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[orioto]

it... really doesn't make a lot of sense to think Nintendo would pay extra to specifically make something worse than they would have not paying any extra

Paying extra even if it's just a clock down version ? They can do that via software right ? Didn't we see that for many consoles already ?

The point would be to fit their energy efficiency goal i guess. We've heard it would have a bad battery life already. So what if they underclock it so that it's equivalent to 3ds battery life for example.

And more than that, to Nintendo, having WiiU level of g raphics in your hands is impressive enough for everyone. I can tell already, i know their minds. WiiU was a big step up for them, production value wise. And it's a home console.

having the exact same ground breaking zelda in your hands is amazing enough for them. And Nintendo never ever overkills with the power. They do what's good enough.


I'm not saying weaker than WiiU guys. I'm saying no boost. Just the WiiU or marginally better. I hope i'm wrong of course.

The rumored bad battery life of the Switch is the same bad battery life the launch 3DS had. It's already at 3DS battery life based on that rumor.

And does the power efficiency of the rumored tegra matches that ?

 

[Nostremitus]

Paying extra even if it's just a clock down version ?

The point would be to fit their energy efficiency goal i guess. We've heard it would have a bad battery life already. So what if they underclock it so that it's equivalent to 3ds battery life for example.

And more than that, to Nintendo, having WiiU level of g raphics in your hands is impressive enough for everyone. I can tell already, i know their minds. WiiU was a big step up for them, production value wise. And it's a home console.

having the exact same ground breaking zelda in your hands is amazing enough for them. And Nintendo never ever overkills with the power. They do what's good enough.

The rumored bad battery life of the Switch is the same bad battery life the launch 3DS had. It's already at 3DS battery life based on that rumor.

 

[Panajev2001a]

So are we talking Turbo Vita? Double the FLOPS but still weaker than Wii U?

No, it would le be faster than Wii U IMHO.

 

[Candescence]

I know expectations are low, but let's consider that the Tegra X1 by itself is a fairly beefy chip that easily kills the Wii U on its own, and a custom Pascal Tegra would be even more powerful than that.

The Switch is absolutely going to be a beefy as fuck handheld that can supposedly play Xbone/PS4 games with not much effort to port, even if the graphics fidelity isn't quite as high as those consoles. Let's not be too pessimistic, here, I don't even think the "it's gonna be weak because lol Nintendo" reasoning is gonna apply anymore.

 

[lordmrw]

Paying extra even if it's just a clock down version ? They can do that via software right ? Didn't we see that for many consoles already ?

The point would be to fit their energy efficiency goal i guess. We've heard it would have a bad battery life already. So what if they underclock it so that it's equivalent to 3ds battery life for example.

And more than that, to Nintendo, having WiiU level of g raphics in your hands is impressive enough for everyone. I can tell already, i know their minds. WiiU was a big step up for them, production value wise. And it's a home console.

having the exact same ground breaking zelda in your hands is amazing enough for them. And Nintendo never ever overkills with the power. They do what's good enough.


I'm not saying weaker than WiiU guys. I'm saying no boost. Just the WiiU or marginally better. I hope i'm wrong of course.




And does the power efficiency of the rumored tegra matches that ?

not for nothing but you are trying way too hard to justify this being a portable Wiiu. From everything we have heard its not. Let it go.

 

[MuchoMalo]

Paying extra even if it's just a clock down version ? They can do that via software right ? Didn't we see that for many consoles already ?

The point would be to fit their energy efficiency goal i guess. We've heard it would have a bad battery life already. So what if they underclock it so that it's equivalent to 3ds battery life for example.

And more than that, to Nintendo, having WiiU level of g raphics in your hands is impressive enough for everyone. I can tell already, i know their minds. WiiU was a big step up for them, production value wise. And it's a home console.

having the exact same ground breaking zelda in your hands is amazing enough for them. And Nintendo never ever overkills with the power. They do what's good enough.


