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

[fwd-bwd]

I took a closer look at the product shots of Mario Red Edition, and found its backside extremely photogenic:

It also validates what factory uncle #1 shared with us last year:

• Two OLED model colorways were tested
• They were console body colors, not Special Edition prints
• One was canceled and the other put on hold

A year later funcle’s bona fides shines through yet again. No wonder they were spirited off by the ninjas… pouring one out for the real “hero” we needed but not deserved.

 

[TLZ]

Begun the insider war has

 

[ILikeFeet]

I feel the biggest optimization challenge with the Switch successor will be the game sizes. It's already becoming a massive issue for Steam Deck for me.

there in lies the problem with being PS4-like, assets would be similar so file size are gonna be large. which means we have to go back to the external storage debate...

I took a closer look at the product shots of Mario Red Edition, and found its backside extremely photogenic:

It also validates what factory uncle #1 shared with us last year:

• Two OLED model colorways were tested
• They were console body colors, not Special Edition prints
• One was canceled and the other put on hold

A year later funcle’s bona fides shines through yet again. No wonder they were spirited off by the ninjas… pouring one out for the real “hero” we needed but not deserved.
* Hidden text: cannot be quoted. *

 

[Saturnman789]

* Hidden text: cannot be quoted. *

 

[Deleted member 5146]

I took a closer look at the product shots of Mario Red Edition, and found its backside extremely photogenic:

It also validates what factory uncle #1 shared with us last year:

• Two OLED model colorways were tested
• They were console body colors, not Special Edition prints
• One was canceled and the other put on hold

A year later funcle’s bona fides shines through yet again. No wonder they were spirited off by the ninjas… pouring one out for the real “hero” we needed but not deserved.
* Hidden text: cannot be quoted. *

So you're telling us that purple with a handle is still on the table?

 

[SoldierDelta]

It's over, isn't it?

Isn't it?

Isn't it over?

It's over, isn't it? Isn't it?

Isn't it over?

I only hope we can soon say that about speculation when this thing is revealed.

I have never been more tired in my life. A never ending cycle of "We're back, it's over, we're back, it's over".

Just skip to the Switch 2 launch please, i can't stand it here.

 

[Leviraps]

BC I prefer to avoid commenting for now

 

[epicmartin7]

hey guys, i just realized something. EVERYONE has insider knowledge. how do I know? you think about stuff using your brain right? well... your brain is inside your body, and the stuff you retain in your brain is knowledge. so therefore, ITS insider knowledge.

 

[fwd-bwd]

So you're telling us that purple with a handle is still on the table?

 

[Joy-Boy]

So you're telling us that purple with a handle is still on the table?

* Hidden text: cannot be quoted. *

 

[HankyPanky]

Funcles are the greatest. The next time one brings news should be a doozy.

 

[TomNookYankees]

That report is very weird from what I know
Thins like new cartridge btw isn't a leak... it's logic

Of course that with new and huge games coming, they need a new tech to have more speed and storage

Camera and BC I prefer to avoid commenting for now
The lineup for both Square and SEGA / ATLUS are innacurate

I am very tempted to start a thread for avatar bets on if/how-much the Switch NG is backwards compatible with Switch.

Everyone who follows this thread closely already knows where I'm guessing it'll end up.

 

[D36]

The lineup for both Square and SEGA / ATLUS are innacurate

So what you're suggesting is that neither FF7R nor P3R are coming to Switch 2 (at least, not at launch, if at all)? Or was that not what you've been told?

