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

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How much is an improvement regarding power efficiency is 4N over regular 5nm with TSMC nodes? I understand that 4N is also a 5nm node, but I couldn't find any documentation on how much efficient 4N is over the regular 5nm nodes other than it's a custom node for Nvidia.
 
boomersooner2000 said:
How much is an improvement regarding power efficiency is 4N over regular 5nm with TSMC nodes? I understand that 4N is also a 5nm node, but I couldn't find any documentation on how much efficient 4N is over the regular 5nm nodes other than it's a custom node for Nvidia.
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do note that 4N is not N4. 4N is a customized version of 5nm for Nvidia, but it's important to remember these are almost always customized for customers. Nvidia just likes spicing it up with a new name

N4 is the actual improvement over TSMC 5nm
As the third major enhancement of TSMC’s 5nm family, N4P will deliver an 11% performance boost over the original N5 technology and a 6% boost over N4. Compared to N5, N4P will also deliver a 22% improvement in power efficiency as well as a 6% improvement in transistor density. In addition, N4P lowers process complexity and improves wafer cycle time by reducing the number of masks. N4P demonstrates TSMC’s pursuit and investment in continuous improvement of our process technologies.
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Sol said:
It's crazy how we're probably just a few months away from an official announcement and yet it's quieter than ever.
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Calm before the storm, but also, that was pretty much how 2016 was. Nintendo isn't exactly a "leaky" company.

We just didn't get much in the way of "noise" leading up to the reveal of Nintendo Switch until the week of, and I would strongly discourage anyone from making a judgement about Switch 2's announcement window based on "insiders" or "noise".

As for announcement window, could be a couple months. Could be just one month! I'm still surprised they didn't pull the trigger this side of the new year.
 
ILikeFeet said:
do note that 4N is not N4. 4N is a customized version of 5nm for Nvidia, but it's important to remember these are almost always customized for customers. Nvidia just likes spicing it up with a new name

N4 is the actual improvement over TSMC 5nm

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I understand about N4 and N3, I was just curious if 4N has any improvements efficiency wise over TSMC's regular 5nm nodes or if it's just another Nvidia marketing term for 5nm nodes
 
boomersooner2000 said:
I understand about N4 and N3, I was just curious if 4N has any improvements efficiency wise over TSMC's regular 5nm nodes or if it's just another Nvidia marketing term for 5nm nodes
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well Nvidia customized it, so I assume they made it better.

There's no way to know the exact difference, since we don't have a Lovelace card on the regular 5nm node.
 
boomersooner2000 said:
How much is an improvement regarding power efficiency is 4N over regular 5nm with TSMC nodes? I understand that 4N is also a 5nm node, but I couldn't find any documentation on how much efficient 4N is over the regular 5nm nodes other than it's a custom node for Nvidia.
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Officially speaking, nobody's really going to know, because TSMC's 4N process node is customised for only Nvidia, and nobody else. There's a murmur from kopite7kimi of TSMC's 4N process node being based on TSMC's N5P process node. But Dylan Patel from SemiAnalysis mentioned that TSMC's 4N process node is a customised variant of TSMC's N4 process node based on teardowns.
 
D36 said:
New EO game?
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Would play!
captain-eo-michael.gif

10/10 do want
 
careers.nintendo.com

Job Openings - Careers at Nintendo of America

CONTRACT - Engineer - Graphics (NTD), Software Development
careers.nintendo.com careers.nintendo.com
⋮
We are looking for a Graphics Software Engineer to work on Nintendo's proprietary graphics drivers and software for Nintendo gaming platforms. Nintendo Technology Development, Inc. is a technology research and development subsidiary responsible for hardware design and driver development for Nintendo gaming systems.
This engineer will be responsible for working with internal teams and vendors on critical features, performance tuning and troubleshooting. The successful candidate will be a high-energy problem-solver with a passion for excellence and a proven track record. We are looking for people who are excellent team players, and who work well on individual assignments.
A strong background in 3D graphics is essential.
DESCRIPTION OF DUTIES
  • Implement new features, debug existing features, and create tests related to computer graphics
  • Be capable of working at both the system and application level
  • Profile and optimize graphics related CPU and GPU workloads
  • Stay current on new graphics technology and developments
  • Work both independently and with the team and be productive in an ever-changing environment
SUMMARY OF REQUIREMENTS:
  • 2-5 years professional experience or demonstration of required skills via reviewable projects
  • Strong understanding of modern graphics API such as Vulkan or DirectD3D 12
  • Prefer experience with graphics debuggers such as RenderDoc or NVidia NSight
  • Prefer experience with common game engines such as Unreal Engine or Unity
  • Knowledge of common software development methodologies and software quality assurance processes.
  • Proficient in C++
  • BS in engineering or related field
⋮
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D36 said:
New EO game?
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There was an old tease in 2018 and recently they confirmed a new one is in dev (who knows if its just concept) and the feedback from HD collection would help.

I played EO1 and I think they did a admirable job with the transition. I know not a lot of games would rely on it, but I do hope they add a stylus for the next switch, or work with third parties as accessories. The EO collection came with on in Japan.
 