I'm not saying weaker than WiiU guys. I'm saying no boost. Just the WiiU or marginally better. I hope i'm wrong of course.

We already know for a fact that it's a custom chip and not a downclocked X1, so that's a moot point. As for it just being on-par with Wii U, that would mean that the dev kits are around 3x as powerful as the actual unit. Why would that ever happen? Again, I understand the pessimism but it really isn't realistic given what we know. It'll be a PS4 -> PS4 Pro kind of jump at minimum. (Technically more due to a much bigger RAM jump and newer architecture.)

 

[orioto]

not for nothing but you are trying way too hard to justify this being a portable Wiiu. From everything we have heard its not. Let it go.

Nintendo is trying even harder than me to show that it seems lol

 

[Panajev2001a]

We already know for a fact that it's a custom chip and not a downclocked X1, so that's a moot point. As for it just being on-par with Wii U, that would mean that the dev kits are around 3x as powerful as the actual unit. Why would that ever happen? Again, I understand the pessimism but it really isn't realistic given what we know. It'll be a PS4 -> PS4 Pro kind of jump at minimum. (Technically more due to a much bigger RAM jump and newer architecture.)

It could be a lot faster than a Wii U, but look at even that kind of giant smart battery... c'mon the one they protected inside a shell and connected a screen to it... ah yeah, the iPad (say even the Pro version). Take a game whose graphics complexity and frame rate is close to Wii U or slightly above it (good luck finding many comparable ones ) and see how long does it last on battery (hint: not a lot)... now think at the Switch being a hybrid handheld and console in a box and quite likely not having as big of a battery (and Apple packs good batteries in there too)... now couple it to the fact that's Apple can command much higher MSRP's than Nintendo can and that Nintendo does not want to lose money at launch...

Getting something that regularly pushes Wii U 1.25-1.5 graphics even in handheld mode for more than 3.5-4.5 hours at a time powering a decent screen (and does not cost more than $299) is no small engineering feat. It would be something to be extremely be happy about!

 

[Retrobox]

I really have to wonder what the mainstream expects of the Switch.
I've read some comments online of people expecting a $400 price tag and I've also read people saying there's just no way the Switch could conceivably be stronger than Wii U. It's just a handheld right! So a portable Wii U at best, clearly.

I don't think these thoughts represent the mainstream, but it would be funny since Nintendo would just be handed a free win with their January event. Beating these expectations is too easy. Either way, some people are going to be quite shocked at Nintendo's offering, I would imagine. That's going to be fun to witness.

 

[orioto]

It could be a lot faster than a Wii U, but look at even that kind of giant smart battery... c'mon the one they protected inside a shell and connected a screen to it... ah yeah, the iPad (say even the Pro version). Take a game whose graphics complexity and frame rate is close to Wii U or slightly above it (good luck finding many comparable ones ) and see how long does it last on battery (hint: not a lot)... now think at the Switch being a hybrid handheld and console in a box and quite likely not having as big of a battery (and Apple packs good batteries in there too)... now couple it to the fact that's Apple can command much higher MSRP's than Nintendo can and that Nintendo does not want to lose money at launch...

Getting something that regularly pushes Wii U 1.25-1.5 graphics even in handheld mode for more than 3.5-4.5 hours at a time powering a decent screen (and does not cost more than $299) is no small engineering feat. It would be something to be extremely be happy about!

Right ?

Also nobody never talks about the fact that there is 3 batteries in the switch. Both joycon needs a battery to. Nobody is never taking into account the many constraints induced by the whole concept.

i'm just saying this is a possibility, that it's nothing more than a WiiU. Some people are in denial when they're all "SHUT UP YOU FOOL IT'S NOT POSSIBLE, WE KNOW IT! WE KNOW EVERYTHING!!".

 

[Panajev2001a]

Right ?

Also nobody never talks about the fact that there is 3 batteries in the switch. Both joycon needs a battery to. Nobody is never taking into account the many constraints induced by the whole concept.

i'm just saying this is a possibility, that it's nothing more than a WiiU. Some people are in denial when they're all "SHUT UP YOU FOOL IT'S NOT POSSIBLE, WE KNOW IT! WE KNOW EVERYTHING!!".

