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

I'm on Team UFS
BUT
If they stick with micro SD they better double or triple the speed at least ... I mean I doubt my current card even hits it's max ever.
Every load screen I encounter my kids look at me waiting for me to say "I want a new switch"
Im pretty sure this would I actually be more expensive, non-ironically. Not only to support but also to adopt.
 
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Switch... caps to 25 MB/s to maintain parity across the board, IIRC? But I'm a bit fuzzy on that one. Actually, make that really fuzzy on that one. Regard this one with a big
There's no parity, people tested and there's a clear distinction between game card, micro SD and internal memory. The difference doesn't comes nowhere near their difference in speed though and the profile which boost CPU during loading screen was a clear evidence the Switch bottleneck is asset decompression.

Drake has a WAY better CPU and apparently has a dedicated hardware for loading assets, like the PS5 do, so loading times should be significantly reduced, even if they use the same storage as the current Switch. OTOH, higher quality assets are bigger and may diminish the results.
That makes sense. And I have no idea why I have this vague recollection of 25 MB/s then.
During the Era times, someone said some game cards read speed are capped at 25MB/s and others at 50MB/s. But don't ask me more details, cause I don't remember beyond that.
 
Didn’t a dev mention here that 250 Mb/s was the minimum he wanted for his project? Seems like UHS-2 cards would fit the bill, no? Unless there’s something I’m missing…
 
There has been a lot of crazy Switch deals lately like this one:



Makes me wonder if stores are trying to clear out stock anticipating new hardware to be announced early next year.

Otherwise I'm confused lately by all the great deals I'm seeing on Switch hardware when Microsoft and Sony are talking price increases for hardware and services. We all know Nintendo isn't a very generous company lol.

So what do you guys think? Are stores attempting to clear out stock to prepare for new hardware to come soon or do we think there is another reason for such good deals lately (even before Black Friday/holiday sales)?
 
There has been a lot of crazy Switch deals lately like this one:



Makes me wonder if stores are trying to clear out stock anticipating new hardware to be announced early next year.

Otherwise I'm confused lately by all the great deals I'm seeing on Switch hardware when Microsoft and Sony are talking price increases for hardware and services. We all know Nintendo isn't a very generous company lol.

So what do you guys think? Are stores attempting to clear out stock to prepare for new hardware to come soon or do we think there is another reason for such good deals lately (even before Black Friday/holiday sales)?

it's probably just a natural response to slumping demand but I'd love to think it's because of a transition
 
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Didn’t a dev mention here that 250 Mb/s was the minimum he wanted for his project? Seems like UHS-2 cards would fit the bill, no? Unless there’s something I’m missing…
That was Brainchild, but the minimum was 300 MBs, he would like it to be at least 500 and it was specifically for his project to use Nanite.

Sony says 3rd parties specifically asked them 1GB/s at minimum. I could see Nintendo still getting (compromised) ports which requires high speed if they're north of 500 MB/s at least. If they stick with 300 or lower, I would assume they won't get many (if any) games made around fast storage.
There has been a lot of crazy Switch deals lately like this one:



Makes me wonder if stores are trying to clear out stock anticipating new hardware to be announced early next year.

Otherwise I'm confused lately by all the great deals I'm seeing on Switch hardware when Microsoft and Sony are talking price increases for hardware and services. We all know Nintendo isn't a very generous company lol.

So what do you guys think? Are stores attempting to clear out stock to prepare for new hardware to come soon or do we think there is another reason for such good deals lately (even before Black Friday/holiday sales)?

That was a misleading listing. Check Wario64 own responses retweeting someone who just got $10 off.
 
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This whole “it doesn’t exist at retail so it’s dead” dialogue around UFS Card is kinda weird. If “it’s not standard in retail products so it can’t exist in a Nintendo product” were a thing, Wii U would never have existed, with its pre-standardized version of Miracast.

