mjayer
Bob-omb
I am. With what we know of the Nvidia hack that’s what it is. Nintendo may not call it that or market it as such but ya.
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StarTopic Future Nintendo Hardware & Technology Speculation & Discussion |ST| (Read the staff posts before commenting!)
- Thread starter Dakhil
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That depends entirely on how you design them. For example, the range of motion with the analogue shoulders on GameCube controllers likely does not require that much range, as there were to my knowledge certain dead zones in the range of motion that did not register as a different input, even in games that used them. So designing analogue shoulder of trigger buttons would only demand a range of motion that is useful. We can see this kind of design change with the original Classic Controller on Wii, which had much smaller analogue shoulder buttons with far less ”play” in their range of motion before the hard click overall.
I've been somewhat consciously trying to refer to it as Drake to avoid the Pro vs 2 debate, but I ultimately do view it as Switch 2, and have since we first got wind of it being Ampere.
OP
OP
Probably the latter, especially with Nintendo being recently granted a patent for AI image upscaling.
yes, but things like restir-based ray tracing is pretty novel (with the most referenced paper for derivative techniques coming out in 2020). whether Nintendo goes so hard into ray tracing is a question that needs to be answered first
Branduil
Bob-omb
In terms of hardware, it's absolutely the next generation of Nintendo tech. It's a completely new architecture, with new features, and if you make an exclusive game for it, it will blow away anything possible on TX1. How Nintendo will market it is anyone's guess, but the Drake chip will be here for years and there will be a substantial number of exclusives on it (meaning on the Drake hardware but not TX1).
Another one?
OP
OP
No, the same one discussed on September 2021, which was recently granted by the USPTO a little more than a month ago.
I see. Still kind of doubt this will actually be used as a dlss replacement in games.
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Deleted member 887
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Probably not, but it does put Nintendo on solid ground should they need to implement Switch back compat on a future non-Nvidia device
Alovon11
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Actually, wonder if the XBC3 Upscaling solution is a variation of that made to run on Shader cores rather than AI-Cores.
it's most likely that Monolith made their upscaler independent of NERD
Tentacle-tropes
Kremling
If they are not going with Nvidia then what would the options be? Because it’s not just hardware Nvidia has helped with.
Blue Monty
Inkling
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We are talking long long term, like in 20 years+
nvidia aren't the only ones with matrix accelerators
OP
OP
Is Intel interested in designing custom Arm based SoCs in general?
And is Intel interested in designing SoCs with a GPU that has Xe Matrix Extensions (XMX), which are basically Intel's equivalent of Tensor cores?
I don't know about the first question. But about the second question, Intel so far doesn't seem interested in designing SoCs with a GPU that has XMX, since the GPU inside Meteor Lake doesn't seem to have XMX.
Tentacle-tropes
Kremling
Sure, I’m just talking in general in terms of companies & not specifically about upscaling tech.
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OP
Kenka
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No word on pricing. This article gives at least a release window (early 2023 for flagship smartphones).
Pooroomoo
Triangulum Strategem
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Of course depends on when Drake will come out, but if it is H1 2023, wouldn't anything new coming out now, whether it is a new storage option, new manufacturing process, or some new standard, be irrelevant, since by now all the pieces of the puzzle should have been finalized, give or take memory size and frequencies (?)
OP
OP
Generally speaking, yes.
But of course, Nintendo's upcoming new hardware isn't the only thing being talked about here.
Cuzizkool
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… kinda quiet today. Well, with Splatoon 3 using FSR (confirmed?) and it being used for Switch Sports, does anyone think it’s going to be utilized for BOTW2 on OG Switches? Drake will be doing it’s own thing, for sure, but I’m hoping for better performance than BOTW’s 900p30. Hell, 30 fps wasn’t even a given with BOTW. But with 5 years worth of streamlining and development, I hope BOTW2 has some visual improvements.
Serif
𝕽𝖊𝖓𝖊𝖌𝖆𝖉𝖊 𝕬𝖓𝖌𝖊𝖑
Digital Foundry speculated that since Monolith Soft is lending dev and tech assistance to BotW2, there is a chance Xenoblade 3's temporal upsampling could be used.
