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

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Spork4000 said:
I really don't think Nintendo has a the money to stand up their own cloud solution. Look at who's playing in the space right now, Amazon, Google, Nvidia and Microsoft. All players with deep, deep pockets. Also the drake hardware is more powerful than most were expecting before the leak, but too weak for what you're suggesting.

Something I always remind people with Cloud is that it really isn't that much cheaper for a hardware manufacturer over the traditional market while having much higher risk for not hitting their return on investment.
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Indeed,

There is a reason that Nvidia, Microsoft, Google moved first in this market. Nvidia because they had research and an interest in trying to find a second source for its vehicle GPU stack. Google and Microsoft* since they have already invested billions into the hardware needed for cloud computing. This made costs for Google and Microsoft to "build" out xCloud and Stadia relatively cheaper.

Maybe Nvidia offers another version of Orin to Nintendo for cloud computing, but if they wanted that, they could have used a version of GeoForce Now already. The cloud offerings on Switch aren't GeoForce Now based.

Never say never, but cloud gaming will largely remain a niche, and a niche mostly unserved by Nintendo.
 
Whilst VRR is nice, I think a lot of people in this thread are forgetting it's very enthusiast focused. This is fine, as maybe the product Drake is to feature in an enthusiast model, however I feel it would be limited to docked mode and maybe select few 2d titles.

Frame rates above 60 come at a pretty big computational cost. If Nintendo has to decide between 4-7 hours battery life at 60fps or 2-3.5 hours at 120fps I believe they would go with the battery life.

Nintendo will be all about the user experience and I would posit that 120fps offers only marginal improvements to the user experience over doubling the battery life or extensing visual fidelity.

It's also a mass market product and the larger battery life has wider appeal than high frame rate.
 
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Foltzie said:
Maybe Nvidia offers another version of Orin to Nintendo for cloud computing, but if they wanted that, they could have used a version of GeoForce Now already. The cloud offerings on Switch aren't GeoForce Now based.
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We've already talked about why that's a white elephant.
 
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ShaunSwitch said:
Whilst VRR is nice, I think a lot of people in this thread are forgetting it's very enthusiast focused. This is fine, as maybe the product Drake is to feature in an enthusiast model, however I feel it would be limited to docked mode and maybe select few 2d titles.

Frame rates above 60 come at a pretty big computational cost if Nintendo has to decide between 4-7 hours battery life at 60fps or 2-3.5 hours at 120fps I believe they would go with the battery life.

Nintendo will be all about the user experience and I would posit that 120fps offers only marginal improvements to the user experience over doubling the battery life or extensing visual fidelity.

It's also a mass market product and the larger battery life has wider appeal than high frame rate.
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I think most people when referring to 120fps are already speculating exclusively in docked mode and wouldn't make much difference in a handheld screen that only is displaying at 720p anyways (unless I'm misreading the previous comments, otherwise I agree with you it only makes sense for handheld to put a cap at 60fps).

The real advantage comes if the display screen can output at 30Hz, 40Hz and 60Hz, so the games that would otherwise perform at 120 fps docked can be scaled down to 40fps like the most recent Ratched at Clank game to still get smooth gameplay that performs higher than 30fps without draining battery life and putting a strain on resources available.
 
niconiconick64 said:
Even then, I don't think they support meme aspect ratios like 21:9 or it's even more stupid cousin, 32:9.
Even with 16:10 and 4:3 or 3:2, I'm pretty sure you'll get black bars on PS5 and Series S/X unless you stretch the image.

Supporting HFR is not merely a question of power, but updating games (and developing the new ones with that in mind).
How many games on PS or XBOX don't support 120+ FPS? don't see anyone talking about that.
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I don't know what this is even a response to
 
Marce-chan said:
Yesterday I was thinking of them porting MK Tour to Switch. I think it makes a lot of sense for them not to. Unless they feel like that would canalize MK8? We know it wouldn't but idk. Maybe they want mobile to stay its own thing. But we got Pokémon Unite for Switch... I think a lot of people only play on Switch so would make sense to have their biggest F2P game on it.
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Nintendo wants mobile to stay on mobile on their end. What the Pokémon Company does or other mobile companies do is on them to bring or include the Switch.
 