I agree, it may be possible that the console is indeed faster than a Wii U... say 1.25-1.5x faster (I do expect better and more feature rich shader processors, TMU's, and ROP's as Wii U custom VLIW design is a few generations old now), but even a Wii U in a box with a price tag of $249 and a battery life under full load of 5+ hours would be a big technical achievement.

 

[PdotMichael]

Uhhhhhh

Old Tegra chip in the 350 something Gflops ballpark for 200 dollar.

Yo.

 

[test_account]

It's a semi-custom AMD APU with atypically fast shared RAM and an extra bus. It surely was the fastest APU for some time. How 'supercharged' a PC that was? As supercharged as a semi-custom APU circa 2012 would be - IOW quite a few PCs of its time outperformed it handily. The entire issue, as you note, stemmed from the notion that 'supercharged PC' implies 'a better PC', and that's how plenty a people understood it - it was a non-accidental marketing spin. Whereas in reality it was a supercharged mid-level laptop APU, with all implications from that.

True, but i think that is more on those who interpreted it that way. As some others already pointed out, i dont think that Cerny said "super charged PC", but "super charged PC architecture" instead. Thats what he said that the PS4 announcement back in 2012 at least (starts at ~15:30 in case the timestamp in the link doesnt work).

"Super charged" is a selling phrase, i completely argee with that, but Cerny was more specific in what he was talking about. He didnt just throw out a phrase saying that the PS4 was like a supercharged PC and nothing more. He was talking about the advantage in the architecture itself, not in the share power being possible compared to a PC (which can fluxuate big time when it comes to hardware power, we get PCs from like $250 to $5000).

I can see why people interpreted it differently, fair enough. "Super charged" might make it sound more powerful, personally i think that as well, and i also think that it was used for marketing purposes. But if the PS4 architecture has or had some advatange over the typical home PC architecture, it wasnt just like a "meaningless" marketing spin at least.

 

[Panajev2001a]

Old Tegra chip in the 350 something Gflops ballpark for 200 dollar.

Yo.

Battery life when using all those GFLOPS in actual games ?

 

[Candescence]

Right ?

Also nobody never talks about the fact that there is 3 batteries in the switch. Both joycon needs a battery to. Nobody is never taking into account the many constraints induced by the whole concept.

i'm just saying this is a possibility, that it's nothing more than a WiiU. Some people are in denial when they're all "SHUT UP YOU FOOL IT'S NOT POSSIBLE, WE KNOW IT! WE KNOW EVERYTHING!!".

Firstly, the joy-cons will likely have small power draws individually and be essentially both recharging and only using the 'main' battery when connected to the Switch itself. I can't imagine the joy-cons needing or using large batteries.

Secondly, that possibility is indeed possible... But it's also extremely unlikely from what we actually know about the Switch itself. Hell, borderline impossible if the rumor about the devkits using rather overclocked X1s is true.

 

[PdotMichael]

Right ?

Also nobody never talks about the fact that there is 3 batteries in the switch. Both joycon needs a battery to. Nobody is never taking into account the many constraints induced by the whole concept.

i'm just saying this is a possibility, that it's nothing more than a WiiU. Some people are in denial when they're all "SHUT UP YOU FOOL IT'S NOT POSSIBLE, WE KNOW IT! WE KNOW EVERYTHING!!".

The typical Nintendo hardware circle.

The WiiU was once a 1tf machine on GAF.

 

[Principate]

The typical Nintendo hardware circle.

The WiiU was once a 1tf machine on GAF.

TBF we have a base line here the Nvidia device these specs are based off is already out portable and much stronger the Wii u. So a bit of realism seems in order. While Nintendo may choose to purposefully gimp the device for wgatecer reasln it's hardly even an odd assumption

 

[orioto]

The typical Nintendo hardware circle.

