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

[Kevin]

It's almost like it's too good for Nintendo studios, right? Haha, jokes aside, i'm wondering how long it'll take for the EPD teams to make a Horizon in a regular basis, as the absolute bare minimum for every 1st party release.

Probably be awhile. That being said I personally believe quite a few of their biggest teams have been working on next gen content for awhile. If the Switch 2 releases in 2024, I feel they will likely have at least one or two major showpiece titles to release within that year. All speculation of course.

The easy upgrade would be to just bump games to 4K/60 with current visuals, the harder work is creating next gen games from the ground up with higher quality textures, character models and other assets and effects not capable on current Switch.

I think all of this will take time but I'm definitely eager to finally see and play some of this content.

 

[Lancelot]

Probably be awhile. That being said I personally believe quite a few of their biggest teams have been working on next gen content for awhile. If the Switch 2 releases in 2024, I feel they will likely have at least one or two major showpiece titles to release within that year. All speculation of course.

The easy upgrade would be to just bump games to 4K/60 with current visuals, the harder work is creating next gen games from the ground up with higher quality textures, character models and other assets and effects not capable on current Switch.

I think all of this will take time but I'm definitely eager to finally see and play some of this content.

Same, but I think this will show the technical deficiencies of every team more than any console before. Like, Monolith Soft and Mario EPD might legitimately be ages ahead from other 1st party Drake titles, that will just hit 4K with early PS4 visuals and call it a day.

 

[Procheno]

So

Was anything eyebrow raising in regards to this topic announced at the NVidia CES showcase?

 

[Skittzo]

So

Was anything eyebrow raising in regards to this topic announced at the NVidia CES showcase?

The lack of any announcement of a product using T239 suggests Nintendo's console will likely have to be released this calendar year.

 

[ReddDreadtheLead]

Sigh... You've been literally implying all this time Drake (Ampere) is a different architecture to the RDNA2 in PS5 and Series X, therefore it can't be directly compared to them. Sure, but all your arguments fall apart when Orin is almost 1/1 Ampere, and it's been shown to be more efficient flop-per-flop than the architecture in those consoles. The only way to not get this performance is if Nvidia fucked up the NVN2 implementation, which as i'm telling you, that's not going to happen.

Note, you changed the ballparks from originally being an ARM architecture like the Switch, therefore = bad and now you moved to the GPU being different in comparison... Again, sure, but do you know AMD has historically struggled to hit the efficiency levels that Nvidia architectures do? You used AMD so much times in your old message i'm even wondering if you know who's the manufacturer behind this, the architecture in Drake is superior to the next gen consoles even if it doesn't have the same level of compute those have.

my guy I have no idea what you’re referring to at this point because you’re really not even on the same page as me and you’re trying to argue something I never even said and trying to accuse me of something I never even said. This whole post not only put words in my mouth, also accused me of making arguments or mischaracterized arguments for ??? reasons and has nothing to do with what I’m talking about here.

I go from saying that Drake will have a different GPU architecture so it will be approached differently than the RDNA2 based GPUs in architecture, and you go on spouting that I’m saying it’s weaker, that it won’t have enough compute, that I’m implying NVidia is incompetent or amateur with NVN2, that it’s less efficient or that’s what you’re implying that I’m saying that’s less efficient now???


I could say I like pancakes and you’d somehow come up with me saying I hate waffles or some shit.


I don’t even think you’ve actually read most of the comments and you’re just skimming them at this point.

 

[Goodtwin]

For example, I'm curious to see how gracefully UE5 titles can scale down to Switch.

Support for OG Switch with AAA ports is quickly dry up, and these AAA publishers will release ports of their games for Switch 2 and not OG Switch. Switch will see a year or two of cross gen titles from Nintendo and many Japanese developers will continue to support Switch for a few years. Nintendo will need to discount the Switch once the Switch 2 is announced, its hard to have a brand new $399 Switch 2 selling next to a $349 Switch OLED.

