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

[ReyVGM]

Hey everyone. Just a friendly reminder to be nice to each other. Don't forget that we have the ignore feature if you do not like someone's posts


-Josh5890, PixelKnight, Irene

Ignoring someone doesn't really work if you're still seeing dozens upon dozens of replies to their posts. There should be an option to also ignore posts that reply to someone you have on ignore.

 

[D36]

please do not ruin the process for the rest of us

Wrong thread for that one, I'm afraid.

 

[mjayer]

Can our tech experts have a peak at this and give a response?



TLDR: His sources say Drake canceled, Nintendo going with newer gen/better stuff

Question 1: Might they? Seems unlikely.
Question 2: BUT if they did do that, how much better than drake would we be getting!?

 

[Noleth]

Man I’m excited for this system but also absolutely dread getting it on launch, I’m expecting a PS5 situation.
Hopefully performance-wise the system doesn’t end up disappointing from what we know, would love to see this pull through.

 

[Dark Cloud]

Nate and DF dropping vids on Monday?

 

[Dakhil]

The cooling would be perfectly fine, you underestimate the performance-per-watt of an ARM N4P chip vs an x86 N7 chip.

TSMC's 4N process node's based on TSMC's N4 process node, not TSMC's N4P process node. (That's assuming Drake's fabricated using TSMC's 4N process node.)

 

[JoshuaJSlone]

4K 60Fps even with DLSS seems like a lot of battery being used I don't know how realistic that is

It's not going to be running off the battery when doing 4K.

Do you think that if it does a 4K frame in 2-3ms when docked, a 1080p frame in handheld would be even faster? Assuming that the modes are 7 and 15W, and we aren't getting a 25W docked mode.

Since the fixed costs outside of target resolution don't seem great, if it's only targeting a quarter the pixels then the GPU would have to slow down way more than any of the Switch 1 modes do for it to not be faster.

I'm not going to pretend that I'm a massive tech head (I'm really not, hence why I'm here), but I have a hard time believing that NG Switch will be in the ballpark of Series S..... Let alone PS4 Pro or One X.

What would the battery life be like? How would they keep it cool? How would they keep the price down so it's a viable mass-market device?

I can just about believe that something around PS4 levels of power in your hand is achievable, with modern components, DLSS, slightly bumped performance when docked...... Anything else seems like a rather expensive pipe dream.

I just don't believe for one second that this new machine will hit the levels some are so staunchly believing it will. There is some level-headedness around here though, so that's reassuring if it turns out that it's running the Matrix demo with a few 'buts' and 'howevers'.

The thing is, PS4 levels of power but with modern components does bring you closer to Series S than PS4 in results.

And I do wonder if that's something on Nintendo's mind, making sure 1080p ultra performance mode is of an acceptable quality in portable mode, it may already be with that smaller screen.

It's... better image quality than a lot of third party Switch 1 portable games, I guess. From my No Man's Sky DLSS set, the 360->1080 images: 1, 2, 3.

 

[Brubi]

Can our tech experts have a peak at this and give a response?



TLDR: His sources say Drake canceled, Nintendo going with newer gen/better stuff

Question 1: Might they? Seems unlikely.
Question 2: BUT if they did do that, how much better than drake would we be getting!?

I think If the source ist right, IT will BE the Same Type more or less than Drake.
A complete new soc would be years away.

More SM and CPU Cores, Higher clock and faster DDR5 RAM Type. Ist what i would think of

 

[Paxie]

Can our tech experts have a peak at this and give a response?



TLDR: His sources say Drake canceled, Nintendo going with newer gen/better stuff

Question 1: Might they? Seems unlikely.
Question 2: BUT if they did do that, how much better than drake would we be getting!?

Does this dude have a track record?

 

[lexony]

Can our tech experts have a peak at this and give a response?



TLDR: His sources say Drake canceled, Nintendo going with newer gen/better stuff

Question 1: Might they? Seems unlikely.
Question 2: BUT if they did do that, how much better than drake would we be getting!?

He sounds genuine but the stuff he tells is too good to be true.

 

[Hermii]

Can our tech experts have a peak at this and give a response?



