The rumor about Wii U was now confirmed and some of the specs were confirmed by a developer/programmer with an access through SDK. The specs sheet has actually leaked online a day before the much anticipated event of the year: E3 2012. Just remember that the specs provided here are dev kits-based from late 2011 and some information are still missing but not anymore rumor or speculations.
Application Processor
- PowerPC architecture
- Three fully coherent cores
- 3 Megabyte combined L2 cache
- Core 0 – 512 Kilobytes
- Core 1 – 2048 Kilobytes
- Core 2 – 512 Kilobytes
- Per core has a write gatherer
- Locked cache direct memory access per core
Main Memory
Main memory of up to three Gigabytes
Graphics and Video
- Modern collective shader architecture
- 32 Megabytes high-bandwidth enhanced dynamic random access memory (eDRAM)
- Supports 720 pixel 4x MSSA
- 1080 pixel rendering in single pass
- Element video output and HDMI
Features
- Collective shader architecture that executes pixel shaders, vertex and geometry
- Anti-aliasing (multi-sample)
- Floating point of 128-bit, texture filtering (HDR)
- Texture support with high resolution (8192 by 8192)
- Cube map collections (indexed)
- Eight render targets with blend modes that are independent (each render target)
- Stencil buffer/hierarchical Z
- Sample masking pixel coverage
- Quick Z Clear and Z test
- Stencil compression and Lossless Z
- 2x, 4x, 8x, 16x adaptive anisotropic filter modes of high quality
- sRGB filtering (digamma/gamma)
- Tessellation unit; supports for streaming out and computer shader
GX2 is the 3D graphics application programming interface (API) for Wii U designed for efficiency like the graphics processor of Wii U, the GX1. GPu7.
Sound and Audio
- MegaHertz audio digital signal processor (DSP)
- Has support for six channel uncompressed audio
- Café DRC control with two channel audio
- Care Remote Control with monaural audio
Networking
- 802.11 wireless standards Wifi
Peripherals
- 2 by USB 2.0 hosting control by 2 ports
- SDCard Slot
Built-in Storage
- 512 Megabyte SLC NAND (system)
- 8 Gigabyte MLC NAND (applications)
Host PC Bridge
- Café-to-host bridge hardware for the PC
- Allows emulation of file system through host PC
- Provides debugger interface and host PC logging
The shader support and the Tessellation Unit are prominent features in the graphic cards of DirectX11. The tessellation process was possible for the PS3 and Xbox 360 but it was more efficient and more improved with DirectX11. This would put the custom processor of the Wii U, the GPU7, much ahead compared to the PS3 and the Xbox 360. The GPU in the next generation Xbox and PS4 would surely use Computer Shading. This would take away the strain from the CPU without hampering GPU’s performance.
Computer Shader is a program that is executed for graphics processing. This program is used to enable the use of new techniques when it comes to graphics in order to improve the quality of the image or for the acceleration of non-graphical applications. In video games, Computer Shading allows more realism and scene details. It is very encouraging that gamers will get to compare which of the handheld platforms will provide the best video games and not basing on graphics.