Nintendo Switch Tech Speculation discussion

[AlNom]

Maybe the OS hits that just for Race-To-Finish.

 

[function]

Are you familiar with SoC testing methodologies within the assembly lines?
Honest question, because the difference is so great that if we are to look at ARM power curves on 20nm Cortex A57 (1800MHz consumes 3.5x more power than 1000MHz on quad-core operation), it just doesn't seem to make sense to emulate "environmental conditions" unless Nintendo was trying to emulate people playing inside an active volcano.

Not familiar with SoC testing, but I know what I'd do. I'd find out what the limits of the final implementation of the hardware were - what the silicon could do, what the cooler could do, how noise was affected, what the effect on the battery was (use life, temps, performance degredation). I'd also push it well outside it's normal operating conditions and keep it there till it failed.

Once I had reams of data across all different kinds of frequencies I'd pick the optimal configuration for my business.

And they were testing only single core operation? The guy checked the testing station over a period of several days and they kept testing this specific operation for emulation?
Plus, if they were testing for Wii emulation, why require the GPU to run at 920MHz?

Why wouldn't you push the GPU too? Why not find out what the limits of the system are? If you know the board and processors, power, cooling etc can cope under those circumstances, you've covered worst cases. Once you have the data you make the most informed decision, and be absolutely certain that further decisions coming down the line (possible upclock for certain types of operation e.g web browser, GC emulation won't endanger the system or provide a poor user experience.

Why would you not want this data?

 

[Deleted member 13524]

~Not familiar with SoC testing, but I know what I'd do. I'd find out what the limits of the final implementation of the hardware were - what the silicon could do, what the cooler could do, how noise was affected, what the effect on the battery was (use life, temps, performance degredation). I'd also push it well outside it's normal operating conditions and keep it there till it failed.
(...)
Why wouldn't you push the GPU too? Why not find out what the limits of the system are?
(...)
Why would you not want this data?

I would definitely want all that data for extreme situations in the later prototype stages.
For final production hardware, which is clearly what this Foxconn employee was dealing with, it makes no sense IMO.
What the factories' QA team measures during the full production stage is to take random samples from separate batches batch and test them under normal operating conditions, give or take a small power/heat/force/pressure/etc. headroom. This applies to almost everything AFAIK.

They definitely don't do 80% overclocks on the CPU that consume 350% of the normal operation power. I'm pretty sure Intel isn't testing their Kaby Lake i7 CPUs at 6GHz while pulling 300W from the socket. Nor is Samsung testing their Galaxy S7 motherboards with the Snapdragon 820 clocked at 3.6GHz. Sony isn't testing their PS4 Pro with the Jaguars clocked at 3.8GHz either.
It's such a big difference that's simply an unrealistic setting to be tested on final production hardware. At that point, gathering that kind of data is simply a waste of time.

 

[Lalaland]

I'm putting the Foxconn guy into the fantasist column none of the scenarios he's describing make much sense to me. Yes there is all sorts of soak testing, etc that these designs go through but that is all during the design phase and limited low rate initial production (rarely at the same facility as full rate) which is a thing I would have expected to have concluded at least 12-18 months ago.

On another note it looks like the phone app will be used for chat after all

http://www.usgamer.net/articles/nintendo-switchs-online-smartphone-app-given-a-bit-more-detail

"It also allows players to match up with those friends directly in the game or voice chat with them via their smart device. For example, during a Private Battle, players can voice chat with all of their connected friends when they divide into teams, but once teams are set, voice chat is switched to communication only between teammates on the same team."

Sounds like the voice comms happen via the smart device with the console linkage being used to subdivide chat sessions and match make

 

[bunnybug]

I'm putting the Foxconn guy into the fantasist column none of the scenarios he's describing make much sense to me. Yes there is all sorts of soak testing, etc that these designs go through but that is all during the design phase and limited low rate initial production (rarely at the same facility as full rate) which is a thing I would have expected to have concluded at least 12-18 months ago.

On another note it looks like the phone app will be used for chat after all

http://www.usgamer.net/articles/nintendo-switchs-online-smartphone-app-given-a-bit-more-detail



Sounds like the voice comms happen via the smart device with the console linkage being used to subdivide chat sessions and match make

i put there a long time ago considering no real developers or sources have backing anything close to the information listed, only a few nintendo fanboys that want to believe nintendo upgraded the cpu's and upped the clocks last minute. it's really border line annoying now, it's like they wanna ignore every source and common sense, and focus on the foxcon leak.

 

[ProspectorPete]

As of matter of fact, even the 2014 iPhone 6 should be able to hold it's own against the switch in portable mode, switch uses a down clocked X1

iPhone 6 will win against a 300mhz Tegra X1?