And really, with NAND flash supply outstripping demand (with SK Hynix slashing investment in it by 50% due to the oversupply of NAND), if Nintendo opted to use UFS Card, one or more NAND flash makers would jump at a newly-created market to sell NAND flash products to, so it not being available at retail is a frankly easily-resolved problem.
UFS Card readers are being produced, that much is clear, they’re even being made at retail despite few to no consumer devices supporting the format.
The SoC Nintendo is basing Drake on already supports the format.

But fine, let’s say some of you are right.

If UFS is not happening in any form (embedded or card), you’ll have to say goodbye to:
  • UE5 Nanite support
  • broader 3rd-party support
  • equal loading times when compared to Switch

It would instantly become the single-worst bottleneck for Drake and it wouldn’t even be close.

If eUFS is in and UFS Card is out, you‘ll likely have to say goodbye to loading games directly off the external storage card, as microSD is frankly incapable of matching eUFS speed and loading off microSD will likely be sacrificed for a higher baseline expected game read speeds for developers; it’s not like Nintendo has never done something like that (I remember the Wii SD card situation quite clearly prior to homebrew).

So if you’re dour on UFS Card or UFS in general, be prepared to give something up for holding that position.

EDIT: Also, if you think they'll still allow games to be read directly off of microSD, that means games will have to be designed for lowest-common-denominator read speeds, which would be microSD (if not the Game Card, but that's still an unknown but highly-solvable problem). And if that's the case, eUFS usage would be mostly wasted and should not even bother; all the same issues I mentioned regarding not using UFS at all would apply.
 
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  • IFS announced that NVIDIA has committed to joining the U.S. Department of Defense's (DOD) RAMP-C program, led by Intel, which enables both commercial foundry customers and the DOD to take advantage of Intel's at-scale investments in leading-edge technologies. In addition, since the second quarter, IFS has expanded engagements to seven of the 10 largest foundry customers, coupled with consistent pipeline growth to include 35 customer test chips.
:unsure:
 
Qualcomm's and Nuvia's counterclaim to Arm's lawsuit was updated yesterday. And some of the alleged claims are very concerning.

246. ARM also told one or more Qualcomm customers that, when the existing TLA agreements expire, ARM will cease licensing CPUs to all semiconductor companies—including Qualcomm—under an ARM TLA. ARM claimed that it is changing its business model and will only provide licenses to the device-makers themselves. ARM has explained to the OEMs that a direct OEM license will be the only way for device-makers to get access to ARM-compliant chips.

253. ARM also claimed that it had already informed Qualcomm about its new business model that requires a direct license with the OEMs. That statement is false. ARM has not notified Qualcomm that it will be requiring direct licenses from device-makers. ARM did not tell Qualcomm that it intends to stop licensing CPU technology as a standalone license, that it will no longer license CPU technology to semiconductor companies, or that it will require licensees to obtain other technologies (notably ARM's GPU and NPU technology) only from ARM. As noted above, these attempted or threatened changes in ARM's business model do not account for Qualcomm’s existing agreements with ARM.
 
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This may have a negative effect on the “Nintendo switch 3” or whatever future arm-based console Nintendo decides to release down the line after the Drake switch is afraid.
Meh, we can worry about that in 2030.


There has been a lot of crazy Switch deals lately like this one:



Makes me wonder if stores are trying to clear out stock anticipating new hardware to be announced early next year.

Otherwise I'm confused lately by all the great deals I'm seeing on Switch hardware when Microsoft and Sony are talking price increases for hardware and services. We all know Nintendo isn't a very generous company lol.

So what do you guys think? Are stores attempting to clear out stock to prepare for new hardware to come soon or do we think there is another reason for such good deals lately (even before Black Friday/holiday sales)?

Three fiddy for OLED, game, pro controller AND a $75 card? got damn that's good.

I'm seeing a lot more OLED in stock at Target personally, and less of the other models, notably v2. I hope they do a permanent price drop when Drake comes out... $300, 250 (hell just stop producing v2) and $170.
 
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Watching the latest episode of Nintendo Voice Chat (IGN's Nintendo podcast) and they're all up there talking how cool Steam Deck is and playing all the emulated Nintendo games thar Nintendo won't give you access to.

