Ubisoft yeah probably. CDPR likely not given they're not supporting the platform at all from what we know.
Nintendo Switch Dev Kit Stats Leaked? Cortex A57, 4GB RAM, 32GB Storage, Multi-Touch.
- Thread starter Robert at Zeboyd Games
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Negotiator
Banned
I'm not worried. I don't buy Nintendo consoles to play 3rd party games, so my expectations are almost zero.
Finally, someone who makes a thoughtful post.
Everyone agrees that AMD processors in general (from Jaguar to FX) are weaker IPC-wise compared to Intel ones and that's why they're trying to compensate that with more cores. It's not a perfect solution, but if anything, it "forces" programmers to learn to write efficient, multi-threaded code.
As much as I'd want Zen CPUs in consoles, that ain't gonna happen until 2018 at least (according to AMD's semi-custom business).
So, imagine going from an 8-core Jaguar to an 8-core Zen on the PS5 (as long as it doesn't break PS4 BC)... programmers will be accustomed to multi-threading until then, so I expect a huge performance boost.
The same thing happened with the Cell... it was hard to program all SPUs simultaneously, but companies (like ND and DICE) that mastered them on the PS3 were also able to make the jump to GPGPU compute shaders easily this gen.
Console programming discipline is a good thing after all.
Last but not least, the GPU-centric design (allocating more transistors to the GPU than the CPU) is not exactly new:
https://forum.beyond3d.com/threads/transistor-count-in-current-and-nextgen-consoles.9750/
https://forum.beyond3d.com/threads/console-die-sizes.53343/
No one cried back then though, because always-on internet wasn't a commodity and social media were non-existent.
Not to mention that x86 "triggers" some people...
I think her source was talking about some specific scenario where the NS CPU had a somewhat notable advantage (maybe single core performances), but if it really has a 4 core A57 CPU (where at least part of the 4th core needs to run the OS) i don't believe it can perform better overall than the 6 jaguar cores in current gen consoles. Maybe blu can chime in with one of his benchmarks, but we still wouldn't know the actual clockspeed of the CPU.
Still, i don't think the CPU will be an issue at all. Hell, even the GPU is probably more of an issue than the CPU, but it's the unusually low amount of RAM that worries me (and no, i'm not talking about third party multiplatform games).
It is. That's a Sandy/Ivy Bridge i7, probably running at 1.6GHZ. A Skylake/Kaby Lake i7 is more than 2x Jaguar.
Like already discussed, it would make no sense for Nintendo to use A57 compared to A72, which have been around since last year iirc (and they've been even used in SOCs for midrange phones for a while now) and bring significant upgrades in terms of size, heat and power consumption. Which means that you can either use them to get the same performances as A57 at a lower power draw/heat while also taking less space, or you can use them to have better performances than A57 at the same power draw. Still, these rumors seem to point in the A57 direction for some reason, so here we are hoping that Nintendo and Nvidia didn't fuck up.
It would also be nice to have at least a couple of A35 cores to run the OS without touching the bigger cores for games, and it shouldn't really be an issue considering how cheap, small and power efficient they are. I wonder if they could use 2 clusters, one with 4 A72 and one with two A53 cores (to help the bigger cores with games, which would likely bring performances up to par or better than the Jaguar in PS4/X1) and two A35 (for the OS).
frankie_baby
Member
Perhaps wishfull thinking on my part but if it is just 4 cores I'd expect something better than a57
RavageDark
Member
All of this based on information from someone who said that the Switch wasn't going to be Nvidia-based at all.
NeOak
Member
lol
Übermatik;224987763 said:
OP lists a Jetson TX1 because it is the closest thing there is. We have no idea if they are using the TX1 for the final hardware. They could be using what was supposed to be the Tegra X2.
Consumer prices are price gouging. Difference between 16GB and 256GB is like $30 bucks in actual cost.
Please enlighten us with your source to say it won't get 3rd party support. Your ass doesn't qualify.
As for the quality of the game, most PS4/XBO games are less than 20GB, and the ones that are bigger ship stuff uncompressed because they can, not because it is needed.
You forget that Resident Evil 2, a 2 CD game, was put in a N64 64MB cart with increased quality textures and models, more content and all FMVs.
You're using semantics to "win" your argument and using whatever convenient metric you can to try to seem like you're right.
It's like the iPhone when it came out. Lost of people didn't call it a "smartphone" because it didn't have a bunch of shit and did things different.
We get it, you want the Switch to fail. That's quite clear from your ramblings that make people facepalm.