Is anybody here familiar with manufacturing cost for various processes? For example, would a 8nm chip be cheaper than a 4nm chip even if its nearly twice as big? I could see Nintendo going with 8nm and low clock speeds if Nintendo can deal with large size and its considerably cheaper than moving to a more modern process.

 

[Lancelot]

my guy I have no idea what you’re referring to at this point because you’re really not even on the same page as me and you’re trying to argue something I never even said and trying to accuse me of something I never even said. This whole post not only put words in my mouth, also accused me of making arguments or mischaracterized arguments for ??? reasons and has nothing to do with what I’m talking about here.

I go from saying that Drake will have a different GPU architecture so it will be approached differently than the RDNA2 based GPUs in architecture, and you go on spouting that I’m saying it’s weaker, that it won’t have enough compute, that I’m implying NVidia is incompetent or amateur with NVN2, that it’s less efficient or that’s what you’re implying that I’m saying that’s less efficient now???


I could say I like pancakes and you’d somehow come up with me saying I hate waffles or some shit.


I don’t even think you’ve actually read most of the comments and you’re just skimming them at this point.

The "different" approach still doesn't need to be harder or even take more effort at all, that's what you need to get through your head. It's a better, more efficient architecture and because of it, it must be, at a minimum, just as fast and easy to develop as long as Nvidia wants it to be. Stop creating imaginary difficulties to devs for development here, because as far as the Switch is concerned, there were no difficulties because of the architectures at all. It got the best 3rd party support of the last three systems of the company, and Drake will certainly get a lot more by default as long as it's a successful system.

The rest of your comment is just victim complex I care zero about.

 

[Skittzo]

The "different" approach still doesn't need to be harder or even take more effort at all, that's what you need to get through your head. It's a better, more efficient architecture and because of it, it must be, at a minimum, just as fast and easy to develop as long as Nvidia wants it to be. Stop creating imaginary difficulties to devs for development here, because as far as the Switch is concerned, there were no difficulties because of the architectures at all. It got the best 3rd party support of the last three systems of the company, and Drake will certainly get a lot more by default as long as it's a successful system.

The rest of your comment is just victim complex I care zero about.

I think you're misunderstanding Redd. I believe he's saying porting a game to Switch or Drake will still require work and effort on the part of developers not necessarily because it's weaker but because porting to a different environment in general (i.e. RDNA to Ampere) is not super trivial, assuming you want the optimal port.

Going from two consoles that share more or less the same instruction set to one that is wildly different, regardless of its actual processing capability, is not a trivial change.

 

[Hidden04]

I feel like all of the "halfway through the life cycle" talk is extremely pointless because it can really mean whatever you want it to mean. It's hard to glean too much from that IMO.

They could be refering to the OG Switch lifecycle. After Drake launches they could very well say that the OG Switch lifecycle is over and refer to Drake as a new generation.

 

[Lancelot]

I think you're misunderstanding Redd. I believe he's saying porting a game to Switch or Drake will still require work and effort on the part of developers not necessarily because it's weaker but because porting to a different environment in general (i.e. RDNA to Ampere) is not super trivial, assuming you want the optimal port.

Going from two consoles that share more or less the same instruction set to one that is wildly different, regardless of its actual processing capability, is not a trivial change.

Sure, but I think this is still a non-issue because for the Switch in particular, we still had GCN AMD consoles that didn't even have all the features the Maxwell-Pascal of the TX1 did have. I seriously don't see the point or how it's even more difficult than it already was for the predecessor. If anything, the power jump and the superiority of Ampere will make it easier.

 

[ILikeFeet]

For example, I'm curious to see how gracefully UE5 titles can scale down to Switch.

see Fortnite, probably. if your stripe down all the shaders to pure diffuse, and some screenspace AO, you can probably you'd run on anything

 

[Skittzo]

They could be refering to the OG Switch lifecycle. After Drake launches they could very well say that the OG Switch lifecycle is over and refer to Drake as a new generation.

Or they could be referring to the idea of a product life cycle in general, which consists of growth, maturity, and decline. The fact that we don't know what he means makes the statement fairly meaningless.

