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[tkscz]

Who is this and what does this shit mean?

As much as I wish I knew and understood the tech that goes into the hardware I don't.

That is the same person who is now claiming she knows what the dev kits are. So I have to ask, why is this thread still here? Most of the same discussion is going on in the Nvidia thread, and we found the source of this rumor is not a reputable source. Not only through her previous tweet, but also some guys have pointed out the specs she gave are the same ones you see for any Tegra device.

 

[jdstorm]

If these are the final specs ( id guess its close but not 100%) since Denver and Pascall wouldnt have been ready at the time to mass distribute in Dev kits.

Its worth noting that terrible battery life isnt a huge deal. People carry chargers and power packs when they are on the go and most wont be away from a power source for long when playing at home. So provided the NS hits 2-3 hours gaming charge on the go. That will be more then enough

 

[Thelonelykoopa]

As a handheld its fucking amazing but as a home console I cant help but feel disappointed if these specs are correct but I doubt they are except for it being dervived from tegra which was confirmed by Nvidia. Really hope they put pokemon on this thing.

 

[BubbaLump]

guys maxwell means no HDR
32GB is horrible

What is going on here?

Is it possible that the next gen iPad will blow this out of water?

I was under the impression that HDR was purely software based and had nothing to do with hardware. Sony is claiming all launch PS4's will have HDR support after a software update that will be available during PS4 Pro's launch.

 

[AntMurda]

What are the odds that the Switch can output 1080P in dock mode? If not, any chance that Nintendo does announce a small SCD unit that can enhance the games at home. 720p in 2017 is pretty rough.

How does the hardware (assumption) compare to the Wii U?

 

[lwilliams3]

And that doesn't diminish the possibility of it being the actual devkit, or of it closely approximating the performance of the final device.

Seriously, guys, don't expect significantly more performance than this out of the device.
Just be happy that compared to Nintendo hardware releases of the past decade, it's actually pretty damn competitive.

True

You don't customize a chip to get the exact same performance as the default. That doesn't make sense

Power consumption is a big thing for Switch's form factor. It should be noted that the NateDrake, the person who is stating that the chipset is Pascal, beliefs that the system will be a moderate 3x-4x boost from the Wii U

 

[Vyse The Legend]

As a handheld its fucking amazing but as a home console I cant help but feel disappointed if these specs are correct but I doubt they are except for it being dervived from tegra which was confirmed by Nvidia. Really hope they put pokemon on this thing.

Well, beyond the fact that they have no choice since this is Nintendo's new handheld, one of the GAF "insiders" (might've been Nate) said an updated version of Moon/Sun was coming to NX at the end of 2017.

 

[Apathy]

As a handheld its fucking amazing but as a home console I cant help but feel disappointed if these specs are correct but I doubt they are except for it being dervived from tegra which was confirmed by Nvidia. Really hope they put pokemon on this thing.

If they are real is anyone's guess but they are believable for the time simply because we can all understand some concessions have to be made unless we want this thing to cost an arm and a leg. I wouldn't put it part Nintendo for these specs to be real to keep costs down and keep profits high, knowing that it'll sell on the back of their portfolio (and maybe putting more emphasis on the portable aspect of the thing rather than the console part)

 

[Izuna]

I was under the impression that HDR was purely software based and had nothing to do with hardware. Sony is claiming all launch PS4's will have HDR support after a software update that will be available during PS4 Pro's launch.

Well I mean, HDMI 1.4 shouldn't have "HDR10" ~ actually you know what? I never did get an explanation of how Sony achieved HDR on their older PS4s.

 

[JoshuaJSlone]

Way too low

There is just no way I will buy external storage for a secondary gaming machine.

If you insist on having 128GB more storage but won't spend a few dozen bucks to get an SD card with that much, you're probably not very interested anyway.

Nvidia shield has 3+ hours battery life while gaming, but on a 1200p screen. The Switch has (it seems) a 720p screen which already uses a lot less energy, and it also uses less power to produce a 720p image compared to a 1200p one. Sum to that some improved battery efficiency and I would guess at least 4h30 - 5h of battery life? seems more than fine.

This is assuming other unknowns like equal battery capacity, though.

 

[theangrypirate]

I call this bullshit...my cellphone is more powerful than that.

Your cell phone probably costs over $600.

 

[Rolf NB]

1TF/s GPU
25GB/s bandwidth
....

Why?

 

[Durante]

1TF/s GPU
25GB/s bandwidth
....

Why?

Because high external memory bandwidth is extremely expensive in terms of power consumption.
(Also, Nvidia has tiled rasterization, so it's not nearly as hobbled as e.g. an AMD architecture with equivalent bandwidth would be)

Oh, and it's 0.5 TFLOPs FP32.

