Predict: Next gen console tech (9th iteration and 10th iteration edition) [2014 - 2017]

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Megadrive1988 said:
I just hope Sony and Microsoft wouldn't opt for whatever is going to be the successor to Jaguar/Puma, meaning a small, feeble core. I would understand if Nintendo went with Puma for NX (assuming at least one form of NX, the home console,, is X86, which is more likely to be in line with Xbox One/PS4, but I'd be disappointed if PS5/XB4 didn't use some version of Zen.
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There is no direct successor to Jaguar. That design team is gone, Zen is designed to replace both the Small Core and Big Core lineages.
If rumours are to be believed, even before Zen arrives Beema/Mullins will be replaced by a 2xExcavator Core+3xGCN3 CU APU next year. I wouldn't be surprised to see that in a low-power NX.
 
Persistantthug said:
In the words of a famous singer:

"DON'T BELIEVE ME, JUST WATCH!"

;-)
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http://www.videogamer.com/news/nintendo_discusses_its_next-gen_strategy_beyond_wii_u_and_3ds.html
http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/en/library/events/130131/05.html

Iwata said:
As you might already know from some newspaper reports, we will reorganize our development divisions next month for the first time in nine years. Two divisions which have independently developed handheld devices and home consoles will be united to form the Integrated Research & Development Division, which will be headed by Genyo Takeda, Senior Managing Director.

Last year we also started a project to integrate the architecture for our future platforms. What we mean by integrating platforms is not integrating handhelds devices and home consoles to make only one machine. What we are aiming at is to integrate the architecture to form a common basis for software development so that we can make software assets more transferrable, and operating systems and their build-in applications more portable, regardless of form factor or performance of each platform. They will also work to avoid software lineup shortages or software development delays which tend to happen just after the launch of new hardware.

Some time ago it was technologically impossible to have the same architecture for handheld devices and home consoles and what we did was therefore reasonable. Although it has not been long since we began to integrate the architecture and this will have no short-term result, we believe that it will provide a great benefit to our platform business in the long run.
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The main reason I'm sceptical of the handheld + tv unit in one idea is that the main driver of difference between the two is cooling. I don't see how a plastic box designed to survive being dropped by kids with no vent holes is going to suddenly offer twice or three times the perf just because it's plugged in. External PCIe connectors (beyond a 1x bus) are not cheap and not jam friendly either so the idea that it's an external gpu or something in a base station doesn't make much sense either.

So I guess my question is how would a hybrid device like this actually realise any kind of significant perf boost in a docking station? For this I am defining a 100% boost as the minimum boost required to make this a worthwhile engineering effort (on the basis that Nintendo historically ships low res handheld screens to even getting to 720p will require a big perf boost)
 
Lalaland said:
The main reason I'm sceptical of the handheld + tv unit in one idea is that the main driver of difference between the two is cooling. I don't see how a plastic box designed to survive being dropped by kids with no vent holes is going to suddenly offer twice or three times the perf just because it's plugged in.
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Most phones aren't vented either, they dissipate heat through the body of the phone. Aluminium (or another material) could be an option with an optional carry case for additional protection agains drops when on the go. The real differentiator for performance is power. On the go you run slower so a) the battery lasts longer and b) the unit does not get uncomfortably hot. When at home you plug it on and use a wireless controller.

I'm not sold on the mobile/home dual use theory myself but Nintendo are unpredictable.
 
You're still capped to a few watts max in an enclosed device without exhaust fan, which means a mobile-like performance on TV. Ooo, which suggests a radical design where the tablet unit has vents open up when connected to a base station that also has a fan, perhaps a vacuum pulling air through the tablet and exhausting out the back/front of the base unit? With the possibility to actively cool, you could get several times the performance bump. Even cooler, when inserting into the base unit, a sliding cover opens up on the tablet exposing the processor HS and this connects to a water cooler on the base unit for major clockage/extra core unlocks.
 
