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

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Ghostsonplanets said:
I think a key difference with Nintendo hardware compared to Sony and MS is that there's financial incentive for homebrew and Hackers to look around at solutions for cracking the system due to Nintendo being the last system with exclusive software. That being said, Switch 2 increased specs, robust and more modern security and lack of hardware flaws will make it so that it will take quite some time for it to be done. Nintendo and Nvidia will also have looked at what happened with TX1 and Switch and will make sure that it doesn't repeat again.
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weaker than my PC build with a 4090 screams hardware flaw to me
 
TomNookYankees said:
How would emulating Deep Learning related hardware like Tensor cores even work?
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For DLSS, I imagine it’s going to be HLE/monkeypatching. Instead of trying to emulate the hardware, the emulator sees code that looks like a DLSS entry point and bypasses it for another upscaler like FSR.

For anything else, it’s the same as any other GPU instruction. Convert it to whatever the GPU supports, and either the hardware keeps up or doesn’t.
 
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Giancarlo said:
the main reason, people want to emulate/pirate Nintendo hardware/software is because Nintendo refuse to lower the price of it hardware/software, it absurd you have to pay $60(R$300) in games that released nearly 7 years ago, that very concering in countries with terrible GDP like Brazil, where everything you paid half is taxes
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Nintendo piracy has been around long before the Switch though, and that was also when they discounted games/hardware. People pirate because they want to.
 
Regarding 17.0 Firmware Update:

It removes references to NX in syscalls and adds support for additional touch ICs.
In other words, it's being prepped for a non-NX console with a new screen.
This is the first time NX has been removed- ever
They had NX syscalls since 1.0.0
17.X.X+ move to N or Nn (Nintendo)
And new sleep mode settings (unused)
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What’s the point on showing those changes about NG on the actual Switch?

Can someone explain
 
TomNookYankees said:
How would emulating Deep Learning related hardware like Tensor cores even work?
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Tensor cores are just doing some specific math functions. You could write code to have a general purpose GPU cores or even a CPU to do the same math, it'd just run less efficiently. Any specialized hardware acceleration could be approached similarly.

Certain specific things may be replaced via mods to make them run faster, such as a DLSS replacement mod that uses FSR.
 
Pokemaniac said:
Tensor cores are just doing some specific math functions. You could write code to have a general purpose GPU cores or even a CPU to do the same math, it'd just run less efficiently. Any specialized hardware acceleration could be approached similarly.

Certain specific things may be replaced via mods to make them run faster, such as a DLSS replacement mod that uses FSR.
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Or remove upscaling anyway when more GPU Power is available. First thing emulators did to TotK was stripping out the FSR to have a higher native resolution.
 
P4bl0 said:
What’s the point on showing those changes about NG on the actual Switch?

Can someone explain
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Because the OS code is shared, developed by the same team, and Nintendo isn’t shutting down Switch support.

Consider the NSO app. It needs basic services in the OS to function. Nintendo doesn’t want to have two NSO apps it has to maintain for two consoles. So as long as they want to update the NSO app on Switch, the Switch OS will need to have the services NSO demands. Which have in turn been updated for NG.

You’ll notice there are no explicit references to the NG hardware. That’s easy to trim out. It’s the implicit references, the places where the code has been made more generic, even though the Switch doesn’t need it, that we see. Sort of a ghost of the hardware left behind.

Behind the scenes, the NintendoSDK has begun to get updated to support NG as well, which means supporting two OS/hardware targets, all the more treason to keep the OSes in sync.
 
oldpuck said:
Because the OS code is shared, developed by the same team, and Nintendo isn’t shutting down Switch support.

Consider the NSO app. It needs basic services in the OS to function. Nintendo doesn’t want to have two NSO apps it has to maintain for two consoles. So as long as they want to update the NSO app on Switch, the Switch OS will need to have the services NSO demands. Which have in turn been updated for NG.

