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Tears of the Kingdom on Wii U

Neo_GAF

Neo_GAF

Banned
i am asking the obvious question, i hope.

BOTW ran on WII U and was originally planned as a Wii U game.
It was a launch title on Switch and was of course running better on switch.

since TOTK seems to run on the same engine as BOTW and also runs in similar fps-numbers, my question would be, what does it take and need to make TOTK run on WII U.
Would this even be possible to simply port this game on this platform?
Would anybody do this?

I would play it.
 
IlGialloMondadori

IlGialloMondadori

Member
ghost adventures dumb shit GIF
 
L*][*N*K

L*][*N*K

Banned
Neo_GAF said:
i am asking the obvious question, i hope.

BOTW ran on WII U and was originally planned as a Wii U game.
It was a launch title on Switch and was of course running better on switch.

since TOTK seems to run on the same engine as BOTW and also runs in similar fps-numbers, my question would be, what does it take and need to make TOTK run on WII U.
Would this even be possible to simply port this game on this platform?
Would anybody do this?

I would play it.
Click to expand...
What makes you think TOTK runs on the same engine, don't you think there have been numerous modifications to that engine that simply wasn't possible on WiiU?

I highly doubt it is possible to make such port.
 
Last edited:
H

HL3.exe

Member
Yes, it's runs on the same engine.
No, port is not easy.

Both Switch and WiiU run on different architectures. WiiU is a underpowered POWER PC CPU from 2010's, and the Switch runs on ARM based CPU. Both have totally different instructionsets. So the engine would've had to be back ported/scaled drastically, which with the new low level optimization feature TOTK probably has, is not advisable. Also nobody owns a WiiU so they would be no incentive.

so yes, it would be possible, but it would be a pain in the ass and a time sink with a lot of limitations to boot.
 
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Magic Carpet

Magic Carpet

Member
I read something somewhere that the Wii U dies never to be recovered if you don't turn it on after a certain number of years.
So best dust it off and load up BoTW to give it some exercise.
 
Thaedolus

Thaedolus

Member
“The same engine” is misleading. There’s a lot more going on all over the place in TotK, it’s obviously been enhanced all over the place. I bet any Wii U attempt would be an unplayable slideshow without significant cutbacks. I’m curious to see what an actual tech analysis/comparison shows between BotW and TotK, because TotK is way less barren in every area
 
ClosBSAS

ClosBSAS

Member
ya, no way. its a whole different beast. the switch is just more powerful than the wii u and botw already had issues runningo on wii u, this simply wont work.
 
01011001

01011001

Banned
it could probably run on Wii U, but a port would not be easy if it wasn't planned from the start.

The Wii U has a Power PC based CPU by IBM, with an AMD based GPU.
meanwhile thy Switch has an ARM based CPU and an Nvidia GPU.
The Wii U also has a lot less Memory available for games, and the CPU is notoriously slow.

So porting games to Wii U isn't easy, especially from a more modern system back to Wii U
 
Dr. Wilkinson

Dr. Wilkinson

Member
Neo_GAF said:
i am asking the obvious question, i hope.

BOTW ran on WII U and was originally planned as a Wii U game.
It was a launch title on Switch and was of course running better on switch.

since TOTK seems to run on the same engine as BOTW and also runs in similar fps-numbers, my question would be, what does it take and need to make TOTK run on WII U.
Would this even be possible to simply port this game on this platform?
Would anybody do this?

I would play it.
Click to expand...
It wouldn’t run. The game chugged hard on Wii U, and at 720p vs 900p on Switch. And they’ve built TotK based on what they can do with the increased specs of the Switch vs needing to accommodate the Wii U. So it wouldn’t run at all
 
LordOfChaos

LordOfChaos

Member
There would have been little reason for them to even compile it for PowerPC, as the Wii U used three PowerPC 750 cores back from the iMac G3, just on a newer fab and higher clocked and with more cache than it's had. The Switch is on an ARM powered Tegra X1.

So it's likely impossible to port, but I do know what you feel, it's a shame that they got this big engine running on the Wii U to only ever use it for one game, would have been a nice surprise little parting gift. They would have had to think about the different RAM allocation and everything though and the Wii U copy of BoTW sold a fraction as much as the Switch and that was years ago and even those few probably moved on, so it wasn't worth the effort anyway for so few people, and adding the constraints of another console with a quite different architecture.

From the previews though it seems to run similarly to how the last game ran despite dropping the Wii U, still struggles with 30fps at parts.
 
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Thaedolus

Thaedolus

Member
diffusionx said:
I don't think the Wii U CPU could handle the physics stuff that is going on in TOTK.
Click to expand...
Take magnesis vs ultrahand. Magnesis always seemed to chug in the OG BotW engine, in TotK ultrahand doesn’t, despite being way more complicated and having much better looking graphics (though not a generational leap over the first game). It’s obvious they’ve done a lot of work under the hood to pump things up a notch across the board while still keeping respectable framerates. BotW on Wii U was a bit miraculous; TotK on the Switch seems a bit miraculous.
 
BlackTron

BlackTron

Member
Well they completely recoded BOTW in a new architecture for Switch. So I mean if you want to take a new game for a new system and completely recode it from scratch so it can run on a system with worse specs, be my guest
 
Thaedolus

Thaedolus

Member
BlackTron said:
Well they completely recoded BOTW in a new architecture for Switch. So I mean if you want to take a new game for a new system and completely recode it from scratch so it can run on a system with worse specs, be my guest
Click to expand...
It’s actually kind of a fun thing to do in the home brew scene tbh. I saw some is dude working on a Mega Drive port of Symphony of the Night…if he can make a respectable port, I’d give it a shot
 
Robb

Robb

Gold Member
With enough cutbacks it would definitely run. Not sure if it’d be the same game in the end though.
 
Boy bawang

Boy bawang

Member
Now that the game has leaked, we know that it is markedly more ambitious than BOTW. Visuals are samey, but there's much more happening under the hood and a WiiU port would be very compromised.
 
night13x

night13x

Member
Unfortunately it does not work on the wii u. I tried. But thankfully it works on the Gamecube! GBA port is also in the works. Thank you.
 
Azelover

Azelover

Titanic was called the Ship of Dreams, and it was. It really was.
I know it may not seem like it at first glance, but actually TotK is doing a lot more than BotW. It's possible, but it would require some cut backs and work to run on Wii U.
 
cireza

cireza

Member
Looks like the Wii U game, so if a dedicated port was made, I don't see why it would run that badly.
 
Astral Dog

Astral Dog

Member
I guess you don't have a Switch?

Despite them looking overly similar, i doubt Tears of the Kingdom would simply 'run' on a Wii U.

Visually its doing some tricks the Wii U ancient architecture wouldn't be able to pull off,but its not just that,should be a bigger difference than for example porting Skyward Sword to the GameCube
 
SleepySlippy

SleepySlippy

Member
What I'd be genuinely interested in is a BOTW hack which would be the actual initially intended version on Wii U with extended use of the GamePad.
 
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