Nintendo Switch is powered by NVIDIA

[Phynaz]

Ars take...

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/...-we-can-guess-about-nintendo-switchs-insides/

 

[antihelten]

I thought that nvidia GPU would much more powerful than xbox one at same Gflops, because nvidia is competing with AMD GPU that have higher Gflops if you look at PC GPU's

There was no way Nintendo could ever have put a GPU much more powerful than the Xbox One in a form factor like this, regardless of them using Nvidia or AMD. Theoretically they may have been able to put something in it that could have matched the Xbox One, but that would have required a beefy cooling system (for a portable), and would likely have resulted in 30-60 minutes of battery life.

 

[Snarf Snarf]

I thought that nvidia GPU would much more powerful than xbox one at same Gflops, because nvidia is competing with AMD GPU that have higher Gflops if you look at PC GPU's

If what zlatan is saying is true, it's bandwidth limited and not clockspeed/throughput limited which is disappointing to say the least. Unless the dock has some extra horsepower inside of it Xbone/Ps4 ports would probably be rendered in 720p and upscaled. Won't matter a huge amount in mobile mode but for docked mode that is almost a deal breaker.

 

[PhonakV30]

Well I could be wrong but I think in term of Performance/Gflops/API , You should not compare Nintendo Switch with PS4/Xbox one, They're completely different in any aspects.

 

[antihelten]

If what zlatan is saying is true, it's bandwidth limited and not clockspeed/throughput limited which is disappointing to say the least. Unless the dock has some extra horsepower inside of it Xbone/Ps4 ports would probably be rendered in 720p and upscaled. Won't matter a huge amount in mobile mode but for docked mode that is almost a deal breaker.

This isn't necessarily true. A downclocked Tegra X2 (at about 850 MHz), should have fairly balanced bandwidth and throughput, with both being roughly 1/3 of the Xbox One. Its a fair bit better than X1 in this regard, as that SoC has only half the bandwidth of X2 (whilst having more than half the throughput).

Of course as you mention, this would somewhat hamper the potential gains of the console clocking higher when docked.

 

[Snarf Snarf]

This isn't necessarily true. A downclocked Tegra X2 (at about 850 MHz), should have fairly balanced bandwidth and throughput, with both being roughly 1/3 of the Xbox One. Its a fair bit better than X1 in this regard, as that SoC has only half the bandwidth of X2 (whilst having more than half the throughput).

Of course as you mention, this would somewhat hamper the potential gains of the console clocking higher when docked.

At this point I'm just hoping its high clocked GDDR5 that is downclocked in portable mode with full speed in the dock with active cooling. The form factor is great, as it is I already play my Wii U almost exclusively in my bed with just the game pad. Add in regular streaming and media support with Hulu/Netflix/Amazon/Crunchyroll and I'm sold

Edit: For the real dream come true this device would be able to run just like a shield with streaming game play from a PC with access to NVidia Grid. Now I'm being greedy

 

[antihelten]

At this point I'm just hoping its high clocked GDDR5 that is downclocked in portable mode with full speed in the dock with active cooling. The form factor is great, as it is I already play my Wii U almost exclusively in my bed with just the game pad. Add in regular streaming and media support with Hulu/Netflix/Amazon/Crunchyroll and I'm sold

Edit: For the real dream come true this device would be able to run just like a shield with streaming game play from a PC with access to NVidia Grid. Now I'm being greedy

I would be very surprised if Switch doesn't us LPDDR4 just like Tegra Parker, especially considering what Zlatan has posted.

Compatibility with Nvidia Grid would be pretty damn awesome, but I would expect that a feature like that would have been shown off in the trailer.

 

[IllogicalGlory]

It'd be nice to see some of that NV software ecosystem and Android game support. Pretty hopeful for the latter, the former, not so much. The Switch being the fastest machine for Android games certainly wouldn't hurt and its controllers are versatile enough to work really well with them, but we'll see.

 

[John Carmack]

Yeah I should leave. I made my small attempt to let you know why this has failure written all over it. I was a huge Nintendo fan as you guys are. I have quite a few friends who still get boners over anything this company releases. My message to them is the same. This Nintendo stuff is dead and it has been for a while, just because some stupid mario kart rehash 8 is so much fun (not really nobody plays more than 2 rounds - they just talk like they love it) and reminded you of college doesn't mean it's any good. The gaming world is moving way too fast for this stuff. I just hope people don't get burned even more than WiiU owners. Even MS and Sony have gone the prebuilt PC route. They are questioning the console model altogether. It's all going to be about software and hardware will get more generic except for VR which will be hardware driven for a decade or two. Nintendo will end up 3rd party. That silly iPhone game is harbinger of the world to come and again they made some stupid crap attempt to capitalize on their brand recognition yet again. All name no substance. Not a proper AAA game since the last Metroid or Zelda on original Wii. How long ago was that? Just think.