 

[Look over there]

There are some things compilers aren't always great at, notably vector (SIMD) code. This isn't so much that vector code is much more difficult to compile than scalar code (although it is a bit), but moreso that vector support on CPUs is a complete mess of different standards, so compiling code that will work well across a wide range of hardware is a pain. As an example, here's a diagram of the current state of vector extensions on x86:

Vector heavy code will typically be implemented using intrinsics to target specific hardware capabilities. Intrinsics aren't exactly assembly language, but they map directly to assembly language for a given processor. For consoles this is relatively simple, as someone writing code for, say the PS5, will know the exact set of instructions in the diagram above that the Zen 2 core supports, and can write code using intrinsics for those instructions without worrying about the rest. If you want vector-heavy code to run well across a wide range of hardware on PC, you'll probably have code that has a lot of switch statements with intrinsics for whichever of the 31 different feature sets you want to support. An ARM chip like TX1 or T239 will then need different vector intrinsics from an x86 chip.

Incidentally, as the discussion of whether Nintendo will or should use newer ARM CPUs like the A710 or A715 has come up now and again, this is probably the best argument to do so, because of the SVE2 vector instructions supported by ARMv9 CPUs from the A710 onwards. These are independent of vector length, which substantially simplifies the problem of optimising for different architectures (although ARM was already a lot simpler than the x86 diagram above), but they're also much better for auto-vectorisation, where the compiler finds ways that scalar code (mostly for loops) can be mapped to vector instructions to increase performance. Game developers would still use vector intrinsics wherever they can, but SVE2 would make their job a bit easier when it comes to having a single set of intrinsics which will work well across a wider range of hardware, and allowing the compiler to catch some additional vectorisation opportunities which the developer may have missed.

My knee jerk reaction to that image is that it somehow oversells the situation regarding AVX2 and earlier, while underselling the fragmented mess of AVX-512.
AVX10 can't come soon enough.

---

Regarding the assembly stuff:
By no means am I a programmer, but I suddenly have this curious urge to hit up agner.org ...
Also, looking at this, I'm surprised that while for Jaguar, there's a fair number of entries in the integer (scalar/non-vector) section for which execution pipe is used for which instruction, but not so much for Zen 2.
Too deep into the weeds for me, but hey, some readers out there gotta be interested, right?

 

[NateDrake]

So what you're suggesting is that neither FF7R nor P3R are coming to Switch 2 (at least, not at launch, if at all)? Or was that not what you've been told?

The Square Enix claims are dubious, at best.

 

[Sonicfan1373]

I am very tempted to start a thread for avatar bets on if/how-much the Switch NG is backwards compatible with Switch.

Everyone who follows this thread closely already knows where I'm guessing it'll end up.

What are your views on BC? I am really hoping it is supported. I am not sure the signals that insiders are sending though indicate full support or case-by-case support.

 

[ghostboltz]

 

[JoshuaJSlone]

Reasons against the 1080p screen and for 720p screen
-helps with X series and PS5 ports.

Even that's not the case unless Nintendo creates a mandate that sub-native resolutions aren't allowed.

Also I don't believe we're getting 4K docked. Current-gen uses many forms of upscaling to hit 4K with mixed results on SoCs that could fry an egg.
DLSS could help but I doubt it would give more than 15-20% performance boost over any other tech.

That'd be a pretty disappointing technology that needs special hardware to operate and only shows 15% improvement.

Isn't this game very CPU heavy? I dunno.. I'm expecting at least a 2x speed/performance gap deficit with Switch 2 vs rest of current gen. That could break it for Switch 2 (might not reach the 30fps).

This is a pretty simplistic way of looking at things, but I feel like anything that the Steam Deck can half decently run an unaltered PC version of should have a good chance of working on Switch 2, especially if given "Witcher 3 Switch" or "No Man's Sky Switch" attention.

"But..but...Mr.Saturn man! VR on a 1080p screen would look uglier than a pile of meatloaf on a school night!"
Use the same technology as the 3ds, Autostereoscopy, to trick the eyes into seeing a higher resolution image. Then apply DLSS to keep the resolution up to max and decent framerates. Not so bad now is it?

Autostereoscopy isn't a technology to trick the eyes into seeing higher resolution--it's a method for taking a screen that's actually higher resolution and sending half of the pixels to each eye. VR headsets based on a single screen do the same thing, just with a different method of splitting how each eye gets half of the screen's pixels. So if you want a screen that uses a 3DS-like trick to appear higher resolution, that trick is: have a higher resolution screen.