TLDR: His sources say Drake canceled, Nintendo going with newer gen/better stuff

Question 1: Might they? Seems unlikely.
Question 2: BUT if they did do that, how much better than drake would we be getting!?

1. Yea extremely unlikely.

2. Unless they go 3nm, not much.

 

[Discostew]

There will be a software based BC layer on day one which should cover the vast majority of things. They may decide to opt more games in to a higher performance mode over time, but the main refinement that will happen will be focused on correctness.

The main driver for enhancements to existing games will most likely be patches which either remove all performance limits, but still leave the game running under BC, or make the game run fully native.

I wonder. How much modding work would it take to uncap a Switch game that was forced to limit itself below the Switch's 1080p60 max (720p60 max portable)? Just wondering because what if the Switch 2 could make such modifications if it knew where to look? If it were something simple, like set memory locations in the games, then maybe as part of the system's base FW, it included a list of ALL (or most sought after) current Switch physical game releases. Switch game is loaded, and alterations are made based on the information for that game in the list. FW updates could include more physical games to this list. For digital games and game updates, this information could be downloaded, focusing only on the latest versions and clearing out old versions.

Just a thought.

 

[Dakhil]

Can our tech experts have a peak at this and give a response?



TLDR: His sources say Drake canceled, Nintendo going with newer gen/better stuff

Question 1: Might they? Seems unlikely.
Question 2: BUT if they did do that, how much better than drake would we be getting!?

See my response below.

Here's more proof that RedGamingTech isn't reliable.

Also, the Cortex-X4, the Cortex-A720, and the Cortex-A520 only have 64-bit support. And I believe there are 32-bit Nintendo Switch games. So that could present a problem with respect to backwards compatibility.

 

[ILikeFeet]

Does this dude have a track record?

of being a liar and a fraud

 

[RennanNT]

I'm not going to pretend that I'm a massive tech head (I'm really not, hence why I'm here), but I have a hard time believing that NG Switch will be in the ballpark of Series S..... Let alone PS4 Pro or One X.

What would the battery life be like? How would they keep it cool? How would they keep the price down so it's a viable mass-market device?

I can just about believe that something around PS4 levels of power in your hand is achievable, with modern components, DLSS, slightly bumped performance when docked...... Anything else seems like a rather expensive pipe dream.

I just don't believe for one second that this new machine will hit the levels some are so staunchly believing it will. There is some level-headedness around here though, so that's reassuring if it turns out that it's running the Matrix demo with a few 'buts' and 'howevers'.

A 4K TV has 4x more pixels than the image the PS4 outputs. That image is "stretched" to fill the entire screen, this is called upscaling and usually looks quite blurry in comparison to 4K content.

Brute forcing native 4K would take 4x more power. PS5 is 5.5x more powerful than PS4, so PS4 Pro would be too expensive in 2017 and PS5 games would look almost the same as the PS4 aside from being less blurry if they went this way.

What Sony did for the PS4 Pro is essentially getting halfway to 4K by bruteforce and then doing a better upscale to reach 4K. And while the new consoles have the power to bruteforce 4K, devs are also relying on better upscaling so that they can use the power bump to make games prettier instead.

And then Nvidia made DLSS 2.0, which completely outclasses the upscaling used by the PS4Pro and is still significantly ahead of what the new consoles have. It upscales all the way from 1080p to 4K with really good results, so the NG Switch docked should only need a bit more power than the PS4 to have non-blurry 4K output. And the same applies to handheld: they can make PS4 ports prettier but blurrier and then use DLSS to remove the blurriness.

The result is that games with DLSS are expected to look on par or better than PS4 versions, and that they won't look blurry in 4K TVs, which is the whole purpose of the PS4 Pro. And that's even if, in terms of raw GPU power, handheld is closer to XB1 than PS4 and docked is closer to PS4 than Pro.

And btw, there's more to consoles than GPU raw power and upscaling though. Series S is significantly more capable than the PS4 Pro, but instead of doing last gen version at higher resolution, devs chose to do new gen version at lower resolution (which is the purpose of the Series S, after all).

