Armoured_Bear
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I think the ratio of people complaining about "because Nintendo" to actual real use of it must be approaching 1000:1 by now.
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StarTopic Future Nintendo Hardware & Technology Speculation & Discussion |ST| (Read the staff posts before commenting!)
- Thread starter Dakhil
- Start date
Serif
𝕽𝖊𝖓𝖊𝖌𝖆𝖉𝖊 𝕬𝖓𝖌𝖊𝖑
In this thread.
This. People say the difference between a pro and a succ is marketing, but easy compatibility is also a part of it.
A hypothetical switch pro would probably have been Maxwell. Power has nothing to do with it, it is purely about features. They woudnt have developed a translation layer and a new API for a pro.
Serif
𝕽𝖊𝖓𝖊𝖌𝖆𝖉𝖊 𝕬𝖓𝖌𝖊𝖑
This is a fun little blast to the past:
www.eurogamer.net
Shows the relative performance of the tech Nintendo went with compared to what was on the market around that time.
Is Nvidia Tegra X1 the next big thing for mobile graphics?
Nvidia has unveiled Tegra X1 - an all-in-one mobile processor combining state-of-the-art octo-core ARM CPU architecture…
www.eurogamer.net
Shows the relative performance of the tech Nintendo went with compared to what was on the market around that time.
AceBandage
WUST Member
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The TX1 was the first mobile SoC to hit 1TF. It was the best Nintendo could literally use for the time frame they were working with.
Kise Ryota
Moblin
*FP16
yusufied
Tektite
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From the original post on this thread, the most concrete source we have on this is Eurogamer suggesting the second half of 2024.
Thraktor
"[✄]. [✄]. [✄]. [✄]." -Microsoft
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It's an appropriate comparison, and Oodle Texture is a different thing. I've actually been meaning to explain this for a while, as it doesn't seem to be well explained anywhere, and there's a lot of misunderstanding and misinformation on the topic. So I hope you don't mind if I go on a bit of a digression, and explain some things you likely already know, just for the sake of providing a complete account of things.
Block Texture Compression
Texture compression has been a thing for a long time, with the goal of textures taking up less space not just on-disk, but in memory as well. In order for textures to be kept in memory as a compressed format, they have to be decompressed extremely quickly by the GPU, so they have to use very specific compression techniques. If we think about a compressed format like a zip file, or even a JPEG image, if you want a single piece of data from the file, you have to decompress the entire thing. For textures held in memory decompressing the entire texture every time the GPU needs a single texel would be extremely inefficient, so instead they use a technique called block encoding.
The way block encoding works is by first dividing the texture up into blocks (typically 4x4 pixels) and compressing each block individually, with a fixed compressed size (usually 128 bits). The benefit of this is that the GPU can know exactly where the texture data it needs is, and only decompress the individual 128-bit block it needs, rather than the entire texture. The compressed encoding used for the blocks is intentionally simple, so that GPUs can process a very large number of texture samples each frame.
The widespread use of block texture compression started in the late 90s when a graphics card manufacturer called S3 Graphics developed a block compression format called S3TC for their graphics cards. This was licensed for use in the Gamecube, and also became the basis of the texture compression formats Microsoft added to DirectX, and therefore became the standard for PC graphics cards. Microsoft have defined a range of texture compression formats referred to as BC formats, from BC1 to BC7. The first three of these are, I believe, direct implementations of S3TC's different modes, and then Microsoft added a few more to handle specific texture types and compression ratios. The last two of these formats to be added, BC6H and BC7, were introduced with DirectX 11 and have been supported widely since 2010, including on all modern games consoles.
There's also an alternative texture compression algorithm called ASTC, which was introduced by ARM and AMD in 2012. It's designed as a more flexible alternative to BC compression, as it allows for a variety of block sizes and number of channels. As it was never adopted by MS for DirectX, it didn't gain traction in the desktop GPU market, and isn't supported by any of Sony or MS's consoles, but did gain some support in the mobile market, and is fully supported by Apple's chips, and on Switch's TX1.
