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StarTopic Future Nintendo Hardware & Technology Speculation & Discussion |ST| (New Staff Post, Please read)

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SoldierDelta said:
Ray-Tracing was a bit weird to me and still is. I haven't really played a game long enough with it to really comment much (I think the most I tried it with was Resident Evil 4 Remake and Deathloop on Laptop at 1440p), but if the Switch 2 can have it consistently on the games that'd benefit from it, it'd love that.

In theory, you're absolutely right though. The jump in technology from the Switch 1 to the Switch 2 is going to be titanic. It's essentially jumping from 7th to 9th gen in terms of resolution and software features like Ray-tracing, DLSS and Ray Reconstruction. Honestly, third-parties would be stupid to outright ignore the Switch 2 if everything we know about the specs are true.
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ray tracing makes more sense when you stop thinking of RT as a consumer facing feature, methinks

there was a demo that was recently released that I downloaded that really shows the benefits. I was gonna take some comparison shots to show it. I'll get to it when I get home
 
ILikeFeet said:
ray tracing makes more sense when you stop thinking of RT as a consumer facing feature, methinks

there was a demo that was recently released that I downloaded that really shows the benefits. I was gonna take some comparison shots to show it. I'll get to it when I get home
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SoldierDelta said:
Ray-Tracing was a bit weird to me and still is. I haven't really played a game long enough with it to really comment much (I think the most I tried it with was Resident Evil 4 Remake and Deathloop on Laptop at 1440p), but if the Switch 2 can have it consistently on the games that'd benefit from it, it'd love that.

In theory, you're absolutely right though. The jump in technology from the Switch 1 to the Switch 2 is going to be titanic. It's essentially jumping from 7th to 9th gen in terms of resolution and software features like Ray-tracing, DLSS and Ray Reconstruction. Honestly, third-parties would be stupid to outright ignore the Switch 2 if everything we know about the specs are true.
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This is correct. Although raytracing does improve the accuracy of the lightning by itself, it's always been touted as a way to speed up development by avoiding to bake lightning conditions for every single scene in the game. It's less effort and overall gives more wiggle room to the development team to improve/push other departments forward.
 
Pokemaniac said:
famiboards.com

Switch Firmware 17.0.0 released

https://en-americas-support.nintendo.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/22525/ Ver. 17.0.0 (Released October 10, 2023) General system stability improvements to enhance the user's experience. Yep, it's stability. Seemingly no controller firmware updates, but possibly a OLED dock firmware update...
famiboards.com famiboards.com

FYI, firmware 17.0.0 is out, but the usual suspects don't seem to have gotten around to analyzing it just yet.
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oh great Nintendo, my Nintendo Switch is so stable, a ship can go trough and no scratchs on the console.
 
ns156 said:
Then you're asking for something that's no longer a Switch. And everything we know points to it being more of the same.
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No, I’m not saying it can’t still be a variation of a Switch. What I’m saying is it won’t be just a higher spec version of a Switch.
 
0
Ray tracing is a hypothetical time saving process in game development which will not actually save any time until 2029 when there’s enough horsepower to actually do path tracing well and the tools are good enough for most devs to use.

“Time saving” and “so cutting edge that only a handful of devs are comfortable with it” and “requires extreme optimization due to heavy performance costs” do not go together.

When the PS6 is a couple years old, then yes, people will just path trace their scenes and be done and this will save a lot of time on shadow modeling and optimization.

But that’s not very soon…
 
entut1 said:

Samsung Electronics secures new order for 3nm high-performance server chips - Pulse by Maeil Business News Korea

South Korean tech giant Samsung Electronics Co. is confirmed to have secured a new order for 3-nanometer (nm) high-performance server chips. Semiconductor design house ADTechnology Co. announced on Tuesday that it signed a
pulsenews.co.kr
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Semiconductor design house ADTechnology Co. announced on Tuesday that it signed a contract with an overseas customer for a server-oriented semiconductor design project based on Samsung Foundry’s 3nm process. The customer was not disclosed, but it is said to be a U.S.-based company involved in high-performance computing (HPC) chips.
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Probably not related to Nintendo, but interesting nonetheless.
 
