StarTopic Future Nintendo Hardware & Technology Speculation & Discussion |ST| (New Staff Post, Please read)

[Alovon11]

This doesn't bode well at all if its 4 or 8SM. Lower than Tegra X1.

Well the main thing is Ampere's structure is a tad different than Orin's

Orin having far more Cache than Ampere and also 8SMs per GPC is indicative of the customization done to Ampere that Dane can further off of Orin.

 

[SiG]

When talking about Dane patches, could they not implement some type ‘Boost Mode’ at system level to help increase performance? Then certain titles get proper updates to update graphical effects etc..?

No. DLSS requires changing how output rendering is handled. Luckily it is easily implementable but does require changing a few lines of code.

 

[NineTailSage]

This doesn't bode well at all if its 4 or 8SM. Lower than Tegra X1.

You might be thinking about this the wrong way, an 8SM Dane SoC would still have 16ROP's and its not that it isn't enough, 16ROP's for 256 Cuda-cores in TX1 was overkill... There's just not enough cores in the TX1 to where that was ever going to be it's bottleneck issue, especially running games aiming for 720p and 1080p resolutions. Again because ROP's are tied to the GPC's in Ampere, you are never starting below 16 and Nvidia themselves don't have anything under 32 on either the desktop or laptop side.

 

[Future Boy Nemo]

No. DLSS requires changing how output rendering is handled. Luckily it is easily implementable but does require changing a few lines of code.

I think they mean having BC run on settings with higher performance in comparison to Mariko, though likely underclocked compared to Dane native games. That would help with games using dynamic resolution and unlocked frame rates, essentially a 'Pro' mode. I interpreted "Then certain titles get proper updates to update graphical effects etc..?" to include DLSS. Could be mistaken though.

What's most exciting about it is, if Nintendo/Nvidia design it to run boosted BC, we could get most (all?) OG Switch games running at native 1080p docked, and either 60fps or 30fps depending on the specific game and where it was capped. For anyone who doesn't have a 4K TV that would be as good as it gets without modding the games themselves, and IMO it's totally possible. I also really like @Pokemaniac's idea of letting players toggle between performance and battery life modes for BC in portable mode.

 

[Pokemaniac]

I think they mean having BC run on settings with higher performance in comparison to Mariko, though likely underclocked compared to Dane native games. That would help with games using dynamic resolution and unlocked frame rates, essentially a 'Pro' mode. I interpreted "Then certain titles get proper updates to update graphical effects etc..?" to include DLSS. Could be mistaken though.

What's most exciting about it is, if Nintendo/Nvidia design it to run boosted BC, we could get most (all?) OG Switch games running at native 1080p docked, and either 60fps or 30fps depending on the specific game and where it was capped. For anyone who doesn't have a 4K TV that would be as good as it gets without modding the games themselves, and IMO it's totally possible. I also really like @Pokemaniac's idea of letting players toggle between performance and battery life modes for BC.

Resolution is ultimately limited by the game. Even with dynamic resolution support, Xenoblade 2, to use a random example, is not going above 720p without a patch.

 

[Future Boy Nemo]

Resolution is ultimately limited by the game. Even with dynamic resolution support, Xenoblade 2, to use a random example, is not going above 720p without a patch.

Doh! I misread the docked resolution range for XB2 as being the handheld res and assumed docked would be higher, and just generally forgot dynamic resolution was sometimes (often, really) capped below full HD. Hopefully the comparative ease of the patch (I assume this is one of the very, very few things in game development where you just need to change a variable, unless the menus and UI elements scale up poorly) versus DLSS means those sorts of patches would be common.

At absolute minimum I'd like for portable games to be native res and a steady frame rate, but again with XB2 it seems to be capped below that, so as soon as Switch NeXt is announced I anticipate dozens of dev studios and publishers having their twitter accounts flooded with patch begging. I just hope people are polite about it.

 

[ShadowFox08]

that's the minimum expectation for patches. if games get patches. some games (mostly nintendo games) need more work to get DLSS as they don't typically have any form of AA, but not impossible with a patch

I remember the early rumors (2020) where some devs uncapped the framerates on purpose for a patch down the road for a "pro model."

 

[WAW_Greyhound]

Well the main thing is Ampere's structure is a tad different than Orin's

Orin having far more Cache than Ampere and also 8SMs per GPC is indicative of the customization done to Ampere that Dane can further off of Orin.

Cache takes up considerable amount of silicon and Samsung's 8nm is only twice as dense as TSMC 16nm hence at most 4 SM...

Any larger GPU would certainly make SOC more expensive to produce hence next Switch could be 400USD at very least along being such being bottleneck by how many SOC's could Samsung manufacture for next iteration of Switch thus less systems would be made thus less systems to sell software on.

You might be thinking about this the wrong way, an 8SM Dane SoC would still have 16ROP's and its not that it isn't enough, 16ROP's for 256 Cuda-cores in TX1 was overkill... There's just not enough cores in the TX1 to where that was ever going to be it's bottleneck issue, especially running games aiming for 720p and 1080p resolutions. Again because ROP's are tied to the GPC's in Ampere, you are never starting below 16 and Nvidia themselves don't have anything under 32 on either the desktop or laptop side.

