Nintendo Switch Technical discussion [SOC = Tegra X1]

[SedentaryJourney]

What are you talking about? Most consoles are built based on tech at least two years old. GCN graphics cards were launching in 2011, and the HD7850 that the PS4 is based on released in March 2012, 19 months prior to PS4's release. Wii U was using 2008 R700 architecture. 360 and PS3 were really the only ones using cutting edge tech.

GCN in PS4 differs, however slightly, from GCN in previous GPUs, being a custom part and all.

Switch hardware is TX1. There's nothing new in Switch that hasn't been seen in previous hardware like the SHIELD Android TV or Jetson TX1 boards.

 

[Pressure]

Battery life should really be less of a concern. Battery banks are so common, just look at how people married their phones with giant batteries during the Pokemon GO craze.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

So you're saying the world is awash with TX1 optimised engines? That UE and Frostbite and Unity and numerous in-house engines had considerable investment in maxing out TX1 for the many millions of Shield consoles out there? Not to mention all Nintendo's Wii U ports.

No.
I'm simply saying Nintendo took their sweet time with an old existing chip and the end result is seen in BotW at launch and Mario Odyssey somewhere in Q4 (probably holidays).

What are you talking about? Most consoles are built based on tech at least two years old. GCN graphics cards were launching in 2011, and the HD7850 that the PS4 is based on released in March 2012, 19 months prior to PS4's release. Wii U was using 2008 R700 architecture. 360 and PS3 were really the only ones using cutting edge tech.

Read again. I wrote chip, not architecture.
On first-wave development cycles from other consoles, developers wouldn't have access to the final hardware until some months before release, making it impossible to make use of low-level optimizations. They probably had to shoot low based on specs and hope it would be low enough to hit gold status on final hardware in time for the launch lineup.
Nintendo has been able to study low-level optimizations for the Tegra X1 for at least 2 years. The chip has been around for a long time.

Also, if you can show me a mobile SOC that thumps the TX1 in a product less than $299 please link it.

What other gaming handheld would gain from the same economy of scale as the Switch?

This is kind of nonesence thing to do, sure, it's quite easy to make shadowpass run for 16 ms on xbox with its 16 rasterized pixels per clock, and we all know that GCN also sucks at geometry reach scenes, so there are plenty of holes to use, but async has disadvantages as well, you cannot run memory bound kernels in parallel with memory bound graphics without performance losses, there are tons of constraints and all this stuff will result into chip being power constarined because suddenly graphics hardware + CUs in parallel will consume exactly the same amount of energy as if they were done serially, thanks to clock and power gating, one can simply overclock Maxwell to keep it on par without any async shaders.

My point was only that we can't assume 2*FP16 will bring the Switch drastically closer to having twice the performance-per-ALU compared to GCN consoles. Besides the disadvantages, GCN consoles have other architectural advantages that aren't present in Maxwell 2.5.
Goodwin was complaining about how people neglect to mention 2*FP16 when talking raw or potential performance on the Switch, but perhaps they do that as much as they neglect talking about async compute on GCN consoles. Likewise, the PS4 Pro isn't being touted as a 8.6 TFLOPs console.

 

[BRiT]

More than writing code and games, there's the whole distribution and support and general having to deal with the company. That's what we'll never hear about. For Sony, what little I hear is if you're big, they'll be great, and if you're small they'll ignore you, string you along, etc. A guy took a year to get a finished game released on the US store and couldn't get it released on EU store due to network bugs for which there were no network debugging tools or options, while of course other games from big names get released full of bugs including game-breakers.

It's definitely possible for Switch to be better to develop for than the others, even if the tools aren't as good. Not that I believe it is - I seriously doubt Nintendo's ability to execute in that regard based on company history. That's not how they roll. But you never know; maybe the past few years they've been building up an elite dev support group who go out of their way to help devs get games on their system?

Sure seems like Nintendo is doing their best to limit any sort of developer good-will for the whole distribution and support by having higher publishing costs. That leads to them doing really mental things like requiring a 13 gb download to be able to play because they only wanted to pay for the price of an 8 GB cart..

Source: VentureBeat: Lego City Undercover struggles with Nintendo Switch Publishing Costs

Excerpts below:

Lego City Undercover which comes out next month for the Nintendo Switch, will require the internet in order to download a mandatory 13GB patch. This open-world adventure originally debuted on the Wii U, and now publisher Warner Bros. Interactive is bringing it back on the Switch as well as PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. But while you will likely have plenty of space to install the game on the PS4 or Xbox hard drives (as you do with all games on those systems), you may quickly run out of space on the Switch.

What’s especially noteworthy here is that the Switch does not install carts on its flash memory, so Warner Bros. could’ve included the entire game on the game card without forcing you to use the space on your system. But instead, it only included 7.1GB. you’ll have to download the rest and keep it on the included storage or on an SD card.

...

“Basically, the issue is that the disc fee and platform fee on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One is cheaper than the 32GB cart fee that Nintendo charges for the Switch,” Niko Partners analyst Daniel Ahmad told GamesBeat. “It’s why you’ll never see Nintendo Switch retail games under $40 with a 32GB cart.”