Larian released the last major update for BG3.

How is current CPU performance in Act 3 now.

If it's still pretty bad, then the question will be how many CPU functions can be turned off without impacting the game much and how many CPU functions can be moved over to the GPU in a hypothetical Switch 2 port.
 
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Thraktor said:
Sorry, I forgot to reply to this. On Rockstar, it's important to remember that Rockstar are Take Two, it's just a publishing brand they use for big budget open world games. The creation of the Rockstar publishing brand, and the renaming of DMA Design to Rockstar North was part of a move to exert more control over the studio; they literally forced the studio heads to move to New York so that they'd be in the same building as Take Two's management. They can't tell Take Two no any more than I can tell myself no when there are tasty snacks in front of me (I try, it doesn't work).

On the NVMe drives, they can run hot, but it depends on a few different things. Firstly whether it's reading or writing data. If a drive is only reading data, it consumes a lot less power, as shown in the graphs in the post I linked to. This is because there's not a lot for the flash controller to do when reading data, it's literally just passing data from the NAND to the PCIe link. The flash controller is a lot more busy when writing data, because it has to manage the health of the NAND while doing so. If you just rewrite data over and over to a single NAND cell, it loses its ability to hold charge, and can no longer store any data. So when you write files to an SSD, the flash controller has to keep track of what condition every block of NAND cells is in, and write to the least damaged cells, to maintain the health of the drive (this is called wear levelling). This requires a lot more processing power than just passing data across, so it consumes a lot more power than when reading, and the faster you write data, the more power is consumed.

The reason this isn't an issue on consoles is that you're never really going to be writing data that fast. The MP600 Mini I linked to consumes up to 3.6W while writing, but that's at a rate of around 3.7GB/s. There's no need for a console to write data that fast, as generally you're only writing to the drive when you're downloading a game, or a patch, or saving a game. In the first two scenarios, you're limited by your broadband speed, which even for the fastest connections would be around 0.1GB/s (assuming Nintendo even had servers which could keep up with that, which they don't). Saving games only involves very small amounts of data, and similarly doesn't need much bandwidth. In theory if you're doing an Xbox style quick-resume where you're dumping the entire contents of RAM to storage, you could hit higher write speeds, but it would only be very briefly.

The other factor is what kind of drive it is. Higher-end drives usually have on-board DRAM to improve performance, and these will usually consume more power (around 2-3W for reads for PCIe 4.0 drives these days, it seems). Lower-end drives, like the ones I showed you, don't have DRAM, and consume less power. Both Xbox Series and PS5 use SSDs without DRAM, and the smaller M.2 2230 drives I was looking at (which are as large as you could fit in a Switch style device) are all made without DRAM, so if Nintendo were to use an NVMe drive, it's safe to say it would be one of the cheaper, more efficient drives without DRAM.
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Cheers.

Out of interest as I’m sure more people will want your take. As we’re now quickly heading into 2024 what is your predicted specs of the retail Drake console at this juncture as we’re now 99% within a year of release. Just the basics like CPU clock, GPU tflops in both modes, ram amount & speed and hard drive speed.

It’s cool if you don’t want to speculate to that degree 🍻
 
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Steam Deck people saying that BG3 is mostly around 20-24 FPS in Act 3 (with drops to teens during major spells for all acts) after all major updates were completed.

Larian mostly focused on optimizing VRAM usage for the Series S, which I guess could be helpful for a Switch 2 port if they optimized more for slow RAM as well.

But the game looks like it could need a lot of CPU optimization for the Switch 2. Probably either turning off some stuff or moving stuff to the GPU.

But the confidence from some people that Act 3's CPU heavy nature would be cleaned up before they were done with the game on PC seems to have not come to fruition.

I imagine that this game and Elden Ring will have Nintendo and NVIDIA providing technical assistance for porting because Nintendo will desperately want both on the platform, but BG3 will probably be hard.
 
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ItWasMeantToBe19 said:
Steam Deck people saying that BG3 is mostly around 20-24 FPS in Act 3 (with drops to teens during major spells for all acts) after all major updates were completed.

Larian mostly focused on optimizing VRAM usage for the Series S, which I guess could be helpful for a Switch 2 port if they optimized more for slow RAM as well.

But the game looks like it could need a lot of CPU optimization for the Switch 2. Probably either turning off some stuff or moving stuff to the GPU.

But the confidence from some people that Act 3's CPU heavy nature would be cleaned up before they were done with the game on PC seems to have not come to fruition.

I imagine that this game and Elden Ring will have Nintendo and NVIDIA providing technical assistance for porting because Nintendo will desperately want both on the platform, but BG3 will probably be hard.
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This game got zero SD specific optimisation and its running on a translation layer (which I assume is mostly cpu), so that's an automatic win for NG.

EDIT: And SD also has no dedicated decompression which Drake has. This will also free up cpu cycles.
 
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Since we don‘t have any new leaks, rumours, or shipment data to talk about, will we discuss Switch 2 Pro in this thread or make an own one for it?
 