 

[Shoulder]

Why do some folks think BC is more likely not to happen, none of the technical hurdles presented are insurmountable. It's like some are trying to will it into existence

Only thing I can think is some gamers think past games should remain on past consoles, and new hardware shouldn’t have to accommodate older games from older hardware.

I can sort of get behind that idea…if it were 1995 when hardware between different systems, let alone different generations were so vastly different with things like Sega’s VDP graphics processors, Nintendo’s MIPs CPU, or Sony’s Cell CPU.

With systems now more standardized between themselves, and engines much more scalable, and adaptable to various hardware, I think it eliminates that argument entirely. It becomes less of a hassle to support BC in this day and age, and I feel with PC Gaming much more accessible than it was say twenty years ago, it has bled its way onto the console realm.

PC Gaming has allowed 30 to 40 years of gaming to be accessible either through some form of emulation, or direct ports and conversions. Why can’t consoles be the same?

Microsoft I think is really showing what can be done in terms of support, and I think both Nintendo and Sony can learn a thing or two.

 

[SNP]

So... what did I just miss from yesterday and today?

I woke up this morning and saw some accounts say something about Switch 2 with BC, using new cartridge, and running FF7R like PS5 (how???). But today is a busy day for me because of Labor's Day weekend so I don't have time to look into it.

From what I gathered on this topic, looks like it was from Reddit by someone who claimed to be someone else!?? Is there anything else I missed cause why would that person claim to be someone else? Is the other person credible and leaked something?

 

[thesillyfellaelde]

So... what did I just miss from yesterday and today?

I woke up this morning and saw some accounts say something about Switch 2 with BC, using new cartridge, and running FF7R like PS5 (how???)

From what I gathered on this topic, looks like it was from Reddit by someone who claimed to be someone else!?

Necropile and Nate responded to the claims here and said that a handful of claims from that person are pretty inaccurate/dubious at best

 

[Ojoloco]

I remember someone here was mulling over how some games would be too big for Switch 2 after the Xbox Showcase showed that Star Wars game and also cited Starfield as one of those games. Something along the lines of even though it's a big leap from Switch it will be overlooked by 3rd party because these games won't be able to run on there.

I am still early into the game and am still unsure if it is my type of game 2hrs in...

But this game seems to be entirely scalable even on lower-end CPUs and doesn't even seem that taxing on my GPU based on what I am playing and seeing online. Gameplay-wise... I don't think anything in this game is above Drake's capabilities (so far). I could be wrong and of course, I don't have Drake in my hands yet but I think it's silly to see these posts pop up so far ahead of a game's release.

We will probably hit that threshold of not being possible/scalable on Drake but so far I think that will be a minority of games since we are just now seeing a lot of current-gen-only games.

Since Steamdeck exists (which is more or less on par with Switch Drake) where those games, when well optimized on PC, work without problems, I wouldn't pay much attention to those kinds of statements.

 

[ItWasMeantToBe19]

So what you're suggesting is that neither FF7R nor P3R are coming to Switch 2 (at least, not at launch, if at all)? Or was that not what you've been told?

?

Jet Set is the most obviously wrong thing in his Reddit post.

Sega was rebooting Jet Set as a AAAA Fortnite like game and will almost surely cancel it after Hyenas is a historic bomb. But even if Sega didn't cancel it, it would be years and years and years away from release. It started very early development in like 2021, games like this take like 5-9 years to make.

 

[Joy-Boy]

So... what did I just miss from yesterday and today?

I woke up this morning and saw some accounts say something about Switch 2 with BC, using new cartridge, and running FF7R like PS5 (how???). But today is a busy day for me because of Labor's Day weekend so I don't have time to look into it.

