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What is the actual power of the Nintendo Switch?

Rayis

Member
Compared to wiiU
In handheld mode the GPU is like a wiiU plus (think 3DS > NEW 3DS) but has the benefit of 3x the usable ram, a significantly stronger CPU, and an architecture about 5-10 years newer (yes I realize that's a wide gap but the architecture on the wiiU was a weird hodgepodge of older and newer).

In docked mode its about 4x the wiiU's GPU with the previous benefits.

Compared to the Xbox One
On paper it's GPU (docked) is a bit under 1/3rd the Xbox One (which actually isn't a huge gap) but it once again benefits from a newer architecture (about 5 years newer), a CPU that is weaker but not signficantly, and about 64% of the usable ram (3.2GB vs 5GB)

Compared to the PS360
10+ year advantage on GPU architecture
About 4-5x the raw power on paper (docked)
A significantly better CPU than the 360 but not the Cell (the Cell can still outperform the PS4 CPU in some tasks)
6.4x the usable RAM

In practice what you'll probably see is PS360 era graphics running at 1080p 60fps and a few improved effects.
Or 1080p 60fps PS4/Xone games running at 720p 30fps.

Examples we can point to are
Snakepass
sub 900p 30fps PS4
Switch Sub 720p 30fps with a few effects removed

Lego City Undercover
PS4 1080p 30fps/60fps
Switch 1080p 30fps

The Switch also managed to get a full Physically Based Lighting system over the wiiU version, higher resolution shadows, longer draw distance, increased texture resolution, 1080p docked, and a more consistent framerate in this game.

Thank you for being the only person who bothered replying to the thread with an answer!
 

Maxey

Member
How many duck-taped Gamecubes is the question.

I said about 16 but let's do the math!

Wii was 2 Gamecubes.

WiiU had a triple-core cpu, so assuming assuming each core is twice as powerful as the Wii, that means 4 Gamecubes x 3 so the WiiU is 12 Gamecubes duct-taped together.

The Switch should about twice the power of the WiiU, so it's around 24 docked and 18 undocked.
 

AColdDay

Member
x-men_l30.jpg


I am as far beyond the 360 as it is beyond the original Game Boy.
 
Not powerful enough to get a lot of current-gen ports, but the hardware is more 'modern' so there might be a few surprises here and there. Waiting on that Dark Souls duology.

This is 100% bull shit. The Switch has all the modern features of PS4/Xbone, and it isn't too far off in power. It will just be scaled down in resolution, framerate, and/or fidelity(textures,lighting, shadows). If Devs are saying they can't get PS4/Xbone ports on Switch because power, they're lying and its really about porting the game to make a profit out of it in return in sales.



1/3 Xbox One when docked.

On paper, the Xbone has 3X the GFLOPS than Switch in docked mode( 1.2 GFLOPS vs ~400GFLOPS), but it doesn't take into account that the Switch's Tegra is a much newer and efficient hardware with more modern tools, as well as fp16/mixed precision support. In reality, with Switch's newer architecture and devs taking advantage of mixed precision, the Switch could be more like 600 GFLOPS in certain situations with unreal engine support. This is just a ball park empirical estimate, but also from observations from ports.

This doesn't take into account CPU, RAM, and bandwidth though^^, but the CPU and RAM scale pretty well anyway with the GPU. I'm more worried about the bandwidth limitation, though Switch has tile based rendering to help.

At least from most of the ports we've been seeing, the PS4 looks like it has 2.5 to around 3x the performance of the Switch, while Xbone looks like its around 2x to me. The games we've seen so far has the PS4 have either 1.5 to 2.25x the resolution power(720p vs 900/1080p) or double the framerate, and with some extra effects, so it seems to line up.

I'm really curious to see how AAA ports like call of duty handle though.
 

Dre3001

Member
So basically from the serious posts in this thread, the Switch is a slightly more powerful WiiU when in handheld mode and a slightly less powerful Xbox One when docked to a tv.