Between this, many discounts on Switch hardware lately and declining sales, it really feels like people are finally moving on from Switch. Will be huge shame if we still don't get new hardware in 2023 even with people starting to move on.

You could say people are finally... Switching it up!

I'll see myself out now...
 
Wait, are people taking the UFS card idea seriously?

Nintendo makes some funky moves, but a dead (well, never alive really; failed) format being required for the next system, a system which at launch will primarily just play existing games better?

If they adopt UFS card I will eat a shoe.

I fully expect them to stick with SD... Not least because they're part of the SD consortium, but also because of backwards and forwards compatibility. I don't think the Drake Switch could really insist on a new format, but maybe the one after it. If and when they move to a new storage expansion format, there's little to no reason for them not to go with SDExpress. The power consumption is higher than SD, but it fits within Switch's power constraints with an absolute max of 1.2W, but which can be driven far, far below that. The price consideration isn't a considerable issue, the price will come down with enough time, just like 256GB and 512GB Micro SDXC before it. There simply isn't a reason for them not to go straight down the line of "whatever minimum SD card speed works".

Well I'm 100% sure they gonna use SD card and not bother to attempt to follow their competitors focus on speed or run off internal storage only. I'm completely speculating on what format Nintendo will use if they want some parity with speed for their next console for expansion storage. Where "whatever minimum SD card speed works" will not works.

Just speculating on the next console that I'm expecting to be released next year or the one after. That Nintendo is part of the group means nothing because the current specifications is the one that they gonna use. I don't foresee the group releasing a new low power specification and get enough buy in from vendors to start releasing cards to be easily purchased within the next couple of years. Could definitely see it for the console after next though.

Comparing with SD Express, I see 2 products on amazon and 1 out of stock ufs product sold by Samsung on Amazon. Not the most scientific research but both are practically dead compared to CF Express.

I haven't seen tests of UFS cards but one test for SD Express shows poor result compared to its specification. Definitely wouldn't be a good fit for Switch size device without major consideration. Hardly enough to make a good judgement call though. Would love it to see more data for both cards and how well SD Express can underclock.

UFS has the economies of scale because eUFS production is booming. We know this feed into economy of scales for the card since Samsung was able to sell 256gb UFS card for $60 dollars more than a year ago. A much better price than what you can get SD Express cards for today. Granted, the product looks to be discontinued and on an older version of UFS. But Samsung sure isn't decreasing their eUFS production so economy of scale can only increase since then. And they aren't the only one producing eUFS.
 
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ARM seems to be imploding at a much faster pace than I expected. I don't think Nintendo is likely to jump ship soon (not unless Nvidia does, at least, but they seem pretty committed to ARM at the moment and are better positioned than most to stay that way), but RISC-V is seeming increasingly inevitable.
 
ARM seems to be imploding at a much faster pace than I expected. I don't think Nintendo is likely to jump ship soon (not unless Nvidia does, at least, but they seem pretty committed to ARM at the moment and are better positioned than most to stay that way), but RISC-V is seeming increasingly inevitable.
Seems like the NVidia merger would have been the least bad option for everyone.
 
Slightly offtopic: After debating getting a PS5 or XSX, I'm probably getting a gaming laptop. More expensive, yes, but sort of mobile like the Switch and an open platform would complement the Switch nicely.

I probably wouldn't have considered doing this if Switch was updated earlier - and I'll get a Switch 2 launch day, like the first - but I just want to have something modern at this point. I coerced my MacBook to run Unreal Tournament '99 and want more of that high refresh rate action without going to ridiculous lengths to get stuff running on mac xD.

So if anyone has recommendations for a sub-€1500 gaming laptop
I wouldn't mind getting some in an offtopic spoiler tag 😇.
 
ARM seems to be imploding at a much faster pace than I expected. I don't think Nintendo is likely to jump ship soon (not unless Nvidia does, at least, but they seem pretty committed to ARM at the moment and are better positioned than most to stay that way), but RISC-V is seeming increasingly inevitable.
It’s wild, because the story of the last decade+ has been ARM taking over the world.