From what I gathered on this topic, looks like it was from Reddit by someone who claimed to be someone else!?? Is there anything else I missed cause why would that person claim to be someone else? Is the other person credible and leaked something?

• WE’RE BACK
• it’s over
• WE’RE BACK
• it’s over
• WE’RE BACK
• it’s over <— (We are here)

 

[Ojoloco]

So what you're suggesting is that neither FF7R nor P3R are coming to Switch 2 (at least, not at launch, if at all)? Or was that not what you've been told?

Only that among the details provided there is inaccurate information, but nobody have indicated which one. It also does not indicate that it is a fake.

To give a random example, the dates of XI and X could be inaccurate, despite being real projects, by some confusion on the phone chain between him and his sources.

 

[carbvan]

Not surprising to hear that this latest leaks is (partly) bogus. Now we just wait for the day that it isn't dangerous for Nate and the others to spill some details. Hopefully it's sooner rather than later.

 

[theguy]

to find out who’s going to leak some stuff first?

 

[Concernt]

I am very tempted to start a thread for avatar bets on if/how-much the Switch NG is backwards compatible with Switch.

Everyone who follows this thread closely already knows where I'm guessing it'll end up.

If it's not backwards compatible I will delete my account. Pure and simple.

 

[carbvan]

If it's not backwards compatible I will delete my account. Pure and simple.

yeah ill match. the switch 2 is bc or dead on arrival.

 

[Andre3333456]

to find out who’s going to leak some stuff first?

Mario Party for the Switch 2 confirmed???

 

[Deleted member 887]

By no means am I a programmer, but I suddenly have this curious urge to hit up agner.org ...

It's wild how bad those initial APU designs from AMD were. I still don't understand what happened there. In the i386 days, AMD managed to design some competitive CPUs, and bought a couple CPU design companies, and went to bat with Intel. Then they saw Intel try to fuck them over with IA-64, and so they did it themselves, better, and forced Intel to play catch up.

And then they made the most back-asswards core designs imaginable. They were bad at everything. The fundamental insight of the FX line was that multithreading was coming, and that high core counts could be made affordable by sharing resources, and building a module environment, and that further such a design would make them more power efficient. They were 100% right, and somehow the design completely blew it at every level.

Their performance per dollar was lower than their previous chips, their energy efficiency was lower than Intel's, and any theoretical multi-threading win remained unachieved by how bad the Windows kernel was scheduling processes, and how little mutlithreaded code there was out there.

For the most part, Zen doubles down on the core ideas, while dumping all of the details, and crushed it. Hell of a comeback story.

 

[Saturnman789]

There's a huge part of me that feels like we're gonna get A LOT of current gen third party stuff on the switch 2 during launch day, especially the big ones like Elden Ring (That's a gut feeling of mine), Armored Core 6, Assassins Creed Mirage, basically games from Nintendo's best friends.

Starfield I could see too, because nintendo's good relationship with microsoft, though maybe not on launch day. Since the game is able to run on steam deck, it would definitely be able to run on switch 2 (and has the benefit of dlss to make it actually look good)

 

[ShadowFox08]

FF7R on PS5 is 81GB. PS4 is larger actually. if they want to scale it for a 32GB cartridge they can. if they want, they can always make you download the rest of the game.

RIP textures.

I can't imagine it being 32GB for a Switch 2 port though. Maybe we'll get it on cart. The first 64GB cart for $70.

I feel the biggest optimization challenge with the Switch successor will be the game sizes. It's already becoming a massive issue for Steam Deck for me.

I agree that it's a major bottleneck for developers. It definitely was for Switch. If Nintendo offers a decent SSD storage size form the get go, that would help a lot. 256GB should be the minimum we get, but it would be pretty disappointing if we didn't get 512GB. Game sizes will at least double, if not triple for third party when compared to switch games. Switch 2's SSD and compression hardware (if it actually comes through in the final product) should help bring sizes down though. The problem with PS4 and Xbone was thar the HDD was really slow and a lot of file sizes were duplicated, which helped reduce loading times. Nintendo is king of compressing their games, but they usually don't have high quality textures anyways. And of course, sound, music, cutscenes also take up a huge chunk of storsge.