On-Disk Compression
One downside of using block compression formats is that, because they compress each block individually, they don't achieve the smallest possible file size. This is a worthwhile trade-off in memory, where you want to be able to decompress only a small part of the texture at a time, but when storing the textures on disk, this isn't really important. You're going to load the full texture from disk to memory at once, so you might as well use a technique that keeps the on-disk file size as small as possible.
For this reason almost all games (including on consoles like Switch, without dedicated decompression hardware) add an additional layer of compression when storing texture data on disk, usually a general purpose lossless compression algorithm like DEFLATE (aka Zlib). Decompressing this data when pulling it off a hard drive/SSD/game card can be a lot of work for the CPU, which can become a bottleneck, which is why Sony, MS and Nintendo now all have hardware specifically to handle decompression for algorithms like these.
Lossless Compression Algorithms
One thing that's important to note here is that there's no such thing as a free lunch with lossless compression algorithms, and there's no "inside out" compression algorithm that's going to come along and magically reduce file sizes by large amounts. There's a mathematically minimum size that any data can be losslessly compressed to based on its entropy, and compression algorithms have been circling that minimum since the 1980's.
For general-purpose compression algorithms, there's generally a trade-off between compression speed, decompression speed and compression ratios, with different algorithms being better at one or two of these three compared to others. To the extent that better compression ratios have been achieved over the years by newer algorithms it's largely because the increase in speed of CPUs has allowed for algorithms that would have been too slow otherwise. The big increase in CPU cache sizes has also allowed for algorithms that work with more data at once, which generally allows for better compression ratios. These differences are actually pretty minor, though, with differences in compression ratios often being single digit percentages between state of the art and much older compression algorithms.
The other big factor is precisely what kind of data the algorithm is compressing. Different compression algorithms can be better or worse for different data types by relatively large amounts, so there can be a big benefit to choosing a compression algorithm that's specifically tailored for the data you're trying to compress.
PS5 Decompression Hardware
PS5 has decompression hardware that supports two compression algorithms: DEFLATE and Oodle's Kraken format. DEFLATE is a widely used general purpose compression algorithm that's been around for about 30 years. Kraken doesn't have many published details, as it's proprietary, but one important thing to note here is that it's a general purpose compression algorithm, not one which is specifically designed for game data. They advertise around 10% better compression ratios than DEFLATE, although many of their examples are of non-game data, and as with any vendor provided benchmarks, I'm always a little suspicious that they may be cherry picked. I wouldn't be surprised if it does outperform DEFLATE in general though, as even a very similar LZ-based compression algorithm could provide better results by using a much larger sliding window to leverage modern CPUs' much larger cache sizes.
Rate Distortion Optimisation and Oodle Texture
Now we get to Oodle Texture. Oodle Texture is a piece of texture compression software than runs on the developers side which implements something called Rate Distortion Optimisation (RDO), and outputs textures in the standard BC formats.
To explain RDO, it's first necessary to explain in a bit more detail how block texture compression works. Each block effectively consists of two parts, one of which is an ID for a pattern, and the second is a set of colours to map to that pattern. Each block texture format has a specific set of pre-defined patterns that can be mapped to, and the texture compression software's job is to choose the pattern and colours which match the original texture data for that block as closely as possible.
Because of the way block encoded textures have a fixed block size, the choice of which patterns and colours are used for each block has no impact on the size of the final texture, so generally the compression algorithm will just want to choose whichever produces the best match to the original, uncompressed data. However, people realised that the choice of blocks does impact that second stage of running the texture through a general-purpose lossless compression algorithm. So, a technique called RDO was developed, where instead of encoding each block based on the best representation of the original texture data, block encodings are chosen to minimise the overall texture size after compressing with a general-purpose algorithm like DEFLATE or Kraken.