Anyway I'm done talking about this. The hardware side seems interesting to read about. Pascal Tegra, sounds good. This stuff without proper software lasts a year anymore. Even MS and Sony know this. They will keep whoring out their franchises on smartphones about 3 years from now. Mario Kart 15. Can't wait.

Yes, I'm done with negative talk about Nintendo. I really hope it works out for buyers of this thing. I really do. I just won't bet on it.

It's a kiddie portable nobody will care. Also this company makes the Titan X. They just have a cheap partner. This thing was never meant to advance graphical science.

That sounded pretty negative. (and a few other posts I didn't quote)

 

[ThatBuzzkiller]

I wonder what the clock on that thing will be since performance will be limited by form factor when you only have so much space for cooling ...

Let's hope NVN is also a high level API since a WII U emulator got by just fine with OpenGL and that a manual documentation of Pascal microarchitecture will be soon released for the sake of the emulation scene ...

 

[Ranulf]

My first thoughts watching the release video were, wow all this marketing to the 20-ish hipster crowd and no kids. Then I got a good laugh of them playing Skyrim 2016 in the cab, airplane (built in kickstand is nice at least) and then finally at home. Yay? Zelda, what little they showed looked neat. Hopefully it will be on WiiU so I have another reason to turn that on besides streaming/mario kart.

Hardware wise I think the only big question I have is battery life. This does not strike me as something that will last that long while out in the park playin with yer buds some NBA2k17Nx (just lolz).

At this point I'm just hoping its high clocked GDDR5 that is downclocked in portable mode with full speed in the dock with active cooling. The form factor is great, as it is I already play my Wii U almost exclusively in my bed with just the game pad. Add in regular streaming and media support with Hulu/Netflix/Amazon/Crunchyroll and I'm sold

Edit: For the real dream come true this device would be able to run just like a shield with streaming game play from a PC with access to NVidia Grid. Now I'm being greedy

My WiiU gamepad is lucky to last 2 hours on a charge acting as a mini screen while watching netflix/streaming and I've yet to find an easy way to turn the damn thing off. I often just toss it back on the charger while watching something.

 

[jpiniero]

Part of me still think it's Maxwell derived since nVidia didn't take the opportunity to call out Pascal in their statement. But the Tegra X1 was 20 nm, so that wouldn't fly.

 

[sxr7171]

Nope. It has a processing unit, but only for upscaling. Otherwise 504p would be really ugly on a 4K tv.

And 504p upscaled to 4K would be gorgeous?

 

[SPBHM]

it looks rather large compared to the old nintendo portables, I wonder how that's going to affect things;
also if in full portable mode it's going to run games at 20FPS or something to save battery.

 

[Red Hawk]

This thing is going to be the nail in the coffin for Nintendo...it's too gimmiky...many people have already lost faith in Nintendo after the Wii and then the Wii U..they needed a solid Xbox One/PS4 competitor and this simply won't be it.

Nah, this is much more practical than the past couple Nintendo consoles. A controller that's also a screen is a gimmick that doesn't really add value to the system. Being able to play the same games on your television and on the go? That's a very practical feature, I think.

I know I'm being cynical, but I hope this thing is even less successful than the Wii U. That way they can finally be a software-only company that we all want them to be.

Uh, no. You might want them to be that, but not everyone does. Nintendo did not make its name as a software only company, they are a software AND hardware company. I mean, if they did that, we wouldn't be getting Breath of the Wild on the go. That's something I wouldn't want to miss.

And keep in mind that the software that comes out of a software-only Nintendo will be a shell of the software that comes out of a successful software-and-hardware Nintendo. Is the software that Sega puts out nowadays anything close to their 90s hardware heyday?

I need to add that the name is probably one of the worst game system names I have heard, actually I think it is a terrible name for any consumer electronic. The Switch is not very marketable in my opinion. Like I said elsewhere the Nintendo N-E-S, Super Nes, N64, Wii, WiiU, DS, 3DS, to the Switch...Really?
Like in one of the leaked shots, I think the name Duo would have been way better and been more "traditional" Nintendo. Even if they had stuck with NX, maybe for Nintendo Next or whatever, that would have been perfectly fine but Nintendo Switch is just plain bad. "Hey Mom/Dad do you know where I put my Switch? For my birthday I want a Switch game. Hey you wanna play Nintendo ugh no I mean Hey you wanna play Switch? Hey it's game-time let's Switch. Can you twitch on the Switch?"