 

[PedroNavajas]

1. Yea extremely unlikely.

2. Unless they go 3nm, not much.

The jump from love lace to Ada seems decent (Nvidia prices aside) but we do have the node improvement. Could It be possible that pushing Lovelace to SoC format might be more cost efficient (or not much more expensive) than porting Drake to 4nm?

 

[ILikeFeet]

The jump from love lace to Ada seems decent (Nvidia prices aside) but we do have the node improvement. Could It be possible that pushing Lovelace to SoC format might be more cost efficient (or not much more expensive) than porting Drake to 4nm?

Ampere to Ada, you mean? (Lovelace is Ada's last name....sorta)

the improvements from Ampere to Ada was largely the node change rather than the arch change. so using Ada instead of Ampere wouldn't get you that much more

 

[10k]

@oldpuck @ILikeFeet @Thraktor and others, how do you guys know so much about hardware stuff like SoCs, chiplets etc...? Is it your job? I genuinely find the area so fascinating and am interested to hear how you guys got into it. Maybe PC gaming? Are one of you guys secretly Mr. Furukawa in disguise?

They’re just big ol’ nerds. NERRRRRDS.

 

[Giancarlo]

I agree to a certain extent, but I've also never seen Nintendo once say "and its in stores now!" for a physical game, even 3D All Stars. Leak was a strong word, but Nintendo also doesn't seem keen to announce a physical product the day its in stores, its less to do with not wanting people on forums to get their corporates secrets (which, clearly, even games releasing months from now aren't immune to already). Remasters could definitely be a test-bed for digital first releases, but the fact that they have done this twice and both times was a shadow drop (vs. a digital release a month from now, physical release two months from now) for a remaster (yes they've done that with digital games before like Snipperclips), I think warrants notice. But there is also a certain extent that digital sales are important to them now to the degree that they would be willing to even do this now, I dont think they'd have dared release a Metroid Prime remaster digitally only in 2017. I feel both are definitely factors, and without being in the room when they decided these things, I can't imagine there weren't other possible reasons as well. I'm just very much on team "lets get more shadow-drops".

too much logictic to release games worldwide in physical media shadow dropped

 

[Hermii]

The jump from love lace to Ada seems decent (Nvidia prices aside) but we do have the node improvement. Could It be possible that pushing Lovelace to SoC format might be more cost efficient (or not much more expensive) than porting Drake to 4nm?

I think you mean Ampere to Ada (Lovelace)

It's likely Drake was always designed as a 4 nm soc. 12 SM would simply be too large and power hungry for a portable on 8nm. It would have been 6 at the most probably.

And Drake was a finished, taped out soc mid last year. Are you telling me Nintendo would pay to finalize a custom soc, and never even use it in a product?

 

[kvetcha]

would like to remind everyone that I have jester's privilege and accordingly am definitionally unable to cyberbully anyone

our very own Triboulet.

 

[Teal'c]

Ratings don’t tend to go out for future consoles like this iirc. But I could totally see this being a title that’s enhanced at launch

Absolutely, I believe many will want to be in the launch line-up, with players hungry for new titles. If the game in question sold poorly, it makes even more sense.
The Switch version could be cloud

What if it's magnetic like the Pimax Portal

It seems very precarious

 

[Bigdog]

Nate and DF dropping vids on Monday?

What's Nate's channel on YT?

 

[Ghostsonplanets]

For those asking, RedGamingTech isn't a reliable person, being MLID tier for leaks. His only claim to fame was leaking the RDNA 2 dGPU Infinity Cache before announcement. But ever since that (back in early 2020), he more or less never leaked anything right. He has tons of wrong leaks and is unreliable.

Be wary of leakers who claim to know anything of all three/two GPU/CPU manufacturers and Game Console Makers. Specially stuff like T239 and Switch 2, which would require someone with internal Nvidia knowledge (Like Kopite) and internal Nintendo knowledge. People who claim to know of anything are full of bullshit.

 

[PedroNavajas]

I think you mean Ampere to Ada (Lovelace)

It's likely Drake was always designed as a 4 nm soc. 12 SM would simply be too large and power hungry for a portable on 8nm. It would have been 6 at the most probably.

