Support NeoGAF

Grampa Simpson · Oct 22, 2016

XINTSUAI said:
Well 32Gigas sounds enough, my doubt it's about this game size in a mobile device with the same 32GB of internal storage, where obviously some of this gigas will be destinated to the OS... so this games could not be sold by Online store... Ok I can purchase a SD card with 200 GB for internal storage.. but this break up a lot the install base for digital purchases. Look at the VITA, the games have a maximum of 3.5 GB. To fit on the SD card with less avaliable memory, so everyone that have a card, can buy the game.

These are subjects related to business model.

I think Switch will be much more like a mobile (tablet, android, smartphones) device, than a home console in terms of game library.

32 Gigs will probably cover the first couple of games that I buy, and then it will either be clean out the fridge or buy an SD Card for it. Same deal as with the Wii U. Mine has a 1TB SSHD. Haven't worried about space since. I can currently buy a 128gig MicroSD for $40 and less than $80 for a 256gig SD. I simply don't have that many games in play at a given time that I would need more than that.

HurricaneTrilby · Oct 22, 2016

M3d10n said:
That's my guess as well. Use a lower clock (and maybe passive cooling) in battery mode at 720p, full clock and active cooling in docked mode at 1080p. The dock might also contain a cooler to help dissipating heat from the back of the device.

This

MacTag · Oct 22, 2016

XINTSUAI said:
Well 32Gigas sounds enough, my doubt it's about this game size in a mobile device with the same 32GB of internal storage, where obviously some of this gigas will be destinated to the OS... so this games could not be sold by Online store... Ok I can purchase a SD card with 200 GB for internal storage.. but this break up a lot the install base for digital purchases. Look at the VITA, the games have a maximum of 3.5 GB. To fit on the SD card with less avaliable memory, so everyone that have a card, can buy the game.

These are subjects related to business model.

I think Switch will be much more like a mobile (tablet, android, smartphones) device, than a home console in terms of game library.

3DS ships with a 4GB sd card for storage and the largest games are on 4GB cards. 32GB internal for saves doesn't preclude 32GB game cards at all.

AmyS · Oct 22, 2016

Probably already discussed but. one of the most important changes from Maxwell-based Tegra X1 to the Pascal-based Parker (the new Tegra SoC) is going from a 64-bit memory bus in X1 to a 128-bit bus in Parker.

So ~25 GB/s vs ~50 GB/s memory bandwidth. That is huge.

For a March 2017 Nintendo Switch release, a custom Tegra X1 SoC would be pretty disappointing, but a custom Parker SoC would be pretty damn nice.

Instro · Oct 22, 2016

99Luffy said:
Low pixel density can be distracting. PPI doesnt change when youre playing lower resolution content.

That said, I think 720p at 7 inches will be fine. I can browse on my 720p 12" chromebook all day.

Worth noting that there is probably going to be a fair amount of content for this device that won't really push it hard, so those games could probably run at 1080p native.

Kimawolf · Oct 22, 2016

Im thinking 32GB is too small. We need at least 100GB. And patches could be created on the cart itself.

Nintendo should subsidize the cost of the carts to help devs not feel gunshy.

LordKano · Oct 22, 2016

Instro said:
Worth noting that there is probably going to be a fair amount of content for this device that won't really push it hard, so those games could probably run at 1080p native.

He's talking about the tablet I think, which is supposed to be a 720p screen, so it won't run anything at 1080p.

Stiflers Mom · Oct 22, 2016

Kimawolf said:
Im thinking 32GB is too small. We need at least 100GB. And patches could be created on the cart itself.

Nintendo should subsidize the cost of the carts to help devs not feel gunshy.

100GB for what?

KingSnake · Oct 22, 2016

Reallink said:
I said Wii (as in original Wii), not Wii U. While PS3 and Xbox did 65nm and 45nm revisions, if I'm not mistaken Nintendo was still doing 90nm all the way through ending production in '12 or '13.

Yeah, but Nintendo historically didn't do so many console revisions. Handhelds yes, but consoles, not really. Plus Wii wasn't neither expensive to make nor dropping in sales for a long time, so there wasn't really any driver for a revision until it was already too late and they moved to work on Wii U. So I don't think Wii situation applies here as an example of Nintendo making bad decisions in terms of fab process at launch. Unless you want to consider that they used for Wii the latest fab process on the market.

