Switch 2 Speculation

[Lalaland]

they haven't been competitive since the gamecube in terms of power.

I think the main reasons the switch was popular is 1) Nintendo first party titles 2) its the only portable system in town really 3) the xbox one/ ps4 didn't really add any gpu features that the tegra couldn't do and so it was easy to drop resolution and effect quality to make it work.

I think 1 and 2 are a shoe in for a switch pro. However with 3 if they don't come out with a chip with raytracing and other features they will have a lot more issues as the generation goes on and ray tracing becomes a standard feature on the home consoles.

This is it though with 1 & 2 being true 3 doesn't even matter. I mean the Switch misses out on all sorts of advanced rendering techniques today so who cares if they don't have them tomorrow either?

We're long past the launch hype when people thought Switch would get major 3rd party titles just like the PS4/XB1, it happens but is the exception not the rule. The Witcher 3 is something of a high water mark for these efforts and it is already has markedly lower visual quality than PS4/XB1 but it doesn't matter because portable Witcher. As PS5/XBSn kicks off the same will be true although to be honest I suspect the bigger issue for Switch will not a lack of comparable GPU features in the next gen but the lack of CPU grunt.

The buy will not be effective before 12-18 months, right ? So short term, I don't think it changes a thing for Nintendo.

I should have been clearer on my timelines, I'm not expecting a Switch 2 for at least 3 years so this purchase might effect that somehow but yeah in the near term this changes nothing for Nintendo

 

[Goodtwin]

Switch isnt selling huge numbers based on the current gen ports it receives. They are nice to have, icing on the cake, but its games like Animal Crossing and Zelda Breath of the Wild that have propelled Switch into a smash hit. So thinking the Switch 2 needs to be competitive with the Series S just doesnt line up with what history has taught us. Nintendo handhelds have smashed its competitors every time, and were pretty much always less powerful than competing portables on the market. Even if Microsoft or Sony release a new portable with superior hardware, it wont matter because Pokemon, Mario, Zelda and Animal Crossing wont be there. Switch 2 will be shooting for base PS4 levels of performance. Plenty of power for Nintendo's IP's, and will make plenty of PS4 ports nice and easy.

Rumors surrounding a Switch Pro model have been around since Switch launched. Journalist write about it, but they havent had any legit sources. Its all just rumors. There might be a new model, but I doubt its a Pro. I could see something more like the 3DS XL upgrade rather than a PS4 Pro performance upgrade.

Question for those in the know, the A57 CPU cores in the Tegra X1 use the Armv8-A language. The newer A78 Arm CPU's also supports this language, does this mean that the A78 would pose no issues with backwards compatibility?

 

[Frenetic Pony]

Question for those in the know, the A57 CPU cores in the Tegra X1 use the Armv8-A language. The newer A78 Arm CPU's also supports this language, does this mean that the A78 would pose no issues with backwards compatibility?

It's the same thing, the A is just dropped or added, seemingly at random.

Running the numbers... you know I don't really know how so many games were actually able to run on Switch that came to the bigger consoles. The optimization was truly impressive, but no matter how I run it the progress for Nvidia's improvement in performance per watt just doesn't show enough to really do a lot for the GPU in the next Switch. Since Maxwell and 2015 the efficiency has tripled, maybe. Really it's less, the 9xx versus 2xxx series has plenty of one to one benchmarks to look at, and even if a 3080 manages it's "about 30% above a 2080ti" average over a number of games... well that's still less than triple. That just puts the Switch HD from it's super low clocked Tegra X1 to... a Tegra X1 at max clockspeeds. Not the greatest, even assuming another 3 watts for TDP from better cooling and a bigger battery the whole thing will just be underpowered. Hell maybe they can do a lot better than that at the low end, somehow. Or not, because the Iphone 6 had a better GPU than the Switch judging by downclocking from the OG Nvidia Shield tablet benchmarks.

I know, I know! But the tablet ran at over double the speed of the Switch, and well... here's one of the benchmarks, less than double the speed of an iphone 6:

But the potential speedup for the CPU does a lot better. The PS4 and XBO had underpowered CPUs even at launch, true. But surprisingly there's Geekbench 2 numbers showing so much as a 865+ (high clocked A77s) run over twice as fast as the older consoles CPUs do. Even assuming that's roughly the same the A78's might do that's still pretty good from a dev perspective. Same with a lot of other components. Modern DSPs can probably do something close enough to the XSX's audio one, Nvidia does do very well with AI obviously, eUFS 3.1 even has basically the same performance as the XSX's SSD if it comes to that, and though they'd probably go for something cheaper even the older standards do over 1gbps.

