StarTopic Future Nintendo Hardware & Technology Speculation & Discussion |ST| (Read the staff posts before commenting!)

[Terrell]

Assuming that Nintendo's indeed using Macronix's 48-layer 3D NAND memory for the ≥64 GB Nintendo Switch Game Cards and/or the DLSS model* Game Cards (here and here), and assuming Dane's customised to have 4 single lane UFS interfaces (2 for the internal flash storage and 2 for the external storage), I think Nintendo can get away with using eUFS 2.1 or eUFS 2.2 for the internal flash storage, and support UFS Card 2.0 alongside SD/microSD cards for the external storage, since the sequential speeds between eUFS 2.1 or eUFS 2.2, UFS Card 2.0, and Macronix's 48-layer 3D NAND are theoretically relatively close to each other, assuming Macronix's 48-layer 3D NAND memory is similar to Samsung's 48-layer 3D NAND memory (Samsung PM953).

A snafu: UFSA is seemingly leap-frogging UFS Card 2.0 in favour of 3.0 for the boot drive support, from the look of things, so if the only cards available at retail are going to be UFS Card 1.0 (which are rare as hen's teeth right now anyways, likely as part of a phase-out) or 3.0, then that's what Nintendo would likely need to support. However, UFS Card 3.0 bandwidth per lane means they only need 3 lanes in total to both achieve the same 1200MB/s total bandwidth (2 for UFS 2.1 and 1 for the UFS Cards)

 

[Deleted member 1324]

yes, but you have to remember the 5 base meshes alone are 1.4M triangles. there's probably hundreds of millions of triangles on screen

What can PS5 move polygon wise in traditional game rendering? I remember someone saying PS4 was 3-4 million polygons per frame? Cheers.

 

[Kenka]

Thank you @Dakhil for providing us with links regarding eUFS and UFS. However, I wonder what the current prices are. The only product that seems to have eUFS built-in is the Samsung Power Book Go which features an ARM-CPU, a GPU, 128GB eUFS storage, a 1920*1080 screen and is sold for 349 USD.

The price and specs make the device an interesting comparison to an eventual future Switch. So I wonder, what portion of the 349 USD are we paying for the memory?

 

[ShadowFox08]

Yes, there's a good deal of assumptions that I've made here.

But to play devil's advocate, two of the largest Arm licensees outside of Apple, Qualcomm and Samsung, have confirmed, and are rumoured, respectively, to move away from using Arm's Cortex-A and Cortex-X designs in favour of going back to designing custom Arm based CPUs. And Qualcomm has explicitly mentioned plans on extending the use of Nuvia's custom Arm based CPU designs to smartphones, automotive, and datacentres opportunistically, especially when Nuvia was originally founded to design Arm based datacentre SoCs. So I believe the writing's on the wall in that regard.

And at least when the datacentre's concerned, I think Nvidia considers Qualcomm as serious competition, especially with Qualcomm acquiring a team of one of the most talented engineers in the industry, which I think is one of the reasons why Nvidia's trying to acquire Arm.

But of course, there's no guarantee that Nvidia's plans to design datacentre Arm based CPUs is going to necessarily trickle down to designing consumer Arm based CPUs, which is why I asked if it was a possibility for Nintendo to use Nvidia's custom Arm based CPU designs for a 2026-2027 console or not. Of course, Nintendo could be stubbornly insistent on using Arm's Cortex-A designs for the entire duration of Nintendo's and Nvidia's partnership. (Nintendo did use IBM CPUs for over a decade, from the GameCube to the Wii U after all.)


Agreed, especially if Sony decided to engage in efforts to acquire large Japanese third party developers/publishers (e.g. Capcom, Square Enix, etc.) due to being pressured by Microsoft's attempted acquisition of Activision Blizzard, which I personally believe would have very negative consequences for the games I'm a huge fan of (e.g. Dragon Quest).


To play devil's advocate, Apple has confirmed that the 5th generation Macbook Pros supports UHS-II SD cards. So there's a possibility UHS-II cards become more available and reduce in price as a result. I think if there's any company that can push for more availability and price reductions for certain items, Apple's that company.

But I do agree UHS-II support probably isn't very likely for the DLSS model*.


I can definitely see relatively large third party developers completely abandon physical media (primarily discs, cartridges) in favour of going 100% digital due to a significant reduction in cost and a significant increase in profit margins for going 100% digital. I think outside of performance, in the case of Kingdom Hearts 0.2 Birth by Sleep - A Fragmentary Passage and Kingdom Hearts III, that's one of the factors Square Enix's testing with releasing all of the mainline Kingdom Hearts games as cloud versions on the Nintendo Switch.

It's going to be interesting if Nitnendo releases a digital only version of Switch 2. Perhaps not at launch but maybe 2-3 years later. 512GB storage at hopefully the same price as launch Switch 2. This will be the beginning of the ultimate test in the waters.. I don't expect a full digital until switch 3 at the earliest, which will be PS5/x series x tier at docked and x series s in handheld (probably).

 

[Terrell]

Thank you @Dakhil for providing us with links regarding eUFS and UFS. However, I wonder what the current prices are. The only product that seems to have eUFS built-in is the Samsung Power Book Go which features an ARM-CPU, a GPU, 128GB eUFS storage, a 1920*1080 screen and is sold for 349 USD.