I think Brexit and the ensuing chaos in the UK really hurt them.
 
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Seems like the NVidia merger would have been the least bad option for everyone.
Ehh, I think it would be pretty bad for any silicon IP company to be owned by an SoC company that directly competes with their licensees. That just seems like conflict of interest city.
 
According to the updated Qualcomm counterclaim, after 2024, Arm is no longer going to license their CPUs to semiconductor companies such as Qualcomm under technology license agreements (TLAs). Instead, Arm will only license to the device-makers. Arm is allegedly telling OEMs that the only way to get Arm-based chips will be to accept Arm’s new licensing terms. Qualcomm claims that Arm is lying to Qualcomm’s OEM partners about Qualcomm’s licensing terms.

I wonder how this affects NVIDIA, they have like a 20 year ALA (architectural license agreement) rather than a TLA if I’m not mistaken, but in the off-chance it affects them regardless….


This includes GPUs, NPUs, and ISP. It seems that Arm is effectively bundling its other IP with the CPU IP in a take-it-or-leave-it model. That would mean Samsung’s licensing deal with AMD for GPU or Mediatek with Imagination GPU is no longer allowed after 2024. Furthermore none of these firms could use their in-house ISP or NPU despite it being far superior to Arm's.


….Y’all better hope Drake comes out before 2024, or goodbye to BC.
 
No new clues. We know Drake is related to Orin, and this Orin Nano looks like exactly half of an AGX. I assume it's just a binned chip in that case.


I don't think anything major new has come up. Some details have been wrangled out of the Linux drivers, but nothing that radically changes our view of the device, or the timing.
Not much if anything. It's not that different from a Tegra x1 nano, conceptually at least.

Likely salvaged/binned parts from the 8GB Orion NX module with those specs (with has 6 A78 cpus)

Drake is supposed to have much higher clocks, more bandwidth, +1500 cuda cores, 8 A78 CPU cores.

It does look like it's more stripped of it's auto parts from the original AGX and NX models. The 8GB nano variant happens to fit switch's 15 watt max profile, but has 6 CPU cores at 1.5Ghz max, 68 GB/s bandwidth, and 1024 cuda cores at 625Mhz clock speeds .. So it's 4x slower than the most powerful AGX Orion model that has double the cores and 2x the clockspeed It's 5.3/4 = around 1.3 TFLOPs GPU.

The 4GB nano variant module has half the GPU cores and bandwidth.

So it has nothing to do with the next Nintendo device right? For a moment I was scared, since what appeared in this link seems much weaker than what we were usually commenting on for next Nintendo hardware.

 
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Slightly offtopic: After debating getting a PS5 or XSX, I'm probably getting a gaming laptop. More expensive, yes, but sort of mobile like the Switch and an open platform would complement the Switch nicely.

I probably wouldn't have considered doing this if Switch was updated earlier - and I'll get a Switch 2 launch day, like the first - but I just want to have something modern at this point. I coerced my MacBook to run Unreal Tournament '99 and want more of that high refresh rate action without going to ridiculous lengths to get stuff running on mac xD.

So if anyone has recommendations for a sub-€1500 gaming laptop
I wouldn't mind getting some in an offtopic spoiler tag 😇.
I wouldn't even get a gaming laptop, got burned by it. The issue is not the specs but heat. Sooner or later, your 120FPS capable laptop will run the same game at 15FPS.
 
This may have a negative effect on the “Nintendo switch 3” or whatever future arm-based console Nintendo decides to release down the line after the Drake switch I’m afraid.

What does all this mean and why could this negatively affect Nintendo in the future?
Thanks for the clarification since my language is not English and it is difficult for me to interpret things with so many technicalities.
 
What does all this mean and why could this negatively affect Nintendo in the future?
Thanks for the clarification since my language is not English and it is difficult for me to interpret things with so many technicalities.

