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Speculation: Will the Switch 2 be more powerful than Ally X ?

kevboard

Member
Maybe they will have external battery like vision pro 🫢

no, my point is that the Ally X also runs on battery, and also only utilises its full potential when connected to a power supply.

the same will be true for the Switch, to an even higher degree probably
 
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Robb

Gold Member
Yup, Monolith Soft is my biggest reason why I'm excited for Nintendo's next system.
If they can keep up their output going into “Switch 2” we’re in for a good time.
DjlCCif.jpeg
 
I'm willing to bet my lunch that it will launch at 499.99 USD.
It will sell along with the Switch 1 for quite a bit of time. Possibly 2 years. (Back compat and all that).
Then at some point they will stop making Switch 1 and lower the price of the Switch 2.
You think it'll be more powerful than the Ally X?
 

FireFly

Member
yes... at least docked. it will be anywhere between an RTX 3050 Mobile and an RTX 3050ti Mobile



we know it uses the Tegra T239.
the Tegra T239 has 1536 CUDA cores.

if we assume it runs at 1ghz when docked:
1000 Ă— 1536 Ă— 2 = 3.072.000 (3.072 TFLOPS)
clock Ă— CUDA cores Ă— 2
this falls in line with a mobile RTX 3050 (~2.916 TFLOPS)

if we assume it reaches the exact same clock speed that the Tegra X1+ (used in the Switch OLED) can reach (1.267ghz)
1267 Ă— 1536 Ă— 2 = 3.892.224 (3.892 TFLOPS)
clock Ă— CUDA cores Ă— 2
this falls in line with a mobile RTX 3050ti (~3.763 TFLOPS)


next question

The 35W 3050 Ti has a max boost of 1035 MHz, which equates to 5.3 TF.
 

mrcroket

Member
ARM is much more efficient than x64, so it can compete with a lower TDP and Nvidia has DLSS, I think it is possible for Switch 2 to get better results than any handheld pc in the market, we will see though...
 

RoboFu

One of the green rats
The switch 2 will have a Nvidia gpu and its own os. Even if on paper it has less power that alone will make it punch above its weight compared to all the pc hand helds using windows and AMD.
 
yes... at least docked. it will be anywhere between an RTX 3050 Mobile and an RTX 3050ti Mobile



6QMwDQD.jpeg


(the test in this video/screenshot was without using DLSS, but instead using FSR2, which runs slower than DLSS)


we know it uses the Tegra T239.
the Tegra T239 has 1536 CUDA cores.

if we assume it runs at 1ghz when docked:
1000 Ă— 1536 Ă— 2 = 3.072.000 (3.072 TFLOPS)
clock Ă— CUDA cores Ă— 2
this falls in line with a mobile RTX 3050 (~2.916 TFLOPS)

if we assume it reaches the exact same clock speed that the Tegra X1+ (used in the Switch OLED) can reach (1.267ghz)
1267 Ă— 1536 Ă— 2 = 3.892.224 (3.892 TFLOPS)
clock Ă— CUDA cores Ă— 2
this falls in line with a mobile RTX 3050ti (~3.763 TFLOPS)




next question

This is the way, as foretold.
 

Deerock71

Member
I’d expect a huge jump from the current Switch, but nothing that competes with modern specs.

But hopefully it’ll be able to punch above its weight with DLSS etc.
This is exactly what I think about the Steam Deck OLED. That thing punches above it's weight. I'd go so far as to say games look gorgeous on that screen, even if modern games (Silent Hill 2 Remake, I'm looking at you) dip occasionally under 30 fps.
 

Sethbacca

Member
I’d expect a huge jump from the current Switch, but nothing that competes with modern specs.

But hopefully it’ll be able to punch above its weight with DLSS etc.
Nintendo (1st party at least) has always been art style over realism anyway, so they can do a hell of a lot more with a whole lot less to begin with. Combine that will DLSS and they should have some impressive output. Now if only someone could give Gamefreak a kick in the nuts to get with the program.
 