The price and specs make the device an interesting comparison to an eventual future Switch. So I wonder, what portion of the 349 USD are we paying for the memory?

You can find eUFS storage in several budget smartphones. The Xiaomi Poco X3 Pro has 128GB UFS 3.1 storage and retails for around $300, so it can't be all that expensive if you're seeing it crop up in budget phones. Probably a bit more than eMMC, but not by much and also probably to the point where it's got a better cost per GB the higher the storage capacity goes.

EDIT: Here's an alleged bill of materials breakdown for the Galaxy S10+ according to TechInsights:

The combined cost of both 8GB LPDDR4X RAM and 128GB of eUFS 2.1 storage used in the S10+ back in 2019 was $50.50, so that should help ballpark it.

 

[Kenka]

You can find eUFS storage in several budget smartphones. The Xiaomi Poco X3 Pro has 128GB UFS 3.1 storage and retails for around $300, so it can't be all that expensive if you're seeing it crop up in budget phones. Probably a bit more than eMMC, but not by much and also probably to the point where it's got a better cost per GB the higher the storage capacity goes.

EDIT: Here's an alleged bill of materials breakdown for the Galaxy S10+ according to TechInsights:

The combined cost of both 8GB LPDDR4X RAM and 128GB of eUFS 2.1 storage used in the S10+ back in 2019 was $50.50, so that should help ballpark it.

That's an amazing find, thank you!

edit: a similar BOM description is available on this website for the Switch Lite according to this link: https://www.techinsights.com/products/bom-1910-810. Do you have an account there?

 

[Terrell]

That's an amazing find, thank you!

You're welcome.

That BoM breakdown also gives me reason to believe that a $350 MSRP for Dane is still possible for launch, when you consider how much of this BoM would be cut out (cameras, modems, fewer sensors, simpler flat display layout instead of one with curved edges and a punch-out for a front facing camera).

 

[ReddDreadtheLead]

I'm leaning towards the former for most of the reasons I've stated above your comments, as well as obviously a lower price; and assuming Nintendo doesn't want the sequential speed disparity between the internal flash storage, the external storage, and the Game Cards to be too large, which I believe was the case for the most part for the Nintendo Switch if I've remembered correctly.

Of course, as you've pointed out, what I've said isn't guaranteed to happen.

That’s true, I wasn’t thinking of it in that context of a disparity, but more so the storage capacity and if offered newer eUFS of 128GB, 256GB and 512GB would they go with the slower but denser 256GB or the faster but less dense 128GB storage.

Granted, they can use APIs for decompression with the GPU so it shouldn’t matter too much. And this doesn’t need super fast storage anyway, as it targets a power profile than the Series and PS5.

 

[ILikeFeet]

What can PS5 move polygon wise in traditional game rendering? I remember someone saying PS4 was 3-4 million polygons per frame? Cheers.

I haven't seen a number for that because no one counts that anymore. Hitting the theoretical polycount limit is pretty damn difficult, especially when you are trying to make "something" and not just an endlessly subdivided cube. In the nanite video, shading those polygons is what caused the framerate drop rather than the polygons themselves. And that still took hundreds of instances

 

[Falcatops]

I haven't seen a number for that because no one counts that anymore. Hitting the theoretical polycount limit is pretty damn difficult, especially when you are trying to make "something" and not just an endlessly subdivided cube. In the nanite video, shading those polygons is what caused the framerate drop rather than the polygons themselves. And that still took hundreds of instances

And to complement your post, back in the old days they reported or advertised “X polygons per second” (not by frame, as target framerate varies by game) and sometimes they even differentiated between shaded and unshaded (or “flat”) polygons.

Back then it made sense because polygon count was a big part of performance because textures were smaller and simpler while today vram and bandwidth play a bigger part vs pure & raw polygon-drawing-performance (and kinda shows why the recently released AMD 6500 XT performs badly compared to other similar and/or older GPUs).

And also, is there a use for unshaded polygons today? (Non-rhetorical question!)

 

[Thraktor]

To play devil's advocate, Apple has confirmed that the 5th generation Macbook Pros supports UHS-II SD cards. So there's a possibility UHS-II cards become more available and reduce in price as a result. I think if there's any company that can push for more availability and price reductions for certain items, Apple's that company.

But I do agree UHS-II support probably isn't very likely for the DLSS model*.

Full-size UHS-II SD cards are used (and have been for a while) for mid-high end cameras, which is why Apple would support them, as that's obviously a market for them. That's still a pretty niche market, though, particularly with CFExpress eating into it at the high end of the market, and cards are pretty expensive. UHS-II microSD cards are rarer still. I think they're supported on some drones, but it's a niche of a niche.

The other awkward aspect of UHS-II is that it's a bit of a technological dead-end. The UHS-III spec will never actually be used by anyone, and SD Express isn't backwards compatible with UHS-II; if you plug an UHS-II card into an SD Express reader it will only run at UHS-I speeds of about 100MB/s, similarly if you plug an SD Express card into a UHS-II reader. This discourages adoption of UHS-II, but also SD Express. If Apple had been considering SD Express for the new MacBook Pros, they almost certainly would have dropped it because of this UHS-II backwards compatibility issue. Users with UHS-II cards would have been getting worse speeds, and users with SD Express cards just don't exist yet (and may not ever as more than a niche).

