it's less "hurt them" and more "getting ahead of leaks". it's always about controlling the narrative, whether it does something or not. also squashing any breaches of contracts
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StarTopic Future Nintendo Hardware & Technology Speculation & Discussion |ST| (New Staff Post, Please read)
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brainchild
Moblin
@Jersh @Simba1
I covered the whole 3D All-Stars emulation debate when I used to make content for GameXplain. Essentially, what DF is saying is true. 64 and Sunshine are emulated and Galaxy is a hybrid of emulation and native rendering.
You both might be caught up in a semantics debate though. I think it should be noted that the games were not a matter of being 'simply ported'.
Some light remastering was done to some of the textures/UI/cutscenes through the use of AI upscaling or in some cases just changing the output resolution of some of the source textures, and the latter cannot be done (in the public domain) with emulation alone as we don't have the source files to do it, so anyone claiming that the games are just untouched rom dumps is objectively mistaken. That being said, if you ignore actual development work done on the games and are just concerned with what's happening as it's running on the Switch, it's largely emulated.
I covered the whole 3D All-Stars emulation debate when I used to make content for GameXplain. Essentially, what DF is saying is true. 64 and Sunshine are emulated and Galaxy is a hybrid of emulation and native rendering.
You both might be caught up in a semantics debate though. I think it should be noted that the games were not a matter of being 'simply ported'.
Some light remastering was done to some of the textures/UI/cutscenes through the use of AI upscaling or in some cases just changing the output resolution of some of the source textures, and the latter cannot be done (in the public domain) with emulation alone as we don't have the source files to do it, so anyone claiming that the games are just untouched rom dumps is objectively mistaken. That being said, if you ignore actual development work done on the games and are just concerned with what's happening as it's running on the Switch, it's largely emulated.
ReddDreadtheLead
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GCN + Wii for the NSO expansion on Drake perhaps.
Or GCN on base, Wii on EXP for Drake.
I doubt they’ll do this though.
Or GCN on base, Wii on EXP for Drake.
I doubt they’ll do this though.
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Yeah, the debate was largely just over performance and how it's running; thanks though.
brainchild
Moblin
I see. Thanks for clarifying that. Yeah, we definitely shouldn't be expecting the Switch to simply emulate any GCN and Wii games without any performance/compatibility problems with at least some of them if there aren't any Switch-specific optimizations.
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Sol
Moblin
Although the Switch could probably handle it, Gamecube exclusive to Drake makes sense from both a marketing and technological perspective.
I think it's best that people accept that GCN/Wii emulation is probably going to be exclusive to Drake outside of collections like 3D All Stars. There are probably a decent number of games the current Switch could handle with enough optimization, but trying to support it more broadly is likely to just lead to confusing, idiosyncratic compatibility and a drain on development resources.
Kevin
Chain Chomp
I really just wish Nintendo would release the Wii U remasters of Twilight Princess and Wind Waker (among others) on Switch but knowing Nintendo, we'll just get the old 4:3 original versions instead and I won't bother playing them.
Tentacle-tropes
Kremling
Why would Nintendo not do a release of Twilight Princess & Wind Waker remasters? Those, in particular, are probably going to be the next releases over the coming years.I really just wish Nintendo would release the Wii U remasters of Twilight Princess and Wind Waker (among others) on Switch but knowing Nintendo, we'll just get the old 4:3 original versions instead and I won't bother playing them.
Nintendo really seems to like having at least one Zelda project out every year, so I imagine those will come over eventually, possibly even quite soon, given the BotW 2 delay.I really just wish Nintendo would release the Wii U remasters of Twilight Princess and Wind Waker (among others) on Switch but knowing Nintendo, we'll just get the old 4:3 original versions instead and I won't bother playing them.
Though, regardless, there's no reason to think they'd make GCN TP available to emulate but not Wii TP unless they just don't do Wii games for some reason.
Magic-Man
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Uhh, the Wii U already did this? Why is the Switch any different lol. They're not going to make Gamecube games exclusive to Drake if they're on NSO, and they'll only do Wii games on Drake if the system fixes the gyro issues.
ArchedThunder
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If they do GC NSO I hope you can pick what games you have downloaded, a GC app with all the a available games downloaded would eat up a lot of space.
