Nintendo Switch Technical discussion [SOC = Tegra X1]
- Thread starter Alucardx23
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Nintendo seems to put AA low on their priority list. No matter what kind of AA the developer chooses it eats up resources. The Tegra X1 only has 25.6GB/s of memory bandwidth to work with, so using MSAA would be a poor choice. Temporal AA seems to work rather well in Snake Pass and doesn't consume as much memory bandwidth. If Nintendo were to implement AA, I would think it would be something like that or FXAA.
Nintendo would have to budget it early on for their 60Hz titles given that they're probably looking at even less frame time to ensure a rock solid user experience, and things like FXAA may already be in the region of 1-2ms per 1080p frame on Switch-level of HW, which is huge.
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tongue_of_colicab
Veteran
I do think they need some aa. It depends on the game but for example Splatoon 2 has massively visible jaggies on a big screen. Doesn't have to be a lot of aa, just enough to get rid of the very obvious rough edges.
Edit: just as SB I definitely prefer 60fps over everything else.
Edit: just as SB I definitely prefer 60fps over everything else.
It does seem like AA is pretty much at the top of Nintendo's list of compromises to make when developing their internal games. Nintendo could accommodate that 1-2ms of frame time by making compromises somewhere else. Splatoon 2 makes numerous upgrades over the original game. Far better lighting and shadows, and yet the sequel uses no AA. Many of us will certainly always choose a solid 60fps with no AA versus drops in framerate with AA, but its not like these are mutually exclusive. Nintendo could implement AA and still hit that rock solid 60fps, but they apparently feed that the resources are better spent elsewhere. I personally agree with their decision because when in motion, I am not all that sensitive to jaggies. I suppose my 6 years of Wii gaming made me immune.
Wii was harder to swallow. Most TVs at the time didn't upscale very well. These days I think modern TVs actually upscale way better than older HDTVs do mainly because most content is still in 1080p and making that content look good on your TV is probably a good selling point. I do love me some AA, but I understand them dropping it for a better frame rate. Some sacrifices have to be made when you're developing on a tablet SoC.
I'm kind of curious about the Switch's future, though. The current Switch runs on a Tegra X1, but it's my understanding that most chips Nvidia will be making in the future will be made for cars. Now, I'm not a technical guy, but where will that leave Nintendo with a sort of Switch 2 in a few years? It's my understanding that X1 is a gaming oriented chip. But if all of Nvidia's upcoming Tegra chips are made for cars, where will that leave Nintendo? It's something I'm concerned about.
Switch is so early in its life that thinking too hard about its successor is pretty pointless. Nvidia has and likely will continue to keep power consumption in mind when developing future architectures. If Nintendo wants to release a mid generation refresh of the Switch like they have with the 3DS, they could always rely on a dye shrink to get the clock speeds up. For Nvidia, they most likely moved more X1 processors in Switch's first month than they did in all other devices combined since the Tegra X1 release. I think its safe to say they are now willing to continue to develop the Tegra line of processors knowing they have a good chance of moving a lot of units with Nintendo. Switch will likely see a 5-6 year life before a successor is released, and most likely will use a processor based on 2019 Nvidia tech, so anything currently on the drawing board is irrelevant. They will have long since moved past Tegra Parker by then.
tongue_of_colicab
Veteran
Product planning takes years though. Nintendo will need to have some kind of idea what Nividia can offer in terms of TDP, pricing, battery performance, software etc. and then it all needs to come together. All that takes a lot of time. Smartphones makers just slap on whatever is available and hope for the best. If they end up with a melon such a snapdragon 810 it sucks for a a year but everybody is in the same boat and next year they can try again. Nintendo doesn't have that luxury.
Also I expect a 4 ~ 5 year life for switch, for 4 years being the more likely one. Possibly even shorter with the speed at which mobile hardware improves and Sony and MS now trying mid gen upgrades and games that are supposed to work across multiple "generations".
Also I expect a 4 ~ 5 year life for switch, for 4 years being the more likely one. Possibly even shorter with the speed at which mobile hardware improves and Sony and MS now trying mid gen upgrades and games that are supposed to work across multiple "generations".
Yeah, mobile is moving really fast. I'm just kind of wondering where it'll be in around 2020 and if Nvidia will have any answer for it. I'm a little worried that Nintendo will pull a Wii/Wii U and just shrink the chip and add more cores/overclock it. The good thing about the Switch is it's technically modern so while it doesn't have the horsepower, it still has the feature set of modern systems. In 5 years even if they take the same chip and add more cores/shrink it/overclock it, it wouldn't be modern anymore. People would probably have trouble getting engines running on it.
It's a concern. I know that a lot of Nintendo has been through a shake up over the last two or three years, but its hard to say how Kimishima and the current hardware guys will handle Switch 2 or whatever it'll be.