It's gonna be interesting to see how much smaller switch 2 ports will be, but I'm not expecting something drastic half the size of PS4 ports, assuming we get same quality textures.

 

[Superfirebros447]

Nintendo is king of compressing their games, but they usually don't have high quality textures anyways.

That Mario Party Superstars water tho, now that is the best Nintendo water and graphics.

 

[lemonfresh]

What if the Switch 2 is the friends we made along the way

 

[ShadowFox08]

This is a pretty simplistic way of looking at things, but I feel like anything that the Steam Deck can half decently run an unaltered PC version of should have a good chance of working on Switch 2, especially if given "Witcher 3 Switch" or "No Man's Sky Switch" attention

SD runs Starfield at 30 fps?

If we are comparing SD vs Switch 2 CPU performance, it's going to be a lot closer than Switch 2 vs current gen PS5 and X Series (the latter which u was comparing with Switch 2), because the core count is less than half of PS5. Switch just needs like 1.5Ghz with 7 cores, but I'm not counting the single thread performance advantage form Ryzen 2 over A78.

But the question now though is, how many current gen PS5/X Series ports are on SD? I do agree that looking at SD is a decent gauge of seeing if it's doable on switch with decent performance on the CPU side of things.

 

[Giancarlo]

I am very tempted to start a thread for avatar bets on if/how-much the Switch NG is backwards compatible with Switch.

Everyone who follows this thread closely already knows where I'm guessing it'll end up.

digital or physical media backward compatible or both?(hopefully is both)

 

[Skittzo]

Wasn't there talk about the new macronix game card format being likely to support much larger file sizes?

 

[carbvan]

digital or physical media backward compatible or both?(hopefully is both)

this is a very good question. that MVG video and the follow up Nate + MVG podcast makes me think that the Switch 2 would just dump the cartridges, apply a patch, and play them as if they were digital.

 

[TomNookYankees]

What are your views on BC? I am really hoping it is supported. I am not sure the signals that insiders are sending though indicate full support or case-by-case support.

digital or physical media backward compatible or both?(hopefully is both)

My guess is it's gonna be digital only.

 

[Saturnman789]

Wasn't there talk about the new macronix game card format being likely to support much larger file sizes?

I actually got really curious and did some searching, the best i could find is this https://www.anandtech.com/show/15221/macronix-to-start-shipments-of-3d-nand-in-2020, which could totally imply larger switch cartridges if this isn't a rumor and nintendo continues to work with this company.

Its fair to say 32 gbs is a bit too small of a max size for a console that's expected to perform at near-current gen levels (Thanks to DLSS and its very modern architecture). I'd imagine 64gb would probably be the default cartridge size for larger AAA-tier games (tho they would definitely use 32gb and smaller for games that don't need that space) and maybe 128gb as the absolute largest option for massive games like starfield

But imo any game higher than 64gb will probably have part of the game in the cartridge and the rest as a digital download . But if 128 gb carts are reasonably affordable I say why not.

 

[justanotherperson]

My guess is it's gonna be digital only.

I think there's gonna be a MASSIVE backlash if that happens. If they can get the games running, what's in the way of enabling that on physical games?

Spoiler

(I'm only saying this because 90% of my Switch games are physical lmao)

 

[Machrider]

'Console speculated to be stronger than PS4 can run enhanced PS4 port' is not exactly hard to believe. The post specifically said "looks and runs like a PS5 game" which doesn't need to be taken literally, it could just mean they think the port looks good. If they actually said "this console is as strong as a PS5" then we could rule it out right off the bat.

I mean even that, so many people still don't grasp DLSS is kind of a thing.