Sure, but I think this is still a non-issue because for the Switch in particular, we still had GCN AMD consoles that didn't even have all the features the Maxwell-Pascal of the TX1 did have. I seriously don't see the point.

The point is you're not automatically going to get full parity from third parties, even if the games can run. There is still an additional opportunity cost for publishers.

 

[Deleted member 887]

Yeah, that doesn't explain why they're specifically testing the power consumption of Switch. That's... A pretty direct link to a Switch. And we know the Drake is for a Switch.

They're not, in any way, testing the power consumption of Switch. Not at all, not even a little bit, not a tiny bit, not in the slightest. They're not testing power consumption at all.

I don't want to be an ass here, I am really trying, but this is unequivocally, 100% not a thing that is happening, and it is extremely frustrating that these things come back over and over again when they aren't factual. I will concede on wildly differing interpretations of the facts, but I really struggle with having different facts. This is not in any way at all a power consumption test. Not the slightest bit.

It tested how Vulkan performed in given power constraints, which happened to be those of Nintendo Switch, and was right there in the NVN2 tree.

No, it did not, no it is not, and no it was not. These are not correct facts.

It tested how DLSS performed on various performance profiles that are not directly related to power consumption and the dlssDonutTest was copied FROM the DLSS tree into an application tree that is NOT the NVN2 tree.

The application tree does have an NVN2 section that the dlssDonutTest is copied into, but there are lots of things in there that have nothing to do with NVN2 that are there because the developer of NVN2 needs them for her work, not because they are relevant to NVN itself.

Which makes it pretty obvious that these are performance goals for a certain piece of silicon NVN2 is meant to run on it.

Again, we can disagree on the interpretation of the facts but your statement of facts is not inaccurate.

 

[ReddDreadtheLead]

I think you're misunderstanding Redd. I believe he's saying porting a game to Switch or Drake will still require work and effort on the part of developers not necessarily because it's weaker but because porting to a different environment in general (i.e. RDNA to Ampere) is not super trivial, assuming you want the optimal port.

Going from two consoles that share more or less the same instruction set to one that is wildly different, regardless of its actual processing capability, is not a trivial change.

To add to this, going back to the original comment, which was assuming the scalability of unreal engine 5 will mean a lot more AAA titles for the Nintendo switch drake, I implied of a certain platform that is similar enough, and even then it doesn’t get all the games. That platform is Xbox. Even despite being similar to the other platform it does not get every AAA title. This is such a long way you’re basically saying that just because you can doesn’t mean it will. A good portion of the time it has nothing to do with the performance of it.


Basically it’s naive to assume anyway that just because it is performant enough that this now means AAA title support will be loads better for the next Nintendo system. Or easy. It’s more than that.

 

[Lancelot]

Or they could be referring to the idea of a product life cycle in general, which consists of growth, maturity, and decline. The fact that we don't know what he means makes the statement fairly meaningless.

The point is you're not automatically going to get full parity from third parties, even if the games can run. There is still an additional opportunity cost for publishers.

Which... At this point, it might as well be so low many budget games from indies, AA devs, etc are actually releasing exclusively in the Switch. I'm just following the facts from the console we already have.

 

[Deleted member 887]

If it really is this good then that only amplifies my expectations and how great I think we'll have it.

Note, it's a PS4 Pro with a superpowered CPU linearly when docked without any tricks and RT cores involved. When putting DLSS, these and modern techniques on the mix, it's easily beating Series S in real world scenarios. Nintendo is going to make truly groundbreaking things for this.

We have pretty good benchmarks on PS4 and Drake's basic technology, and good info about Drake's size, and even the most maxed out, wildest level estimates are not at PS4 Pro level before DLSS. That's just not really acheivable

 

[Lancelot]

Wow, you replied real fast there. I'm wondering if you just realized the concern is literally worth nothing...?