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Minsc

Gold Member
Let's compare:

Battery: 80Wh Ally X vs 16Wh Switch vs ?? Switch 2
Screen: 144hz VRR vs 60hz (OLED) vs ?? Switch 2
RAM: 24GB vs 4GB Switch vs ?? Switch 2
HDD: 1TB vs 32GB vs ?? Switch 2
TPD: 25W vs 7W vs ?? Switch 2.
Cost: $800 vs $350 vs ?? Switch 2.

It's really not looking great, but we'll see. DLSS is the only thing they will have I feel, and that's going to mainly matter docked.

Also, the next Ally handheld will likely be out before the Switch 2 anyway, so good luck beating that, the Ally 2, not the Ally X.
 

yurinka

Member
No. It's portable and Nintendo: they'll want to have a decent price and sell it at a profit plus with its battery lasting a minimum and only can achieve that underpowering the device.
 

Robb

Gold Member
Nintendo (1st party at least) has always been art style over realism anyway, so they can do a hell of a lot more with a whole lot less to begin with. Combine that will DLSS and they should have some impressive output. Now if only someone could give Gamefreak a kick in the nuts to get with the program.
Yeah, I can’t say I’m particularly worried. I mainly want more power because some games run really poorly, especially recent ones, in terms of framerate. The visuals themselves look fine more often than not, mainly due to great art direction.

Although it’d be nice if the textures on the mountains when zoomed in doesn’t look like you’re climbing on literal pixels in the next 3D Zelda.
 
No it will not. It will have a much lower clocked CPU, less RAM, and a overall weaker GPU. It will have the advantage of DLSS and better RT performance.
The thing with DLSS is that it encourages devs to prioritize performance gains over optimization. That's just lazy to me. Relying on AI to achieve performance gains is basically faking it to make it.
 

Minsc

Gold Member
The thing with DLSS is that it encourages devs to prioritize performance gains over optimization. That's just lazy to me. Relying on AI to achieve performance gains is basically faking it to make it.

Couldn't you argue the same about all console games using dynamic resolution (which is almost all AAA console games)?
 

Klosshufvud

Member
And you get DLSS to make up a lot of the difference.
DLSS even on PC is not a magic bullet. It pushes workload to CPU (severely constrained on a mobile console) and every image reconstruction algorithm struggles when upscaling sub Full HD resolutions. There's only so much such algorithms can do with already pixelated images. So in handheld form anyways, temper those DLSS expectations.
 

Beechos

Member
Hell to the no. Once again because of price, performance, battery life, form factor and Nintendo. I expect about steamdecks worth of performace.
 
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Minsc

Gold Member
On PC, DLSS can sometimes be more deterioating to performance than saving if you have a strong GPU and weaker CPU. I don't know if this happens universally but some games do exhibit this issue.

So basically, if you're CPU limited, DLSS won't help much. Lowering the res when you're CPU limited doesn't increase the framerate, so DLSS isn't going to get higher framerates in that situation, that makes sense.

If the FPS at 2160p is 15fps, and the FPS at 480p is also 15fps, that means your CPU isn't strong enough.
 
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CS Lurker

Member
On PC, DLSS can sometimes be more deterioating to performance than saving if you have a strong GPU and weaker CPU. I don't know if this happens universally but some games do exhibit this issue.

Personally, I never experienced this within games I have played using DLSS. But couldn't this be a non-optimal implementation of DLSS in some game engines? Or maybe even the windows environment (where a product like the Switch has a big advantage as Nvidia make the SoC (with their own GPU of course) and also the API for a closed-system).
 

Polygonal_Sprite

Gold Member
DLSS even on PC is not a magic bullet. It pushes workload to CPU (severely constrained on a mobile console) and every image reconstruction algorithm struggles when upscaling sub Full HD resolutions. There's only so much such algorithms can do with already pixelated images. So in handheld form anyways, temper those DLSS expectations.
No. DLSS uses Nvidia tensor cores and in turn adds mileseconds to the GPU’s final render time. I’m well aware it’s not a magic bullet but DLSS is a great tool to get you far more bang for your buck from a computational point of view (especially great for a hybrid device like Switch 2).

