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

[pelusilla6]

I saw that post and it is clearly a mistake.
He may have misread the projection that the total number will be 3 million units during 2023.

Report: Steam Deck to pass 3 million sales during 2023

A new report from Omdia currently doing the rounds is that the Steam Deck from Valve is set to hit 3 million sales during 2023.

www.gamingonlinux.com

I dont see oldpuck misreading something (or using a projection from 8 months ago) . It could have been a bad source yeah but not a "mistake".

 

[Dakhil]

DLSS is gonna be a bigger draw for most people compared to ray-traced graphics.

I don't necessarily disagree. But I think developers disagree, especially if what the developers from 4A Games said is any indication. And there's the rumour from NateDrake about Drake supporting ray reconstruction from DLSS 3.5, which definitely suggests ray tracing is a huge deal for developers.

---

The thing with Switch 2 is now people have options. There are now Steam Decks and such, also don't forget that they also compete with themselves (Switch). I have like 15 or so backlog (mostly RPGs) in my shelf that I haven't even started yet so a Switch will be suffice for me for a long time but and a big BUT, if Nintendo managed to make the Switch 2 have enhanced BC like for example a 60FPS 1080P Shin Megami Tensei V (I know this is doable because my modded Switch can run the damn game in 60 FPS overclocked), then I will gladly sell my Switch and get a Switch 2 almost immediately (apparently, modded V2s are still sought after).

With or without patches? Outside of running Nintendo Switch games with dynamic resolutions and/or frame rates at the max resolution and/or frame rate on Nintendo's new hardware, I don't really expect major improvements in terms of backwards compatibility on Nintendo's new hardware without patches.

 

[navierStokes]

[Bunch of text + Graph]

PS3; I saw that there’s GB6 results too , I can present a similar graph if desired. GB6 is an improved microbenchmark eitherway.

-

For interest, I did one with GB6 too as the results were just there through sockpk . Of course, it has to be said that synthetic benchmarks and the tests done by GB6 may not present accurate standing w.r.t. performance in gaming. Initially, I included some other SoC's or there too, but it'll just clutter the info and you can easily compare and match on your own, I wish I could also include power consumption of each resp. SoC (even mainboard number would be ok), just to have an idea of that, but on the other hand you can't really read too much from it other than the conclusion that again, N4P is the best choice.
8 core A78 @ 2 Ghz is ideal.

I also tried to search for information of any tests done with spec 2017 or 2016, but I could refer to the [Anandtech] Apple A15 review;

In the power axis graphs, we see the same data, only plotted against average power. Generally, I find distinction of efficiency here to be quite harder between the various data-points, however some readers have requested this view. The bubble size corresponds to the average power of the various CPUs, we’re measuring system active power, meaning total device workload power minus idle power, to compensate components such as the display.

---

I guess it's been an interesting 2023 , I guess the year can be concluded with TGA being the last big event. Most of the interesting news for me was in the latter half of 2023, or at least that's when I started tracking this thread ^^.

Generally, I think problematic UE5 titles that perform poorly on consoles and PC hardware, won't have a different story on the next system. Unless there are updates or patches made over time to solve that, on the other hand they'll likely do a specific optimisation pass for the platform itself, but this time the hardware is there to make it more feasible to run at a stable framerate (hopefully).
From UE5's forward-looking roadmap, there are still a bunch of optimizations being done (especially Renderer Parallelization as UE5 is bound by ST looking at the titles released now). Moreover, the focus on having desktop renderer on mobile devices, aka general parity between all platforms/devices is going to be very beneficial too I imagine; Desktop rendering on mobile devices
I think the coolest news this year was reading that UE5's matrix demo has been shown on the next system's hardware, and I hope by the time the next system is released the above improvements will be there.