It was discussed earlier in this thread, but with BotW being a Wii U game and having a relatively unoptimized Switch port, I expect a noticeable improvement with the sequel.
I can say that after clocking quite a few hours of Xenoblade 3 on my 4K set, the temporal upsampling works a treat. There were legitimate moments where I forgot to turn my mClassic on and the IQ was still good. If the sequel comes out before I get my hands on Switch Advance then I won't mind just playing it Day 1, especially if it uses this technique.
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AMD and Intel I guess
AMD seems to be the better choice but I don't know how the situation will be then. But recently GPD discontinued the Intel-powered versions of the upcoming Win Max 2, I think it was because the AMD one was outperforming the Intel one on benchmarks so it was selling more
What’s your source on splatoon 3 fsr?
Also, I’m fairly confident switch sport does not use it, cause if it did it went under John Linnemans radar which I consider unlikely.
Raccoon
Fox Brigade
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Nintendo EPD uses a common graphics library for their games, AGL. FSR is implemented in it so all future Nintendo titles with AGL should include the copyright notice for FSR until they remove FSR from AGL, whether the game uses it or not.
Switch Sport does not run with FSR enabled, it is likely to be the same case for Splatoon 3.
Cuzizkool
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I‘m anxious to see this as well. I’ve heard conflicting opinions about HOW optimized BOTW was on Switch, and given my limited technical knowledge I don‘t have an educated opinion myself. The only upgrade on the Switch port was a res bump to 900p and a bigger high texture radius around Link (don’t know the technical term for that), IIRC. Definitely looking forward to seeing the differences between the two when 2 is released.
Cuzizkool
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Is there a way to prove or disprove that the games use FSR besides copyright notices? From what I’ve read online the general consensus was that Switch Sports does use FSR.
Gotdatmoneyy
Boo
Monolith's temporal technique is pretty decent. I think something like BOTW using it from a higher base resolution would produce some solid results for sure. I will say though that XC3 still has some pretty noticeable blur in spots that I didn't feel BOTW did though obviously they are different games with different focuses.
It should tell people enough that it’s using the same textures on a console with 3.25x more usable memory.
As Hermii said, John Linnemans (Digital Foundry) did not notice the use of FSR.
So it is safe to say that FSR is pretty much not enabled for this game.
In theory you can mod the game and write garbage to the code used by FSR. If the game crash, then FSR is used. (pretty much a theory, I don't know how FSR works but I don't think any of the function is used if the game doesn't use FSR at all)
KeijiKG
Moblin
On that note, I guess seeing ADX's logo or other middleware used for games is now a courtesy and doesn't prove their tools were actually used in the game.
we don't know if Monolith offers much technical assistance as far as rendering goes. we know that they provided environment design assistance and asset design assistance. I'm not expecting Monolith's TAAU to appear in Zelda, personally
D
Deleted member 887
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The lead engineer on BotW stated explicitly that BotW was not significantly optimized for Switch at the engine level. Some settings were altered to take advantage of the additional power that the Switch offered - to increase level of detail, audio sampling rate, and docked resolution - but this didn't require engine work.
As is pointed out, the Switch has significantly more memory, but the underlying assets are all the same. Even if the engine was at peak optimization for Switch, the game is still built for Wii U at the asset level. More things are possible.
As for temporal upscaling, it's hard to tell, but in the one place I might expect to see some indication, I currently don't - there is what is very likely an in-game camera cut in the delay video that doesn't seem to have a res drop after the cut, but this isn't my area of expertise, and it's not an absolute answer.
Concernt
Optimism is non-negotiable
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Well that's just not entirely true. When Breath of the Wild is running on Wii U it uses closer to 1.5-2GB of RAM, the entire OS is jettisoned from memory and the Home Menu needs to be loaded in (the game unloaded, then re-loaded in) when you press the home button.
Meanwhile the Switch was going to be 2 or 3GB of RAM before Capcom intervened to ask for it to be 4GB.
So early Switch games really, really didn't have a lot more RAM to work with than Wii U. And definitely not a quick and dirty port like Breath of the Wild.