 

[BRiT]

On another note it looks like the phone app will be used for chat after all

http://www.usgamer.net/articles/nintendo-switchs-online-smartphone-app-given-a-bit-more-detail

"It also allows players to match up with those friends directly in the game or voice chat with them via their smart device. For example, during a Private Battle, players can voice chat with all of their connected friends when they divide into teams, but once teams are set, voice chat is switched to communication only between teammates on the same team."

Sounds like the voice comms happen via the smart device with the console linkage being used to subdivide chat sessions and match make

Oh for fuck sake, Nintendo still doesn't have a clue about creating online infrastructure such as gamer chat. It's 2017, get with the program Nintendo!

 

[Blazkowicz]

Less is more? What if parents hand it to their eight-year-old kids and they join a race of Mario Kart? Then they'll get to hear from beginning to end angry voices referring to inserting penises into mouths and other body parts, black-skinned people stealing bicycles and other such low quality content. It's not terrible to not have such a feature built into Mario Kart, Mario Party, cute Pokemons and others.

 

[BRiT]

Less is more? What if parents hand it to their eight-year-old kids and they join a race of Mario Kart? Then they'll get to hear from beginning to end angry voices referring to inserting penises into mouths and other body parts, black-skinned people stealing bicycles and other such low quality content. It's not terrible to not have such a feature built into Mario Kart, Mario Party, cute Pokemons and others.

Microsoft took care of this problem a decade ago with children account restrictions. Nintendo is just being clueless.

 

[Malo]

Microsoft took care of this problem a decade ago with children account restrictions. Nintendo is just being clueless.

That goes back to the problem of no profiles, single account per Switch. Damn they're clueless.

 

[Blazkowicz]

Parents might be clueless and careless. No idea how that can be quantified, why go to the trouble of creating two, three, four accounts for a "Game Boy"? Nintendo is introducing children accounts and a management app on smartphone though.

Lazy/lowest effort is to only create one account (or no account at all), if Nintendo cares a lot about the issue then the policy of no voice chat built into the console is a "fail safe" option for them.

 

[BRiT]

Then why did they even bother to support chat on their official companion chat app on your secondary device like tablet/phone? Because they know it's a requirement.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

All of you fail to understand Japanese logic is the opposite of western logic. It's not supposed to be convenient and easy to use.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

Looks like that Twitter leak that eurogamer vetted back in July is out in the open:

https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch/comments/5tsruy/leaked_indevelopment_ui_mockups/ddoqixd/

In fact the Twitter leak was literally a screenshot of the hardware specs available in the hardware specs page.
The only news here is that devs can only use 3 cores.

I'm putting the Foxconn guy into the fantasist column none of the scenarios he's describing make much sense to me.

Which scenario? The one where he details a 4310mAh battery in the tablet and 500mAh in the JoyCons, 2 months before these same specs are officially revealed by Nintendo themselves?
Or the weight values for each tablet and Joycon? And ports in the dock?
Lots of fantasy coming true.

Could it be that the only thing that doesn't make much sense to you is the stuff that hasn't been confirmed by Nintendo? That's rather convenient.

 

[Lalaland]

There is a world of difference between being right on everything and right on some things. The stuff the leaks were accurate on have been pedestrian and appropriate to someone who is working in a final assembly facility or with access to one. The stuff that tickles everyones fancy though is not "OMG 4310mAh!" is it? It's the sexy claims about higher SoC clockspeeds and rare ultra-powerful versions of the handheld with a dock that has a GPU and blackjack and hookers and booze.....

Will be delighted if I am proved as wrong as I was when I predicted there would be no backwards compatibility on XB1

 

[tuna]

That goes back to the problem of no profiles, single account per Switch. Damn they're clueless.

I thought you could have 8 profiles per switch?

Sent from my E6653 using Tapatalk

 

[Malo]

I thought you could have 8 profiles per switch?

Any reference to that somewhere? I'm going from the official Nintendo release video where it specifically states 1 account only per Switch. If there are separate profiles within the account that can be controlled separately for adults and children, then great, but I'm not aware of anything like that being announced.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

It's the sexy claims about higher SoC clockspeeds

What's so sexy about Cortex A57 cores working at 1780MHz and GPU at 910MHz in a Tegra X1 while docked? Those values are below what you find in the 2 year-old Shield TV.

rare ultra-powerful versions of the handheld with a dock that has a GPU

1 - Where did this "rare" thing came up from? How are 2000 devkits for the GPU dock version somehow rare?
2 - Dock that has a GPU matches Nintendo's own SCP patents.

 

[ProspectorPete]

OMG, imagine this; hackers dump the Switch OS and copy it onto a Shield TV.. It would function as a Switch Pro

 

[Deleted member 13524]

OMG, imagine this; hackers dump the Switch OS and copy it onto a Shield TV.. It would function as a Switch Pro

Unfortunately, the Shield TV has less RAM and that's quite the dealbreaker for such a thing to happen.