Factor 5: Wii engine "does everything that the PS3 did and then some"

[WiitnessID]

WOW of course we will see but it's factor 5. Also too they are making this next game an engine that others can buy from them! So just think what the GC would have been if every one had their hands on the rogue squadron code during those days. Factor 5 will be making factor 5 five cash it seems. If you don't believe them please play the old GC games and realize they just wanted more ram. They even say it in the interview. This is also the kicker the Wii can do stuff that even the PS3 and 360 can't do? If you believe them or not the graphics engine for the PS3 was built pretty quickly and with almost no delays. If this engine is as good as they say it is this could be nintendo's mode 7 of this gen which would be sweet! I need another super contra and actraiser and star fox in my life!

Factor 5: Wii engine "does everything that the PS3 did and then some"


Julian Eggebrecht, president of Factor 5 (´Turrican´, ´Rogue Squadron´) has commented on the graphics engine they are developing for Wii. Speaking to IGN, he said that "it does everything that the PS3 did and then some."

Eggebrecht appears to be saying that their current Wii project, which had only just been revealed, will look at least as good as the studio´s recent PlayStation3 game ´Lair´ or better. Here is the context:

We want to push the hardware. (...) I mean, on the graphical side, we're going to try and do everything to outdo everything else on the platform, the same as we did for the Star Wars games back on the GameCube. (...)

We're pretty much at a state where we're almost done with the engine. At the same time, we've also been working on content quite a bit because we had enough running very quickly on the platform that we were able to. But the biggest milestone or mark right now is that we're almost done with the engine and it does everything that the PS3 did and then some, quite frankly. So we're pretty happy with that.

It's not just what a lot of people were expecting. 'Oh, we're going to cash in on what we had from Rebel Strike.' Which we actually also did. That was a fun experience just to bring that game over and play it on Wii. Nevertheless, we said, well, weighing the pros and cons, why don't we do something completely new based on all the experience we had back then? So, that's almost done.





While it is a given that Factor 5 will indeed push the Wii´s graphics, possibly even beyond ´Metroid Prime 3´ and ´Super Mario Galaxy´, I can only assume that Eggebrecht was misquoted.

Comparing any graphics engine running on Wii hardware to their own ´Lair´ engine on PS3 seems nonsensical. Eggebrecht once praised the ´Lair´ engine´s advantages over ´Unreal 3´ technology. While the latter engine is being ported to Wii, it is certain to deliver less visual quality than on the PS3, due to the Wii´s relative hardware limitations.

I am trying to get some clarification directly from Factor 5. Unfortunately, I am at the GSMA Mobile World Congress in Barcelona and my PDA phone has been stolen on Sunday, so please be patient.

EDIT Last October, Eggebrecht spoke to Revogamers in great detail about the Wii hardware and possible graphics engine development.


I mean not that you would meet a 20 million dollar budget like on the PS3, but if you want to get really, really advanced graphics out of the Wii, then you have to spend probably more money than basically going for the cheap solution, so that might be an inherent problem, so it might actually not be the laziness of certain developers, but it might be the... inability or the non existent willingness of the publishers to actually give them in a budget to do better graphics. (...)

The one thing which makes it probably harder for developers who are coming from the traditional direction is that the shader system inside the hardware works quite differently, you have something more right about that than the traditional AGI and the video pipelines. Because the thinking back when the basic graphics hardware structure was developed was to get very, very efficient, that hotwired a lot of things. But there're many possibilities in terms of how to use that hotwiring and actually rewire it, if you're clever about it. If you connect you can get a lot of shader effects which would've been on the 360 or the PS3. (...)

Aside from the shaders, our main limitation which we always found on the GameCube was the memory: the memory was a struggle the whole time; it was a very hard struggle. That was actually our biggest struggle. When we got the Wii specifications we were excited because we said "wow, this is actually the amount of memory which we needed"


Eggebrecht goes on to say that they would probably approach a Wii engine in a way that would allow for the technology to be licensed to other studios. The ´Rogue Squadron´ engine was simply not built that way.