It's just too bad Nvidia hasn't met their own sky high PR, I'd really been hoping the Switch 2 could knock it out of the park. For reference the iphone 11 runs this bench 5x faster than the 6; and that's an advance of only 4 years instead of 5.

 

[Lalaland]

But the potential speedup for the CPU does a lot better. The PS4 and XBO had underpowered CPUs even at launch, true. But surprisingly there's Geekbench 2 numbers showing so much as a 865+ (high clocked A77s) run over twice as fast as the older consoles CPUs do. Even assuming that's roughly the same the A78's might do that's still pretty good from a dev perspective.

https://browser.geekbench.com/v4/cpu/compare/13620128?baseline=13091144

I see this claim a lot and it's complete guff afaict, it usually relies on Geekbench scores which is a benchmark that at best is useful at a given moment in time. Now to be clear the current Geekbench website does not even surface scores for Playstation or AMD Jaguar generally, I found this Playstation run via Google as their own search results filter it out. There are multiple suspicious signs straight from the off, the Shield has more RAM bandwidth than the PS4 Pro? Any scores run on Playstation must necessarily have come from jailbroken units running barely held together Linux builds. A lot of general test suites like these will flatter ARM devices because they test features ARM devices often have dedicated silicon for accelerating (photo manipulation, etc), finding a "pure" CPU test is almost impossible. Even with all these caveats the Jaguar with it's franken-Linux still are within the ballpark of the Shield with it's actual Android build.

 

[Frenetic Pony]

https://browser.geekbench.com/v4/cpu/compare/13620128?baseline=13091144

I see this claim a lot and it's complete guff afaict, it usually relies on Geekbench scores which is a benchmark that at best is useful at a given moment in time. Now to be clear the current Geekbench website does not even surface scores for Playstation or AMD Jaguar generally, I found this Playstation run via Google as their own search results filter it out. There are multiple suspicious signs straight from the off, the Shield has more RAM bandwidth than the PS4 Pro? Any scores run on Playstation must necessarily have come from jailbroken units running barely held together Linux builds. A lot of general test suites like these will flatter ARM devices because they test features ARM devices often have dedicated silicon for accelerating (photo manipulation, etc), finding a "pure" CPU test is almost impossible. Even with all these caveats the Jaguar with it's franken-Linux still are within the ballpark of the Shield with it's actual Android build.

I did want more benchmarks, but it's really, really hard to find benchmarks that overlap the old Jaguar APUs and modern day Arm stuff. But I did find a few old benchmarks people did of them, not on the playstation but with the same Jaguar Cores. Had to normalize for clocks and cores, but fortunately that seemed to be fairly linear for geekbench scores.

If anyone can find anything else for the old Jaguar cores that overlap with A77s I'd love to see it, because I could hardly find anything else (Kraken exists but is mostly single threaded right?)

 

[AlNom]

It's the same thing, the A is just dropped or added, seemingly at random.

Running the numbers... you know I don't really know how so many games were actually able to run on Switch that came to the bigger consoles. The optimization was truly impressive, but no matter how I run it the progress for Nvidia's improvement in performance per watt just doesn't show enough to really do a lot for the GPU in the next Switch.

Random plug: There's a pretty awesome GDC presentation about porting The Witcher 3 on the CPU & memory side of things:

https://gdcvault.com/play/1026635/-Witcher-3-on-the

 

[Lalaland]

There really isn't, I've searched long and hard myself, the problem is the Jaguar stopped being a viable product in the market (excepting PS4) long before any kind of ARM v8 product was on the market. It's frustrating as the more reliable x86 benchmarks are not available on the ARM side and geekbench (which for all it's flaws is the best option ARM side) is not available on a Jaguar device that is fully supported either.

 

[Goodtwin]

Nvidia's improvement in performance per watt just doesn't show enough to really do a lot for the GPU in the next Switch. Since Maxwell and 2015 the efficiency has tripled, maybe. Really it's less, the 9xx versus 2xxx series has plenty of one to one benchmarks to look at, and even if a 3080 manages it's "about 30% above a 2080ti" average over a number of games... well that's still less than triple.

