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StarTopic Future Nintendo Hardware & Technology Speculation & Discussion |ST| (Read the staff posts before commenting!)
- Thread starter Dakhil
- Start date
Serif
𝕽𝖊𝖓𝖊𝖌𝖆𝖉𝖊 𝕬𝖓𝖌𝖊𝖑
Right, because those consoles either underclocked (Wii, Wii U) or used onboard previous-gen hardware (DSi mode on 3DS) when in BC mode, preventing older games from performing better.
Homebrew software like Nintendont on Wii can actually bypass the underclock to improve performance in GameCube games.
My assumption with Switch BC is that they won't be using an onboard TX1+ but rather some kind of compatibility layer, so then I'll ask - do we think they'll lock Switch 1 games to 'Switch mode' where games end up with identical framerate and resolution drops to their original TX1 performance (before patches)? Would it be for compatibility reasons, like I'm assuming they did for GameCube->Wii and Wii->Wii U?
Getting "cycle accurate" performance is probably impossible without incorporating something that substantially resembles the original hardware, but at the same time, it's not a given that BC games will be given access to the full power of the new hardware, either. Switch games generally shouldn't be as sensitive to timing as GCN or Wii games could be, but there may still be some exceptions. There are several options Nintendo could use to handle this depending on how much they want to test and what choices they want to expose to users.
ReddDreadtheLead
#TeamLate2025WithAPotentialForEarly2026
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lol
I think people need to seriously temper their expectations on the Steam Deck 2.
Edit: and if that’s your expectation of the Switch 2, I don’t even know what to say for some of the items on that list
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even without full access, Drake would be considerably stronger. just maxing out framerate and resolution is enough for a lot of games
TonyBaduy
Moblin
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Imagine launching DLC for an 8 year old game out of nowhere, MK8D will outlive us all too. The Switch Pro will just be physical DLC :v
Jokes aside, no, not even Nintendo is THAT deranged, they are deranged, just not to that extent lol
ReddDreadtheLead
#TeamLate2025WithAPotentialForEarly2026
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Nintendo will prefer never moving on if it’s a money maker.
Sell a trillion units if they have to.
D
Deleted member 887
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Are you trolling? You've posted in this thread before, so I assume you're not trolling?
Not only is the machine you just described not an upgrade in almost any respect, it's almost physically impossible. You can't clock Ampere below 300MHz before the power curve breaks down, Drake has 12SMs, 12SMs @ 300 Mhz = ~1TF.
Even if you pretend that Drake doesn't exist, and that they, instead, make the tiniest possible GPU physically possible you still just barely get down to the range you're talking about. Your imagining that Nintendo would spend huge amounts of money on a GPU that doesn't have backwards compatibility just to make it so small it's not a performance upgrade?
DLSS 3.0 wouldn't run on a device that slow even if it did run on Ampere. But it wouldn't matter regardless because DLSS 3 is a terrible fit for 60fps. "Not getting DLSS 3" isn't a ding on a device when DLSS 3 came out weeks ago, but it also doesn't do the magic you think that it does.
This is also physically impossible in the opposite direction. Even if you believe AMD's marketing babel for RDNA 3's performance per watt, a 3.6 TF device would probably have a battery life of roughly an hour without a battery upgrade.
FSR 3.0 hasn't been even released yet, but I would bet my hat that it is as bad for low wattage gaming as DLSS 3.0 is. And that it, like DLSS 3.0, requires engine integration, same as 2.0. Which is why it won't be a toggle in the Steam menu, even if games running on it support it.
I don't know why we're comparing a made up Switch to a made up Steam Deck, but you've stacked the dev here by ignoring physics.
ReddDreadtheLead
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CP2077 is technically an indie game so this is ok
LinkURL
Bob-omb
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Sometimes I think that the world would be a better place if Sonic fans didn't have access to internet
PandaAndino
Tektite
1tf dock switch 2 or pro will be a total disappointment , moded mariko switches now can run at 0.700 tf in portable mode without usb energy connection. At least it should be 1.4 tf in portable and 2.3 in dock mode.