Shikamaru Ninja · Oct 22, 2016

M3d10n said:
That's my guess as well. Use a lower clock (and maybe passive cooling) in battery mode at 720p, full clock and active cooling in docked mode at 1080p. The dock might also contain a cooler to help dissipating heat from the back of the device.

Well that's what we are all hoping for. It's a tough to start a console life in 2017 at 720p output.

Thelonelykoopa · Oct 22, 2016

Kimawolf said:
Im thinking 32GB is too small. We need at least 100GB. And patches could be created on the cart itself.

Nintendo should subsidize the cost of the carts to help devs not feel gunshy.

If it was a home console than I would agree except nobody is buying nintendo talk that its a home console foremost and 100 gigs for a handheld a bit ridiculous.

atbigelow · Oct 22, 2016

Thelonelykoopa said:
If it was a home console than I would agree except nobody is buying nintendo talk that its a home console foremost and 100 gigs for a handheld a bit ridiculous.

100GB is a bit silly for games right now, home or portable. But they can increase the card size with time anyway.

And it's both and neither a home console and portable. "Not Skyrim" and Zelda are the same game regardless of where you're playing it, so yes the same size would be required. That's kind of the whole point?

DemoCracy · Oct 22, 2016

AmyS said:
Probably already discussed but. one of the most important changes from Maxwell-based Tegra X1 to the Pascal-based Parker (the new Tegra SoC) is going from a 64-bit memory bus in X1 to a 128-bit bus in Parker/B].

So ~25 GB/s vs ~50 GB/s memory bandwidth. That is huge.

For a March 2017 Nintendo Switch release, a custom Tegra X1 SoC would be pretty disappointing, but a custom Parker SoC would be pretty damn nice.

I hope they use Parker to bring a good experience to gamers.

Kimawolf said:

Im thinking 32GB is too small. We need at least 100GB. And patches could be created on the cart itself.

Nintendo should subsidize the cost of the carts to help devs not feel gunshy.

Click to expand...

Why 100GB? Would you explain your reasons?

Thelonelykoopa · Oct 22, 2016

atbigelow said:
100GB is a bit silly for games right now, home or portable. But they can increase the card size with time anyway.

And it's both and neither a home console and portable. "Not Skyrim" and Zelda are the same game regardless of where you're playing it, so yes the same size would be required. That's kind of the whole point?

Of course catridge size can change with the game. What I was saying is currently it is believe to be between the Wiiu and the Xbox one. Now majority of nintendo games for the Wiiu was incredible small in file size with the exceptions of games like xenoblade x , Xbox one on the other hand 50-80 gig games are becoming common. Being in between those we can probably expect 30-50 gig games and even smaller than that if developers treat it more like a handheld and focus on smaller budget games with it.

Nothing1016 · Oct 22, 2016

So I was wonder if patches could be saved to the game cards. For example let's say a game is only 27 gigs and the basic game card is 32 gigs. Could the patches and DLC just be saved onto the game cards or does it not work like that? Just curious.

Thelonelykoopa · Oct 22, 2016

Nothing1016 said:
So I was wonder if patches could be saved to the game cards. For example let's say a game is only 27 gigs and the basic game card is 32 gigs. Could the patches and DLC just be saved onto the game cards or does it not work like that? Just curious.

I would expect it to be possible I mean saves files are often stored on catridges now they may be a reason for them not to do that which I dont know.

Instro · Oct 22, 2016

LordKano said:
He's talking about the tablet I think, which is supposed to be a 720p screen, so it won't run anything at 1080p.

Sorry, should have been more clear. I meant in the sense that if the screen was 1080p, there probably would be enough content to make it worthwhile.

Vana · Oct 22, 2016

With a 1080p screen, they could have had options to get some smartphone-like VR experience. Not a big fan myself, but it might have been a good selling point, maybe for future iterations.