ILikeFeet said:
I don't know what this is even a response to
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1440p is usually used to refer to the 16:9 aspect ratio QHD (2560x1440) resolution. That's where the start of my argument comes from.
By saying "they supported 1440p monitors before sony" you aren't saying much since well, monitors come in different aspect ratios than others as well as different resolutions. And while having 1440p support is great and all, it doesn't satisfy the niche of playing a console on a pc monitor for every user that does so.

I personally dislike ultrawide or super ultrawide monitors because I actually had one, and it honestly didn't make much sense.
I quickly realized that with a standard 16:9 4k or even 1440p monitor, I'd have more horizontal space at 100% scaling than a FHD ultrawide.
And even though 100% scaling on 4k at even 27 inches may look small, even at ~150% scale I felt like I had more space unless I went for 32:9.

The whole niche of side by side windows was also something I didn't care since most of the time, I'd use a window in fullscreen which would leave a massive gap on the sides (since most websites and applications aren't optimized for ultrawide aspect ratios - not to mention the amount of games that don't support it.

Back then, modding for ultrawide support was also a mess, I believe it's better now but still not interesting (to me). Also, many games only supported fullscreen mode (non-windowed) which wouldn't even allow you to set a game to a 16:9 900~1080p window and have the remaining horizontal space of a FHD monitor be used by chats and whatnot.

I'd much rather have a multi monitor setup.
 
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Marce-chan said:
Yesterday I was thinking of them porting MK Tour to Switch. I think it makes a lot of sense for them not to. Unless they feel like that would canalize MK8? We know it wouldn't but idk. Maybe they want mobile to stay its own thing. But we got Pokémon Unite for Switch... I think a lot of people only play on Switch so would make sense to have their biggest F2P game on it.
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Nintendo mobile games don’t get ported to Switch while all TPC games do, is just different philosophies each company has. Probably is due to Nintendo thinking that having F2P versions of Mario Kart/Animal Crossing/Fire Emblem would hurt the sales of the full priced releases especially of MK/AC.
 
ShaunSwitch said:
Whilst VRR is nice, I think a lot of people in this thread are forgetting it's very enthusiast focused. This is fine, as maybe the product Drake is to feature in an enthusiast model, however I feel it would be limited to docked mode and maybe select few 2d titles.

Frame rates above 60 come at a pretty big computational cost. If Nintendo has to decide between 4-7 hours battery life at 60fps or 2-3.5 hours at 120fps I believe they would go with the battery life.

Nintendo will be all about the user experience and I would posit that 120fps offers only marginal improvements to the user experience over doubling the battery life or extensing visual fidelity.

It's also a mass market product and the larger battery life has wider appeal than high frame rate.
Click to expand...
For me, VRR is way less about HFR and more about providing a smooth experience in games that would otherwise be locked to 30fps for tearing reasons. Anything between 30-60fps would benefit.
 
I’m not sure why people are assuming the VRR is for 120 FPS mode, it’s for VRR in portable and docked mode even if at 60 Hz at max for the display, because it can do 40Hz instead of 30Hz if it can’t hit 60Hz.
Or 45Hz. Or 50Hz.

It opens up the options and further expands where or what can be optimized for. Sometimes a game can hover at 43FPS. Lock it to 40Hz.or optimize it and aim for 50Hz, or 60Hz if you optimize it even further.

Or do little optimization and drop it to 30Hz

And can save battery life but still offer a serviceable experience.

I repeat, VRR is not about 120 FPS mode, it’s about offering more options that they can target if need be where it doesn’t look terrible on the display.



The best example of this is the Xbox series, most games don’t actually hit 120Hz, but they still do make use of VRR when in 60Hz mode. VRR is not about targeting higher refresh rates only. It’s also, as a name implies, about targeting variable refresh rates.
 
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kvetcha said:
For me, VRR is way less about HFR and more about providing a smooth experience in games that would otherwise be locked to 30fps for tearing reasons. Anything between 30-60fps would benefit.
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ReddDreadtheLead said:
I’m not sure why people are assuming the VRR is for 120 FPS mode, it’s for VRR in portable and docked mode even if at 60 Hz at max for the display, because it can do 40Hz instead of 30Hz if it can’t hit 60Hz.
Or 45Hz. Or 50Hz.
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The number of games on Switch that either just bounce under a frame rate target, or can fall into the 4xHz gap is pretty high. Lots of these games would have smoother experiences if VRR were available.