You bring up some good points in the rest of your post, but I have to disagree with you on the name. Switch is fine, and definitely better than the Wii U. The Wii U's name was truly bad; it didn't differentiate itself from the Wii enough, and left many people thinking it was just an add on to the Wii, not a whole new console.

My first thoughts watching the release video were, wow all this marketing to the 20-ish hipster crowd and no kids. Then I got a good laugh of them playing Skyrim 2016 in the cab, airplane (built in kickstand is nice at least) and then finally at home. Yay? Zelda, what little they showed looked neat. Hopefully it will be on WiiU so I have another reason to turn that on besides streaming/mario kart.

Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is going to release on both the Wii U and the Switch, correct. They actually showed a trailer and lots of footage from the Wii U version back at E3 this past summer. As a long time Zelda fan, I'm hyped either way...

 

[swilli89]

Nah, this is much more practical than the past couple Nintendo consoles. A controller that's also a screen is a gimmick that doesn't really add value to the system. Being able to play the same games on your television and on the go? That's a very practical feature, I think.



Uh, no. You might want them to be that, but not everyone does. Nintendo did not make its name as a software only company, they are a software AND hardware company. I mean, if they did that, we wouldn't be getting Breath of the Wild on the go. That's something I wouldn't want to miss.

And keep in mind that the software that comes out of a software-only Nintendo will be a shell of the software that comes out of a successful software-and-hardware Nintendo. Is the software that Sega puts out nowadays anything close to their 90s hardware heyday?



You bring up some good points in the rest of your post, but I have to disagree with you on the name. Switch is fine, and definitely better than the Wii U. The Wii U's name was truly bad; it didn't differentiate itself from the Wii enough, and left many people thinking it was just an add on to the Wii, not a whole new console.



Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is going to release on both the Wii U and the Switch, correct. They actually showed a trailer and lots of footage from the Wii U version back at E3 this past summer. As a long time Zelda fan, I'm hyped either way...

Man etching this video and then imagining being able to experience this on a train or airplane.. I am so pumped! All the talk about specs and clockspeed and bandwidth.. Look at this game! Results speak for themselves.

 

[antihelten]

And 504p upscaled to 4K would be gorgeous?

I think Zlatan is referring to the fact that 504p upscaled to 4K with simple nearest-neighbor interpolation would look like crap, whereas the presence of a built in processing unit for scaling would allow for other types of upscaling algorithms that look vastly better.

 

[Flapdrol1337]

What forms of upscaling are so amazing but demanding you'd make a dedicated chip for it?

 

[coercitiv]

What forms of upscaling are so amazing but demanding you'd make a dedicated chip for it?

What form of upscaling doesn't require a dedicatd chip?

 

[itsmydamnation]

I thought that nvidia GPU would much more powerful than xbox one at same Gflops, because nvidia is competing with AMD GPU that have higher Gflops if you look at PC GPU's

GCN is very good at compute, pascal still isn't quite equal to GCN 1.0 capabilities, thats why Hawaii still does very well, as workloads have shifted more and more to compute it gets to stretch its legs. Prior to Polaris NV had a big front end advantage now they mainly have a clock rate/power advantage.

The other thing is the consoles can use all of GCN's features not just the ones compatible with PC version of DX.

 

[Flapdrol1337]

What form of upscaling doesn't require a dedicatd chip?

The kind games do if they have a rendering resolution slider that allows you to keep the same output resolution?

 

[antihelten]

The kind games do if they have a rendering resolution slider that allows you to keep the same output resolution?

I'm not entirely sure what you trying to say here, but I'm guessing that you are saying that you don't need a dedicated scaler chip if you simply render the frame at the final output resolution. This is of course true, but also completely defeats the purpose, since the entire point of rendering at 504p in the first place and then upscaling to 720p (in handheld mode) or 1080P/4K (in docked mode) is to improve performance.

 

[Flapdrol1337]

I'm not entirely sure what you trying to say here, but I'm guessing that you are saying that you don't need a dedicated scaler chip if you simply render the frame at the final output resolution.

You guess wrong. I'm saying a gpu can render at low resolution, then scale it and put a native resolution interface on, all without a dedicated "scaler" chip.

 

[antihelten]

You guess wrong. I'm saying a gpu can render at low resolution, then scale it and put a native resolution interface on, all without a dedicated "scaler" chip.

Sure it can do that, but without a dedicated integrated scaler, it would cost some non-zero amount of processing power to do so, potentially a significant amount when talking about some of the fancier upscaling algorithms.

 

[Azix]

now wondering if the Wii U version of zelda looks better than the video from switch. Possibly weaker than Wii U?