Dev Kit is a Jetson TX1. We don't know what the final will use. They could be using A72s for all we know.
Panajev2001a
GAF's Pleasant Genius
Completely agreed, I am not sure they could have designed something much better given the constraints they had (no R&D budget for a fully custom CPU co designed with AMD, power consumption, and being able not to bleed lots of money when launching at $399 and having plenty of supply at launch and in the following months).
Not only their 8 core solution is a lot easier and surprise free compared to the PPC cores they had before, but console games tend to have better multiforme utilisation (big studios have the budget to optimise and medium sized ones use middleware that is also well jobified/multi thread friendly) and thus banking on lower power/lower single thread throughput they gave more of the power budget to the GPU which is the trend I am quite sure the next consoles will take too.
Great gaming PC's may have very fast multi core i7 CPU's, but even counting an 8 core AVX-512 i7 (16 * 2 * 8 * 3 = 0.768 TFLOPS) you do not even get close to even a RX480 sitting at around 5.8 TFLOPS... let alone thinking about much pricier GPU's that can deliver now about 2x the performance of that entry level GPU.
Pokemaniac
Member
It may be expandable, but if it's only by microSD cards that's going to be a pretty significant limiting factor. Consumer microSD cards over 256GB don't even really exist at this point. 256 GB is not even enough to hold all the Wii U game that I own. While the technology will catch up eventually, starting off with a ceiling so low even compared to a system it is directly succeeding is not a great look for a device that bills itself as a console.
I don't think this is going to be a big problem in the first year unless the system gets a ton of games and people buy just about every one of them. I imagine that by the time we get to the point where the fridge is bursting at the seams, they'll have another save solution ready (i.e. HDD access). I could be wrong, but I doubt they'll leave folks out to dry in the long run.
lwilliams3
Member
Perhaps the Switch's existence will drive up interest in bigger cards. I suspect that the push for cards beyond 256GB may not be that big at this point.
Quite the opposite, the push for larger and faster cards has just been accelerating as media and recording needs grow. We've been getting jumps more frequently too, I bet we see 512GB consumer microSD cards start to trickle out within a year and we'll hit that 2TB ceiling within Switch's lifecycle.
JoshuaJSlone
Member
It's not a binary law of the universe that something either must be considered a "home console" or "mobile device".
Since Microsoft invented the console in 2001.Matt said:
This is not the GameCube, where it is eternally stuck with a certain disc capacity that's much lower than the competition. There should be no problem getting game cards of 64 GB or greater if anyone actually wants to release those games.EventHorizon said:
Robert at Zeboyd Games
Banned
The last 3 pages...
None of us shall sleep until NeoGAF decides whether the Switch is a console or handheld.
lwilliams3
Member
Yeah, I thought about that as I said it. SD cards has already gone a long way. I believe the Switch will help drive the sales of larger cards, though, since AAA gameing can be even more demanding in storage than HD movies.
NeOak
Member
The last 3 pages...
Some people just have to share their facepalm-inducing opinions based on "tales out of my ass" sources while the rest sleeps.
Pokemaniac
Member
I'm hopeful that there'll be a long term solution, but that doesn't mean I'm not probably going to end up having to spend more on Switch storage over it's life than 3DS or Wii U due to the need to upgrade it periodically and generally staying much more towards the higher end of what's available.
I think Nintendo are trying to have their cake and eat it too. "Hey this is a console first and foremost" while putting bugger all storage in it and having us have to likely go retail to buy more (Not to mention power level which is looking like it might be low for a home console). This is disingenuous IMO. They need to come out and say it's a handheld then expectations will be set accordingly. Or pack in 512GB SD.
You are forgetting patches and digital only/heavy gamers which are a growing portion of gamers it seems.
They would be failures if people expected noisy cars. If you are a primarily console gamer, I would bet you expect a decent amount of storage these days due to patches and digital downloads/
LordRaptor
Member
No, not at all - but it is still a minority of purchases at something like 30% in best case scenarios, and if we take attach rates for popular consoles as a median for 'average consumer' purchasing habits, we're talking about buying 10 games total, of which 3 will be digital.
So about 60GB if I'm being VERY generous. 180GB if they are DOOM sized. Neither of those are catered for with 32GB of internal storage, even 64 just manage it with little room for indy titles, saved games, OS etc.
Basically 32 or 64GB is for HH gamers with smaller titles. That then would be pretty good for them, with one small SD card to cover the rest. We will obviously have to wait and see as we don't know the size of Switch games yet, but we have to look at the current consoles and try and draw conclusions from that.