The Wii U could run GCN (unofficially) and Wii games via hardware BC, not software emulation. Suffice to say, the Switch cannot do this and has to emulate via software instead, something that we have hard evidence the system struggles to do at the clocks Nintendo has chosen.
Thanks for the writeup. The determination of the next Switch model's release window is probably heavily influenced by Nintendo's projection of active user growth. The number of active users is a function of both hardware install base and software engagement. Judging from last investor Q&A (2022-02-03) Nintendo anticipates the number of first time Switch buyers is going to decrease, which would in turn lead to a drop in evergreen title sales:
Furukawa: "[As] Nintendo Switch enters its sixth year, we believe there will be a decrease in the percentage of first-time purchases in terms of future demand for hardware, [...] so we believe that the ratio of evergreen title sales will decrease unless there is a major increase in first-time hardware purchases. [...] Going forward, it will be important to offer not only a variety of hardware but to also strengthen sales of both evergreen and new titles."
Since Furukawa also explicitly stated that Nintendo "base [their] day-to-day business decisions on a variety of indicators including the number of annual playing users, according to the circumstances of the moment", we can surmise that they are taking concrete steps to address the projected decrease in both the first time Switch buyers and evergreen title sales.
- Release more new games: The stellar roster of 2022 titles may not be an accident. It seems a deliberate strategy to forestall stagnation of active user number.
- Renew user interest in evergreen titles: The announcement of MK8D Booster Pass, and addition of Splatoon 2 DLC to NSO Expansion Pack, are clear examples.
- Offer "variety of hardware": This may be closest to an official admission that a new model is forthcoming. The OLED Model, while serves the purpose of expanding the Switch family, may not be able to maintain the growth of active users. A new model is needed (probably sooner than later) to combat the projected decline in first time buyers.
D
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The Wii and the Wii U were "just" more powerful GameCubes inside. Of course they could run GameCube games. The Switch is not the same hardware inside. It requires emulation.
Dolphin, the most popular GameCube emulator, requires a 3GHz CPU to run. The one in the Switch is 1020MHz. It's just math.
There are other emulation techniques that could be used, but they require much more per game work. That is going to make the cost of each individual game go up significantly
ReddDreadtheLead
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I should clarify that I meant both on Drake, but that GCN unlocks for the base sub on Drake and Wii for the EXP sub on Drake as a possibility. It could be an incentive to upgrade for the Sub members
They won’t do this most likely, just by judging the N64 being on the EXP and that’s a higher tiered system in Nintendo’s eyes perhaps. So they may only put both on the EXP pass.
But never say never!
Anyway, it would most assuredly splinter it though. So even if you are a basic subscriber, you wouldn’t get the full benefits of the base sub unless you upgrade your platform, likewise for the EXP.
So I’m not sure if this is the right way of doing this, it probably isn’t.
Sub models are perhaps sensitive area, even if not Nintendo’s strongest suit.
It’s a technological limitation and incompatibility between the systems. If you want to be technical, the Switch is closer to the 3DS than the Wii U.
Switch could probably handle a few but not all of the ones on the system. Others mentioned already about how the Wii U is more like an ultra-charged GCN at heart. So it technically already has support built into the hardware. Even if Nintendo didn’t support it normally via disc, if they had the games via digital and on Wii mode it would have been able to play the games.
It’s how the Wii U modding scene does it anyway, Nintendo could have figured out a much more elegant way of doing it that was more straightforward though. They didn’t have those intentions.
Nintendo could probably do a better job as they have the official documentation of the system.
But I also think that it’s a storage limitation issue here. While a single GCN game isn’t too big file size wise, they do add up and the switch doesn’t have a load of storage to it either. While it is remedied by expanding it, it probably isn’t quite ideal for the application.
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LiC
Member
There aren't really technical barriers to GCN and Wii emulation on Switch. Sunshine had performance hiccups mainly in one area, which were largely though not entirely resolved in a patch, and that's after 3DAS had a very quick turnaround time. Like Nintendo does with all emulated games, further releases would require their own testing and refinement in development, but I think the time/budget argument is unconvincing since the development of the emulator itself is not an R&D investment intended to make profit from only one limited time game release. It will be used again. That doesn't likely mean a library of GCN or Wii games on NSO, but whatever form it takes, there's no reason it wouldn't also be made available on the current hardware.