However, would VRR support need to be exposed in NVN? Shouldn't we know by now whether Nintendo intends to support it in Drake?
 
Is there evidence that the Samsung 8nm process node is looking less likely for Drake at this point? I thought that was the only candidate that really fit based on what’s known of the supply chain.
 
Klax0nKlax0ff said:
Is there evidence that the Samsung 8nm process node is looking less likely for Drake at this point? I thought that was the only candidate that really fit based on what’s known of the supply chain.
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Just that 12 sm seems a bit too big and power hungry for that process, especially in portable mode.
 
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ReddDreadtheLead said:
I’m not sure why people are assuming the VRR is for 120 FPS mode, it’s for VRR in portable and docked mode even if at 60 Hz at max for the display, because it can do 40Hz instead of 30Hz if it can’t hit 60Hz.
Or 45Hz. Or 50Hz.
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Probably because mobile OLED displays that has VRR support also happen to support a refresh rate of up to 120 Hz (e.g. iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max, etc.).
Klax0nKlax0ff said:
Is there evidence that the Samsung 8nm process node is looking less likely for Drake at this point? I thought that was the only candidate that really fit based on what’s known of the supply chain.
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There's so much variability in terms of the number of active CPU cores ("Online CPU"), number of active GPU TPCs (2 SMs per TPC), the CPU frequency, and the GPU frequency, depending on which Jetson Orin model, and the TDP, which suggests that having all CPU cores and all GPU TPCs be active, within a certain TDP, and at certain CPU and GPU frequencies, is going to be very difficult, assuming Nintendo and Nvidia use Samsung's 8N process node to fabricate Drake.
 
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Salah Kalajo said:
www.videogameschronicle.com

Emergency services respond to fire at Nintendo’s Japanese HQ | VGC

Police claim that no one was injured in the fire on the third floor of the company’s Kyoto building…
www.videogameschronicle.com www.videogameschronicle.com

some sources says the charging device that caused the fire is the new 4K Switch , while this might be true but it is as good as a speculation i guess .
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Every single random thing that happens with Nintendo, someone will find a way to relate to new hardware.
 
oldpuck said:
However, would VRR support need to be exposed in NVN? Shouldn't we know by now whether Nintendo intends to support it in Drake?
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As far as I know, games don't need to support VRR. It can be forced on the system level.

I'm not familiar with how it works in NVN, but with OpenGL, there is a value you can set (via an API call) called the swap interval. It's used to tell the GPU how to synchronize itself with the display refresh.

Setting the value to a positive integer would enable V-Sync:
  • 1 -> Normal V-Sync
  • 2 -> Half V-Sync
  • etc
Setting the value to 0 would disable V-Sync, causing tearing.

And I think setting the value to -1 would "enable" VRR (if the system and display support it).

But the value set by the developers can be overridden by the console/PC. Also, I looked into some Switch and PS4 homebrew SDKs and they seem to have something similar. So I assume NVN also already exposes that.
 
Salah Kalajo said:
www.videogameschronicle.com

Emergency services respond to fire at Nintendo’s Japanese HQ | VGC

Police claim that no one was injured in the fire on the third floor of the company’s Kyoto building…
www.videogameschronicle.com www.videogameschronicle.com

some sources says the charging device that caused the fire is the new 4K Switch , while this might be true but it is as good as a speculation i guess .
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I'm pretty sure people are being sarcastic saying it was a Pro or them running Zelda on base Switch. It was an accident, there's nothing to make out of it.
 
Marce-chan said:
Hey y'all!
Is November release still on the cards? Or is everyone on March 2023 ship?
Click to expand...

I doubt November, just because they probably would have ripped the band aid off already. November is their most important month, so if new hardware was coming then, they'd definitely be hyping it up even if it was a detriment to switch sales.
 
Marce-chan said:
Hey y'all!
Is November release still on the cards? Or is everyone on March 2023 ship?
Click to expand...
I'm of the position that if it's not announced in August, like in the next 2 weeks basically, then this year is off the table. Some people think September is the cutoff but I don't think they'd do such a short announcement cycle this time of year.

Of course I'm willing to change my opinion if we hear some leaks soon.
 
