Bit late but I just wanna say this was a super interesting read! I've been interested in how compression for textures worked for a while now and this was very insightful for it!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.
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StarTopic Future Nintendo Hardware & Technology Speculation & Discussion |ST| (Read the staff posts before commenting!)
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Bit late but I just wanna say this was a super interesting read! I've been interested in how compression for textures worked for a while now and this was very insightful for it!
Previously on Lost
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To be honest I don't own a OLED Switch and didn't know it is only SDR. I was making assumptions based on my home experience with the OLED Deck, LG CX OLED tv, and BenQ EX3210U IPS HDR monitor. While it may be the greatest PC monitor I've ever used, I still think the CX OLED TV still looks better.
Though yeah the BenQ can get so bright I'll quickly get a headache if I'm not careful, I only keep the brightness set to around 30/100 during the day!
D36
#WOHOYHASAWAKENED
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I'd never forget you.
BreakAtmo
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Same, I want both the exclusives and the Switch games I haven't played yet (waiting to play them in upgraded form). 4K60 TOTK and Bayonetta 3, please.
ertaboy356b
Resident Troll
Switch 2 will run on a hologram confirmed.
Smash Kirby
Bob-omb
Every update to Safari also changes the browsing engine used by other apps. MS ran into the same issue and decided to turn Edge into a Chrome clone to get around that.
oldpuck
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You are correct, I overstated the case. An improved CPU will help interpreted JS significantly. But it won't match performance on even a lower specced phone, for example, unless Nintendo alters their security strategy for the store (as I'm sure you're aware, just saying for the kids at home).
Basically every browser on the market uses Just In Time recompilation for Javascript. This is the same trick that makes emulators fast, but requires essentially letting your web browser make native code, with full privileges, in real time. In fact, most browsers use the same trick now to make CSS (the technology used to control how web pages display) faster.
Nintendo locks that down, because it's such an obvious security hole (and it also eats RAM under the worst cases). I'm dubious that Nintendo will move away from that security strategy for store performance.
Updates to how the eShop functions, in the broad sense. That includes custom layouts for, say, a seasonal sale.
The store backend is a fork of the 3DSes, which wasn't shared with the Wii U (as best I understand), and Nintendo was racing to get the Switch firmware ready for launch - launch units were flashed with beta firmware, in fact. Switch's OS is made by a non-Nintendo company (eSol Ltd), but their online infrastructure is done by Nintendo System's limited. In the AWS talk, it's mentioned that a lot of eShop front end updates are pushed by marketing.
Total speculation, but making the eShop a webpage disconnected the rapid moving online infrastructure from the slower moving, more cautious OS group, and let them work on the store front all the way up to Switch launch, and beyond, but firmware 1.0 had to be ready at the start of mass production.
Was the 3DS OS Developed internally at Nintendo or was that also done by a third party?
I assume the Switch 2 will likely heavily base its OS on the existing Switch OS which is pretty robust security-wise I dont think many kernel exploits have ever been found with it
Serif
𝕽𝖊𝖓𝖊𝖌𝖆𝖉𝖊 𝕬𝖓𝖌𝖊𝖑
HDR, smaller bezels, and lamination would go a long way in improving the appearance of an LCD display.
As for how Nintendo would market it after touting the benefits of an OLED, they would probably emphasize the larger resolution, size, and HDR. As well as the overall performance boost letting games look sharper.
All until the inevitable OLED model of course. But - fingers crossed this is just OLED day 1.
As for how Nintendo would market it after touting the benefits of an OLED, they would probably emphasize the larger resolution, size, and HDR. As well as the overall performance boost letting games look sharper.
All until the inevitable OLED model of course. But - fingers crossed this is just OLED day 1.
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Tactician
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Not only that, but most people have an LCD Switch like myself. I may be in the minority but I am not risking it with burn-in and I prefer to at least have the option to go for an LCD (saving some money in the process), in which burn-in will not be a thing. On top of that, the Switch screen was solid imo. Technology would have evolved after 7 years plus with the increase in horsepower (remarkably better graphics) it would be a significant improvement regardless.
If you check out Wulff Denn on youtube he has an ongoing series where he shows what happens to the OLED screen if you have it on 24/7/365/Non Stip and honestly its pretty impressive
You pretty much have nothing to worry about regarding Burn In of Modern OLED Displays or atleast the one the Switch OLED is using
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I have a Google Pixel with an OLED screen that's about to be three years old and it has burn-in so bad I can almost read it.People should stop worrying about OLED Burn-in.
I have a Sony OLED for almost 3 Years and no sign of Burn-in and I use it everyday to watch movies and play on it with my Switch and PS3.
Not tryina be argumentative, just saying it is a thing.
BreakAtmo
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I have a Google Pixel with an OLED screen that's about to be three years old and it has burn-in so bad I can almost read it.
Not tryina be argumentative, just saying it is a thing.
Phones have vastly more persistent UI elements than game consoles do unless you play the exact same game over and over for years. If the Switch 2 has a HDR OLED screen, it very likely will be technically capable of burn-in, but not practically.
ProngoLuvr
when the Uncrustables hit 😋
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They did prototype a pill-shaped design, which was basically the same idea aside from technically not being an oval. It's covered in this video (w/ a timestamp to the images):
Edit: As @Individualised said, these images are from a point in the timeline where the "Switch" name was already being used. The Mont Blanc SOC was still being used at that point.