 

[ProspectorPete]

Sure seems like Nintendo is doing their best to limit any sort of developer good-will for the whole distribution and support by having higher publishing costs. That leads to them doing really mental things like requiring a 13 gb download to be able to play because they only wanted to pay for the price of an 8 GB cart..

Source: VentureBeat: Lego City Undercover struggles with Nintendo Switch Publishing Costs

Excerpts below:

Lego City Undercover which comes out next month for the Nintendo Switch, will require the internet in order to download a mandatory 13GB patch. This open-world adventure originally debuted on the Wii U, and now publisher Warner Bros. Interactive is bringing it back on the Switch as well as PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. But while you will likely have plenty of space to install the game on the PS4 or Xbox hard drives (as you do with all games on those systems), you may quickly run out of space on the Switch.

What’s especially noteworthy here is that the Switch does not install carts on its flash memory, so Warner Bros. could’ve included the entire game on the game card without forcing you to use the space on your system. But instead, it only included 7.1GB. you’ll have to download the rest and keep it on the included storage or on an SD card.

...

“Basically, the issue is that the disc fee and platform fee on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One is cheaper than the 32GB cart fee that Nintendo charges for the Switch,” Niko Partners analyst Daniel Ahmad told GamesBeat. “It’s why you’ll never see Nintendo Switch retail games under $40 with a 32GB cart.”

[/QUOTE]

Actually this is the best recent Switch news; it means Nintendo thinks they can get away with this, so they are expecting Switch to be a massive hit! That is at least reassuring

 

[Goodtwin]

Read again. I wrote chip, not architecture.
On first-wave development cycles from other consoles, developers wouldn't have access to the final hardware until some months before release, making it impossible to make use of low-level optimizations. They probably had to shoot low based on specs and hope it would be low enough to hit gold status on final hardware in time for the launch lineup.
Nintendo has been able to study low-level optimizations for the Tegra X1 for at least 2 years. The chip has been around for a long time.

Your right in that early development for Switch was pretty much final hardware, so the developers did have the benefit of dev kits not changing constantly. However, its not like PS4/X1 were exotic hardware. They used an architecture that was on the market in the PC world for two years leading up to release, and an X86 CPU. PS4 made developers life a lot easier with unified memory, although early games likely only leveraged 4GB of memory because of Sonys last minute upgrade.

What other gaming handheld would gain from the same economy of scale as the Switch?

Not sure what your saying here, but my point is that there isn't another SOC that makes more sense for a mobile gaming device targeted at $299 or less. Apple has superior chips that come in $500-800 devices. Could Nvidia customize the X1 to get more performance? Probably, but would it likely come at the expense of battery life and have a higher price tag? Yes the X1 is two years old, but it still ranks as one of the top mobile SOC for graphics performance. Tegra X1 is to this day a very good performing mobile SOC. Switch is a mobile product, I know, I played mine during my lunch break.

"One of the features appearing for the first time is the handling of 16-bit variables - it's possible to perform two 16-bit operations at a time instead of one 32-bit operation," he says, confirming what we learned during our visit to VooFoo Studios to check out Mantis Burn Racing. "In other words, at full floats, we have 4.2 teraflops. With half-floats, it's now double that, which is to say, 8.4 teraflops in 16-bit computation. This has the potential to radically increase performance."

Marc Cerny seems to believe the half precision capabilities can significantly increase performance on PS4 Pro. As for architectures having strengths and weaknesses, yes, but Maxwell 2 is pretty much superior to 360/PS3/Wii U across the board, so its just as absurd to look at the Gflops of those consoles and directly compare it to the 196Glfop portable mode. Nobody here is suggesting that the Switch is in any way close to the PS4 and X1. Its superior to last gen console, but well short of current gen. It does this will 11 watts and its the size of a small tablet, not bad at all within this form factor.

 

[Goodtwin]

Sure seems like Nintendo is doing their best to limit any sort of developer good-will for the whole distribution and support by having higher publishing costs. That leads to them doing really mental things like requiring a 13 gb download to be able to play because they only wanted to pay for the price of an 8 GB cart..

Source: VentureBeat: Lego City Undercover struggles with Nintendo Switch Publishing Costs

Excerpts below:

Lego City Undercover which comes out next month for the Nintendo Switch, will require the internet in order to download a mandatory 13GB patch. This open-world adventure originally debuted on the Wii U, and now publisher Warner Bros. Interactive is bringing it back on the Switch as well as PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. But while you will likely have plenty of space to install the game on the PS4 or Xbox hard drives (as you do with all games on those systems), you may quickly run out of space on the Switch.

What’s especially noteworthy here is that the Switch does not install carts on its flash memory, so Warner Bros. could’ve included the entire game on the game card without forcing you to use the space on your system. But instead, it only included 7.1GB. you’ll have to download the rest and keep it on the included storage or on an SD card.

...

“Basically, the issue is that the disc fee and platform fee on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One is cheaper than the 32GB cart fee that Nintendo charges for the Switch,” Niko Partners analyst Daniel Ahmad told GamesBeat. “It’s why you’ll never see Nintendo Switch retail games under $40 with a 32GB cart.”