Oodle Texture is an implementation of RDO, and there are some important things to note about it. Firstly, it's not exclusive to PS5 by any means, it's just something Sony have licensed and made available to PS5 developers. It's already been widely used during the PS4/XBO generation, either by developers writing their own RDO implementations in-house or licensing from a company like Oodle. As it runs on developers computers, it's also doesn't depend on any specific hardware functionality in PS5, aside from BC texture support, which as mentioned has been standard for a long time now. In fact you could use RDO-optimised textures on the Gamecube if you really wanted to.
Another important note is that Oodle Texture/RDO doesn't impact texture sizes in memory. Block compression formats have a fixed size by design, so every 2K BC7 (say) texture is always going to come out the same size, whether you're using RDO or not. In fact, RDO actually makes the in-memory texture worse, not better. Because RDO relies on choosing non-optimal block encodings, there's inherently a quality loss vs non-RDO compressed textures. RDO is trading off worse in-memory representation of textures for better on-disk compression of textures, and the more you reduce file sizes with RDO, the more loss of quality you get on the textures. This can be a worthwhile trade-off if the quality loss is low enough not to be noticeable, but there's always going to be some loss of texture quality from it.
Xbox Series X/S Compression Hardware
The Xbox Series S and X also have decompression hardware for lossless compression algorithms. The first one supported is DEFLATE, which is also supported on PS5's decompression hardware and is a general-purpose lossless algorithm. The second one is much more interesting, and it's called BCPack. BCPack isn't something MS have talked much about publicly, but here's their description of it from their public documentation:
The really important thing here is that BCPack isn't a general purpose algorithm. Unlike DEFLATE and Kraken, which treat texture data the same as they would a regular text file, BCPack is specifically designed to compress BC format block-encoded textures. This is pretty important, as lossless compression algorithms designed for a very specific structured data type will always beat general-purpose algorithms, and block-encoded texture data is exactly the kind of highly structured data that's well suited to custom lossless compression algorithms.
We get a couple of hints about how BCPack works. Firstly they separate colour data from pattern data, which is a pretty easy win, as the colour data is likely to be highly correlated across a texture. Secondly, they use rANS, which is variant of Asymmetric Numerical Systems, a class of compression algorithms used in, for example, the Zstd format. There's likely some extra secret sauce in there in terms of choosing a specific implementation of rANS which works best with BC-encoded texture data.
We don't have any hard numbers on the compression ratios achieved by BCPack, but Richard Geldreich, who worked on both texture compression and lossless compression at Valve, Ensemble, and others, estimated the following:
There's definitely a significant advantage to a dedicated compression algorithm like BCPack. Sony can get close by using RDO, but that means reducing texture quality, whereas BCPack completely side-steps the need for RDO and can achieve high levels of on-disk compression without any loss to texture quality.
Why Textures Are Important
The reason that I'm focussing to much on textures here is that they comprise the bulk of the data that decompression hardware will have to deal with. Audio and video can take up quite a bit of space, but they use compression algorithms like MP3/H264/etc. which already have an entropy encoding stage, so there's no benefit to recompressing them a second time with DEFLATE or Kraken. Other game data like code will benefit from compression, but takes up very little space comparatively.
PS5's Kraken will give a small benefit to the compression ratios of non-texture data over Xbox's DEFLATE, but as most of the data that needs compressing is texture data, and BCPack likely has a much more significant benefit in compressing texture data, the Xbox decompression hardware overall is much better suited to video games. Using RDO on PS5 can close the gap, but with a quality loss that you don't get on Xbox.
Where Nintendo Stands
We know the T239 chip used in Switch 2 has a File Decompression Engine (FDE), but we don't really know anything about it, like the compression standards it supports. It's probably a safe bet that it supports DEFLATE at least. There's a reason both Sony and MS's hardware support the algorithm, as it's extremely widely used so it's easy for developers to integrate into their pipeline (and many probably already use it on Switch).
