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

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Noleth said:
Actually, I’m starting to get nervous about if Nintendo will handle the transition into next gen game development well, or will stumble big time like Sony and Microsoft to the PS5 and SX/S
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Personally, I wouldn't worry too much, especially with Nvidia as one of Nintendo's dev partners.
 
raddyo said:
Sorry, might have read it too fast and misunderstood your message, lol.

Just for fun and also because I was bored, I compiled a sumarized list of the past Nintendo consoles/portables codenames I could find, these are all according to their product names or devkits/SDKs, not necessarily hardware parts as I mentioned before. Also, some of those are arguably (logical) speculation since there's no major evidence for them.
  • Famicom/NES:
    • "Family Computer" / "Nintendo Entertainment System"
    • HVC product number = Home Video Computer
  • Game Boy:
    • DMG = Dot Matrix Game (regular/classic GB)
    • MGB = Mini Game Boy (Game Boy Pocket)
    • MGL = Mini Game Boy Light (Game Boy Light)
    • CGB = Color Game Boy (Game Boy Color)
    • AGB = Advanced Game Boy (Game Boy Advance)
    • AGS = Advanced Game Boy Special (GBA SP)
    • OXY = Oxygen (Game Boy Micro)
  • Super Famicom/SNES:
    • SHVC = Super Home Video Computer
    • SNS = Super Nintendo System
  • Virtual Boy:
    • VUE = Virtual Ultra-Eye or Virtual Utopia Experience
  • Nintendo 64:
    • aka Ultra 64 or project Reality
    • NUS = Nintendo Ultra Sixty-Four
  • GameCube:
    • DOL - Dolphin
    • There's also some mention to GCT (GameCube Tool? Devkit?) and GCP (?)
  • DS:
    • aka project Iris or Iris ensata (SDK) -- named after the japanese Iris flower
    • NTR = Nitro/Nitrogen (DS)
    • USG = Usugata (DS Lite) -- means 'thin' or 'slim' in Japanese
    • TWL = Twilight (DSi)
    • UTL = Ultra Twilight (DSi XL)
  • Wii:
    • RVL = Revolution
    • RVT = Revolution Tool (SDK)
  • 3DS:
    • CTR = Citrus (according to data minings) or Centrair (apparently there's a leaked email where they mention the Centrair busy airport perhaps as influence to the StreetPass function)
    • SPR = Super? (3DS XL)
    • FTR = Further (2DS)
    • KTR = Kontrolle (New 3DS)
    • RED = Infrared (New 3DS XL)
    • JAN = ? (New 2DS XL)
  • Wii U:
    • Cafe (SDK)
    • CAT/WUT = Cafe Tool / Wii U Tool (devkit)
    • WUP (Wii U Project)
    • DRH = Display Remote Host (GamePad communication chip on Wii U)
    • DRC = Display Remote Controller (Wii U GamePad
    • There's also mention to WIS (kisok unit)
  • Switch
    • aka project NX, previously named INDY (cancelled project)
    • HAC = Handheld and Console?
    • HAD = ? (Switch v2)
    • HDH = Handheld? (Lite)
    • HEG = ? (OLED)


This might have been better built on a Notion public page with sources and all 🤔... perhaps on a later date.
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A few problematic ones here:
  • Those 3DS revision codenames as well as that Virtual Boy one are as far as I know completely made up, the same ones that have been passed around on forums for years. Do you have any sources for these?
  • Same with HAC meaning "Handheld and Console", WUP meaning "Wii U Project". Wii U was when the retail product codes stopped matching with codenames
  • "Nitrogen" was never a codename for DS as far as I know, always "Nitro"
  • Iris was technically a different product from Nitro (even if the hardware itself became Nitro) and would have had a different product code if released.
  • Same with Indy
  • "HAD" probably doesn't stand for anything (assuming "HAC" does), and is just an incrementation of "HAC".
  • Citrus is not the 3DS codename. It was found in an icon for an SDK app, with the letters "CTR" capitalised. It could be a codename for something else, maybe the app itself.
 
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virtualized geometry definitely comes with a fixed costs that not all pieces of hardware can cope with, but vg comes with a lot of upsides that makes that fixed cost worth it, as many presentations shown. lower file sizes due to compression, lower total file sizes due to not needing high resolution detail maps, faster rendering due to not needing to process multiple lods and storing them in memory, etc.

there's also the art time savings where you don't have to keep going back to optimize meshes for reasons. Nintendo might use "simple looking" models, but I bet you dime to a dollar their games like Mario Odyssey, Zelda, Xenoblade, etc all have hundreds of thousands to millions of polygon source sculpts. being able to retopo and subdiv-ing an instanceable environmental model once is a massive gain that's worth a millisecond
 
FXSoccer14 said:
I would like to see Nintendo have another subsidiary in Europe again. They haven't had one since Rare was sold to Microsoft.
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Nintendo European Research and Development do already exist - not necessarily games but middleware and such like most of the NSO emulators and some technologies used in some first party games. But for game development specifically, yeah I would really like to see a European studio of some kind.
 
Obviously, Nintendo will enter the situation of SIE in the PS4 era.

If the sales of games do not increase （because the sales of game consoles do not increase）, how can the cost increase of games be resolved.

The Nintendo solution I can see will be IP, where they turn their IP into movies and theme parks to earn greater profits from a single game.