I'm very eager to know the actual specs of the machine, (I know that NateDrake said that what posted in the OP is a good guideline for what to expect, however I want to see what are the final ones), but the fact that both OsirisBlack (several months ago) and, now, Matt (quite repeatedly as well, recently) have stated that the vast majority of PS4/One games can technically be ported to Switch with enough ease (as said by Matt, features and gameplay should be the same, of course graphics will take a hit) is...reassuring. This is an important difference compared to what happened in the past two home generations for Nintendo, honestly.
LordRaptor
Member
Of course; its not a perfect solution, but nothing is.
Given the way populations follow a bellcurve though, the median distribution will cater to the majority of owners with whatever onboard storage and a cheap SD card.
The benefits of not having a disk drive at all are what should be weighed against that though; it's true that 'power users' are going to have to buy multiple SD cards, or 'fridge clean' more often (assuming a bulk storage solution is never offered).
It's an entirely different solution to what PS4 / X1 provides; its not a case of 'less storage therefore worse', its a case of 'no disk drive, what does that actually mean?'
TLZ
Banned
It's a handheld.... console... ish... thing.
Negotiator
Banned
And it has the controls of a home console... don't forget that. 3DS was severely restricted, otherwise we would have seen Splatoon on it.
I'd love to have a Vita model with full size, clickable analog sticks and full triggers. Instabuy.
Also, I hope Switch supports 5 GHz WiFi for flawless local MP play... 2.4 GHz will be problematic in crowded areas. And an Ethernet port for the dock (please no USB adaptors).
lwilliams3
Member
True. Matt's argument with that unreasonable poster gave out some good statements.
One of the most important difference is Nintendo's focus on modern engine support. That change was already happening when they announced Unity support for the n3DS.
Well, that's pratically what's the Switch is going to be other than the clickable sticks
And I do hope that the devs who are usually limiting themselves to handheld platforms will still find a space on the Switch that doesn't require them to push graphical envelope, which could demand a much bigger capital to produce games. It shouldn't be an issue.
Graphics Horse
Member
Well, that's pratically what's the Switch is going to be other than the clickable sticks
And I do hope that the devs who are usually limiting themselves to handheld platforms will still find a space on the Switch that doesn't require them to push graphical envelope, which could demand a much bigger capital to produce games. It shouldn't be an issue.
pretty sure it has click sticks going by the controls Zelda uses.
lwilliams3
Member
Well, that's pratically what's the Switch is going to be other than the clickable sticks
And I do hope that the devs who are usually limiting themselves to handheld platforms will still find a space on the Switch that doesn't require them to push graphical envelope, which could demand a much bigger capital to produce games. It shouldn't be an issue.
I assuming that, like Pokémon X/Y/Sun/Moon, a lot of handheld only games would hold up decently with a change of resolution and textures. Most companies already have higher-resolution assets that was scaled down on the 3DS.
The PS4 reserves so much RAM for social and non-gaming stuff, it is annoying.
As I have said several times, from a gamer's perspective I see it as primarily being about value. That is you look at the console, what it offers what you need and add up the total.
It seems to me that for enthusiast gamers like us, we need to be sure we are adding in the cost of storage to our purchase of we go with Switch. How much? It depends on factors like % of digital purchases you make vs physical, patches etc etc but even for 256GB you're adding another US$60, on what might be a 200-250 console. If you're a keen digital downloader then you might need 512+ which is going to set you back about US$150-200. That is utterly insane if the console costs you $200-250 in the first place. Nintendo I imagine could purchase those SD cards for a fraction of the cost and so they could offer people with passable storage (256-512GB) and pass savings on to them. Hereby making the purchase more attractive.
I don't expect free storage, I just expect a good amount of storage for a good price. For the games that Nintendo have completely lost (core, western AAA loving etc) Nintendo need to offer something they want. They typically want good performance, storage, fast OS and all that jazz on top of all the big titles. If the switch is anaemic in the storage department, much slower than XBO, sluggish in the OS like Wii U (I am guessing they won't make something as shit as that this time around) then what are people going to like about it?
And if you say "Western AAA is not what they are about" then i say "WTF was SkyRim doing in their promo video?" If Nintendo are saying publicly that this is a home console, and showing SkyRim they better well make sure they build a console for that audience. If they're bullshitting just like they did with Wii U then stop and say it's a new handheld and be done with it. Noone will care it's 32GB and has small games.
Laura Dale seems to think so. So, yeah, probably.