I think it's also pretty telling that UFS cards, despite being an even smaller niche than UHS-II microSD cards, still manage to be a cheaper option while being significantly faster. I think the economies of scale with eUFS production are important here. Any company wanting to make UHS-II SD cards needs to use a NAND controller/interface chip which supports the UHS-II SD standard (along with the older SD standards), which is necessarily going to be made in low quantities. UFS cards, however, share the same interface as embedded UFS, which is made in extremely high quantities, and can benefit from those economies of scale, even if the cards are very niche.

Not just experience with support, but Nvidia would know vendors to reach out to and who gives optimal pricing, so there's less leg work involved. And UFS Card 3.0 can operate at 1200MB/s on a single lane, so Nintendo could work with just 2, if need be, but would need to go with UFS Card 3.0 and eUFS 3.0 in order to benefit from that kind of speed on a single lane for each, or they opt for 2 lanes and go with the slower standard but get the same bandwidth on eUFS if there's cost considerations. I can't say for sure, but adding lanes sounds like it'd be cheaper than the higher-spec storage itself; they couldn't skimp on the UFS Card spec, though, since 3.0 seems to be the one that UFSA wants commercially available over the 2.0 standard for its inherent benefits and the only one that would match eUFS 2.x on 2 lanes.

Another option would be to just take two lanes and multiplex them between the eUFS and UFS card. I can't imagine a use-case where full bandwidth is needed on both simultaneously, so it would probably be good enough. However it would require an extra chip to do the multiplexing, and I don't know if it would just be cheaper to have direct connection to the SoC.

The Jetson AGX Orin documentation doesn't clearly call this out, but it seems that the Jetson AGX Orin contains 2 single-lane UFS interfaces:

Even with just one lane, eUFS 2.0 and UFS Card 1.0 can already reach 600MB/s duplex, which might be sufficient for most games. If they'd like two double-lane UFS interfaces to future proof, there are enough UPHY (universal physical layer) lanes on Jetson AGX Orin to be repurposed for UFS, should Nintendo decide to customize it for Dane:

Yeah, I saw the "Single-lane UFS" in the spec sheet, didn't notice the UFS x2 in the diagram. In any case, I'm sure if they wanted to use both eUFS and UFS cards in their Dane-based Switch, they can make it work, either by Nvidia adding more native UFS I/O to the SoC compared to Orin, or just adapting other existing I/O.

Also, while I'd be happy enough with 600MB/s, it would be a bit of a waste to run eUFS on a single lane. All embedded UFS chips I can find on manufacturers websites (eg Samsung, SK Hynix, Micron) use at least UFS 2.1, and I can't find any single-lane eUFS chips. Phones with 128GB eUFS 2.1/2.2 tend to hit around 950MB/s sequential reads as a baseline (eUFS 2.2 mainly just increases write speeds, which are less relevant in a console). So if you're running that on a 600MB/s link, which in the real world is probably going to give you around 500MB/s of actual read speeds, you're throwing away almost half of the performance you're paying for. I'd be surprised if they limited themselves that much over the cost of hooking up the correct I/O.

 

[ILikeFeet]

And also, is there a use for unshaded polygons today? (Non-rhetorical question!)

Depends on if you mean untextured or not. Regardless, it's usage is more art driven these days. But if you do include untextured polygons, then it's used when you have a robust procedural texturing system. You can save a huge amount of storage this way, and get higher quality material expression for given hardware because you aren't dealing with blurry textures and low bandwidth

I wonder if Nintendo uses a lot of procedural texturing because their file sizes are crazy low

 

[Kenka]

Thanks to everyone involved. We are making progress.

 

[Procheno]

Have there been any developments on the rumors since a few months ago? I've been casually following this thread but the technical lingo makes it hard for me to understand any revelations if there have been any

 

[Dakhil]

Have there been any developments on the rumors since a few months ago? I've been casually following this thread but the technical lingo makes it hard for me to understand any revelations if there have been any

Unfortunately, no.

 

[Procheno]

Unfortunately, no.

Dang, hoping something comes out in the next couple months

 

[Kenka]

Dang, hoping something comes out in the next couple months

While we have nothing new, we can frame this discussion rather accurately.

Due to its form factor, the Switch can't rely on a powerful SoC or disc-based media and has to be powered through battery. Assuming the next Nintendo console is a hybrid, we can make educated guesses on its specifications by keeping up with the industry news regarding the aforementioned topics, and the requirements needed to develop games in the modern age.

To sum these news up:

• SoC: Nvidia and ARM are still the only partners that can persumably offer a package that could fit in the Switch casing and power budget and feel next-gen over the current Switch. AMD has focused on low-power offerings recently but nobody on this board see Nintendo change partners.
• Batteries: nothing has changed these last five years (if not more).
• Media: UFS-II technology is a good contender for both the internal memory and media if I got the latest posts in this thread right. Using them could bring the Switch in the same ballpark as the NVMe tech used in the Xbox and PlayStation (without being as good).

Regarding the requirements, these are higher read/write speeds from media and/or internal memory to the RAM, a capacity to run UE5 without too much hassle (thanks again btw @brainchild) and a CPU that isn't a sever bottleneck to everything that precedes.

That's all we got.

 

[NineTailSage]

While we have nothing new, we can frame this discussion rather accurately.

