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

Drake was all the games we played along the way. :)
Yeah?

Well some of those games could do with a better processor or more memory to play with. were perfectly fine and every game on the Switch runs perfectly fine unless you hate Nintendo and happiness.
 
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.
The existence of a Drake-only patch would already be the developer telling the console the secret call sign, wouldn't it?

Console: "Okay, looks like a Switch game. Is there a Drake-only patch?"
Patch: "Right here, dude."
Console: "Right. Enjoy High Power mode, sir!"
Patch: "😎👍"

EDIT: Games that could work better without a patch would still need that whitelist, but it's the SDK update to communicate about modes I don't see the necessity of.
 
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.
This is probably my favourite comment in this whole thread. Oldpuck has technical knowledge AND writing chops 😆

I pretty much agree that this is the likeliest scenario for backwards compatibility, but given Switch's ability to run games sans-install, I think the solution they go with be patches on existing games, so, (hopefully) no full fat installs to play an older physical game.
 
The existence of a Drake-only patch would already be the developer telling the console the secret call sign, wouldn't it?

Console: "Okay, looks like a Switch game. Is there a Drake-only patch?"
Patch: "Right here, dude."
Console: "Right. Enjoy High Power mode, sir!"
Patch: "😎👍"

EDIT: Games that could work better without a patch would still need that whitelist, but it's the SDK update to communicate about modes I don't see the necessity of.
Yeah this could work for digital! It gets tricky if you want to put it on a cart though, as there has to be a mechanism for hiding the patch from Classic Switch, but I can imagine ways you’d do that.
 
This is probably my favourite comment in this whole thread. Oldpuck has technical knowledge AND writing chops 😆
And this is the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me. :oops:

I will say that this thread has upped my technical knowledge on embedded systems and console hardware. @Dakhil has created an amazing resource.
 
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Yeah this could work for digital! It gets tricky if you want to put it on a cart though, as there has to be a mechanism for hiding the patch from Classic Switch, but I can imagine ways you’d do that.
Aren't there some games that require a specific OS version? (And contain the OS update on the game card, I believe). If so, then any game with Drake-specific content can just require whichever version of the OS is Drake-aware, and then the Switch knows that if it's an OG Switch it should just ignore that extra content.
 
Yeah this could work for digital! It gets tricky if you want to put it on a cart though, as there has to be a mechanism for hiding the patch from Classic Switch, but I can imagine ways you’d do that.
Games will ship with newer system firmwares, right? Maybe a Drake-only patch could similarly be on a game card in the same way, something certain systems would know to pick up on and make a small install to the system as if it were a downloaded patch, but base Switch would just ignore. Since here we're talking about small tweaks rather than major overhauls it shouldn't be a burden to anyone's internal storage.
 
Aren't there some games that require a specific OS version? (And contain the OS update on the game card, I believe). If so, then any game with Drake-specific content can just require whichever version of the OS is Drake-aware, and then the Switch knows that if it's an OG Switch it should just ignore that extra content.
Games will ship with newer system firmwares, right? Maybe a Drake-only patch could similarly be on a game card in the same way, something certain systems would know to pick up on and make a small install to the system as if it were a downloaded patch, but base Switch would just ignore. Since here we're talking about small tweaks rather than major overhauls it shouldn't be a burden to anyone's internal storage.
This would also probably work. Nintendo recently rolled out an OS update that includes a new patch variety that no (known) game uses. It's entirely possible they're going with some form of "conditional patching"

All that said, the tools for generating a patch in a format which Drake's updated OS can consume is probably going to be contained in... the SDK. Same for connecting to a Drake devkit and testing how far you can push LOD and the like. I'm curious how Nintendo does it, but even if they don't have to rebuild the game against updated libraries, at some point a developer is going to need to update their dev environment to a Drake aware SDK.
 
Aren't there some games that require a specific OS version? (And contain the OS update on the game card, I believe). If so, then any game with Drake-specific content can just require whichever version of the OS is Drake-aware, and then the Switch knows that if it's an OG Switch it should just ignore that extra content.
iirc they contain specific gpu driver versions, not firmware for the switch itself
 
This would also probably work. Nintendo recently rolled out an OS update that includes a new patch variety that no (known) game uses. It's entirely possible they're going with some form of "conditional patching"

All that said, the tools for generating a patch in a format which Drake's updated OS can consume is probably going to be contained in... the SDK. Same for connecting to a Drake devkit and testing how far you can push LOD and the like. I'm curious how Nintendo does it, but even if they don't have to rebuild the game against updated libraries, at some point a developer is going to need to update their dev environment to a Drake aware SDK.
There are ways they could make apps using the old versions of the SDK (semi) compatible with unreleased features/hardware.