The WiiU was once a 1tf machine on GAF.

And the NX 4+ TF!

 

[Principate]

The Wii U is a 180 ish gflop device so even that shield device posted before is sizeable stronger than it

 

[Thunder Monkey]

The typical Nintendo hardware circle.

The WiiU was once a 1tf machine on GAF.

I thought it was going to be 640gflop system. I thought Nintendo was going to try to meet some kind of modern standard. I realized that esoteric hardware veering toward outdated, could be an anchor that limited how quickly pricing could drop. I discounted the Nintendo factor.

With Switch... anything around 350gflops would be gravy.

That's... well... still a very powerful handheld.

 

[Panajev2001a]

The Wii U is a 180 ish gflop device so even that shield device posted before is sizeable stronger than it

It is not about strength, it is about heat, battery life, and cost. Would any level of power satisfy you if the battery life was less than 3 hours when pushing peak graphics and it cost $399?

 

[Principate]

It is not about strength, it is about heat, battery life, and cost. Would any level of power satisfy you if the battery life was less than 3 hours when pushing peak graphics and it cost $399?

Shield portable devices sold right now and more power than the Wii U. This is a fact

So the whole portability arguement makes little sense. If it does end up only as powerful as the Wii U it won't be because of that

 

[Thunder Monkey]

It is not about strength, it is about heat, battery life, and cost. Would any level of power satisfy you if the battery life was less than 3 hours when pushing peak graphics and it cost $399?

I owned a Game Gear!

It spent almost all of it's time attached to a power outlet after the first $50 in AA batteries and my mother saying "Nope... not buying more for a while."

I'd prefer Switch to have 30 minute battery life and 1tflop powah!

Personally... it'll probably be a console to me... until friends come over, then it'll be a handheld.

I'm just talking with no real point right now though.

 

[Skittzo0413]

The typical Nintendo hardware circle.

The WiiU was once a 1tf machine on GAF.

And the Switch is being speculated to be 768GFlops max...

I think we have tempered our expectations fairly well.



This pessimism is very odd. What happened recently to make people wonder if it's not at Wii U levels? Since July we've been told the devkits are => standard TX1s, which are far, far ahead of the Wii U themselves.

Let's all be reasonable please. Don't forget Matt has explicitly said it's more powerful than a Wii U.

 

[Interfectum]

It is not about strength, it is about heat, battery life, and cost. Would any level of power satisfy you if the battery life was less than 3 hours when pushing peak graphics and it cost $399?

You are aware the Nvidia Shield exists, right?

 

[Polygonal_Sprite]

Yeah, as long as it can run Zelda at 720p and 60fps I will extremely satisfied.

I would personally prefer a boost to 1080p resolution with anti aliasing, anisotropic filtering and improved textures at a more consistent 30fps over the same WiiU visuals at 60fps but it would be nice if Nintendo offered the option like some other developers are now doing.

 

[Gotdatmoney]

Right ?

Also nobody never talks about the fact that there is 3 batteries in the switch. Both joycon needs a battery to. Nobody is never taking into account the many constraints induced by the whole concept.

i'm just saying this is a possibility, that it's nothing more than a WiiU. Some people are in denial when they're all "SHUT UP YOU FOOL IT'S NOT POSSIBLE, WE KNOW IT! WE KNOW EVERYTHING!!".

I mean the level of pessimism you are show is just unfounded. I remember reading the WiiU tech spec threads and the stuff was an insane shit show. So far this has been basically tempered based off of info. Since the system is using hardware based off of existing product lines it gives us a relatively fair comparison. Like, if they wanted the system to be a WiiU, why would they overdo it with an actively cooled Tegra X1 in the dev kits?

What sense does that make? There are chips you can get cheaper than that in that power envelope if they wanted that. Why pay all this extra money and then throttle the fuck outta your system?

I am not saying we know everything, I am saying as someone who barely knows anything about hardware, it seems insane that nintendo would do all this shit just for a portable WiiU. Why?