I have doubts that next iteration of Switch would have 8 SM unless Nintendo goes beyond their usual by having 1080P Full HD screen in order to play games made for much more powerful hardware as 720P screen would be laughable soon beyond 2025 for a 400USD tier portable device.

Switch OLED is band aid and Nintendo didn't bother even to allow LPDDR4X to maximum to alleviate bandwidth issues at bare minimum while OLED screen, better battery life as 2019 revision of Switch and double the storage space made it more up to date, but still outdated none the less.

If Nintendo goes for 400USD price point then they better bundle a game that would showcase power of the device and that isn't Nintendo Land.

I remember the early rumors (2020) where some devs uncapped the framerates on purpose for a patch down the road for a "pro model."

Would have made sense if there wasn't disaster in semiconductor industry with sanctions on mainland Chinese companies along drought in Taiwan. At very least Nintendo could have allowed OLED Switch to have more bandwidth, but no and even then there would be issue of 3rd party devs targeting OLED Switch while OG and 2019 revision would suffer as consequence of greed.

 

[ILikeFeet]

I have doubts that next iteration of Switch would have 8 SM unless Nintendo goes beyond their usual by having 1080P Full HD screen in order to play games made for much more powerful hardware as 720P screen would be laughable soon beyond 2025 for a 400USD tier portable device.

no one gives a shit about the screen resolution. things will still be sub-native if they went with a 1080p screen. rather than use that performance for resolution, they'd use it to have more parity with other systems, feature-wise

 

[Alovon11]

no one gives a shit about the screen resolution. things will still be sub-native if they went with a 1080p screen. rather than use that performance for resolution, they'd use it to have more parity with other systems, feature-wise

Yeah, native resolution anyway is not the thing Dane is going after, especially with DLSS and NIS existing.

They can flipping run the games at 360p internally if they wanted to ffs to hit 1080p if they got DLSS running to it's full extent XD

 

[Mr Swine]

Think Nintendo will add NiS support for BC to enhance the IQ for Switch games on 4K HDTVs?

 

[ILikeFeet]

Think Nintendo will add NiS support for BC to enhance the IQ for Switch games on 4K HDTVs?

no. they can't even add AA to the games out now

 

[Alovon11]

no. they can't even add AA to the games out now

But NIS is literally a universal thing that can work driver level on PC.

Anyway, iirc I don't think they have driver level AA and if it does there's likely a reason we haven't heard about it

 

[Golden Darkness]

no one gives a shit about the screen resolution. things will still be sub-native if they went with a 1080p screen. rather than use that performance for resolution, they'd use it to have more parity with other systems, feature-wise

And there's the Steam Deck, which is a 1280x800 resolution screen. And the Aya Neo and GPD Win 3 with 720p screens.

So why would Nintendo need to target a 1080p screen for handheld if they somehow have 8SM?

 

[Vash_the_Stampede]

Cache takes up considerable amount of silicon and Samsung's 8nm is only twice as dense as TSMC 16nm hence at most 4 SM...

Any larger GPU would certainly make SOC more expensive to produce hence next Switch could be 400USD at very least along being such being bottleneck by how many SOC's could Samsung manufacture for next iteration of Switch thus less systems would be made thus less systems to sell software on.


I have doubts that next iteration of Switch would have 8 SM unless Nintendo goes beyond their usual by having 1080P Full HD screen in order to play games made for much more powerful hardware as 720P screen would be laughable soon beyond 2025 for a 400USD tier portable device.

Switch OLED is band aid and Nintendo didn't bother even to allow LPDDR4X to maximum to alleviate bandwidth issues at bare minimum while OLED screen, better battery life as 2019 revision of Switch and double the storage space made it more up to date, but still outdated none the less.

If Nintendo goes for 400USD price point then they better bundle a game that would showcase power of the device and that isn't Nintendo Land.


Would have made sense if there wasn't disaster in semiconductor industry with sanctions on mainland Chinese companies along drought in Taiwan. At very least Nintendo could have allowed OLED Switch to have more bandwidth, but no and even then there would be issue of 3rd party devs targeting OLED Switch while OG and 2019 revision would suffer as consequence of greed.

I’m old enough to remember the forums freaking out that Nintendo will give us a “shitty pentile OLED”. That never happened.

 

[WAW_Greyhound]

no one gives a shit about the screen resolution. things will still be sub-native if they went with a 1080p screen. rather than use that performance for resolution, they'd use it to have more parity with other systems, feature-wise

Yeah, native resolution anyway is not the thing Dane is going after, especially with DLSS and NIS existing.

They can flipping run the games at 360p internally if they wanted to ffs to hit 1080p if they got DLSS running to it's full extent XD

Result of DLSS would be considerably inaccurate, higher resolution means more data points for it hence higher accuracy of image reconstruction.

Otherwise it would be better to resort to checkerboard rendering, the modern day equivalent of interlaced.

The thing is that many if not majority of games of Switch are sub-native in portable to the 720P screen with often being around resolution of PS Vita that also often did not render its games at native resolution when those were high end home console like experiences while in the end primary reason why consumers buy Nintendo hardware is mostly in majority for their software exclusive to their platform.

If Nintendo goes for 8 SM for GPU then 1080P makes sense and is basically a must, otherwise if 4 SM is when 720P is just only option.

