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

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boodream said:
Do we know why this problem has become more frequent than in the past?
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The reason the problem is generally becoming more common is because sticks are becoming higher resolution, which also makes them more sensitive to dust and damage, while at the same time we're building controllers out of both cheaper and more ergonomic materials. So an ergonomic grip, with a rubber shield lets in more dust onto a more sensitive piece of equipment than a big chunky plastic hunk from the 2002.

The specific reason the Joy-Con's do it more is because their design is for thin controllers. In a big thick Xbox controller you have a lot of vertical space, which gives you room to put the potentiometer (the sensor, basically) on it's side. Particles falling into the thing don't fall directly on it. And if you squeeze your controller really hard, you're not pressing the bottom of the stick into the potentiometer.

In a Joy-Con, to save space, the sensor lies flat, so everything that gets underneath the little rubber cap falls directly onto it. Meanwhile, as you push down and squeeze your controller you scrape the graphite inside off the bottom of the stick's mechanism. That creates a tiny gap, which is why pressure will fix it temporarily. But adding more pressure just makes the problem come back faster.

boodream said:
Is it really an unsolvable malfunction? It seems that there are working technological alternatives provided by third-party companies. It would seem that electromagnetic mechanics could be a viable solution.
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You can absolutely make the mechanism way way way more reliable. But even an electromagnetic solution will still have moving parts. You basically need a way for a moving part (the stick) to know how far, and what direction it is moving relative to a still part (the sensor). Even if you make those two parts to require no contact, and make them immune to particles, at some point wear and tear will move the parts relative to each other. Once that happens, the sensor won't know what "center" is correctly anymore and you get drift. It has basically always happened on any controller with a thumb stick, it's just how common it is.


boodream said:
If this is indeed the case, nothing would justify Nintendo not doing the necessary to implement them. Especially since they are currently targeted by several consumer class actions both in the United States and in Europe. I mean material strength was literally part of the DNA of Nintendo products so far. The Switch may be a huge leap forward in a lot of areas, but in terms of reliability, it's a huge letdown.
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Yeah, I totally want Nintendo to improve the situation and they absolutely can and should. But since Joy-Cons are uniquely vulnerable, Nintendo has to spent more money than their competitors on controlelrs or wait for the industry to move on and then ride that manufacturing wave.
 
Raccoon said:
I assume you're exaggerating, but is it actually not ideal?

honestly I'd prefer a worse product they can source for may 2023
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I mean, speculation has been based on what might be possible on 8nm. It's just improbable that it could hit those numbers at reasonable power consumption
 
ILikeFeet said:
I mean, speculation has been based on what might be possible on 8nm. It's just improbable that it could hit those numbers at reasonable power consumption
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Thing is, if it does hit those numbers on 8nm, then Drake magically made Samsung's 8nm node twice as power efficient, so there is no point in speculating 8nm anyways... What LiC's numbers indicate, (without complete context mind you) is that it is far better than current 8nm Ampere products, twice as good even. So Yeah, just speculate like it's 4nm or 5nm, hell it doesn't even matter, because if LiC's info is their intended clocks, we already know what the specs for the GPU would indicate, 2TFLOPs handheld and ~3.5TFLOPs docked.
 
Yeah foundry isn't important any longer, we should use LiC's info currently as GPU clock expectations imo. It's not fully in context, but the process node doesn't actually matter if we have clocks.
 
Raccoon said:
I don't understand what bearing it has at all honestly

edit: okay I think I get it

* Hidden text: cannot be quoted. *
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ILikeFeet said:
I guess all those extra parts and silicon really ate up power
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Unironically might be the case but there's other considerations that indicate that this thing is even more efficient than that would give us. Something isn't adding up.
 
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mariodk18 said:
So you're saying it could still turn out pretty damn good on 8nm?
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It was always going to be pretty damn good at 8nm. I don't know what bug people got that made them think 8nm is some totally unusable, garbage node from the stone age. It isn't. It's perfectly fine. I mean the main concern is really TV mode, since that's where the power will be needed to push 4K. Which isn't a usecase where the power consumption is so much of a concern.