Source: IGN

Link here http://www.nintendo-revolution.blogspot.com/

If this is what I think it is then the list of development tools are going to get a nice impressive boost for the Wii. You have the indie tool torque, nintendo's nintendoware, and now this coming up very soon. The only guys missing are the id guys. Their engine is scalable but a harddrive is needed. Depending how this goes a solution may be found as there was lots of stuff to compress things on the GC if I remember correctly.

 

[Big_League_Slugger]

I'll believe it when I see it:thumbsup:

 

[vashivihan]

similar articles were here on wiichat before. i am so excited. i mean come on. wii doing something better graphically than ps3?:yikes: factor 5 is like jesus of gaming they can do anything.:worship:

 

[WiitnessID]

similar articles were here on wiichat before. i am so excited. i mean come on. wii doing something better graphically than ps3?:yikes: factor 5 is like jesus of gaming they can do anything.:worship:

May be so but I don't remember any one with the balls of factor 5 saying it. Seriously I think they could do it. These guys are hackers at heart! I've played and made a lot of stuff in Ut3 and really even though they improved the hell out of it you have to wonder if factor 5 can out do them optimizing stuff is the key here. Also too you have a resolution advantage which gives you more bandwidth. This has been discussed many times but I think we may get to see the fruits of it. Nintendo should really get behind these guys right now. Last gen they had the music app I think these guy may be the graphic go to guys after this release. Hardcore wise a turrican game would crush all NO really it would... it was like bionic commando on a 16 bit system!

 

[X@vier]

I'll believe it when I see it:thumbsup:

I'm with u on this one...... I seen the PS3 gfx and the wii at the moment doesn't come even close to it.

but if they can do it, AWESOME!!!

~X

 

[WiitnessID]

I'll believe it when I see it:thumbsup:

Go play the old star wars games on the cube... believe it.... then go and buy UT3 play it then think about it. Factor 5 did that other game years before UT3 and it did not even have half the tech pushing it back then shader wise. I don't know I think they can do it. The upgrade to the Wii is realy impressive if you know what they put in it. Thats not normal ram in there. That ram is actually faster than most of you GDDR ram in GPU and thats for the system ram. You basically have mature obscure tech in the Wii that is very high end tech wise yet it's not brute force design. That would have been a quad CPU and GPU+hollywood setup with some pipeline reordering of course all on one chip. LOL that would have been really expensive though but 512 of Sram is over kill really hell 256 would be. I don't think factor 5 would be saying this with out bench marking the hardware and they have been working on this in secret while making the lair game it seems.

Hell I hope they can do it because it would shake up the GPU market a little too. Lots of stuff like on the fly compression and decompression are not at the same level as the GC on some of these newer GPUs. Yes I'm talking about lost-less compression.

Hey chest beating is cool but what is even bigger is they are going to sell it to other people, some thing capcom should have done! Epic needed the competition yet lair really failed to show case the engine due to no one buying it. F5 learned from this and I think they will listen a lot more now.

Really this could be their mode 7 really.... Hey but that may be going to far back for some of you guys on here.

 

[Budo]

Takes deep breath....

BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

...takes another deep breath...

BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Oh jeez Factor 5, that totally made my week.

 

[WiitnessID]

I'm with u on this one...... I seen the PS3 gfx and the wii at the moment doesn't come even close to it.

but if they can do it, AWESOME!!!

~X

Yes awesome indeed! I've seen the PS3 graphic too and I've also played own crysis and UT3. Really the only thing lacking from the Wii is a great shader pipeline. With normal mapping and resolution of those maps being a big factor. Truthfully Ut2 with normal mapping would look just as good as UT3 geometry wise. I the Wii can pull that off I'm sure the lighting system will be robust also.

Hey but I rooting for them on this one. This is bigger than you think.

 

[vashivihan]

i think its time we started a factor 5 fan club. i have played star wars games on gc and they look and play amazingly. simply awesome. i also played super turricane. it was also pretty good. especially the grappling hook. Theboss battles were especially nice.

 

[Big_League_Slugger]

Go play the old star wars games on the cube... believe it.... then go and buy UT3 play it then think about it. Factor 5 did that other game years before UT3 and it did not even have half the tech pushing it back then shader wise.