Although I agree with your assessment that being someone keen on digital will give you a hard time with the Switch, you are probably overestimating the impact this will have. The advantage the Switch will almos certainly have over the PS4 and Xbox One is that games do not need to be installed on the storage if you own the physical cartridge. In addition, the cards are of a small form factor that should make carrying them around not that much of a hazzle (losing them could happen, but maybe just store them in your same case as your Switch, and you will be less likely to). So, the physical media of the Switch has definite benefits over the physical media of other consoles. I think that will persuade more people to buy the physical cards and will make it less of an issue for them. Of course, not everyone will think so, since some people are all in on digital, but I do think the physical focus of the Switch, due to the way it is being handled with cards, will probably make physical more appealing. As a result of that, store space on the Switch does not need to be so large as on the PS4 or Xbox One. Where I believe I need 2 TB of storage on my PS4 to keep all my games instantly playable, I will not have to spend any storage space on games for the Switch, since they will be on the cards. There is a valid question concerning patches, so we will have to wait and see how much that will impact the storage space needed. Still, Patches, even with their current bloated sizes, will take a lot less space than your average game will, so storage needed should be less too. Therefore, I think the Switch does not need to match the storage space of the PS4 or Xbox One.
Also, I think people are reading way too much into Nintendo's statement that the Switch is a home console first and foremost. Of course they are going to say that, since the WiiU is dead but there is still mileage to be had from the 3DS, so positioning Switch as a successor to that platform will stifle growth for the 3DS. I think the trailer they showed (which is where most of the perception of the system, be it from first-hand watching or from reporting, comes from, rather than one comment from Nintendo to counter the idea that the 3DS is going to be replaced) clearly demonstrated that it is a hybrid, so latching on to Nintendo's statement too much is not a good idea, I think.
About the storage "issue" someone back posted how we could use multiple micro SD to store games and swap them when needed, a bit like if they were actual cartridges with more digital games stored on them...but do you think that's actually doable? i mean if i have a 128GB micro SD full of Switch games can i just remove it putting in another one and install other games and then switch them every time i want without problems? or that could mess up the OS or something?
manueldelalas
Time Traveler
You can do this on 3ds.
DeuceGamer
Member
The storage issue is a small concern, for a small subset of potential consumers and I think some are too focused on it. Developers will be able to decrease file sizes to some degree and no mandatory installs will significantly reduce the amount of space required compared to X1/PS4.
The majority of consumers still buy solely physical (where available) or a combination of mostly Physical and some Digital. Which means the majority of potential consumers will be fine with the storage included withSwitch and/or possibly a small SD Card at some point in the future.
Those going all/mostly digital will make up a relatively low number of the Switch's install base, based on what we know about digital sales. Nintendo doesn't want to increase the cost of the machine for everyone out of the gate when a lot will not need any additional storage at all and the vast majority won't need any additional storage until some time in the future. Those that may need additional storage in the future will probably be just fine by adding an SD Card.
The majority of consumers still buy solely physical (where available) or a combination of mostly Physical and some Digital. Which means the majority of potential consumers will be fine with the storage included withSwitch and/or possibly a small SD Card at some point in the future.
Those going all/mostly digital will make up a relatively low number of the Switch's install base, based on what we know about digital sales. Nintendo doesn't want to increase the cost of the machine for everyone out of the gate when a lot will not need any additional storage at all and the vast majority won't need any additional storage until some time in the future. Those that may need additional storage in the future will probably be just fine by adding an SD Card.
This. Save money and backup the games on your PC which you can do already with the 3DS/N3DS. No need to buy multiple SD cards for storage.
Game data on the cards are timestamped though. If somehow you create a file newer than your backup your backup won't work anymore.
Are you referring to games like Animal Crossing where you can lose your save file? Or does this happen to every game on the 3DS?
Edit: I am referring to the instance where you lost save data on your Switch and get the backup data from your PC.
LordRaptor
Member
Well, again, ultimately it comes down to a consumer decision not a manufacturing one.
I can easily envisage someone who travels frequently having multiple SD cards.
For someone who is primarily using the Switch as a home console, I can envisage using the PC as a bulk storage option, or - better yet - someone (if not Nintendo themselves) providing an app that will allow you to dock a USB HDD to provide bulk storage functionalty without the PC middleman step as an easy win QOL improvement for 'power' users.
In fact, if Nintendo don't ever provide such an pp themselves, and no third party ever provides such an app, I would imagine someone like Datel or Madcatz would provide a hardware solution with accompanying app themselves, as it would be an obvious market gap (like when Datel provided a workaround for the 360s proprietary storage options)
It's for all instances of save data on the 3DS. Even copying and overwriting the same data but with a different timestamp invalidates the older data.