That doesn't seem like it accounts for newer manufacturing process related improvements or does it? The Tegra X1 saw a substantial improvement going from 20nm to 16nm FinFet, around 40% more power efficient I believe. I think the max clock speed also bumped to 1.2Ghz instead of 1Ghz. Even sticking with a Tegra X1 shrunk down to 7nm, that may allow for clock speeds triple what the Switch currently runs, and now we have Xbox One performance in a portable. Obviously im hoping for something more substantial. However, I dont expect anything exotic here. Probably 512 GPU Pascal cores running around 900Mhz in portable mode and 1.5Ghz in docked mode, four Arm A7* CPU cores clocked around 1.8Ghz, 128 bit memory buss with 8GB of LPDDR memory and 512GB of on board memory storage. Basically, it will end up being a direct evolution of the Tegra X1. It will be considered withered tech when the Switch 2 launches, and that is a very Nintendo thing to do.

 

[Frenetic Pony]

That doesn't seem like it accounts for newer manufacturing process related improvements or does it? The Tegra X1 saw a substantial improvement going from 20nm to 16nm FinFet, around 40% more power efficient I believe. I think the max clock speed also bumped to 1.2Ghz instead of 1Ghz. Even sticking with a Tegra X1 shrunk down to 7nm, that may allow for clock speeds triple what the Switch currently runs, and now we have Xbox One performance in a portable. Obviously im hoping for something more substantial. However, I dont expect anything exotic here. Probably 512 GPU Pascal cores running around 900Mhz in portable mode and 1.5Ghz in docked mode, four Arm A7* CPU cores clocked around 1.8Ghz, 128 bit memory buss with 8GB of LPDDR memory and 512GB of on board memory storage. Basically, it will end up being a direct evolution of the Tegra X1. It will be considered withered tech when the Switch 2 launches, and that is a very Nintendo thing to do.

Sadly, literally just going from Maxwell numbers to Ampere directly, so this includes efficiency gains across everything, arch and manufacturing process combined. At 4k a 3080 averages solidly less than triple across multiple benchmarks compared to say, a 980ti (roughly the same power draw).

The "1.9x" increase in efficiency per watt for Ampere was stretching as close to breaking truth in advertising law as I imagine their lawyers were comfortable getting, maybe a bit farther.

 

[Lalaland]

Oh you don't know nVidia's lawyers, they are very comfortable with tacking close to the wind

 

[Rootax]

Random plug: There's a pretty awesome GDC presentation about porting The Witcher 3 on the CPU & memory side of things:

https://gdcvault.com/play/1026635/-Witcher-3-on-the

It's really great. So they used Cuda for some physics, which was a first on Switch, aaaannnnd they used the CP2077 audio "engine" instead of W3, because it takes less memory... And a lot of optimisations, it's really impressive.

 

[orangpelupa]

Random plug: There's a pretty awesome GDC presentation about porting The Witcher 3 on the CPU & memory side of things:

https://gdcvault.com/play/1026635/-Witcher-3-on-the

internal codename: Switcher (on the last slide)

 

[anexanhume]

A bit late to the party on this particular rumor, but it hasn’t been mentioned here yet with regards to a potential mini LED display.

https://www.tomsguide.com/news/nint...VBNE8ySTFCWDJtaks4bTV2VEF5dUZtRUM5aXhpTWowRHA.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

Isn't mini LED more expensive than OLED at this point?

Even the PC monitors with a meager dozen local dimming zones are super expensive nowadays, with mini-LEDs going into the >$3000 territory.
It's the reason why the LG 49" CX gradually became more expensive than the 55" set, because a 4K120Hz HDMI 2.1 OLED TV with VRR and G-Sync was winning over these 32" monitors.

If Nintendo wanted to bring significantly improved panels to their handhelds (which I doubt), I don't know why they wouldn't go with OLEDs that have plenty of manufacturers around the world, many of which from Japan.
Unless this Innolux company found a way to do MiniLEDs significantly cheaper than OLEDs.

 

[wco81]

I think micro LEDs are suppose to be real expensive. Mini LED in the next iPad Pro so we will see how good they are.

 

[eastmen]

Guys look at the switch , it was in no way technologically advanced. So why do we think it will use cutting edge min led screens ? I'd be happy if we got a 1080p lcd screen

 

[DuckThor Evil]

Even the PC monitors with a meager dozen local dimming zones are super expensive nowadays, with mini-LEDs going into the >$3000 territory.
It's the reason why the LG 49" CX gradually became more expensive than the 55" set, because a 4K120Hz HDMI 2.1 OLED TV with VRR and G-Sync was winning over these 32" monitors.