Ideally Nintendo and Nvidia would also implement a custom compression algorithm for textures like MS have, possibly optimised around the ASTC format Switch supports (which I assume is used by most well-optimised Switch games, although I may be wrong on that). It's the kind of thing that's in Nvidia's wheelhouse.
Even without a custom algorithm for game data, the FDE should still be a big win. The benefit of decompression hardware isn't really to achieve smaller file sizes, or to make SSDs "equivalent" to much higher speeds, they're to take the work of decompression off the CPU. Games were already using compression on PS4, XBO and Switch, and the games that have achieved significantly smaller file sizes on current gen consoles have largely done so by removing duplicate data that was necessary because of mechanical hard drives' slow seek speeds, not by additional compression.
On Switch, CPU decompression was a big bottleneck, so removing that and moving decompression to dedicated hardware is a win-win. Effective storage speeds can increase considerably thanks to faster decompression, and the CPU is freed to work on other things. If they also include support for a custom algorithm for texture data then they could also achieve a modest game size reduction without the need for RDO and the associated texture quality hit, but honestly that's a relatively small win compared to having dedicated decompression hardware in the first place.
EdFiftyNine
Lurking until reveal
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klaxon time?
monkeygotyou
Tektite
LiC
Member
This obvious scam company thanks you for participating in their viral marketing campaign.
This company has 0 reason to have this information. Altec Lansing is an audio electronics company based in the US.
I'm assuming this is a bizarre marketing move, because otherwise I never would've heard of them.
Fake edit: Yep, what @LiC said, except the company does make actual products in an utterly unrelated field
redmutineer75
Bob-omb
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I read the article, it's bullshit. Altec Lansing doesn't own the trademark for GameShark, Mad Catz does.
LiC
Member
You can make real products and still be a scam. Like whatever "AI Shark" is supposed to be, where just about every word in the description, from Switch 2 to "AI" and the reference to GameShark, are obviously just buzzwords added to try to draw attention to a product that is surely worthless even if it actually exists.
RoyalGoldenFES
Piranha Plant
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Probably fake, but at this point I’m assuming the console’s going to launch by September anyway, with major marketing beginning in the summer.
gnetc
Warren Buffett = Tom Nook
I’m gonna be honest I feel like this one is legit, September release is pretty likely in my opinion. I would love for it to release sooner but it just seems unrealistic at this point.
Edit: quickly glanced at the post didn’t really notice who the company was
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darthdiablo
+5 Death Stare
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Customs data says otherwise. Unless you expect us to believe they'll spend like 6 months worth of mass production before release which didn't happen with Switch 1 or Switch OLED (4.5 months and 3 months respectively)
just because the release window they picked is "pretty likely" or reasonable doesn't make it "legit."
How many of us have been saying September???
monkeygotyou
Tektite
Proud team March release member until January 31st
Individualised
Bob-omb
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While mostly lurking here for the longest time, there comes a time that makes me want to come around and say something. Someone already pointed this out but you sound very "vested" in switch 2 being weaker (either hope or for just seeking a rise) Comes off like: Either some "console war" troll argument. Or simply not following Nintendo for long enough (going by the "never seeking power" comment. ) A third option might be that you are trying to upset someone with your takes. Honestly, which is it?
EdFiftyNine
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I know they don’t usually speak to rumours (outside of investors meetings) but Nintendo are going to have to nip this one in the bud I think — it’s everywhere already. They must HATE CES lmao
oldpuck
Bob-omb
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Just wanna say, I don't think TechnicalTips is a troll. I think they believe what they say, and they don't seem swayable. Which is fine, I think folks on the other side have made their point as well as they can.
We're going to get something wrong. There will be some rock solid, well researched, leak-supported bit of speculation from this thread that doesn't pan out. I kinda hope so, I want at least one surprise! So let's not be too afraid of folks rocking the group-think boat.