From this perspective, third-party GAAS games will be Nintendo's enemy. Nintendo earns much more profits from a first party game than from a third party.

From the reality of this industry, GAAS games (Fortnite, COD) make money, while game platforms lose money, which is the current situation.

Any platform should charge GAAS games a higher share than non-GAAS games, or actively block GAAS games. Otherwise, the business model of console games will completely collapse.
 
1. I totally think most models of the Switch 1 are getting a price cut before the end of the year.

2. Those concerned about development time and whatnot: Nintendo is literally building another large facility for game dev and just helped set up some new studios in partnership with Bandai Namco. This shows me Nintendo is taking the increase of cost and time in game dev very seriously so they can keep up. They seem to handling it in a smart and shrewd way.
 
Noleth said:
Actually, I’m starting to get nervous about if Nintendo will handle the transition into next gen game development well, or will stumble big time like Sony and Microsoft to the PS5 and SX/S
Click to expand...

I don't think Nintendo faces the same concerns in transitioning to new generations because it hasn't made power/performance so inextricably linked with its Identity in the way that Sony/Microsoft have. Sony/Microsoft have spent decades attempting to claim the title as the most powerful, which means game development for them generally must be the most expensive and take longer. Right now, both companies are dealing with twin challenges of the PR battles with their fans when most games don't look better than Ghost of Tsuhima on the PS4 and their accounting departments who've finally showed the execs how much this pissing contest will cost.

By virtue of focusing on new gameplay experiences as opposed to chasing the dragon of UE5 tech demos, Nintendo hasn't hitched their wagon to spiraling development costs. At the same time, Nintendo fans aren't lighting their hair on fire over 30fps games. All they need to do is keep making games on the Switch development platform that they've been working with for almost a decade now. We'll probably get the same number of high quality first party games as we got with the Switch.
 
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You know, these new infos got me hyped up again, so now i'm feeling sad again about the delay into 2025. ^^ ._.
 
Just my two cents, since i don't like mario games, but love new zelda games, i'm just hoping we get paid next-gen patches. I don't mind paying, heck, i'll pay 30-40€ no prob if it means they run like the wild, no hickups, better textures, better everything. In the mean time, i do hope we get WW HD for switch so i would have something to play. :D

But for the specs, i like them. Ofc i hope it's ~4tflop machine. Just so that the next-gen zelda will be fab. But what i've read, bring it to me, now, with patches, i'll pay, no prob. Here's my money! :D
 
navierStokes said:
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Comparisons like these are why I have zero worry over the specs of this device, especially with what we know about it.

Games are really scalable nowadays, I have been able to run games released on PS4 and PS5 on the Steam Deck - a PC with compatibility layers - with more than acceptable performance. There are many Switch multiplats that people are eager to point to and say are the 'worst version' (as if it were possible for an 11 W tablet to produce the 'best version'), but are still good looking and playing ports.

And of course there are many games with artstyles like these where you can remove detail and still get a cohesive image, and make smart compromises and optimizations to where the 'cuts' become invisible, like with Ori.

I think the hardware has been upgraded enough to receive ports that will end up in a much better state than DOOM or Witcher 3 on Switch, and I have owned and completed those ports on my device.

There's a lot of dialogue about the precise specs and horsepower comparisons, which is all well and good. I'm really glad we are getting a powerful hybrid device and I enjoy reading the conversation. But with regards to which games will come and the state they'll arrive in, I am not too concerned.

1080p 30 FPS medium settings with DLSS being used may be how many current gen games end up on the Switch 2 - and that's fantastic. This may be a lowball estimate as well, it would naturally depend on the game.
 
Bonejack said:
Finally caught up from the beginning of this ride to my post from yesterday. (Btw. the spelling mistakes in those are a reason why i usually only participate here when i'm im front of a keyboard, and not via mobile phone...)

Again for the 8nm vs 4nm situation, see it this way ... we learned from the findings of the threads detectives that the situation looks better in some parts than even the regulars here were speculating / hoping for, or at least matching the speculations the folks would think are "good".

Wouldn't it be strange to have Nintendo really "go all out" in so many things, but then totally skimping on the node?

The rumored/speculated dimensions of the device, the things from above ... i'd say theres a lot more hints / points for 4nm than there are for 8nm.
I know i wrote that earlier this week already, but now there's even more hints / points imo.



Be more bold, hope for it to be a launch game! ^^
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Yeah, seems that instead of just pushing it back but staying with the original plan they pushed everything up a notch, so 4n doesn't seem to far of, and if that's the case... And the screen has 120hz HDR it's 100% what I hoped for. Add a solid case (plastic on OG is mid) and a good stand (both done with oiled) and we're golden.
Necroxid said:
Regarding MicroSDs... if I'll use my 512GB SanDisk microSD (not the Extreme model) on Switch 2 will the games load slower or impact performance?
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Others replied already, but: oh switch games should be same or faster (probably all of them slightly faster or more stable), new games... Probably won't even boot. It's just a to big discrepancy in regards to speed.
boodream said:
I like GVG a lot, their content is awesome in general, but in their Switch 2 confirmation video, one of the two speakers explained that the Nintendo Switch was already dated hardware when it came out, which made me sigh very very loudly, unless of course a console comparable to the Switch already existed before 2017....
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As a switch? No. As the components?
Yes. Tegra X1 was released in the shield AND the Google tablet in 2015.