 

[orioto]

I mean the level of pessimism you are show is just unfounded. I remember reading the WiiU tech spec threads and the stuff was an insane shit show. So far this has been basically tempered based off of info. Since the system is using hardware based off of existing product lines it gives us a relatively fair comparison. Like, if they wanted the system to be a WiiU, why would they overdo it with an actively cooled Tegra X1 in the dev kits?

What sense does that make? There are chips you can get cheaper than that in that power envelope if they wanted that. Why pay all this extra money and then throttle the fuck outta your system?

I am not saying we know everything, I am saying as someone who barely knows anything about hardware, it seems insane that nintendo would do all this shit just for a portable WiiU. Why?

And yet some say that and some say a WiiU portable with 2 detachable pads with a 3,5+ hours battery life is already a pretty good tech achievement.

And everyone who quote me or someone else and argue that there are comparable product for cheaper and more powerful, they always avoid the battery life question.. always.

I even asked directly and nobody answered.
Those comparable form factor devices with same rumored proc, how is there battery life when playing a 3d game ?

 

[Gotdatmoney]

And yet some say that and some say a WiiU portable with 2 detachable pads with a 3,5+ hours battery life is already a pretty good tech achievement.

And that's fair, who is arguing differently?

And everyone who quote me or someone else and argue that there are comparable product for cheaper and more powerful, they always avoid the battery life question.. always.

Because it's a pointless question Do you think considerably weaker hardware is some how going to draw more power than an actively cooled TX1? Do you think any engineering team would let that happen?

I even asked directly and nobody answered.
Those comparable form factor devices with same rumored proc, how is there battery life when playing a 3d game ?

I'm not sure what you are asking here. Do you mean, what is the battery life on a shield playing a 3D game? Or do you mean what is the battery life on a cheaper more WiiU like chip set?


Like I don't really get what the basis of your point is. The 3DS runs for like 3-5 hours (I have never gotten 5 hours out of my N3DS personally). he Switch runs for speculated 3 hours. Is this suddenly going to be a huge issue or am I just missing something with all this battery life talk? They will certainly avoid going full power in handheld mode so is your argument just that the handheld experience will be around WiiU?

 

[Panajev2001a]

I owned a Game Gear!

It spent almost all of it's time attached to a power outlet after the first $50 in AA batteries and my mother saying "Nope... not buying more for a while."

I'd prefer Switch to have 30 minute battery life and 1tflop powah!

Personally... it'll probably be a console to me... until friends come over, then it'll be a handheld.

I'm just talking with no real point right now though.

I super liked my Game Gear and the TV add on .

 

[MuchoMalo]

The typical Nintendo hardware circle.

The WiiU was once a 1tf machine on GAF.

The problem with you guys is that, whatever Nintendo fans agree is likely, you consider too much. If we were all sure that it would be on-par with Wii U, you'd be saying that it's probably closer to Vita.

And yet some say that and some say a WiiU portable with 2 detachable pads with a 3,5+ hours battery life is already a pretty good tech achievement.

And everyone who quote me or someone else and argue that there are comparable product for cheaper and more powerful, they always avoid the battery life question.. always.

I even asked directly and nobody answered.
Those comparable form factor devices with same rumored proc, how is there battery life when playing a 3d game ?

The rumors already indicate very poor battery life, so I don't see much point in your question about it theoretically offering 1.5-2x what's rumored. You're also using devices with massive profit margins and screens that are much larger, more expensive, and more power-hungry than what we're looking at with Switch.

 

[Sheroking]

Nobody thought the Wii U was a "1+ TF console" this late in the game.

Devkits are out. We have a reasonable idea of the components, if not a complete picture. This isn't like the naked speculation of the early WUSTs or any NX thread in 2015.

 

[Easy_D]

Nobody thought the Wii U was a "1+ TF console" this late in the game.

Devkits are out. We have a reasonable idea of the components, if not a complete picture. This isn't like the naked speculation of the early WUSTs or any NX thread in 2015.

