Those also came out a year after wiiu.
Nintendo Switch Dev Kit Stats Leaked? Cortex A57, 4GB RAM, 32GB Storage, Multi-Touch.
- Thread starter Robert at Zeboyd Games
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Those also came out a year after wiiu.
I think the ram used the wii u was discontinued two years ago. Its one of the reasons the wiiu is costly to make for what it is. Pretty much any ram in the switch will be better than very slow wiiu ram even if it only has 2GB.
PCafe SDK was 3GB, I believe, but it explicitly noted that retail would ship with half, but it ended up shipping with 2GB. The OS took up 1GB, and games had an available 1GB (Xenoblade X's open world is realized on 1GB...).
For an ARM SoC, though, I see no reason to need debug overhead RAM. You'd use the OS RAM pool for any debug overhead in any modern design. Moreover, a developer wouldn't tell you he has 3.2GB of RAM to work with if he only had a target of 1.6GB (half, for sake of discussion) in a final retail kit/retail-ready SDK.
I'm actually also kind of curious when this Dev2 (as Emily noted) unit went out. I'd expect a lot more than two dev unit revisions.
Sure, that's fine. But the sheer size is an issue when you're looking at 3-5x an increase in GPU grunt in just raw numbers (architectural gains aside) and a considerably more capable CPU. These components would be hopelessly bottlenecked by 2GBs of RAM.
The edram partner is gone. The regular system ram is standard samsung gddr3
Since the Shield never really took off, there aren't many examples of games that were on the PS4 and Xbox One. Either way, I still think the NS should hold up fairly well against them. Still, without the Android overhead, it should perform well.
Cuningas de Häme
Member
Yeah, Emily doesn't seem to be really good with those tehcnical details and/or the devs she's in touch are being vague on purpose.
I wouldn't try to dissect every word in her tweets, just take the words as they are and do not inject your hopes or fears into them.
Here, in this forum, you have people who have been speaking about the specs in a more detailed manner (CPU better than the others, Pascal, now you have RAM talk) and everyone in GAF always downplay other site's rumours and says that only here you can find actual info because mods verify users etc... So, why take as a gospel everything some random people say and not trust your own?
Not speaking about Emily as a random btw, she has been right in many things recently, mainly with these things one can learn from someone not in the Nintendo's inner dev teams.
I wouldn't try to dissect every word in her tweets, just take the words as they are and do not inject your hopes or fears into them.
Here, in this forum, you have people who have been speaking about the specs in a more detailed manner (CPU better than the others, Pascal, now you have RAM talk) and everyone in GAF always downplay other site's rumours and says that only here you can find actual info because mods verify users etc... So, why take as a gospel everything some random people say and not trust your own?
Not speaking about Emily as a random btw, she has been right in many things recently, mainly with these things one can learn from someone not in the Nintendo's inner dev teams.
Sieh Dir den Tweet von @ArcadeGirl64 an: https://twitter.com/ArcadeGirl64/status/792616520308314112?s=09
Hooray, common sense prevails.
Given what we know then:
NS will have 3.2GB for games.
PS4/X1 have 5 for games.
She checked with some sources and confirmed that Switch has 4GB of ram in the retail units.
https://twitter.com/ArcadeGirl64/status/792616520308314112
https://twitter.com/ArcadeGirl64/status/792616520308314112
AsylumBlue
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Isn't that what was expected? It would be disappointing if it were anything less. So I guess that means 3-3.5 available for games.
People were starting to assume that it would end up with 2GB.
Look around you.
AsylumBlue
Member
Well I saw one or two people predicting 2GB or 6GB, but I didn't think it was widespread.
I think her source is in NTD or Nintendo in general. All/most of her info is very internally focused.
Emily is not a tech person. On top of that the exact intricacies of the finalized hardware is a lot more protected then rough ideas and old devkits.
The old Devkit was literally just a generic kit anyone can buy from amazon.
Astral Dog
Member
Why less than Wii U for the OS?