ARM is a company that designs processor architectures (the ARM architecture family), but they don’t make their own processors. Instead, they license their designs to other companies that build the chips. Some companies use ARM designs essentially as is, but it’s become increasingly popular for chip providers like Qualcomm to customize their chips, integrating ARM-designed CPU cores with their own custom GPUs. ARM is changing their standard license agreement to put significant restrictions on these “mix and match” chips, among other very significant changes. Some of ARM’s licensees are suing them to try to keep them from changing the agreements in this way.

It doesn’t directly affect Nintendo, because Nintendo uses technology from Nvidia, who has a special long-term agreement with ARM that is different from the one that is changing. But it is perhaps a concerning sign for the future and long-term health of the ARM architecture. It’s an odd move that might push those licensees to working to develop a different platform that would give them the flexibility they’ve enjoyed so far.
 
It's possible that all of this is scare tactics Qualcomm is using in their countersunk. Though it's also possible that this is scare tactics from ARM to get more direct buyers

Maybe ARM should start selling base designs first
 
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This is different though. Wii U has this on the console itself and it's part of the gimmick, the UFS card has to be bought separately which is pretty rare and expensive at the moment.
Then let's look for a more apples-to-apples example.

They and Sony both pushed and standardized the memory card in the dedicated hardware market, which was a thing that had to be basically custom-designed because the first and only removable NAND media prior to that had only just been introduced commercially in 1995 (the now totally defunct SmartMedia card; MMC was not introduced until 1997 and SD after that). Nintendo went with volatile SRAM that required a watch battery power source for N64 (and was mostly used by 3rd-party games, as Nintendo continued on with having game saves on a battery-powered RAM in the cartridge for most to all of its games), while Sony used a form of NAND, likely leveraging their own production of it at the time. Upon wider-scale NAND production and greater availability, Nintendo got in on the NAND game for memory cards with GameCube. That continued until on-board eMMC or hard drive storage and, with Wii, SD card slots for external storage.

Here's another example: Haptic feedback through actuators was something exclusive to the realm of arcade experiences (and rarely so) and professional simulators before Nintendo brought it to the home with the Rumble Pak, a design that was external to the console, not an original part of the console's design and required engineering the proper type of actuators to that specific purpose. A HELL of a lot more work than using an already-established technology for the intended purpose to say the least and fits your narrower definition of what should be considered applicable to this conversation while re-inforcing the point that was being made.

With UFS, they don't have to custom-design or self-engineer anything, the format pre-exists with parts to read it already manufactured and an SoC that already has the functionality to make it all work. All they have to do is opt in to using it, that's it. And we know they've done a hell of a lot more for a hell of a lot less reward.
 
Slightly offtopic: After debating getting a PS5 or XSX, I'm probably getting a gaming laptop. More expensive, yes, but sort of mobile like the Switch and an open platform would complement the Switch nicely.

I probably wouldn't have considered doing this if Switch was updated earlier - and I'll get a Switch 2 launch day, like the first - but I just want to have something modern at this point. I coerced my MacBook to run Unreal Tournament '99 and want more of that high refresh rate action without going to ridiculous lengths to get stuff running on mac xD.

So if anyone has recommendations for a sub-€1500 gaming laptop
I wouldn't mind getting some in an offtopic spoiler tag 😇.
As someone who has multiple friends who went this route* and even a laptop of his own, I really recommend you not to.
All laptops (gaming ones included) suffer from power (TDP) and thermal constraints that whenever they are reached, result in a considerable decrease in CPU and GPU performance to keep the device from overheating and/or the battery from discharging even while it's plugged in (that's a real issue on some power-hungry laptops btw, look it up).

And before someone says "just undervolt" or "just underclock or repaste" that's not intuitive nor does it solve all issues with laptop gaming.
Hell, sometimes your GPU isn't even detected by the title, and you have to change settings on NVIDIA's panel and re-launch the game.

Also, intel has locked users out of undervolting since 10th gen so... And it's not like AMD CPUs are flexible in terms of adjusting clock x voltage either...

Honestly, you're better off with a Series S with gamepass + a switch OLED.