In short anything that can run on Xbox One should be able to run on Switch with a little compromise.
 

LCGeek

formerly sane
Not powerful enough to get a lot of current-gen ports, but the hardware is more 'modern' so there might be a few surprises here and there. Waiting on that Dark Souls duology.

It can run crysis 3 and various decent UE4 demos.
 

Meesh

Member
All I know for certain is it's just powerful enough to keep me from finding one on store shelves...
 

Trace

Banned
His post was about as helpful as yours and several posted others before this.

Get off of it.

My post was
.

It's pretty powerful for what it is, but you're not going to be seeing easy AAA ports of current-gen games on it.

So no, mine at least had some information in it. As much as I enjoy seeing "Switch is the greatest console ever made" in every thread, it gets tiring when people post blatant garbage like the post I quoted.

But all the other responses were a-ok here. lol

Joke posts at least have an attempt to be funny in them.
 
Better question: can it run the PC version with low/medium settings of a AAA game?

Why has no one answered this? This is the true question.

Also, if Nintendo does a revision with Tegra X2, will the better power efficiency allow Switch games to run in what is currently docked mode, in portable mode?
 

Seik

Banned
On the console scale: Better than PS360U, weaker than a Xbox One.

On the Dragon Ball scale: Teen Gohan, SSJ2 enabled but in the future, strong but way weaker than Goku/Vegeta.

On the animal food chain scale: Porcupine, little, not very strong but knows how to defends itself against the bigger guys.
 
The only game I'm aware of that kind of fits this discription is Steep, and we haven't seen it yet at all.

I don't mean have they. Can they. Maybe someone who can compare a min spec of a AAA game and Switch specs can answer that but maybe not. I know we haven't really seen this tested yet. I guess we'll see if stuff like Call of Duty begins to get ported to the Switch. I'm pretty sure they can get AAA current games working. Just curious to see how much has to be sacrificed or not and what that will actually look like.
 

Buggy Loop

Member
Why has no one answered this? This is the true question.

There's simply no comparison yet. Steep coming up? Surprise E3 3rd party reveal? COD WWII?

I'm mostly surprised that peoples see such a huge gap between PS3/Xbox 360 gen and this one. Honesly, being on PC, it was the smoothest game setting transition with no hardware upgrades i've ever seen. What would make Witcher 3, Doom and so on impossible on 360? Crysis 3 for christ sake has barely been surpassed by the majority of devs out there, same for the Last of us.
 

Bronetta

Ask me about the moon landing or the temperature at which jet fuel burns. You may be surprised at what you learn.
From what I hear its roughly 33% of PS4s power.



Pretty impressive what that little tablet can do.
 
If this was the case Zelda wouldn't be 900p on Switch compared to 720p Wii U

Probably closer to Wii U 1.5x

It's a port of a game that was designed for the Wii U at first. That's not a proper comparison.

I'm mostly surprised that peoples see such a huge gap between PS3/Xbox 360 gen and this one.


Yeah, this gen really just feels like a hardware refresh of the last gen. The leap has been pretty damn small.
 
As a real answer, I'd say about 1/3 - 2/5 of the Xbox one for GPU performance (docked), but with a memory bandwidth deficit. Handheld, it's half the performance, but more balanced memory bandwidth. The CPU is probably fine for whatever devs want to throw at it.
 

J@hranimo

Banned
So basically from the serious posts in this thread, the Switch is a slightly more powerful WiiU when in handheld mode and a slightly less powerful Xbox One when docked to a tv.

In short anything that can run on Xbox One should be able to run on Switch with a little compromise.

Pretty much.
 
Reading through threads is somewhat confusing. Some people say that it's a Wii U, which, by some accounts, is an underpowered PS3 and Xbox 360.

Some people are saying that it's an underpowered Xbox One / PS4, but slightly more powerful than last gen hardware.

I'm confused. As the hardware gets full Unreal Engine support, I assumed that it was capable of doing last gen ports with 'relative' ease. Granted, there's no 'easy port' button, but early reports about the hardware claimed that getting things running on it takes considerably less work than the Wii U ever did.