You’ll notice there are no explicit references to the NG hardware. That’s easy to trim out. It’s the implicit references, the places where the code has been made more generic, even though the Switch doesn’t need it, that we see. Sort of a ghost of the hardware left behind.

Behind the scenes, the NintendoSDK has begun to get updated to support NG as well, which means supporting two OS/hardware targets, all the more treason to keep the OSes in sync.
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Thanks for the smooth explanation!

Does it give us a more clear idea on timing ?
 
P4bl0 said:
Thanks for the smooth explanation!

Does it give us a more clear idea on timing ?
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Not really? It does make it feel more imminent - especially since hardware details are starting to show up in the SDK, implying that Nintendo cares more about getting tools into devs hands than keeping stuff secret. But I also thought the same thing after firmware 16.0 came out which had some similar hints.
 
ILikeFeet said:
a sample of one studio who flubbed every other aspect of their game doesn't help your point at all


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.
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Heck, NVIDIA has their own solution (RTX-GI) and AMD has one too they have been working on iirc?

And Re-STIR GI has been something that has been worked on by all parties for years since the concept has been introduced.

Heck, Switch already runs a form of Ray Traced Global Illumination in Crysis 1 and 2 Remastered with them deplying SVOGI on it as well as all the other consoles.

Like SW-Lumen, it is a form of Software Ray Traced Global Illumination.
 
oldpuck said:
Not really? It does make it feel more imminent - especially since hardware details are starting to show up in the SDK, implying that Nintendo cares more about getting tools into devs hands than keeping stuff secret. But I also thought the same thing after firmware 16.0 came out which had some similar hints.
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That’s great, is the next console referred by its codename on the SDK ?
 
Alovon11 said:
Heck, NVIDIA has their own solution (RTX-GI) and AMD has one too they have been working on iirc?

And Re-STIR GI has been something that has been worked on by all parties for years since the concept has been introduced.

Heck, Switch already runs a form of Ray Traced Global Illumination in Crysis 1 and 2 Remastered with them deplying SVOGI on it as well as all the other consoles.

Like SW-Lumen, it is a form of Software Ray Traced Global Illumination.
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This is really cool, never knew this.
 
HankyPanky said:
these firmware changes are pretty big indication that something is rumbling no? like retail units might be in the pipeline sooner than later...
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they wouldn't be changing it for fun.

As for timing, it's anyone's guess, but it's defintely within the next 12 months.
 
MadMarvainy said:
This is really cool, never knew this.
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Yeah, honestly Crysis Remastered Deploying SVOGI is my big counterpoint to people saying RTGI is infeasible on Switch 2

If it could run on an already CPU-heavy game (Crysis), on OG Swtich which has less cores than the XBO/PS4, while generally maintaining 30fps targets at a actually decent resolution...like....why can't Switch 2 which is infinitely more powerful and has dedicated acceleration hardware for RT, and not to mention DLSS and more recently Ray Reconstruction to make RT even cheaper.

 
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Stefan51278 said:
Or remove upscaling anyway when more GPU Power is available. First thing emulators did to TotK was stripping out the FSR to have a higher native resolution.
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You probably could do that, but it's more involved than just swapping one form of reconstruction with another one with mostly the same inputs. It's also less likely that the emulator could do that automatically.

Also, FSR 1 is just a simple upscaler and likely much easier to cleanly remove than full-on reconstruction. Things like DLSS and FSR 2 are much more deeply integrated into the rendering process and you'd probably have like, temporal stability problems if you just tried to strip them away and view the input instead.
 
ILikeFeet said:
there's a number of effects that are technically a form of ray tracing that don't get called as such. Screen Space Reflections, for example
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To be fair, SVOGI is far more like the RT you think of nowadays than SSR, so calling them similar feels like it's downplaying SVOGI a fair bit.
 
Kazuyamishima said:
Why? Why does everyone hate emulation so much around here? It's insane for game preservation. I agree it should be done only after the system is dead and is not being sold anymore in order to not damage the sales but still
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People often use it to justify piracy of current and recently released Switch games, so people could play them on systems it was not intended for.