*One of my friends bought an entry level lenovo ideapad gaming laptop equipped with a 1650 that is totally capable of running games like overwatch 2 under a locked 60FPS but the latest nvidia driver which he installed simply did not work properly at ALL. He had constant framedrops below 40FPS despite we both diagnosing that his machine was neither overheating nor reaching the power limit.
After extensive attempts at reducing the clock speed (since undervolting was locked out), underclocking the GPU and monitoring temps (all to no avail), we reverted back the windows 10 install entirely and everything went back to normal (we later looked at the driver version and it was reverted back to the OEM's default driver).
 
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If we consider a Drake release in H1 2023, what possible third party exclusives do you guys think might get released or at least announced alongside it?
I've been thinking of how Resident Evil 4 Remake but also Street Fighter VI could be perfect candidates and help sales a lot.
Elden Ring GOTY edition.
 
Did something happen in those ~2 weeks i was out due to Covid or why are you/we talk about 2024 again? ^^
No, not really. Just speaking in general.
Maybe I misunderstood you, these are readers. I meant buy UFS cards themselves
Oh, Concert said, “Also saying readers CAN support both. But have any been made? Will any ever be? Given how hard it flopped, I'm doubtful.” so I assumed she was talking about the readers here, not the cards, as that seemed like the focus subject of the sentence/sentences.
 
Drake has a WAY better CPU and apparently has a dedicated hardware for loading assets, like the PS5 do, so loading times should be significantly reduced, even if they use the same storage as the current Switch. OTOH, higher quality assets are bigger and may diminish the results.
Maybe I'm looking at this a bit simplistically, but the slowdown in RAM increase over the years seems like it would "help" in this regard. Going from something like PS1's 2MB to PS2's 32MB meant a lot more to possibly load even if the loading itself was faster--but next Switch is probably going to have 2-4x the RAM of base Switch, so how much bigger assets can possibly be is limited.
Makes me wonder if stores are trying to clear out stock anticipating new hardware to be announced early next year.
I don't have a guess as to the reasons for the sales you mention, but trying to clear stock before the big sales of November+December have happened seems like a weird approach.
 
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Interesting from the Digital Foundry Bayo 3 review:
"This is a game where it feels as if the entire production is in search of more powerful hardware that has never arrived."

Feels like a hint, but probably not. But it did make me wonder - how long ago did we get the confirmation from Bloomberg of the dev kits going out? Feels like at least a year, probably more. Could there be devs who expected that hardware by now when they started developing their games, or is this Platinum just way overshooting their mark?

EDIT: Yeah, it was Sept of last year, and speculated that the devs were expecting launch "late 2022". Nate said sources told him that dev kits were out there by late 2020. Very interesting.

Also, the fact that they went with an unlocked 60fps (that struggles around 40fps) rather than Astral Chain's locked 30 means that Bayo 3 will get an automatic boost from better hardware (assuming backward compatibility). Could that choice have been made with better hardware in mind?
 
Also, the fact that they went with an unlocked 60fps (that struggles around 40fps) rather than Astral Chain's locked 30 means that Bayo 3 will get an automatic boost from better hardware (assuming backward compatibility). Could that choice have been made with better hardware in mind?
Imo no, it was probably made to have 60fps on the box or something. Or to not create bad press before the game even launched.

The right way to future proof, is to have a framerate cap toggle in the settings. That way you don’t compromise the lower end version.
 
Wait, are people taking the UFS card idea seriously?

Nintendo makes some funky moves, but a dead (well, never alive really; failed) format being required for the next system, a system which at launch will primarily just play existing games better?

If they adopt UFS card I will eat a shoe.

I fully expect them to stick with SD... Not least because they're part of the SD consortium, but also because of backwards and forwards compatibility. I don't think the Drake Switch could really insist on a new format, but maybe the one after it. If and when they move to a new storage expansion format, there's little to no reason for them not to go with SDExpress. The power consumption is higher than SD, but it fits within Switch's power constraints with an absolute max of 1.2W, but which can be driven far, far below that. The price consideration isn't a considerable issue, the price will come down with enough time, just like 256GB and 512GB Micro SDXC before it. There simply isn't a reason for them not to go straight down the line of "whatever minimum SD card speed works".

