As for the console's memory, there's 88 MB total: 64 MB "external" GDDR3 SDRAM and 24 MB "internal" 1T-SRAM integrated into the graphics package. On the graphic side, the visuals are rendered by ATI's Hollywood" GPU, clocking in at 243 MHz and developed using a 90 nm CMOS process there's a 3 MB embedded GPU texture memory and framebuffer thrown in there as well. Let's look at it this way: the Nintendo Wii relies on the PowerPC-based "Broadway" processor clocking in at 729 MHz and developed using 90 nm SOI CMOS processing. Of the three major consoles on the market today, the Nintendo Wii is the least powerful in a visual sense, relying more on the interaction provided by the Wii Remote. What makes the whole announcement rather curious is just how the Nintendo Wii hardware can even handle physics processing. But because the console's RSX GPU-based on Nvidia's G70 architecture (think GeForce 7800)-doesn't support PhysX in a hardware (or CUDA) sense, the middleware thus relies on the Cell's Synergistic Processing Units (SPUs) to process the physics rather than dumping the entire load on the Cell's Power Processor Unit (PPU).
According to the company, the kit is now available as a free download on the SCEI Developer Network and consists of a full-featured API and "robust" physics engine.
Yesterday Tom's reported that Nvidia signed a deal with Sony Computer Entertainment Inc that gives PlayStation 3 developers access to the PhysX software development kit (SDK). This engine also has also integrated Nvidia PhysxĪTI and PhysX Co-exist on the Nintendo Wii
The elimination of manual DMA management reduces software complexity, and the elimination of hardware caches reduces the amount of die area not dedicated to computational units such as ALUs. Stream processing hardware can use scoreboarding, for example, to launch DMAs at runtime, when dependencies become known. Since the kernel and stream abstractions expose data dependencies, compiler tools can fully automate and optimize on-chip management tasks. Kernel functions are usually pipelined, and local on-chip memory is reused to minimize external memory bandwidth. Uniform streaming, where one kernel function is applied to all elements in the stream, is typical.
Given a set of data (a stream), a series of operations (kernel functions) are applied to each element in the stream. The stream processing paradigm simplifies parallel software and hardware by restricting the parallel computation that can be performed. Such applications can use multiple computational units, such as the floating point units on a GPU, without explicitly managing allocation, synchronization, or communication among those units. Stream processing is a computer programming paradigm, related to SIMD, that allows some applications to more easily exploit a limited form of parallel processing.
Well, lets see the definition in wikipedia. I am sure that you may be wondering what is stream processing? Projects created with Gamebryo for other platforms can now be easily re-targeted to the Wii.
Gamebryo also supports the Wii Remote™ controller, and other standard Gamebryo features are mapped to the unique capabilities of this platform.Ĭross-Platform Game Development With the WiiĮmergent’s Floodgate™ stream processing engine has been made Wii-aware for cross-platform game development projects: execution is now automatically optimized using the locked cache functionality, which reduces risk when porting multiprocessor code. Gamebryo for the Wii includes optimizations to the exporter pipeline, input mechanisms and rendering pipeline to ensure that you get the most out of this popular console. Gamebryo Leverages the Wii's Unique Architecture Read with close attention these two parts avaible in the last link: This engine is really sophisticated since ince it takes adventage of Wii´s arquitecture