Nostremitus · Oct 22, 2016

AmyS said:
Probably already discussed but. one of the most important changes from Maxwell-based Tegra X1 to the Pascal-based Parker (the new Tegra SoC) is going from a 64-bit memory bus in X1 to a 128-bit bus in Parker.

So ~25 GB/s vs ~50 GB/s memory bandwidth. That is huge.

For a March 2017 Nintendo Switch release, a custom Tegra X1 SoC would be pretty disappointing, but a custom Parker SoC would be pretty damn nice.

It's also a custom SoC... And Nintendo have been adding eDRAM to their SoCs since pre-2000... (GameCube development started in 1998)

It stands to reason they'd continue this... Add the fact that it's cartridge based and not disk, they could feasibly go back to the method used in the N64 where data was streamed directly from the game cart as if it were RAM.

aeolist · Oct 22, 2016

nintendo games and indies have really small filesizes, and i don't see anyone buying this thing for big third party games

32gb + sdxc is perfectly fine

Nostremitus · Oct 23, 2016

aeolist said:
nintendo games and indies have really small filesizes, and i don't see anyone buying this thing for big third party games

32gb + sdxc is perfectly fine

Yes... Because people only want to play 1st party and indie games on the go... SMH...

THE 3DS has a pretty robust 3rd party library, this will be the first time portable can feasibly run console games... So, this should get even more than 3DS.

atbigelow · Oct 23, 2016

aeolist said:
nintendo games and indies have really small filesizes, and i don't see anyone buying this thing for big third party games

32gb + sdxc is perfectly fine

Handicapping the storage size would have the same effect as mini discs on GameCube.
32GB does feel small as I'm expecting Zelda to be 20+ GB. You're not going to want a single game eating up the majority of your out-of-box storage. SDXC cards can obviously help.

Durante · Oct 23, 2016

dr_rus said:
That's not how it works. Some shaders may be ok with using FP16 precision and for them the throughput will be twice of FP32 but the sheer number of such shaders compared to those which actually need FP32 precision isn't big - less than 25% of all shaders for sure. So in the end even a fully FP16 optimized game is looking at producing twice the math performance only for a 1/4th of its code. It's a nice thing to have especially on a fixed h/w console platform but it won't result in games magically running twice as fast.

I don't agree with the bolded part. What are you basing it on? By "all shaders" I assume you mean "all FLOPs required for one frame". I'd argue the vast majority of GPU FLOPS in most modern games are spent in fragment shaders, and that a lot more than 25% of those could potentially run at half precision.

That said, you are completely right that it won't magically make things twice as fast. But I also don't see any tangible evidence limiting the upper end of the improvements possible to 25% across all games.

AmyS said:
Probably already discussed but. one of the most important changes from Maxwell-based Tegra X1 to the Pascal-based Parker (the new Tegra SoC) is going from a 64-bit memory bus in X1 to a 128-bit bus in Parker.

That's a misunderstanding of correlation and causation. Nvidia could build a Maxwell-based SoC with a 128 bit bus or a Pascal-based SoC with a 64 bit bus. This depends on what their customer wants -- I mean, they could e.g. increase their L2 cache size but go with a 64 bit external memory bus to save power.

Nategc20 · Oct 23, 2016

This thing will be able to run every legacy emulator. Including ps2 and wii u games on the go once this thing is inevitably hacked. What a time to be alive.

rekameohs · Oct 23, 2016

Nategc20 said:
This thing will be able to run every legacy emulator. Including ps2 and wii u games on the go once this thing is inevitably hacked. What a time to be alive.

Yeah, it's incredibly selfish of me, but I'd love to see this thing get cracked for that very reason!

Nostremitus · Oct 23, 2016

99Luffy said:
They were never designed for laptops. Because there isnt a laptop out there with an 8 core jaguar cpu.

PS4 and Xbox One have 8 Jaguar cores, but it's not an 8 core module, it has two quad cores on the same die. The quad core modules are on different sides of the chip. And no, AMD laptop parts are their piledriver and excavator APUs. The Jaguar APUs are tablet/netbook chips. They barely run Windows.