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ItWasMeantToBe19 said:
Ray tracing is a hypothetical time saving process in game development which will not actually save any time until 2029 when there’s enough horsepower to actually do path tracing well and the tools are good enough for most devs to use.

“Time saving” and “so cutting edge that only a handful of devs are comfortable with it” and “requires extreme optimization due to heavy performance costs” do not go together.

When the PS6 is a couple years old, then yes, people will just path trace their scenes and be done and this will save a lot of time on shadow modeling and optimization.

But that’s not very soon…
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It actually will because Switch 2 will have dedicated hardware for it, unlike the current gen consoles. Nintendo kept the units for a reason, they're going to use them more than you think.
 
ProngoLuvr said:
Seems like 17.0.0 changed a lot of system settings (documented here on Switchbrew). Nintendo changed the name of a debug log directory from NxBinLogs to NnBinLogs, which is mildly interesting because it's a shift from the Switch's "NX" codename to something more generic. Not much else stands out to my untrained eye, but maybe something's in there.
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There is one thing which is mildly interesting, and might indicate changes for Switch 2, although minor:

The manages_touch_ic_i2c setting has been replaced with manages_touch_ic. The touch IC (integrated circuit) is the chip which interfaces with the touch screen. I2C is a communication protocol which is used by the Switch's touch screen IC. The fact that the setting no longer specifies I2C may indicate that Nintendo is using a different interface for Switch 2's touch screen. This probably doesn't tell us anything useful, as the newer version of Switch's touch screen IC only supports screens up to 7", so it may just be the case that they've had to change supplier and that necessitated a new interface, but still is somewhat interesting.
 
ItWasMeantToBe19 said:
Ray tracing is a hypothetical time saving process in game development which will not actually save any time until 2029 when there’s enough horsepower to actually do path tracing well and the tools are good enough for most devs to use.

“Time saving” and “so cutting edge that only a handful of devs are comfortable with it” and “requires extreme optimization due to heavy performance costs” do not go together.

When the PS6 is a couple years old, then yes, people will just path trace their scenes and be done and this will save a lot of time on shadow modeling and optimization.

But that’s not very soon…
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we have developers already talking about how RT has saved them time. one game in particular is coming out this week

Lumen stands out as a game-changer for the Lords of the Fallen team. Lumen, the new Global Illumination system, replaced the cumbersome real-time lighting techniques of the past. Gascon tells me the team were astonished at the level of iteration Lumen offered, making adjustments to lighting, colour, and other elements much faster.
Click to expand...
www.creativebloq.com

Lords of the Fallen: Unreal Engine 5 makes a difference

Why Lords of the Fallen hands-on and Unreal Engine 5 are a match made in Hell.
www.creativebloq.com www.creativebloq.com

We also make extensive use of Lumen, which lets us add incredibly realistic-looking dynamic lighting to those more detailed Nanite objects, which interacts with lighting far better than before, resulting in prettier environments. And it lets us do so dramatically more quickly than before: In Unreal 4, we’d have to balance dynamic lights with “baked in” lighting for any area, a process that would take literal hours to complete. Lumen lets us light things pretty much instantly—with lighting effects that look fantastic.
Click to expand...
www.ea.com

The Tech Behind the Magic

The Unreal Engine 5 technology behind Immortals of Aveum and the PC gaming experience.
www.ea.com www.ea.com

you're in denial for some reason
 
Lancelot said:
It actually will because Switch 2 will have dedicated hardware for it, unlike the current gen consoles. Nintendo kept the units for a reason, they're going to use them more than you think.
Click to expand...

Any dev that has the skill to do ray tracing will likely be pushing the Switch 2 so hard in traditional areas that quality and time saving ray tracing will likely not happen.
 