To add to this, going back to the original comment, which was assuming the scalability of unreal engine 5 will mean a lot more AAA titles for the Nintendo switch drake, I implied of a certain platform that is similar enough, and even then it doesn’t get all the games. That platform is Xbox. Even despite being similar to the other platform it does not get every AAA title. This is such a long way you’re basically saying that just because you can doesn’t mean it will. A good portion of the time it has nothing to do with the performance of it.


Basically it’s naive to assume anyway that just because it is performant enough that this now means AAA title support will be loads better for the next Nintendo system. Or easy. It’s more than that.

 

[Lancelot]

Note, Xbox doesn't get any of those games because of concerns entirely unrelated to computation power/difficulties. They simply don't sell on Xbox, just like they wouldn't sell on Nintendo, this is yet another wrapping of your part unrelated to the development for the actual console.

 

[ShaunSwitch]

Just to get us back on the track of hardware speculation. Someone earlier asked about drake supporting HDR, but my question is would it be able to support 4KHDR in docked mode?

We know it has 4 PCI-E lanes total, Orin NX also has 4 PCI-E lanes with one operating at gen 4 speeds and three at gen 3 speeds.

I'm not sure how the pci e lanes will be utilised but I'm sure at least one has to be used for the USB c connection to the dock. With gen 4 operating at 2GB/s per lane, is there enough bandwidth to carry a 4k30fps signal with HDR? Or does it not work that way and PCI-E lanes aren't needed for the USB C connection?

I'm not that knowledgeable with regards to this stuff. I did find the requirements for display port 1.4 to be a data rate of 25.9 Gb/s with each USB C lane offering 10Gb/s, so technically using three USB C lanes for display port over USB c and then one for data should offer full display port 1.4 functionality including HDR but I'm not sure if the limitation will be the bandwidth from PCI E lanes.

Anybody more technical know the answer?

 

[Kevin]

We have pretty good benchmarks on PS4 and Drake's basic technology, and good info about Drake's size, and even the most maxed out, wildest level estimates are not at PS4 Pro level before DLSS. That's just not really acheivable

I would say it's still a very solid upgrade over current Switch but if Nintendo doesn't release a new system by 2024 then yeah this tech will basically feel obsolete by then. So I think it just depends on how far out the Switch 2 really is at this point. I'm ready for 4K/60 Tears of the Kingdom!

 

[Lancelot]

We have pretty good benchmarks on PS4 and Drake's basic technology, and good info about Drake's size, and even the most maxed out, wildest level estimates are not at PS4 Pro level before DLSS. That's just not really acheivable

That would mean Ampere isn't even all that better to a 6 years old architecture, which is definitely not true. Sure, it's literally not at PS4 Pro level linearly, but newer techniques and RT cores put it in a position where it's potentially better in practice (not like the FLOP difference was all that much). The rest of the estimates with DLSS joining the rendering are definitely matching Series S at the very least.

 

[Goodtwin]

and good info about Drake's size

What would that size be?

 

[Skittzo]

What would that size be?

12SMs, which is the size of the GPU. I don't think oldpuck was referring to the physical dimensions.

 

[Procheno]

The lack of any announcement of a product using T239 suggests Nintendo's console will likely have to be released this calendar year.

Please

 

[Serif]

What is the estimated performance of docked Drake then, in comparison to a PS4 Pro?

 

[Lancelot]

Just to get us back on the track of hardware speculation. Someone earlier asked about drake supporting HDR, but my question is would it be able to support 4KHDR in docked mode?

We know it has 4 PCI-E lanes total, Orin NX also has 4 PCI-E lanes with one operating at gen 4 speeds and three at gen 3 speeds.

I'm not sure how the pci e lanes will be utilised but I'm sure at least one has to be used for the USB c connection to the dock. With gen 4 operating at 2GB/s per lane, is there enough bandwidth to carry a 4k30fps signal with HDR? Or does it not work that way and PCI-E lanes aren't needed for the USB C connection?