That, and people just looking for excuses to say “Fuck Nintendo”.
 
Kazuyamishima said:
Why? Why does everyone hate emulation so much around here? It's insane for game preservation. I agree it should be done only after the system is dead and is not being sold anymore in order to not damage the sales but still
Click to expand...
Not against emulation for Switch 2 here. But just accept it as pretty much impossible outside of extremely few SKUs of PCs, if ever.


Switch 2's unique functions with the File-Decompression Unit, how different the RT cores are to AMD's Ray Accelerators, and the big factor that are Tensor Cores make it pretty much impossible to viably emulate Switch 2 off prospect.

  • GPU Shader Emulation?
    • The GPU is going to stretch well past the ROG Ally/Steam Deck docked. What GPU could emulate that at an efficient speed?
    • Translation as a soluiton?
      • Only would work on RTX 3000 and 4000 Cards because they'd share the most similar core ISA.
        • And even then it may be RTX 4000 only if Frame Generation is usable on Switch 2. And considering RTX 5000 is altering the shaders radically based on rumors. Yeah.
  • RT Cores?
    • Sure, it may be able to get abstracted to VulkanRT, but it'd likely be intolerably slow on AMD due to the benefits of NVIDIA's RT being made even more prevalent once developers can optimize for it.
  • Tensor Cores?
    • No real way to account for these, they are fixed function and extremely fast at what they do. Not to mention DLSS is pretty locked down, and Ray Reconstruction is pretty much impossible to do without Tensor Cores.
      • The only Theoretical alternative may be Intel Arc GPUs? and even then you'd need to find a way to do the impossible and get DLSS running on XMX units.
  • Disabling/swapping out DLSS?
    • Any game that deploys DLSS likely will have it as a major function in it's rendering pipeline so you're be neutering the presentation by disabling it.
    • And even then, Disabling or swapping out DLSS with XeSS or FSR would require modding EVERY INDIVIDUAL GAME that uses it.
    • And then if a game uses Ray Reconstruction for RT. That makes any idea of FSR2/XeSS Injection a no-go as the game would have NO DENOISER for the Ray Tracing without RR as why would a developer leave a standard big denoiser wasting space if they are using Ray Reconstruction?
So yeah, Switch 2 Emulation would either be an extremely exclusive club, or virtually (and very much practically) impossible.
 
Alovon11 said:
To be fair, SVOGI is far more like the RT you think of nowadays than SSR, so calling them similar feels like it's downplaying SVOGI a fair bit.
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I'd say it's downplaying SSR. both are casting a ray to either sample the environment or throw information to surfaces. but because they're higher level definitions of ray tracing than how most folks are using "ray tracing" these days, it gets glossed over and not considered RT
 
Alovon11 said:
Not against emulation for Switch 2 here. But just accept it as pretty much impossible outside of extremely few SKUs of PCs, if ever.


Switch 2's unique functions with the File-Decompression Unit, how different the RT cores are to AMD's Ray Accelerators, and the big factor that are Tensor Cores make it pretty much impossible to viably emulate Switch 2 off prospect.