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Didnt this patent try to do controllers that were part of the screen
I dont think it would have ever been anything except a concept, Probably didnt even make it to a physical prototype stage, The reddit "leak" was just a 3D Printed Fake
Individualised
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As I understand it the name Switch started being used when the system became the stadium (not oval; that was just the patent) design with the sticks on screen. That was the first "dockable hybrid" iteration.
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Which one do you mean? The Eurogamer one?
TLZ
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MS bought Nintendo confirmed.Except tnat's the color layout of Xbox controllers not the SNES controller:
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Yes...I think.
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Oh, sorry, I meant the gigaleak that happened a couple of years ago. It talks about the Switch name being chosen in 2014, etc.
With only one more retro game announced for NSO, it becomes more and more clear that something is happening either next month or in March at the latest. Perhaps it will be a Direct (Mini). Or it might just be a series of social media posts.
The cat is out of the bag, everybody and their mothers are talking about Nintendo's next device, so I'm curious if they'll really just pretend for a whole Direct presentation that they have nothing new in store in terms of hardware. It would genuinely be funny, but man, let's just at least mention officially that it exists.
The cat is out of the bag, everybody and their mothers are talking about Nintendo's next device, so I'm curious if they'll really just pretend for a whole Direct presentation that they have nothing new in store in terms of hardware. It would genuinely be funny, but man, let's just at least mention officially that it exists.
Hajeman
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But it's quite interesting fantasy. Just maybe, maybe Nintendo can use this T215 Luigiko chip to extend Switch 1 for another 2 years because they want to exceed 155 million PS2 sales. Hmmmmm
Future Nintendo Hardware & Technology Speculation & Discussion |ST| (Read the staff posts before commenting!)
is that twitter or X? can't seem to find that post. YouTube.famiboards.com
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Zero unless ReDraketed is announced before the Direct.
hooperdooper
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The Year of Luigi has returned, and this time; he brings a Switch revision that will crush the PS2. A much better outcome than last YoL, that's for sure.
Darknut85
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That‘s impossible. Just a console with the name 2 in it (Switch 2) can outsell the PS2. It is fait. Even though they could name the Chip of the Switch 2 Luigiko to honor the anniversary./s
Nope. There's a site that has prices for dram modules, but it's behind a paywall
omniryu
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I always found it funny. Because now. We all use Chrome to download Chrome.
Shoulder
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Option 2 it is.
Shoulder
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How likely is it to include a 32-bit compatibility layer, let alone the feasibility of it?
I know the “2038 Problem” is a real thing regarding 32-bit systems, but I thought there are ways to combat that without having to always resort in moving away from it entirely? And if so, is that something Nvidia would help co-develop with Nintendo to continue BC?
Then again, one possibility is NGS will be BC, but Switch 3 and beyond will drop 32-bit entirely, and many Switch 1 games by that point will have patches/updates to work natively with Switch 2 hardware without the BC layer.
kvetcha
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Still kinda shocked he caught a ban for this.
2 weeks oniy though.
LuigiBlood
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The reddit leak was a 3D printed fake but I believe Nintendo actually prototyped it internally
Hajeman
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That's why this Switch 1 gen is the big opportunity to topple PS2 sales. We didn't know about Switch 2 future. But current Switch just need a little more time with slight upgrade in power ala PS4 Pro (T215 maybe ?) to become top seller console ever.
kvetcha
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I don't think Nintendo cares as much about this as you'd expect.
Hajeman
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I know. But it's more better to get the title as a reward
darthdiablo
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redmutineer75
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AxkilAvenger
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I keep seeing this said but do we really know??
One day in some future Nintendo interview, they’ll come out and say it has been a long held dream of Nintendo’s to finally overcome the atrocity of ps2 dominion
Goodtwin
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I suspect that Nintendo will not worry too much about having multiple generations of BC built into their hardware. I do expect SNG to have have BC with Switch, but the successor to SNG may drop native Switch support. That may sound bad right now in 2024, but in the year 2030 or later, how often are you really going to be replaying a bunch of your Switch library of games? Softening this blow even further, I expect Nintendo will have added Switch games to NSO via emulation at that point. I could actually see Nintendo adding first party Switch games to NSO here in a few years. Nintendo needs to keep new content coming to NSO to keep people subscribing, and adding in a bunch of Switch games would certainly bolster the value of the service.
RennanNT
Bob-omb
The 3DS was announced when the DS had just finished a 27.8 mi year. The only consoles to ever sell that much was the Switch in peak pandemic (28 mi) and... the DS... twice (30 and 31 mi).
And not only they announced the 3DS too early (for hardware sales, that is), they also cut software support and shifted marketing completely to the 3DS.
Despite all that, they ended just a hair behind the PS2. They absolutely could have the first place, but they prioritized other things (most likely money, since flash cards became mainstream and software sales were plummeting).
kasparov77
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If it's OLED but has considerable PWM flicker issues then I don't want it. I'd much rather have an LCD panel with good colors and contrast but none or almost no flicker.
Nintendo won’t ruin their hardware plan over it but I’m sure they care a fair but judging how excited the Zelda team was at winning goty at the game awards.
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