Keep posting this until some people here understand.

Understand what? The source isn't all that relevant, the performance ballpark is very realistic.

 

[Ushay]

Because high external memory bandwidth is extremely expensive in terms of power consumption.
(Also, Nvidia has tiled rasterization, so it's not nearly as hobbled as e.g. an AMD architecture with equivalent bandwidth would be)

Oh, and it's 0.5 TFLOPs FP32.

Understand what? The source isn't all that relevant, the performance ballpark is very realistic.

O.5?

Holy shit.

 

[blastprocessor]

Is this more powerful than iPad?

 

[Schnozberry]

Understand what? The source isn't all that relevant, the performance ballpark is very realistic.

If rumors are correct that the X1 was swapped out for a Pascal setup in the production units, this could allow for use of a 128-bit memory bus, so they'd have about ~50GB/s if they went that route. Pascal would also mean the potential for higher clocks, especially in docked mode. I think it could end up punching above .5TF.

 

[mugurumakensei]

Because high external memory bandwidth is extremely expensive in terms of power consumption.
(Also, Nvidia has tiled rasterization, so it's not nearly as hobbled as e.g. an AMD architecture with equivalent bandwidth would be)

Oh, and it's 0.5 TFLOPs FP32.
.

Well, neither .5 TF nor 1 TF is the real picture. It's going to drastically vary based on usage scenarios (namely how much precision is really needed).

 

[Thraktor]

If rumors are correct that the X1 was swapped out for a Pascal setup in the production units, this could allow for use of a 128-bit memory bus, so they'd have about ~50GB/s if they went that route. Pascal would also mean the potential for higher clocks, especially in docked mode. I think it could end up punching above .5TF.

Frankly I'm not really expecting a jump to a 128 bit bus, even if it's more powerful than TX1. Given Maxwell/Pascal's TBR, and Nintendo's proclivity for big pools of on-die memory, a 64-bit bus combined with an increased GPU L2 cache (or a big shared L3) could do the job just fine and reduce power consumption.

 

[Plinko]

Because high external memory bandwidth is extremely expensive in terms of power consumption.
(Also, Nvidia has tiled rasterization, so it's not nearly as hobbled as e.g. an AMD architecture with equivalent bandwidth would be)

Oh, and it's 0.5 TFLOPs FP32.

Understand what? The source isn't all that relevant, the performance ballpark is very realistic.

I disagree. This person was adamant about Nvidia not providing the internals, and yet suddenly comes out with specs the moment the system is revealed? It seems shady.

 

[letmetrythisname]

Unless Nintendo can really squeeze all the possible power out of this system (which they have historically been able to do, see Super Mario Galaxy), there goes my hope of them targeting 60fps for all their upcoming games.

 

[mugurumakensei]

I disagree. This person was adamant about Nvidia not providing the internals, and yet suddenly comes out with specs the moment the system is revealed? It seems shady.

Well, it's always possible they were just in denial because it seemed too low-end for them. That said, this a high end handheld and a low-end console but above wii-u.

 

[Darkangel]

Unless Nintendo can really squeeze all the possible power out of this system (which they have historically been able to do, see Super Mario Galaxy), there goes my hope of them targeting 60fps for all their upcoming games.

Why would these specs prevent them from targeting 60fps? They could have made every N64 game 60fps if they wanted to. They just need to adjust things accordingly.

 

[jmizzal]

32GB base storage is fine, don't forget it will be possible to expand the storage via microSD/SD card and I suspect the dock will have a usb port for an external HDD.

That will be great, it sucked that WiiU couldnt save games to the SD card only games from Wii mode. I had a small external HD and it crashed on me, it just makes me not want to go the external route again. SD cards FTW

 

[foltzie1]

Unless Nintendo can really squeeze all the possible power out of this system (which they have historically been able to do, see Super Mario Galaxy), there goes my hope of them targeting 60fps for all their upcoming games.

Nintendo targeting 60FPS shouldn't be a concern (1080p is also likely not a concern, but more iffy given the Switch tablet resolution isn't known). Most of their first party and second party content on the Wii U was 1080 60fps.


Third parties though. . . See output on PS4/XB1 it varies, a lot.

 

[Azure Phoenix]

Given my experience with the 8gb Wii U (mandatory system update, Mario Kart DLC and Splatoon patch = full storage) you'll forgive me for thinking that 32gb storage would be the death of this thing out of the box. I'm not paying an extra £150 for a 500gb SD card.

 

[Schnozberry]

Frankly I'm not really expecting a jump to a 128 bit bus, even if it's more powerful than TX1. Given Maxwell/Pascal's TBR, and Nintendo's proclivity for big pools of on-die memory, a 64-bit bus combined with an increased GPU L2 cache (or a big shared L3) could do the job just fine and reduce power consumption.