Darknut85 said:
Since we don‘t have any new leaks, rumours, or shipment data to talk about, will we discuss Switch 2 Pro in this thread or make an own one for it?
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I don't see a pro happening, because tech in general isn't progressing and dropping in price at the rate it used to. If Kopite is somehow right about 8nm, they can quite easily make a pro, but imo it's more likely Drake is 4nm. If this is the case the tech might not be there at the price it needs to for pro to be viable.

A pro never happened for the OG Switch, which imo is probably one of the most in need of a pro consoles ever.
 
Hermii said:
I don't see a pro happening, because tech in general isn't progressing and dropping in price at the rate it used to. If Kopite is somehow right about 8nm, they can quite easily make a pro, but imo it's more likely Drake is 4nm. If this is the case the tech might not be there at the price it needs to for pro to be viable.

A pro never happened for the OG Switch, which imo is probably one of the most in need of a pro consoles ever.
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Same. I also don't think it will get a pro. But that won't stop people from speculating about one.
 
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Ray reconstruction was officially added to non path traced modes for one game.

Spoilers, it’s a good bit more expensive than the denoisers normally used in lower quality ray tracing.

Unless NVIDIA makes a heavily lossy pruned (or trained on just scenes needing less denoising) neural network, this is pretty clearly not something that will be used on Switch 2.

Hopefully NVIDIA develops screen space Ray Reconstruction for Nintendo.
 
SirArthur said:
I know not a lot of games would rely on it, but I do hope they add a stylus for the next switch, or work with third parties as accessories.
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Same, tbh. In general, I hope Nintendo and third-parties make more frequent and better use of the touchscreen and IR sensor for their games. The Switch was shown off as this sort of swiss army knife of a game system, but a lot of its features went underutilized; usually only being used out of convenience.
 
SiG said:
Man, Retro Studios is still hiring artists:


Is it possible they have several projects on the way and not just Metroid Prime 4?
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Concept artists sounds like something you need at the pre production stage of a project to me. Not while wrapping one up.
 
SiG said:
Hence why I believe they have projects other than Metroid Prime 4 in the works as well.
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Makes sense, if prime 4 is content complete and is just getting the last few rounds of optimization/ polish it's not like the entire studio would be doing that.
 
With regards to ports of PS4 and Xbox One games to Switch 2, I’ve been thinking a lot about the image quality potentially accelerated with DLSS compared to the same games running on current generation hardware, especially games released before 2016-17 and ones without Xbox One X or PS4 Pro enhancements, or 30FPS games running at 60 or 120 FPS on current gen, which default to base PS4 and Xbox One resolutions and graphics quality. Plenty of those titles still render at sub-1080p pixel counts but the anti-aliasing solution in many cases isn’t TAA, which IIRC is a requirement for DLSS. Either way, those types of games have anti-aliasing and overall image quality that still considerably exhibits temporal artifacts even with boosted FPS numbers because of a lower resolution - and games covered with TAA still look pretty soft unless their resolutions have been boosted on PS5/Series X to 1440p/4K/something in-between.

DLSS could potentially offer better temporal image quality with less artifacts on Switch 2 compared to base PS4/Xbox One as well as the base console code running on current generation consoles, if the implementation of the latest versions of DLSS on PC is anything to go by. And the neural network is only improving, so ghosting and artifacts could reduce further going forward. Coupled with a 4K output resolution, it would be pretty interesting to see how much more detail Nintendo’s machine will resolve compared to base last-gen consoles or current-gen running at 1080p or sub-1080p. The only thing I know is going to be a thing to some degree is lower framerate especially compared to current-gen - I think it’s reasonable to expect most games to run at 30FPS, especially games that have a 4K or 1440p output resolution while docked. Sure there’s some lighter games like Breath of the Wild that can probably push higher FPS numbers but 30 seems like a decent enough target for PS4-level titles for example - people that enjoy the portability of the Switch hardware will appreciate games of that fidelity regardless. Not sure if Nintendo will give us the option to either push performance or quality like the other console manufacturers are - especially since I can’t tell just how much sense that would make with an ARM CPU that has as many power and thermal limits as Nintendo will potentially push for battery life and weight reasons.
 
So Prime 4 coming 2024 is a given, then (Retro hiring conceptual artists means they’re slowly moving to their next project). I doubt Nintendo is gonna sit on this game like they’ve done for others. Especially since this game got a dev reset.

Although I’d like to think that Prime 4 could be tied to the Switch 2 reveal (much like how Dread was tied to the OLED), it’s also possible Nintendo is just waiting the proper time to market it under a possible four month interval
 
Thraktor said:
assuming Nintendo even had servers which could keep up with that, which they don't
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I just don't get WHY THE HECK Nintendo doesn't use a peer-to-peer based game downloading service for the e-shop. If you're not interested in upgrading your servers, at least use an alternative that would improve download times.

On popular downloads, there would be multiple seeders. And to be clear here: peer-to-peer != piracy. I mean people who LEGALLY own the game would seed downloads to another person who's legally downloading the digital copy from the eshop.

inb4: "it's because online games don't allow for background network activity on the switch"
I still don't think this would be a problem - they'd have a regular eshop servers download fallback option and a lot of switch games are offline experiences anyway...
 
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