It's a concern. I know that a lot of Nintendo has been through a shake up over the last two or three years, but its hard to say how Kimishima and the current hardware guys will handle Switch 2 or whatever it'll be.
developers already are having trouble running engines, we already know of 3-4 games that are not graphically impressive for ps4/xb1 that have to run at half the frame rate, and even 900p. anyway i think nintendo will go x2 for the switch successor, if they pull a wii though it would suck and i wouldn't be surprised.
Sales volume of the Switch will be a major factor.
If the sales volume is high, the more Nintendo can invest in the specification of a bespoke SoC.
Of course, it also depends on Nvidias Tegra plans. It may be that Nintendo and Nvidia can find a design that works for both of them, cutting down design costs.
It's a financial balancing act based on predicted sales volumes and target markets from 2020 or so and forwards. Tricky.
Oh come on, still ridiculous comparisons like that ?
Do you even start to consider the vastly different power consumption between the Switch and those other devices ?!
The Xbox One S processor is using the more energy efficient 16nm FinFet process and still pulls 5x the wattage compared to the Tegra X1 when docked. If the battery is charging while docked I believe it jumps to 16 watts, but once its charged it only pulls about 10 watts. I do find it funny that people criticized Nintendo for going with a custom processor for Wii U when various superior off the shelf parts could have out performed it for the same money, but when they go with a stock Tegra X1 they are once again criticized. Even today, the Tegra X1 holds it own with top of the line mobile chips, at least as far as graphics processing is concerned. It fits the bill. If AMD has been contracted for a custom chip to work in the form factor that is the Switch, they likely would have come up with something not as good and more expensive. The Tegra X1 was a perfect fit, and it didn't cost Nintendo a bunch of R&D dollars to come up with something that likely would have been very similar in the end anyway.
It is becoming more and more clear that the Switch isn't and never will be a AAA gaming machine. It is also becoming more and more clear that it doesn't need to be to be successful. There are a lot of consumers out in the world with different taste and different needs. People are lining up by the thousands in Japan to try and buy a Switch. To me this isn't a surprise. I always believed that Japan was a lock once Switch was revealed. It was the rest of the world that I was not nearly as convinced. So far it continues to sell out in my area, and no online retailers seem to have any in stock.
It is becoming more and more clear that the Switch isn't and never will be a AAA gaming machine. It is also becoming more and more clear that it doesn't need to be to be successful. There are a lot of consumers out in the world with different taste and different needs. People are lining up by the thousands in Japan to try and buy a Switch. To me this isn't a surprise. I always believed that Japan was a lock once Switch was revealed. It was the rest of the world that I was not nearly as convinced. So far it continues to sell out in my area, and no online retailers seem to have any in stock.
Well I'd consider most of Nintendo's first party to be AAA games...just maybe not from a modern graphics perspective.
But I agree with you that Switch doesn't have to a 4th version of PS4/Xbox/PC to be successful...in fact it's probably smart of to avoid that direct competition and go with the form factor they have done.
Absolutely, obviously a game like Zelda BoTW and Xenoblade 2 are AAA games. I just meant from the third party side of the equation. Games like Assassins Creed and Battlefield are pretty much out of the question, and I think that will remain the case even if Switch continues to sell very well. I also think its becoming apparent that the market didn't need another platform to play the same games, but instead a unique product that does its own thing. A lot of people are of the opinion that Nintendo needs to copy Sony and Microsoft to find success, but historically it has been their most unique pieces of hardware that have sold the best. Time will tell, sales could plummet, but so far that doesn't look too likely.
Silent_Buddha
Legend
Games like AC and Battlefield are certainly possible on the Switch. What you meant to say is that the graphics level of the current AC and Battlefield aren't possible on the Switch.
In terms of gameplay, you can scale down massively in both CPU and GPU and still have basically the same gameplay. With AC and Battlefield, you'd need to re-engineer the rendering engine to allow for use on the Switch and that's just too much work this early in the Switch lifetime when it's still unknown how well 3rd party AAA titles will do.
UBIsoft are already investing in AAA games for the Switch. Bethesda is investing in some limited AAA ports to test the waters. If it continues to be successful, I have no doubts other publishers will dip their toes in.
AAA is most commonly used to describe a high level of investment (time, money, resources) that can't generally be done at an independent level of development (hence, why almost all AAA development must be funded by suitably large publishers). While it generally correlates to better graphics, it doesn't have to involve better graphics (Warframe is an indie title with better graphics than many AAA titles, for example). But AAA titles generally exhibit better polish in various areas than non AAA titles. Although even there, it's not guaranteed as there have been some extremely unpolished AAA titles.
Regards,
SB
1) Insignificant amount compared to the GPU portion
Loook up information about the cpu. One of the blocks isnt used at all (the Cortex A53 cores) and never has been used in any shipping Nvidia Tegra. It would only theoretically be used in extremely low power idle situations, which in the Switch is never. Here is the wiki line info.
- CPU: ARMv8 ARM Cortex-A57 quad-core + ARM Cortex-A53 quad-core (64-bit)