Can anyone refresh my memory on why Nintendo made Mariko, and then stealth dropped it in 2019? No advertising or announcement? I wasn’t following the boards back then. I’m trying to maybe correlate their decision to go from 20 to 16 nm with a theory (hope) that they’ll go with 5 or 6nm for Drake. Was it purely financial? Economical? We’re they trying to increase battery life only? If Drake is Switch 2, I’d hope they learn from Mariko and not release a battery draining model right from the get go.
 
Skittzo said:
I'm of the position that if it's not announced in August, like in the next 2 weeks basically, then this year is off the table. Some people think September is the cutoff but I don't think they'd do such a short announcement cycle this time of year.

Of course I'm willing to change my opinion if we hear some leaks soon.
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Same. Ever the optimist I started to humor the September option when I saw the PS4 Pro announcement to release timeframe, but I’m really doubting they’re going to position this system the similarly anymore. A couple third party Drake exclusive titles near launch seems plausible, and they’d want to give those titles ample time for marketing.
 
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Cuzizkool said:
Can anyone refresh my memory on why Nintendo made Mariko, and then stealth dropped it in 2019? No advertising or announcement? I wasn’t following the boards back then. I’m trying to maybe correlate their decision to go from 20 to 16 nm with a theory (hope) that they’ll go with 5 or 6nm for Drake. Was it purely financial? Economical? We’re they trying to increase battery life only? If Drake is Switch 2, I’d hope they learn from Mariko and not release a battery draining model right from the get go.
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It was not really stealth released but announced with advance that a new model of hybrid Switch with better battery was coming. IIRC it happened alongside Lite announcement in late July.
 
Cuzizkool said:
Can anyone refresh my memory on why Nintendo made Mariko, and then stealth dropped it in 2019? No advertising or announcement? I wasn’t following the boards back then. I’m trying to maybe correlate their decision to go from 20 to 16 nm with a theory (hope) that they’ll go with 5 or 6nm for Drake. Was it purely financial? Economical? We’re they trying to increase battery life only? If Drake is Switch 2, I’d hope they learn from Mariko and not release a battery draining model right from the get go.
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20nm was a dead node from inception. Nvidia bought a lot of 20nm for whatever reason and couldn't find buyers of the chips, so Nintendo got them for cheap (allegedly). the tx1 was also riddled with security problems which lead it to be hacked almost immediately. so moving to a not-dead node for financial reasons, and fixing the security flaw. battery life was a bonus
 
Marce-chan said:
It was not really stealth released but announced with advance that a new model of hybrid Switch with better battery was coming. IIRC it happened alongside Lite announcement in late July.
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ILikeFeet said:
20nm was a dead node from inception. Nvidia bought a lot of 20nm for whatever reason and couldn't find buyers of the chips, so Nintendo got them for cheap (allegedly). the tx1 was also riddled with security problems which lead it to be hacked almost immediately. so moving to a not-dead node for financial reasons, and fixing the security flaw. battery life was a bonus
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Got it. I was hoping for a more consumer friendly reason, but this tracks. Any chance 8nm is now a dead node? 😛 I’m definitely hoping for a 5 or 6nm for Drake.
 
Arrtyfact said:
As far as I know, games don't need to support VRR. It can be forced on the system level.
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I know that PS5 supports an option that does that, but it doesn't actually do anything in some games, yes? Like, without an uncapped frame rate you're going to not get much except fixes when frame rate drops, plus you'll need to implement custom frame persistence - especially in the case of DLSS.

Arrtyfact said:
I'm not familiar with how it works in NVN, but with OpenGL, there is a value you can set (via an API call) called the swap interval. It's used to tell the GPU how to synchronize itself with the display refresh.

Setting the value to a positive integer would enable V-Sync:
  • 1 -> Normal V-Sync
  • 2 -> Half V-Sync
  • etc
Setting the value to 0 would disable V-Sync, causing tearing.

And I think setting the value to -1 would "enable" VRR (if the system and display support it).