Tachradar describes the jaguar cores as "ultramobile"

http://www.techradar.com/reviews/pc-mac/pc-components/processors/amd-a4-5000-apu-1153738/review

The Jaguar cores barely beat out the K1 ARM cores, the X1 ARM cores almost doubled performance over K1. A quad core X1 should perform about as well as an 8 core Jaguar depending on clocks.

Red Devil · Oct 23, 2016

Thelonelykoopa said:
I would expect it to be possible I mean saves files are often stored on catridges now they may be a reason for them not to do that which I dont know.

I suppose that could set a limit on the size of patches and maybe some games could require more than that space?

Doctre81 · Oct 23, 2016

Jaguar cores were designed for tablets and slim laptops. It even says on the freaking wikipedia lol. Let it go. The gpu and the ram amout are the stars of the show regarding the ps4 and xbox one power.

MuchoMalo · Oct 23, 2016

Hoo-doo said:
I'm just saying that all logic seemingly goes out the window when discussing the specs of upcoming Nintendo hardware. Which then leads to disappointment, meltdowns and misguided expectations.

And yes. Do look at Nintendo's past trajectories, look at their current place in the market. Look at the state of the market itself. Look at the potential audiences and pricing considerations. Look at the goals they set for their new product.
Realize that hardware power seriously isn't that high up on the priority ladder for Nintendo. Meanwhile, these threads always assume it's the most important thing.

So, what's your explanation for the fan then? You don't need a fan for something weaker than Wii U unless it's using a Tegra 4 or something.

Why do I get the feeling that you're about to argue that it having a Tegra 4 is possible?

pr0cs · Oct 23, 2016

No one in their right mind is buying a Nintendo console for the hardware.
No idea why anyone would care what the shift has internally when you're buying the device for Nintendo exclusives.

plank · Oct 23, 2016

AmyS said:
Probably already discussed but. one of the most important changes from Maxwell-based Tegra X1 to the Pascal-based Parker (the new Tegra SoC) is going from a 64-bit memory bus in X1 to a 128-bit bus in Parker.

So ~25 GB/s vs ~50 GB/s memory bandwidth. That is huge.

For a March 2017 Nintendo Switch release, a custom Tegra X1 SoC would be pretty disappointing, but a custom Parker SoC would be pretty damn nice.

Will it be able to play game graphically on par to ps4?

Malus · Oct 23, 2016

pr0cs said:
No one in their right mind is buying a Nintendo console for the hardware.
No idea why anyone would care what the shift has internally when you're buying the device for Nintendo exclusives.

Buying it for Nintendo games doesn't mean people don't care about the specs. as the endless hardware speculation shows.

AzaK · Oct 23, 2016

Grampa Simpson said:
32 Gigs will probably cover the first couple of games that I buy, and then it will either be clean out the fridge or buy an SD Card for it. Same deal as with the Wii U. Mine has a 1TB SSHD. Haven't worried about space since. I can currently buy a 128gig MicroSD for $40 and less than $80 for a 256gig SD. I simply don't have that many games in play at a given time that I would need more than that.

I find it sad people are OK with buying a console and then almost certainly having to pay more for storage soon after. They did it with Wii U and it was a pretty shit move. By the time you did that you ended up paying PS4 money for the thing.

plank said:
Will it be able to play game graphically on par to ps4?

At 480p yes.

EDarkness · Oct 23, 2016

AzaK said:
I find it sad people are OK with buying a console and then almost certainly having to pay more for storage soon after. They did it with Wii U and it was a pretty shit move. By the time you did that you ended up paying PS4 money for the thing.

I was more than happy to buy my own storage. I got an awesome deal on a 2TB external HDD on Japanese Amazon so it only drove the cost up by a little over 6,000 yen which is the price of a new game. The advantage is that I could get whatever size I wanted. Unlike my PS4, which has a 500GB drive in it, but the damn thing fills up so fraggin' fast. If I want to try demos, or something, I have to constantly remove things and add things. If people like managing the fridge, then that's fine, but I'd rather not worry about it. Still, most Wii U games are on disc, so if someone went all physical, I think the basic internal memory should be fine. If someone was going to go digital, then I would imagine they'd be smart enough to buy/borrow an external storage device.