More powerful, absolutely, it was a handheld that outperformed their previous home console. But 3.25* RAM available? Nintendo Switch doesn't even have 2* the RAM.
D
Deleted member 1324
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I had no idea that happened on WiiU.
I’ve said it before but Breath of the Wild on the WiiU is one of the most impressive technical feats I’ve ever seen in games when you consider the size of the open World on such outdated hardware architectures both CPU and GPU.
As much as we’re all excited about Drake, I’m sure the sequel will push the current Switch to its absolute technical limits especially with the sky rendering and probable ability to move between the ‘ground World’ and ‘sky world’ seamlessly.
MP!
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Switch sports is extremely ugly so that's proof enough right there
I'm only partly joking
I really would expect Switch Sports to have significantly less jaggies if it was enabled. Its so visually noisy... and if it were using it then what's the base resolution running at 240p?
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Deleted member 1324
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I think BotW 2 is going to be very similar to Xenoblade 3 in terms of raw pixel counts so 540p in handheld and 720p docked with image quality helped massively by other techniques like reconstruction and fsr.
Pixel counts only tell half the story nowadays because of all the tricks developers have up their sleeves.
MP!
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I guess another reason right there... if you couldn't notice ... why use it at all?
So I didn't really look into the Nintendo upscaling patent, but does anyone know whether it's spatial upscaling (as in it uses only the information about the current frame) like FSR 1.0, or if it's temporal upscaling (as in it also uses information from previous frames) like DLSS 2.0+ and FSR 2.0?
If it's like FSR 1.0, maybe it could be a system-level toggle (kinda like in the Steam Deck) to maybe make some games that don't support DLSS look better/increase fps, since FSR 1.0 doesn't really require too much developer intervention (I assume, since the Steam Deck offers the toggle at the system level), contrary to FSR 2.0 and DLSS 2.0+. Could that be possible?
If it's like FSR 1.0, maybe it could be a system-level toggle (kinda like in the Steam Deck) to maybe make some games that don't support DLSS look better/increase fps, since FSR 1.0 doesn't really require too much developer intervention (I assume, since the Steam Deck offers the toggle at the system level), contrary to FSR 2.0 and DLSS 2.0+. Could that be possible?
D
Deleted member 887
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Do you have a reference for this? I'm surprised this is possible. Certainly it can't be the entire OS, as the game depends on system services, and there has to be a background process for loading the shell, otherwise game code could run arbitrary system code, which would be a major security back door.
That is exactly the point - this whole thread is "how optimized for Switch was BotW" and the answer is "not very."
Switch has 2x the RAM. Switch has 4GB, WiiU has 2GB. Both systems reserve a GB for System use. In conventional use cases, yes, the ~3x number is correct.
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Deleted member 887
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It is a spatial upscaler, the patent specifically mentions upscaling as part of a system service without engine level integration. It is a block based upscaler that uses a CNN - the specific advantages of the technique are that it is designed to run in real time on heavily memory constrained devices. It is pretty clearly targetted at real time upscaling of games on the Switch - it specifically mentions an acceleration strategy using the Tegra X1, and how to disable/enable upscaling in response to being docked, in order to preserve battery life.
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It's a cheap way to make displaying subnative resolutions suck slightly less, but I think it would take quite a trained eye to just look at a running game out of context and properly tell if it was in use.
Yes and no. With Steam Deck it's plausible the user could tell a game to render at any lower resolution. For any Switch game to date it's usually going to be the case that the big scaling is done within the game before the UI is slapped on, so the system just receives a 1080p image and scales it if the output resolution is not 1080p. So a game like Witcher 3 rendering at 720p or less would see no new benefit on a 1080p screen. On a future Switch model it could be told to automatically apply it to base Switch games being output at 4K, or portable mode to a new resolution if they don't stick with ancient 720p. Would have 0 affect on FPS, though.
I don't know if BotW does this or not, but there's definitely precedent. A bunch of later 3DS titles actually run in a special mode that changes the memory layout to allocate a bit more RAM to the game when run on Old 3DS. Some of the heavier applets are locked out in this mode.
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