The NX Prediction / BSpeculation / Fanxiety Thread

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Thraktor said:
So here's something interesting. I was skimming through Cadence's blog, and particularly their report on TSMC's most recent tech symposium last month. While reading through their part on the InFO packaging tech, this particular line caught my eye:



Note that they're talking about a singular four-die HBM stack. Assuming we're talking about HBM2 (there's not really any way it could be anything else) this means it's a 4GB stack with bandwidth around 200-256GB/s. This means it's not a GPU, as it's neither enough bandwidth nor capacity for high-end cards, and it's going to be too expensive for more entry-level cards (where 200GB/s can be easily achieved with much cheaper GDDR5).

That leaves SoCs. Xavier is obviously the most likely candidate, although even that would be a bit of a surprise. Not just the bandwidth (I honestly have no idea what kind of bandwidth deep learning requires), but that I'd be surprised that they would be so heavily power constrained as to avoid GDDR5(/X), which could also give them much more capacity for their money.

The other option is NX. HBM2 would, of course, be absolutely insane overkill for a handheld. There's no way Nintendo would next more bandwidth than PS4 Pro, with a system perhaps a tenth as powerful and a vastly more bandwidth efficient GPU architecture. And yet, from Gamecube/Wii's 1T-SRAM to 3DS's FCRAM and ample SRAM, to Wii U's big eDRAM pool, Nintendo clearly loves expensive specialist RAM which is tightly coupled to the CPU and GPU. I would also expect HBM2 to consume a bit too much power for a mobile application, but we're only talking about a single stack, and I suppose it's possible that they could be clocking it down to 100-150GB/s to sit at a more comfortable point in the power curve. Lastly is obviously the expense, but only using a single die and InFO (which avoids the need for a silicon substrate) might just potentially pull this down to less than catastrophic level.

If I were a betting man I'd certainly put my money on Xavier being the chip they're talking about, and Nintendo going with a more typical LPDDR4 solution perhaps with a decent sized shared L3 cache. That said, it would be the first Nintendo device in a long time to go with the "typical solution" for RAM.
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This is the type of speculation I like. Fuck reveal dates, I wanna talk about what powers the thing.
 
cyberheater said:
Yeah. Your shitty experience was due to your shitty HMD.

PSVR and DK2 are both 1080p and both provide a great experience.
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Proper positional head tracking really helps, too. If Nintendo were planning for a GearVR style VR solution for NX (which I very much doubt for a variety of reasons) then this is actually the biggest technical challenge they'd have to overcome (the others are simply "use a higher res screen" and "use a more powerful GPU").
 
Calm Mind said:
THIS IS NOT A DRILL!

https://twitter.com/Nintex_nl/status/788853460796116992
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tumblr_mwd59xHbEB1sxm6jjo1_500.gif
 
Manoko said:
And both of those aren't mobile VR.
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I've also tried GearVR and it's a pretty good worthwhile VR experience.
Mobile VR is only getting stronger. It could be a good area for growth for Nintendo.
 
Thraktor said:
Proper positional head tracking really helps, too. If Nintendo were planning for a GearVR style VR solution for NX (which I very much doubt for a variety of reasons) then this is actually the biggest technical challenge they'd have to overcome (the others are simply "use a higher res screen" and "use a more powerful GPU").
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Well obviously the dock acts like a PS Camera in NX VR solution.
 
Dark Cloud said:
So if it's not Friday. It can only happen 3 times before then.

We have today in around 3-5 hours
The usual Thursday morning
Or Thursday evening...

Man I can't sleep now and I keep refreshing Emily's twitter lol
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FWIW he didn't say it's not Friday. He said he's not guessing Friday. As others said that could be read as a confirmation of Friday.
 
So this board went from never to tomorrow to Friday in like an hour.
 
Thraktor said:
Proper positional head tracking really helps, too. If Nintendo were planning for a GearVR style VR solution for NX (which I very much doubt for a variety of reasons) then this is actually the biggest technical challenge they'd have to overcome (the others are simply "use a higher res screen" and "use a more powerful GPU").
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Yes. Some sort of camera on it would be a must but Nintendo have some very good engineers.
 
I'm gona laugh when Friday comes and Nintendo reveals it is working on a Mother 3 localization, available this holiday for WiiU.

The tears will be bittersweet.
 
Sendou said:
Well obviously the dock acts like a PS Camera in NX VR solution.
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Such a camera would have to communicate wirelessly with the handheld/headset, though, which would introduce latency to the head tracking, and if there's one golden rule of VR, it's that you want your head tracking latency to be as low as humanly possible.

Edit:

cyberheater said:
Yes. Some sort of camera on it would be a must but Nintendo have some very good engineers.
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They do, but as noted above, an external camera would need to communicate wirelessly with the NX, adding unavoidable latency. The only internal camera solution which might be able to provide positional tracking would be a TTF depth-sensing camera, but I don't believe they have the accuracy required thus far. One option would be to go with Vive-style lighthouses, which gives very accurate positional tracking which can be calculated entirely within the NX (the lighthouses are just passively shooting out lasers). This would probably be pretty expensive, though, and would require people to physically install two lighthouse-like devices on the walls of whatever room they would want to use NX VR in. Not something I'd expect from Nintendo.

It would definitely be interesting to see what kind of path Nintendo would go with VR, but I don't expect to find out any time soon.
 
gafneo said:
Did Emily leak any hints of a Rockstar game?
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She retweeted an RDR2 image, so it depends how much you want to think that every single thing she does relates to NX.
Manoko said:
You need 90+ fps in VR to not have a really bad experience using it.

Do you really think Tegra X1/X2 is able to push 90+fps on a AAA game at 720-1080p on two screens at once ?

That's not happening, trust me.
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If you define AAA as "big budget PS4 game", no the hell way. But could Nintendo make interesting 90fps games with the hardware if they wanted to? No reason why not.

They are the\ones who have by far given the biggest stereoscopic push over the last half decade, with by far the weakest hardware on the market for most of that time.
 
Malus said:
I...I don't understand.
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you can't guess what you already know. Like you can't guess what the ending of your favorite movie will be because you already know how it all plays out.


I still read it as a hint for thursday but the other reading does make sense.
 
We'll definitely eventually be given an announcement of an announcement. The only question is whether or not we get an announcement of an announcement of an announcement.
 
*Lurks thread even tho I said I'm done with NX rumors* *Reads the new set of tweets*

Sighhhhh I guess I can't help it. Sign me the hell up on this hype train of madness and desperation, please!
 
Nirolak said:
To be clear, if someone's a day off, we're not going to be unreasonable here.

The goal is not to catch someone on some technicality, it's to stop focusing on bad rumors.
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Yeah, I really appreciate this. It's the only way to put an end to the angry-mob-with-pitchforks mentality while also being understanding of how they got to this point :)

Edit: good god this thread is moving fast
 
I can't believe how fast this thread moves lol. It's hard to keep up with sometimes.

Does everybody have their "NX reveal announced" topic made and ready to press enter?
 
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