Going by how BG3 runs on the M1 8GB, its main limitation is uRAM (or VRAM for the GPU), the 16GB version performs much better (e.g. less stutter due to ram limitations -> better frame times, higher textures etc.) and that's also a very efficient SoC. The M2 generally runs better as you get to the heavier Act 3, due to its slightly higher IPC and improvement on the GPU front. Sadly the latest patch is not available yet so I'm curious if the issues there are resolved. Eitherway, higher than 8GB is to be expected for the future. Haven't read or tracked on how it's doing on the Series S though.
Also, I'll try to make some time to min-max settings on my iPad Pro M2 8GB, to see how close I can get to PS4 Pro visuals, as from an eye-ball estimate it's running at 40FPS with equivalent visual fidelity. It's quite interesting how it runs on this device with passive cooling and it made me more hyped for the next switch. I've finished the game during my commute, looking forward to doing that with Death Stranding too .

Other than that, I think Avatar Frontier's of Pandora is one of the titles this year (next to AW2), that would really require some cutbacks to get it performant on a low-power platform such as the Switch 2/next/new. I've seen some videos of it running on the 7840U or Z1 Extreme and those devices are not able to run it. On the other hand, even on low settings the game still looks quite amazing and from an arm-chair perspective, those beautiful forest environments would need some trimming to free up rendering power for other aspects of the game. It's been interesting to see DF's test this year too and just the general discussion around it.

While I don't have much interest in the shipment tracking stuff, I'm looking forward to 2024 and seeing how close you all were with the speculation . Hopefully, it's released in 2024 ...it must be, right?

 

[Lugia667]

I feel like Valave would be crowing about such sales if it was true tbh

 

[Ghostsonplanets]

The thing with Switch 2 is now people have options. There are now Steam Decks and such, also don't forget that they also compete with themselves (Switch). I have like 15 or so backlog (mostly RPGs) in my shelf that I haven't even started yet so a Switch will be suffice for me for a long time but and a big BUT, if Nintendo managed to make the Switch 2 have enhanced BC like for example a 60FPS 1080P Shin Megami Tensei V (I know this is doable because my modded Switch can run the damn game in 60 FPS overclocked), then I will gladly sell my Switch and get a Switch 2 almost immediately (apparently, modded V2s are still sought after).

Do people have choice or the choice we think we have are actually an illusion? Swich is sold in multiple countries. SteamDeck and these others PC Handhelds are sold in some few ones. Switch 2 is a much more attractive platform because it will be one people around the world will be able to buy.

I'm referring to a oldpuck post (now deleted obviously) that said that first day sales including pre-orders of the Steam Deck OLED were something like 3M. That seemed enormous at the time but hey he seemed like a trustworthy member. Switch did 2.7M in its first month.

Surely I haven't dreamt this post, others must have seen it!

He was obviously feed bogus information. He had said 3 million pre-orders in 30 minutes. That's obviously false and would mean a bigger and more successful launch for SD OLED than any console ever.

 

[Danny]

The Steam deck since its release has followed a trajectory of a very slow but gradual increase in sales, it would be totally implausible for it to suddenly have a dramatic explosion of sales that is coming from nowhere.

And remember; Steam Deck has been much more powerful than the Switch since release, and still haven't been able to compete. When the Switch 2 release and the power performance difference has been eroded the Steam deck is even less of a challenge for Nintendo than ever before. And the Steam deck will no longer be able to play Switch 2 games because the Switch 2 will not be cracked and emulated as fast and easily as the Switch was.

 

[Raccoon]

I was considering adding a /hj to the end before I posted but didn't. I probably should have in retrospect, but I felt my wording sounded enough like a joke to not be taken seriously. I wasn't being serious or annoyed by your posts, just slightly frustrated at the 2025 stuff when I feel that there is very little evidence for it. No hard feelings at all and I wasn't trying to disrespect you.

Greatly appreciated honestly. This whole exchange has left me feeling that at the end of the day I'm the one taking all this too serious despite not committing to any consistent theory. I'll try not to disrupt this thread anymore

 

[ILikeFeet]

Other than that, I think Avatar Frontier's of Pandora is one of the titles this year (next to AW2), that would really require some cutbacks to get it performant on a low-power platform such as the Switch 2/next/new. I've seen some videos of it running on the 7840U or Z1 Extreme and those devices are not able to run it. On the other hand, even on low settings the game still looks quite amazing and from an arm-chair perspective, those beautiful forest environments would need some trimming to free up rendering power for other aspects of the game. It's been interesting to see DF's test this year too and just the general discussion around it.