Yeah we have a pretty firmly established baseline that still puts it at a noticable leap from Wii U in terms of power. In a portable. Don't know why some wanna be negative nancies

 

[orioto]

And that's fair, who is arguing differently?


Because it's a pointless question Do you think considerably weaker hardware is some how going to draw more power than an actively cooled TX1? Do you think any engineering team would let that happen?


I'm not sure what you are asking here. Do you mean, what is the battery life on a shield playing a 3D game? Or do you mean what is the battery life on a cheaper more WiiU like chip set?

Who's arguing ?Well everyone who's saying it's damn impossible that the Switch is "just" WiiU power and is at minimum 2 or 3 times more powerful.

I don't get your second point. And if the kit is actively cooled, and bigger than the real thing.. wouldn't that mean they can't have the active cooling in the Switch and it has to run slower ? Tell me if i'm wrong.

And yeah i'm asking what is the battery life of a maxed out shield, annnd with what battery size.

 

[PdotMichael]

The problem with you guys is that, whatever Nintendo fans agree is likely, you consider too much. If we were all sure that it would be on-par with Wii U, you'd be saying that it's probably closer to Vita.

You will not find a post by me claiming the Switch will be so powerful as the WiiU or Vita, so that's all rather pointless.

But when I talked about the problems of getting fast enough ram I onlyl get "It's Nintendo" and "there are options!" posts.

 

[lwilliams3]

You know, the wording of many sources implies that the system has some considerable power despite its form factor:

ShockingAlberto: around XB1 power

Emily Rodgers: beyond the Wii U, but will not reach XB1 raw power

Laura: Vouches for Emily

NateDrake: Around 3x-4x the Wii U, the full power TX1 is a good estimate.

Matt: Not weaker than Wii U, not as "CPU limited" as the XB1/PS4, porting will not be a portable issue.

OB: Nintendo will be fine. Porting from the other consoles will not be a technical issue.

LCGeek: CPU stronger than XB1/PS4.

Did I miss anyone major?

Compare this to what was said about the Wii U from lherre, Akram, Ideaman, the devs, Epic, insider reports, and etc prior to the release. There was a very big "lower your expectations" flag coming from them (Ideaman tried to sugarcoat it, but it was obvious). I think we can worry a little less about the power of the Switch.

 

[Turrican3]

it... really doesn't make a lot of sense to think Nintendo would pay extra to specifically make something worse than they would have not paying any extra

I am not even remotely trying to suggest they did something like that BUT... let's not forget how they went batshit crazy with the WiiU from an engineering perspective, with both the CPU and the GPU.

 

[Easy_D]

You know, the wording of many sources implies that the system has some considerable power despite its form factor:

ShockingAlberto: around XB1 power

Emily Rodgers: beyond the Wii U, but will not reach XB1 raw power

Laura: Vouches for Emily

NateDrake: Around 3x-4x the Wii U, the full power TX1 is a good estimate.

Matt: Not weaker than Wii U, not as "CPU limited" as the XB1/PS4, porting will not be a portable issue.

OB: Nintendo will be fine. Porting from the other consoles will not be a technical issue.

LCGeek: CPU stronger than XB1/PS4.

Did I miss anyone major?

Compare this to what was said about the Wii U from lherre, Akram, Ideaman, the devs, Epic, insider reports, and etc prior to the release. There was a very big "lower your expectations" flag coming from them (Ideaman tried to sugarcoat it, but it was obvious). I think we can worry a little less about the power of the Switch.

Nvidia "porting PS4, Xbox One, and PC games to Nintendo Switch is simple"

I assume Matt is being vague on purpose, either he means the CPU is powerful enough to never get in the way of the GPU, or he's straight up saying it has more oomph than the Jaguar cores. And while at first it might sound strange to say a portable has a faster CPU than a console, we must remind ourselves that the Jaguar cores are

A) Piss-weak
B) Tablet oriented

 

[PdotMichael]

You know, the wording of many sources implies that the system has some considerable power despite its form factor:

ShockingAlberto: around XB1 power

Emily Rodgers: beyond the Wii U, but will not reach XB1 raw power

Laura: Vouches for Emily

NateDrake: Around 3x-4x the Wii U, the full power TX1 is a good estimate.