None of them put active cooling and a ton of money in software to actively push it to its limits, but the hardware WAS not hot when switch released. When people talk about new, they usually mean the way CPUs of a brand new family before the rest of the same generation reaches other consumer products (laptops, phones, tablets).

Or in the case of apple, new chip is announced with new flagship hardware.

18 month is not new in products that usually get refreshes every 12-18 months, when you have (in hindsight) to provide power for 7 years.


Lugia667 said:
Switch being outdated in early 2017 is some of the most revisionist shit ever. People were gushing over it back then

It reminds me of Sega comparing the Genesis to the NES
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Nah, it struggling with so many games to hit native resolution on a 720p screen was a big topic for many.

We were thrilled about the featureset that it was able to down port the games, we where not thrilled how much Nintendo had to cut down on the X1 to reach power consumption and heat metrics. Just look what slightly over locked maricos can do.

Switches magic is NOT the hardware, it's the seemingly awesome tech stack that Nvidia was co developing to make it easier to port and extract a ton of optimization.
 
Shinespark said:
I don't think Nintendo faces the same concerns in transitioning to new generations because it hasn't made power/performance so inextricably linked with its Identity in the way that Sony/Microsoft have. Sony/Microsoft have spent decades attempting to claim the title as the most powerful, which means game development for them generally must be the most expensive and take longer. Right now, both companies are dealing with twin challenges of the PR battles with their fans when most games don't look better than Ghost of Tsuhima on the PS4 and their accounting departments who've finally showed the execs how much this pissing contest will cost.

By virtue of focusing on new gameplay experiences as opposed chasing the dragon of UE5 tech demos, Nintendo hasn't hitched their wagon to spiraling development costs. At the same time, Nintendo fans are lighting their hair on fire over 30fps games. All they need to do is keep making games on the Switch development platform that they've been working with for almost a decade now. We'll probably get the same number of high quality first party games as we got with the Switch.
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This is one of the reasons I was skeptical at the Switch 2 spec discussion the other day using games like Kena bridge of spirits as examples as what games like Zelda would look like.

iu


I think Nintendo has baked gameplay into their identity so much over visuals that when they make this visual jump the first thing they will sacrifice to for the release schedule will be visuals. No dense forests of this magnitude regardless of if they have the tech available or not.

Not saying it won't look good, I'm trying to say they will prioritize what gets "detailed."
 
Aether said:
Yeah, seems that instead of just pushing it back but staying with the original plan they pushed everything up a notch, so 4n doesn't seem to far of, and if that's the case... And the screen has 120hz HDR it's 100% what I hoped for. Add a solid case (plastic on OG is mid) and a good stand (both done with oiled) and we're golden.

Others replied already, but: oh switch games should be same or faster (probably all of them slightly faster or more stable), new games... Probably won't even boot. It's just a to big discrepancy in regards to speed.

As a switch? No. As the components?
Yes. Tegra X1 was released in the shield AND the Google tablet in 2015.

None of them put active cooling and a ton of money in software to actively push it to its limits, but the hardware WAS not hot when switch released. When people talk about new, they usually mean the way CPUs of a brand new family before the rest of the same generation reaches other consumer products (laptops, phones, tablets).

Or in the case of apple, new chip is announced with new flagship hardware.

18 month is not new in products that usually get refreshes every 12-18 months, when you have (in hindsight) to provide power for 7 years.



Nah, it struggling with so many games to hit native resolution on a 720p screen was a big topic for many.

We were thrilled about the featureset that it was able to down port the games, we where not thrilled how much Nintendo had to cut down on the X1 to reach power consumption and heat metrics. Just look what slightly over locked maricos can do.

Switches magic is NOT the hardware, it's the seemingly awesome tech stack that Nvidia was co developing to make it easier to port and extract a ton of optimization.
Click to expand...
Back up a minute, did someone find out which screen they're using? Things are moving so fast, hard to stay in the loop.
 
Aether said:
Nah, it struggling with so many games to hit native resolution on a 720p screen was a big topic for many.

We were thrilled about the featureset that it was able to down port the games, we where not thrilled how much Nintendo had to cut down on the X1 to reach power consumption and heat metrics. Just look what slightly over locked maricos can do.

Switches magic is NOT the hardware, it's the seemingly awesome tech stack that Nvidia was co developing to make it easier to port and extract a ton of optimization.
Click to expand...
This doesn't mean the hardware was outdated or not good. It was one of the best mobile GPUs available at the time. The problem is that it was never specifically customized for Nintendo to use as a hybrid console for the PS4/XBO generation so there were inherent issues like lack of memory bandwidth and needing to downclock to avoid thermal throttling. It could crush PS3/360 games but was underpowered to have parity with the contemporary generation.
 
Mer.Saloon said:
This is one of the reasons I was skeptical at the Switch 2 spec discussion the other day using games like Kena bridge of spirits as examples as what games like Zelda would look like.

iu


I think Nintendo has baked gameplay into their identity so much over visuals that when they make this visual jump the first thing they will sacrifice to for the release schedule will be visuals. No dense forests of this magnitude regardless of if they have the tech available or not.

Not saying it won't look good, I'm trying to say they will prioritize what gets "detailed."
Click to expand...
As long as Nintendo sticks to stylized rendering combined with semi-realism on environment rendering, I can't see the concern of extra long development times due to the huge increase in polygon counts as well as texture detail being a big concern, and they have all sorts of ways (relying mostly on the art and Nvidia's new graphic technology) to get around the problem of excessive development time spent on visuals.
 