And there's the Steam Deck, which is a 1280x800 resolution screen. And the Aya Neo and GPD Win 3 with 720p screens.

So why would Nintendo need to target a 1080p screen for handheld if they somehow have 8SM?

Because if it were to have 8 SM then it would allow Switch games that in docked were as low as 540P to be rendered at 1080P Native in portable thus imagine Monster Hunter Rise, Shin Megami Tensei V, Bayonetta 3, TLOZ BOTW 1 and 2 patched to run at 1080P60FPS in portable mode of next Switch iteration.

If Nintendo goes for 8 SM GPU and if they could clock it at 768mhz in portable while having enough battery life that is comparable to basic Switch from 2017...

In RAW TLOPS that would match basic PS4 without considering how much more relevant GPU architecture of it would simply outdo PS4 GCN 1.0 based GPU.

Imagine Guilty Gear Strive on it at 1080P60FPS on your hands, MaximilianDood would fkin die if you handed that such Switch with on it in portable model.

 

[NineTailSage]

Cache takes up considerable amount of silicon and Samsung's 8nm is only twice as dense as TSMC 16nm hence at most 4 SM...

Any larger GPU would certainly make SOC more expensive to produce hence next Switch could be 400USD at very least along being such being bottleneck by how many SOC's could Samsung manufacture for next iteration of Switch thus less systems would be made thus less systems to sell software on.


I have doubts that next iteration of Switch would have 8 SM unless Nintendo goes beyond their usual by having 1080P Full HD screen in order to play games made for much more powerful hardware as 720P screen would be laughable soon beyond 2025 for a 400USD tier portable device.

Switch OLED is band aid and Nintendo didn't bother even to allow LPDDR4X to maximum to alleviate bandwidth issues at bare minimum while OLED screen, better battery life as 2019 revision of Switch and double the storage space made it more up to date, but still outdated none the less.

If Nintendo goes for 400USD price point then they better bundle a game that would showcase power of the device and that isn't Nintendo Land.


Would have made sense if there wasn't disaster in semiconductor industry with sanctions on mainland Chinese companies along drought in Taiwan. At very least Nintendo could have allowed OLED Switch to have more bandwidth, but no and even then there would be issue of 3rd party devs targeting OLED Switch while OG and 2019 revision would suffer as consequence of greed.

Just for reference the Navi22 has 96MB of Infinity Cache and you can see below how much of the die it actually takes up...
Does it make it more expensive to manufacture, yes but in a device where solving the problem of memory bandwidth is also encroaching on battery life and significant real-estate on the motherboard(somethings just outweigh the others as solutions go).

A $400 price range isn't out of the question for this next Switch and people just going by raw specs are underestimating how much of an upgrade this will truly be over the current Switch. Just look at some of the recent PS4 vs PS5 Horizon Forbidden West footage and the game looks amazing on PS4.

 

[JoshuaJSlone]

NVIDIA Image Scaling could be implimented to try to push games up past their Resolution caps for all games.

NIS is driver level on PC so it could be applied for a 2x flat resolution increase with relatively good stability.

And that benefit could extend to even Dane exclusive or optimized games as it can take say 1440p up to 4K

And Dane should have more than enough power to push Switch games to DRS/FPS Caps and run NIS 2x at the same time

Something like that could become the default image scaler, but it's still just decent image scaling. Not at all giving things actual higher detail.

And there's the Steam Deck, which is a 1280x800 resolution screen. And the Aya Neo and GPD Win 3 with 720p screens.

So why would Nintendo need to target a 1080p screen for handheld if they somehow have 8SM?

Being better than Steam Deck is better. Being better than 2017 Switch is better.

 

[ReddDreadtheLead]

.Issue for example involving bandwidth, if they keep 2x 2GB then with LPDD5X at its maximum speed would be nearly 70gbps compared to LPDDR4 25.6gbps while if they go for 4x 2gb then bandwidth would be nearly 140gbps hence 5.5 times greater bandwidth than base Switch.

There aren’t any 2GB LPDDR5 or 5X modules at the moment so there’s no need to worry with respect to that. And the bandwidth would be higher than those numbers. That said, it wouldn’t matter as much as they clock the memory down for portable mode.

Another issue is ROP and TMU ratio, Dane could have 4 times SMs yet then bottlenecked compared to Tegra X1 that has 8 TMUs and 8 ROPs per SM.

It would have 16ROPs and 16 or greater TMUs.

Cache takes up considerable amount of silicon and Samsung's 8nm is only twice as dense as TSMC 16nm hence at most 4 SM...

While true, the TX1 in the switch is like 1/4-1/3 the highest density of the 8nm Samsung has available. 8N is different though.

Any larger GPU would certainly make SOC more expensive to produce hence next Switch could be 400USD at very least along being such being bottleneck by how many SOC's could Samsung manufacture for next iteration of Switch thus less systems would be made thus less systems to sell software on.

It’s unknown how much more expensive the silicon would be for a chip that would be 140mm^2 (example) compared to a 100mm^2 chip in this current setting.

I have doubts that next iteration of Switch would have 8 SM unless Nintendo goes beyond their usual by having 1080P Full HD screen in order to play games made for much more powerful hardware as 720P screen would be laughable soon beyond 2025 for a 400USD tier portable device.