Thraktor said:
There is one thing which is mildly interesting, and might indicate changes for Switch 2, although minor:

The manages_touch_ic_i2c setting has been replaced with manages_touch_ic. The touch IC (integrated circuit) is the chip which interfaces with the touch screen. I2C is a communication protocol which is used by the Switch's touch screen IC. The fact that the setting no longer specifies I2C may indicate that Nintendo is using a different interface for Switch 2's touch screen. This probably doesn't tell us anything useful, as the newer version of Switch's touch screen IC only supports screens up to 7", so it may just be the case that they've had to change supplier and that necessitated a new interface, but still is somewhat interesting.
Click to expand...
Do we think they're gradually moving to more generic Switch 1 vs 2-agnostic list of environment variables - ie: NnBinLogs as opposed to NxBinLogs? So that way they can push system updates to both Switch 1 and Switch 2 without too much trouble.

Otherwise I see no reason to make changes like the NnBinlogs if Switch 2 is going to have its own, completely separate list of system environment variables
 
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ItWasMeantToBe19 said:
Any dev that has the skill to do ray tracing will likely be pushing the Switch 2 so hard in traditional areas that quality and time saving ray tracing will likely not happen.
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if they have the skill to do RT, they're likely replacing "traditional" areas with RT already. like how 4A games did with Metro Exodus
 
ItWasMeantToBe19 said:
Any dev that has the skill to do ray tracing will likely be pushing the Switch 2 so hard in traditional areas that quality and time saving ray tracing will likely not happen.
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Except that's what RT is for? If anything, many of their big games are already futureproofed towards raytracing. TOTK is using probe-based lightning, Game Freak of all things is using probes.
 
Also, Nintendo has no incentive to talk about 4K because it might confuse consumers. 4k will only be docked. Undocked we’ll have to see if it’s 720p or 1080p.

I’m confident they’ll market the Switch 2 as the Next Generation of the Nintendo Switch family of systems. They’ll list how it’s better, but not get into technical details. They’ll just leave spech sheets for those that care about 4k and FPS
 
ItWasMeantToBe19 said:
Ray tracing is a hypothetical time saving process in game development which will not actually save any time until 2029 when there’s enough horsepower to actually do path tracing well and the tools are good enough for most devs to use.

“Time saving” and “so cutting edge that only a handful of devs are comfortable with it” and “requires extreme optimization due to heavy performance costs” do not go together.

When the PS6 is a couple years old, then yes, people will just path trace their scenes and be done and this will save a lot of time on shadow modeling and optimization.

But that’s not very soon…
Click to expand...
This is true for multi-platform-games which include platforms without RT (last-gen-hardware) or with a small portion of RT-Hardware (PC). Games build exclusive for RT-Hardware could see these benefits because they don't have to do the additional work for platforms without RT. Path tracing is the end game, but RT-effects used now can also save time and make games more beautiful.

Nvidia is most advanced with RT and in my opinion it is very likely they have the best tools for RT in gaming, from which follows Nintendo will have these tools too.
 
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ILikeFeet said:
we have developers already talking about how RT has saved them time. one game in particular is coming out this week


www.creativebloq.com

Lords of the Fallen: Unreal Engine 5 makes a difference

Why Lords of the Fallen hands-on and Unreal Engine 5 are a match made in Hell.
www.creativebloq.com www.creativebloq.com


www.ea.com

The Tech Behind the Magic

The Unreal Engine 5 technology behind Immortals of Aveum and the PC gaming experience.
www.ea.com www.ea.com

you're in denial for some reason
Click to expand...

This game is currently targeting 1080p/60 on Xbox Series X and we have no info on whether or not it’s actually hitting those numbers in practice .

The last game to try this “fuck it, all UE5 features, as low of resolution as possible” approach killed the studio and while the bad art probably did a lot more to kill the studio, I’m not sure that Lords of the Fallen will succeed either or if other devs will keep pushing for RT mandatory games considering how expensive it has been.
 
if i may ask, what's Digital Foundry's general opinion on what we're hearing about Switch 2 so far? (specifically the Gamescom tech demos & the PS4 comparison from activision)
 
ItWasMeantToBe19 said:
This game is currently targeting 1080p/60 on Xbox Series X and we have no info on whether or not it’s actually hitting those numbers in practice .