Those monitors are super expensive, because their volumes are tiny. In Finland the 48" CX is cheaper than the 55", but the 55" does have sales more often. The high price of the 48" has little to nothing to do with the PC-monitors, but with the manufacturing and cutting of the OLED-panels from the large "motherglass" being far more efficient on the 55" model as the size of the motherglass aligns with it better. The 48" models are cut from the same sheet as the 77" models in lower volumes.

 

[Goodtwin]

Guys look at the switch , it was in no way technologically advanced. So why do we think it will use cutting edge min led screens ? I'd be happy if we got a 1080p lcd screen

I believe the rumors for an improved display suggest that it would be Sharps IGZO display. This would be a nice upgrade over the current LCD screen and wouldn't break the bank.

The Switch wasn't cutting edge in 2017, but it wasn't a relic either. The Tegra X1 was still near the top of the list for graphics performance from a mobile SOC when Switch launched. Especially considering the price point of $299 with the intention of being profitable on day one. Sure, there were some mobile chips that outperformed the Tegra X1 by the time Switch launched, but it wasn't a significant margin. Nintendo was too damn conservative with their clock speed choices though, after seeing the results of people hacking their Switch and overclocking them to the max without coming close to the thermal limits shows just how much performance Nintendo left on the table. The HD rumble was more advanced than what other consoles used up until the PS5/X launched. So the HD rumble was probably the most cutting edge feature Nintendo implemented.

 

[eastmen]

I believe the rumors for an improved display suggest that it would be Sharps IGZO display. This would be a nice upgrade over the current LCD screen and wouldn't break the bank.

The Switch wasn't cutting edge in 2017, but it wasn't a relic either. The Tegra X1 was still near the top of the list for graphics performance from a mobile SOC when Switch launched. Especially considering the price point of $299 with the intention of being profitable on day one. Sure, there were some mobile chips that outperformed the Tegra X1 by the time Switch launched, but it wasn't a significant margin. Nintendo was too damn conservative with their clock speed choices though, after seeing the results of people hacking their Switch and overclocking them to the max without coming close to the thermal limits shows just how much performance Nintendo left on the table. The HD rumble was more advanced than what other consoles used up until the PS5/X launched. So the HD rumble was probably the most cutting edge feature Nintendo implemented.

The switch also had a low quality 720p screen with huge bezels.

Has there been a nintendo handheld in the last what 30 years that has pushed screen tech in the mobile space ?

Gameboy has that 2bit reflective screen vs the lynx of the same year having a 4bit color screen both of similar size and resolution. the following year you got the game gear and turbo graphics express both with light years ahead screens.

Gameboy color came out 8 years later in 1998 and had a screen slightly better than the game gear !

Then what you get the 2ds vs the psp and the 3ds vs the vita .

I would love for them to put in a super high res screen with cutting edge tech. I just don't think its going to happen.

They are selling the switch for $200/$300 and its still hard to find in store.

I don't see them coming out with anything that will make them loose money.

My best guess

8 gigs of ram

8 inch 1080p screen ( very small bezels)


Tegra x2 with maybe an offside chance of xaiver .


Right now in the portable space Nintendo has no competitor so why are they going to put an extremely expensive to them system ? Its a portable system so people wont expect it to run games as well as the next gen consoles. Xbox series S will actually help Nintendo because companies will already do a lot of work getting the game on that platform so nintendo just needs to raise themselves up close enough to that performance.

Imo i'd rather nintendo stretch and include xaiver than an expensive screen. xaiver has DLSS. They could do a 900p-1080p handheld mode and then for when its docked they could use dlss to bring you up to 4k.

If they drop the pretense of it being a console and just make it a dedicated handheld they could even go down to 540p or 720p and use dlss to hit the 1080p resolution. DF did a good review on control at those resolutions with DLSS

I think 8 gigs of ram with xaiver would put them in a better postion vs ps5/xsx than they were with switch and ps4/xbox one imo

 

[Goodtwin]

With the Switch being so successful, I doubt Nintendo and Nvidia would have any trouble with doing a custom SOC next time. I'm not suggesting anything exotic, but perhaps they take the Xavier SOC and remove all the automotive stuff. I cant imagine that would require a huge big R&D budget. The R&D cost really become minimal when its going towards a product that could sell 100 million units. The next Switch will likely still target the $300 or perhaps $349 launch price. So component selection will always depend on what they can use to target that price and still make money.