I'm curious to find out which direction they went. I wouldn't be surprised if Nvidia pushed them towards a faster unified pool of memory, especially given how expensive SRAM is at 14/16nm. Obviously I'm speculating out of my ass at this point.

 

[jmizzal]

Post #252:

So why are people still take her seriously?

Lol I thought these specs was proven false early on in the thread, i'm surprised this thread has not been locked

 

[Robert at Zeboyd Games]

Is this more powerful than iPad?

Which iPad? If you're talking about a modern iPad, obviously not seeing as how the Switch is likely to sell for a fraction of the price.

 

[LSWilson]

Don't believe any of these specs.

Hope not. A57 is low, low performance.

 

[LSWilson]

32gb is good. I never use more than 10gb on any of my devices. I dont want to pay extra for memory ill never use

you're being sarcastic right? have to be.....

 

[tkscz]

Lol I thought these specs was proven false early on in the thread, i'm surprised this thread has not been locked

OP needs to put this image in well the OP, or at least put *Rumor* in the title or something. It has been pointed out that she doesn't know what the specs are and these are just specs for other Tegra devices.

 

[Schnozberry]

Hope not. A57 is low, low performance.

You're going to have to grade on a curve. It's better clock for clock than the Jaguar Cores in the PS4 and XB1. It comes down to clock speed.

 

[Thraktor]

I'm curious to find out which direction they went. I wouldn't be surprised if Nvidia pushed them towards a faster unified pool of memory, especially given how expensive SRAM is at 14/16nm. Obviously I'm speculating out of my ass at this point.

My point is that with tile-based rendering they can maintain a unified memory pool, while using just a few MBs of cache to keep virtually all buffer accesses on-die. It gives them pretty much all of the benefit of an on-die framebuffer (certainly in terms of power consumption), while being far cheaper and simpler for developers. Even though we found out about Nvidia's switch to tile-based rendering via their PC GPUs, I'd say it's very likely that they took this route more for situations like this than anything else (i.e. tightly power-constrained Tegra chips where increased bandwidth is expensive both financially and in terms of power consumption).

 

[UnemployedVillain]

Post #252:

So why are people still take her seriously?

Mods like seeing us fight while they sit back and laugh at the squabble!

 

[SomedayTheFire]

Umm... do you live in Australia or something? A $128GB SD card at the very least is $30. Hell, 256GB isn't going to cost you $200. $150 at the most, $60 at the least.



It's an ARM and Jaguar is an x86. It's not going to be as powerful, but it can be more efficient depending on the ARM and how many they have in it (Nintendo are known for having 2 ARMs in handheld devices). My question is still, is it Pascal, Maxwell with Pascal Assets, or Maxwell. According to Nvidia it's custom and Nintendo is known to use old GPUs and add modern assets to it.

300MB/s SD cards like the other poster mentioned above are $200

 

[UnemployedVillain]

It's an ARM and Jaguar is an x86. It's not going to be as powerful,

What does this even mean. There's nothing inherently more powerful about x86. It's an architecture

300GB/s SD cards like the other poster mentioned above are $200

Why would you need a 300GB/s SD card?! You realize disc drives significantly slower than that.

 

[Schnozberry]

My point is that with tile-based rendering they can maintain a unified memory pool, while using just a few MBs of cache to keep virtually all buffer accesses on-die. It gives them pretty much all of the benefit of an on-die framebuffer (certainly in terms of power consumption), while being far cheaper and simpler for developers. Even though we found out about Nvidia's switch to tile-based rendering via their PC GPUs, I'd say it's very likely that they took this route more for situations like this than anything else (i.e. tightly power-constrained Tegra chips where increased bandwidth is expensive both financially and in terms of power consumption).

I'm on board with your logic. We'll have to see what shakes out if and when we find out what's actually under the hood. Personally I'm hoping they went with something akin to Parker and replaced the 2 Denver cores with some additional A57's to avoid the coherence issues, though I know that's probably expecting too much.

 

[Schnozberry]

300MB/s SD cards like the other poster mentioned above are $200

Amazon has Sandisk 150MB/s SD Cards for $40 at 128GB

 

[SomedayTheFire]

Amazon has Sandisk 150MB/s SD Cards for $40 at 128GB

Yes and I gave the price of 300mb/s because the other poster mentioned that

Why would you need a 300GB/s SD card?! You realize disc drives significantly slower than that.

the other poster mentioned them!

Edit: I would like to say, my initial post was about SD cards being slow for gaming, which generally they are. Hopefully Nintendo can support the UHS bus.

Holy shit, what do you need with a read speed that high? I doubt that's going to make a difference.

dont make me say it again

 

[tkscz]

What does this even mean. There's nothing inherently more powerful about x86. It's an architecture.