Matt: Not weaker than Wii U, not as "CPU limited" as the XB1/PS4, porting will not be a portable issue.

OB: Nintendo will be fine. Porting from the other consoles will not be a technical issue.

LCGeek: CPU stronger than XB1/PS4.

Did I miss anyone major?

Compare this to what was said about the Wii U from lherre, Akram, Ideaman, the devs, Epic, insider reports, and etc prior to the release. There was a very big "lower your expectations" flag coming from them (Ideaman tried to sugarcoat it, but it was obvious). I think we can worry a little less about the power of the Switch.

What kind of comments do we have from devs by the way?

 

[Polygonal_Sprite]

not for nothing but you are trying way too hard to justify this being a portable Wiiu. From everything we have heard its not. Let it go.

I take your point but looking at what we have to go on - MK8, Splatoon and the new 3D Mario footage, do they look like they're a quantum leap over the WiiU versions ?

I suppose there is also the chance that this could very well be the first of many devices in the future so the reason Nintendo went with a custom, brand new architecture is maybe for the future, much more powerful devices to give them lots of options with regards to cores, clocks etc.

Honestly, a console which runs better looking WiiU games on the go with good battery life will be a big selling point to a lot of people, esp those who will be upgrading their 3DS to Switch and using it mostly as a handheld device.

They can always release a much more powerful dedicated standalone console sometime in 2019 based on the Switch architecture.

 

[th3sicknness]

I think people need to taper expectations to between Wii U and X1 at best. People are going to be severely disappointed otherwise. Even if the CPU is stronger than the ps4 / x1 the GPU isnt going to eclipse what is in those systems and the chips wont be nearly clocked as high. So it seems like a fairly moot point when put into perspective.

 

[Gotdatmoney]

Who's arguing ?Well everyone who's saying it's damn impossible that the Switch is "just" WiiU power and is at minimum 2 or 3 times more powerful.

Well there is a difference between getting WiiU level hardware into a system and producing good games and arguing that hardware way more powerful will perform at that level because Nintendo

I don't get your second point. And if the kit is actively cooled, and bigger than the real thing.. wouldn't that mean they can't have the active cooling in the Switch and it has to run slower ? Tell me if i'm wrong.

The idea that is being floated around is it's activelly cooled because it's overclocked. Otherwise they would just clock the chip lower right from the outset wouldn't they?

And yeah i'm asking what is the battery life of a maxed out shield, annnd with what battery size.

I've read it's around 3 hours.

 

[Skittzo0413]

You will not find a post by me claiming the Switch will be so powerful as the WiiU or Vita, so that's all rather pointless.

But when I talked about the problems of getting fast enough ram I onlyl get "It's Nintendo" and "there are options!" posts.

The RAM in the OP is only for a jetson TX1, which is not necessarily the devkit being used, and confirmed to not be the final SoC (by Nvidia themselves). Doubling the bus (which is done in the Pascal based Parker chip) would double the RAM bandwidth, and using Nvidias tile based rendering would effectively increase that bandwidth further close to XB1 levels, or so some people have said. We also have no idea what other custom features Nintendo has requested, but their recent consoles have always had very elaborate and effective RAM solutions, so there is no reason to think they'd limit their console in this way.

You know, the wording of many sources implies that the system has some considerable power despite its form factor:

ShockingAlberto: around XB1 power

Emily Rodgers: beyond the Wii U, but will not reach XB1 raw power

Laura: Vouches for Emily

NateDrake: Around 3x-4x the Wii U, the full power TX1 is a good estimate.

Matt: Not weaker than Wii U, not as "CPU limited" as the XB1/PS4, porting will not be a portable issue.