Switch OLED is band aid and Nintendo didn't bother even to allow LPDDR4X to maximum to alleviate bandwidth issues at bare minimum while OLED screen, better battery life as 2019 revision of Switch and double the storage space made it more up to date, but still outdated none the less.

If Nintendo goes for 400USD price point then they better bundle a game that would showcase power of the device and that isn't Nintendo Land.

This part I don’t get, why would they need to have a 1080p display if the device won’t be running at 1080p in portable mode when 1080p would be better used as the resolution boost before DLSS to make the supersample step after DLSS more manageable.

Rendering for a 1080p for games and rendering for a 720p for games would require 2.25 times the performance and higher memory bandwidth from the former vs the latter.

The higher performance would also require more energy usage for a device that would run portably.


Not even the mobile devices that greatly surpass the switch in GPU and CPU performance render titles at 1080p, try render it at sub 720p or around 720p despite having 1200-1612p displays or of those varying degrees.

 

[karmitt]

Just for reference the Navi22 has 96MB of Infinity Cache and you can see below how much of the die it actually takes up...
Does it make it more expensive to manufacture, yes but in a device where solving the problem of memory bandwidth is also encroaching on battery life and significant real-estate on the motherboard(somethings just outweigh the others as solutions go).

A $400 price range isn't out of the question for this next Switch and people just going by raw specs are underestimating how much of an upgrade this will truly be over the current Switch. Just look at some of the recent PS4 vs PS5 Horizon Forbidden West footage and the game looks amazing on PS4.

A PS4 handheld / PS4 Pro docked level Switch is my dream device. Nothing PS5 and XSX has delivered really changes that.

 

[Alovon11]

Result of DLSS would be considerably inaccurate, higher resolution means more data points for it hence higher accuracy of image reconstruction.

Otherwise it would be better to resort to checkerboard rendering, the modern day equivalent of interlaced.

The thing is that many if not majority of games of Switch are sub-native in portable to the 720P screen with often being around resolution of PS Vita that also often did not render its games at native resolution when those were high end home console like experiences while in the end primary reason why consumers buy Nintendo hardware is mostly in majority for their software exclusive to their platform.

If Nintendo goes for 8 SM for GPU then 1080P makes sense and is basically a must, otherwise if 4 SM is when 720P is just only option.

While I am on team 8SM Dane, I don't think 1080p screen for portable mode is a given or even likely.

You would get far more battery life, and cost savings by going with a 720p Panel as at the size and distance you use the Switch at in portable mode, 720p is mostly fine, it's not a phone that you have right up in your face more often than not where 1080p+ would actually be useful.

And on the note of DLSS "Lowest Accurate Res", Hoenstly, 480p to 1440p (Ultra Performance 1440p), and 540p to 1080p (Performance 1080p) are perfectly fine imho, the latter more or less matching 1080p Native.

So 480p or 540p to 720p would be more than good enough considering it would be harder to see defects in the IQ when playing in portable mode, like how a number of Switch games look clearer in Portable mode despite being even lower res than docked.

 

[Dakhil]

The only reason Nintendo could use a 1080p display for the DLSS model* is that Nintendo wants to support VRR in handheld mode and TV mode, especially if Nintendo continues to use an OLED display from Samsung. (Of course, that's not guaranteed.)

 

[ILikeFeet]

Result of DLSS would be considerably inaccurate, higher resolution means more data points for it hence higher accuracy of image reconstruction.

Otherwise it would be better to resort to checkerboard rendering, the modern day equivalent of interlaced.

The thing is that many if not majority of games of Switch are sub-native in portable to the 720P screen with often being around resolution of PS Vita that also often did not render its games at native resolution when those were high end home console like experiences while in the end primary reason why consumers buy Nintendo hardware is mostly in majority for their software exclusive to their platform.

If Nintendo goes for 8 SM for GPU then 1080P makes sense and is basically a must, otherwise if 4 SM is when 720P is just only option.

it's still better than the blurriness you get from sub-720p in some games in docked mode. and checkerboarding doesn't help, it has the same issues, but worse

1080p is not a must. it never was, and never will be until batteries get better or high resolution panels draw significantly less power. it's the same shit as to why you see MS advertise the Series S as a 1440p box but some games even fail to hit 1080p

 

[WAW_Greyhound]

DLSS by itself is blurriness as game when rendered below native resolution of screen doesn't gain any detail as it smoothes out the image while anything far away may not be recognizable, especially if not static and tiny such as for example a infantry in ARMA which you could have spotted far away yet with DLSS camoflauge would just blend in even when opponent is moving since there is not enough detail to accurately reconstruct that infrantry man.

As for mobiles phones not performing well even with far better CPU and GPU, did you not consider that it may not have a fan and cooper heatsink? Another involving screens is that there are smartphones that differ only in screen size and battery hence people have conducted testing and concluded that if both have same battery capacity that model with half the pixel count would only have 10 percent longer endurance.

If Switch OLED had 1080P screen then minimum battery life may be down by one hour and maximum down by 2 hours at most with its 15 watt hour battery. Switch OLED has same 15 watt hour battery as basic 2017 Switch, so 6 or 7 years since OG Switch launch later a 18 watt hour battery of comparable dimensions to 15 watt hour battery may be viable.

Finally a OLED 1080P screen is good enough for basic VR and much better than Labo that had robot game with VR using 720P LCD screen of basic Switch when Labo released.

