News: Rumour: Could the Wii U System Update Improve Clock Speeds? Page 1

Rumour: Could the Wii U System Update Improve Clock Speeds?

10.05.2013

Rumour: Could the Wii U System Update Improve Clock Speeds? on Nintendo gaming news, videos and discussion

Rumour: Reports have suggested that the recent Wii U firmware update has improved the capabilities of the Wii U as a whole.

These reports should certainly be taken with a big dollop of salt, maybe with a sprinkle of pepper, but do open up the possibility of some improvements outside system stability.

With a more optimised and refined system, there already appears to be more ram available to be used in applications and games. But how can the system update "unlock" clock speeds on both the Wii U's CPU and GPU?

The unconfirmed reports suggest that IBM PowerPC 7xx-based tri-core processor "Espresso" clocked at 1.24 GHz prior to the more recent Wii U update, but is supposedly over-clocked at 3.24 GHz now. Likewise the GPU speeds are said have gone from 550 MHz to 800 MHz.

An increase in performance isn't unheard of and has been utlised on other hardware in the past but the dramatic increase has caused alarm bells for techies concerned with the authenticity of the reports.

A marginal jump is possible and perhaps more likely if Nintendo deem the system to be stable enough to either overclock the processor or "unlock" its potential if it were underclocked to begin with.

What are your thoughts on the Wii U system update potentially affecting performance in this way?

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Stulaw 10.05.2013#1

I think this is a GameFAQs rumour of (not so)epic fantasy.

But yeah, it's not possible for the CPU to be overclocked that much, people's Wii U's would be melting from the inside.

Edit: Actually, I read that it's from TV Tropes.

( Edited 10.05.2013 16:59 by Stulaw )

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crackedthesky 10.05.2013#2

The only way I see this being possible is if it was grossly underclocked to begin with.

But this is Nintendo, so that's not all that farfetched. They do weird, weird things sometimes.

Personally, I haven't noticed any difference in games, but then I never really noticed performance issues in the games I play. I just rented Arkham City, post-update, and it stutters and lags at times when I move great distances across the city too quickly. Since I didn't play it before the update, I have nothing to compare that to.

Out of curiosity, how would one even measure the console's exact speed?

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CrystalMushroom 10.05.2013#3

This is a Gamefaqs rumor?

That explains a lot.

Jedi-Russ (guest) 10.05.2013#4

This is very possible but not from 1.24ghz to 3.24ghz unless it was downclocked from about 2.5ghz to 1.24ghz to start with. You may also not see the 3.24ghz or any increase from the psu if it had an idle speed of 1.24ghz only new games would show this. But i dont believe it if any of this is true its more likely a missprint and it is overclocked to 2ghz and not by 2ghz and the gpu was downclocked to start with so thats possible. Still prob fake though Smilie

Mush 10.05.2013#5

justonesp00lturn said:
The only way I see this being possible is if it was grossly underclocked to begin with.
But this is Nintendo, so that's not all that farfetched. They do weird, weird things sometimes.
Personally, I haven't noticed any difference in games, but then I never really noticed performance issues in the games I play. I just rented Arkham City, post-update, and it stutters and lags at times when I move great distances across the city too quickly. Since I didn't play it before the update, I have nothing to compare that to.
Out of curiosity, how would one even measure the console's exact speed?

You won't necessarily notice a different in launch games, because those games were made to natively run on the current Wii U's system set up. If there was an update to these games, which unlocked the missing clock speed (or whatever you want to call it), then they would run better.

As other people have mentioned, it wouldn't be possible to increase the clock speed by 2GHz. It just isn't humanely possible. They could however have underclocked the processor in the OS, then overclock it to the speed it should be or can potentially run at.

Who knows with Nintendo, though?

~~Jindox 10.05.2013~~#6

Wow, Nintendo fans are really desperate.

Sterling McTavish (guest) 10.05.2013#7

Fake, if it was real Wii U developers would have been informed of this.

~~Jindox 10.05.2013~~#8

There's no mention of this on NOA Treehouse. This is nothing more than desperado crap, from a really really really big Nintendo fan.

~~KrakenMacken 10.05.2013~~#9

I have a very hard time believing this, although I'm not surprised this is being covered on so many Nintendo sites. Nintendo fans are looking for any signs of a positive future for the console, some are even going as far as to make stuff up.

Jindo said:
There's no mention of this on NOA Treehouse. This is nothing more than desperado crap, from a really really really big Nintendo fan.

AKA " Nintendo fanboy".

jres80 10.05.2013#10

Power draw measurements show that the hardware is running at the same levels as before the firmware update. If the system was overclocked it would draw more power.

It is possible that the system could be overclocked or have a core unlocked or so on, however it didn't happen in this latest OS patch.

And the most likely performance improvement is going to come from freeing up some of the RAM reserved for the OS.

CrystalMushroom 10.05.2013#11

KrakenMacken said:
I have a very hard time believing this, although I'm not surprised this is being covered on so many Nintendo sites. Nintendo fans are looking for any signs of a positive future for the console, some are even going as far as to make stuff up.

Jindo said:
There's no mention of this on NOA Treehouse. This is nothing more than desperado crap, from a really really really big Nintendo fan.
AKA " Nintendo fanboy".

Just to let you know, saying the word "fanboy" is against the site rules.

Also, what do you mean by "looking for signs of a positive future"?
Is that another saying for "The console is doomed and the fans can't stop it"?

( Edited 10.05.2013 23:10 by CrystalMushroom )

crackedthesky 11.05.2013#12

Mush said:

You won't necessarily notice a different in launch games, because those games were made to natively run on the current Wii U's system set up. If there was an update to these games, which unlocked the missing clock speed (or whatever you want to call it), then they would run better.
As other people have mentioned, it wouldn't be possible to increase the clock speed by 2GHz. It just isn't humanely possible. They could however have underclocked the processor in the OS, then overclock it to the speed it should be or can potentially run at.
Who knows with Nintendo, though?

Good points.

I went to the Neogaf thread in question but it's pretty much all Greek to me, haha.

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J4K 11.05.2013#13

CrystalMushroom:
Just to let you know, saying the word "fanboy" is against the site rules.

I think this needs some clarification. Cubed3 doesn't censor any specific word - we don't have a list of no-no words that we don't allow anyone to use. If we did, we'd have the auto-detect software some forums have that automatically turn words like "penis" into "banana" or some other pointless crap.

That said, the context will determine whether we take action over the use of any word - including fanboy. If there was to be an argument and someone called you a "stupid fanboy", that would be something open to moderation as at that point the debate would have escalated. With that understanding, KrackenMacken calling some faceless person somewhere on the internet a fanboy isn't something we're going to spring to action over. He's not done anything against site rules.

And finally, trying to bring up site rules comes across a lot like back-seat moderating. If you think someone is breaking rules, please alert the mod team verses trying to handle it yourself.

If you have questions about this Private Message me or any other moderator. Otherwise, all following posts should center solely on the topic at hand.

Thanks.
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( Edited 11.05.2013 07:02 by Jacob4000 )

Canyarion 11.05.2013#14

jres80 said:
Power draw measurements show that the hardware is running at the same levels as before the firmware update. If the system was overclocked it would draw more power.

I don't think games that have already been released can use this rumored new clockspeed... So if it's true, it might take a while before we find out.

It would be awesome if Pikmin 3 were the first game to have buffed graphics!

MightyHorace (guest) 11.05.2013#15

This is easy to work out, take a Wii U before the update and check the energy usage of idle and with a game running, then run the same steps with an updated console. If the CPU and GPU have been increased the energy drain would be significantly more.