UFS? Sure. UFS Card? Absolutely not.

The drawbacks are pretty severe; lack of existing production capacity.
Lack of software, hardware, and vendor support.
Lack of economies of scale (comparatively).
Lack of input from Nintendo.

Nintendo quite literally sits on the board of SD. Why would they abandon their own product in favour of a competing, dead format?

While SDExpress might have its disadvantages, they don't outweigh the advantages. Nintendo had a say in developing the spec to begin with. It can use lower power consumption if it sacrifices speed, something Nintendo is familiar with, and even if they don't it can, technically, fit within the power envelope of even the existing Switch.

Also saying readers CAN support both. But have any been made? Will any ever be? Given how hard it flopped, I'm doubtful.

The reason we're talking about UFS cards is that, if Nintendo want to ensure games have a significantly faster baseline storage speed than UHS-I SD cards provide, they'll have to go with either SD Express, CFexpress, or UFS cards. I personally think UFS cards would be the best choice, but that doesn't necessarily mean that I think they will use UFS cards, or even that they'll necessarily use anything better than the same UHS-I microSD cards used in the current model, but this is a speculation thread after all, so it's interesting to speculate.

Out of the three options, I'm increasingly of the opinion that pretty much the sole advantage of SD Express is that is says SD on it. Unlike CFexpress and UFS cards, there hasn't been a single device yet released which supports SD Express, and there's very little indication of any future devices that will. Its primary market was intended to be in cameras, but the high end of the industry has already moved fully to CFexpress, and SD Express isn't backwards compatible with the UHS-II SD standard used in many mid to high end cameras, so there's little reason for any camera manufacturer to adopt it. As an example, Sony's $4000 a7R Mk V was announced the day before yesterday, and SD Express support is nowhere to be found on it. It supports CFexpress Type A and UHS-II SD cards (in fact they ironically use a CFexpress/UHS-II SD combo slot that provides better backwards compatibility than an SD Express slot would).

The limited (or zero) adoption of SD Express is a much bigger issue than it is for the other two formats, because the SD Express interface is a combination of the original SPI SD interface, the UHS-I SD interface, and an NVMe interface alongside those. Because of the need to support all three of these interfaces, SD Express cards require custom controller/interface chips, and therefore they can't leverage existing economies of scale in the same way that UFS cards can with eUFS, or CFexpress can with NVMe SSDs.

While the SD Express specification states a maximum power consumption of 1.2W, there's no indication they're actually enforcing that. The only publicly available power measurement of an SD Express card that I'm aware of showed an average of 3.25W power consumption, peaking up to 4.58W, and with surface temperatures of up to 96C.

The benefit of UFS cards is that being based on the existing, widely used UFS interface means the following simply don't matter:
lack of existing production capacity.
Lack of software, hardware, and vendor support.
Lack of economies of scale (comparatively).
To illustrate my point, when comparing the price of UFS cards and the similarly niche UHS-II microSD cards earlier this year, the UHS-II cards were being sold for 50% more while operating at half the speed. Even for the tiny production runs Samsung would have been doing on these UFS cards, being able to leverage the enormous economy of scale of eUFS counted for a lot more than the economy of scale of any post-UHS-I SD standard. Hardware and software support is also a moot point, as any SoC that can support eUFS can also support UFS cards, as they use the same M-PHY/Unipro interface (only with one lane instead of two). Ditto with software support, although in Nintendo's case they'll be implementing that themselves, so not really an issue.

More importantly, though, the power consumption of UFS cards should be much better than SD Express, again because it's leveraging existing eUFS technology. I haven't been able to find any real-world power figures for UFS cards, but embedded UFS is designed primarily around maximising performance in very tight power limits, given its use-case in smartphones, so power consumption should be low and well-controlled. When you're an embedded memory supplier selling to the smartphone market you can't really get away with exceeding the power and thermal spec by a factor of 3, unlike if you're developing custom controllers for memory cards where the purchaser will be unlikely to even consider power consumption. Utilising existing eUFS controllers in UFS cards hence means it should have much better and more reliable power consumption than SD Express.