If those targets are anywhere near indicative of final hardware, and I'd say they are given that's what Devs were told to target earlier this year when Samsung and Nvidia would have hammered this processor out years ago, it'll be fine. Launch Switch battery life or better, with Series S-like performance with a higher output res after DLSS. That is more or less the bottom end of what Drake could do. And it's still very, very good.
 
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well I guess this is the "catch" I've been waiting for

honestly though even a chunk under an xbox one would make me happy as a nintendo game enjoyer. the port situation might be a bummer but we're used to it lol
 
mariodk18 said:
So you're saying it could still turn out pretty damn good on 8nm?
Click to expand...
The node really isn't going to make a huge difference. We largely know what this thing is, the only variables are the clock speeds and there's really only so low those can go to begin with.


People are getting way too hung up on the process node.
 
Raccoon said:
well I guess this is the "catch" I've been waiting for

honestly though even a chunk under an xbox one would make me happy as a nintendo game enjoyer. the port situation might be a bummer but we're used to it lol
Click to expand...
How did you get there? We're still looking at somewhere between PS4 and PS4 Pro effectively, with a much better CPU. Even on 8nm.
 
Raccoon said:
well I guess this is the "catch" I've been waiting for

honestly though even a chunk under an xbox one would make me happy as a nintendo game enjoyer. the port situation might be a bummer but we're used to it lol
Click to expand...
Samsung 8nm would not make this a "chunk" "below" Xbox One
 
Skittzo said:
How did you get there? We're still looking at somewhere between PS4 and PS4 Pro effectively, with a much better CPU. Even on 8nm.
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With a modern architecture and DLSS. This thing is far closer to Xbox Series S than Switch was to Xbox One. As far as I see, there are vanishingly few games that can run on Series S but somehow couldn't run on Drake - with a higher output resolution.
 
Concernt said:
With a modern architecture and DLSS. This thing is far closer to Xbox Series S than Switch was to Xbox One. As far as I see, there are vanishingly few games that can run on Series S but somehow couldn't run on Drake - with a higher output resolution.
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For games that use DLSS maybe, yeah. But I'm not sure I'd say overall it's closer than Switch was to XB1.
 
Skittzo said:
For games that use DLSS maybe, yeah. But I'm not sure I'd say overall it's closer than Switch was to XB1.
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I would. Comparable (or more) RAM, a CPU that's far, far closer than the Switch's was. The only place it somewhat falls behind us CPU and GPU speed, but it's not by so much it would make ports difficult, unlike the gap between Xbox One and Switch. Xbox One and Switch was almost a generational gap. Not quite. This is considerably less than a generational gap. This is like the gap a mid gen refresh would have.
 
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Bonejack said:
Since i'm about to leave into my holiday vacation until January 9th, and won't be around on the same level as right now for the next two weeks, i'd like to gift everyone in this thread something:

Basilisk-stare---Tommy-Le-012.jpg


The pre-emptive Tommy post. Even if i'm not here, he's always watching you.
Menancingly.
Click to expand...
I Was waiting for edit with the Santa 🎅
 
mariodk18 said:
How are you coming to that conclusion with the current (potential) information we now have?
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I'm not, this is all based on the old information from February. The new potential information really doesn't tell us much without more context.
 
ILikeFeet said:
I guess all those extra parts and silicon really ate up power
Click to expand...
Nvidia's estimation tool allows you to turn on and off the Orin GPU, so you can isolate the GPU's power draw, it's over twice as high for just Orin's gpu at that clock. However none of that matters, only the clocks they set for the different modes, and if it's 660mhz, that's 2tflops in handheld mode.
 
Raccoon said:
well I guess this is the "catch" I've been waiting for

honestly though even a chunk under an xbox one would make me happy as a nintendo game enjoyer. the port situation might be a bummer but we're used to it lol
Click to expand...
LiC's info is far more important than the process node. Over 2tflops handheld, that's much faster than the Steam Deck, and has DLSS and Ray Tracing hardware. It's not a let down, regardless of whatever the process node is, that doesn't actually mean anything to us. It was always the clock that was important, also docked it would exceed the series s thanks to DLSS, 3.456tflops is really good.
 