And Drake was a finished, taped out soc mid last year. Are you telling me Nintendo would pay to finalize a custom soc, and never even use it in a product?

Yeah, sorry. I got confused with the names. And is true that it would be a waste of SoC design, but we do know that Nintendo cancelled a system with unknown specs.

 

[ghostboltz]

I'm sorry for asking the two SKUs question.

It won't happen again.

 

[Giancarlo]

For those asking, RedGamingTech isn't a reliable person, being MLID tier for leaks. His only claim to fame was leaking the RDNA 2 dGPU Infinity Cache before announcement. But ever since that (back in early 2020), he more or less never leaked anything right. He has tons of wrong leaks and is unreliable.

Be wary of leakers who claim to know anything of all three/two GPU/CPU manufacturers and Game Console Makers. Specially stuff like T239 and Switch 2, which would require someone with internal Nvidia knowledge (Like Kopite) and internal Nintendo knowledge. People who claim to know of anything are full of bullshit.

and yet, despite he not be reliable, i saw at least 3/4 articles using this person as a source

 

[ILikeFeet]

and yet, despite he not be reliable, i saw at least 3/4 articles using this person as a source

because a lot of outlets care about clicks rather than being accurate. you still see people cite Zippo whom is also a known fraud

 

[Giancarlo]

because a lot of outlets care about clicks rather than being accurate. you still see people cite Zippo whom is also a known fraud

typical journalism as usual

 

[Hermii]

Yeah, sorry. I got confused with the names. And is true that it would be a waste of SoC design, but we do know that Nintendo cancelled a system with unknown specs.

We do not know that for a fact. maybe Nintendo at some point wanted to release Drake earlier, maybe information got confused. We can only speculate.

 

[RedSpring]

I mean just the rudimentary math but if Nintendo locks in external storage basically is only one ticket in town (Nintendo's), the revenue gain could be significant, if they sell say 150-200 million "Nintendo Drive" cards (based on a Switch 2 userbase of over 100 million again) at a $10 profit margin per unit, when then that's like 2 billion dollars in extra profit revenue over the life cycle of the system. And that's probably on the low end

That's not a bad chunk of change at all.

People can't really complain that Nintendo is screwing them over by moving away from a open source SD Card setup, because Nintendo can just say SD Cards are simply not good enough performance wise to match their rising internal flash storage speeds and they had to make a format optimized to run for their new console. And really you can't say a whole lot to that because more or less they would be correct.

I'm saying they can do the same with Nintendo branded UFS/SDe card like they are currently doing with Nintendo branded SD card. The difference this time is that 99% of purchase will be for Nintendo so manufacturer would like to have the Nintendo branding on them. They still get a nice profit margin and don't have to put any work into developing a new format.

People are forced to use whatever Nintendo choose but why would Nintendo choose the option with more work for them. Using available format let them be automatically compatible with other devices. If I want to be able to plug it into my computer to transfer images, they will need to create a reader and driver for it as well. If they want to create a new standard that everyone will use, that will be one thing, otherwise that would be a lot of work for one device.

 

[eye0h]

What's Nate's channel on YT?

NateTheHate RGT 85

 

[qwerp]

NateTheHate RGT 85

The emulation king himself !

 

[Dakhil]

2. Unless they go 3nm, not much.

I don't know if there's going to be any significant improvements transitioning from TSMC's 4N process node to TSMC's N3E process node since TSMC's N3E process node's SRAM size is exactly the same as TSMC's N5 process node family's SRAM size.

 

[TomNookYankees]

Can our tech experts have a peak at this and give a response?



TLDR: His sources say Drake canceled, Nintendo going with newer gen/better stuff

Question 1: Might they? Seems unlikely.
Question 2: BUT if they did do that, how much better than drake would we be getting!?

It would explain why third parties were asked to return those "switch pro" dev kits, right?

 

[Hermii]

I don't know if there's going to be any significant improvements transitioning from TSMC's 4N process node to TSMC's N3E process node since TSMC's N3E process node's SRAM size is exactly the same as TSMC's N5 process node family's SRAM size.