  • GPU Shader Emulation?
    • The GPU is going to stretch well past the ROG Ally/Steam Deck docked. What GPU could emulate that at an efficient speed?
    • Translation as a soluiton?
      • Only would work on RTX 3000 and 4000 Cards because they'd share the most similar core ISA.
        • And even then it may be RTX 4000 only if Frame Generation is usable on Switch 2. And considering RTX 5000 is altering the shaders radically based on rumors. Yeah.
  • RT Cores?
    • Sure, it may be able to get abstracted to VulkanRT, but it'd likely be intolerably slow on AMD due to the benefits of NVIDIA's RT being made even more prevalent once developers can optimize for it.
  • Tensor Cores?
    • No real way to account for these, they are fixed function and extremely fast at what they do. Not to mention DLSS is pretty locked down, and Ray Reconstruction is pretty much impossible to do without Tensor Cores.
      • The only Theoretical alternative may be Intel Arc GPUs? and even then you'd need to find a way to do the impossible and get DLSS running on XMX units.
  • Disabling/swapping out DLSS?
    • Any game that deploys DLSS likely will have it as a major function in it's rendering pipeline so you're be neutering the presentation by disabling it.
    • And even then, Disabling or swapping out DLSS with XeSS or FSR would require modding EVERY INDIVIDUAL GAME that uses it.
    • And then if a game uses Ray Reconstruction for RT. That makes any idea of FSR2/XeSS Injection a no-go as the game would have NO DENOISER for the Ray Tracing without RR as why would a developer leave a standard big denoiser wasting space if they are using Ray Reconstruction?
So yeah, Switch 2 Emulation would either be an extremely exclusive club, or virtually (and very much practically) impossible.
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There's an even easier way to put it. Switch 2 will be an state-of-the-art machine customized to hell and back by Nvidia and Nintendo, and those generally speaking aren't emulated long after their life cycle has ended, that's pretty much it.

People don't expect to emulate a PS5 or even a PS4 anytime soon, why would people expect it for Switch 2? Even as a PC player, you're legitimately better off just... Getting the console, really.
 
ILikeFeet said:
I'd say it's downplaying SSR. both are casting a ray to either sample the environment or throw information to surfaces. but because they're higher level definitions of ray tracing than how most folks are using "ray tracing" these days, it gets glossed over and not considered RT
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Fair, you could probably get a RT-Reflection like image if you made a SSR Surface Cache that was world-space aware? Using the SSR to fill the enviroment over time????

But likely would be more expensive than Cubemaps.

Either way the main point is SVOGI is far closer to Lumen.etc than SSR which is my point.
 
SiG said:
People often use it to justify piracy of current and recently released Switch games, so people could play them on systems it was not intended for.

That, and people just looking for excuses to say “Fuck Nintendo”.
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I love nintendo and I love emulation. Emulation allows to run games better the than original hardware. I see it as a net positive overall.
 
Concernt said:
There hasn't been a single software vulnerability, which is impressive. Every single one has depended on hardware.

While I'm a huge advocate for people deserving to own their own devices and do what they want with them, I can't lie that it's impressive what Nintendo has done.
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Technically, there is a software vulnerability, which makes use of Switch's hidden internet browser applet, but it's so niche and requires being on launch firmware 1.0.0.

But yeah, the Switch's OS in general is actually pretty damn good, according to SciresM (one of the major Switch hacking devs).
 
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Alovon11 said:
Fair, you could probably get a RT-Reflection like image if you made a SSR Surface Cache that was world-space aware? Using the SSR to fill the enviroment over time????

But likely would be more expensive than Cubemaps.

Either way the main point is SVOGI is far closer to Lumen.etc than SSR which is my point.
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that's kinda what Lumen surface cards are
 
0
Concernt said:
There hasn't been a single software vulnerability, which is impressive. Every single one has depended on hardware.

While I'm a huge advocate for people deserving to own their own devices and do what they want with them, I can't lie that it's impressive what Nintendo has done.
Click to expand...
The MK8 vuln on the WiiU is a potential entry point on the Switch. Maybe no one attempted it yet. Or Nintendo has already patched it.
 
Alovon11 said:
Not against emulation for Switch 2 here. But just accept it as pretty much impossible outside of extremely few SKUs of PCs, if ever.


Switch 2's unique functions with the File-Decompression Unit, how different the RT cores are to AMD's Ray Accelerators, and the big factor that are Tensor Cores make it pretty much impossible to viably emulate Switch 2 off prospect.