The last game to try this “fuck it, all UE5 features, as low of resolution as possible” approach killed the studio and while the bad art probably did a lot more to kill the studio, I’m not sure that Lords of the Fallen will succeed either or if other devs will keep pushing for RT mandatory games considering how expensive it has been.
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You're talking like this is the only UE5 game coming out, though. There's an army of those coming, and the engine is still being optimized as we speak. Raytracing is a thing even on software like Lumen, what makes you think a top tier publisher with access to the best RT in business won't make use of it?
 
Lancelot said:
Except that's what RT is for? If anything, many of their big games are already futureproofed towards raytracing. TOTK is using probe-based lightning, Game Freak of all things is using probes.
Click to expand...

What are you talking about.

RT is extremely expensive.

The Switch 2 will be very weak compared to all other hardware game devs will be developing for.

When trying to push a system, you use the features that best preserve your game while dropping features that are very nice but not vital to your game. Ray tracing currently fits into the latter category.
 
ItWasMeantToBe19 said:
What are you talking about.

RT is extremely expensive.

The Switch 2 will be very weak compared to all other hardware game devs will be developing for.

When trying to push a system, you use the features that best preserve your game while dropping features that are very nice but not vital to your game. Ray tracing currently fits into the latter category.
Click to expand...
You do know even the lowest end RT hardware from Nvidia crushes AMD in the dozens of fps, do you? These "big big" powerful consoles you're talking about do not have dedicated units for RT like Switch 2 (T239) does, and much less from a hardware company like Nvidia. They have a big advantage to push these features, especially when DLSS 3.5 (ray reconstruction) has just happened if you haven't realized.
 
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Lancelot said:
You're talking like this is the only UE5 game coming out, though. There's an army of those coming, and the engine is still being optimized as we speak. Raytracing is a thing even on software like Lumen, what makes you think a top tier publisher with access to the best RT in business won't make use of it?
Click to expand...
If UE5 games with Lumen on struggle to hit 1080p on the PS5, then I would expect port studios porting these games to Switch 2 to turn Lumen off (and just bake the scenes themselves) than to drop the resolution to something like 480p.
 
ItWasMeantToBe19 said:
This game is currently targeting 1080p/60 on Xbox Series X and we have no info on whether or not it’s actually hitting those numbers in practice .

The last game to try this “fuck it, all UE5 features, as low of resolution as possible” approach killed the studio and while the bad art probably did a lot more to kill the studio, I’m not sure that Lords of the Fallen will succeed either or if other devs will keep pushing for RT mandatory games considering how expensive it has been.
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what killed Ascendent was them making a mediocre game. that wouldn't have changed if they didn't use RT. Lords of the Fallen is running much better than Immortals of Aveum despite using the same features, so that tells you more about the studios than it does the engine features

ItWasMeantToBe19 said:
What are you talking about.

RT is extremely expensive.

The Switch 2 will be very weak compared to all other hardware game devs will be developing for.

When trying to push a system, you use the features that best preserve your game while dropping features that are very nice but not vital to your game. Ray tracing currently fits into the latter category.
Click to expand...
in this thread alone I and others have posted numerous examples to the contrary. there was a whole fucking dev talk last week showing Lumen running on a mobile phone
 
ILikeFeet said:
what killed Ascendent was them making a mediocre game. that wouldn't have changed if they didn't use RT. Lords of the Fallen is running much better than Immortals of Aveum despite using the same features, so that tells you more about the studios than it does the engine features


in this thread alone I and others have posted numerous examples to the contrary. there was a whole fucking dev talk last week showing Lumen running on a mobile phone
Click to expand...

I’m sorry, but touting Lumen as a time saving thing while also decrying one of the only devs to use it as not being talented enough to use it and run well kind of shows the point I’m making?

The intersection of “talented and experienced enough to use RT well” and “making games for the Switch 2” and “want to save a ton of time instead of using these cycles to preserve more eye catching and game necessary features from more powerful systems”… Uhh, I don’t think this will be a large set.
 