Dakhil said:
* Hidden text: cannot be quoted. *
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Hidden content is only available for registered users. Sharing it outside of Famiboards is subject to moderation.


I would like to remind people of this thread in late February, right before the Lapsus$ hack. The most wildly optimistic of us were calling for 8SMs. The... more moderate wing thought that 4SM was as far as it could go power-wise.

When 12SMs hit, it wasn't the optimists who were proved "right", though. The optimists based their theory on the absolute certainty that redesigning Orin's GPC was so costly, that if Nintendo were to have less than Orin, 8 was the only option. The optimists were wrong.

Meanwhile, Orin's power data showed the pessimists to have been correct across the board about Orin power consumption. But very definitive sources said that, despite those accurate predictions, Nintendo were doing something unexpected.

It's Christmas. The unexpected is cool, it's fun to be excited by what's under the tree, and I love to shake every present to see what's inside. But if you were the kid who assumed they were getting a puppy because one of your presents was clearly a soft, squishy dog toy - well, sometimes it's socks. It could be cool Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle socks that say "radical!" and "bodacious" every time you walk! You would have loved that... if you weren't expecting a puppy.

I don't know how much I'm gonna be around between now and the New Year, but I'll keeping poking at what I've got (and another source, as it happens) and if something definitive comes up I'll share it. But I hope this little tidbit satisfies folks who are asking "where are the December leaks?!?!?"

For those of you who celebrate Christmas, I hope you get a puppy. For those of you who don't, well, I hope you're warm, well fed, and loved. Hopefully we get a reveal next month, it will be my birthday after all.

But knowing my luck, I'll hear "you just got presents for Christmas. You loved your socks!" Ah well.
 
so it seems to me like everybody who's actually read the source code thinks it's socks for christmas

going to try to enter the acceptance phase early by saying that socks would be better than what we have now
 
oldpuck said:
The reason the problem is generally becoming more common is because sticks are becoming higher resolution, which also makes them more sensitive to dust and damage, while at the same time we're building controllers out of both cheaper and more ergonomic materials. So an ergonomic grip, with a rubber shield lets in more dust onto a more sensitive piece of equipment than a big chunky plastic hunk from the 2002.

The specific reason the Joy-Con's do it more is because their design is for thin controllers. In a big thick Xbox controller you have a lot of vertical space, which gives you room to put the potentiometer (the sensor, basically) on it's side. Particles falling into the thing don't fall directly on it. And if you squeeze your controller really hard, you're not pressing the bottom of the stick into the potentiometer.

In a Joy-Con, to save space, the sensor lies flat, so everything that gets underneath the little rubber cap falls directly onto it. Meanwhile, as you push down and squeeze your controller you scrape the graphite inside off the bottom of the stick's mechanism. That creates a tiny gap, which is why pressure will fix it temporarily. But adding more pressure just makes the problem come back faster.


You can absolutely make the mechanism way way way more reliable. But even an electromagnetic solution will still have moving parts. You basically need a way for a moving part (the stick) to know how far, and what direction it is moving relative to a still part (the sensor). Even if you make those two parts to require no contact, and make them immune to particles, at some point wear and tear will move the parts relative to each other. Once that happens, the sensor won't know what "center" is correctly anymore and you get drift. It has basically always happened on any controller with a thumb stick, it's just how common it is.



Yeah, I totally want Nintendo to improve the situation and they absolutely can and should. But since Joy-Cons are uniquely vulnerable, Nintendo has to spent more money than their competitors on controlelrs or wait for the industry to move on and then ride that manufacturing wave.
Click to expand...
Thanks a lot for your explainations!
 
I’ve had socks and undergarments for Christmas for a long time, since I was a little kid and it’s because that’s what I asked for.

So this comparison is a bit odd to me since I never asked for a puppy before. :p
 
Z0m3le said:
Thing is, if it does hit those numbers on 8nm, then Drake magically made Samsung's 8nm node twice as power efficient, so there is no point in speculating 8nm anyways... What LiC's numbers indicate, (without complete context mind you) is that it is far better than current 8nm Ampere products, twice as good even. So Yeah, just speculate like it's 4nm or 5nm, hell it doesn't even matter, because if LiC's info is their intended clocks, we already know what the specs for the GPU would indicate, 2TFLOPs handheld and ~3.5TFLOPs docked.
Click to expand...

