FRUM U

Is this the new coping mechanism?

 

[ShadowSoldier]

Is this the new coping mechanism?

Not really because he's counting all the multiplatform games while I said that there are third party games available and coming out. But nope, BioShock Dead Island Grand Theft Auto and Tomb Raider is all that matters

 

[Deleted_171835]

And just to add nothing to a conversation that shouldn't have been here in the first place:
Nintendo has had great 3rd party support on portables.

This is what irks me about Nintendo. It's like there are two completely different companies working on Nintendo home consoles and portables. The portable sector knows how to manage third-party relations, can get their shit to sell and releases actual competent hardware while home console Nintendo knows fuck-all about maintaining third-party support, struggles to get their stuff to sell (aside from the Wii) and releases hardware that pales in comparison to competitors.

 

[TripleSMoon]

And just to add nothing to a conversation that shouldn't have been here in the first place:
Nintendo has had great 3rd party support on portables.

This is what irks me about Nintendo. It's like there are two completely different companies working on Nintendo home consoles and portables. The portable sector knows how to manage third-party relations, can get their shit to sell and releases actual competent hardware while home console Nintendo knows fuck-all about maintaining third-party support, struggles to get their stuff to sell (aside from the Wii) and releases hardware that pales in comparison to competitors.

That's because they practically monopolize the handheld market. Same as the console market back in the NES days. The PSP was successful, but nowhere near as successful as the DS (outsold 10 to 1, if I remember what I read correctly), and we all know how the Vita is doing right now. The only major 3rd party exclusives that the Vita seems to get are the ones where hardware power is of importance and/or the franchise is more popular amongst the Sony audience (CoD and AssCreed, for example).