That is why every major GPU hardware company has / is creating their own versions of it from AMD to Intel to Sony.
 

CS Lurker

Member
So basically, if you're CPU limited, DLSS won't help much. Lowering the res when you're CPU limited doesn't increase the framerate, so DLSS isn't going to get higher framerates in that situation, that makes sense.

If the FPS at 2160p is 15fps, and the FPS at 480p is also 15fps, that means your CPU isn't strong enough.

As I see it, the idea is not getting higher framerates, but having more GPU resources to spend elsewhere (as we are internally rendering at a lower res) thanks to the TC doing the job.
 

Minsc

Gold Member
As I see it, the idea is not getting higher framerates, but having more GPU resources to spend elsewhere (as we are internally rendering at a lower res) thanks to the TC doing the job.

Right - but in a situation where you're CPU limited, DLSS can't do much I was saying. If the game runs the same framerate across all resolution because the CPU is at its max, using DLSS to lower the render res would have no effect.

And I was always more hopeful to see Switch 2 have frame generation ala DLSS 3.0 (or is that 4)? That could actually have some great use too in having less power to lock 60fps, as people already use AFMF to do that on the Ally and Ally X.
 
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CS Lurker

Member
Right - but in a situation where you're CPU limited, DLSS can't do much I was saying. If the game runs the same framerate across all resolution because the CPU is at its max, using DLSS to lower the render res would have no effect.

So you're saying that we can't have better graphics elsewhere (because we are rendering at lower resolution and using DLSS) because the CPU is already at 100% load, so it limits any improvements we could have in visuals?
 
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Minsc

Gold Member
So you're saying that we can't have better graphics elsewhere (because we are rendering at lower resolution and using DLSS) because the CPU is already at 100% load, so it limits any improvements we could have in visuals?

Sure, let's say you've maxed out all GPU options, everything is Ultra. Your framerate is 15fps. You set all GPU options to minimum, and your framerate is still the same, because the CPU is too weak. Imagine putting like a 4090 with a Celeron CPU for example. Once you max out all you can on the GPU side, you're still being hamstrung by a CPU that can't do its job.

Edit: Maybe a better way to phrase it is to say imagine throttling your CPU to ~2W, or ~500mhz from its full 5Ghz. That's most likely going to hardcap your FPS whether you're running max GPU or min GPU options. For fun you can also imagine throttling your 500W 5090 GPU from 500W to 3W, and imagine what that would do to your FPS too lol.
 
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CS Lurker

Member
Sure, let's say you've maxed out all GPU options, everything is Ultra. Your framerate is 15fps. You set all GPU options to minimum, and your framerate is still the same, because the CPU is too weak. Imagine putting like a 4090 with a Celeron CPU for example. Once you max out all you can on the GPU side, you're still being hamstrung by a CPU that can't do its job.

I see. But for us to consider this scenario, we would have to assume that the T239 has a significant imbalance between the CPU and GPU, where the CPU becomes a major bottleneck. Given that the T239 is a custom SoC designed specifically for the needs of a gaming console (unlike the TX1), it’s hard to imagine that Nvidia/Nintendo would have made something so unbalanced. The CPU, GPU, and bandwidth must have been thoroughly analyzed in various tests to determine the ideal configuration for a machine that focuses 100% on gaming.

Like I said before, the idea of using DLSS is to be able to have more GPU cicles to spare in visual improvements because you are rendering it a lower resolution, and the Tensor Cores will save you precious milliseconds. The idea is not to be able to go from 30fps to 60fps because of DLSS.

About your edit (frame gen), I play on a notebook with a 4070 and, honestly, I don't like to use it to reach 60fps at all. The added latency is too much for me, and I can clearly see artifacts. Now, when I use it to go from ~60fps to ~90fps, then that's when that feature shines. So, for a product like the Switch, I believe it wouldn't be useful. But that's just my opinion.
 
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