This especially when compared to the GA107 power band for which it is much closer to in scope to for an Ampere mobile product...
 
oldpuck said:
* Hidden text: cannot be quoted. *


I would like to remind people of this thread in late February, right before the Lapsus$ hack. The most wildly optimistic of us were calling for 8SMs. The... more moderate wing thought that 4SM was as far as it could go power-wise.

When 12SMs hit, it wasn't the optimists who were proved "right", though. The optimists based their theory on the absolute certainty that redesigning Orin's GPC was so costly, that if Nintendo were to have less than Orin, 8 was the only option. The optimists were wrong.

Meanwhile, Orin's power data showed the pessimists to have been correct across the board about Orin power consumption. But very definitive sources said that, despite those accurate predictions, Nintendo were doing something unexpected.

It's Christmas. The unexpected is cool, it's fun to be excited by what's under the tree, and I love to shake every present to see what's inside. But if you were the kid who assumed they were getting a puppy because one of your presents was clearly a soft, squishy dog toy - well, sometimes it's socks. It could be cool Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle socks that say "radical!" and "bodacious" every time you walk! You would have loved that... if you weren't expecting a puppy.

I don't know how much I'm gonna be around between now and the New Year, but I'll keeping poking at what I've got (and another source, as it happens) and if something definitive comes up I'll share it. But I hope this little tidbit satisfies folks who are asking "where are the December leaks?!?!?"

For those of you who celebrate Christmas, I hope you get a puppy. For those of you who don't, well, I hope you're warm, well fed, and loved. Hopefully we get a reveal next month, it will be my birthday after all.

But knowing my luck, I'll hear "you just got presents for Christmas. You loved your socks!" Ah well.
Click to expand...

How were any of the pessimist right, we literally got confirmation of a 12SM GPU and later an 8 core CPU for T239?
The only thing anyone was going off of was kopite7kimi saying the Nintendo chip was based on a custom version of t234, so we took that literal...
Right now most of us are comparing what Ampere achieves on 8nm in various forms and how virtually impossible that would be to keep such a large chip inside of a similar form factor to the Switch. (As Z0m3le stated above even a test range of clocks would give clarity on what process it's not on).

Ps: hopefully I didn't take your post out of context or anything, it just read as a temper expectations kind of post.
 
this thing could be dogshit by any reasonable measure and I'd still be very excited

I don't have any consoles so it'll be an upgrade for me no matter what

I do pity people who own a ps4 or heaven forbid a ps5
 
LiC said:
* Hidden text: cannot be quoted. *
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Hidden content is only available for registered users. Sharing it outside of Famiboards is subject to moderation.


NineTailSage said:
How were any of the pessimist right, we literally got confirmation of a 12SM GPU and later an 8 core CPU for T239?
The only thing anyone was going off of was kopite7kimi saying the Nintendo chip was based on a custom version of t234, so we took that literal...
Right now most of us are comparing what Ampere achieves on 8nm in various forms and how virtually impossible that would be to keep such a large chip inside of a similar form factor to the Switch. (As Z0m3le stated above even a test range of clocks would give clarity on what process it's not on).

Ps: hopefully I didn't take your post out of context or anything, it just read as a temper expectations kind of post.
Click to expand...
You didn't! I think optimism is fine! It's taking incomplete data and then using it to become convinced your optimism is cold, hard truth that I think is worth avoiding. Not only does it set you up for disappointment, but it can make the thread kinda toxic.

One group expected 8SMs, and another expected 4SMs and we got 12SMs. Both were wrong - the optimist rationale for 8 didn't hold up. The pessimists reading of the power data did hold up, but Nintendo did something crazy.
 
I feel like something is being read wrong here and leading to the wrong conclusion, or people are forgetting that there’s a lot of missing context here and drawing a conclusion themselves…
 
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oldpuck said:
* Hidden text: cannot be quoted. *

The pessimists reading of the power data did hold up, but Nintendo did something crazy.
Click to expand...

So how are we meant to take the above as anything other than good news? I’m just unable to reconcile what expectations are meant to be tempered here :]
 
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