Haters gonna hate. There isn't anything you can do about the reactionary X-mob, xeeting for engagement. They're Nintendo's PR problem, and I don't think they're much concerned.
Sometimes winning means someone's gotta lose. I've said it before, but the game of figuring out the console is something I love. Having a rabid team on the other side will only make my victory sweeter.
Nintendo fans win if the games are good, not if a memory bus is big enough to outsell the Series S. I'm sure Excite fans are disappointed, but the Switch era has been pretty great. Zelda, 3D Mario, 2D Mario, and Kirby have all had blockbuster successes that redefined their franchises - and even Pokemon got an experimental title! Pikmin, Metroid, Luigi's Mansion are all back in a big way, the existing Mario Kart and Smash formats were pushed to their absolute limit. Even Star Fox and F-Zero were both given opportunities to maintain their mindshare. And it's not like there is an indication of this stopping. Wonder, the best selling, series redefining Mario game came out less than 3 months ago.
We're going to get something wrong. There will be some rock solid, well researched, leak-supported bit of speculation from this thread that doesn't pan out. I kinda hope so, I want at least one surprise! So let's not be too afraid of folks rocking the group-think boat.
Haters gonna hate. There isn't anything you can do about the reactionary X-mob, xeeting for engagement. They're Nintendo's PR problem, and I don't think they're much concerned.
Sometimes winning means someone's gotta lose. I've said it before, but the game of figuring out the console is something I love. Having a rabid team on the other side will only make my victory sweeter.
Nintendo fans win if the games are good, not if a memory bus is big enough to outsell the Series S. I'm sure Excite fans are disappointed, but the Switch era has been pretty great. Zelda, 3D Mario, 2D Mario, and Kirby have all had blockbuster successes that redefined their franchises - and even Pokemon got an experimental title! Pikmin, Metroid, Luigi's Mansion are all back in a big way, the existing Mario Kart and Smash formats were pushed to their absolute limit. Even Star Fox and F-Zero were both given opportunities to maintain their mindshare. And it's not like there is an indication of this stopping. Wonder, the best selling, series redefining Mario game came out less than 3 months ago.
LiC
Member
It was literally yesterday that some shitco displayed a laughable "AI Mario hologram" at CES, with no relation to or permission from Nintendo, and got their 15 minutes of fame. Now somebody is doing it again today by stringing together AI + GameShark + Switch 2, when none of those have anything to do with their product, and gullible rubes on the Internet are sharing it. And now I have to endure posts from people earnestly questioning whether or not this could be real information. Fuck off.
mjayer
Moblin
Okay, at this point I feel the need to express my concern. It would seem to me the mods are overstepping what is needed for community management of a message board. We have a growing list of games we aren't allowed to bring up, and now add to that a growing list of sources we aren't allowed to mention. For me, this seems like you don't trust your community, and are over policing it. If the mods continue down this path, I feel like it will hurt the community much more then help it.
On topic: Gameshark launching in Sept and has their fingers crossed Switch 2 will be out by then but ya, they are just guessing! Highly doubt they have the date and if they did it would likely have leaked before now.
Semi Lazy Gamer
Like Like
Altec Lansing has clarified a Fall 2024 release, but not backed down.
gnetc
Warren Buffett = Tom Nook
I mean Nintendo should be up their asses right now trying to shut this down. Doesn’t really make any sense why they’re so confident in giving out this information.
SoldierDelta
Designated Xenoblade Loremaster
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Reading this article made me want to cut my own goddam head off. My Discord pinged me with this and I wanted to strangle them for giving this the time of day.
So... step-by-step:
All three of these were some of my immediate thoughts. They were a fishy company from the first letter onwards, but it gets even worse imo.
So... they're apparently a rebrand of GameShark, that company that Nintendo sued in the late-80s early-90s. I know companies have had their opinions changed over time to work with groups they disagree with, but this seems to be a bit of stretch especially for Nintendo. Whatever though, what about the technology they're working on:
So it's an accessibility aid that uses AI, okay.... but why would Nintendo work with them for their new system!!?!?
