TheDeadHeroAlistair
Member
I think he means the XD isn't as powerful as the WIN. I could be wrong, though.
Nintendo Switch Dev Kit Stats Leaked? Cortex A57, 4GB RAM, 32GB Storage, Multi-Touch.
- Thread starter Robert at Zeboyd Games
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I think he means the XD isn't as powerful as the WIN. I could be wrong, though.
Schnozberry
Member
Couple of reasons why this premise doesn't make much sense to me.
1. It adds moving parts to the docking station component, and makes what should be a fairly cheap accessory more expensive and marginally more difficult to manufacture.
2. Passive cooling generally requires a larger surface area than those vents are cut out to dissipate.
3. It purposely places a hard thermal limit on switch performance in portable mode, and means adding complexity to development that would necessitate much more aggressive downgrades to games when not played in the dock. It could make some software much more difficult to port to the platform.
Not that I know of.
I didn't know Nintendo were selling the Switch with no cables at all.
Not necessarily. There must be a supporting charging circuitry to take advantage of the high power delivery of USB-C.
I see. I suppose it would make sense for Nintendo to design the Switch to be fast charging given that battery life is almost sure to be an issue.
I didn't mention Scorpio or pro, I mentioned S and slim.
I doubt very much exclusive will be 720p, but if it gets port that are 1080p and 900p on ps and Xbox i wouldn't expect more than 720p docked and maybe less mobile,
The intake grills seems to be at the bottom of the back of the device and they're also perfectly aligned with the exhaust vents on the top.
I doubt that a fan within the dock could efficiently push air through those thin intake grill then push the hot air upward. A fan within the Switch makes more sense.
I hope they will. Quick charging, different implementations aside, has been a mature technology by now so cost of putting it in as a feature is most likely not that expensive. And it's waste not having it given that USB-C is very much capable of handling high current unlike the older USB standards.
The intake grills seems to be at the bottom of the back of the device and they're also perfectly aligned with the exhaust vents on the top.
I doubt that a fan within the dock could efficiently push air through those thin intake grill then push the hot air upward. A fan within the Switch makes more sense.
Fan in the unit does make sense. The Switch itself is pretty much in line with the size of the Shield TV.
Pasedo
Member
Reading this there seems to be alot of emphasis on custom design and specially built software. Perhaps this thing will redefine our understanding of hardware and software capabilities by taking it to another level?
https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2016/10/20/nintendo-switch/
https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2016/10/20/nintendo-switch/
Principate
Saint Titanfall
Nah that's just usual ot fluff
NeOak
Member
It means they made a chip for it that won't be sold anywhere else, with a gaming purpose, and it won't run anything like a regular OS (like "stock" Android or a version of it) but something leaner (very likely a LTS Linux variant such as L4T, could be FreeBSD based like PS4 too
In other words, "Tegra Switch" SoC with a very likely Vulkan inspired API that works better with the Pascal GPU. Who knows, they probably could have added CUDA instructions to the NVN API.
TL;DR: PR stuff for "we made something"
NeOak
Member
Could mean anything from 500 people working for a year on it, to 125 people over the last 4 years.
SoCs can take like 2-3 years to come to market, so it's pretty standard. They could be counting the Pascal architecture development time too.
Without a complete breakdown of what that 500 number is for, it's PR fluff.
So at least it means it will perform significantly better in games than similiarly specced Devices on the market?
NeOak
Member
Depends on what you machines you refer to. You can take the Shield Tablet as an absolute minimum, but that is already 2 generations old compared to any SoC with Pascal.
It won't have the Android overhead though, so that should free some resources.
Interestingly, the TX1 can drive 4K displays at 60fps. So they could do upscaling like the XB1 S does for games.
Engineers and the stuff supporting/managing them aren't always the most productive people.
We know they've been in partnership for 2 years based on what Nvidia has said. Which means assuming a consistent team size it's been a 250 person team over a 2 year period.
LordOfChaos
Member
As mentioned I wouldn't think on it much without a breakdown. A new CPU core or ground-up SoC effort can take teams of hundreds of engineers 4-5 years, in that lens 500 hominid years sounds like what we expect, a customization of an existing SoC.
The problem is that some people seem to expect the only customization to be an underclock. Obviously they haven't made a whole new new architecture, but there's still a decent amount that can be done in 2 years.
Broken Hope
Member
Based on pretty much every single Nintendo OS, expecting them to somehow become wizards at coding is just setting yourself up for a disappointment.
Nintendo aren't going to use magic coding tricks to somehow make the Switch as powerful as much bigger consoles with much better cooling and a higher power draw.
Nvidia on the other hand...
Why would Nintendo care about 4k, something that haven't even broken 15% of the market-share yet? Are you forgetting that there 65 million Xbox Ones and PS4 that will be ruining games a 900p and 1080p? Are you talking about the general population that doesn't even notice the different between SD and HD. Let alone the people that play games that couldn't tell the difference between 900p and 1080p?