 

[Alovon11]

DLSS by itself is blurriness as game when rendered below native resolution of screen doesn't gain any detail as it smoothes out the image while anything far away may not be recognizable, especially if not static and tiny such as for example a infantry in ARMA which you could have spotted far away yet with DLSS camoflauge would just blend in even when opponent is moving since there is not enough detail to accurately reconstruct that infrantry man.

As for mobiles phones not performing well even with far better CPU and GPU, did you not consider that it may not have a fan and cooper heatsink? Another involving screens is that there are smartphones that differ only in screen size and battery hence people have conducted testing and concluded that if both have same battery capacity that model with half the pixel count would only have 10 percent longer endurance.

If Switch OLED had 1080P screen then minimum battery life may be down by one hour and maximum down by 2 hours at most with its 15 watt hour battery. Switch OLED has same 15 watt hour battery as basic 2017 Switch, so 6 or 7 years since OG Switch launch later a 18 watt hour battery of comparable dimensions to 15 watt hour battery may be viable.

Finally a OLED 1080P screen is good enough for basic VR and much better than Labo that had robot game with VR using 720P LCD screen of basic Switch when Labo released.

?????????
The only cases of DLSS notably blurring things are in cases of a game's TAA being notably bad (RDR2).

Every other case sharpens And cleans up the image, EX: Control.

Small fine detail is strengthened with DLSS Usually, like Hair resolving and being restored whereas in TAA it is broken usually

 

[Look over there]

Strictly speaking, Micron is sampling 2 GB LPDDR5 chips too; they're just 32-bit though. With Micron at least, the only way you can land at 4 GB using LPDDR5 is with a 64-bit wide bus. And...aww, LPDDR5X catalogs aren't up yet.

 

[ILikeFeet]

DLSS by itself is blurriness as game when rendered below native resolution of screen doesn't gain any detail as it smoothes out the image while anything far away may not be recognizable, especially if not static and tiny such as for example a infantry in ARMA which you could have spotted far away yet with DLSS camoflauge would just blend in even when opponent is moving since there is not enough detail to accurately reconstruct that infrantry man.

you are really missing a lot of details about how DLSS works. temporal AA/upscaling solutions rely on information before the image even gets put together. the various buffers and data about the motion of objects on screen. and there are a lot of buffers that can be used within DLSS

 

[Dakhil]

As for mobiles phones not performing well even with far better CPU and GPU, did you not consider that it may not have a fan and cooper heatsink?

I don't think anyone's denying that the cooling solution for smartphones is definitely a factor for smartphones not performing well. But that's definitely not the only factor.

A couple of other factors are how fabless semiconductor and/or electronics companies (e.g. Apple, Qualcomm, Mediatek, Samsung, etc.) implement the CPU and the GPU when designing smartphone SoCs (e.g. Samsung's implementation of the Cortex-A55 cores vs Qualcomm's and Mediatek's implementation of the Cortex-A55 cores), as well as which process node is being used for the fabrication of smartphone SoCs (e.g. Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 rumoured to use Samsung's 4LPX process node vs Dimensity 9000 using TSMC's N4 process node). One example is that although the iPhone 13 definitely doesn't have the most optimal cooling solution (e.g. IFixIt's iPhone 13 Pro teardown), the Apple A15 Bionic still manages to have a comfortable lead in terms of performance in comparison to competing SoCs (e.g. Anandtech's review of the Apple A15 Bionic).

One other factor is that the OS of smartphones are not really optimised for gaming performance (e.g. Doom 3: BFG Edition performance difference between the Nintendo Switch and the Nvidia Shield TV, Fortnite performance between the Nintendo Switch and Android & iOS, etc.).

Finally a OLED 1080P screen is good enough for basic VR and much better than Labo that had robot game with VR using 720P LCD screen of basic Switch when Labo released.

I think high refresh rates (≥120 Hz) are also very important for a good enough VR experience. I don't know about LCD displays, but at least for OLED displays, I think the minimum resolution required for an OLED display to support 120 Hz for VRR is probably 1080p, considering the iPhone 13 Pro and the iPhone 13 Pro Max use customised 1080p displays, which I can imagine is definitely not cheap, especially when compared to similar LCD displays.

 

[ShadowFox08]

Cache takes up considerable amount of silicon and Samsung's 8nm is only twice as dense as TSMC 16nm hence at most 4 SM...

Any larger GPU would certainly make SOC more expensive to produce hence next Switch could be 400USD at very least along being such being bottleneck by how many SOC's could Samsung manufacture for next iteration of Switch thus less systems would be made thus less systems to sell software on.


I have doubts that next iteration of Switch would have 8 SM unless Nintendo goes beyond their usual by having 1080P Full HD screen in order to play games made for much more powerful hardware as 720P screen would be laughable soon beyond 2025 for a 400USD tier portable device.

Switch OLED is band aid and Nintendo didn't bother even to allow LPDDR4X to maximum to alleviate bandwidth issues at bare minimum while OLED screen, better battery life as 2019 revision of Switch and double the storage space made it more up to date, but still outdated none the less.

If Nintendo goes for 400USD price point then they better bundle a game that would showcase power of the device and that isn't Nintendo Land.