Wait where did the 3.2 figure come from?
And slightly off topic but why is PS4 conserving 3 GBs of RAM when the Switch will only conserve 0.8 allegedly?
Finally, from what I understand the type of RAM matters greatly. Is the RAM inside the Switch good or is it slow?
A little bit more questions than I would've liked but I really want to know where this thing stands in the whole field.
I think Wii U allocated 1 gig for the OS, but it never actually used it.
Where did you get the 3.2GB number from?
Thanks, but is it feasible to only allocate 0.8 GBs for the OS?
AsylumBlue
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PS4 should be 5.5GB for games, so it's 2.5 for the OS which keeps background apps like Netflix in the memory.
Astral Dog
Member
Nintendo always likes to double their RAM compared to either their last system or the competition, from PSP to 3DS, GC to Wii, 360 to Wii U, and now Wii U to Switch it seems.
makes sense but i was hoping for 6, that would make porting easier with simple divide for the OS (2 GB for os 4 for games)
makes sense but i was hoping for 6, that would make porting easier with simple divide for the OS (2 GB for os 4 for games)
The OS probably doesn't have a whole lot of overhead and is fairly efficient.
Getting corrected left and right
.Thanks for the clarification. But that might mean that the Switch won't be a multimedia device right? Or at least not in the scale of the PS4?
Why not? The OS on X1 and PS4 are very hungry on RAM for suspended apps in the background.
Astral Dog
Member
Switch could have lots of apps too,not as many, but lots, i dont know something seems strange
It all comes down to how much kept in background stuff they want to do. Nintendo seems comfortable with switching to a web browser while pausing game for instance but stuff like suddenly opening Netflix etc. requires closing other things.
I'm pretty sure the NS will have all the standard apps (Netflix, Amazon, Crunchyroll, etc.).
I'm guessing they wanted that Wii U Chat to be in the background but couldn't get it working. Which is why it's laughably terrible.
I get what they were trying to do, but it never really worked well. I guess this time around, they're going simple without a lot of background stuff open. Nothing wrong with that. Maybe it'll mean the OS will be fast.
AsylumBlue
Member
Oh, they can have all the apps they want on the device. The issue would be having those apps stored in the memory and multitasking while having games running. For example, on the PS4, you can keep your game running while playing music on Spotify and quickly opening up the browser to look something up. It all happens seamlessly and quite quickly. This is something afforded by the 2.5GB RAM reserved for the OS. On the NS, they would have to compromise if they only allocate 0.8GB of RAM.
The 3DS (and WiiU) can open up the browser while playing games, you don't need gigs of RAM to run a browser unless your browser is Chrome with a thousand tabs or just utter garbage in general.
If its according to the leaked dev kit, then its at least 25GB/s.
AsylumBlue
Member
Notice I mentioned running Spotify as well and it all being quick (pretty instantaneous, actually). That's not to mention the variety of other things you can do quickly on the PS4's OS while having the game in the background.
Chobel
Member
This is not confirmed yet.
I know, which is why I noted the 3DS, which has 128MBs of RAM. You can do a lot with a little if you do it well or smartly or both.
It won't get much higher in any case because the system is realistically/thermodynamically limited to LDDR4 variants, short of some costly HBM solution. Even a 128-bus isn't going to gain an order of magnitude or even close on that number. The real world usage of the bandwidth may potentially be better per GB/s because of nVidia's solutions but it will still be overshadowed in brute force.
I guess it's possible with a 128-but bus?
AsylumBlue
Member
Well, the 3DS has a really anemic browser that runs poorly due to the low amount of RAM, so I wouldn't go so far as to say you can "do a lot" with low amounts.
It runs poorly because of the hardware in general, not the RAM. I am not saying the RAM isn't a limiter, I am saying RAM allotment isn't the end of the story or even a full picture.
For all we know, the PS4's RAM management for apps and suspension is so bad that they need a massive overhead to function. (Probably not, but you get the idea.)
Triple the RAM.
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