The PS5 has to run FF7R Intergrade at 3840x2160 resolution (8,294,400 pixels)

If the Switch 2 is using Super Performance Mode DLSS, it could be running at something like 853x480 undocked (409,440 pixels) and 1280x720 docked (DLSS 4K at 921,600 pixels).

The PS5 has to push 9x as many pixels as the docked Switch 2 would have to in that scenario, if the Switch 2 is like 2.3 teraflops docked ... the PS5 is not 9x more powerful than that, not even close.

 

[Lancelot]

I mean even that, so many people still don't grasp DLSS is kind of a thing.

The PS5 has to run FF7R Intergrade at 3840x2160 resolution (8,294,400 pixels)

If the Switch 2 is using Super Performance Mode DLSS, it could be running at something like 853x480 undocked (409,440 pixels) and 1280x720 docked (DLSS 4K at 921,600 pixels).

The PS5 has to push 9x as many pixels as the docked Switch 2 would have to in that scenario, if the Switch 2 is like 2.3 teraflops docked ... the PS5 is not 9x more powerful than that, not even close.

Brains tend to melt when discussing Switch 2 and Nintendo hardware specs in general, it's not really surprising.

 

[Discostew]

I don't know about anyone else, but I'm probably going to pre-order 2 [REDACTED] when it becomes available. One for actual use, and one to keep on its original FW. You know, just in case something comes along.

 

[epicmartin7]

I could see a console-only Switch 2 as an option that's digital only. Similar to the Series S or digital PS5.

 

[Hero of Hyrule]

That report is very weird from what I know
Thins like new cartridge btw isn't a leak... it's logic

Of course that with new and huge games coming, they need a new tech to have more speed and storage

Camera and BC I prefer to avoid commenting for now
The lineup for both Square and SEGA / ATLUS are innacurate

So no Persona 3 and Metaphor on Switch 2?

 

[ILikeFeet]

I actually got really curious and did some searching, the best i could find is this https://www.anandtech.com/show/15221/macronix-to-start-shipments-of-3d-nand-in-2020, which could totally imply larger switch cartridges if this isn't a rumor and nintendo continues to work with this company.

Its fair to say 32 gbs is a bit too small of a max size for a console that's expected to perform at near-current gen levels (Thanks to DLSS and its very modern architecture). I'd imagine 64gb would probably be the default cartridge size for larger AAA-tier games (tho they would definitely use 32gb and smaller for games that don't need that space) and maybe 128gb as the absolute largest option for massive games like starfield

But imo any game higher than 64gb will probably have part of the game in the cartridge and the rest as a digital download . But if 128 gb carts are reasonably affordable I say why not.

Macronix can potentially do a read-only nand that could be cheaper than XtraROM

 

[carbvan]

I think there's gonna be a MASSIVE backlash if that happens. If they can get the games running, what's in the way of enabling that on physical games?

Spoiler

(I'm only saying this because 90% of my Switch games are physical lmao)

I imagine if the cartridge form and format changes enough the Switch 2 wouldn't be able to read Switch 1 cartridges. I think that's the only scenario where physical games wouldn't work on Switch 2.

 

[MishterKirby]

It's wild how bad those initial APU designs from AMD were. I still don't understand what happened there. In the i386 days, AMD managed to design some competitive CPUs, and bought a couple CPU design companies, and went to bat with Intel. Then they saw Intel try to fuck them over with IA-64, and so they did it themselves, better, and forced Intel to play catch up.

And then they made the most back-asswards core designs imaginable. They were bad at everything...They were 100% right, and somehow the design completely blew it at every level.

Their performance per dollar was lower than their previous chips, their energy efficiency was lower than Intel's, and any theoretical multi-threading win remained unachieved by how bad the Windows kernel was scheduling processes, and how little mutlithreaded code there was out there.

I recall reading once that what happened was that since they tried integrating a CPU with a powerful GPU on the die (unlike Intel's iGPUs which were integrated onto the motherboard), they were having thermal and power issues because of their manufacturing processes (though I may be wrong, I read this years ago)