I'm not that knowledgeable with regards to this stuff. I did find the requirements for display port 1.4 to be a data rate of 25.9 Gb/s with each USB C lane offering 10Gb/s, so technically using three USB C lanes for display port over USB c and then one for data should offer full display port 1.4 functionality including HDR but I'm not sure if the limitation will be the bandwidth from PCI E lanes.

Anybody more technical know the answer?

I'm wondering, one of these will be able to be dedicated for the storage? Because 1 GB/s sounds like the biggest bottleneck this will have, after RAM bandwidth in higher resolutions.

 

[Deleted member 887]

That would mean Ampere isn't even all that better to a 6 years old architecture, which is definitely not true. Sure, it's literally not at PS4 Pro level linearly, but newer techniques and RT cores put it in a position where it's potentially better in practice (not like the FLOP difference was all that much). The rest of the estimates with DLSS joining the rendering are definitely matching Series S at the very least.

Ampere is much better than GCN4. About 1.8x more powerful. But the PS4 Pro is 3x as big as Drake. Ampere can be incredible, but you're still miniaturizing the system, and there is only so far you can go.

Yes, I think that, at the high end, a Drake system with DLSS could make better-than-PS4-Pro experiences, but the idea that it's going to be PS4 Pro level before DLSS, or able to easily trounce Series S is probably inaccurate.

What would that size be?

12SMs, which is the size of the GPU. I don't think oldpuck was referring to the physical dimensions.

Yeah, 12SMs versus the PS4 Pro's 36CUs.

That said: I do have some data on Drake's possible physical size. But I'm waiting for some dust to settle on the recent drama (and for some more data) before I drop any of it.

 

[LiC]

I'm not trying to rag on you or knock your hope or anything like that. Just want to keep some (subtle!) facts straight.

These tests are not for an Orin chip for Nintendo. dlssDonutTest is a generic DLSS test, and has been copied into the NVN2 tree from an external location. dlssDonutTest can be used to test multiple graphics API integrations for DLSS - NVN2, but also DX11, DX12, and Vulkan.

The test scripts posted have been altered over time, and at one point also tested a Vulkan integration of DLSS, with absolutely zero relationship to Nintendo, it's API, or its hardware, and used the same test cases and wattage labels.

I could write a long post about the other things that these numbers could refer to, but that's been done to death. I just want to say that there is no hard evidence that links these tests directly to Drake, and it entirely possible that the tests actually predate NVN2 and are, in fact, references to something that has meaning to the DLSS team and not the NVN2 team at all.

They're not, in any way, testing the power consumption of Switch. Not at all, not even a little bit, not a tiny bit, not in the slightest. They're not testing power consumption at all.

I don't want to be an ass here, I am really trying, but this is unequivocally, 100% not a thing that is happening, and it is extremely frustrating that these things come back over and over again when they aren't factual. I will concede on wildly differing interpretations of the facts, but I really struggle with having different facts. This is not in any way at all a power consumption test. Not the slightest bit.

No, it did not, no it is not, and no it was not. These are not correct facts.

It tested how DLSS performed on various performance profiles that are not directly related to power consumption and the dlssDonutTest was copied FROM the DLSS tree into an application tree that is NOT the NVN2 tree.

The application tree does have an NVN2 section that the dlssDonutTest is copied into, but there are lots of things in there that have nothing to do with NVN2 that are there because the developer of NVN2 needs them for her work, not because they are relevant to NVN itself.

Again, we can disagree on the interpretation of the facts but your statement of facts is not inaccurate.

 

[Deleted member 887]

What is the estimated performance of docked Drake then, in comparison to a PS4 Pro?

That's a more complicated question than it sounds like because of DLSS. That's why "before DLSS/after DLSS" becomes so important, and then so confusing.

Short version: Docked Drake should be able to handle PS4 Pro games at about equal performance and quality because of DLSS, not before it. Obviously, clock speed and amount of RAM will matter, but that is a pretty reasonable estimation. I can do the long version if you want, but I find no one reads the long version and then they grab quotes out of context.