Thugstas
Bob-omb
Thugstas
Bob-omb
Don’t jump on that…
ReddDreadtheLead
#TeamLate2025WithAPotentialForEarly2026
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I’m deceased at this
I expect games will probably generally run better, but if they're actually under clocking for compatibility, then the difference could be fairly minor. Basically there's two main modes I can envision existing:
- Quirks Mode: clocks are tuned to run similarly to their equivalent profiles on Switch, but with a bit of extra headroom to allow for any minor BC overhead. Won't perform too much better, but will get pretty good battery life.
- Boost Mode: clock profiles are mapped to more or less their equivalents for native Drake games. Performance will be brute forced as high as the hardware and game code will allow.
PandaAndino
Tektite
Looks like I will be disappointed
. Playing switch games at 60fps with dock graphics in portable mode (possible in the past, but now you can without usb connection) it sush a good feeling specially on the switch Oled. Making 60fps patches for switch is so easy, atleast nintendo can bring that to everygame on the new switch. 
D
Deleted member 887
Guest
LOD is trivially updatable in the code for most games. The tricky part isn't that. The tricky bit is that, presumably, you only want to update that value when running the Switch game in some sort of boosted backwards compat mode, which means you need to be able to detect it. Nintendo can provide an API for doing that, but said API is likely to require an SDK update for the base game, which is, potentially, less trivial.
TonyBaduy
Moblin
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As oldpuck said, it being 1TF is physically impossible, the chip can't be underclocked low enough to reach that, it has to be higher, so don't worry, it'll be a pretty strong system.Looks like I will be disappointed
ReddDreadtheLead
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If it’s 1.4TF portable it would be 2.8 docked.
That said, I think 3.199(3.2) is the ceiling with respect to balancing the Memory Bandwidth for the system, the CPU and the GPU. A balanced system will live better than an unbalanced system (See: Nintendo Switch) long-term.
So what I’m saying is that docked, it would be 1041.6MHz with a Memory Bandwidth of 102GB/s. @Look over there made me realize how unbalanced the previous numbers I was speculating were as they weren’t considering how it operates on a per frame basis.
Can give around 26.25GB/s per TF and be just in line with the desktop part in memory bandwidth per TF.
Portable mode would be half of this of course, so around 1.6TF and a memory bandwidth of 68-88GB/s. This would be around 520.83MHz for the portable mode, and again balancing it around that.
If they go with 68GB/s, then it would balance to around 31.25GB/s available to the GPU per TF. So it would skew better but not far off from the desktop here.
To better illustrate what I mean here, this is how the Desktop cards and the MX570 are balanced for the 30x0 series:
90TI is about 25.2GB/s per TF
90 is about 26.31GB/s per TF
80TI is about 26.75GB/s per TF
80 is about 25.54GB/s per TF
70TI is about 27.96GB/s per TF
70 is about 22GB/s per TF
60TI is about 27.6GB/s per TF
60 is about 28.25GB/s per TF
50 8GB is about 24.6GB/s per TF
50 4GB is about 27.93GB/s per TF
MX570 is about 20.29GB/s per TF
(For sake of discussion, I’m gonna ignore the node)
Also if they use the 68GB/s for portable mode, it can offer a bit more battery life saving but it would come at the cost of performance.
If they used 5X memory, then they can just scale it linearly between portable and docked mode.
I also factored in that the CPU gets about 18GB/s for itself.
Spork4000
Tektite
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Wanted to say I can totally see Valve letting you juice your steam deck so that it only lasts an hour.
TonyBaduy
Moblin
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They should go further beyond and let people juice it hard enough it only lasts half an hour, but then again it may overheat at that point?
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Forgive me if something went over my head, but wouldn't any Drake patch require that detection? Including the resolution/fps bumps people have been talking about? Is every Drake patch gonna need an SDK update?
This is a good description of what I use my Switch for as it is
ReddDreadtheLead
#TeamLate2025WithAPotentialForEarly2026
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It’s ok, you are allowed to
Cuzizkool
Shriekbat
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Forgive me for posting without adding anything, but this made me wheeze-laugh for a good 5 minutes.
ummm… something to add so it’s not spam…
My favorite switch game is Smash Ultimate. I know Sakurai almost worked himself to death on Ultimate, and he stated he needed a vacation, but now that a year has passed since the last DLC, does it make sense to assume that development may have started on Smash Drake (Hopefully with Sakurai at the helm)? With all the specs being talked about I can’t wait to see the visuals on a next gen Smash.