Avatar looks to be running into bandwidth limitations. old gpus with low amounts of vram are running the game much better. so if Massive is gonna try to get this game goin on Drake, they'll have to do some cuts to reduce traffic

 

[Dimensio]

there are so many switch 1 games for next year though

The mistake you're making with this line of thinking is thinking that the Switch 2 is going to be released only when there are no more games for the Switch 1.
The Switch 1 will keep receiving games (small cross-gen titles and remakes) for at least 1-1.5 years before Nintendo drops it completely to ensure a smooth transition.
The fact that there are still games coming out next year (even ignoring the fact that all of them are remakes/ports) doesn't indicate in any way that the switch 2 isn't coming next year.
Waiting until there are no more games coming out and hardware sales flatline would be repeating the same mistake as the Wii-Wii U transition.

 

[Langstonboy]

There's not that many 3rd party games that are a lock to clear 5 million on the Switch though and probably more like 7-8 million upside.

It would be like Monster Hunter, maybe Dragon Quest, Minecraft, and uh maybe GTA6 if they ported it.

It's different if the sales upside is maybe 700k-1.5 million copies at best, some devs will be down for that, others will say "nah". But when you're getting to like 5/6/7 million copies as a safe bet, that's almost impossible to ignore. Maybe Rockstar is the one company that can afford to do it because they're assuming GTA6 is going to sell like 60+ million copies, so getting an extra 2-3 million from Switch 2 owners may not be worth it in their eyes.

GTA vi 60 million total, only 2 million copies for gta vi on the go? Lol it’s probably many times that 60 million first year and 20 million on the go.

 

[Multiverse]

I'm referring to a oldpuck post (now deleted obviously) that said that first day sales including pre-orders of the Steam Deck OLED were something like 3M. That seemed enormous at the time but hey he seemed like a trustworthy member. Switch did 2.7M in its first month.

Surely I haven't dreamt this post, others must have seen it!

In Universe number delta 23456 omega maybe. Not this earth and this existence. I doubt the TOTAL SALES of Steam Deck have even passed the 3 million mark.

 

[navierStokes]

Avatar looks to be running into bandwidth limitations. old gpus with low amounts of vram are running the game much better. so if Massive is gonna try to get this game goin on Drake, they'll have to do some cuts to reduce traffic

There's not been much testing at the moment yet, but I've seen tests with a GTX 1060 6GB (192 GB/s) at low + FSR quality seems to maintain an above 30fps framerate, which should bode well for frametime consistency at 30fps V-sync. So I 100% would agree that's the constraint for those devices. (also the A750 8GB has insane bandwidth, 256-bit 512 GB/s, combined with the huge die-size I wonder how much profit they've made until now ..)

Slightly tangentially related, but the recent analysis by chipsandcheese is interesting; M2 Pro iGPU - 256-bit, LPDDR5 6400 MT/s. Wish there was a bit more practical gaming-tests, but perhaps that'll come later.

 

[Serif]

The 3 million number was me frantically inputting in my shipping info again and again during the pre order period cause Valve's servers kept crapping out

 

[CalmMind]

I don't want to sound arrogant, but you're underestimating this. First of all, Xbox does not have the power of PlayStation with gamers, especially the older generation. So the comparison with Xbox One X is not the best one.

Yes, Switch 2 is a handheld and it will surely be cheaper, but it's still a console. PS5 Pro will probably release with GTA VI, a game that we don't expect to see on NG Switch on D1. People can't afford two consoles at the same time, so many will do a choice between them.

Nintendo will surely reveal the console before September, but to me they need to release NG Switch as soon as possible.

I had no idea the PS5 Pro was releasing in 2025.

 

[ItWasMeantToBe19]

I don't necessarily disagree. But I think developers disagree, especially if what the developers from 4A Games said are any indication. And there's the rumour from NateDrake about Drake supporting ray reconstruction from DLSS 3.5, which definitely suggests ray tracing is a huge deal for developers.