They even warn against using multiple SD cards on their website. It's technically possible, but you don't want to lose all your save data of Animal Crossing just because it went wrong at one specific moment.
LordRaptor
Member
If the game itself is on an SD card you shouldn't ever encounter that problem though; the issue is with SD Card saves and cartridge games.
Is it? I though it was to protect from tampering with backups, so that you can only use your latest save data. A cartridge game shouldn't be a problem, since it always asks for the data on the card, but you are correct in that you can never use the data on the SD card.
It's just basic extrapolation. Growth in terms of capacity/$ for solid-state memory (whether RAM, NAND, etc) tends to be linear w.r.t. the base 2 logarithm of the capacity. Or, to put it more simply, it tends to double every X amount of time, for some X. ASH and RE:R are the first uses of the largest capacities used for both DS and 3DS cards respectively, so seem a reasonable basis to judge the largest capacity which would be financially feasible at any given point in time. Put in graph form, you get this:
Obviously one shouldn't infer too much from two data points, so I'm actually being rather conservative about my assumptions; a simple reading of the trend line would actually suggest that 256GB cards would be feasible in 2017. I'm also ignoring the fact that both of those games included on-card flash memory for save games, which I expect Switch game cards to do without.
In any case, regardless of the precise maximum capacity which will be available, over a span of just over four years from the DS to the 3DS maximum game card sizes increased by 32 times. There's no reason to believe that progress somehow ground to a halt in the five years since then.
Skittzo0413
Member
It's just basic extrapolation. Growth in terms of capacity/$ for solid-state memory (whether RAM, NAND, etc) tends to be linear w.r.t. the base 2 logarithm of the capacity. Or, to put it more simply, it tends to double every X amount of time, for some X. ASH and RE:R are the first uses of the largest capacities used for both DS and 3DS cards respectively, so seem a reasonable basis to judge the largest capacity which would be financially feasible at any given point in time. Put in graph form, you get this:
Obviously one shouldn't infer too much from two data points, so I'm actually being rather conservative about my assumptions; a simple reading of the trend line would actually suggest that 256GB cards would be feasible in 2017. I'm also ignoring the fact that both of those games included on-card flash memory for save games, which I expect Switch game cards to do without.
In any case, regardless of the precise maximum capacity which will be available, over a span of just over four years from the DS to the 3DS maximum game card sizes increased by 32 times. There's no reason to believe that progress somehow ground to a halt in the five years since then.
Thanks, that's very interesting info. So even taking the graph VERY conservatively, we can still expect the largest Switch game cards at launch to hold more data than a dual layer blu-ray disc for typical game prices ($40-$60).
That's something Nintendo should actually spend time talking about and comparing. It could be a nice selling point, especially for people who are still under the assumption that cards/cartridges are inferior to optical media (which in reality is only true in price now, and that advantage appears to be pretty negligible).
I don't actually necessarily expect to see launch games go above 32GB, not because larger capacities wouldn't be available, but rather because so few games actually need that kind of capacity (and just because some games use over 32GB on other platforms doesn't mean they actually need that capacity).
The largest DS cards are 512MB fyi, and the first one was Ni No Kuni in 2010 I believe.It's just basic extrapolation. Growth in terms of capacity/$ for solid-state memory (whether RAM, NAND, etc) tends to be linear w.r.t. the base 2 logarithm of the capacity. Or, to put it more simply, it tends to double every X amount of time, for some X. ASH and RE:R are the first uses of the largest capacities used for both DS and 3DS cards respectively, so seem a reasonable basis to judge the largest capacity which would be financially feasible at any given point in time. Put in graph form, you get this:
Obviously one shouldn't infer too much from two data points, so I'm actually being rather conservative about my assumptions; a simple reading of the trend line would actually suggest that 256GB cards would be feasible in 2017. I'm also ignoring the fact that both of those games included on-card flash memory for save games, which I expect Switch game cards to do without.
In any case, regardless of the precise maximum capacity which will be available, over a span of just over four years from the DS to the 3DS maximum game card sizes increased by 32 times. There's no reason to believe that progress somehow ground to a halt in the five years since then.
Pokemaniac
Member
The 3DS has an opt-in system where games can store data on the system NAND which allows them to tell if you're loading a stale version of the save. In practice it is only used by Smash Bros, Animal Crossing, and a bunch of games with "Pokemon" in the title.
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