Broken Hope
Member
Yes I'm sure dev tools for the switch are going to be the best Nintendo has ever had, they still aren't going to work miracles.
Skittzo0413
Member
I think he's referring to the fact that Nintendo are wizards at getting the most out of their hardware, and so are Nvidia. But that type of coding only really applies to first party games. There's really no reason to assume Nintendo will be able to provide much improved development tools, though Nvidia likely will (improved over Nintendo's previous tools that is).
But yeah they aren't going to double the performance of the console or anything that crazy.
LordOfChaos
Member
250 people
2 years
The universe's most precise underclock
I'm hoping the customization is memory side, often the limitation on mobile chips. A large cache of some sort could make a big difference over run of the mill mobile chips.
Some of that 500 biped years would no doubt be creating that NVN API too.
Polygonal_Sprite
Gold Member
Options. The more Nintendo offer, the more hardware they will sell. I can see Switch being the first of many devices from the same family of systems with a dedicated handheld coming next, then a dedicated console, then maybe a $99 tablet (once they have enough mobile content, this will replace 2DS imo) and finally a refresh to the hybrid.
I don't think they will ever sell 100 million units of a single device again so I think their strategy will be to sell 20-25 million units each of four separate devices (hyrbrid / handheld / console / tablet) which will all share the same hardware architecture, OS, digital accounts and most important of all, play the same games at different graphical fidelity.
th3sicknness
Member
Interesting image from Laura Kate Dale.
Explains a lot and the functionality confirms a few things we been discussing kinda of an awesome way to show the device off to the the press. Selling docks stand alone for cheap so people can have them in multiple rooms so the switch can be taken to any area is a great idea.
I'm thinking now the handheld is 200 bux and the dock is 50. So 249.99 price point seems likely. Makes a lot of sense now sine the shield portable is priced at 199.99 as well with no dock.
Explains a lot and the functionality confirms a few things we been discussing kinda of an awesome way to show the device off to the the press. Selling docks stand alone for cheap so people can have them in multiple rooms so the switch can be taken to any area is a great idea.
I'm thinking now the handheld is 200 bux and the dock is 50. So 249.99 price point seems likely. Makes a lot of sense now sine the shield portable is priced at 199.99 as well with no dock.
Skittzo0413
Member
Interesting image from Laura Kate Dale.
Explains a lot and the functionality confirms a few things we been discussing kinda of an awesome way to show the device off to the the press. Selling docks stand alone for cheap so people can have them in multiple rooms so the switch can be taken to any area is a great idea.
I'm thinking now the handheld is 200 bux and the dock is 50. So 249.99 price point seems likely. Makes a lot of sense now sine the shield portable is priced at 199.99 as well with no dock.
If the dock is literally just a piece of plastic with a USB-C connector, fan, and power/HDMI ports, then I can't imagine it will retail for any more than $20 or $25.
th3sicknness
Member
Kinda makes sense now. They could be targeting 1080p docked and 720p not docked. Essentially running the same settings with both resolutions but when the power gets cut on the go the resoultion gets dropped.
Exactly what we were discussing about yesterday lmao.Interesting image from Laura Kate Dale.
Explains a lot and the functionality confirms a few things we been discussing kinda of an awesome way to show the device off to the the press. Selling docks stand alone for cheap so people can have them in multiple rooms so the switch can be taken to any area is a great idea.
I'm thinking now the handheld is 200 bux and the dock is 50. So 249.99 price point seems likely. Makes a lot of sense now sine the shield portable is priced at 199.99 as well with no dock.
So to help set some expectations, Nintendo sells 3DS docks for about $15 each, but those only support power.
Whereas, USB-C multiport adapters cost between $25 to $40 on Monoprice. I would hope Nintendo's costs would be close to what a generic adapter would cost, but with the added size for the dock function and fan, it may be a bit more.
Skittzo0413
Member
And add onto that Nintendo could easily charge a bit more for a nice bit of profit, while sort of implying that the dock is important to the overall experience and therefore has a good bit of value, then maybe $50 does make sense.
Schnozberry
Member
Well, if LPVG is correct, then the dock also has a fan and all the requisite hardware for being a multi-port adapter. I would guess replacements could retail for $40, if they are ever sold separately. Generally these things are replaceable only through Nintendo's online store.
Crazy that the dock and the Switch tablet both have fans. They must have that thing cooking with gas.
Skittzo0413
Member
I wonder if we need to move our GFlops estimates upwards a bit. Up until now I've been assuming either 512 or 768 will be the docked/max GPU power, but <512GFlops in portable mode wouldn't need a fan, would it? Assuming Pascal/16nm of course.
Either way, they sure seem to not be messing around with this.
Schnozberry
Member
Presuming 16nm, I think 750GFlops is on the high end of what we should consider, but it doesn't seem completely unfeasible.
th3sicknness
Member
I was thinking that most 3ds games are 35 to 40? Switch games since they are being marketed as a home console would sell for 59.99? They could offset the cost of some hardware by simply selling games for more than they usually do?
