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**Kotatsu Neko** · 16-12-2006, 13:47

Saying it could run on an N64 is something of a stretch (go back and look at an N64 FPS and you'll be shocked). It does look poor though, and far worse than Far Cry on Xbox 1.

The thing with games like Far Cry, is that they rely quite heavily on pixel shaders to provide their visual appeal. Normal maps, specular maps, and of course the Far Cry water shader effects. Wii has no pixel shaders, so it's really going to struggle with Far Cry. It can do some effects which look similar to pixel shaders, but it's limited.

It developers really do want to do realistic looking games on Wii, then I feel the best way would be for them to go for something quite subdued and highly textural, say something along the lines of Half Life 2 or Resident Evil 4. Stay away from too many rocky areas (which really *need* normal maps thesedays), stay away from water, and stay away from metal.

Wii will be able to deliver fairly decent looking realistic games, certainly far better than Far Cry, but developers need to work smart and avoid the machines many technical inadequacies. And it goes without saying that porting realistic styled 360 and PS3 games, which are all packed with pixel shaders is never going to work.

**El Leone** · 16-12-2006, 13:52

Could you at like give us a link or something?

**johnno15** · 16-12-2006, 13:54

Originally posted by Kotatsu Neko

Saying it could run on an N64 is something of a stretch (go back and look at an N64 FPS and you'll be shocked). It does look poor though, and far worse than Far Cry on Xbox 1.

The thing with games like Far Cry, is that they rely quite heavily on pixel shaders to provide their visual appeal. Normal maps, specular maps, and of course the Far Cry water shader effects. Wii has no pixel shaders, so it's really going to struggle with Far Cry. It can do some effects which look similar to pixel shaders, but it's limited.

It developers really do want to do realistic looking games on Wii, then I feel the best way would be for them to go for something quite subdued and highly textural, say something along the lines of Half Life 2 or Resident Evil 4. Stay away from too many rocky areas (which really *need* normal maps thesedays), stay away from water, and stay away from metal.

Wii will be able to deliver fairly decent looking realistic games, certainly far better than Far Cry, but developers need to work smart and avoid the machines many technical inadequacies. And it goes without saying that porting realistic styled 360 and PS3 games, which are all packed with pixel shaders is never going to work.

The water in twilight princess is quite good surely there must be a way around this?

**MattyD** · 16-12-2006, 14:03

The Ubisoft guy in charge of development for Far Cry Vengeance also told IGN: "Overall, the Wii is more powerful than the Xbox even though the Xbox can make some things the Wii can't".

What I read that to mean is that the machine runs faster and can maybe even throw more polygons around if you brute force them with the extra speed, but things like normal maps etc like you might have seen in Riddick or Splinter Cell Chaos Theory on Xbox, won't appear on the Wii. Presumably this is because the Wii video hardware doesn't have these sorts of things built into it, and they need far, far too much computing power to do with software.

Still, I wouldn't pre-judge the Wii just yet. Launch titles are rarely if ever indicative of the system's potential, and even more are just quick-and-dirty straight ports with the bare minimum of tailoring to make it fit the new platform. Bear in mind that the Wii is a more powerful version of the system that gave us Resi 4, Metroid Prime 1 + 2, F-Zero etc. and there's plainly some potential in there if the devs are willing to work it out.

**FelixofMars** · 17-12-2006, 00:12

To be fair COD3 was looking ropy on the Wii, so I wasn't expecting this to be sparkling. I also loaded up Farcry Instincts on the X360 under emulation mode.

I have to say some of the textures in there are of low quality (blocky as hell) and it has support for some of the techical effects the Wii cant do. I think the problem is it came out over a year ago and it was more "acceptable" then because there was nothing better on a console... well apart from Riddick

**Kotatsu Neko** · 17-12-2006, 09:09

It's also true I think that more of us have made the move to HDTVs since the release of the 360, HD DVD, and HD broadcasting on cable and satellite. Back in the Xbox 1/PS2/GC days we had small CRTs, which are so much more forgiving on poor graphics.

Looking at Ubi's own Red Steel, it's clear the Wii can do a lot better than the rubbish in Far Cry. Ubi make use of a few specular maps, some reasonable volume light effects, and they're using much higher res textures than other Wii games. It looks passable, like a middle of the road Xbox 1 game. I guess with more time and experience they might be able to use more specular maps, code a streaming system to keep feeding the Wii's tiny system RAM, and optomise the areas into really small and tightly optomised arenas and produce something that looks respectable. I'd enjoy the challenge personally, and it'd certainly be a lot quicker to produce than having to model everything in zbrush to a few million polys for the normal mapping.

**Lenny** · 17-12-2006, 09:20

I haven't seen anything on the next-gen systems that beats RE4, artistically if not technically. Capcom were able to get a perfect performance/visual balance with that game.

(great av, btw. Urusei Yatsura rules ^_^)

**Tobal** · 17-12-2006, 09:37

Originally posted by Lenny

I haven't seen anything on the next-gen systems that beats RE4, artistically if not technically. Capcom were able to get a perfect performance/visual balance with that game.

(great av, btw. Urusei Yatsura rules ^_^)

then i suggest a visit to your local Optician.

**Kotatsu Neko** · 17-12-2006, 09:52

Originally posted by Lenny

I haven't seen anything on the next-gen systems that beats RE4, artistically if not technically. Capcom were able to get a perfect performance/visual balance with that game.

(great av, btw. Urusei Yatsura rules ^_^)

The art in RE4 is very nice, but on a technical level Gears of War is massively ahead of it in every possible way. I'd also say the art is better, but that's obviously subjective.

And UY does indeed rule.

**PeteJ** · 17-12-2006, 09:58

Rayman on the Wii looks pretty good in places, for a launch title in particular. I'd quite happily play an FPS with those graphics, and in fact one of the FPS sections looks like it was lifted straight out of Metroid Prime.

**dvdmike** · 17-12-2006, 10:10

Originally posted by Lenny

I haven't seen anything on the next-gen systems that beats RE4, artistically if not technically. Capcom were able to get a perfect performance/visual balance with that game.

(great av, btw. Urusei Yatsura rules ^_^)

I agree add AA to RE4 and you could port it to 360 and still be in awe of it imo

**elkatas** · 17-12-2006, 10:10

Friendly reminder about Xboz's Far Cry Instincts: Evolution which Wii version based.

Here is what Ubisoft promised (screenshot is from January 11, 2006):

Here is what Ubisoft actually delivered (screenshot is from March 7, 2006):

**FelixofMars** · 17-12-2006, 10:27

Yeah, the first one is a concept render, the hands didn't even have that many polys on the PC FFS!

**kernow** · 17-12-2006, 11:15

lol@those screenshots

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Far Cry on Wii, could run on N64?

Far Cry on Wii, could run on N64?

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