Nintendo announce: Nintendo NX

[liolio]

Eurogamer says the development kit has audible fan noise. But we know that no Nintendo handheld ever utilizes a fan inside it, and NX is probably no exception. Therefore if NX really adopts a new-gen tegra SOC, the peak performance (with the dock) may not exceed current tegra X1 because of lacking active cooling. However for mobile use NX can have better performance at the same power consumption.

Tegra X1 doesn't not use both CPU clusters concurrently but why not using the big coresmat their fullest while compiling and whatever others operations that are done on devkits, in that context cooling the SOC could make sense may be?

That's not the same thing at all. UCPU is the Gamecube's CPU with three cores jammed together and more cache glued onto there, and GC's CPU was a very lightly modified PowerPC core from the late 1990s.

I remember reading that as a little core the CPU ain't bad at all, it does not clock well, and the number of cores was too low for both for the Wii and the Wii U. Performances remained competitive with ARM CPU for a good while. Now a refresh is welcome but I think that custom PPC was the best technological choice in console History, the arch could have served pretty successfully three generations, it still some how didn't the job no matter Nintendo extremely conservative choices.

 

[BRiT]

Compiling is not done on the actual handheld hardware. That is done on the PC development environment. The mobile device merely runs the code, while providing any statistics or counters or events to the connected PC development envrionment.

 

[Grall]

Tottentranz is correct when pointing out that all consoles so far (original xbox?)

The original box had a very custom chipset, although NV recycled some of the IP in some of its PC chipsets, including the sound DSP(s? ...Which probably beat Sega Saturn as the console with most powerful dedicated sound hardware btw, at least up until that point in time. Xbone may be top dog today tho.)

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Xbone may be top dog today tho.)

Much good that that does it...

 

[Grall]

Much good that that does it...

You forget or discount the feeling of satisfaction knowing that there's awesome sound hardware in there!

 

[Blazkowicz]

Original Xbox had a really vanilla CPU? Might be a straight Pentium 3 with half the L2 disabled.

Still running an nforce 5 there, albeit with no GPU, with lousy sound and to think of it no memory controller. You can still buy a new geforce 7025 motherboard, with 125W CPU support and a USB 3.0 controller on some. After that one is done for good, R.I.P. third party chipsets.

 

[pharma]

Report: Nintendo NX will use Nvidia’s new, unannounced Tegra chip

However, a new report now says that while the NX will be powered by the Tegra, it won’t be the current X1 chip, but the upcoming X2, which will be far more powerful.

http://wiiudaily.com/2016/07/report-nintendo-nx-will-use-nvidias-new-unannounced-tegra-chip/

 

[BRiT]

Report: Nintendo NX will use Nvidia’s new, unannounced Tegra chip

http://wiiudaily.com/2016/07/report-nintendo-nx-will-use-nvidias-new-unannounced-tegra-chip/

Take the report of it being a new Tegra chip with a grain of salt. It's being interpreted from a known Nintendo Fan Site (WiiU Daily). The actual report is just a tweet from https://twitter.com/DirectFeedGames:

Since it is being discussed elsewhere, I can say with confidence that Nvidia will announce a Pascal Tegra Chip for NX

And before that:

Hearing more and more on NX. Folks need to remain calm and wait for the official details to hit. #NintendoNX #NX

Today I learned people don't understand what a report/rumor is. The NX may destroy the sanity of the game industry community.

 

[Megadrive1988]

That's not the same thing at all. UCPU is the Gamecube's CPU with three cores jammed together and more cache glued onto there, and GC's CPU was a very lightly modified PowerPC core from the late 1990s.

Today's x86 cores on the other hand are not very like their late '90s versions; a lot has changed under the hood since then.

That is true about WiiU's CPU core architecture dating back to the late 1990s PowerPC design used in Gamecube's Gekko.

And also true about today's x86 cores having little in common with late 90s x86 like Pentium II and III.

 

[Entropy]

That is true about WiiU's CPU core architecture dating back to the late 1990s PowerPC design used in Gamecube's Gekko.

And also true about today's x86 cores having little in common with late 90s x86 like Pentium II and III.

My somewhat tongue in cheek point was that the age of a CPU architecture says very little. A myriad of implementation details and process minutiae, targets for die area, cost, power draw, connectivity, backwards compatibility and so on influence what compromise you are going to choose.
With the WiiU, Nintendo demanded hardware backwards compatibility. They updated process and speed, went triple core, extended caches, sped up off-chip communication and hooked it to an even larger on package cache. Even without knowing what they may have tweaked internally, they did a lot. It would be of some interest to run a battery of benchmarks on it to compare with the Wii. But of course that solid backwards compatibility was a constraint.
It's always about the chosen trade-offs. The jaguar cores on XB1/PS4 aren't setting the world on fire for instance, but they are compact and has relatively low power draw, they were available for straightforward APU deployment and so on. They made sense for all their lack of lustre.
In the greater scheme of things, consoles are low cost appliances, and in absolute terms they aren't very technologically interesting. It is the balancing act, and how their design is influenced by history, market predictions, and attempts to create new capabilities and appeal, that can make them interesting from a technological perspective.