 

[Concernt]

They're not, in any way, testing the power consumption of Switch. Not at all, not even a little bit, not a tiny bit, not in the slightest. They're not testing power consumption at all.

I don't want to be an ass here, I am really trying, but this is unequivocally, 100% not a thing that is happening, and it is extremely frustrating that these things come back over and over again when they aren't factual. I will concede on wildly differing interpretations of the facts, but I really struggle with having different facts. This is not in any way at all a power consumption test. Not the slightest bit.



No, it did not, no it is not, and no it was not. These are not correct facts.

It tested how DLSS performed on various performance profiles that are not directly related to power consumption and the dlssDonutTest was copied FROM the DLSS tree into an application tree that is NOT the NVN2 tree.

The application tree does have an NVN2 section that the dlssDonutTest is copied into, but there are lots of things in there that have nothing to do with NVN2 that are there because the developer of NVN2 needs them for her work, not because they are relevant to NVN itself.



Again, we can disagree on the interpretation of the facts but your statement of facts is not inaccurate.

It's explicitly a power consumption test. If you don't want to "be an ass", don't be one. Maybe not a test of power consumption, but a test that is, yes, to do with power consumption, and by no coincidence, power consumption that lines up with the Switch. Accept that or not.

 

[Lancelot]

Ampere is much better than GCN4. About 1.8x more powerful. But the PS4 Pro is 3x as big as Drake. Ampere can be incredible, but you're still miniaturizing the system, and there is only so far you can go.

Yes, I think that, at the high end, a Drake system with DLSS could make better-than-PS4-Pro experiences, but the idea that it's going to be PS4 Pro level before DLSS, or able to easily trounce Series S is probably inaccurate.


Yeah, 12SMs versus the PS4 Pro's 36CUs.

That said: I do have some data on Drake's possible physical size. But I'm waiting for some dust to settle on the recent drama (and for some more data) before I drop any of it.

Ampere is much better than GCN4. About 1.8x more powerful. But the PS4 Pro is 3x as big as Drake. Ampere can be incredible, but you're still miniaturizing the system, and there is only so far you can go.

Yes, I think that, at the high end, a Drake system with DLSS could make better-than-PS4-Pro experiences, but the idea that it's going to be PS4 Pro level before DLSS, or able to easily trounce Series S is probably inaccurate.


Yeah, 12SMs versus the PS4 Pro's 36CUs.

That said: I do have some data on Drake's possible physical size. But I'm waiting for some dust to settle on the recent drama (and for some more data) before I drop any of it.

Sounds about right, but it's still coming so close it's hard to discount it being stronger out of the box, there have been six years of architectural improvements and newer techniques like Meshlets... Besides, one was a mid-gen upgrade used for simply better IQ, and this is a full blown next gen. I'm easily expecting this to destroy supercharged games made for a fat PS4, especially if we get incredibly low DLSS ceilings later down the generation.

 

[Hermii]

I'm wondering, one of these will be able to be dedicated for the storage? Because 1 GB/s sounds like the biggest bottleneck this will have, after RAM bandwidth in higher resolutions.

1gb per second storage would not be bad at all. Plenty sufficient for Nanite.

 

[Instro]

Out of curiosity, if t239 was planned for one product("Switch Pro"), but during development Nintendo instead decided to shelve that product, and move forward with a successor("Switch 2") using the same in dev chip, but on a smaller node, would it still be considered "t239" at that point, or would the model number change? Although I guess we would know if there were a t239b out there at this point right?

Just thinking around how to reconcile some of the things we've heard lately.

 

[Lancelot]

1gb per second storage would not be bad at all. Plenty sufficient for Nanite.

Not yet, but until games start to be made with the 5.5 GB/s of the lowest link (Xbox Series)... I'd begin to doubt high quality streaming and pop-in free games myself.

 

[Skittzo]

Out of curiosity, if t239 was planned for one product("Switch Pro"), but during development Nintendo instead decided to shelve that product, and move forward with a successor("Switch 2") using the same in dev chip, but on a smaller node, would it still be considered "t239" at that point, or would the model number change? Although I guess we would know if there were a t239b out there at this point right?