Nintendo games taking longer to develop is not worth the increased visual fidelity to me. I'd rather get more frequent games that look worse but run at 60fps.
 
Aether said:
Others replied already, but: oh switch games should be same or faster (probably all of them slightly faster or more stable), new games... Probably won't even boot. It's just a to big discrepancy in regards to speed.
Click to expand...
So when the time comes and I need more space what should we buy? I read some modern and faster microSDs were entering production this year (but I don't know anything about it)
 
Serif said:
Comparisons like these are why I have zero worry over the specs of this device, especially with what we know about it.

Games are really scalable nowadays, I have been able to run games released on PS4 and PS5 on the Steam Deck - a PC with compatibility layers - with more than acceptable performance. There are many Switch multiplats that people are eager to point to and say are the 'worst version' (as if it were possible for an 11 W tablet to produce the 'best version'), but are still good looking and playing ports.

And of course there are many games with artstyles like these where you can remove detail and still get a cohesive image, and make smart compromises and optimizations to where the 'cuts' become invisible, like with Ori.

I think the hardware has been upgraded enough to receive ports that will end up in a much better state than DOOM or Witcher 3 on Switch, and I have owned and completed those ports on my device.

There's a lot of dialogue about the precise specs and horsepower comparisons, which is all well and good. I'm really glad we are getting a powerful hybrid device and I enjoy reading the conversation. But with regards to which games will come and the state they'll arrive in, I am not too concerned.

1080p 30 FPS medium settings with DLSS being used may be how many current gen games end up on the Switch 2 - and that's fantastic. This may be a lowball estimate as well, it would naturally depend on the game.
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To add to this: Switch 2 handheld should be capable of visuals on par with or better than (with DLSS/FSR/TSR/TAAU) PS4, and just think about how impressive those games look: TLOU Part 2, Ghost of Tsushima, God of War, Horizon, Ratchet & Clank Re-imagined. All of those games are simply beautiful games, and we have seen how well GOW Ragnarok and Horizon Forbidden West scale from PS5 to PS4. If games have to be gutted to the point of looking like PS4 games, then well, that seems kind of not a problem haha. Not to mention that Switch 2 has some tricks and modern features that might make scaling like this easier than scaling to actual PS4 level hardware.

I feel quite confident in how modern games can look on Switch 2, personally.
 
Individualised said:
A few problematic ones here:
  • Those 3DS revision codenames as well as that Virtual Boy one are as far as I know completely made up, the same ones that have been passed around on forums for years. Do you have any sources for these?
  • Same with HAC meaning "Handheld and Console", WUP meaning "Wii U Project". Wii U was when the retail product codes stopped matching with codenames
  • "Nitrogen" was never a codename for DS as far as I know, always "Nitro"
  • Iris was technically a different product from Nitro (even if the hardware itself became Nitro) and would have had a different product code if released.
  • Same with Indy
  • "HAD" probably doesn't stand for anything (assuming "HAC" does), and is just an incrementation of "HAC".
  • Citrus is not the 3DS codename. It was found in an icon for an SDK app, with the letters "CTR" capitalised. It could be a codename for something else, maybe the app itself.
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Thanks for those inputs! Yeah I assumed some are kind of "made up" to a best fit scenario, not many sources lying around for them anyways other than a few quotes and wikis mentioning them.

Anyways don't want to derail the discussion more than I already did (this was just for fun 😁).
 
Aufhebung RPG said:
As long as Nintendo sticks to stylized rendering combined with semi-realism on environment rendering, I can't see the concern of extra long development times due to the huge increase in polygon counts as well as texture detail being a big concern, and they have all sorts of ways (relying mostly on the art and Nvidia's new graphic technology) to get around the problem of excessive development time spent on visuals.
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I'm just saying, I expect a lot of snobs to turn their noses up at Nintendo's jump because those games will not look like what folks expect from "AAA" games.
Because Nintendo knows their priorities, and if any blade of grass is getting in the way of a performance goal and potentially pushing the game back, the lawn is getting cut.
 
Mer.Saloon said:
I'm just saying, I expect a lot of snobs to turn their noses up at Nintendo's jump because those games will not look like what folks expect from "AAA" games.
Because Nintendo knows their priorities, and if any blade of grass is getting in the way of a performance goal and potentially pushing the game back, the lawn is getting cut.
Click to expand...
I fully believe this, and I'm an absolute supporter of Nintendo-style stylized rendering, which finds a very good balance of realistic and non-realistic without thinking too much about the many items in the graphics race, but at the same time presenting the player with an immersive experience.
 
Now that I'm all caught up, can someone expound on what the lpddr5x controller means? For instance, can it be used to more easily put in faster (>7500mt/s) memory down the road for a potential mid generation refresh?