maybe. but it wouldn't be made by Bandai Namco. all of the Smash staff has been moved to other projects like Tekken 8. there's no shortage of studios to help make the game thoughForgive me for posting without adding anything, but this made me wheeze-laugh for a good 5 minutes.
ummm… something to add so it’s not spam…
My favorite switch game is Smash Ultimate. I know Sakurai almost worked himself to death on Ultimate, and he stated he needed a vacation, but now that a year has passed since the last DLC, does it make sense to assume that development may have started on Smash Drake (Hopefully with Sakurai at the helm)? With all the specs being talked about I can’t wait to see the visuals on a next gen Smash.
controversial opinion, but I'd like to see Iron Galaxy take a stab at it. they did a great job with Killer Instinct after Double Helix
ShadowFox08
Paratroopa
Maybe not native backwards compatible and much like how we can play ps4 games on ps5.
Ehh.. A 50% performance boost isn't worth it.
Unless he is talking about Tegra Nano Next 8GB which goes up to 1.28 tflops at 625 MHz
. Which of course, ain't Drake.Hey man, we'll get Sonic Generations performance boosted to match x bone S!
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Native Drake support is definitely going to require an SDK version that supports Drake so that it includes the necessary Drake compilers and redistributables. If our speculation that firmware 15.x is the factory firmware for Drake, then the equivalent SDK version (IIRC usually the major version matches) will probably be sufficient.
They might be able to backdoor something into older SDK versions if they're interested in a "not native but knows it's running on new hardware" mode, but the value of something like that depends on the costs of upgrading the SDK and going full native.
On the Nvidia Developer YouTube channel there is precise data on the Jetson Orin Nx 16GB Chip, which I call the most plausible candidate for a New System Nintendo (it has been tested by developers since September), the numbers are not very high compared to Tegra X1+, but it has 2x DLA, and more memory and cache levels, among other improvements.
Will Nintendo choose Nvidia for the next console?
I hope you will choose LPDDR5X memory and make it with the smallest Nm process they can.
Will Nintendo choose Nvidia for the next console?
I hope you will choose LPDDR5X memory and make it with the smallest Nm process they can.
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Game Boy Color happened after 9.5 years. It did take the cancellation of a real successor to get to that point, though.
That is pretty much already the case.
I think I see what you're saying, but couldn't classifying an update as "Drake-only" make that unnecessary? A patch that can change a 10 to a 15, but running on base Switch it will just never get that patch.
Thugstas
Bob-omb
Talking bout the first part not « your prediction »Looks like I will be disappointed
ShadowFox08
Paratroopa
Yeah i've brought this up before in the past a few times. If we don't somehow get Drake, this could be the next most realistic model. 8 A78 CPU core at 2Ghz max, 128 bit lpddr5 102.4GB/s bandwidth and 10-25 watt. But it has 50% less GPU cores than T239/Drake though and going up to 918 MHz and at ~1.9 tflops max on 8nm Samsung. Actual RAM amount we would get would be 12 GB max I think. Perhaps 5nm tmsc could give us a 1.4-1.5x boost, which is right below 3 tflops (2.6-2.8 tflops), which would require a boost to 1377 Mhz on GPU.. Not holding my breath on it though
Still on Team Drake though, and I'm not expecting lpddr5x.
interestingly enough though, the AGX Orion at 1792 cores only goes up to 930 GHz, reaching 3.4 tflops on 8nm tsmc +requiring 40 watts). I kind of forgot where we got the info about Drake being able to go up to 1.3 GHz (obviously not on 8nm Samsung)
Is it because the 64 GB AGX Orion module goes up to 1.3 GHz? Of course a 5nm tsmc should go beyond 900 MHz..
Splitting Drake-only data into separate patches is something that Nintendo could feasibly do, and there are some potential argument for setting things up that way. That doesn't really solve any theoretical SDK version concerns, though.
D
Deleted member 887
Guest
Think of Drake as having three modes. Perfect Compat, High Power, and Pure Drake.
Perfect Compat is where Drake tries to look like a TX1, down to the old clock speeds. Ideally, every game runs exactly how it runs on Classic Switch, no better, no worse.
High Power is where Drake tries to look like a TX1, except for the clock speeds which it runs crazy high, and with more memory. It basically performs like a modded Switch.