Due to its form factor, the Switch can't rely on a powerful SoC or disc-based media and has to be powered through battery. Assuming the next Nintendo console is a hybrid, we can make educated guesses on its specifications by keeping up with the industry news regarding the aforementioned topics, and the requirements needed to develop games in the modern age.

To sum these news up:

• SoC: Nvidia and ARM are still the only partners that can persumably offer a package that could fit in the Switch casing and power budget and feel next-gen over the current Switch. AMD has focused on low-power offerings recently but nobody on this board see Nintendo change partners.
• Batteries: nothing has changed these last five years (if not more).
• Media: UFS-II technology is a good contender for both the internal memory and media if I got the latest posts in this thread right. Using them could bring the Switch in the same ballpark as the NVMe tech used in the Xbox and PlayStation (without being as good).

Regarding the requirements, these are higher read/write speeds from media and/or internal memory to the RAM, a capacity to run UE5 without too much hassle (thanks again btw @brainchild) and a CPU that isn't a sever bottleneck to everything that precedes.

That's all we got.

For the next Switch device it's just as important for Nintendo and Nvidia to get the right balance between internal storage and removable media speeds as it is raw GPU/CPU power. With the uptick in the amount of SD cards the Switch has moved since its inception, the successor could make something like UFS card storage a mainstream media if Nintendo and Samsung can agree to make it the defacto medium.

 

[Dekuman]

For me the portable form factor will inform performance envelopes which is true, but once you dock it, power consumption is almost a non issue and cooling/fans can be ramped up. Switch's cooling is said to have been overengineered

A big help here is if they can maintain or expand on the 2.5x portable performance docked vs portable that was the original intention. This perf gap has been slowly chipped away with special clock modes at portable play for OH Switch

I really want them to push the device docked , and if that means RT or DLSS is only fully enabled docked then it makes sense

 

[Dakhil]

• Batteries: nothing has changed these last five years (if not more).

I wouldn't necessarily say nothing has changed in terms of batteries, considering that the energy density of batteries has been increasing for the past five years. In fact, increasing the battery capacity whilst also maintaining the same size and thickness of the Nintendo Switch's battery for the DLSS model*'s battery is 100% possible for Nintendo (the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra's 5000 mAh battery as one example).

With the uptick in the amount of SD cards the Switch has moved since its inception, the successor could make something like UFS card storage a mainstream media if Nintendo and Samsung can agree to make it the defacto medium.

Not only Samsung, but also the other companies that Nintendo has brought internal flash storage from and/or partnered with for external storage (e.g. Kioxia, Western Digital, SK Hynix).

 

[Thraktor]

While we have nothing new, we can frame this discussion rather accurately.

Due to its form factor, the Switch can't rely on a powerful SoC or disc-based media and has to be powered through battery. Assuming the next Nintendo console is a hybrid, we can make educated guesses on its specifications by keeping up with the industry news regarding the aforementioned topics, and the requirements needed to develop games in the modern age.

To sum these news up:

• SoC: Nvidia and ARM are still the only partners that can persumably offer a package that could fit in the Switch casing and power budget and feel next-gen over the current Switch. AMD has focused on low-power offerings recently but nobody on this board see Nintendo change partners.
• Batteries: nothing has changed these last five years (if not more).
• Media: UFS-II technology is a good contender for both the internal memory and media if I got the latest posts in this thread right. Using them could bring the Switch in the same ballpark as the NVMe tech used in the Xbox and PlayStation (without being as good).

Regarding the requirements, these are higher read/write speeds from media and/or internal memory to the RAM, a capacity to run UE5 without too much hassle (thanks again btw @brainchild) and a CPU that isn't a sever bottleneck to everything that precedes.

That's all we got.

Yeah, that's all broadly true. I think the main new source of information in the past few months is Nvidia's reveal of the specifications of the Orin SoC. Twitter leaker kopite7kimi, who is generally an accurate source of leaks on Nvidia GPUs, had previously said that Nvidia also have an SoC in development for Nintendo, codenamed Dane, which is a "customised version" of Orin, with both manufactured on a Samsung 8nm process. Assuming that he's correct, then the specifications of Orin give us some hints as to what would be used for Dane:

• A78 CPU cores are very likely
• LPDDR5 RAM seems likely
• Ampere GPU arch (modified, not quite the same as the version used in desktop cards) also very likely
• Orin features RT cores, so it seems plausible that Dane will too, however there are half as many as in the desktop Ampere arch, and Dane's GPU will be pretty small to begin with, so performance might not be great.
• Relatively high tensor core performance (twice the performance per SM of desktop Ampere)
• Orin has much larger GPU L2 cache, and a new system-level cache, over Xavier which suggests Dane may also leverage a relatively large cache on the GPU side
• More advanced codec support, including AV1, seems likely

What it doesn't tell us is the number of CPU cores, GPU SMs, the quantity or bus width of the RAM, the clock speeds of any of these, or anything outside the SoC, like the screen, controllers, dock functionality, etc.

 

[Dakhil]

• LPDDR5 RAM seems likely

I think LPDDR5X RAM is also likely if Nintendo plans to launch the DLSS model* in early 2023, considering that the Dimensity 9000 supports LPDDR5X, and Nintendo has shown with the Nintendo Switch to be willing to splurge money on RAM. And Nintendo has shown with the OLED model that Nintendo has no problem using RAM from companies other than Samsung, especially since Micron has confirmed to be working with Mediatek on including LPDDR5X support for the Dimensity 9000.