---

With or without patches? Outside of running Nintendo Switch games with dynamic resolutions and/or frame rates at the max resolution and/or frame rate on Nintendo's new hardware, I don't really expect major improvements in terms of backwards compatibility on Nintendo's new hardware without patches.

We just had a game get RR for non-path traced scenarios. It's not viable for the Switch 2 as it's heavier than denoisers that are already very heavy.

NVIDIA would need to make a much worse version of RR that could actually run quickly on the Switch 2. Any game that used ray-tracing at all on Switch 2 will probably use such limited ray-tracing that going for an expensive denoiser like RR would be a huge waste of computing power.

Screen space ray reconstruction for DLSS would probably be very helpful for the Switch 2, but it's unclear if NVIDIA will have any interest in that as probably everyone will have moved over to ray tracing (or even full path tracing) by 2028 other than mobile hardware and none of their PC cards would really benefit much as they already handle most screen space stuff fairly well to easily.

 

[Samuspet]

For interest, I did one with GB6 too as the results were just there through sockpk . Of course, it has to be said that synthetic benchmarks and the tests done by GB6 may not present accurate standing w.r.t. performance in gaming. Initially, I included some other SoC's or there too, but it'll just clutter the info and you can easily compare and match on your own, I wish I could also include power consumption of each resp. SoC (even mainboard number would be ok), just to have an idea of that, but on the other hand you can't really read too much from it other than the conclusion that again, N4P is the best choice.
8 core A78 @ 2 Ghz is ideal.


I also tried to search for information of any tests done with spec 2017 or 2016, but I could refer to the [Anandtech] Apple A15 review;

---

I guess it's been an interesting 2023 , I guess the year can be concluded with TGA being the last big event. Most of the interesting news for me was in the latter half of 2023, or at least that's when I started tracking this thread ^^.

Generally, I think problematic UE5 titles that perform poorly on consoles and PC hardware, won't have a different story on the next system. Unless there are updates or patches made over time to solve that, on the other hand they'll likely do a specific optimisation pass for the platform itself, but this time the hardware is there to make it more feasible to run at a stable framerate (hopefully).
From UE5's forward-looking roadmap, there are still a bunch of optimizations being done (especially Renderer Parallelization as UE5 is bound by ST looking at the titles released now). Moreover, the focus on having desktop renderer on mobile devices, aka general parity between all platforms/devices is going to be very beneficial too I imagine; Desktop rendering on mobile devices
I think the coolest news this year was reading that UE5's matrix demo has been shown on the next system's hardware, and I hope by the time the next system is released the above improvements will be there.

Going by how BG3 runs on the M1 8GB, its main limitation is uRAM (or VRAM for the GPU), the 16GB version performs much better (e.g. less stutter due to ram limitations -> better frame times, higher textures etc.) and that's also a very efficient SoC. The M2 generally runs better as you get to the heavier Act 3, due to its slightly higher IPC and improvement on the GPU front. Sadly the latest patch is not available yet so I'm curious if the issues there are resolved. Eitherway, higher than 8GB is to be expected for the future. Haven't read or tracked on how it's doing on the Series S though.
Also, I'll try to make some time to min-max settings on my iPad Pro M2 8GB, to see how close I can get to PS4 Pro visuals, as from an eye-ball estimate it's running at 40FPS with equivalent visual fidelity. It's quite interesting how it runs on this device with passive cooling and it made me more hyped for the next switch. I've finished the game during my commute, looking forward to doing that with Death Stranding too .

Other than that, I think Avatar Frontier's of Pandora is one of the titles this year (next to AW2), that would really require some cutbacks to get it performant on a low-power platform such as the Switch 2/next/new. I've seen some videos of it running on the 7840U or Z1 Extreme and those devices are not able to run it. On the other hand, even on low settings the game still looks quite amazing and from an arm-chair perspective, those beautiful forest environments would need some trimming to free up rendering power for other aspects of the game. It's been interesting to see DF's test this year too and just the general discussion around it.