Something is fishy with this article. Required download space for the game on the eshop is only 7.1GB. I just browsed the eshop and that's what it says.

Sent from my SM-G360V using Tapatalk

 

[Allandor]

Something is fishy with this article. Required download space for the game on the eshop is only 7.1GB. I just browsed the eshop and that's what it says.

Sent from my SM-G360V using Tapatalk

Maybe, just like with android apps, you need double the space because download and install are two different things.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Something is fishy with this article. Required download space for the game on the eshop is only 7.1GB. I just browsed the eshop and that's what it says.

That probably lacks the 'extra data' that'll be installed once the game is purchased. Although the store should be clear on all data required if that's the care.

 

[phoenix_chipset]

Right I forgot about the GPU clock boost!



So what you mean is that by setting 60FPS as the target, that means that developers will be less ambitious with graphics, ergo less demand for memory bandwidth as a result?

I wouldn't say less ambitious but yes, you can only do about half as much at 60fps. Pretty simple

I'd start to wonder what the crossover point is in terms of bandwidth per watt. Doubling up the I/O might be fine for Parker where it's more focused on the car market, but it might not be ok for a mobile target even with reduced memory clocks.

Improve the cooling then, make the switch as big as the wii u gamepad and put a bigger battery in there. Or add eDRAM, whichever is the best option for them.

The very nature of the switch means there had to be compromises ; trying to be 2 devices in one. But I wouldn't have compromised on this.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

I wonder if the linear actuators in each JoyCon for the "ice cube feeling", together with the IR camera system are worth more than the price difference for a Tegra X2 with 2*64bit 4GB LPDDR4 and a larger battery that would result in the exact same battery life.

 

[phoenix_chipset]

I wonder if the linear actuators in each JoyCon for the "ice cube feeling", together with the IR camera system are worth more than the price difference for a Tegra X2 with 2*64bit 4GB LPDDR4 and a larger battery that would result in the exact same battery life.

Considering the joy cons are poor man's wii mote and nunchuck, no. Buuut I get it, these things grab more potential customer's attention than more memory bandwidth.

I mean hd rumble sounds cool, but they could've left that for the pro controller alone as it's a luxury.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

If it's an optional feature, no-one will develop for it. If it's in every device, games are more likely to give it a go (for a year or two, and then forget it as a gimmick, most likely).

 

[Goodtwin]

Digital Foundry analyzed the Splatoon 2 test fire footage and found a rock solid 60fps docked with a native 720p resolution, and in portable the game uses a dynamic resolution that scales as low as 548p. They noted that they tested power consumption while docked, and the Switch was pulling about 13 watts, 3 watts less than when they tested Zelda BoTW. So Splatoon 2 is not pushing the hardware as hard as Zelda. It will be interesting to see if they bump the resolution docked to either 900p or 1080p by the time the game launches.

 

[bunnybug]

Considering the joy cons are poor man's wii mote and nunchuck, no. Buuut I get it, these things grab more potential customer's attention than more memory bandwidth.

I mean hd rumble sounds cool, but they could've left that for the pro controller alone as it's a luxury.

do we have any proof they do? I think the switch is mainly successful because it's really the successor to the 3ds, and it also launched with highly rated and anticipated zelda, but really when has nintendo handheld ever failed. i think a TX2 would have diffidently been able to sell more consoles though long term, as it would probably lead to better third party support in the future.

 

[Eteric]

Isn't the X2 only used for cars?

I could have sworn I'd read that the chip after X2 would be more suited to a video game system. It's also my understanding that the X2 isn't really much more powerful than the X1, just a little more power efficient.

 

[bunnybug]

Isn't the X2 only used for cars?

I could have sworn I'd read that the chip after X2 would be more suited to a video game system. It's also my understanding that the X2 isn't really much more powerful than the X1, just a little more power efficient.

the x1 was also made for cars as well, the x2 could be easily modified for tablet use, also the gains in cpu, and bandwidth are huge, the gpu would see a nice gain as well. I never believed nintendo would go X2 because of how they operate and eurogamer sources.

 

[Tabris]

The Tegra X1 inside Switch is a degraded version.
http://eetimes.jp/ee/spv/1703/29/news022.html (Japanese)

http://image.itmedia.co.jp/ee/articles/1703/29/l_tt170328_10yers_004.jpg

 

[phoenix_chipset]

If it's an optional feature, no-one will develop for it. If it's in every device, games are more likely to give it a go (for a year or two, and then forget it as a gimmick, most likely).

On the Wii there are plenty of games designed with the classic controller/gamecube controller in mind.

But rumble isn't a big game changer either way

 

[Shifty Geezer]

On the Wii there are plenty of games designed with the classic controller/gamecube controller in mind.

Are these unplayable on the Wiimote?

But rumble isn't a big game changer either way

Probably not. However, if Nintendo believe in it, they have to include it as standard or it's definitely dead. It's curious that Sony talked about HD rumble for PS3, but didn't bother in either PS3 or PS4. I guess they decided (perhaps noticing how motion controls etc went) that these little extras are pointless added cost?