Edit: Well, there is a potential technical barrier, which is the translation of gyro and/or touch to Wiimote controls, but that's not a hardware power limitation. Galaxy got around this by recompiling from source and running natively, and that is a significant extra development wrinkle which isn't feasible for all titles. I hope Nintendo can find a solution that generically interprets gyro inputs as Wiimote actions, maybe with a tweaked input profile for each game, but if they can't/don't, that could be enough for Nintendo to decide against trying to re-release Wii games at all.
Edit: Well, there is a potential technical barrier, which is the translation of gyro and/or touch to Wiimote controls, but that's not a hardware power limitation. Galaxy got around this by recompiling from source and running natively, and that is a significant extra development wrinkle which isn't feasible for all titles. I hope Nintendo can find a solution that generically interprets gyro inputs as Wiimote actions, maybe with a tweaked input profile for each game, but if they can't/don't, that could be enough for Nintendo to decide against trying to re-release Wii games at all.
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It might be weak and from those of us who don't have access to the kind of dev cost data we'd need, but the core of the argument is that the amount of resources Nintendo needs to spend per game should drop significantly with Drake. The fact that Sunshine needed that patch - low dev time or no - matches with what we see from Dolphin performance. Most of the library is harder to run than Sunshine as well.
Galaxy's recompilation is particularly interesting; that game ran at 60fps, and I believe accordingly takes more CPU grunt than Sunshine to emulate at full speed. They presumably did what they did for motion controls, but they could've been killing two birds with one stone by sidestepping a performance threshold they couldn't meet with pure emulation. For all we know, NERD does have a way to translate Wii Remote actions, but didn't use it here because recompiling was already required.
But that's all speculation. We don't know how Galaxy would've ran through an emulator.
Cuzizkool
Shriekbat
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Hi all. New member and Nintendo rumor fan here, though I’m not too technologically literate. I’ve scoured all tech threads and tried to make sense of what I was reading, but there is one thing I haven’t seen much mention of: what clock speeds this SoC will be running at in Switch Pro/2. Did the leaks mention anything like this? Because the X1 in OG Switch is definitely nerfed, both in handheld and docked mode due to battery life and thermal output. I was wondering if when people are mentioning theoretical TOPs and TFLOPs they are taking into account that the next hardware revision probably won’t hit those benchmarks. Does anyone have any guess as to what % the clock speeds (or core #s) will be reduced? There’s also the potential for a “Boost Mode” like Nintendo implemented in a patch a few years ago, but who knows if they will do that again.
That’s entirely dependent on process node, which is currently probably the biggest unknown factor about this chip. If
ezidro3
Moblin
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I do kinda wonder what ever happened with the Wii emulator Nintendo and NVIDIA used for the Shield TV in China. I was honestly a little surprised when the 3D All Stars version of Galaxy was running natively when the Shield was emulating it just fine (albeit with occasional performance issues).
Either way, I think GameCube and Wii NSO (if it happens) is bound to be handled differently compared to everything else so far. Doesn't seem like they'd install every game the same time as the launcher download as they're doing right now due to size. Maybe they could also work on specific controller schemes that vary by games?
Either way, I think GameCube and Wii NSO (if it happens) is bound to be handled differently compared to everything else so far. Doesn't seem like they'd install every game the same time as the launcher download as they're doing right now due to size. Maybe they could also work on specific controller schemes that vary by games?
that emulator was made by Nvidia, so Nintendo probably didn't want to touch anything that didn't have their personal stamp on it
ReddDreadtheLead
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Will answer your post bit by bit!
They did not! This current leak is from a data breach of the graphics API that the Nintendo Switch Next will utilize. However, it was not an exhaustive amount of information, it seems like a good portion that gives us enough information on what to make out of it. But not all of it.
Plus, this wouldn’t contain definitive information on the clock speed per se. The clock speeds are influx and Nintendo can clock it higher right before the official launch of the system. Even if we did know of clock frequencies, those don’t mean much until very close to launch.
PS5 prerelease had a GPU clock frequency that only went up to 2GHz iirc, then closer to the launch of the system the final clocks were 2.23GHz.