While I don't have much interest in the shipment tracking stuff, I'm looking forward to 2024 and seeing how close you all were with the speculation . Hopefully, it's released in 2024 ...it must be, right?

Is the reason people are expecting 2GHz for the Drake CPU because of the die size versus the current Switch which runs it’s CPU at less than 50% of it’s maximum clock speed?

Steam Deck chews through it’s battery life when you run games at 60fps versus 30fps which I guess is when it’s mainly pushing it’s CPU clocks.

 

[ItWasMeantToBe19]

Avatar Frontiers of Pandora uses almost no CPU and runs fine on the 4 teraflop Series S (unless there are huge issues that no one online has brought up... Which may be the case as Avatar Frontiers of Pandora looks to be a huge financial failure no one bought)

I don't think Snowdrop games like Avatar are going to be a big concern. Avatar itself would probably be a pretty easy port if the game had been successful at all.

 

[ItWasMeantToBe19]

The "RR added to NVN2" rumor was always super frustrating because it's like...

Okay?

Is that... hard to do?

Or is just fairly easy if it's already going to be added to Optix?

If this is not very hard, you could just put it in because why not.

 

[ertaboy356b]

With or without patches? Outside of running Nintendo Switch games with dynamic resolutions and/or frame rates at the max resolution and/or frame rate on Nintendo's new hardware, I don't really expect major improvements in terms of backwards compatibility on Nintendo's new hardware without patches.
[/QUOTE]

Community Patches, though I didn't play the game all the way since I finished the game in OFW beforehand. I just wish to NG+ the game on an upgraded experience.

I think this has been shared before but here's a video of someone using some patches.

 

[ReddDreadtheLead]

What prevents Nintendo and NVIDIA from rearranging the Ampere architecture to take most advantage from a fixed-setting device, with like, 128 CUDA, 8 Tensor and 3 RT? Even if it costs quite some money, the console is going to turn into a profit quite fast, and having a better suited hardware for this specific device would be better for both of them as it would expand it's longevity.

It’s a lot more complicated than simply adding more since everything has its tradeoffs. While they can add more tensor cores and more RT cores, they’d also need to add more cache and also need to add more register file. If they add more they’d also need to have higher bandwidth for the register file and other components. And if they have that they would need to be a more flexible pipeline that reduces the stalling and increases the efficiency of all of the new things added. Then you also have to account for the clockspeed, because having more doesn’t necessarily mean you can have the same clockspeed and may come with reducing the clockspeed. If you’re increasing the amount of RT cores you’d need more TMUs and you’d also need more ROPs, you’d also need more overall bandwidth from the RAM of the system and it would be bandwidth starved much easier than say the current design. Heat has to be accounted for in this too since increasing register file bandwidth causes more heat to be generated. And it would be more expensive SRAM wise…

It’s creating a whole new architecture from scratch basically, and each player in it has its own purpose to be as efficient as possible and reduce as many stalls or wastes. I know it’s not a CPU, but the GPU would be bottlenecked and expensive as hell.

Creating a whole new architecture is a process that takes several hundred millions of investment, several years of testing and trying and other legal jargon involved into this.


The console wouldn’t bring enough profit fast enough to be worth the investment, though Nvidia would release it into the market as well but that’s not too different from them releasing the new GPU + there being a release of a new switch that has the latest and greatest all worked within a similar setting.

 

[lemonfresh]

The Steam deck since its release has followed a trajectory of a very slow but gradual increase in sales, it would be totally implausible for it to suddenly have a dramatic explosion of sales that is coming from nowhere.

And remember; Steam Deck has been much more powerful than the Switch since release, and still haven't been able to compete. When the Switch 2 release and the power performance difference has been eroded the Steam deck is even less of a challenge for Nintendo than ever before. And the Steam deck will no longer be able to play Switch 2 games because the Switch 2 will not be cracked and emulated as fast and easily as the Switch was.

