Nintendo Switch Technical discussion [SOC = Tegra X1]
- Thread starter Alucardx23
- Start date
-
- Tags
- nintendo nintendont
Rumour of COD: Black Ops 4 coming out this year and that it is coming to Switch:
http://vgculturehq.com/call-of-duty-2018-is-black-ops-4-coming-ps4-xbox-one-pc-nintendo-switch/
http://vgculturehq.com/call-of-duty-2018-is-black-ops-4-coming-ps4-xbox-one-pc-nintendo-switch/
Svensk Viking
Regular
Sorry if this has been answered before, but is there any reason to why Switch doesn't always operate at full speed when it has a power connection? IMO, you should be able to play at full speed undocked if it gets power.
Screen consumes significant amount of electricity (adds power delivery requirements) and thus produces heat (adds heat dissipation requirements). A bit higher temp don't matter as much when docked. Dock has predictable heat dissipation and extra heat doesn't feel uncomfortable when the unit is docked (no hands involved).
Here's some numbers and analysis:
https://www.anandtech.com/show/11181/a-look-at-nintendo-switch-power-consumption/2
Last edited:
Question for you guys, if Nintendo wants to shrink the Tegra X1 down using a newer process, is this straight forward process? Basically, could Nintendo go to the manufacture and request that they now start manufacturing the TX1 on a 10nm process instead of the current 20nm? Or is there more to it, and Nvidia would have some engineering to do before they can move to a newer process?
D
Deleted member 13524
Guest
No.
Yes.
Not only that, but there's a whole bunch of stuff in the TX1 that is not being used and taking up a significant chunk of die area. If nvidia was to ever bother making a shrink, they would probably just take that out too.
Apparently there is a new revision of the SoC coming up. Speculation says its mostly to address the hacking efforts already in place. Do you think that could/would have been done so quickly if that is the main objective? Or maybe there is something more that was already planned, like a die shrink or removal of unnecessary bits of the chip? In any case, Nintendo and NVidia can now finally say that the Switch has a custom SoC 
https://wccftech.com/firmware-nintendo-switch-5-0-0-update/
https://wccftech.com/firmware-nintendo-switch-5-0-0-update/
A shrink wouldn’t surprise me as I just purchased one so of course something better is coming.
But using 20nm for the SoC always seemed odd to me since it’s not a process with a future, most customers have moved on to 16nm, so I doubt TSMC is investing in improvements and maybe even shrinking water allocations for it. It just seems like NVIDIA had all these chips already or had already paid for the wafers and Nintendo took advantage of that.
But using 20nm for the SoC always seemed odd to me since it’s not a process with a future, most customers have moved on to 16nm, so I doubt TSMC is investing in improvements and maybe even shrinking water allocations for it. It just seems like NVIDIA had all these chips already or had already paid for the wafers and Nintendo took advantage of that.
Well, it seems odd to me that NVidia would have 14 million of those stored somewhere or even paid for wafers for them without having such a demand...
Silent_Buddha
Legend
Alternatively, both Nintendo and NV were caught by surprise at how successful it was and both were scrambling to acquire/produce enough chips to meet demand. It's entirely possible that part of the manufacturing/shortage problem was due to NV being unable to provide enough chips per month for the first 6 months.
Regards,
SB
Cmon,, even a switch 1.1 revision will push me into buying it .
If it would come together with a price drop, it would be a killer!
Tkumpathenurple
Veteran
Do you think we may see docked performance while undocked?
That would be nice. But games still had to be made to support both modes for the original device. So this change wouldn't ease developer burden and would still restrain game design. But of course it would be nice for the customer.
If it would be simply a case of having games running as docked in undocked mode on the new revision, could it not be simply done through firmware like:
if(undocked)
if(revision < 1.1)
Run Portable Settings
else
Run Docked Settings
Tkumpathenurple
Veteran
In your opinion, what could be done with the Switch hardware to ease developer burden? Or is it just an eternal quirk of its form?
Also, kudos for saying customer rather than consumer. I really dislike the latter term.