CFexpress is also worth mentioning, and does have a few advantages. Firstly there's actually an existing market for them, although it's the niche, expensive world of high-end cameras. It's also effectively just an NVMe SSD in a plastic case, so much like UFS cards it can leverage existing economies of scale. While current cards are very expensive, I suspect that's largely due to the fact that the current target market is pretty price-insensitive. The Xbox Series X/S storage expansion cards are slightly modified CFexpress Type B cards, and cost about half as much as a CFexpress Type B card would at the same capacity. The Xbox expansion cards are also a proprietary accessory, so there are probably pretty healthy margins on it, and I expect competition could push prices down even further.

CFexpress Type B are a bit large (and overkill performance) for a device like the Switch, but the smaller Type A card would be a good fit (they're about the same size as a Switch game card). They also hit a baseline of 800MB/s read speeds, with Drake potentially being forward-compatible with future 1.6GB/s PCIe 4.0 cards. Of course the fact that it's just an NVMe drive in a plastic case is also the problem, as the specification doesn't seem to put any limits on power draw. The only measurement I could find for power consumption of a CFexpress Type A card is this one, which specifies <1.7W active power draw on its spec sheet. That's about half of the SD Express card, but potentially still too much for a device like the Switch. There's also no indication of whether this is typical for CFexpress type A, or if other cards could pull a lot more power.

There's a tendency to think that, because SD cards have been around for so long, the best option will inevitably be whatever the latest SD card is, but that's not really the case anymore. The last SD card standard to achieve mass market use is the UHS-I standard that was published back in 2010. The UHS-II standard has seen limited, niche use, the UHS-III standard was never used, and the SD Express 7.0 and 8.0 standards have yet to see support in any devices (although one or two cards and readers exist). The Frankenstein approach the SD association have taken to backwards compatibility hasn't helped, as they've just kept tacking on different interface specifications over the years. SD Express cards have to implement backwards compatibility with the 1-bit SPI mode that originated on the MultiMediaCard standard back in 1997, but can't support the UHS-II or UHS-III standards that actually precede it. In comparison, the Compact Flash Association have been happy to drop old standards to keep both cards and readers simple and utilise standardised technologies like SATA and NVMe, and that's surely been a factor in their newer standards actually being adopted, rather than left on the shelf.
 
Interesting from the Digital Foundry Bayo 3 review:
"This is a game where it feels as if the entire production is in search of more powerful hardware that has never arrived."
I think John is trolling a little there. He's the Nintendo fan over there, and has stated a couple times that he has no inside knowledge on Drake.

Also, the fact that they went with an unlocked 60fps (that struggles around 40fps) rather than Astral Chain's locked 30 means that Bayo 3 will get an automatic boost from better hardware (assuming backward compatibility). Could that choice have been made with better hardware in mind?
I'm not entirely sure how Nintendo plans to handle "boost mode", but it seems likely that games could detect when they're running on Drake and uncap their frame rate, rather than needing to launch the game in bad shape.

Frame rate caps are surprisingly difficult to implement - see every UE4 game - and I believe Bayo 3 is the first Switch release on the new PlatinumEngine. It's entirely possible that a combination of optimism in their ability to further optimize that engine, and difficulty implementing it once that wasn't possible lead to the situation.
 
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The 'Switch 60 FPS Handheld' channel continues to deliver, showcasing 60 FPS mods for Persona 5 Royal, Nier Automata, and No Man's Sky.



This really fuels my Drake daydreaming. I'm tempted to hunt down a modded OLED Switch but with the soldering effort required that must cost a pretty penny...

I might get one anyway if these titles end up not being patched. :rolleyes:
 
Please read this staff post before posting.

Furthermore, according to this follow-up post, all off-topic chat will be moderated.
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