Yes, a lot of the speculation done here is solely that, speculation. We are aware of the final product very likely being nothing like what some paper math is saying. Some are optimistic and using the highest configs, others are going off the lowest configs that match the Nintendo switch (ie, the switch frequency applied to Drake).
We do not, it’s not easy to really determine that without knowing the full picture, and even if we did, there is Nintendo that we have to account for. They could be a wildcard and ultimately they can decide an action that at short can be disappointing or odd to some but really is for a logical reason that they accounted for. They just don’t become apparent first day for some things.
Switch Drake in portable could be 1.4GHz, with 8 CPU cores for instance. And have a GPU clocked to 500MHz or so in portable mode.
We can make good educated guesses though, but again this isn’t easy to do because we don’t have the whole picture.
They will do this again for titles that need that decompression. Though the A78 is rather potent of CPU compared to the A57. Hell, I’d be curious to see them utilize parts of the GPU for this boost mode instead of the CPU in those instances that need it. For loading that is.
Or if it makes more sense to use gpu for everythiing. Probably depends on the game.
Edit: at least that was Nvidias pitch for rtx io. Remains to be seen if and how well t239 does this in practice.
“Object pop-in and stutter can be reduced, and high-quality textures can be streamed at incredible rates, so even if you’re speeding through a world, everything runs and looks great. In addition, with lossless compression, game download and install sizes can be reduced, allowing gamers to store more games on their SSD while also improving their performance.”
Introducing NVIDIA RTX IO: GPU-Accelerated Storage Technology For The Next Generation of Games
Load instantaneously, experience vast worlds with endless views and rich detail, and further improve gameplay by leveraging the power of GeForce RTX 30 Series graphics cards and NVIDIA RTX IO.
www.nvidia.com
Mr Swine
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I don’t think it’s wise to use the GPU for everything if it takes away performance for games
Read my edit.
Mr Swine
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Or if it makes more sense to use gpu for everythiing. Probably depends on the game.
Edit: at least that was Nvidias pitch for rtx io. Remains to be seen if and how well t239 does this in practice.
“Object pop-in and stutter can be reduced, and high-quality textures can be streamed at incredible rates, so even if you’re speeding through a world, everything runs and looks great. In addition, with lossless compression, game download and install sizes can be reduced, allowing gamers to store more games on their SSD while also improving their performance.”
Introducing NVIDIA RTX IO: GPU-Accelerated Storage Technology For The Next Generation of Games
Load instantaneously, experience vast worlds with endless views and rich detail, and further improve gameplay by leveraging the power of GeForce RTX 30 Series graphics cards and NVIDIA RTX IO.www.nvidia.com
In theory It would be a great idea but the desktop GPU’s are far more capable than what is sitting on the next Switch.
But then again if it’s PS4+ visuals then it should be a good reason to run it on the GPU (RDR2/GTAV would benefit a lot)
Then again, storage on the next switch will be much slower than those desktop pcs. Maybe it cancels out the difference.
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Mr Swine
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It should speed up on games on SD cards and carts if it’s around 85-100MB/s and depending on how compressed the data is (how effective the GPU can decompress the data)
ReddDreadtheLead
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A console like this would most likely have a DMAC like the previous consoles (GC and PS2 for example) and the next gen consoles (PS5 and Series). And of course I/O coprocessors.Or if it makes more sense to use gpu for everythiing. Probably depends on the game.
Edit: at least that was Nvidias pitch for rtx io. Remains to be seen if and how well t239 does this in practice.
“Object pop-in and stutter can be reduced, and high-quality textures can be streamed at incredible rates, so even if you’re speeding through a world, everything runs and looks great. In addition, with lossless compression, game download and install sizes can be reduced, allowing gamers to store more games on their SSD while also improving their performance.”
Introducing NVIDIA RTX IO: GPU-Accelerated Storage Technology For The Next Generation of Games
Load instantaneously, experience vast worlds with endless views and rich detail, and further improve gameplay by leveraging the power of GeForce RTX 30 Series graphics cards and NVIDIA RTX IO.www.nvidia.com
ShadowFox08
Paratroopa
ReddDreadtheLead
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It could be the 7nm process.