• Orin features RT cores, so it seems plausible that Dane will too, however there are half as many as in the desktop Ampere arch, and Dane's GPU will be pretty small to begin with, so performance might not be great.

I believe @ILikeFeet mentioned that Nvidia made no mention of which generation the RT cores in Orin are part of in the Jetson AGX Orin Data Sheet. So there's a possibility that Orin's (and by extension Dane's) RT cores are part of the same generation as the RT cores in Lovelace GPUs. And I think there's also a possibility that the RT cores on Lovelace GPUs are as performant as the RT cores on Ampere GPUs, but with fewer RT cores required for Lovelace GPUs in comparison to Ampere GPUs. (Of course, that's my speculation.)

 

[Alovon11]

Yeah, that's all broadly true. I think the main new source of information in the past few months is Nvidia's reveal of the specifications of the Orin SoC. Twitter leaker kopite7kimi, who is generally an accurate source of leaks on Nvidia GPUs, had previously said that Nvidia also have an SoC in development for Nintendo, codenamed Dane, which is a "customised version" of Orin, with both manufactured on a Samsung 8nm process. Assuming that he's correct, then the specifications of Orin give us some hints as to what would be used for Dane:

• A78 CPU cores are very likely
• LPDDR5 RAM seems likely
• Ampere GPU arch (modified, not quite the same as the version used in desktop cards) also very likely
• Orin features RT cores, so it seems plausible that Dane will too, however there are half as many as in the desktop Ampere arch, and Dane's GPU will be pretty small to begin with, so performance might not be great.
• Relatively high tensor core performance (twice the performance per SM of desktop Ampere)
• Orin has much larger GPU L2 cache, and a new system-level cache, over Xavier which suggests Dane may also leverage a relatively large cache on the GPU side
• More advanced codec support, including AV1, seems likely

What it doesn't tell us is the number of CPU cores, GPU SMs, the quantity or bus width of the RAM, the clock speeds of any of these, or anything outside the SoC, like the screen, controllers, dock functionality, etc.

I think LPDDR5X RAM is also likely if Nintendo plans to launch the DLSS model* in early 2023, considering that the Dimensity 9000 supports LPDDR5X, and Nintendo has shown with the Nintendo Switch to be willing to splurge money on RAM. And Nintendo has shown with the OLED model that Nintendo has no problem using RAM from companies other than Samsung, especially since Micron has confirmed to be working with Mediatek on including LPDDR5X support for the Dimensity 9000.

I believe @ILikeFeet mentioned that Nvidia made no mention of which generation the RT cores in Orin are part of in the Jetson AGX Orin Data Sheet. So there's a possibility that Orin's (and by extension Dane's) RT cores are part of the same generation as the RT cores in Lovelace GPUs. And I think there's also a possibility that the RT cores on Lovelace GPUs are as performant as the RT cores on Ampere GPUs, but with fewer RT cores required for Lovelace GPUs in comparison to Ampere GPUs. (Of course, that's my speculation.)

I will also note that the topic of storage speed and CPU/GPU Bottlenecking each other should be stated with the context of NVIDIA announcing new features that could help both.

Storage Speed could be effectively doubled through RTX-IO, and if Dane/Orin still has the Shader Bloat problem from Desktop Ampere, they can use a fixed-preset version of Rapid Core Scaling to turn off GPU cores to feed more power to the remaining cores while letting those cores also theoretically use the extra Cache to feed them as well.

Also the prospect of DyanmicIQ+Dyanmic Boost 3.0 is a very interesting one for Dane even if it's in a fixed form due to the sheer flexibility that it would give developers on optimization
(EX: a 60fps mode needs more CPU power than GPU power to hit 60fps? They can forward more power to the most important CPU cores that the game needs and less to the other cores/GPU with the two combined. A game is highly GPU dependent and doesn't need much CPU? Keep 2-4 out of 8 assumed cores at a higher clock then use the extra clock taken from the 4-6 and give that to the GPU)

 

[Tentacle-tropes]

Dang, hoping something comes out in the next couple months

You probably won’t be hearing things for a bit. This is especially true if you take the analyst prediction that it is not coming out until 2023-2024.

If it is coming out this year then potentially around summer is when you should hear some rumblings for a holiday release. Nintendo’s own forecast for the coming fiscal year should give some insight for the year.

If it is not coming till later then forecast-> summer (if coming out holidays) or winter (if coming out early 2024)

Note these are not exact times for when rumours may start appearing. They may appear earlier so take this as speculation as to when you’ll hear something.

 

[Pokemaniac]

Dang, hoping something comes out in the next couple months

GDC is probably the time to watch.

 

[bloopland33]

At this rate I'll just hope for Mochizuki or Emily to chime in and if 2022/Q1 2023 is dead then hopefully we hear sooner than later. Or another comment from Nate, although he definitely hasn't been quiet and I still have deep fear in my heart. So maybe I just can't be sated and I'm trapped here until Nintendo releases me lol

 

[ReddDreadtheLead]

What can PS5 move polygon wise in traditional game rendering? I remember someone saying PS4 was 3-4 million polygons per frame? Cheers.