ItWasMeantToBe19 said:
I’m sorry, but touting Lumen as a time saving thing while also decrying one of the only devs to use it as not being talented enough to use it and run well kind of shows the point I’m making?

The intersection of “talented and experienced enough to use RT well” and “making games for the Switch 2” and “want to save a ton of time instead of using these cycles to preserve more eye catching and game necessary features from more powerful systems”… Uhh, I don’t think this will be a large set.
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Ascendant did use Lumen well, they used UE5's entire feature set pretty well in fact. Their issue was deadlocking themselves to 60 FPS at all times no matter what, which logically ended up taking a dump on the resolution as a result. These are three (see robocop too), early games that are already doing ridiculously well for what's basically a paradigm shift for game development without RT hardware to accelerate these operations, it's only going to get better from here (especially in the visual department). For Switch 2, people clearly mean Nintendo's own exclusives which like it or not, got a huge advantage by only targeting their own platform.
 
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isn't lumen proprietary unreal tech?

to become a paradigm shift, people would have to learn their own RT GI feature similar to it


long road, and certainly doesn't sound easy or time saving
 
Fixed the "leaked" weird controller

AWuR9V1.png
 
ILikeFeet said:
I still have a hard time thinking prices could get that low. one of those "too good to be true" kinda things. maybe if it was 32GB cards for the price of 8GB cards, I'd more readily believe it
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LiC said:
I'm paraphrasing from I believe Skittzo and z0m3le, but the whole point of the technology is that adding extra layers gives you big density/capacity increases, but those additional layers are cheap to create once you have the base.
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Additionally, XtraROM (used in Switch Game Cards) has not been shrunk to a smaller process node since before Switch released, which leads to the assumption that the nitride charge-trapping used to turn NAND into a ROM-like function (or some other less likely part of this tech) did not operate well below the current process node used to make the chips in Game Cards (which I think only goes as low as 32nm).
New tech, new charge-trapping method, smaller nodes possible, which has a really great cost reduction benefit. And if it's NAND based, that provides the option to potentially get Game Cards for new hardware on nodes as low as between 18nm-22nm, which are the most common nodes for NAND production right now if I understand correctly. A potential for a LOT more cards produced per wafer combined with 3D stacking? HOO BOY. And initial tests of this tech only tried 48-layer chips at 128GB, but Macronix has allegedly sent Nintendo samples of 96-layer 3D NAND for testing (and not specifying if said 3D NAND was this SGVC variant we're discussing)... so who knows WTF is going on there.
ILikeFeet said:
given how many third party games on switch would love to be on a 32GB card, a 64GB card could be the norm for Drake. I can see 96GB cards being a rarity
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Again, pricing is going to depend on the node and how many layers they can get on a chip before it can't trap a charge as effectively to get the same level of ROM-like functionality/data durability.
 
ItWasMeantToBe19 said:
If UE5 games with Lumen on struggle to hit 1080p on the PS5, then I would expect port studios porting these games to Switch 2 to turn Lumen off (and just bake the scenes themselves) than to drop the resolution to something like 480p.
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They’re not gonna do that
If their development pipe includes ray tracing they’ll plan around it … they’re not going to be surprised by it.
 
I feel like this is the longest we’ve gone without a substantial rumor, at least in recent memory. Curious what Nate has to say next week or whenever he shares info.
 
MP! said:
They’re not gonna do that
If their development pipe includes ray tracing they’ll plan around it … they’re not going to be surprised by it.
Click to expand...

Would a port studio rather turn off Lumen or drop the resolution to 480p DLSS’d to 4K to get it running on the Switch 2?

It’s possible that UE5 games that target the Switch 2 from the beginning just don’t use Nanite or Lumen at all on any platform as their relative cost is too high.
 
We are in an interesting time, Nintendo has never been this secretive of a new generation before. Usually we have a codename and a general release window well in advanced. My only two theories on why this cycle is different is because the Switch is still selling so well with no reason to stifle that momentum with a switch 2 announcement, or new gen hardware is further out than we think. No matter what I do believe 2024 will be the year for an announcement, hopefully sooner rather than later.
 