And second, given that Switch OS uses around 800MB, what new or improved features can we estimate with almost double that amount (1.5GB)? Screenshots in 1080p maybe? 🤞
 
The thing is even if Nintendo make a couple games that are big, dense with PS4/PS5 AAA style dense environments with high end textures and all that stuff (3D Zelda being the obvious candidate here) - they also sell a ton of lower intensity, stylised, gameplay focused games that still sell +10M like Animal Crossing, Mario Party, 2D Mario like Wonder etc... so they're not going to get into an "every game takes 7 years to make, we have no content and we're not making enough profit" problem, and they know what to prioritize and optimize to get games out - being creative and setting boundaries
 
ReddDreadtheLead said:
This is exaggerating what the device is, I feel like the plot is being lost (again) and being taken and stretching architectural changes beyond what it should be viewed as. There’s “it’ll have an easier time performing X, Y, Z by 20% or so” and “there’s it’s basically a lot more powerful and does it all in 12W (not including the CPU or RAM)”

I know GCN is old, but A) T239 is literally a console chip and B) people should stop using the PS4 Pro and series S as points of comparison like this when it’s going to be severely power limited here.

Severely! A smaller GPU that runs within a smaller budget is not going to outdo a larger GPU that runs with a larger budget, sorry, that’s not how this is going to work. If it was, the Steam deck would be Steam rolling the switch 2 GPU 9 times out of 10.


If it was bigger I could see it. But it’s not bigger than the GPUs in the other two consoles.
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What is this? I think we should take a look back at another comparison.

PS3 was consuming 170-200W back in 2006. Switch was outperforming it in 2017 in portable mode on an underclocked off-the-shelf 2015 SoC with consuming only around 11-12W, and that's with powering the screen and other parts the PS3 didn't have to deal with. Docked mode was consuming around 16W overall, less than 1/10th of what PS3 was consuming while being "a lot more powerful".

Does this not count anymore?

Even Steam Deck with a lower TFlop was trading blows with PS4 on a 15W APU package (25W full system pull) that had 8 CUs vs PS4's 100-150W that had 18 CUs. So already it shows what a smaller package can do when the technology evolves. But how can Switch 2 compete in power consumption? First is that unlike practically any other platform these days, Switch 2 is using the more efficient ARM architecture for the CPU. x86 still contains decades of backwards compatibility, even if the platform isn't using it all, and that causes higher power consumption. Second has to do with clock frequency. Clock frequency vs power consumption is not 1:1. It's exponential, with power consumption curving upward. Steam Deck has 8 RDNA2 CUs, which equates to 512 shaders. Switch 2 has 12 Ampere CUs, equating to 1536 shaders. More shaders means more power consumption, right? Yes when at the same clock frequency of something with fewer, but that also mean more performance to what has more shaders. For Switch 2 to pull off 1.6 TFlops like Steam Deck, it would have to clock the GPU at roughly 533Mhz, 1/3 what SD pushes. That's already a good amount of savings. Third is the process node. Having so many Ampere SMs is already pushing Samsung 8N (10nm) out of the way, and with TSMC 4N (Nvidia-optimized 5nm), that's already smaller than SD's TSMC 7nm. More savings!

This is plenty enough for Switch 2 to "steamroll" over SD with the same power budget, but what about PS4 Pro? Obviously the Switch 2 will have to be clocked higher, but it's not like it's going to be drawing nearly as much power as PS4 Pro. The CPU in Switch 2 is miles ahead of what was in PS4 Pro, and will be doing that at a much lower power consumption. As far as GPU is concerned, it's 4.2TFlops vs an assumed 4TFlops based on educated napkin math from the recent findings of the RAM pushing 7500MT/s. That's already close enough to where architecture can push Switch 2 ahead in raw power (because a flop is just a floating-point operation, which can vary depending on the operation). Then there's everything else that comes in the Ampere package.

edit:

To add, we have a general idea of the bandwidth used by Ampere based on desktop GPUs, which comes to an average of 25GB/s per TFlop. 120GB/s is less than PS4 Pro's 218GB/s. But it's also less than PS4's 176GB/s. But, their method of rendering is drawing straight to the buffer in main RAM. With Switch 2 (and Switch), it was handled by tile rendering with those tiles being held in cache, not main RAM. That reduces the bandwidth requirement by a lot. But even if one doesn't think it's enough, here's a question. The PS4 Pro only has an additional 42GB/s of RAM bandwidth over PS4, a 24% increase while having over 2x the GPU processing power. Even taking out some for the CPU, that's still something that doesn't add up. So, did PS4 have too much bandwidth, or does PS4 Pro have too little?
 
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Mer.Saloon said:
This is one of the reasons I was skeptical at the Switch 2 spec discussion the other day using games like Kena bridge of spirits as examples as what games like Zelda would look like.

iu


I think Nintendo has baked gameplay into their identity so much over visuals that when they make this visual jump the first thing they will sacrifice to for the release schedule will be visuals. No dense forests of this magnitude regardless of if they have the tech available or not.

Not saying it won't look good, I'm trying to say they will prioritize what gets "detailed."
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Density and details in stuff like foliage is "cheap". You use midleware for that that generated and populates, and if you have 10 models for trees rendering 100 or 1000 isn't really more work on the dev side, sure the artist has to keep it coherent, but on the flip side he needs less micromanaging to not get over the resource budget.
Hermii said:
Back up a minute, did someone find out which screen they're using? Things are moving so fast, hard to stay in the loop.
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Na sorry, just my wishlist
Serif said:
This doesn't mean the hardware was outdated or not good. It was one of the best mobile GPUs available at the time. The problem is that it was never specifically customized for Nintendo to use as a hybrid console for the PS4/XBO generation so there were inherent issues like lack of memory bandwidth and needing to downclock to avoid thermal throttling. It could crush PS3/360 games but was underpowered to have parity with the contemporary generation.
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Did they say dated or outdated? Former I thing is fine going by usual tech timelines, outdated is relative (as mentioned, consoled usually launched with hardware that's yet to be released by the AMD/ibm to other venues), but there I can see where it's miss representing

And the thing that you say, that it was not customized, is part of the reason it was sub optimal (but it helped them reach a price point)

Nvidia was struggling to find customers for the tegra line in a time where they thought automotive and mobile will be the future.
If X1 was selling well, by the time switch came it would have had the X2 already (not sure if adapted or as a general mobile chip), but it would have pushed the price. Here Nvidia made them a deal to use the X1, did not invest in a new consumer grade soc and instead helped Nintendo with the software.