And its derivatives.
And its derivatives.
Entirely depends on clocks, which depends on process node.
That being said, it would be puzzling if they got a huge semicustom gpu just to clock it really low. When a smaller gpu at higher clocks would have been just as good or better.
OP
OP
I do think TSMC's N6 process node is also a possibility since TSMC's N6 process node's probably superior compared to Samsung's 5LPE process node, going by how Samsung's 5LPE process node compares to TSMC's N7P process node.
Thugstas
Bob-omb
TSMC IS a solid possibility
OP
OP
I imagine that comes at the cost of a lower yield rate, which is not good for high volume chips, which I presume Drake will be. There was a rumour from Bloomberg about how the PlayStation 5's APU has a yield rate as low as 50%. And I think that's not unbelievable when comparing against the GPU on the Xbox Series X's APU, which has 52 CUs running at a frequency of 1.825 GHz, the GPU on the PlayStation 5's APU has 36 CUs running at a frequency of 2.23 GHz. And Sony only seemed to deny changing the PlayStation 5's production number since starting mass manufacturing PlayStation 5 units.
ReddDreadtheLead
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I assume Hermii was referring to a chip that was going to be clocked fairly low in both scenarios still, so even if a smaller GPU is clocked higher it wouldn’t be close enough to the threshold where yield becomes a concern.
So, for example targeting ~1TFLOP portable with different configs:
6SMs clocked to 768MHz is roughly equal to the paper performance of 12SMs at 384MHz.
Meanwhile a bigger GPU clocked even lower would be even farther from worrying about yield concerns to such a degree, and on top of that you risk power leakage at that point with such a low clocked GPU.
Sure they could have gone 12SM and clock it low, but they could have been better off with 6SM clocked higher and get the same or similar result, while again not having the same level of leakage.
This 12SM is more of a paradigm shift at Nintendo proper and their next step moving forward. A new step in their rendering philosophy.
PandaAndino
Tektite
Hi guys, after 1 week for my last post, I finally manage a way to show you how much powerfull is an Oled switch homebrewd in portable mode vs stock. My 1st video comparison is with Xenoblade 2. I can show you other games if you are curious, I got a handy numbers of games with 60fps/texture patches and can separate to Quality 30fps (textures and more resolution) vs stable 60fps in some games.
Xenoblade 2 Switch Oled Portable Exclusive Mariko OC Vs Stock:
Xenoblade 2 Switch Oled Portable Exclusive Mariko OC Vs Stock:
I'm more surprised XC2 runs at 307MHz instead of the higher clocks
Alovon11
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Interesting, considering (for XBC2 at least) there is no known way to force the IR higher, I assume you just turned off the DRS so it hit the cap it could reach in portable mode (For the Mariko OC profile I mean)
PandaAndino
Tektite
I used ReverseNX to use max dock IR in portable mode(also used to record portable profile while capturing). There are games like this where DRS is maxed out to 540p and you can turn it around to 720p or more with ReverseNX. Also there are alot of cheats and patches to change max DRS in any mode. For example Crash Team Racing has 60fps or 30fps with diferent resolution patches, I manage to make it run up to 600~720p 60fps portable instead of 480p 30fps stock.
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Alovon11
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Damn, yeah Mariko has a lot of power on tap, what about docked? could it be pushed to a 1080p 30 or even 1080p 60 output when docked via that method?
Although this should make the idea that Drake can't do OG Switch games at 4K even with DLSS a bit silly if Mariko has the potential to do that on a game without even optimizing for it.
PandaAndino
Tektite
Actually I really think Drake will do 4k OG switch games but only if nintendo aim for regular battery life and not super battery life like mariko is doing now. Max possible portable OC vs Max possible docked OC is only 15% more in CPU and 30% more in GPU. That why the more gains are in portable mode.
Right. And in that 6sm scenario if they went with Orin tensor cores, dlss wouldn’t have suffered either.
ezidro3
Moblin
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Most if not all games that have homebrew patches only unlock frame rates, not increase resolution. What they’re doing is forcing the docked profile (max 720p) to run in portable mode to match the screen. I don’t think people have found a way to remove the resolution cap to allow for games capped at 720p/900p to go up to 1080p with Mariko.
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