OB: Nintendo will be fine. Porting from the other consoles will not be a technical issue.

LCGeek: CPU stronger than XB1/PS4.

Did I miss anyone major?

Compare this to what was said about the Wii U from lherre, Akram, Ideaman, the devs, Epic, insider reports, and etc prior to the release. There was a very big "lower your expectations" flag coming from them (Ideaman tried to sugarcoat it, but it was obvious). I think we can worry a little less about the power of the Switch.

Great list, this really does paint quite a picture. The consensus as of a few months ago has been 512-768GFlops too, which fits more or less all of those statements, at least for the GPU.

I take your point but looking at what we have to go on - MK8, Splatoon and the new 3D Mario footage, do they look like they're a quantum leap over the WiiU versions ?

I suppose there is also the chance that this could very well be the first of many devices in the future so the reason Nintendo went with a custom, brand new architecture is maybe for the future, much more powerful devices to give them lots of options with regards to cores, clocks etc.

Honestly, a console which runs better looking WiiU games on the go with good battery life will be a big selling point to a lot of people, esp those who will be upgrading their 3DS to Switch and using it mostly as a handheld device.

They can always release a much more powerful dedicated standalone console sometime in 2019 based on the Switch architecture.

It's highly unlikely that anything from the Switch trailer was running on Switch hardware. Anyway, the Mario footage itself looks FAR better than anything we've seen on the Wii U. The reflectivity on the bullet bill is the easiest improvement we can see.

But let's not judge any footage until we've actually seen it running on Switch hardware. Otherwise we're making assumptions based very likely on development PC footage.

 

[Polygonal_Sprite]

I think people need to taper expectations to between Wii U and X1 at best. People are going to be severely disappointed otherwise. Even if the CPU is stronger than the ps4 / x1 the GPU isnt going to eclipse what is in those systems and the chips wont be nearly clocked as high. So it seems like a fairly moot point when put into perspective.

Who is saying the Switch GPU is going to 'eclipse' PS4/XB1 GPU ?

I think most people are expecting something between the WiiU and XB1 GPU (around 600 gflops - 1 tflop fp32).

 

[Astral/H3X]

I take your point but looking at what we have to go on - MK8, Splatoon and the new 3D Mario footage, do they look like they're a quantum leap over the WiiU versions ?

I too base all of my expectations off of what more or less amounts to screenshots of ports.

 

[Doczu]

I take your point but looking at what we have to go on - MK8, Splatoon and the new 3D Mario footage, do they look like they're a quantum leap over the WiiU versions ?

Splatoon and Mario Kart are rumored to be nothing more than polished ports, hence the minimal graphic difference (but let's be honest, they were shown in just one trailer, no screenshots published).
3D Mario looks like it runs on the same engine as 3D World and we just don't know how far in development it is, or from which point of developemnt was the gameplay (plus the same as with the before mentioned games - nothing besides the reveal trailer).

 

[sphinx]

What kind of comments do we have from devs by the way?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcfJjyRLt7w&t=287s

these guys said

Q: Is the Nintendo Switch Powerful? Is it capable enough?

A: Yes, it is capable enough for us.

so... yep, it's powerful

 

[th3sicknness]

Who is saying the Switch GPU is going to 'eclipse' PS4/XB1 GPU ?

I think most people are expecting something between the WiiU and XB1 GPU (around 600 gflops - 1 tflop fp32).

Some previous posts are insinuating it could be or alluding to possible performance that just isn't likely with limitations of battery power.

 

[Donnie]

You are aware the Nvidia Shield exists, right?

Shield tablet uses a older tetra chip as well, older and less power efficient than X1. Switch will likely use something newer and more efficient than X1, far more power efficient for both GPU and CPU than the K1 chip used in Shield. No way is a WiiU in Switches form factor any kind of achievement today.

 

[Eolz]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcfJjyRLt7w&t=287s

these guys said



so... yep, it's powerful

"for us" is the keyword.