By that time I feel like steam deck successor will come out which will be more powerful than the Switch 2

 

[ILikeFeet]

By that time I feel like steam deck successor will come out which will be more powerful than the Switch 2

and probably way more expensive. Valve looks to be skipping over 5nm and are waiting until AMD comes out with 3nm APUs with Zen 5 and RDNA4 tech. as costly as N3 will be, I wouldn't be surprised if we saw a 6-core/768-core APU

 

[Danny]

By that time I feel like steam deck successor will come out which will be more powerful than the Switch 2

Yes, but it will cost more and the difference between that new steam deck and Switch 2 will be much smaller than the difference between current steam deck and switch, and new steam deck will not have new Nintendo games as the previous one had. So less of a challenge to Nintendo.

 

[Serif]

Steam Deck 2 is years away.

 

[Maxrunner]

By that time I feel like steam deck successor will come out which will be more powerful than the Switch 2

You think Steam deck 2 will come next year?

 

[Langstonboy]

Hello everyone is Switch 2 in mass production yet

Ehhhh, it has possible games left (I think the Switch 1 will get everything up to like Gen 10 DLC and the Switch 2 will only have 5-8 exclusives in its first two years), but hardware sales wise, it's declining pretty significantly.

Like, declining from all-time great seller to... Xbox level seller (not good!)

I think Fall 2024 is the target, but I could see a delay to early 2025 if they like REALLY want to launch with a certain game or games or if they feel like they need more supply for launch.

I don’t think there going to make gen 10 for switch 1 because Nintendo needs rpg a Pokémon game for switch 2 as an next gen only title because I don’t see what gf can do with switch 1 at this point.

 

[lemonfresh]

Yes, but it will cost more and the difference between that new steam deck and Switch 2 will be much smaller than the difference between current steam deck and switch, and new steam deck will not have new Nintendo games as the previous one had. So less of a challenge to Nintendo.

Yeah I think switch 2 will sell more but steam deck will also have third party games switch 2 wont have as well so people who may not like Nintendo games that much might choose the steam deck over the switch 2, Also people who want third party games to run better on a handheld. It really depends how much third party support switch 2 gets forwards. It might be more of a competitor next gen if switch 2 lacks on that front.

You think Steam deck 2 will come next year?

I could see it coming out in 2025 at the earliest which will be the first full year of switch 2 possibly

 

[Mirev]

Ehhhh, it has possible games left (I think the Switch 1 will get everything up to like Gen 10 DLC and the Switch 2 will only have 5-8 exclusives in its first two years), but hardware sales wise, it's declining pretty significantly.

2024 Pokémon game - crossgen
2025 Pokémon game - Switch 2
2026 gen X - Switch 2

They need to push the new hardware but 1 game is enough, and to me it's not Unova but Johto next year

 

[ILikeFeet]

I don’t think there going to make gen 10 for switch 1 because Nintendo needs rpg a Pokémon game for switch 2 as an next gen only title because I don’t see what gf can do with switch 1 at this point.

there are some games rumored to be coming before Gen 10, so we'll probably see an optimized version of their Switch engine

 

[Seven]

I'm not saying it will not outsell Steam Deck, I'm saying that people now have options regardless if it will sell or not and that will eat some of the market. Back in the day, we only have the Switch as the only option for "modern" handheld gaming.

The thing about options, especially when it comes to entertainment, is that the general consumer will always go for the most convenient choice. When it comes to the Switch all you have to do is insert the game card (or download the game), sometimes do a quick update, then you can dive right in. Gaming on the Deck is a lot more complicated; sure there are some titles you can jump right into after downloading, but there are plenty of times where you have to fiddle around to get a game working and then there's always a chance the latest update could render a game unplayable.

 

[Kingpin Rogers]

You could stop trying to temper other people's posts, for one. "You thought this last time" as if people can't change predictions based on new information or hindsight.

Didn’t this start because someone literally said to not listen to anyone who thinks 2025 is a possibility? That sounds much more like trying to temper other people’s posts than anything else.