So I guess what i'm asking is - hypothetically - can the switch do at least fantastic ports of last gen (xbox 360/ps3) titles, or what? Like when Bluepoint Games pulled off that magical port of Titanfall on the Xbox 360, hypothetically (not necessarily realistically), could the switch do a flawless version of Destiny 1? Titanfall? Diablo 3?

Or are the big 3rd party games of last gen held back once again by limitations of Nintendo hardware? As I said, reading through Gaf is confusing. I get that the devs aren't necessarily biting due to the unproven install base, but is there a concern that the hardware is incapable of doing those old AAA ports?

URGH, this post is a mess... First, the Wii U is considerably more powerful than PS360 consoles, not "on par with" or "underpowered" next to them. It could have any of the games you mentioned. It could've had Unreal Engine 4, too. Epic, however, decided not to put it there - There's an important distinction to make here, and it's this... WON'T DO IT doesn't mean CAN'T DO IT. In many cases, "third party" publishers and development houses wouldn't bother for various reasons, but it wasn't impossible. Difficult? In some cases, certainly. Perceived as not worth one's while, or too much of a risk, and therefore the motivation to do it is little to zero? That's also possible. But impossible? There are solid reasons to believe that this isn't the case. One might also say that, ultimately, Nintendo could've done more for the Wii U, too. PS360 consoles couldn't handle Xenoblade Chronicles X or LOZ: Breath Of The Wild. The scale and performance of those games are beyond their capabilities, and that's before getting to the fact that it's doing some things better than X4 titles on less meatier specs, or even bringing the GamePad into play. Still, hardly anybody ever takes into account the fact that Nintendo prioritises stable 60FPS performances over photo-realistic visual presentation - On here, one can find screenshots of games on other platforms, but what those screenshots never tell you is that the game isn't going for the same frame rate; In the case of the PS4, the visual element often takes prevalence, and 30FPS is seen as "enough" (See Drive Club, then Forza 5, for example). "Third party" endeavours were largely unoptimised, and the Wii U wasn't a lead platform. So, the fact that Wii U versions held up in those capacities at all is rather a testament to that console. I could list a number of things that the Wii U did in terms of performance, and show you the receipts to back up my comments, but perhaps I could do that elsewhere (because I find that NeoGAF, for a large part, is obtuse as fuck, tbqh).

With regard to the Switch's capacity, there has been a lot of misinformation, from the chip that powers it (which isn't a Tegra X1, btw - This much is a fact that has been confirmed on multiple occasions from the collective horse's mouth (that is, by Nintendo, Nvidia and "third party" developers) since the Switch reveal, before and after launch, backed up with word-specific evidence stretching from October to this month), to a lack of robustness in reporting widely available information which is critical to this topic, to talk of "significant downgrades" (a term that has been mentioned only on here, and not once by Nintendo's partners, without evidence to back that narrative). The great tragedy of your discussion is that any desire to pursue the truth has been superseded by one on the part of some antis and certain gaming publications to draw fast conclusions, however untrue, and paint the bleakest possible picture. There has been a general acceptance, despite evidence before people's eyes which contradicts their proposals. There's this thing where some make out that the Switch is meeting its full potential at launch, when no console ever does that. There's a pattern here, because exactly the same thing happened with the Wii U; NSMBU wasn't the height of the Wii U's abilities, and neither was Batman: AC: AE, or Assassin's Creed 3. We saw Bayonetta 2, The Wonderful 101, Mario Kart 8, XCX, SSB4 and LOZ: Breath Of The Wild. While on the other side of this discussion, you have disillusioned fanboys who hoped that "NX" would be a "Polaris Powered, Gimmick-Free Third Goliath" to Nintendo's David-esque predecessors - Also, See how a potentially decent discussion on accurate Foxconn leaks turned into a Tumblr fanfic.