 

[HMBR]

The original box had a very custom chipset, although NV recycled some of the IP in some of its PC chipsets, including the sound DSP(s? ...Which probably beat Sega Saturn as the console with most powerful dedicated sound hardware btw, at least up until that point in time. Xbone may be top dog today tho.)

my understanding is that a lot of the (non GPU portion) Xbox chipset was used for the socket 462 Nforce chipsets, including the sound portion (named SoundStorm on the PC)!?

and the GPU on the Xbox was pretty much a mix between Geforce 3 and Geforce 4 Ti (released in 2002, a little after the Xbox)
the CPU was basically a mobile Pentium 3 with an exclusive l2 cache setup (same amount as a Celeron but with the speed of the P3 cache); considering modders have successfully replaced the Xbox CPU with PC pentium 3s (for higher clocks), I think it's safe to assume the rest is exactly the same as any other Coppermine p3, the only custom part is how Intel disabled some l2, compared to how they disabled for the PC Celerons




after watching the Digital Foundry video of the Shield TV playing GameCube emulated games, I decided to check some geekbench results for the Shield TV CPU, and it's actually pretty impressive, a good amount higher than the Jaguar CPUs, if you compare 1.6GHz Jaguar vs the Shield on ST... it makes me feel like the Tegra SoC should be able to emulate even the wii U nicely? (in terms of hardware, they would need more software development compared to Dolphin which struggles a bit with Wii) considering MS emulating 360 on the One... unless the NX SoC have very low clocks for battery life... but if it doesn't, it's easy to see the NX having a faster CPU (in ST at least) than even the PS4 Neo!?

 

[liolio]

Ain't it quite possible that NX is the name of the Tegra chip? One has to wonder.

 

[HMBR]

"NVIDIA’s Andi Skende will be talking about the “Tegra-Next System-on-a-Chip” at the Hot Chips conference in California on August 22nd."

 

[liolio]

"NVIDIA’s Andi Skende will be talking about the “Tegra-Next System-on-a-Chip” at the Hot Chips conference in California on August 22nd."

I'm looking forward for that event though I do not expect Nvidia to make any announcement in the stead of Nintendo.

 

[Osamar]

I was thinking in the possibility of a double SOC system. One in the table and another at the docking station, connected by a "Nvlink-LITE" with added tablet charging. Even with tablet SOC running at A/2 mhzs in portable mode and A mhzs when docked.

 

[Anarchist4000]

Personally I was expecting some sort of localized streaming platform. A heavier dock/base unit with a handheld device that primarily decodes the video stream. Maybe providing some very light rendering.

 

[Esrever]

Personally I was expecting some sort of localized streaming platform. A heavier dock/base unit with a handheld device that primarily decodes the video stream. Maybe providing some very light rendering.

so a Wii u..

 

[BRiT]

so a Wii u..

You could even say a WiiU2!

 

[CSI PC]

May be totally unrelated but PCGameshardware re-highlighted an interesting Nintendo patent filed late 2014 describing a Supplemental Computing Device for Consoles : http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-...d=PG01&s1=14/294704&OS=14/294704&RS=14/294704
This was in the news back in January 2015 as potentially being linked with the NX.

It is worth noting this concept would IMO had been well before negotiations with Nvidia so it cannot be seen as being truly associated to NX 'Tegra'.
However, it does show that Nintendo were/are strongly considering a 2-stage console where as some speculated could mean the Tegra X2 handheld being augmented/co-processor-GPU by the docking-base station with either another X2 or something similar to what is done with the PX2 and a full low tier Pascal GPU.
That said it does not mean they intend to do this though and may use the home base station for more mundane aspects (auxiliary mains-power supplies a given), even if they considered it enough for a very loose patent with statements such as:

[0015] FIG. 1 illustrates an example environment 100 that includes a game console 102 locally executing a game, as well as a supplemental computing device 104 coupled to the console for supplementing processing and storage resources of the game console 102. In addition, the environment 100 includes a user community 106 comprising users operating respective game console and supplemental computing device combinations, such that the game consoles may utilize nearby supplemental computing devices to even further supplement the game-console resources. Supplementing the game console resources may enhance the experience of a user that utilizes the game console for gaming, for watching videos, or for performing any other computing tasks using, at least in part, the game console 102.

[0019] Regardless of whether the user 108 utilizes the local supplemental computing device 104, a remote supplemental computing device, or both, the supplemental computing device(s) may function to enhance the gaming experience of the user 108. The game console 102 may work in unison with the supplemental computing device(s) to offload processing of certain data or storage of certain data associated with the game. Because the sole or primary function of the supplemental computing device(s) may be to enhance the gaming experience by supplementing resources of the game console 102, in some instances the hardware of the supplemental computing device(s) is purposefully limited. For instance, the supplemental computing device(s) may include processor(s), memory for storage, and interface(s) for coupling to game consoles, but may be free from display drivers, audio drivers, a user control interface for interfacing with the control 110, or the like. In some instances, the supplemental computing device(s) include power supplies, while in other instances these devices can utilize power provided by respective game consoles (e.g. provided through the wired connection). In still other instances, different portions of a game or other application may be stored across multiple supplemental computing devices such that these portions are "closer" to users' game consoles and therefore may be rendered faster as compared to storing the data at remote servers. For instance, different portions of a map of a game may be stored across a group of supplemental computing devices that are within a relatively close network distance to one another such that the associated game consoles may each access these parts of the game, when needed, relatively quickly.

Just skimming through but a bit tired, also seems they are thinking possibly along the lines of wanting a solution also as flexible as Nvidia's Grid/Cloud platform, but this is an incredibly vague patent and seems more of an intent with some aspects aligning well with Nvidia's own developments - when it was mentioned in news that Nintendo was using Nvidia's mobile solution I would say most of us were also wondering whether it would include some kind of streaming/cloud service based upon Grid technology and maybe as a 'license' to Nintendo to build their own infrastructure.
If so that would also be another source of revenue for Nvidia, depending how deployed and used by Nintendo.
Cheers

 

[Megadrive1988]

I'm thinking Nvidia Grid / GeForce Now / Cloud platform might be one reason Nintendo brought Nvidia on board for NX.