 

[ziggyrivers]

After S/V, Nintendo should really help GameFreak with personnel. They need ir

 

[Langstonboy]

there are some games rumored to be coming before Gen 10, so we'll probably see an optimized version of their Switch engine

Yeah but I still think that next year’s game will be the last or 2nd to Pokémon rpg for switch 1 (cross gen or not but I think it could be cross gen) and the next will be switch 2 dlc or smaller title in 2025 and then gen 10 in 2026 for the 30th anniversary because that’s easy to market, you get ash back into get anime in a movie and you do other 30th anniversary celebrations and then make the big gen x open world rpg for switch 2 at the end of the year.

 

[Dakhil]

Community Patches, though I didn't play the game all the way since I finished the game in OFW beforehand. I just wish to NG+ the game on an upgraded experience.

I think this has been shared before but here's a video of someone using some patches.

I don't expect Nintendo (and Sony and Microsoft as well) to allow community patches for legal/security reasons.

But anyway, I think whether or not Nintendo Switch games running on Nintendo's new hardware gets patches that take full advantage of the new hardware features on Nintendo's new hardware is completely dependent on developers. Nintendo can certainly encourage developers, but Nintendo ultimately doesn't have the final say.

 

[redmutineer75]

This isn't particularly relevant to future hardware, but it is related to Nintendo hardware, and it has been bugging the piss out of me. I was looking through some data on the Tegra X1+ and found some contradictory information on the CPU. The X1 has 4 A57 and 4 A53 cores in a big.LITTLE configuration, but the A53s are disabled. On the X1+, I've seen some sources say that the A53s were removed, but I've seen others say that they weren't. Is there any concrete information on whether or not the A53s are removed on the X1+?

 

[darthdiablo]

This isn't particularly relevant to future hardware, but it is related to Nintendo hardware, and it has been bugging the piss out of me. I was looking through some data on the Tegra X1+ and found some contradictory information on the CPU. The X1 has 4 A57 and 4 A53 cores in a big.LITTLE configuration, but the A53s are disabled. On the X1+, I've seen some sources say that the A53s were removed, but I've seen others say that they weren't. Is there any concrete information on whether or not the A53s are removed on the X1+?

No idea what the real answer would be but I would assume if X1 were to go through a revision (to X1+) and it is already known/assumed that A53s were not going to be used at all, then I don't see why the revision needs to include A53s at all.

I don't know much about this topic - why were A53s disabled in the first place on X1?

 

[Dakhil]

Is there any concrete information on whether or not the A53s are removed on the X1+?

Unfortunately, no. The only way to know for certain is to do a die shot of the Tegra X1+. And I don't think anyone's really enthusiastic about doing a die shot of the Tegra X1+.

 

[Concernt]

there are so many switch 1 games for next year though

I agree that there is a chance it lands in 2025, even if I think that chance is slim, but this statement is very transparently false. It's also not relevant to launch timing, with cross-gen periods being a thing, even 3DS had a well adorned 2017 past the release of Nintendo Switch.

However, there just aren't "many" Switch 1 games for next year- that just isn't the case. One original first party game does not a year make.

 

[Individualised]

Greatly appreciated honestly. This whole exchange has left me feeling that at the end of the day I'm the one taking all this too serious despite not committing to any consistent theory. I'll try not to disrupt this thread anymore

It's not my place to say whose input is and isn't appreciated and I absolutely do not want to make you feel like that. Post all you like (I actually usually agree with your posts; I just don't agree about the 2025 thing).

 

[redmutineer75]

I don't know much about this topic - why were A53s disabled in the first place on X1?

It's not really known, but given that Nvidia themselves didn't even use them, it's commonly thought to have been a silicon defect. Even so, they wouldn't have been particularly relevant to the Switch, since it only needs the higher performance cores to run games, and you couldn't even just use the A53s for background functions since it can only use one set of cores at a time.

 

[ILikeFeet]

No idea what the real answer would be but I would assume if X1 were to go through a revision (to X1+) and it is already known/assumed that A53s were not going to be used at all, then I don't see why the revision needs to include A53s at all.