Still doesn't impress me much. It did look good though. UT3 looks pretty good. Granted it could have been better but I dont think Epic Games is that great in the first place. I thought Rouge Squadron 2 was pretty lame. They shouldn't have put that 3rd person shooter parts in the game.

 

[WiitnessID]

Takes deep breath....

BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

...takes another deep breath...

BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Oh jeez Factor 5, that totally made my week.

LOL Holding your breath huh? It's going to be ok. I see it like this. You got alive motion stuff for controls, these guys for graphics competing with capcom, and nintendo for the middle ware on between stuff. I'm hyped and really if your one of the people that want better graphics on the Wii then these guys are the go to guys. I mean really if they can some how get 1024 or 512 normal maps up and running then this is going to be huge. The tools are really coming together and for the first time you have an open 3rd party development structure about to explode on a nintendo console. I mean you have these things then Wii ware about to come out. The dev community is about to get pretty sweet it seems.

 

[WiitnessID]

Still doesn't impress me much. UT3 looks pretty good. Granted it could have been better but I dont think Epic Games is that great in the first place. I thought Rouge Squadron 2 was pretty lame. They shouldn't have put that 3rd person shooter parts in the game.

LOL I don't care how lame you though the game play was but I was talking about what they could do with the graphics engine. This is why this is so big! They may not make a god of war yet some one else can. Imagine if suda gets a good graphics engine behind a no more heros 2? Seriously nothing was touching rogue last gen graphically... Also too super turrican was the best 2d shooter in a while way up there with super contra.

Yet I reiterate this is big because they would basically be the epic games of the Wii if this is all true. Epic does not see much money in this area yet factor 5 just has some thing to prove. These guys made lair because they needed money... They are making this to bring the Wii up to standard and also to make money. If they do pull some great stuff off with this suddenly you get an UT3 effect across most Wii software. Do you really think most of those companies can even think about making an engine as good as UT3's... nope...
id hasn't announced any thing and epic has pretty much ruled the HD market.
I'm glad these guys are finally stepping up graphics wise. Also most grate engine don't have really great games tied to them lots of times.

 

[Big_League_Slugger]

LOL I don't care how lame you though the game play was but I was talking about what they could do with the graphics engine. This is why this is so big! They may not make a god of war yet some one else can. Imagine if suda gets a good graphics engine behind a no more heros 2? Seriously nothing was touching rogue last gen graphically... Also too super turrican was the best 2d shooter in a while way up there with super contra.

Yet I reiterate this is big because they would basically be the epic games of the Wii if this is all true. Epic does not see much money in this area yet factor 5 just has some thing to prove. These guys made lair because they needed money... They are making this to bring the Wii up to standard and also to make money. If they do pull some great stuff off with this suddenly you get an UT3 effect across most Wii software. Do you really think most of those companies can even think about making an engine as good as UT3's... nope...
id hasn't announced any thing and epic has pretty much ruled the HD market.
I'm glad these guys are finally stepping up graphics wise. Also most grate engine don't have really great games tied to them lots of times.

Again, I'll believe it when I see it. I don't think they can match the graphic power of the PS3. More power to them though. I hope they can cuz the Wii needs better games.

 

[Budo]

Carmack has been showing off ID Tech 5 since mid '07... just thought I'd throw that out there.

 

[WiitnessID]

Carmack has been showing off ID Tech 5 since mid '07... just thought I'd throw that out there.

True yet is has not been ported to the Wii because it has no harddrive. Seriously the mega texture thing could solve a lot of memory problems if an HD is indeed added. If it's ok for PS3 games like devil may cry then it should be ok for us too right? LOL you know what what if Factor 5 figures out away to let you use your own USB harddrive? Really they should prototype it and present that to nintendo if they do make such a thing. I mean really it just means developing their own driver for the Wii subsystem. Seriously I need to just plug a usb drive up to it to see what happens. letting people plug up their own drive would really really deal a nice blow to the other console prices. I have like 8 external drives floating around the house right now and it would be nice to use them.