Automotive grew slower then expected, and mobile didn't gel with their expertise, but they found other venues (ai).

I thing dated / not cutting edge by industry standards is 100% legitimate, outdated it pushing it to far, and even at those clocks there was the potential to really be close up to PS4 if a custom doc would have been made as a revision of the X1.
1upmuffin said:
Nintendo games taking longer to develop is not worth the increased visual fidelity to me. I'd rather get more frequent games that look worse but run at 60fps.
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Higher resolution, effects, details in shadows, framerate: those don't necessary cost more if you can compensate it with better hardware instead of optimisation.

Optimization, animation and asset creation costs the most.
And to be honest: the animations, assets and optimization is already pretty much there for Nintendo. Some textures are a little to low Res, but this can be helped by not compressing them as much (so... Easy on new hardware, not needed) or upscaling (have then as is, upscale them with AI while loading them into the ram -> bam, for not so important textures that's a viable solution.

So yeah, with new hardware Nintendo CAN push the visuals a ton more without having much more load.

The gib money comes in with the last 10% the others chase, high details characters and assets, and pushing for photo realism or highly detailed art styles... Nothing Nintendo does.
 
Zedark said:
To add to this: Switch 2 handheld should be capable of visuals on par with or better than (with DLSS/FSR/TSR/TAAU) PS4, and just think about how impressive those games look: TLOU Part 2, Ghost of Tsushima, God of War, Horizon, Ratchet & Clank Re-imagined. All of those games are simply beautiful games, and we have seen how well GOW Ragnarok and Horizon Forbidden West scale from PS5 to PS4. If games have to be gutted to the point of looking like PS4 games, then well, that seems kind of not a problem haha. Not to mention that Switch 2 has some tricks and modern features that might make scaling like this easier than scaling to actual PS4 level hardware.

I feel quite confident in how modern games can look on Switch 2, personally.
Click to expand...
I think a problem we'll have with third party games is that it probably doesn't really matter what the Switch 2 can do. Because developers will probably be scaling back from PS5 and XSX, they will probably cut corners in "lazy" ways sometimes.

Biggest example is the Alan Wake remake. Switch could probably run the OG version just fine but they ported the new version and degraded it until it could technically run.
 
Discostew said:
What is this? I think we should take a look back at another comparison.

PS3 was consuming 170-200W back in 2006. Switch was outperforming it in 2017 in portable mode on an underclocked off-the-shelf 2015 SoC with consuming only around 11-12W, and that's with powering the screen and other parts the PS3 didn't have to deal with. Docked mode was consuming around 16W overall, less than 1/10th of what PS3 was consuming while being "a lot more powerful".

Does this not count anymore?

Even Steam Deck with a lower TFlop was trading blows with PS4 on a 15W APU package (25W full system pull) that had 8 CUs vs PS4's 100-150W that had 18 CUs. So already it shows what a smaller package can do when the technology evolves. But how can Switch 2 compete in power consumption? First is that unlike practically any other platform these days, Switch 2 is using the more efficient ARM architecture for the CPU. x86 still contains decades of backwards compatibility, even if the platform isn't using it all, and that causes higher power consumption. Second has to do with clock frequency. Clock frequency vs power consumption is not 1:1. It's exponential, with power consumption curving upward. Steam Deck has 8 RDNA2 CUs, which equates to 512 shaders. Switch 2 has 12 Ampere CUs, equating to 1536 shaders. More shaders means more power consumption, right? Yes when at the same clock frequency of something with fewer, but that also mean more performance to what has more shaders. For Switch 2 to pull off 1.6 TFlops like Steam Deck, it would have to clock the GPU at roughly 533Mhz, 1/3 what SD pushes. That's already a good amount of savings. Third is the process node. Having so many Ampere SMs is already pushing Samsung 8N (10nm) out of the way, and with TSMC 4N (Nvidia-optimized 5nm), that's already smaller than SD's TSMC 7nm. More savings!

This is plenty enough for Switch 2 to "steamroll" over SD with the same power budget, but what about PS4 Pro? Obviously the Switch 2 will have to be clocked higher, but it's not like it's going to be drawing nearly as much power as PS4 Pro. The CPU in Switch 2 is miles ahead of what was in PS4 Pro, and will be doing that at a much lower power consumption. As far as GPU is concerned, it's 4.2TFlops vs an assumed 4TFlops based on educated napkin math from the recent findings of the RAM pushing 7500MT/s. That's already close enough to where architecture can push Switch 2 ahead in raw power (because a flop is just a floating-point operation, which can vary depending on the operation). Then there's everything else that comes in the Ampere package.
Click to expand...
Reduced size -> reduced resistance -> reduced power loss as heat energy.