Shifty Geezer said:
You're still capped to a few watts max in an enclosed device without exhaust fan, which means a mobile-like performance on TV. Ooo, which suggests a radical design where the tablet unit has vents open up when connected to a base station that also has a fan, perhaps a vacuum pulling air through the tablet and exhausting out the back/front of the base unit? With the possibility to actively cool, you could get several times the performance bump. Even cooler, when inserting into the base unit, a sliding cover opens up on the tablet exposing the processor HS and this connects to a water cooler on the base unit for major clockage/extra core unlocks.
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I'm not all that sure how the passive cooling on modern tablets these days work, but I would have thought the heat is dissapated through conduction from the chip --> heat spreader --> shell material --> ambient...

If so then if you provide a cavity to allow suffcient airflow for active (convective) cooling during docked mode, then doesn't that inihibit your ability to passively (conductive) cool because you now have a layer of stagnant air (i.e. poor thermal conductivity) between the the chip and the external surface of the device?
 
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An enclosed body still limits you to some very modest power limits as all of your power circuitry requires cooling too and aluminium unidbody is no cure all (power and heat increase in lockstep or in a non-linear fashion if you're overclocking). Look at the furore around the Snapdragon 810 asic and the rows over the downclocking of release devices when they ran the numbers and figured 'nope we need to slow down or these things will melt in the wild'.

As much as I would love to see Nintendo decide to get into the power race, they have always prioritised cost of manufacture and robustness in their handheld designs. An aluminium shell would probably cost more than the entire BoM of a 3DS today let alone if they incorporated a fancy cooling system that kicks in while docked. The only avenue that makes sense to me is some form of PCIe/custom bus extension but those connectors are pretty damn fussy which again works against the demographic Nintendo has targeted the 3DS at.

Edit: Yes my understanding of active vs passive cooling is that for the phone style passive cooling the heatsink/TIM is in direct contact with the case and an air gap would be untenable. The vented arrangement might work but look at the massive surgery required in the Surface Pro where they massively downclocked an i5 in the firmware but still needed an active cooler, as small holes = bad airflow.
 
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Lalaland said:
Edit: Yes my understanding of active vs passive cooling is that for the phone style passive cooling the heatsink/TIM is in direct contact with the case and an air gap would be untenable. The vented arrangement might work but look at the massive surgery required in the Surface Pro where they massively downclocked an i5 in the firmware but still needed an active cooler, as small holes = bad airflow.
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Really?!? Thnaks for this info.. I didn't even know this. I'd always wondered quite how they managed to put fit a desktop chip in a tablet form factor. Makes sense now.
 
Shifty Geezer said:
You're still capped to a few watts max in an enclosed device without exhaust fan, which means a mobile-like performance on TV.
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We have black box designs with controllers running at 15 watts and have passive cooling and which are very small. Design and materials are the determining factor, there is no x watts above which passive cooling can't be done. Heat pipes are hugely efficient and inexpensive and how many high performamce micro-controllers are cooled passively in tight spaces.
 
15 watts versus 100+ for a real console. Given a maximum size for a heatsink defined by device size, there is definitely a wattage limit to how much passive cooling can be effective. I expect that limit is well within Nintendo's ideas of a powerful machine though. ;)
 
Shifty Geezer said:
15 watts versus 100+ for a real console. Given a maximum size for a heatsink defined by device size, there is definitely a wattage limit to how much passive cooling can be effective. I expect that limit is well within Nintendo's ideas of a powerful machine though. ;)
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You can have multiple controllers spaced apart - much like in a laptop the CPU and GPU are deliberately spaced apart. In something the size of the 3DS you could comfortably have an array of 4 controllers working in unison, in something like the Wii U tablet, a lot more. Going wider is practically the only way the one-device idea has any traction and, like you say/joke, Nintendo aren't renowned for fast hardware. However highly parallelised slower cores may be the magic solution.

But I still don't buy it :nope:
 
DSoup said:
you could comfortably have an array of 4 controllers working in unison
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For every four additional controllers you attach, you get a free SSAA sample. Framerate suddenly plunges? Your idiot friend carried the controller when he went to grab some food from the kitchen. Got the budget version of the console that only comes with one pad? 15fps Mario!

Hold the controller by the things that look suspiciously like heatsinks. If the grip starts to burn your hand, don't worry; it's just signalling that you've been playing for a while and it would be healthy to take a break.

To improve the NX experience with more flair, try our new distributed processing amiibos...
 
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