Just thinking around how to reconcile some of the things we've heard lately.

The model number and code name would change, a la Erista to Mariko.

 

[Deleted member 1324]

If the new chip really is basically a PS4 Pro, combining that with Nintendo's art and technical teams will yield some truly impressive results considering a base PS5 and PS4 Pro gave us titles like; Last of Us Part II, God of War & God of War: Ragnarok, Horizon: Zero Dawn & Horizon: Forbidden West, Sackboy, etc. All of these looked incredible on those systems and theoretically the Switch 2 chip could be even more capable with a more modern CPU and other architecture features not found in the PS4 or PS4 Pro.

Getting this in a portable hybrid system like Switch will be extremely cool. Can't wait to see what Nintendo's own development teams are able to achieve in the next 5+ years when this new system finally releases. I think we are all going to be in for a real treat because this upgrade is going to be a massive one.

This is what excites me most too. Having a handheld on par with a standard PS4 as base specs for Nintendo’s teams is incredibly exciting in terms of first party games.

 

[Lancelot]

Essentially, we could be getting Horizons any day by now. Even Ratchet & Clank 2016s if we want to be more... Humble, outstanding either way.

 

[Hermii]

Not yet, but until games start to be made with the 5.5 GB/s of the lowest link (Xbox Series)... I'd begin to doubt high quality streaming and pop-in free games myself.

It was always unrealistic to assume the next Switch would be able to run every game, or games would be free of compromises compared to its 200+ watt competition.

But if they are able to hit a baseline where modern rendering techniques are possible (1 gb/s definitely is within), we got nothing to complain about.

 

[Instro]

The model number and code name would change, a la Erista to Mariko.

So I was thinking about that initially, but in that case Erista was a completed and manufactured chip, whereas Drake is/was still in development. Does that make a difference, or it should still work the same?

 

[Lancelot]

It was always unrealistic to assume the next Switch would be able to run every game, or games would be free of compromises compared to its 200+ watt competition.

But if they are able to hit a baseline where modern rendering techniques are possible (1 gb/s definitely is within), we got nothing to complain about.

You also have the ol' reliable Wii/PSP choice, asking you to download data into the internal memory for seamless gameplay optionally. Wouldn't be the first time that happens, there are ways to go around this issue.

 

[ILikeFeet]

So I was thinking about that initially, but in that case Erista was a completed and manufactured chip, whereas Drake is/was still in development. Does that make a difference, or it should still work the same?

it would work the same

 

[Instro]

it would work the same

Ok thanks. That's what I figured.

 

[Pokemaniac]

So I was thinking about that initially, but in that case Erista was a completed and manufactured chip, whereas Drake is/was still in development. Does that make a difference, or it should still work the same?

It's hard to say without internal knowledge of Nvidia practices, but there's quite a few "missing" identifiers in the chips Nvidia produces that seem to suggest a chip doesn't have to get anywhere near completed to be assigned a distinct one.

 

[Deleted member 887]

* Hidden text: cannot be quoted. *

It's explicitly a power consumption test. If you don't want to "be an ass", don't be one.

First off, let me apologize for the intensity of my messages. By saying, I don't want to be an ass, I hoped to convey my tone. I am genuinely sorry.

Maybe not a test of power consumption, but a test that is, yes, to do with power consumption,

These are not the same thing, and it is an important distinction. am a performance engineer for a living. Performance testing of new software, sometimes running on Nvidia GPUs is what I do every single day. So perhaps I too narrowly interpreted your words. "Power consumption testing" means a specific thing, which this test is not. But I understand that's not what you were intending, and again, genuinely sorry for misinterpreting your words.

and by no coincidence, power consumption that lines up with the Switch. Accept that or not.

Does it? I haven't seen reliable Switch GPU power numbers, especially not at speeds different from clocks that the Switch supports. Where have we seen that the wattage numbers match the Switch? I am asking genuinely. When these numbers were initially posted I remember many people saying there is no existing GPU that has a matching power draw at those clocks.