Size reduction did slow down. But even then: power does not scale linear with power consumption. While there is a sweetspot, generally it's the more you push the less performance/watt you get. Cutting the power consumption by half doesn't mean cutting power by half, the manufacturers did decide for a power window based on many targets

(I'm not disagreeing with you, I'm expanding)
 
Aether said:
Just checked, 320€. (Incl tax)
So 344$
Click to expand...
I guess it varies depending on where you live. Games are also cheap here, around $10 cheaper on the usual $60 games. We also get asian releases so yeah, more physical copies. I just wish it runs around $399 max. Based on the prices here, I guess the OLED switch can still run as low as $250 with Nintendo still making a profit. I don't think they lose money selling it for that price here.
 
Mer.Saloon said:
This is one of the reasons I was skeptical at the Switch 2 spec discussion the other day using games like Kena bridge of spirits as examples as what games like Zelda would look like.

iu


I think Nintendo has baked gameplay into their identity so much over visuals that when they make this visual jump the first thing they will sacrifice to for the release schedule will be visuals. No dense forests of this magnitude regardless of if they have the tech available or not.

Not saying it won't look good, I'm trying to say they will prioritize what gets "detailed."
Click to expand...

They'll have visual targets decided well before. I don't really think this will be an issue. Look at how good games like Xenoblade 3, Tears of rhe Kingdom, Luigi's Mansion 3 look. They spent time on the visuals even though the games would never visually compete with Xbox One/PS4 games. If the hardware is there they)) use it. But games get budgets and having way stronger hardware doesn't make the budget significantly bigger to push visuals to their breaking point. If Zelda was a visually showpiece on Switch I have no doubt it will be on Switch 2. Same with Luigi's Mansion 4 and Astral Chain, Xenoblade 4 etc.

But don't expect Horizon Forbidden West or anything because that isn't Nintendo's style.
 
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Cuzizkool said:
Now that I'm all caught up, can someone expound on what the lpddr5x controller means? For instance, can it be used to more easily put in faster (>7500mt/s) memory down the road for a potential mid generation refresh?
Click to expand...
Depends on the max I/O rate the LPDDR5X controller supports.

If the LPDDR5X controller inside T239 supports a max I/O rate of 7500 MT/s, then any LPDDR5X modules that support a higher I/O rate (e.g. 8533 MT/s) can still only run at up to 7500 MT/s.

Of course, if Nintendo and Nvidia decide to do a die shrink of T239 in the future, Nintendo and Nvidia could change the LPDDR5X controller inside and pick one that supports a max I/O rate higher than 7500 MT/s. And that's what Nintendo did when die shrinking from TSMC's 20 nm* process node to TSMC's 16FF process node by upgrading the LPDDR4 controller on the Tegra X1 with the LPDDR4X controller on the Tegra X1+.

* → a marketing nomenclature used by all foundry companies
 
Dev times and costs will raise, there's no doubt about that and there's no Nintendo magic that can avoid it, however, Nintendo as a whole is smart enough to not fall on the AAA trap.

We'll probably see less games per year, but not a drastic reduction, nothing like the Wii U drought.
 
chocolate_supra said:
Yall before we get all hung up on the codename, Muji means plain or unfigured in Japanese. Hopefully a native speaker can chime in but that kinda sounds like the equivalent of putting an "N/A" or something in the space. A placeholder.


Granted, I expect reddit and youtube to be insisting that's the codename by this weekend but oh well 😅
Click to expand...
Oh holy shit, NintendoLife, actually! 🤣 That's definitely a step up from who I expected to skim the conversation, at least.
 
Necroxid said:
So when the time comes and I need more space what should we buy? I read some modern and faster microSDs were entering production this year (but I don't know anything about it)
Click to expand...
We literary don't know. There's a chance that the switch uses those, but those are ..

Let's say it this way: SD express 7.1 is 2018, SD express 8 from 2020.

I still haven't seen them in real life.
There are a handful SD express cards available (256gb 100€), but it's normal SD...not micro.

The adaptation of that standard is so extremely slow that 6 years where not enough to get it into the mainstream.

People here talk as if it will be released soon. Na, it's a solution waiting for a problem, that problem may be switch 2 and you'll see adoption of that standard pick up.
But for now nothing is clear, and your best bet is for a short period deleting a hand full of games if you really need the space till we for sure know
 
ertaboy356b said:
I guess it varies depending on where you live. Games are also cheap here, around $10 cheaper on the usual $60 games. We also get asian releases so yeah, more physical copies. I just wish it runs around $399 max. Based on the prices here, I guess the OLED switch can still run as low as $250 with Nintendo still making a profit. I don't think they lose money selling it for that price here.
Click to expand...
In the EU it's mostly sticking to the Nintendo proposed price (hardware), physical games are a free for all and go from 35€ paper mario to oder 50€ Pokémon to 70€ Zelda.
 
necrolipe said:
I knew this codename along with some people since last year, my source isn't Famiboards at all
I'm pointing the Fami as first-hand to share because we aren't allowed to publicy comment on this
Click to expand...
Okay but do yall have any way of knowing it's the actual, final codename and not just a placeholder? Considering what that word means in Japanese it really seems like a placeholder. A native Japanese speaker even said so.
 