Regarding your question of ports, LOZ: Breath Of The Wild wasn't optimised by Nintendo for the Switch, yet is has more stable frame rates and a better resolution than the Wii U version, which the PS360 consoles couldn't handle. So, the simple answer to that is "Yes, it could have excellent ports of last gen titles". I'm surprised that this is even a question, given that Rime (which was a PS4 exclusive previously) is there, and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim: Special Edition was confirmed for the Switch in its reveal clip. There have been reports of multiple PS4 projects being moved (likely ported) to the Switch - This is about the pursuit of truth, and the "significant downgrades" crowd (once more, that is people on here, not developers) must answer this: Why would multiple PS4 projects be moved to the Switch, if it meant that they would have to be downgraded significantly? Surely an XBox One version would be less work, or less risk, if their proposals held water at all? Does this not sound bizarre!?

So, what is the Switch's actual capacity? If one is looking purely at numbers, then the Switch will appear to be underwhelming. If one is comparing to the PS4 (which is the leading console, and probably the lead development platform), then it shouldn't be a surprise that the PS4 has the better performance, especially when Switch versions of non-exclusives are neither from-the-ground-up or optimised/tailor-made for it. If one is less concerned with numbers, and looks at real-life world performance, then it becomes very apparent that the Switch as a home console is in the ballpark of the XBox One, give or take a little, and therefore able to have the non-exclusive games on it and the PS4 - A lot of people forget that the XBox One is less powerful than the PS4, and doesn't always match it, too, but this is fine for the Switch, because the ability to play on the move is a key differentiator and a welcome trade-off. To get certain publishers on board, this was a pre-requisite!! In portable mode, it is more capable than the Wii U, but it has a more modern feature set, so, it could still have those titles. In the worst case scenario, it could be 720p versions docked and undocked, but that would be fine. Even the XBox One has 720p titles, but unlike the Switch, it confines you to a TV set and four wall space. I realise that this post will go against the tide of popular narrative, but it's still the most accurate.
 

LCGeek

formerly sane
But what about Crysis 1

Crysis 1 like other lookers of that gen, say GTA4 modded have optimization problems that get in the way of performance.

I would be very interested in what a port could do myself since the PS3 and Xbox required crytek to chop of the level design to get the series on to the hdtwin consoles. Besides certain effects that issue alone would show how well the console can and can't perform compared to other devices we know of with the game.
 

bomblord1

Banned
UWith regard to the Switch's capacity, there has been a lot of misinformation, from the chip that powers it (which isn't a Tegra X1, btw - This much is a fact that has been confirmed on multiple occasions from the collective horse's mouth (that is, by Nintendo, Nvidia and "third party" developers) since the Switch reveal, before and after launch, backed up with word-specific evidence stretching from October to this month), to a lack of robustness in reporting widely available information which is critical to this topic, to talk of "significant downgrades" (a term that has been mentioned only on here, and not once by Nintendo's partners, without evidence to back that narrative).

Sorry to single out one part of your post like this but the Switch's GPU is literally a Tegra X1 running at a lower clock. The SM's, chip layout (based on die shots), and literally everything else are exactly the same down to even completely inconsequential details. The only customization made to it is the clock speed.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1345524&page=50
 
Why has no one answered this? This is the true question.

Also, if Nintendo does a revision with Tegra X2, will the better power efficiency allow Switch games to run in what is currently docked mode, in portable mode?

This has been gone over in a plethora of Switch threads before this one.

One easy measure that was leaked before the official Unreal port was announced was that Switch matched its presets for low and medium, depending on whether the system was undocked or docked. The presets above that are high and epic. It also uses the full deferred renderer rather than the mobile one.

http://nintendoeverything.com/diffe...able-switch-modes-spotted-in-unreal-engine-4/
 

ArtHands

Thinks buying more servers can fix a bad patch
Switch is like current Gohan with potential unlocked
PS4 is like SSB Goku
PS4Pro is SSB Goku + Kaioken
Xbox is SSB Vegeta
PC is Zen-oh
 
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