Maybe not SRAM, but it is a significant boost in transistor density. Quoting the article you linked.
"
To put that into perspective, while N3B and N3E are both said to deliver a 1.6x and 1.7x chip-level transistor scaling, a 1.0x and 1.05x scaling of SRAM is catastrophic
"

I am not going to pretend to understand the performance implications of the lack of SRAM scaling.

Also from the article you linked:

"
Beyond SRAM, the industry has been looking into many other alternative memory architectures. Emerging memory technologies include MRAM, FeRAM, NRAM, RRAM, STT-RAM, PCM, and others. Those emerging memory bitcells offer unique tradeoffs when compared to SRAM such as higher density at lower read/write specifications, non-volatility capabilities, lower read-write cycle capabilities, or lower power at potentially lower density or speeds. While they are not direct replacements for SRAM, moving forward they might play a role as level 4 or level 5 caches where the lower performance tradeoffs can be offset by higher density.
"
So there are potential solutions here.

 

[ShadowFox08]

2 months, at most.

If we're assuming a similar launch date as the Switch, I believe the Switch didn't get a price reveal until January 12. And that's the blowout reveal.

 

[Cybergatuno]

A follow-up article to RedGamingTech's video:

Optimistic Nintendo Switch 2 specs leak puts forward huge CPU and GPU changes that would render Tegra T239 obsolete

The Nintendo Switch 2 specs could be greater than previously imagined if a new leak from a well-known tech YouTuber ends up being accurate. Apparently, the CPU and GPU components of the Switch 2 SoC might be considerably beefed-up by Nvidia, with the Tegra T239 chip now potentially past its best...

www.notebookcheck.net

Also, I found this thread where a user claims:

Leaker around Samsung in South Korea, which became a hot topic after saying that Tegra was canceled around April
Mediatek, which has teamed up with nvidia, is now saying that Nintendo may team up.

Anyone knows anything about that South Korean Samsung leaker?

It seems the "cancelled Drake" theory is gaining strength.
I guess that MVG meme will be more on-point than ever.

 

[chocolate_supra]

It would explain why third parties were asked to return those "switch pro" dev kits, right?

Not when you look at the timeline of Drake's tapeout. The Pro devkits were rumored to be circulating years ago, before the OLED was even shown, which led to the assumption that the OLED reveal was gonna be the Pro reveal. Loooong before Drake woulda been ready to circulate in devkits.

I still think it's more possible that the OLED was going to be a Pro, with an upclocked Mariko (due to the finding that the OLED dock's displayport adapter was wired for 4K output, which wasn't the case for the original), and that was cancelled in favor of waiting for Drake.

 

[Raploz]

A follow-up article to RedGamingTech's video:

Optimistic Nintendo Switch 2 specs leak puts forward huge CPU and GPU changes that would render Tegra T239 obsolete

The Nintendo Switch 2 specs could be greater than previously imagined if a new leak from a well-known tech YouTuber ends up being accurate. Apparently, the CPU and GPU components of the Switch 2 SoC might be considerably beefed-up by Nvidia, with the Tegra T239 chip now potentially past its best...

www.notebookcheck.net

Also, I found this thread where a user claims:

Anyone knows anything about that South Korean Samsung leaker?

It seems the "cancelled Drake" theory is gaining strength.
I guess that MVG meme will be more on-point than ever.

It's this tweet:


He also said in march that "another Nvidia Tegra" was going to be manufactured with the 5LPP Samsung process node:



I don't have any information if he's reliable or not, but the way he phrased the Mediatek tweet (with "might") seems like speculation on his part.

 

[TechnicalTip6578]

It seems the "cancelled Drake" theory is gaining strength.
I guess that MVG meme will be more on-point than ever.

i honestly can't tell if that's a good thing or a bad thing, and that's kinda worrying
meaning we don't know if they're going to use a better chip or a worse one

 

[lemonfresh]

I am now officially on team 2024 for the switch 2/draketendo switch

 

[Deleted member 887]

Question 1: Might they? Seems unlikely.
Question 2: BUT if they did do that, how much better than drake would we be getting!?