But the value set by the developers can be overridden by the console/PC. Also, I looked into some Switch and PS4 homebrew SDKs and they seem to have something similar. So I assume NVN also already exposes that.
Click to expand...
Then we should already know if VRR is going tobe supported.
 
karmitt said:
I’m gonna ask this again since things are a bit quiet in here - what’s the likelihood of supporting HDR for the next device?
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Your post compelled me to try out a secret menu on the LG CX where you can force HDR on SDR sources.
I tried it on the Switch and - besides the obvious fact that this was not intended and the colors are slightly inaccurate - I honestly love how it looks? It really pops, the lighting effects in Xenoblade 3 absolutely glow and retro games remind me of CRT bloom.
So now I'm 200% onboard HDR for Drake. I have yet to try Mario or Zelda but if these games can look decent with the forced HDR, I can only imagine how a properly tone-mapped calibrated image would look.
 
oldpuck said:
I know that PS5 supports an option that does that, but it doesn't actually do anything in some games, yes? Like, without an uncapped frame rate you're going to not get much except fixes when frame rate drops, plus you'll need to implement custom frame persistence - especially in the case of DLSS.
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I think VRR could benefit all games, even if the framerate is capped. I believe that when a PS5 game has a mode to "uncap" the framerate, it's still technically capped to 120 (to avoid tearing), and VRR in this case allows to smooth out (eliminating judder) framerates below 120.

I would argue that the use case is the same when the framerate is capped to 60: smoothing out framerates below 60.

I guess same for 30
 
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Spork4000 said:
I doubt November, just because they probably would have ripped the band aid off already. November is their most important month, so if new hardware was coming then, they'd definitely be hyping it up even if it was a detriment to switch sales.
Click to expand...
PS4 Pro, September reveal, November release.

New Nintendo 3DS, August reveal, October release.

Notice a pattern?
 
Cuzizkool said:
Got it. I was hoping for a more consumer friendly reason, but this tracks. Any chance 8nm is now a dead node? 😛 I’m definitely hoping for a 5 or 6nm for Drake.
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at this point, Samsung 8nm will come to a close soon. Ampere is the only thing keeping it alive, but if Nintendo wants this to go the distance, then 8nm is off the cards. whether or not Samsung 5/4nm will have life in it will be dependent on them making it not shit as far as yields go. at tsmc, 6nm will be long lived, as will 5nm
 
Raccoon said:
worse than that, it was a joke
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lol how someone can take that seriously. It's a million times more likely to be a toaster or coffee maker than a product in testing, Drake already has power management and temperature readings that would prevent this, some employee heating something in the breakroom is not going to have all those safety features.
 
Z0m3le said:
lol how someone can take that seriously. It's a million times more likely to be a toaster or coffee maker than a product in testing, Drake already has power management and temperature readings that would prevent this, some employee heating something in the breakroom is not going to have all those safety features.
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I read the posts in question this morning and can assure this thread that they were not at all serious
 
WILL DEVELOPMENT PROBLEMS FOR NEW SWITCH LEAD TO MASS LAYOFFS AT NINTENDO? AND 13 OTHER REASONS WHY YOU SHOULD BUY THE POWKIDDY, BE SURE TO CHECK 11 FOR A SURPRISE!1
 
ILikeFeet said:
at this point, Samsung 8nm will come to a close soon. Ampere is the only thing keeping it alive, but if Nintendo wants this to go the distance, then 8nm is off the cards. whether or not Samsung 5/4nm will have life in it will be dependent on them making it not shit as far as yields go. at tsmc, 6nm will be long lived, as will 5nm
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Considering the state of the world with chip fabs, there is just more capacity at Samsung 5nm/4nm than there is at TSMC, and Drake was possibly already designed on 8nm, making the transition much much cheaper with Samsung than TSMC. It is not impossible for them to use TSMC, GT 1030 was the only pascal GPU to be produced at a different fab, so it is completely possible that Ampere Drake is on TSMC while all other Ampere GPUs are Samsung, but it shouldn't be considered more likely to have Drake on TSMC than Samsung at this point. Remember Samsung is the partner for the OLED screens, there is a huge benefit to getting more components from Samsung as the overall price can be reduced further...

TSMC also announced price hikes for their fabs this year, meanwhile major partners moved away from Samsung 4/5nm nodes, making it's capacity far more available. Famously Nvidia couldn't get capacity on TSMC 7nm and went with Samsung 8nm instead, with everyone on TSMC, Nintendo might have went with the budget option that meets their power requirements, it isn't like we are expecting huge clocks where the device would be over 4TFLOPs, Samsung's nodes would be completely adequate for the job.
 
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