New Nintendo Switch hardware versions?

[orangpelupa]

I'm also hoping for revised joycons. I actually like them as controllers mind you. But like so many other Switch owners, I also fell victim to the analog drift issue. It's really annoying.

Hey I guess I'm finally become the lucky one!

My joycons have no drift despite It got a ton of use. Be it in the bathroom (complete with splashes), played harshly by kids with their grimy hands in mosque every Friday, or when I detach them and put them in my pants pocket or my bag togethrr with tons of debris (mainly paper debris).

Anyway, switch detachable controller is really awesome! Playing while eating had never been this comfortable hahaba

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

I don't know numbers, but it means loosing a pair of extra batteries, recharging HW, bluetooth thingies, 4 complex to manufacture slide and attach switch tray thingies. It probably saves a lot. add that to a smaller overall product (less material and smaller box) and a smaller/cheaper screen, and HW that never has to operate in the HD performance profile, I think they certainly can shave off you 50 bucks or more.



Well, I see no problem there. If you see yourself wanting that kind of experience, than the full fledged switch is the product for you. The fact it is cheaper to buy the full switch than a nintendo stick +extra controlers is a feature, not a problem.

I doubt it. A pair of batteries and Bluetooth chips cost next to nothing. And there is absolutely nothing complicated about the sliding mechanism. Reworking the Tegra chip to only run at 720p makes little sense either as I doubt the cost of building a new chip out weights the minimal cost savings.

There isn't much to save on the screen either and I'm not sure if going with a smaller and lower quality screen is something consumers want. A smaller screen will make games quite hard to play.

 

[milk]

I doubt it. A pair of batteries and Bluetooth chips cost next to nothing. And there is absolutely nothing complicated about the sliding mechanism. Reworking the Tegra chip to only run at 720p makes little sense either as I doubt the cost of building a new chip out weights the minimal cost savings.

There isn't much to save on the screen either and I'm not sure if going with a smaller and lower quality screen is something consumers want. A smaller screen will make games quite hard to play.

Well, googling switch's BOM I found this:

https://www.kitguru.net/tech-news/p...-wont-line-nintendos-pockets-suggests-report/

This lab has gutted the gaming device in order to create a bill of materials. According to Polygon who had access to the report, the touchscreen, Nvidia Tegra SoC and dock cost around $167 to manufacture, with the Joy-Cons adding an extra $45 to the bill.

So the joycons cost almost another $50. Of course that includes their buttons and sticks that you wouldn't do away with by making them non detachable. But still, the simplicity of making them non detachable simplifies a lot of the main hardware. Power supply and recharging controllers can be simpler since the central unit does not have to control recharging of another two separate controllers. You can also put just a single accelerometer and gyro for the whole thing instead of one for each joycon. Also, don't underestimate the added manufacturing complexity of a slide and attach thingie. In isolation it is relatively simple, but it must end up precise enough to fit another piece and that has to be tested. It adds more cost than just the materials themselves. I still think you can shave off more than $50 easily by simplifying the system as a whole.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

I doubt it. A pair of batteries and Bluetooth chips cost next to nothing.

There are cheap (and crap) versions of everything but Nintendo didn't put those into the joycons.

Every discussion about cost ends up with grabbing onto the lowest, cheapest option, which generally isn't the component of choice in any of products anybody posting to this board would buy. There is a reason for that.

 

[Entropy]

Hey I guess I'm finally become the lucky one!

My joycons have no drift despite It got a ton of use. Be it in the bathroom (complete with splashes), played harshly by kids with their grimy hands in mosque every Friday, or when I detach them and put them in my pants pocket or my bag togethrr with tons of debris (mainly paper debris).

Anyway, switch detachable controller is really awesome! Playing while eating had never been this comfortable hahaba

This reminds me of Atari testing the arcade survivability of the Missile Command controls by letting nearby construction workers play the prototypes for free on their lunch breaks.
They survived adults using the controls with their feet, standing on the cabinets.

One should never underestimate the destructive capability of a six year old.

 

[orangpelupa]

Anyway, hopefully they won't skimp on the battery so switch can last longer, even when playing heavy games.

Currently its way too short for some games. Like... It goes low battery in just 2 hours.

 

[Goodtwin]

Going by the results of overclocking the Nintendo Switch, the outlook for a Switch Pro providing a meaningful upgrade is better than I would have imagined. What was the most interesting is seeing games like Doom and Wolfenstein 2 receiving a nice boost in framerate by increasing the CPU clock speeds to 1.4 Ghz. Surprisingly, or unsurprisingly, the Switch is more CPU bound than GPU in these games. A Switch Pro could in theory iron out a lot of games framerate dips, and keep the resolution up for dynamic resolution games. I would buy it.

 

[AlNom]

Surprisingly, or unsurprisingly, the Switch is more CPU bound than GPU in these games.

I haven't looked at the vid yet, but I wonder if boosting the CPU has a non-linear effect in freeing up the memory bus (less of a bandwidth hit from reduced contention).