  • GPU Shader Emulation?
    • The GPU is going to stretch well past the ROG Ally/Steam Deck docked. What GPU could emulate that at an efficient speed?
    • Translation as a soluiton?
      • Only would work on RTX 3000 and 4000 Cards because they'd share the most similar core ISA.
        • And even then it may be RTX 4000 only if Frame Generation is usable on Switch 2. And considering RTX 5000 is altering the shaders radically based on rumors. Yeah.
  • RT Cores?
    • Sure, it may be able to get abstracted to VulkanRT, but it'd likely be intolerably slow on AMD due to the benefits of NVIDIA's RT being made even more prevalent once developers can optimize for it.
  • Tensor Cores?
    • No real way to account for these, they are fixed function and extremely fast at what they do. Not to mention DLSS is pretty locked down, and Ray Reconstruction is pretty much impossible to do without Tensor Cores.
      • The only Theoretical alternative may be Intel Arc GPUs? and even then you'd need to find a way to do the impossible and get DLSS running on XMX units.
  • Disabling/swapping out DLSS?
    • Any game that deploys DLSS likely will have it as a major function in it's rendering pipeline so you're be neutering the presentation by disabling it.
    • And even then, Disabling or swapping out DLSS with XeSS or FSR would require modding EVERY INDIVIDUAL GAME that uses it.
    • And then if a game uses Ray Reconstruction for RT. That makes any idea of FSR2/XeSS Injection a no-go as the game would have NO DENOISER for the Ray Tracing without RR as why would a developer leave a standard big denoiser wasting space if they are using Ray Reconstruction?
So yeah, Switch 2 Emulation would either be an extremely exclusive club, or virtually (and very much practically) impossible.
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You don't need equivalent hardware to emulate the more custom accelerators, it'll just be slow.
 
Th 360 was far more advanced at the time of its release than NG will be at its release, and Xenia is pretty good.

Moore’s Law might be dead but it’s not that dead.
 
Kazuyamishima said:
Why? Why does everyone hate emulation so much around here? It's insane for game preservation. I agree it should be done only after the system is dead and is not being sold anymore in order to not damage the sales but still
Click to expand...
With the way things are, emulation is just an excuse to pirate games. I'll support emulation after the Switch have died, not when new releases are getting pirated left and right, "but mah steam deck can run better than the switch".
 
oldpuck said:
Not really? It does make it feel more imminent - especially since hardware details are starting to show up in the SDK, implying that Nintendo cares more about getting tools into devs hands than keeping stuff secret. But I also thought the same thing after firmware 16.0 came out which had some similar hints.
Click to expand...
What hardware details are in the SDK?
 
ertaboy356b said:
With the way things are, emulation is just an excuse to pirate games. I'll support emulation after the Switch have died, not when new releases are getting pirated left and right, "but mah steam deck can run better than the switch".
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are the developers of yuzu or ryujinx really at fault for people pirating games on their software I think they just want to create emulators for being able to run switch games on more powerful hardware, I dont think they made it so people could pirate games. Thats on the fault of the pirates. I still support the switch emulator devs for making amazing software that allows us not to be limited by the switchs capacity and also allows for perservation in the future. Basically shouldn't fault the emulator devs of stuff like yuzu for the piracy I think thats right and kinda devalues their works and is disrespectful to them

Also without the emulators being developed now we wouldn't have them in the future for preservation purposes its good that they are developed early so in the future they can work well
 
oldpuck said:
Th 360 was far more advanced at the time of its release than NG will be at its release, and Xenia is pretty good.

Moore’s Law might be dead but it’s not that dead.
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I understand what you're trying to say, but being a bit more fair (Or perhaps even pedantic. I'm sorry if I'm coming across this way), X360 was a very well documented hardware, from both Microsoft as well as the community efforts. I think the point with Switch 2 is that, in theory, bar any HW or SW flaw to exploited, it will be a far bit harder and a slower process for the community to understand the system, the way it handle and communicate with it's components, etc. So development of emulators or HBrew will be a very slow burning process.

Edit: That being said, I do believe there will be a frenzy at trying to break down the system and find exploits, even if it takes some obscene amount of compute resources.
 