I would guess 15-17M, but it’s just a guess. To be honest, that’s not really something that is easy to answer and you would need the development hardware to know how much the PS5 can handle per second. It could be a lot more than that number or a lot less than that number. We can’t really know unless told.


With the move to the geometry culling, it becomes less meaningful. Nanite, Mesh Shaders, the “Geometry Engine” which seems to be based on primitives which isn’t that far from mesh shaders, all aid in this culling feature on a hardware level. It’s more efficient.

Storage Speed could be effectively doubled through RTX-IO, and if Dane/Orin still has the Shader Bloat problem from Desktop Ampere, they can use a fixed-preset version of Rapid Core Scaling to turn off GPU cores to feed more power to the remaining cores while letting those cores also theoretically use the extra Cache to feed them as well.

With respect to RTX I/O, the takeaway should be that it reduces the CPU load on streaming assets more so than having some kind of multiplicity effect on the flash storage Read/Write. The shader bloat should be less pronounced on a device like Dane which would have more bandwidth for the amount of cores it has most likely unlike the 3090.

Also, no to RCS. That has no real place in a console like this.

 

[ShadowFox08]

You're welcome.

That BoM breakdown also gives me reason to believe that a $350 MSRP for Dane is still possible for launch, when you consider how much of this BoM would be cut out (cameras, modems, fewer sensors, simpler flat display layout instead of one with curved edges and a punch-out for a front facing camera).

but there's also gyro, nfc, the cost of a dock with HDMI connections and ports, USB A, USB c, maybe headphone jack

I think LPDDR5X RAM is also likely if Nintendo plans to launch the DLSS model* in early 2023, considering that the Dimensity 9000 supports LPDDR5X, and Nintendo has shown with the Nintendo Switch to be willing to splurge money on RAM. And Nintendo has shown with the OLED model that Nintendo has no problem using RAM from companies other than Samsung, especially since Micron has confirmed to be working with Mediatek on including LPDDR5X support for the Dimensity 9000.

I believe @ILikeFeet mentioned that Nvidia made no mention of which generation the RT cores in Orin are part of in the Jetson AGX Orin Data Sheet. So there's a possibility that Orin's (and by extension Dane's) RT cores are part of the same generation as the RT cores in Lovelace GPUs. And I think there's also a possibility that the RT cores on Lovelace GPUs are as performant as the RT cores on Ampere GPUs, but with fewer RT cores required for Lovelace GPUs in comparison to Ampere GPUs. (Of course, that's my speculation.)

I'm not holding my breath on Nintendo using the LPDDR5x RAM for a Switch 2 in early 2023 due to cost. LPDDR5 should be a given though, and the x could be saved for a revision in say 2025.

Nintendo using Orion will be expensive enough as it is, and historically Nintendo has used 2 year old tech or older, and it makes sense especially if the SoC is going to be fairly new. The costs will add up. Realistically I don't expect Nintendo to pull anything greater Steam Deck in power, not counting DLSS, especially on an 8nm node.

How much does LPDDR5 Ram cost atm anyway? For 128 bit 8 and 12 GB models

 

[Terrell]

but there's also gyro, nfc, the cost of a dock with HDMI connections and ports, USB A, USB c, maybe headphone jack

Gyro and NFC would be included in the sensor costing (those are included in an Samsung smartphone, along with a bunch of other unnecessary ones), USB-C and headphone port is already factored in as well (might also be included in connectivity costs), storage slot is also included (but might be a touch more if using UFS Cards), HDMI ports are incredibly inexpensive now.
And since hardware margins on gaming hardware are smaller by comparison to smartphones (yes, even for Nintendo), so long as the BoM estimate is within a potential sale price by about $20, that price is entirely possible, as it’s in line with the margins we’ve seen on past Nintendo hardware.

 

[ReddDreadtheLead]

but there's also gyro, nfc, the cost of a dock with HDMI connections and ports, USB A, USB c, maybe headphone jack

It’s gonna have a headphone jack, Nintendo doesn’t make Bluetooth headphones nor is into partnering for special brand deals that are meant for one type of vendor like that.

LPDDR5 should be a given though, and the x could be saved for a revision in say 2025.

What revision, it’s on 8nm and on DUV. That’s a dead-end node from Samsung. They’d be better off putting the R&D into a whole new chip for a 2027 release than to rebuild what was on an 8nm chip onto a 7, 6 or 5nm chip and classify it as a “revision”

 

[MP!]

Also, no to RCS. That has no real place in a console like this.

What ... is RCS?

 

[MP!]

but there's also gyro, nfc, the cost of a dock with HDMI connections and ports, USB A, USB c, maybe headphone jack

I honestly think they could get rid of NFC and IR sensors all together to either save money or make way for new features/components
I know its just me in this example but: I used both of those exactly once since launch
I'm sure there are dozens of us

 

[Pokemaniac]

I honestly think they could get rid of NFC and IR sensors all together to either save money or make way for new features/components
I know its just me in this example but: I used both of those exactly once since launch
I'm sure there are dozens of us

NFC isn't going anywhere. New amiibo are still releasing, and my understanding is the required sensors are very cheap.

The IR camera is less used, but I feel like there's probably a way to rework it to be more useful.

 

[ReddDreadtheLead]

What ... is RCS?