Brad Grenz · Oct 23, 2016

pulsemyne said:
That's not the only interesting part from that site. If you go into detail on the test then it says the display used was a 24 inch 5 point multitouch display. Now that's not going to be for a car as their screens are smaller BUT that does sound like the kind of thing put into a display used to promo a games system at a store. Basically a big switch system designed to show people it's games.

They'd just use a regular Switch plugged into a TV for store kiosks. There's no reason to build weird, low run display units.

plank · Oct 23, 2016

AzaK said:
I find it sad people are OK with buying a console and then almost certainly having to pay more for storage soon after. They did it with Wii U and it was a pretty shit move. By the time you did that you ended up paying PS4 money for the thing.

At 480p yes.

Well maybe that's where the SCD come in.

BuggyMike · Oct 23, 2016

Fourth Storm said:
From what we're hearing about battery life, I think there is a good chance that Switch is actively cooled in portable mode. Not too crazy--I essentially put this in the same category as a laptop computer.

I still don't know what to think about a performance increase in dock mode. Laura K Buzz says so and has been on the money with her reporting, but it's possibly her sources just mean the supposed upscaling hardware in the dock.

Just to let you know, in her latest article about battery etc, she says that all of her sources say that games run better in docked mode, than in handheld.

Laura Kate Dale said:
All sources claim the hardware has an easier time running docked compared to when out and about as a portable

http://letsplayvideogames.com/2016/10/a-deep-dive-on-lpvgs-nintendo-switch-reports-and-info/

And she says she's got about 5 different sources.

So it does sound like there is some kind of performance gain when docked beyond the upscaling thingy. It could be that this is happening seamlessly in the background, so devs don't have to worry about two configurations, and that could be why the supposed dev on anandtech believes there is no clockspeed changes when docked. It could be that he just doesn't know.

ehead · Oct 23, 2016

Just dropping by to mention (maybe somebody has already mentioned) my hope for some app to allow it to stream pc games. I hope they improve the streaming capabilities - its one of the few things the Wii U got right.

Blackpuppy · Oct 23, 2016

Nostremitus said:
It's also a custom SoC... And Nintendo have been adding eDRAM to their SoCs since pre-2000... (GameCube development started in 1998)

It stands to reason they'd continue this... Add the fact that it's cartridge based and not disk, they could feasibly go back to the method used in the N64 where data was streamed directly from the game cart as if it were RAM.

The cartridges from the nes, snes, n64, gameboy and gameboy advance are not the same as found in the ds and 3ds and I'm 99% certain it'll use the same technology as found in the latter.

The older cartridges were basically Rom chips that plugged directly into the memory bus. So very quick memory access.

But these new cartridges are like flash memory. Definitely quicker than optical media but much slower than the old technology.

Nostremitus · Oct 23, 2016

Blackpuppy said:
The cartridges from the nes, snes, n64, gameboy and gameboy advance are not the same as found in the ds and 3ds and I'm 99% certain it'll use the same technology as found in the latter.

The older cartridges were basically Rom chips that plugged directly into the memory bus. So very quick memory access.

But these new cartridges are like flash memory. Definitely quicker than optical media but much slower than the old technology.

That depends on the bandwidth and latency of their proprietary storage solution.

You're probably right, though.

Refyref · Oct 23, 2016

Blackpuppy said:
The cartridges from the nes, snes, n64, gameboy and gameboy advance are not the same as found in the ds and 3ds and I'm 99% certain it'll use the same technology as found in the latter.

The older cartridges were basically Rom chips that plugged directly into the memory bus. So very quick memory access.

But these new cartridges are like flash memory. Definitely quicker than optical media but much slower than the old technology.

A lot of people repeat this flash memory bit, it's incorrect, for the most part. DS and 3DS use Mask ROM chips to store games on. These are much closer to the technology used in old consoles than to NAND flash memory used in things like SD cards or the Vita's game cards. Even the reading process shouldn't have much difference in speed when used correctly. The major difference between 3/DS and old consoles is that in old consoles the carts were connected to a bus that was directly connect to the CPU, and had pre-defined memory address points in the CPU, so the CPU didn't have to load them to the RAM first, as it could access them directly until it had to do a bank switch. Such buses are incredibly impractical these days, so the ROM is used as a simple data storage format from which things are loaded to the RAM. But the actual ROM chips aren't all that different.

oti · Oct 23, 2016

cheezcake said:
hmm that's a little disappointing. 1080p would be nice.