Most games right now are programmed for the x86 architecture. Most ports are going to be running a little iffy, even though technically ARM A57/A53 are more stable and handle threading better than Jaguar.

300MB/s SD cards like the other poster mentioned above are $200

Holy shit, what do you need with a read speed that high? I doubt that's going to make a difference. Edit: Saw your other post. Yeah 300MB\s is easily $200 but not really any reason to buy that of a gaming system.

do not make me say it again.

I edited my post, you made your post before I made mine.

 

[SomedayTheFire]

Most games right now are programmed for the x86 architecture. Most ports are going to be running a little iffy, even though technically ARM A57/A53 are more stable and handle threading better than Jaguar.



Holy shit, what do you need with a read speed that high? I doubt that's going to make a difference. Edit: Saw your other post. Yeah 300MB\s is easily $200 but not really any reason to buy that of a gaming system.



I edited my post, you made your post before I made mine.

I edited mine again cause it sounded a lot less light hearted than i meant lol yeah idk I just said they were slow, and don't hold out much hope for Nintendo putting a very fast one in. I'd love to be proven wrong. SDXC and UHS were incompatible with the Wii U and the max read speed from SD was 50MB/s.

 

[diaspora]

The difference is the quality of the gaming experience. Here you get Nintendo quality software and hardware. With Shield you get shitty mobile games. There is no comparison.

While mostly true, the Shield does have KOTOR.

 

[tkscz]

I edited mine again cause it sounded a lot less light hearted than i meant lol yeah idk I just said they were slow, and don't hold out much hope for Nintendo putting a very fast one in. I'd love to be proven wrong. SDXC and UHS were incompatible with the Wii U and the max read speed from SD was 50MB/s.

SDXC I can see them supporting as technically the 3DS can support them (just convert them to FAT32 format and you could use an SDXC on the 3DS). Not sure about UHS but Nintendo tends to support the newest SD cards when released (don't think UHS was a thing when the WiiU was in development).

 

[SomedayTheFire]

SDXC I can see them supporting as technically the 3DS can support them (just convert them to FAT32 format and you could use an SDXC jjon the 3DS). Not sure about UHS but Nintendo tends to support the newest SD cards when released (don't think UHS was a thing when the WiiU was in development).

Hopefully they do just that. I'd still prefer more internal flash storage over SD cards though, but that's just personal preference.

 

[Ushay]

I'd be content if this were at least 1080p capable in its console docked variation. But I have this creeping feeling this will end up disappointing yet again.

 

[Herb Alpert]

Unless Nintendo can really squeeze all the possible power out of this system (which they have historically been able to do, see Super Mario Galaxy), there goes my hope of them targeting 60fps for all their upcoming games.

but they can achieve 60fps? I don't understand your concern...

WiiU is a weak ass system that has a lot of 60fps games. and switch should be more powerful than WiiU...

 

[ASIS]

Tech wizards, you need to be a little less technical with your descriptions please. At the very least put a stupid version of what you wrote at the end of your post so the rest of us can understand a bit.

For instance, will a multiplatform game suffer noticeable difference when ported to Switch? Is it just a resolution gimp or is it more? How competitive is it compared to scorpio and PS4 Pro? actually, how much more powerful is it compared to the Wii U? Is this a GCN> Wii upgrade or is it so much more?

You know... that kind of stuff.

 

[tensuke]

Honestly storage is my biggest concern with this device. No way they're putting a hdd in the tablet, so it'll probably have flash (32 likely, maybe 64). Cartridges won't be that big, probably 32 will be the highest they use at all. Expendable via SDXC would be nice but even that has its (expensive) limits. A hdd could be possible in the dock but then you'd have to transfer to the portable to play on the go (or maybe, to play at all? Even worse for storage).

Granted, we don't know the sizes of games, but take something like cod or bf, even with reduced graphics/audio they will still be hefty. I don't think going digital will be very feasible for AAA titles. Of course, I also don't trust going digital on Nintendo's current network infrastructure...

Edit: also the r/w speed is important when it comes to bigger games. Imagine the loading screens of Bloodborne...on flash memory. There's ufs, v-nand, etc but they're expensive too.

 

[blu]

Most games right now are programmed for the x86 architecture.

Tiny amounts (if any) of SSE4/AVX128 code will need to be rewritten into equally-tiny amounts of NEON code. It's so trivial that I've seen people write automatic translators for that job.

Most ports are going to be running a little iffy, even though technically ARM A57/A53 are more stable and handle threading better than Jaguar.

I.. am not sure what you're even saying here.

 

[NeOak]

Hope not. A57 is low, low performance.

They could be using Denver cores if it is a new SoC.

Again, early dev kit.