 

[Rogue Agent]

Here’s the funny thing, if Nvidia didn’t announce for a consumer product, and it was meant for cars, they literally have an entire platform dedicated to this that is also based on the Ampere architecture and it is also a system on chip.


and Drake has no use for cars when ORIN exists because it performs literally worse. Why would you risk with something that performs worse than the platform you completely have dedicated for this? I think this squandered any possibility of this truly being meant for a car or for a consumer product in the immediate future that is not Nintendo. At least for now. Or until further notice.

Yes: Drake performs worse for its use case in automotive. Henceforth it isn’t right for a car.

Maybe it'll be a Nintendo car. Play the new Switch while AI drives for you, powered by T234 and T239

 

[NintenDuvo]

Do we actually have solid proof that the T239 chip has been produced?

 

[HankyPanky]

Well, well... Seems like Bandai Namco has a collab with Nintendo for something, is there a chance this is a Drake game?

RIIIDGE RACER....8

 

[Concernt]

* Hidden text: cannot be quoted. *


First off, let me apologize for the intensity of my messages. By saying, I don't want to be an ass, I hoped to convey my tone. I am genuinely sorry.


These are not the same thing, and it is an important distinction. am a performance engineer for a living. Performance testing of new software, sometimes running on Nvidia GPUs is what I do every single day. So perhaps I too narrowly interpreted your words. "Power consumption testing" means a specific thing, which this test is not. But I understand that's not what you were intending, and again, genuinely sorry for misinterpreting your words.



Does it? I haven't seen reliable Switch GPU power numbers, especially not at speeds different from clocks that the Switch supports. Where have we seen that the wattage numbers match the Switch? I am asking genuinely. When these numbers were initially posted I remember many people saying there is no existing GPU that has a matching power draw at those clocks.

See I don't think that's a number representing the GPU's power consumption. I'll circle back to this.

This is a test relating to power consumption. I mean no offence when I say I don't care about being pedantic here.

The wattages presented, specifically, 4W (to quote Nintendo, all power figures are rounded to nearest Watt) the stated power consumption of the entire Nintendo Switch OLED Model in handheld mode. That is what these numbers appear to mean. The power consumption of the entire system, excluding charging Joy-Con or such. 12W lines up with TV mode power consumption for the original Nintendo Switch HAC-001. I found these figures on Nintendo.com, I didn't pull them from thin air.

It would be an extraordinary coincidence for listed expected power consumption to match so closely with the power envelope of existing Switch units, and be alongside other data related to NVN2, an API for a new Nintendo console, but for it NOT to refer to the power consumption (well, expected power consumption) of a... Nintendo device. It's in the Nintendo folder and uses the same figures as Nintendo's current device.

The probability they are something else is not nil but is certainly extremely low. It would simply be an extraordinary coincidence.

 

[Concernt]

Do we actually have solid proof that the T239 chip has been produced?

We seem to have PCIe lane timing tests done, which should only happen on final hardware. Would be very odd to build out Linux support if you don't have the chip to work with.

 

[CocaFormula]

Out of curiosity, if t239 was planned for one product("Switch Pro"), but during development Nintendo instead decided to shelve that product, and move forward with a successor("Switch 2") using the same in dev chip, but on a smaller node, would it still be considered "t239" at that point, or would the model number change? Although I guess we would know if there were a t239b out there at this point right?

Just thinking around how to reconcile some of the things we've heard lately.

I am also bugged by the same line of thought. I was wondering - and I might say something stupid here - if us relying so much on the leak (for obvious reasons) is not making us not consider other possibilities.
The leak tells us that there was only one SOC in the works for NVN2 ever, and that's T239. Is there the possibility that at least a different chip was being developed for a revision, and therefore, to be used with the original NVN only? Could this have been at least in a preliminary phase, Orin Nano? That would have theoretically fit more the mould of a DLSS capable mid-gen refresh, wouldn't it?
Am I saying nonsense here?