- System.getProperty(propertyName). If that property is present, it returns the value, if it's not present returns null. If they have zomething like this, it could be used as a flag so the app can know if it's OG Switch or not by just checking if there, like a flag.

- Bundling multiple versions of the same resource file and let the OS chose. For example, Android gets the Spanish strings if the system is in Spanish, or get the landscape layout over the portrait one or the high resolution asset for high end devices. Something like this could be used to have a OG config file vs Drake config file, for example.

The main question is whether Nintendo will find it worth the extra work and things to maintain, since this only affect developers willing to patch their games but not so willing to update the SDK. It makes sense if the update is a huge pain, but otherwise might as well force devs and get ride of the translation layer.
 


More upscaling talk. On the one hand, I would have loved it if Apple had gone all in on Vulkan. On the other, the unification of OS/Hardware/Graphics API vendor has some advantages. Instead of shipping DLSS with your game, you use the OS provided MetalFX libraries.

The more innovation and competition in this space the better we're all gonna be, and having multiple 4x TAAUs in the wild makes porting everything easier as games start to build their engines to assume them. I'm really not looking forward to the era of Monster Hunter: Rise-esque DLSS implementations we're going to get in the short term
 


More upscaling talk. On the one hand, I would have loved it if Apple had gone all in on Vulkan. On the other, the unification of OS/Hardware/Graphics API vendor has some advantages. Instead of shipping DLSS with your game, you use the OS provided MetalFX libraries.

The more innovation and competition in this space the better we're all gonna be, and having multiple 4x TAAUs in the wild makes porting everything easier as games start to build their engines to assume them. I'm really not looking forward to the era of Monster Hunter: Rise-esque DLSS implementations we're going to get in the short term

They actually fixed the DLSS implementation for MHR btw, it runs and looks great
 
They actually fixed the DLSS implementation for MHR btw, it runs and looks great
Excellent! I suspect lots of games, especially targeted at constrained hardware, tie all their post-processing effects into a single pass. Swapping out post-process AA for DLSS will probably have lots of stupid breaks like that, but as all games move to multiple TAAU backends, I think devs will get used to it.
 
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iirc they contain specific gpu driver versions, not firmware for the switch itself
The games themselves apparently contain (parts of) the GPU driver, but physical copies typically also contain an update partition that contains a version of the system firmware which fully supports any features the game requires. In practice, it's basically impossible to get yourself into a situation where you have a game that requires a newer firmware version than you have installed.
weird question, how's the vulkan implementation on switch?
It's good enough that Nintendo's N64 emulator uses it.
 
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
It wouldn't surprise me if P* already has a Drake dev kit and is working on AC2 there while they are on pre-planning for Bayo4. I am sure Bayo3 already beat their sales expectations, hopefully the announce it has sold a million soon.
 
It wouldn't surprise me if P* already has a Drake dev kit and is working on AC2 there while they are on pre-planning for Bayo4. I am sure Bayo3 already beat their sales expectations, hopefully the announce it has sold a million soon.
Or, Bayo 3 has Drake exclusive dlc.

It would be weird to say “to be continued” if there’s like 5 years to the next installment.
 
It wouldn't surprise me if P* already has a Drake dev kit and is working on AC2 there while they are on pre-planning for Bayo4. I am sure Bayo3 already beat their sales expectations, hopefully the announce it has sold a million soon.
tbh if a studio like Zynga really has a devkit, you can be sure that P* has one too.
 
here's my current prediction assuming they're still going for H1 2023: January reveal with exclusives and a drake "enhanced" segment for existing games as part of the the next direct around February
 
here's my current prediction assuming they're still going for H1 2023: January reveal with exclusives and a drake "enhanced" segment for existing games as part of the the next direct around February
I actually think it would be really cool if Drake's announcement was during a February 2023 direct. Like a few minutes before the stream starts you check the video quality dropdown and there's a 4K option.

I can't be the only one who checks for that before every Nintendo Direct stream, right? Right!?
 
I actually think it would be really cool if Drake's announcement was during a February 2023 direct. Like a few minutes before the stream starts you check the video quality dropdown and there's a 4K option.

I can't be the only one who checks for that before every Nintendo Direct stream, right? Right!?

I’m rooting for no February Direct. Just a January reveal / show with Drake launching in March :3
 
I always root for 2 events:

A late January Mini Direct the week after FE Engage releases with mid budget and mostly old ports/remasters announcements

An official Drake reveal at mid February. Then 2 days later a Special Drake Direct showcasing new games, including exclusives running in Drake HW.
 