Would have made sense if there wasn't disaster in semiconductor industry with sanctions on mainland Chinese companies along drought in Taiwan. At very least Nintendo could have allowed OLED Switch to have more bandwidth, but no and even then there would be issue of 3rd party devs targeting OLED Switch while OG and 2019 revision would suffer as consequence of greed.

It's not entirely laughable for a 720p screen..Most competing handhelds run at 720p-800p, including steam deck. For a console that's going to have the performance of PS4 docked (without DLSS), 720p is absolutely fine. Besides saving battery life, It will also scale better if we get PS5/xbone ports.

I'd rather they save a 1080p screen for a revision, if it comes to it.

There's not really much reason to unlock 34 GB/s bandwidth on OLED to developers. It would screw over previous switch owners. It's one thing if very first switch model came with with lpddr4x and it was only clocked to 25.6 GB/s, then I would be absolutely 100% about the 33% jump in bandwidth.

LPDDR5 us what will likely be in switch 2 model. the 5X variant likely won't happen until a revision 2 years after (2025?). And like the 4x, will just be used to save battery life. What Switch really needs is one 128 bit or two 64 bit bus bandwidths of LPDDR5 and at 102 GB/s bandwidth. This along with 4x GPU would give switch w2 4x the performance of current switch in resolution. It shouldn't have an issue playing PS4 games.. But even if that xoyjdnr be relied on, the increased cache would help tremendously.

 

[WAW_Greyhound]

you are really missing a lot of details about how DLSS works. temporal AA/upscaling solutions rely on information before the image even gets put together. the various buffers and data about the motion of objects on screen. and there are a lot of buffers that can be used within DLSS

FSR / NIS provide comparable quality for considerably greater performance while tensor cores on Nvidia's hardware can then be used for particle and physics simulation in games.

I think high refresh rates (≥120 Hz) are also very important for a good enough VR experience. I don't know about LCD displays, but at least for OLED displays, I think the minimum resolution required for an OLED display to support 120 Hz for VRR is probably 1080p, considering the iPhone 13 Pro and the iPhone 13 Pro Max use customised 1080p displays, which I can imagine is definitely not cheap, especially when compared to similar LCD displays.

I guess it falls upon if Nintendo sees benefit of sacrificing profit margins to 0 in order to have powerful SOC and high end screen for greater flexibility and more freedom as to what games could be on the platform, of course that would require an add on.

But then again who would want a lithium ion battery far closer to face than usual.

It's not entirely laughable for a 720p screen..Most competing handhelds run at 720p-800p, including steam deck. For a console that's going to have the performance of PS4 docked (without DLSS), 720p is absolutely fine. Besides saving battery life, It will also scale better if we get PS5/xbone ports.

I'd rather they save a 1080p screen for a revision, if it comes to it.

There's not really much reason to unlock 34 GB/s bandwidth on OLED to developers. It would screw over previous switch owners. It's one thing if very first switch model came with with lpddr4x and it was only clocked to 25.6 GB/s, then I would be absolutely 100% about the 33% jump in bandwidth.

LPDDR5 us what will likely be in switch 2 model. the 5X variant likely won't happen until a revision 2 years after (2025?)

For majority of people that bought Nintendo's Switch is for form factor and their exclusives hence Nintendo could easily their most demanding games to be rendered at 1080P such as BOTW 1 and 2 while Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and Super Smash Bros Ultimate would by default.

There are already SOCs designed in 2021 to use LPDDR5X and I could see next Switch not to use LPDDR5X if it was to be released by end of this year or early 2023, but in general people expect it by end of 2023 at earliest. LPDDR5X has 1.3 times bandwidth while power consumption being 20 percent lower hence if Nintendo goes for 8GB RAM then it is a must.

Switch OLED came 2 years after 2019 Switch revision and nearly 5 years after original 2017 original, though 2019 model could also have its RAM clock increased.

 

[Deleted member 1141]

Question: Is VRR (Variable Refresh Rate) an unreasonable request in portable mode for the next piece of hardware? I'm in the line of thinking Nintendo will keep the screen at 720p, but I was wondering if them making the screen VRR would cause any issues (battery life, costs, etc.), because that'd be a massive improvement for games targeting 60fps while running in portable mode.

 

[Mercury_Sagit]

FSR / NIS provide comparable quality for considerably greater performance while tensor cores on Nvidia's hardware can then be used for particle and physics simulation in games.


I guess it falls upon if Nintendo sees benefit of sacrificing profit margins to 0 in order to have powerful SOC and high end screen for greater flexibility and more freedom as to what games could be on the platform, of course that would require an add on.

But then again who would want a lithium ion battery far closer to face than usual.



For majority of people that bought Nintendo's Switch is for form factor and their exclusives hence Nintendo could easily their most demanding games to be rendered at 1080P such as BOTW 1 and 2 while Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and Super Smash Bros Ultimate would by default.

There are already SOCs designed in 2021 to use LPDDR5X and I could see next Switch not to use LPDDR5X if it was to be released by end of this year or early 2023, but in general people expect it by end of 2023 at earliest. LPDDR5X has 1.3 times bandwidth while power consumption being 20 percent lower hence if Nintendo goes for 8GB RAM then it is a must.

Switch OLED came 2 years after 2019 Switch revision and nearly 5 years after original 2017 original, though 2019 model could also have its RAM clock increased.