720p sounds fine to me as far as games go but if this wants to also be a tablet (which I believe it has to for people to consider taking it with them all the time) 1080p would've been a lot nicer.

Also kind of a bummer that this top notch tech inside with just 720p but eh, it's for gaming first and foremost. It'll be fine.

Mr. Pointy · Oct 23, 2016

I expect the Switch to have 32GB internal memory for the OS and system, and Nintendo will pack in a cheap 16-32GB SD Card for saving/patches/DLC so people can get started out of the box. And it seems like the dock will have USB 3.0 external HDD support, since there's no other reason for the dock to have rumoured USB 3.0 ports.

Mr Swine · Oct 23, 2016

oti xero said:
720p sounds fine to me as far as games go but if this wants to also be a tablet (which I believe it has to for people to consider taking it with them all the time) 1080p would've been a lot nicer.

Also kind of a bummer that this top notch tech inside with just 720p but eh, it's for gaming first and foremost. It'll be fine.

Everyone was expecting 480p or 540p like Vita and now it's pointing thoward 720p and that is a massive leap. Sure 1080p would be cool but the tech isn't there yet

Blackpuppy · Oct 23, 2016

Refyref said:
A lot of people repeat this flash memory bit, it's incorrect, for the most part. DS and 3DS use Mask ROM chips to store games on. These are much closer to the technology used in old consoles than to NAND flash memory used in things like SD cards or the Vita's game cards. Even the reading process shouldn't have much difference in speed when used correctly. The major difference between 3/DS and old consoles is that in old consoles the carts were connected to a bus that was directly connect to the CPU, and had pre-defined memory address points in the CPU, so the CPU didn't have to load them to the RAM first, as it could access them directly until it had to do a bank switch. Such buses are incredibly impractical these days, so the ROM is used as a simple data storage format from which things are loaded to the RAM. But the actual ROM chips aren't all that different.

Thank you for clarifying. I knew the cartridges weren't flash per se, but I was arguing more about the direct bus differences which cause the slowdown.

oti · Oct 23, 2016

Mr Swine said:
Everyone was expecting 480p or 540p like Vita and now it's pointing thoward 720p and that is a massive leap. Sure 1080p would be cool but the tech isn't there yet

540p sounds also alright for games. Could also save some battery life. But a 540p tablet? 😫

Mr. Pointy · Oct 23, 2016

So Parker at 500GF when portable and 750GF when docked?

Mr. Pointy · Oct 23, 2016

oti xero said:
540p sounds also alright for games. Could also save some battery life. But a 540p tablet? 😫

No one was expecting it to be bigger than Vita before we found out that it was a hybrid and 720p was leaked.

Fredrik · Oct 23, 2016

Mr Swine said:
Everyone was expecting 480p or 540p like Vita and now it's pointing thoward 720p and that is a massive leap. Sure 1080p would be cool but the tech isn't there yet

Isn't there? Isn't 1080p on 5+ inch mobile phone screen almost standard by now?

Mr. Pointy · Oct 23, 2016

Fredrik said:
Isn't there? Isn't 1080p on 5+ inch mobile phone screen almost standard by now?

1080p/QHD screens chew up a lot of battery and performance. It's why all phones shut off the screen after 30 seconds by default.

Though, it could be possible to have a 1080p screen on the Switch. It's just that nearly all games will run much less than native resolution and all the pixels would be used for the OS and UI. And the system would automatically sleep after 30 seconds.

Support NeoGAF

Nintendo Switch: Powered by Custom Nvidia Tegra Chip (Official)

Banned

Neo Member

Banned

Member

Member

Member

Member

Banned

The Birthday Skeleton

ä»»å¤©å  ã® å¿è

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Neo Member

Member

Banned

Member

Member

Member

Banned

Banned

Member

Member

Member

Banned

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Banned

Member

Banned

Member

Banned

Member

Member

Member

Member

Similar threads

ä»»å¤©å ã® å¿è