I don't know much about this topic - why were A53s disabled in the first place on X1?

this was the days of context switching. the design couldn't use the A57 and the A53 at the same time like they can now. so these low power cores are useless for a game console that needs constant power

 

[RedSpring]

By that time I feel like steam deck successor will come out which will be more powerful than the Switch 2

Unless the Steam Deck 2 is releasing 5 years later. You’re not getting a big jump over the Switch 2.

 

[darthdiablo]

It's not really known, but given that Nvidia themselves didn't even use them, it's commonly thought to have been a silicon defect. Even so, they wouldn't have been particularly relevant to the Switch, since it only needs the higher performance cores to run games, and you couldn't even just use the A53s for background functions, since it can only use one set of cores at a time.

gotcha. I also might need another history lesson on this but was X1+ designed specifically for Nintendo's Switch v2? I know X1 was off-the-shelf - but is X1+ a revision that's also off-the-shelf, or is it customized for Nintendo?

If it's customized specifically for Nintendo, then I see no reason to include A53s (of course speculation on my part)

 

[Neoxon]

2024 Pokémon game - crossgen
2025 Pokémon game - Switch 2
2026 gen X - Switch 2

They need to push the new hardware but 1 game is enough, and to me it's not Unova but Johto next year

The 2024 Pokemon game will probably be Switch 1 only as opposed to cross-gen.

 

[ILikeFeet]

gotcha. I also might need another history lesson on this but was X1+ designed specifically for Nintendo's Switch v2? I know X1 was off-the-shelf - but is X1+ a revision that's also off-the-shelf, or is it customized for Nintendo?

If it's customized specifically for Nintendo, then I see no reason to include A53s (of course speculation on my part)

less customized for nintendo and optimized for what it actually uses. regardless of Nintendo, the A53 aren't usable on any product that the TX1/TX1+ is in. so if they were fused off, that's savings for everyone, including Nvidia who's paying for the fabrication (nintendo pays for the finished product)

 

[Hocot8]

Greatly appreciated honestly. This whole exchange has left me feeling that at the end of the day I'm the one taking all this too serious despite not committing to any consistent theory. I'll try not to disrupt this thread anymore

Trust me you are not taking this too seriously. You just need to understand that you are only allowed to be optimistic here. You have to fall in line with what the general consensus is.

Why is the 2025 discourse now leaking into this thread? Keep the unfounded doomposting in the software thread please.

why don't you let people believe what they want? This is a "speculation" thread, right?

 

[darthdiablo]

I agree that there is a chance it lands in 2025, even if I think that chance is slim, but this statement is very transparently false. It's also not relevant to launch timing, with cross-gen periods being a thing, even 3DS had a well adorned 2017 past the release of Nintendo Switch.

However, there just aren't "many" Switch 1 games for next year- that just isn't the case. One original first party game does not a year make.

I checked, it's true. Only one original IP announced for 2024 so far: Princess Peach Showtime.

We cannot say MP4 is 2024, no release date has been announced.

Image courtesy here, with caveats: Chart is now 2 months old - as an example, Outer Wilds has since been released, so it's not a 2024 title as indicated here.

I've red-circled all known "Nintendo Published" titles (golden Nintendo logo in middle of "stamp" to the left of game title logos)

 

[MP!]

I'm expecting the same thing to happen as usual.

New exciting hardware comes out and New Pokemon game comes out which does not take advantage of this hardware.
Specifically I remember black and white coming out and being completely bummed that it had zero features for the 3DS when played on a 3DS

That's pretty much what I expect this time.

 

[lemonfresh]

I checked, it's true. Only one original IP announced for 2024 so far: Princess Peach Showtime.

We cannot say MP4 is 2024, no release date has been announced.

Image courtesy here, with caveats: Chart is now 2 months old - as an example, Outer Wilds has since been released, so it's not a 2024 title as indicated here.

I've red-circled all known "Nintendo Published" titles (golden Nintendo logo in middle of "stamp" to the left of game title logos)

Silksong logo makes me cry

 

[darthdiablo]

Silksong logo makes me cry

Same, buddy.

Across the entire gaming universe, we're crying.

The day it releases is going to be glorious.