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So XDA Developer did a review of the Google Pixel 7 Pro's (and the Google Pixel 7's) OLED display. And there are definitely interesting tidbits with respect to the refresh rate of the Google Pixel 7 Pro's (and the Google Pixel 7's) OLED display and how that pertains to VRR.

These Samsung panels have a variable refresh mechanism that operates at a much lower level, within the display driver, and is not exposed to the Android user space. Samsung Display's VRR implementation is not the same as that found in typical gaming monitors, which can target any arbitrary refresh rate. The VRR found in Samsung's HOP ("LTPO") panels still works by switching between discrete refresh rate modes, like older implementations. But these VRR panels now incorporate a low-frequency drive (LFD) mechanism which operates the OLED driving rate at a fraction of the current refresh rate mode.

As an example, a 10 Hz driving refresh rate is achievable by operating the panel at a 60 Hz scanning rate, but skipping re-drives for 5 out of every 6 scanning intervals if the frames are the same. This is made possible by the OLED's new oxide-driving TFTs, which have a leakage current low enough to pull this off without significant luminance dips.


There still remains the same low-light caveat with the minimum refresh rate as last year, which is also present in Samsung's devices. In very dim conditions, when the screen is below 15% system brightness and the ambient brightness below 5 lux, the Pixel 7 Pro OLED will not ramp down from 120 Hz. This ensures you notice no flicker as the display switches refresh rates, which amplifies with low light levels. By forcing the screen to switch to and from 120 Hz and 10 Hz, I was able to notice a faint but undeniable difference in the brightness of dark patches near minimum brightness, so the limitation seems somewhat justified. What's interesting is that this constraint does not occur when Smooth Display is disabled, and the panel switches between 10 Hz and 60 Hz as normal. But there still exists a flicker (although even more faint), so I believe this is either an oversight when bringing LFD to the 60 Hz mode, or Google decided the difference is minimal enough to let it slide.

In terms of power savings, there's a substantial difference between active and idle. When resting at 10 Hz, the Pixel 7 Pro OLED uses 250 milliwatts less power than when driven at 120 Hz. However, the disparity isn't really owed to the power savings of the 10 Hz idle state, but rather the steep price of running the display at 120 Hz.

When measuring the power discrepancy between 60 Hz and 120 Hz, the latter consumes an additional 200 milliwatts, while the savings between 10 Hz and 60 Hz is only about 50 milliwatts. And on the base Pixel 7, the difference between 60 Hz and 90 Hz is only about 70 milliwatts.
Given these measurements, I believe Google could significantly improve its low-light battery situation by ramping down the display to at least 90 Hz when idle.
 
So XDA Developer did a review of the Google Pixel 7 Pro's (and the Google Pixel 7's) OLED display. And there are definitely interesting tidbits with respect to the refresh rate of the Google Pixel 7 Pro's (and the Google Pixel 7's) OLED display and how that pertains to VRR.
Interesting. I wonder if there are latency implications for doing this in driver.

I also don't really have a sense of how VRR feels when used like this, when you're dropping to an ultra low frame rate on a phone (while, say, reading a webpage) to save power, versus compensating for an unstable, higher frame rate like in a video game
 
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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..
What if all these leaks without false? Has anyone looked up the sources? The t239 thing comes from a Twitter user, and from something supposedly from Linux, but the latter is not on an official page, so I would take it as a Fake.

Review in famitsu the comments from the last meeting of shareholders and they explain more clearly what Nintendo is indicating since 2021 with that image of the next generation 20XX referring to integrated Hardware and Software, they refer that the games they develop can only be played in that system, that system will give them advantages over other games in the industry. How would they achieve it, I think they would not follow the hybrid concept. Ask yourself, after the hybrid system what would be next. Could it be that Nintendo already has everything ready for VR or holograms (AR)? as I said before I think they are taking 3D to the next level.

Doing these types of things that no one expects is in their DNA
 
What if all these leaks without false? Has anyone looked up the sources? The t239 thing comes from a Twitter user, and from something supposedly from Linux, but the latter is not on an official page, so I would take it as a Fake.
this is your brain when you don't actually pay attention, yall

the t239 has been corroborated by stolen nvidia information, whom Nvidia acknowledged was real. and you really thing official linux commits would be faked? come on son.
 
this is your brain when you don't actually pay attention, yall

the t239 has been corroborated by stolen nvidia information, whom Nvidia acknowledged was real. and you really thing official linux commits would be faked? come on son.
Nvidia said they had a hack, but never said that the data of the next Nintendo processor had been leaked, that is something that people concluded on their own, you do not know if what was supposedly leaked was legitimate data or someone took advantage of it to spread a rumor .

