Nintendo Switch Technical discussion [SOC = Tegra X1]

I don't how someone can complain about switch power wise and then praise the wii. the wii was just a over clocked gamecube, games looked like crap compared to 360/ps3, it's a much smaller jump then wiiu to switch, and at least it has the excuse thats it's portable. there was only one other option to be more powerful for switch, and we don't even know if it was available or in the price range where nintendo can work with, the wii on the other hand was a home console, that easily could have been way more powerful.

 

A TX2 powered Switch could still be in the cards, right? Nintendo can basically do the same thing they did with the 3ds in 2 years time. Compatibility between a stock TX1 and a stock TX2 should be pretty decent.

 

But you segment the "power" even more. As it is, dev have a choice to make ("do I use more power on dock mode, or do I just use undock mode and screw dock mode, we don't have time for that"). With a TX2 in the loop, even more choices... Maybe you can make this work when you're Sony or MS, but I don't see third parties taking time to optimise game for each "power level"...

 

Well Nintendo solved that problem by having New 3DS exclusive games, that could work.

 

My point was, it could work when you dominate the market. But when you're not, segmenting the game offer even more is risky... If the Switch turns out to be the next 3ds with plenty of games &co, so yes, it could work, I agree. But if it become a WiiU bis, then you can't do that. Hell, you don't even try the hybrid concept again... (even if for my, it's a mobile console you can connect to your tv, but not a home console...)

 

Again, balance. The gamecube was a very well balanced console when it came out, and Wii just took that, upped the clocks and bus speed all by the same amount and did away with the slow audio ram in the gamecube. Switch is not balanced in docked mode. Portability isn't a good excuse when it has to double as a home console.

Wii has some beautiful games, it's all about art direction and polish. I say the same about the 6th gen consoles as well. I mean, have you seen the first gears of war lately? Looks like a blob of green puke with bad lighting When I first played it though it was mind blowing. The "wow" of 7th gen has long been gone.

Wii *could* have been more powerful, but I appreciate the choices that were made (backwards compatibility, extremely low power). Had they targeted the same power envelope, just with a more modern chip I don't think it'd be worth it, only if they made it a big leap over the cube (at least 3x like I said) would I think it was worth it. But even then, honestly, let's say it was 1/4 of the xbox 360 or something with DX9 and all that. Devs would still skip it, the power gap would still be pretty large. Just like most big AAA are going to skip the switch.

 

Tech thread, not market/industry.

 

We could very well see a TX2 based Switch XL or Switch+ later on, could even be used for a purely home console...
Both solutions wouldn't go against what Nintendo already said about its planned future.

 

http://www.anandtech.com/show/11185/nvidia-announces-jetson-tx2-parker

Tegra X2 has 2 SM, just like Tegra X1. And maximum GPU clocks only go up 1122MHz in 15W mode (similar to Shield TV which has 1GHz GPU clocks).
All this while getting 2.3x total memory bandwidth (25.6GB/s TX1 vs. 58.4GB/s).


It's the TX1 that is bandwidth starved with a 1GHz GPU. And probably at 768MHz too.

 

TX2 might allow docked-mode speed in portable mode.

 

My bad. Thought they'd increased Cuda cores for TX2, hence thinking that they were significantly increasing GPU die area. That makes the TX2 performance per mm^2 outright better than TX1.

I think I understand the some of the TX2 arguments a little better now ...

I can image a 1080p screened Switch 2, running at docked clocks, being a sensible upgrade in two or three years. All software will already be able to benefit from it. Charge a premium, and also ship a cheaper, 720p, fanless "classic" handheld ... perhaps

 

And by using stock chips, Nintendo's R&D cost would remain extremely low for such a "mid-gen" upgrade. Nvidia would also provide all the (BC/FC) APIs they need. And the hardware is obviously being sold for a big profit. It's not a bad place to be.

 

So if they make a new iteration in the future that uses something like volta, would they retain backwards compatibility with little to no problems?

 

Multiple modes are probably a given now. They could get much better battery life for OG Switch compatible mobile mode, or have a Switch 2 mobile mode for newer games etc. etc.

 

From the previous thread,

"Play Zelda Breath of the Wild and tell me that game is compromised due to Switch's / Wiiu's hardware. BoTW has flaws with some mechanics and design but definitely not due to the hardware's performance. "

Okay:

Breath of the Wild is compromised due to Switch's / WiiU's hardware. It runs at 720p/900p, drops to 90% resolution scaling under load, runs smoother undocked than docked despite the GPU clock difference, has periods of sustained drops to 20fps or lower in towns, on WiiU specifically it can freezes for several seconds when killing Moblins that ragdoll, and has zero AA or AF.

 

Yeah but all games have performance / quality compromises. It's up to the developers to decide what experience they want you to have. Or how much they are willing to invest into the game to make it more refined.

 

If it's from a previous thread, why are you replying here?

 

Making this the Switch post-release tech thread. Load times are in
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/d...rosd-cards-for-switch-loading-time-comparison

Flash cards are far from instantaneous. Carts are a little slower than UHS-1 SD cards. Internal flash is a bit faster.

 

A GTX 1080 has a bandwidth of 320GB/s serving its roughly 9 TFLOPs yielding 0.0355B/(s*FLOP). The GTX 1080 Ti has 484GB/s serving 11.3TFLOPs or 0.0428B/(s*FLOP).
Undocked at eurogamers top clocks the Switch has 192GFLOPs served by 21.3GB/s or 0.11B/(s*FLOP) or THREE TIMES the bandwidth per FLOP of the desktop cards. In docked mode the Switch has 384GFLOPs served by 25.6GB/s or 0.067B/(s*FLOP) or almost twice that of the GTX 1080.

 

How about just plain fillrate bandwidth?