Rapid Core Scaling
It enables the GPU to sense the real-time demands of the application and use only the cores it needs rather than all of them. This frees up power that can be used to run the active cores at higher frequencies delivering up to 3x more performance for intensive creative work while on battery.

GeForce 3070 Ti & 3080 Ti Gaming Laptops

Announcing the launch of over 160 new GeForce RTX 30 Series laptops.

www.nvidia.com

...There’s also “Rapid Core Scaling” which can turn off some GPU cores while overclocking others for an “up to 3x” performance boost

Nvidia announces 3080 Ti and 3070 Ti laptop GPUs, says they can control your CPU, too

Intel Alder Lake or AMD Rembrandt plus Nvidia Max-Q.

www.theverge.com

Even then, it would be more apparent how severely bandwidth limited it is if the GPU boosts three times but the bandwidth only goes up by less than 20%. From portable to docked mode or even just portable mode for example.

 

[Alovon11]

GeForce 3070 Ti & 3080 Ti Gaming Laptops

Announcing the launch of over 160 new GeForce RTX 30 Series laptops.

www.nvidia.com

Nvidia announces 3080 Ti and 3070 Ti laptop GPUs, says they can control your CPU, too

Intel Alder Lake or AMD Rembrandt plus Nvidia Max-Q.

www.theverge.com

Even then, it would be more apparent how severely bandwidth limited it is if the GPU boosts three times but the bandwidth only goes up by less than 20%. From portable to docked mode or even just portable mode for example.

My main reason for exposing it as a dev option would be to maximize the efficiency of the system per-game.

It wouldn't be a automatic thing, but would be a thing devs can try to use to see if it can overcome a bottleneck they are hitting in some regard

 

[Sol]

It's crazy how we had so much more hype and build up for the Switch Pro/4K/2 last year around this time than now.

There was like a new Bloomberg article coming out every month about the new Switch with a new chip, dedicated games, etc. Since the OLED model came out though there's been nothing but radio silence.

 

[Skittzo]

It's crazy how we had so much more hype and build up for the Switch Pro/4K/2 last year around this time than now.

There was like a new Bloomberg article coming out every month about the new Switch with a new chip, dedicated games, etc. Since the OLED model came out though there's been nothing but radio silence.

That's because the subject has become too toxic and polarizing since then.

 

[Maxrunner]

NFC isn't going anywhere. New amiibo are still releasing, and my understanding is the required sensors are very cheap.

The IR camera is less used, but I feel like there's probably a way to rework it to be more useful.

Like using it for a la wiimote aiming?

 

[Alovon11]

That's because the subject has become too toxic and polarizing since then.

Although funnily enough, discussion reaching a pitch like this was usually at the precipice of the actual reveal of what is being talked about

Hmm

 

[Jersh]

Dang, hoping something comes out in the next couple months

When the Switch OLED model was announced, I assumed we'd be waiting a year to hear anything new about the upcoming model. I still think that'll end up being a fairly accurate guess.

It’s gonna have a headphone jack, Nintendo doesn’t make Bluetooth headphones nor is into partnering for special brand deals that are meant for one type of vendor like that.

Yeah, the Switch doesn't have the same synergy with Bluetooth headphones that phones do for a variety of reasons. The biggest reason being the inherent issues a gaming device has with Bluetooth audio*, which is the source of noticable audio delay on the Switch as well as the limitations surrounding controller count and local wireless when using Bluetooth audio. In theory, Nintendo could redesign their communication protocols to be more friendly to Bluetooth (perhaps shifting towards the 5GHz band? Though controller range would likely suffer, and it's already rough); but even if they did, losing the headphone jack wouldn't grant them a better waterproof rating like jackless phones have. I don't think that's in the cards at all for a device with cooling vents and detachable controllers.

I get why people invested in Bluetooth headphones wanted it so badly on Switch, but with the current implementation I'm not ready to ditch the headphone jack. I don't think Nintendo is either.

I would welcome improvements to Bluetooth audio in the meantime though.

Spoiler: *Clarification

You may point to PlayStation and Xbox's controller audio jacks as evidence this isn't true, but I believe those use proprietary codecs in favor of standard Bluetooth for audio transmission (in fact, I believe the entire Xbox wireless protocol isn't Bluetooth at all). This complete control over the transmitter, wireless protocol/codec choice, and receiver allows Sony and Microsoft to carefully tune the audio to work alongside the controllers. In Nintendo's case, people want Bluetooth support so they can use their existing wireless headphones, enabling them to only take one pair with them out of the house. This forces Nintendo into using standard codecs and completely eliminates their control over the receiver.

PlayStation and Xbox also don't have to worry about local wireless communication with other consoles.

 

[Pokemaniac]

Like using it for a la wiimote aiming?

Yeah, it could pretty easily be repurposed for IR pointing if it was in a better location.

 

[Jersh]

Yeah, it could pretty easily be repurposed for IR pointing if it was in a better location.

Getting it to that better location doesn't seem easy though, unless they make Joy-Cons decently bigger.

 

[ILikeFeet]

I honestly think they could get rid of NFC and IR sensors all together to either save money or make way for new features/components
I know its just me in this example but: I used both of those exactly once since launch
I'm sure there are dozens of us

NFC is such a common commodity, it ain't going away because you really aren't saving anything. it's practically throwaway now

 

[Dekuman]

My biggest concern is Nintendo sits on the upgrade too long. 2023 is the best time to launch.