Soralink91 said:
We are in an interesting time, Nintendo has never been this secretive of a new generation before. Usually we have a codename and a general release window well in advanced. My only two theories on why this cycle is different is because the Switch is still selling so well with no reason to stifle that momentum with a switch 2 announcement, or new gen hardware is further out than we think. No matter what I do believe 2024 will be the year for an announcement, hopefully sooner rather than later.
Click to expand...
This is why I think Nintendo is being veeery secretive with the successor’s info and are easily detecting leaks early and trouncing them rapidly.

That said, once the manufacturing starts, it’s leaking time
 
ziggyrivers said:
This is why I think Nintendo is being veeery secretive with the successor’s info and are easily detecting leaks early and trouncing them rapidly.

That said, once the manufacturing starts, it’s leaking time
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Both DS and especially Wii's momentum were very slow during the end of their lives. I'm not sure how much affect the announcement of the 3DS in June 2010 or Wii U in June 2011 had on their sales but both systems were way weaker than the Switch is currently.
 
ItWasMeantToBe19 said:
I’m sorry, but touting Lumen as a time saving thing while also decrying one of the only devs to use it as not being talented enough to use it and run well kind of shows the point I’m making?

The intersection of “talented and experienced enough to use RT well” and “making games for the Switch 2” and “want to save a ton of time instead of using these cycles to preserve more eye catching and game necessary features from more powerful systems”… Uhh, I don’t think this will be a large set.
Click to expand...
a sample of one studio who flubbed every other aspect of their game doesn't help your point at all

gamerguy said:
isn't lumen proprietary unreal tech?

to become a paradigm shift, people would have to learn their own RT GI feature similar to it


long road, and certainly doesn't sound easy or time saving
Click to expand...
lumen itself, yes. it's one of various techniques that achieve the same end goal. including some solutions that are available as engine plugins. if you're capable of building a non-RT GI solution, you're already 75% of the way there.
 
I like how we ignore that Sony was able to deliver three different modes with Ray Tracing in their upcoming Spider-Man game. 3.

All playable modes.

“bUt iT uSeS a fOrM oF uPScAlInG” no duh Sherlock, the point is that it is playable and they did it on the PS5.
 
Soralink91 said:
We are in an interesting time, Nintendo has never been this secretive of a new generation before. Usually we have a codename and a general release window well in advanced. My only two theories on why this cycle is different is because the Switch is still selling so well with no reason to stifle that momentum with a switch 2 announcement, or new gen hardware is further out than we think. No matter what I do believe 2024 will be the year for an announcement, hopefully sooner rather than later.
Click to expand...
It's the first time Nintendo has only one console in the market. Announcing the next generation could impact their revenue more than when they had two separate hardware systems
 
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darthdiablo said:
Do we think they're gradually moving to more generic Switch 1 vs 2-agnostic list of environment variables - ie: NnBinLogs as opposed to NxBinLogs? So that way they can push system updates to both Switch 1 and Switch 2 without too much trouble.

Otherwise I see no reason to make changes like the NnBinlogs if Switch 2 is going to have its own, completely separate list of system environment variables
Click to expand...

I think we can safely say Switch 2 won't have a completely separate set of system settings, as most of the functionality would be the same across the two consoles, and it would just add complexity for complexity's sake. From Nintendo's point of view, they'll want to keep the code as close as possible between the Switch and Switch 2 builds of the OS, as it makes it easier to manage going forward, particularly if they continue supporting the original Switch for a few more years.

All the actual Switch 2 related code will be kept in a separate repo, or #ifdef'd or otherwise kept from being included in the code being distributed to Switch users. So we're not going to find settings for Switch 2's super-secret new features, but in some cases existing code may need to be tweaked to support changes from Switch to Switch 2, and those tweaks will find their way to public updates. These are typically only going provide us some vague hints, and I don't think Nintendo particularly cares that anyone might speculate on the choice of touch screen controller ICs based on a configuration setting name change, but there may be some slightly interesting stuff that squeaks through.
 
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