Nintendo has often in the past worked on their own technology when they feel the need to do a specific thing during a project. Why would they need an AI-Driven easy-mode? Either they would develop it themselves or, call me crazy here, collaberate with Nvidia, the AI company specifically designed to make AI options!?? Are they stoopid?
The absolute nail in the coffin for this is why would Nintendo give them a fucking dev kit AND a planned release date/window for the Switch 2??
Like... I'm trying to be polite here, but if you honestly think that this company isn't talking out of their ass for clicks... there's no hope for you. This is one of the fishiest leaks I've seen in years from a company that has no reason to work with Nintendo.
Concernt
Optimism is non-negotiable
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Just when I thought "leaks" and "reports" had found a new low, they keep digging!
Concernt
Optimism is non-negotiable
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On a serious note can we please NOT give the obvious scam company that doesn't know anything more oxygen than it deserves?
So what shape do up expect the new Joy-Con to be? I think they'll make the top of the controller fully rounded rather than have a flat edge across the console. To make them more comfortable and look more "complete" when used on their own.
So what shape do up expect the new Joy-Con to be? I think they'll make the top of the controller fully rounded rather than have a flat edge across the console. To make them more comfortable and look more "complete" when used on their own.
Individualised
Bob-omb
What's completely bizarre to me is that regardless of whether or not this is even true (it isn't) they're setting themselves up for a massive lawsuit. Why they thought to go this public is beyond me.
Can we please not discuss this "news" item anymore?
gnetc
Warren Buffett = Tom Nook
Serif
𝕽𝖊𝖓𝖊𝖌𝖆𝖉𝖊 𝕬𝖓𝖌𝖊𝖑
The Joy Con are 'complete' when the straps are on, which feels like their intended use when playing in split mode.
I am reminded of the patent for a standalone one.
If they change the controller to this shape they may put the strap somewhere else.
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They can't even fully commit to the bit? Cowards.
Individualised
Bob-omb
They didn't expect to get this much attention and got cold feet. Nothing more to see.
For legal reasons the following is a joke, but I can guarantee you this product won't materialise and is part of some sort of scam.
Lmao, what the fuck does an "AI Mario hologram" even entail?
Concernt
Optimism is non-negotiable
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See I don't think so. I think the top will be rounded but there'll be a Joy-Con rail... So, basically, that patent, a little bigger, slap on a Joy-Con rail. While the straps are "intended", they're also kind of silly.The Joy Con are 'complete' when the straps are on, which feels like their intended use when playing in split mode.
I am reminded of the patent for a standalone one.
If they change the controller to this shape they may put the strap somewhere else.
And yeah, I'm still absolutely dead-set on Joy-Con Rail continuing to exist in some form. Some of these are practical considerations, like compatibility, charging, supporting the Ring Con out of the box. Some are personal and emotional, I just out and out LIKE Joy-Con rail.
Langstonboy
Yes
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Welp, the realest of them all says Altec doesn’t really know and are just spit balling. So yeah it’s bs almost certainly.
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Btw the story of Altec Lansing and JBL is very sad and tragic and quite interesting.
Serif
𝕽𝖊𝖓𝖊𝖌𝖆𝖉𝖊 𝕬𝖓𝖌𝖊𝖑
There was an interactive Mario at Nintendo NY. Though not AI, it had pre-recorded responses. It was cute (unfortunately my camera couldn't snap a good pic)
The one at CES I assume is some unauthorized GPT abomination.
LoneRanger
Paratroopa
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Fall = Late September/Early October
Same timeframe as Lite and OLED models.
The difference can be very probably SW related (regarding Nintendo’s own output).
Same timeframe as Lite and OLED models.
The difference can be very probably SW related (regarding Nintendo’s own output).
Earthbounder
Boing!
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Now I kinda want the Switch 2 to come out in September, because it would be funny.
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