UE5.4 write up

www.eurogamer.net

Unreal Engine 5.4: Epic's latest revision delivers big performance and feature wins

Alex Battaglia investigates Unreal Engine version 5.4. What new additions and improvements are there, and how will games make use of them on PC and consoles?
www.eurogamer.net www.eurogamer.net

-Significantly improves CPU performance
-Improved lighting though it comes with flickering that must be improved on.
-Interesting use of Nanite for character models though this is very far away from being used
-Traversal stutter is not fixed
 
Reinhard Schneider said:
Dev times and costs will raise, there's no doubt about that and there's no Nintendo magic that can avoid it, however, Nintendo as a whole is smart enough to not fall on the AAA trap.

We'll probably see less games per year, but not a drastic reduction, nothing like the Wii U drought.
Click to expand...
If Nintendo are desperate enough and have a drought for the Switch 2, they will release Windwaker and twilight princess, the icing on the cake would either be Galaxy 2 or xenoblade X
 
Discostew said:
What is this? I think we should take a look back at another comparison.

PS3 was consuming 170-200W back in 2006. Switch was outperforming it in 2017 in portable mode on an underclocked off-the-shelf 2015 SoC with consuming only around 11-12W, and that's with powering the screen and other parts the PS3 didn't have to deal with. Docked mode was consuming around 16W overall, less than 1/10th of what PS3 was consuming while being "a lot more powerful".

Does this not count anymore?

Even Steam Deck with a lower TFlop was trading blows with PS4 on a 15W APU package (25W full system pull) that had 8 CUs vs PS4's 100-150W that had 18 CUs. So already it shows what a smaller package can do when the technology evolves. But how can Switch 2 compete in power consumption? First is that unlike practically any other platform these days, Switch 2 is using the more efficient ARM architecture for the CPU. x86 still contains decades of backwards compatibility, even if the platform isn't using it all, and that causes higher power consumption. Second has to do with clock frequency. Clock frequency vs power consumption is not 1:1. It's exponential, with power consumption curving upward. Steam Deck has 8 RDNA2 CUs, which equates to 512 shaders. Switch 2 has 12 Ampere CUs, equating to 1536 shaders. More shaders means more power consumption, right? Yes when at the same clock frequency of something with fewer, but that also mean more performance to what has more shaders. For Switch 2 to pull off 1.6 TFlops like Steam Deck, it would have to clock the GPU at roughly 533Mhz, 1/3 what SD pushes. That's already a good amount of savings. Third is the process node. Having so many Ampere SMs is already pushing Samsung 8N (10nm) out of the way, and with TSMC 4N (Nvidia-optimized 5nm), that's already smaller than SD's TSMC 7nm. More savings!

This is plenty enough for Switch 2 to "steamroll" over SD with the same power budget, but what about PS4 Pro? Obviously the Switch 2 will have to be clocked higher, but it's not like it's going to be drawing nearly as much power as PS4 Pro. The CPU in Switch 2 is miles ahead of what was in PS4 Pro, and will be doing that at a much lower power consumption. As far as GPU is concerned, it's 4.2TFlops vs an assumed 4TFlops based on educated napkin math from the recent findings of the RAM pushing 7500MT/s. That's already close enough to where architecture can push Switch 2 ahead in raw power (because a flop is just a floating-point operation, which can vary depending on the operation). Then there's everything else that comes in the Ampere package.

edit:

To add, we have a general idea of the bandwidth used by Ampere based on desktop GPUs, which comes to an average of 25GB/s per TFlop. 120GB/s is less than PS4 Pro's 218GB/s. But it's also less than PS4's 176GB/s. But, their method of rendering is drawing straight to the buffer in main RAM. With Switch 2 (and Switch), it was handled by tile rendering with those tiles being held in cache, not main RAM. That reduces the bandwidth requirement by a lot. But even if one doesn't think it's enough, here's a question. The PS4 Pro only has an additional 42GB/s of RAM bandwidth over PS4, a 24% increase while having over 2x the GPU processing power. Even taking out some for the CPU, that's still something that doesn't add up. So, did PS4 have too much bandwidth, or does PS4 Pro have too little?
Click to expand...
Fully agree!

Yeah, I don't know why the Switch 2 would have any kind of trouble pushing out PS4 Pro performance/visuals… even in handheld mode.
The Series S comparisons are really interesting for a long list of reasons, but PS4 Pro? We are still talking about the nightmarish duo of Jaguar and GCN, the latter of which was already outclassed by lower power Pascal GPUs almost a decade ago.

Unless T239 silicon turns out Ice Lake levels of borked, or worse, nobody will tell me it can't manage to match something like the GTX 1650, which already puts the 4 Pro to shame. No way.
 
Gotdatmoneyy said:
They'll have visual targets decided well before. I don't really think this will be an issue. Look at how good games like Xenoblade 3, Tears of rhe Kingdom, Luigi's Mansion 3 look. They spent time on the visuals even though the games would never visually compete with Xbox One/PS4 games. If the hardware is there they)) use it. But games get budgets and having way stronger hardware doesn't make the budget significantly bigger to push visuals to their breaking point. If Zelda was a visually showpiece on Switch I have no doubt it will be on Switch. Same with Luigi's Mansion 4 and Astral Chain, Xenoblade 4 etc.

But don't expect Horizon Forbidden West or anything because that isn't Nintendo's style.
Click to expand...
On Switch 2, you mean?
 
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