 

[ILikeFeet]

My biggest concern is Nintendo sits on the upgrade too long. 2023 is the best time to launch.

I would think Nintendo has a better idea on how to pace hardware since they need to keep up with the features of next gen systems to keep getting some amount of third party support. not ot mention, I'm sure Nvidia is doing some kind of advisory if they're the ones designing the chip to Nintendo's whims

 

[Branduil]

$400 seems likely to me regardless of BoM cost. The demand will be there, and it gives them more room in Switch price cuts. Like you'd expect at least $100 difference in price between Super Switch and the Switch OLED, and Nintendo would obviously be happier selling OLED at $300 instead of $250.

 

[Sol]

Is 8 GB of RAM a given for Nintendo's next device? Is there any chance they could go with 10 or even 12 GB of RAM?

8 just seems....low for a device that's presumably not releasing until 2023/2024 and will last until 2030. Especially since 2 GB of will be reserved for the system, leaving just 6 for developers.

The Series S has 10 GB of RAM, so about 8 for developers - but that's a system with a 3 GB/s NVME drive along with tech like SFS which acts as a multiplier for RAM availability.

I would hope Nintendo goes with at least 10 total GBs, leaving developers with 8 to work with. I've been watching Arecus Legends footage and the pop-in just hurts to watch.

 

[Procheno]

While we have nothing new, we can frame this discussion rather accurately.

Due to its form factor, the Switch can't rely on a powerful SoC or disc-based media and has to be powered through battery. Assuming the next Nintendo console is a hybrid, we can make educated guesses on its specifications by keeping up with the industry news regarding the aforementioned topics, and the requirements needed to develop games in the modern age.

To sum these news up:

• SoC: Nvidia and ARM are still the only partners that can persumably offer a package that could fit in the Switch casing and power budget and feel next-gen over the current Switch. AMD has focused on low-power offerings recently but nobody on this board see Nintendo change partners.
• Batteries: nothing has changed these last five years (if not more).
• Media: UFS-II technology is a good contender for both the internal memory and media if I got the latest posts in this thread right. Using them could bring the Switch in the same ballpark as the NVMe tech used in the Xbox and PlayStation (without being as good).

Regarding the requirements, these are higher read/write speeds from media and/or internal memory to the RAM, a capacity to run UE5 without too much hassle (thanks again btw @brainchild) and a CPU that isn't a sever bottleneck to everything that precedes.

That's all we got.

I see, thank you for the info!

You probably won’t be hearing things for a bit. This is especially true if you take the analyst prediction that it is not coming out until 2023-2024.

If it is coming out this year then potentially around summer is when you should hear some rumblings for a holiday release. Nintendo’s own forecast for the coming fiscal year should give some insight for the year.

If it is not coming till later then forecast-> summer (if coming out holidays) or winter (if coming out early 2024)

Note these are not exact times for when rumours may start appearing. They may appear earlier so take this as speculation as to when you’ll hear something.

I don't buy the analyst's prediction for one second. I expect sometime early/mid next year. Holiday 2023 at the absolute latest. Anything longer than that and it's too late, especially for the tech we're hearing about them using. That tech will be getting outdated and those studios making games for the system will have done so pointlessly since it won't come out until almost 2 years later. Makes no sense. And even though the Switch is doing very well for a system its age and without a price drop, I don't expect it to hold out until 2024, especially HOLIDAY 2024. That analyst is smoking something imo if they believe that

 

[ILikeFeet]

Is 8 GB of RAM a given for Nintendo's next device? Is there any chance they could go with 10 or even 12 GB of RAM?

8 just seems....low for a device that's presumably not releasing until 2023/2024 and will last until 2030. Especially since 2 GB of will be reserved for the system, leaving just 6 for developers.

The Series S has 10 GB of RAM, so about 8 for developers - but that's a system with a 3 GB/s NVME drive along with tech like SFS which acts as a multiplier for RAM availability.

I would hope Nintendo goes with at least 10 total GBs, leaving developers with 8 to work with. I've been watching Arecus Legends footage and the pop-in just hurts to watch.

where are you getting 2GB reserved for the system from? we don't know anything about how memory is reserved. 8GB is just a doubling of what we have now and the fact that a great many phones have 8GB unless they're $600-$1000+ flagships. 8GB is enough to fix Arceus's pop-ins. hell, 6GB is enough for that.

 

[Dakhil]

Nintendo using Orion will be expensive enough as it is, and historically Nintendo has used 2 year old tech or older, and it makes sense especially if the SoC is going to be fairly new. The costs will add up. Realistically I don't expect Nintendo to pull anything greater Steam Deck in power, not counting DLSS, especially on an 8nm node.

How much does LPDDR5 Ram cost atm anyway? For 128 bit 8 and 12 GB models

LPDDR4X was less than two years old when Nintendo used LPDDR4X for the Nintendo Switch (2019) and the Nintendo Switch Lite. So I don't think historical precedence is always applicable for Nintendo when RAM's concerned.

According to Mouser, 128-bit 8 GB LPDDR5 costs $64.86 per chip for a quantity of 960 chips. And according to Mouser, 128-bit 12 GB LPPDR5 doesn't exist, only 64-bit 12 GB LPDDR5, which costs $97.29 per chip for a quantity of 2000 chips.