Pure Drake is when there are no backwards compatibility layers in place. It's just pure Drake code that wouldn't even boot up on a classic Switch.
Horizon, the Switch OS, can presumably detect a Drake game before it even starts it up so knowing when to run in Pure Drake mode is easy. But what about the other two modes?
Some games need Perfect Compat. Mortal Kombat 11 is probably the biggest game that breaks if you overclock your Switch, but there are thousands of games on the eShop. Lots of indie games don't handle their own Switch ports, their publisher does it, and their publisher might have one devkit. No way they can test dozens of games on the new hardware and let Nintendo know if they require Perfect Compat.
So Perfect Compat is the default. When do we run in High Power? Well, you can have a two way conversation between the game and the console that looks like this.
Console: "Okay, looks like a Switch game. Run in Perfect Compat mode"
Game: "Hmm, I don't know what system I'm running on. It looks like a Switch, but it might be Drake running in compat mode so I can't tell. I'll give the console the secret callsign. Yo, operating system! Iwata-san sent me!"
Console: "The game knows the secret call sign. Put us in High Power mode, and send the game the response. Hey game! Miyamoto-san says word to your mother!"
Game: "Nice, I've got extra horsepower. Let me jack up LOD settings, increase shadow detail, and uncap the frame rate. Wahoo!"
This obviously requires a patch, and and SDK update. The patch because the game needs to alter its existing logic to take advantage of the extra power, and the SDK update to know how to have this two way conversation.
But another way is to just have a list of games that you run at High Power mode without any conversation at all.
Console: "Okay, looks like a Switch game. Check the list - oh yeah, it's Breath of the Wild. It's on the list. Run in High Power mode"
Game: "WHY AM I GOING SO FAST???"
Console: whistles
Game: "Okay, I'm going to start at my max resolution, but at the first sign of frame drops, I'm going to cut resolution down a notch... hmm, weird. That doesn't seem to be happening. At all. Why did my developer give me this Dynamic Resolution technology if I never need it. Odd"
This doesn't need a patch, because the Console has a magic list of games that it just throws High Power at, and the game doesn't need to alter it's internal logic. Dynamic Resolution and uncapped frame rates already use as much power as the hardware will give them, so we just give them more.
There is a third option as well. Which is that someone pops a Classic Switch cartridge into a NuSwitch that is connected to the internet, and the game on that cartridge has a Native Drake version in the eShop. In that case, NuSwitch could download the full fat Native Drake version, totally ignore what's on the cart and run that instead.
This is, for the record, how PS5's PS4/PS4 Pro back compat works. If you stick in a PS4 game, and you're online, it looks for the PS5 version and offers to install that instead (sometime with a cost). If there isn't one, it checks a list of Game Boost games, and runs it in PS4 backwards compatibility mode, but it runs at the higher PS4 Pro clock speeds. If it's not on the Game Boost list, it runs in PS4 mode. During PS4 mode boot, the game has a chance to ask "You wouldn't be a PS4 Pro would you?" and the PS5 will go all shifty eyed and say "Oh, yeah, you caught me" and turn on the PS4 Pro mode, and then the game's internal logic turns on PS4 Pro Enhanced features.
OP
OP
Considering Alex Battaglia from Digital Foundry mentioned that DLSS 3 starts becoming beneficial at ~80 fps, any games that necessitate DLSS 3 probably aren't coming to Nintendo's new hardware to begin with, since I imagine the pre-requisites before DLSS 3 is taken into account are probably very demanding.
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ReddDreadtheLead
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I vote that we name the modes by using the triforce.
BC mode that is offering a 1:1 experience is the Courageous Mode/Mode of Courage. Link starts off pretty weak and has to manage his way through, but he always manages. Just like how Switch beat the expectations coming from the failed Wii U. Took courage and time.
BC mode that brute forces it to perform better will be called Power Mode/Mode of Power. Ganon while cunning, is more of something that uses his vast amount of willpower to remove any obstacle that stands and refuses to give up. Games will hit their caps like if it’s a game such as Bayonetta 3, it would always be 60FPS with very rare drops due to other reasons.
The mode that is native should be called Wise Mode/Mode of Wisdom. It uses the “Machine Learning” hardware that exists in Drake (Tensor Cores) that use AI to help reconstruct an image from a lower image quality to a higher Image quality. This being DLSS of course. The games are native and Drake knows what it does with them at a native level. Takes advantage of the more hardware resources and gives a divine boost if you will go older games when made native to this new hardware. And thus, you get more than you bargained for.