 

[Pressure]

I like how the video fails to state how doubling the memory bandwidth going from TX1 to TX2 will help boost performance across the board.

NVIDIA states Max-Q (Maximum efficiency) for TX2 is GPU at 854MHz and Cortex-A57 at 1.2GHz. The current Switch TX1 is clocked at only 307MHz in handheld mode and 768MHz in docked mode.

By the way, the improved fidelity comes from overclocking the GPU to 460MHz (in handheld mode) and not the the CPU.

 

[AlNom]

The Wolf II section seemed to indicate a boost to 720p with just the CPU overclock (docked, GPU@768MHz) @5m05s.

It's interesting anyhow.

 

[dogen]

I haven't looked at the vid yet, but I wonder if boosting the CPU has a non-linear effect in freeing up the memory bus (less of a bandwidth hit from reduced contention).

wouldn't boosting the CPU use up more memory bandwidth though?

 

[AlNom]

wouldn't boosting the CPU use up more memory bandwidth though?

Assuming the work is constant - i.e. finishing the same workload faster. There's a framerate limit as well.

I'm not entirely sure if it holds water, but I'm just thinking aloud as the CPU is likely given priority access on the shared bus since they're more sensitive to latency (more random vs GPU), which may be why we see something akin to a non-linear drop in performance the greater the CPU burden (See PS4 shared bandwidth trade-off slide/leaked SDK).

 

[Sigfried1977]

Hey I guess I'm finally become the lucky one!

My joycons have no drift despite It got a ton of use. Be it in the bathroom (complete with splashes), played harshly by kids with their grimy hands in mosque every Friday, or when I detach them and put them in my pants pocket or my bag togethrr with tons of debris (mainly paper debris).

Anyway, switch detachable controller is really awesome! Playing while eating had never been this comfortable hahaba

Thank goodness the joy cons turned out to be fairly easy to fix. I bought a cheap replacement stick on amazon and put it in myself. Was €10 including all the neccessary tools. It was even a Prime article. Taking out 7 screws was all I needed to do. The parts are tiny, so the ordeal is rather fiddly (and the tools are obviously cheap. I hate non-magnetic screw drivers). The whole process took about 10 minutes. Anyone with a modicum of dexterity should be able to manage this. Certainly beats spending 80 bucks on new joy cons. This would be especially annoying because I have those lovely bright red Mario Odyssey edition joy cons you cannot buy separately.

TLDR: don't buy new joycons. Fix 'em yourself instead.

 

[lefantome]

C'mon Nintendo, give me a home only console, possibly with better performance and lower price.

 

[orangpelupa]

btw i just upclocked my switch from 768MHz docked to > 900 Mhz and the fan doesnt even run at max speed. It seems Switch while docked do have thermal headroom for higher clocks. It really helps in some games.

i wonder, if thats the "secret sauce" nintendo used to render BOTW in 3D for labo VR? They upclocked the portable mode?

the new switch probably would be cooler AND quieter, even at higher clock. While new games will run old switch in higher clocks to get the performance closer?

 

[wco81]

So more recent rumors about a lower-priced model in the immediate future followed by a more powerful model next year.

Understandable strategy but the success of this Switch paradigm (portable and dockable for more performance) could be put to the test next year assuming PS5 and XB2 come out.

The performance delta will probably widen even more between Nintendo and the other consoles.

Will the portable/dockable duality still trump next-gen power?

There has to be a lot of pent-up demand for people who bought PS4 or XB years ago so there might be a surge for more powerful console segment of the market.

That is unless the more performant Switch offers more than just better performance. Better screen would be a good start.

 

[bgroovy]

btw i just upclocked my switch from 768MHz docked to > 900 Mhz and the fan doesnt even run at max speed. It seems Switch while docked do have thermal headroom for higher clocks. It really helps in some games.

Keep in mind Nintendo chose to use clocks considering problems like thermal expansion and fatigue caused by sudden heating and cooling. There are already people who use the system mostly docked who have reported the casing below the screen has cracked from this effect. Just because a chip can run at a higher clockspeed without experiencing errors doesn't mean the whole device can withstand those thermal effects.

 

[orangpelupa]

Keep in mind Nintendo chose to use clocks considering problems like thermal expansion and fatigue caused by sudden heating and cooling. There are already people who use the system mostly docked who have reported the casing below the screen has cracked from this effect. Just because a chip can run at a higher clockspeed without experiencing errors doesn't mean the whole device can withstand those thermal effects.

the weird thing is, nintendo simply doesnt want switch to stay cool. When i blast it with a small desk fan, its still hot. the internal fan simply ran ultra slow.

 

[Picao84]

I don't think Switch will suffer a lot from next Playstation and XBox. It will still have it's USP of portability. People will have both one of those and the Switch just like now, as they can't still use their Playstation or Xbox while commuting to work, travelling around, queuing for something, etc.

 

[orangpelupa]

hmm i wonder how game streaming will affect that.

phones have modem, so it can stream anywhere. while switch only have rather crappy wifi (why the heck did they even limit the channel? )