Something that perhaps has more weight, are the statements of a tester who was fired, he used some lines that said that he saw everything red, a similar phrase used by those who tried the Virtual Boy.

Personally, I hope that Nintendo innovates again and not only adds power, something that Miyamoto already hinted at with his latest statements.
 
Personally, I hope that Nintendo innovates again and not only adds power, something that Miyamoto already hinted at with his latest statements.

Miyamoto also said Pikkmin 4 can be controlled like newer before. Gyro was in Pikmin 3, maybe we get some improved Joy Con which fixes the gyro limitations.
 
look at my pfp do you think that is something expensive to me?
Why yes, yes I do.
no one said it has to be your own soul...
I submit @TonyBaduy as a special case offering for this occasion 🤭
Nvidia said they had a hack, but never said that the data of the next Nintendo processor had been leaked, that is something that people concluded on their own, you do not know if what was supposedly leaked was legitimate data or someone took advantage of it to spread a rumor .

Something that perhaps has more weight, are the statements of a tester who was fired, he used some lines that said that he saw everything red, a similar phrase used by those who tried the Virtual Boy.

Personally, I hope that Nintendo innovates again and not only adds power, something that Miyamoto already hinted at with his latest statements.


“The doctor said that the baby is yours. How do you know the baby is yours?

We got a DNA test that says it.

But has the baby confirmed it’s your baby??”
 
So what do people think of the old scroll wheel bumpers idea that was thrown around coming back?

I think it would be an interesting and unique control method. Other than analog triggers, which should come back. Though they'd get dirty real quick.
 
So what do people think of the old scroll wheel bumpers idea that was thrown around coming back?

I think it would be an interesting and unique control method. Other than analog triggers, which should come back. Though they'd get dirty real quick.
I think that not using an actual physical wheel would help reduce that. The shoulder button functions as a wheel itself, but it’s touch sensitive.

If you slide your right index finger from left to right on the right shoulder button, it acts as a virtual wheel. The haptic engine in the switch controllers would also help you know if you rolled over to whatever it is you are selecting.

If you catch my drift (Joycon notwithstanding)


Otherwise I don’t see how they can make a scroll wheel in the same form factor unless they make it physically bigger. I also don’t know how they can reduce possibilities of faulty issues occurring.
 
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So what do people think of the old scroll wheel bumpers idea that was thrown around coming back?

I think it would be an interesting and unique control method. Other than analog triggers, which should come back. Though they'd get dirty real quick.
As a big fan of the idea, I can come up with a few possible scenarios...

  • Quick menu scrolling without pausing the game, or cumbersome keybindings - for example, in Monster Hunter, you could scroll through items without having to commit to 3 different buttons. In BOTW, there wouldn't be a need to pause the game to scroll through your weapons, shields and arrows.

  • Could be used as a third analog input type, without taking over one of the sticks. This would allow character movement (left stick), camera movement (right stick), and control of up to 2 other objects (one for each scroll wheel shoulder button) at the same time. Currently, the only other option is forcing gyroscope controls to achieve something similar.

  • Could be used for quick scrolling through 2D planes (for example, maps). Left and Right scroll wheel shoulder buttons would control X and Y axis, respectively.

  • A more niche example would be allowing the player to aim (right stick) and zooming in/out (scroll shoulder) while still allowing character movement (left stick). In more fast paced games, this could be a very welcome feature.
 
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Nvidia said they had a hack, but never said that the data of the next Nintendo processor had been leaked, that is something that people concluded on their own, you do not know if what was supposedly leaked was legitimate data or someone took advantage of it to spread a rumor .
The Tegra 239 chip that got leaked and updated is related to Nintendo. You should read this: https://famiboards.com/threads/futu...nology-speculation-st.55/page-517#post-413799

If you're still in denial after this then you're just trolling at this point.
 
Something that perhaps has more weight, are the statements of a tester who was fired, he used some lines that said that he saw everything red, a similar phrase used by those who tried the Virtual Boy.
Alright I giggled at this, well played.
 
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tbh if a studio like Zynga really has a devkit, you can be sure that P* has one too.
I still find it funny that out of all the studios Zynga was the one named lol. I think this was also before the Take-Two acquisition so guessing their work outside of the Star Wars game was a fools errand.
 
I still find it funny that out of all the studios Zynga was the one named lol. I think this was also before the Take-Two acquisition so guessing their work outside of the Star Wars game was a fools errand.
if they were willing to name a studio, either Mochizuki was really ballsy or they had multiple sources in Zynga to confirm this
 
Please read this staff post before posting.

Furthermore, according to this follow-up post, all off-topic chat will be moderated.
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