I'd need examples for the bolded since for current games that support both DLSS and FSR, I've read reviews on techpowerup: FSR Ultra Quality is sometimes comparable to DLSS Quality. Going to lower resolution and FSR starts to pale versus DLSS by requiring higher mode for comparable image quality and losing on performance.
Case in point:


https://www.igorslab.de/amd-fsr-und-nvidia-dlss-als-leistungsverstaerker-praxisvergleich/14/
A bunch of comparison articles on techpowerup:
https://www.techpowerup.com/review/god-of-war-dlss-vs-fsr-comparison/
https://www.techpowerup.com/review/dying-light-2-dlss-vs-fsr-comparison/
https://www.techpowerup.com/review/horizon-zero-dawn-dlss-vs-fsr-comparison/
Another advantage DLSS has compared to FSR is more stable image quality since the former uses temporal samples (a complex form of TAA) while the latter only works with spatial samples in the current frame. This is also often reflected in the above articles.

 

[Alovon11]

FSR / NIS provide comparable quality for considerably greater performance while tensor cores on Nvidia's hardware can then be used for particle and physics simulation in games.

Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

No.

like, NIS/FSR is a okay option when DLSS (and likely XeSS later) aren't available.
But on their own they do have limits.

And NIS/FSR only gain considerable performance increases at 4x which at that point, especially if you drop below 1080p, Image quality starts to degrade heavily (NIS Retaining IQ better at sub 1080 IR's versus FSR but still)


DLSS trades some performance for

1. Far better Image Quality than NIS/FSR when you go beyond a 1.175x multiplier (Ultra Quality NIS/FSR)
2. Far more RANGE
   • NIS 4K bottoms out at 1080p and it honestly doesn't look the greatest but it is okay in a pinch and if the game's TAA/DRS solutions that exist already take kindly to it and someone doesn't go idiotic with the sharpening filter. The same rules apply with FSR.
   • DLSS on the other hand can go all the way down to 720p for a direct upscale up to 4K.
     • And not to mention on top of that NVIDIA Excplicitly recommends developers implement DLSS And NIS together and that users can use them together so for practical applications that more or less means that the IR Threshold to reach 4K out increases even further to 480p IR with DLSS Ultra performance 1440p being upscaled to 4K via NIS 2x (Ultra Performance 1080p in most games is too unstable because DLSS's bottom res in a PC environment seems to be higher than 360p and below 480p)
   • For reference on the DLSS Options that Dane could use, here's a playlist with videos of the same area in Control at different DLSS settings

Even 360p to 1080p, while yeah is quite fuzzy, honestly isn't too worse than Xenoblade 2 when in portable mode (And is just better as you could DLDSR down to 720p again to restore image stability in portable mode)

And if Devs have the multiplier for DLSS unlocked to pick whatever they want up to a 9x multiplier, they could pick a res like 540p to 1620p which should have even better characteristics than 1440p Ultra performance while running better than 4K ultra Performance, being an even better candidate to get upped to 4K via NIS as it would be a <2x multiplier to get 1620p to 4K.

Heck, Horizon Forbidden West runs it's Performance mode output at 1800p?
600p Internal Resolution to get to 1800p with DLSS Ultra Performance, which honestly versus 540p to 1620p likely would be the best middle-ground Ultra Performance option if devs had the option to do that if 720p to 4K was not performant enough.

Or heck, if a dev lost their mind and wanted to be like the devs of the Tourist on PS5 and Series X downsampling from 8K to 4K.

1080p to 3240p (higher than 6K) DLDSR'd back to 4K should be possible if a game hits 1080p on Dane if it had enough TOPs (or if we are saying it's a PS4 teir system so 900p would be the norm, 900p to 2700p, IE higher than 5K)

Theoretically, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe could do it actually as on OG Switch it locks 1080p 60fps more or less

Now that last example is very much a scenario that may require a DLA and 8SMs in Dane, but you get the point about the power of DLSS and its potential in an optimized environment now?

 

[JoshuaJSlone]

The only reason Nintendo could use a 1080p display for the DLSS model* is that Nintendo wants to support VRR in handheld mode and TV mode, especially if Nintendo continues to use an OLED display from Samsung. (Of course, that's not guaranteed.)

1080p would be a nice step over 2017 standards, but still pretty shitty for VR. Even cheapo Oculus Go from 2018 was 2560x1440 at 72Hz.

FSR / NIS provide comparable quality for considerably greater performance

Really not.

 

[PedroNavajas]

Question: Is VRR (Variable Refresh Rate) an unreasonable request in portable mode for the next piece of hardware? I'm in the line of thinking Nintendo will keep the screen at 720p, but I was wondering if them making the screen VRR would cause any issues (battery life, costs, etc.), because that'd be a massive improvement for games targeting 60fps while running in portable mode.

Currently, no mobile display implements gsync style VRR, what they do offer are several fixed refresh rates: 24Hz, 48Hz, 60Hz, etc. I think it would be technically possible for Nvidia and Nintendo to develop a screen compatible with gsync, but I wouldn't hold my breath. I think that even unflexible VRR like in current phone is also unlikely. But it would be interesting if Nintendo allowed 48hz as a compromise, for one.