Reminder that Zelda is an omnipotent being in the end, though mortal and that is what limits her she is still the reincarnation of Goddess Hylia, and with her divine powers has vast knowledge of the world (when it decides to work). I’m using BOTW lore here.
Triforce modes but for Drake.
I rest my case.
for legal reasons this is a joke
BC mode that is offering a 1:1 experience is the Courageous Mode/Mode of Courage. Link starts off pretty weak and has to manage his way through, but he always manages. Just like how Switch beat the expectations coming from the failed Wii U. Took courage and time.
BC mode that brute forces it to perform better will be called Power Mode/Mode of Power. Ganon while cunning, is more of something that uses his vast amount of willpower to remove any obstacle that stands and refuses to give up. Games will hit their caps like if it’s a game such as Bayonetta 3, it would always be 60FPS with very rare drops due to other reasons.
The mode that is native should be called Wise Mode/Mode of Wisdom. It uses the “Machine Learning” hardware that exists in Drake (Tensor Cores) that use AI to help reconstruct an image from a lower image quality to a higher Image quality. This being DLSS of course. The games are native and Drake knows what it does with them at a native level. Takes advantage of the more hardware resources and gives a divine boost if you will go older games when made native to this new hardware. And thus, you get more than you bargained for.
Reminder that Zelda is an omnipotent being in the end, though mortal and that is what limits her she is still the reincarnation of Goddess Hylia, and with her divine powers has vast knowledge of the world (when it decides to work). I’m using BOTW lore here.
Triforce modes but for Drake.
I rest my case.
for legal reasons this is a joke
Tentacle-tropes
Kremling
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I like this too much
I like this way too much
You can also name them after the Triforce as well
ReddDreadtheLead
#TeamLate2025WithAPotentialForEarly2026
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Xenoblade is just Zelda with JRPG elements on blast.
You can also name them after the Triforce as well
Funny how that works out
Tentacle-tropes
Kremling
It all makes sense now. Either one or both these groups cosplay as the other in their spare time.Xenoblade is just Zelda with JRPG elements on blast.
Funny how that works out
ReddDreadtheLead
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NintenDuvo
Bob-omb
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I know this may be me desperately reaching for straws but once you beat Bayonetta 3, it says to be continued in a new generation which i know can have multiple meanings
ReddDreadtheLead
#TeamLate2025WithAPotentialForEarly2026
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I mean, it’s likely Bayonetta 4.
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Bayonetta 4 launch game with Super Switch in 2023 confirmed
Like someone else already said, even if you clock drake really low you couldn't get that low of a performance value.
eg: 1536*2*0.3 (drake CUDA cores * 2 * clock speed in GHz) = 0.921 TFlops (900 GFlops) FP32.
Now, let's assume nintendo's next gen switch for some reason used a lower spec orin-based SoC (even though we already had multiple leaks from nvidia telling otherwise):
1024*2*0.3 would indeed be close to your estimation at around 600 GFlops however, in docked mode at ~700Mhz (which is the current switch's docked mode clock btw, which is a device on a way less efficient node with clocks that aren't even being pushed intensively - far from it).
that would be: 1024*2*0.7 = 1.4TFlops which is already quite more than what you expect.
Now, even after all this "muh flops" nonsense, I have to add the fact that multiple (experienced) people ITT already mentioned how comparing FP32 performance between different architectures is dumb.
See it for yourself: take an NVIDIA or AMD GPU with comparable/near same FP32 performance and do a little research on youtube and google on performance numbers under the same CPU and memory amount (memory frequency shouldn't give too wide of a margin if you're using intel CPUs instead of ryzen for your research).
Example: the RX570 vs the GTX 1660 (both 5 TFlop FP32 GPUs)
AMD Radeon RX 570 Specs
AMD Polaris 20, 1244 MHz, 2048 Cores, 128 TMUs, 32 ROPs, 4096 MB GDDR5, 1750 MHz, 256 bit
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Specs
NVIDIA TU116, 1785 MHz, 1408 Cores, 88 TMUs, 48 ROPs, 6144 MB GDDR5, 2001 MHz, 192 bit
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