His description of a "better" SOC? It's... not?

CPU-wise that's not a good configuration for a video game console. It's a phone config. It would be bad for a video game console - it would make it hard to program for, it would have bad performance in many games, and it would have bad battery life in others. It's difficult to describe why without writing a whole thing about process schedulers and interposer latency, but it's bad.

And GPU wise, what he's describing is not really a win either. 12 SMs is what we expect. 16 SMs looks better, but we live by the battery and die by the battery. Unlike his Clearly Fake CPU config, a 16SM config actually has a sort of rational basis, that I won't dig into. But the clocks would be so low, I wouldn't expect huge performance wins, and it starts to get too large to physically get into a handheld.

Without 3nm, there just isn't a way to make a more powerful machine without making one that is physically bigger and has worse battery life to boot.

I'm sorry for asking the two SKUs question.

It won't happen again.

Don't be. People have strong opinions, but I don't think there was anything wrong with your question.

 

[Deleted member 5146]

A follow-up article to RedGamingTech's video:

Optimistic Nintendo Switch 2 specs leak puts forward huge CPU and GPU changes that would render Tegra T239 obsolete

The Nintendo Switch 2 specs could be greater than previously imagined if a new leak from a well-known tech YouTuber ends up being accurate. Apparently, the CPU and GPU components of the Switch 2 SoC might be considerably beefed-up by Nvidia, with the Tegra T239 chip now potentially past its best...

www.notebookcheck.net

Also, I found this thread where a user claims:

Anyone knows anything about that South Korean Samsung leaker?

It seems the "cancelled Drake" theory is gaining strength.
I guess that MVG meme will be more on-point than ever.

Wouldn't there be some kind of trail of Nvidia activity or internal information surrounding a new dedicated SoC that could reasonably be assumed to be intended for a portable device like the NG if this was the case though? Unless there's a T239+ running on the 4nm process when previously it was in fact the assumed 7-8nm?

 

[Hermii]

i honestly can't tell if that's a good thing or a bad thing, and that's kinda worrying
meaning we don't know if they're going to use a better chip or a worse one

Or. this is all nonsense.

 

[Z0m3le]

It's this tweet:


He also said in march that "another Nvidia Tegra" was going to be manufactured with the 5LPP Samsung process node:



I don't have any information if he's reliable or not, but the way he phrased the Mediatek tweet seems like speculation on his part.

Connar is someone who posts unverified rumors, we already know what Switch 2 will be powered by, there is going to be a lot of false rumors the next few months, but we should get something official shortly after that. I'd also completely dismiss the idea of a dual screen portable, simply because the hybrid nature of the device would be in conflict with multiple screens. There would always be a mismatch, and the see less transition that has carried switch into ps2/ds numbers would be at odds with such a device.

 

[Hermii]

Wouldn't there be some kind of trail of Nvidia activity or internal information surrounding a new dedicated SoC that could reasonably be assumed to be intended for a portable device like the NG if this was the case though? Unless there's a T239+ running on the 4nm process when previously it was in fact the assumed 7-8nm?

As repeated ad nauseam, an 8nm Tegra built for the switch form factor, woudnt have 12sm. There is no way it would run efficiently, narrower and faster would be cheaper and make more sense.

 

[Noleth]

Ok now I’m getting really worried about the system

 

[Deleted member 887]

Hey - Chicken Little! Chill. Respectfully.

For the last year, the folks on this thread have been saying "a really good port on Drake could exceed Series S especially on Ray Tracing." Naysayers think we're out of our minds.

Three days ago, VGC leaks a really good port that seems like it might exceed Series S, with ray tracing.

You're getting told that the wildly impossible dream is a reality, does it matter if it's T239 that is doing it or not?

And if you have a leak that matches with 18 months of evidence and analysis, that is not an indication that all the evidence and analysis is wrong.

Wait a week. There is still post-leak fallout coming, and it's all going to point in the direction of T239, even if it doesn't outright confirm it.

 

[Deleted member 3433]

Yeah, there's no way we're dealing with a non-Drake Switch 2. The info has been very consistent, with no signs of "changed plans".