 

[Dakhil]

1080p would be a nice step over 2017 standards, but still pretty shitty for VR. Even cheapo Oculus Go from 2018 was 2560x1440 at 72Hz.

When I mentioned "good enough VR experience", I don't necessarily mean the best VR experience.

The point I was trying to make was that a 1080p display with a 120 Hz refresh rate is the minimum required if Nintendo wants to support VRR in handheld mode. And I think VRR support is absolutely a must for VR.

Also, the PlayStation VR uses a 1080p OLED display (or a 960 x 1080 OLED display per eye) with a refresh rate of 90/120 Hz, although the image quality seems to also be dependant on which console the PlayStation VR is running at. (Of course, the PlayStation VR 2 does increase the display resolution, albeit at a weird resolution of 2000 x 2040 per eye.)

 

[Deleted member 1141]

Currently, no mobile display implements gsync style VRR, what they do offer are several fixed refresh rates: 24Hz, 48Hz, 60Hz, etc. I think it would be technically possible for Nvidia and Nintendo to develop a screen compatible with gsync, but I wouldn't hold my breath. I think that even unflexible VRR like in current phone is also unlikely. But it would be interesting if Nintendo allowed 48hz as a compromise, for one.

Thank you.

48Hz would be particularly interesting, that said, if allowed, if a game just can't quite hit a locked 60fps. I assume the reason this exists is due to 3D (as 3D TV and films were often shot for 48Hz/fps, double the NTSC 23.976/24fps standard), but I wonder if it could work as a game mode for stuff that just can't hit 60fps, but doesn't dip below 48... Probably would seen as not worth it, but one could hope.

 

[Hermii]

1080p would be a nice step over 2017 standards, but still pretty shitty for VR. Even cheapo Oculus Go from 2018 was 2560x1440 at 72Hz.

VRR is not VR. VRR stands for Variable Refresh Rate.

Occulus go is a dedicated VR device. If Dane Switch will have VR at all, it will be secondary.

 

[Foltzie]

Forgive me if this has been asked before, but how long from chip baselining/tape out is it feasible to have a shipping product? I assume that first article validation will take some time. Plus needing to run manufacturing long enough to get launch volumes.

I would assume at least 6 months if not 9.

 

[Alovon11]

Forgive me if this has been asked before, but how long from chip baselining/tape out is it feasible to have a shipping product? I assume that first article validation will take some time. Plus needing to run manufacturing long enough to get launch volumes.

I would assume at least 6 months if not 9.

May for a November launch

 

[Dakhil]

Forgive me if this has been asked before, but how long from chip baselining/tape out is it feasible to have a shipping product? I assume that first article validation will take some time. Plus needing to run manufacturing long enough to get launch volumes.

I would assume at least 6 months if not 9.

At least 6 months sounds about right, considering that GA102 was taped out a little more than 6 months before the release of the RTX 3090 and the RTX 3080.

 

[PedroNavajas]

The Deck being ~720p is evidence that higher resolutions are not desirable. The Vita should have been 480p and the Switch 540p. Dane at 720p is the proper power to resolution ratio, IMHO.

 

[Alovon11]

The Deck being ~720p is evidence that higher resolutions are not desirable. The Vita should have been 480p and the Switch 540p. Dane at 720p is the proper power to resolution ratio, IMHO.

Yeah, although DLSS technically means that 1080p more times than not would be viable for portable mode, I say Nintendo will take the battery life and cost savings and go with 720p anyway

 

[Crusters]

The Deck being ~720p is evidence that higher resolutions are not desirable. The Vita should have been 480p and the Switch 540p. Dane at 720p is the proper power to resolution ratio, IMHO.

We are being held back by battery technology.

We need RTG's for the next portable. Yes thermal mits and radiation suits are worth it. You get a thousand year battery half life and 4k handheld screen you can slap right in your face and still have perfect clarity. Well, as close to your face as your protective shielding mask will allow.

 

[Clix]

Resolution is ultimately limited by the game. Even with dynamic resolution support, Xenoblade 2, to use a random example, is not going above 720p without a patch.

But would I be able to get 720 locked handheld since I only care abouthandheld?

 

[Pokemaniac]

But would I be able to get 720 locked handheld since I only care abouthandheld?

No. Handheld resolution limits will almost certainly still be in place.

 

[Dakhil]

But would I be able to get 720 locked handheld since I only care abouthandheld?

Unfortunately no since Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is limited to ~540p max in handheld mode.

 

[Hermii]

Unfortunately no since Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is limited to ~540p max in handheld mode.

I imagine its trivial to patch in new dynamic res parameters though. You probably just need to edit the switch equalient of a .ini file.

 

[Crusters]

I imagine its trivial to patch in new dynamic res parameters though. You probably just need to edit the switch equalient of a .ini file.

We should already have an answer to this by now.

Unless xB2 for some reason just had no interest from the homebrew scene that loves tweaking around with things just like that.

 

[Issen]

We are being held back by battery technology.

We need RTG's for the next portable. Yes thermal mits and radiation suits are worth it. You get a thousand year battery half life and 4k handheld screen you can slap right in your face and still have perfect clarity. Well, as close to your face as your protective shielding mask will allow.

Not just battery technology, as increasing the power envelope will also result in increased noise and heat output. Both are undesirable on their own for a handheld device, even assuming infinite battery life.