Alovon11 said:
Not against emulation for Switch 2 here. But just accept it as pretty much impossible outside of extremely few SKUs of PCs, if ever.


Switch 2's unique functions with the File-Decompression Unit, how different the RT cores are to AMD's Ray Accelerators, and the big factor that are Tensor Cores make it pretty much impossible to viably emulate Switch 2 off prospect.

  • GPU Shader Emulation?
    • The GPU is going to stretch well past the ROG Ally/Steam Deck docked. What GPU could emulate that at an efficient speed?
    • Translation as a soluiton?
      • Only would work on RTX 3000 and 4000 Cards because they'd share the most similar core ISA.
        • And even then it may be RTX 4000 only if Frame Generation is usable on Switch 2. And considering RTX 5000 is altering the shaders radically based on rumors. Yeah.
  • RT Cores?
    • Sure, it may be able to get abstracted to VulkanRT, but it'd likely be intolerably slow on AMD due to the benefits of NVIDIA's RT being made even more prevalent once developers can optimize for it.
  • Tensor Cores?
    • No real way to account for these, they are fixed function and extremely fast at what they do. Not to mention DLSS is pretty locked down, and Ray Reconstruction is pretty much impossible to do without Tensor Cores.
      • The only Theoretical alternative may be Intel Arc GPUs? and even then you'd need to find a way to do the impossible and get DLSS running on XMX units.
  • Disabling/swapping out DLSS?
    • Any game that deploys DLSS likely will have it as a major function in it's rendering pipeline so you're be neutering the presentation by disabling it.
    • And even then, Disabling or swapping out DLSS with XeSS or FSR would require modding EVERY INDIVIDUAL GAME that uses it.
    • And then if a game uses Ray Reconstruction for RT. That makes any idea of FSR2/XeSS Injection a no-go as the game would have NO DENOISER for the Ray Tracing without RR as why would a developer leave a standard big denoiser wasting space if they are using Ray Reconstruction?
So yeah, Switch 2 Emulation would either be an extremely exclusive club, or virtually (and very much practically) impossible.
Click to expand...
If there are not already there probably will be a way for much powerful hardware to “brute-force” it’s way through emulating those things. But ya it’s going to make it harder to emulate in the near term on anything but Nvidia hardware.
 
Quoted by: SiG
1
mjayer said:
If there are not already there probably will be a way for much powerful hardware to “brute-force” it’s way through emulating those things. But ya it’s going to make it harder to emulate in the near term on anything but Nvidia hardware.
Click to expand...
There are simply some things you cannot brute force, such as the Tensor core stuff which will requires some sort of hardware ML to process. As mentioned, only Nvidia GPUs and perhaps Intel might be capable for the DLSS parts, but who's to say software won't utilize Tensor cores for other tasks outside game rendering...
 
as promised, some shots from that demo I talked about. try guessing which ones have lumen on! :p

RHLKXBw.jpg
mXvh3Em.jpg

ow7hJYr.jpg
0BaUUL8.jpg

hkgUynm.jpg
rAza8cp.jpg

with this methodology change, ports are gonna be a lot more interesting. ray tracing is the first thing to be stripped in Series S if the studios make heavy use of it, but Epic made strides to make sure lumen is portable. Immortals of Aveum was a mess on every system, and Lords of the Fallen will be an interesting benchmark on friday. how Drake will hold up as devs get better at utilizing ray tracing will be one to watch as the gap will only grow larger between the "default" lighting and with Lumen off.

and this isn't even the most intensive UE5 demo I have on hand (that's not The Matrix)

this has a link to the demo which might still be up
 
ertaboy356b said:
With the way things are, emulation is just an excuse to pirate games. I'll support emulation after the Switch have died, not when new releases are getting pirated left and right, "but mah steam deck can run better than the switch".
Click to expand...
Piracy is frowned upon in the emulation space and in some places don't allow posts with links to downloading ROMs.
 
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