You can probably expect a range of pricing. Zelda BOTW might be $60 but something like Dai Gyakuten Saiban 2 might still be $30-40 for example. Of course it does allow them to push uppricepoints on handheld series too, I would not be surprised if Pokémon Stars ended up $50-60.
Seems weird to quote myself, but here I go.
Nintendo could potentially bundle a game with an extra dock, as a way to sweeten the deal. Sort of like how Nintendo did with the Wii Remotes with Wii Play, Nintendoland, Flingsmash ect.
Might make it slightly easier to hide the cost of an extra dock, especially if they want to push the concept so you can game on your main TV and in your bedroom easily. Kind of like the original Wii U reveal video.
LegendofLex
Member
There is absolutely no reason to do this when a second dock doesn't add any extra functionality without a second Switch unit.
They can sell it separately on a "willing to pay" basis, but this isn't like past software bundles where they give you a required accessory in the box.
They'll also be happy to sell multiple Switch units into your household.
Shikamaru Ninja
任天å ã® å¿è
That's a really weird pack-in combination.
Yeah, I'm not really convinced myself that its a great idea, but I bought every Wii Remote pack in title.
So there was that LPVG news about the dock and how there are fans in both the dock and the Switch and it mentions this:
http://letsplayvideogames.com/2016/...increases-performance-not-via-extra-hardware/
Maybe it does mean the ports on the dock for video output and power for the Switch are USB-C rather than having an HDMI port and a regular cord power connector?
Who knows.
Going from my posts about the dock using USB-C ports, if we stuck with that. The next question relates to the news that the Switch and the dock have fans inside which means the Switch does change clockspeed.
So, what USB-C standard are they going to use? There is a 15W standard and a 100W standard. (Apparently there is another one at 60W.)
The rumour is the Switch will render from 720p to 1080p when docked. I don't know if that will require exactly doubling the clockspeed of the GPU to render at that resolution.
The other factor is, we shouldn't expect it to perform as good as a PS4 just because fans are the new secret sauce. The hardware would still be limited by the supposed 4GB of RAM.
If the Switch in portable mode is running around say 6W which is a bit high. Then it would probably only double when it is docked.
That would mean only a 15W USB-C cable would be needed to power the Switch when docked. However, I don't know if the Switch will have fast charging when you have the Switch in portable mode, that would mean Nintendo would have to provide a 100W USB-C cable to do fast charging.
http://letsplayvideogames.com/2016/...increases-performance-not-via-extra-hardware/
Maybe it does mean the ports on the dock for video output and power for the Switch are USB-C rather than having an HDMI port and a regular cord power connector?
Who knows.
Going from my posts about the dock using USB-C ports, if we stuck with that. The next question relates to the news that the Switch and the dock have fans inside which means the Switch does change clockspeed.
So, what USB-C standard are they going to use? There is a 15W standard and a 100W standard. (Apparently there is another one at 60W.)
The rumour is the Switch will render from 720p to 1080p when docked. I don't know if that will require exactly doubling the clockspeed of the GPU to render at that resolution.
The other factor is, we shouldn't expect it to perform as good as a PS4 just because fans are the new secret sauce. The hardware would still be limited by the supposed 4GB of RAM.
If the Switch in portable mode is running around say 6W which is a bit high. Then it would probably only double when it is docked.
That would mean only a 15W USB-C cable would be needed to power the Switch when docked. However, I don't know if the Switch will have fast charging when you have the Switch in portable mode, that would mean Nintendo would have to provide a 100W USB-C cable to do fast charging.
Skittzo0413
Member
Are you suggesting that the dock would only have a single USB-C port at the back, rather than an HDMI port and a power supply port? I can't tell if that's what you mean here, but if so that would be impossible. The dock needs to connect to a TV and to a power supply (AC outlet) so there's no possible way to get both of those inputs from two separate sources into a single USB-C port.
And anyway you need an HDMI cord to connect to an HD TV. I don't know if TVs in the future will start adopting USB-C but as of now you definitely need HDMI.
I said ports in the quote you bolded, plural.
Yes, TVs do need HDMI still. That's why it's convenient that HDMI licences USB-C to HDMI cables now.
Astral Dog
Member
If the SCORPIO will leave OG Xbox ONE games looking an archaic laptop where does that leave the Switch? Game Boy?
Skittzo0413
Member
Oh I see- you're saying that it's possible that the two USB ports we've seen on the side of the console (or others on the back) might be for power and USB > HDMI so that the dock doesn't need any additional type of port (AC adapter, HDMI port). I guess at this point since we have no images of the back of the dock there's no way to know.
But I think it would be a bit of a pain if they require al USB-C > HDMI cable which definitely isn't standard, and there aren't a lot of those lying around everyone's household. Unless they do include that in the box.
Not sure where you're getting at or going with this post.
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