Read the old Wii and Wii U tech threads. They are filled with rumors from "credible" sources about the power. How well did that turn out?
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Nintendo Switch: Powered by Custom Nvidia Tegra Chip (Official)
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Read the old Wii and Wii U tech threads. They are filled with rumors from "credible" sources about the power. How well did that turn out?
Herb Alpert
Banned
No one knew at that time they were building a franken cpu with gamecube parts. Now they start fresh, there is hope.
blu
Wants the largest console games publisher to avoid Nintendo's platforms.
Care to elaborate?
Skittzo0413
Member
We didn't have credible, verified reports from a publication such as Eurogamer that the Wii or Wii U devkits were using a single SoC, the specs of which are available for anyone on the web to look up.
We know a lot more about what's in the Switch than we did about previous consoles.
There was some leaks that were on point, the problem is that people refused to believe them (me included, crow eaten, wall of shame), and truth to be told recently iirc a Factor 5 interview revealed that before final Wii hardware there was a much better spec system in the works.
We know nothing. It's just rumors from "credible" sources, just like with the Wii and Wii U.
The main difference now is that we know what kind of SoC they will use. Both the pessimistic and the optimistic versions are way above Wii U.
It's not rumours, don't you know in what thread you are? Read the article in the OP.
Buggy Loop
Member
Last thing we needed in this industry is a 3rd wannabe PC console. It didn't help Nintendo to compete with Gamecube anyway. Based on thinking with your "brain" it should be obvious why N didnt go with a pure home console.
Skittzo0413
Member
It's very unlikely that Eurogamer got essentially everything else right about the NX but the actual devkit wasn't using the chip they reported. It's called Occam's Razor. What's more believable, that Eurogamer was right about all of the features, the shape, the entire concept, but was wrong about the devkit hardware, or that they were right about all of that?
Especially when Nvidia has officially confirmed they are developing a custom Tegra SoC based on "the world's top performing chips." There's pessimism and then there's ignoring reality.
th3sicknness
Member
The part that throws everyone is that "The high-efficiency scalable processor includes an NVIDIA GPU based on the same architecture as the world’s top-performing GeForce gaming graphics cards"
Maxwell was top performing and now Pascal is also top performing... so this is what actually throws people when they are discussing which Tegra they are going to use. Rather annoying lol..
I still contend that Nvidia wouldnt have let Nintendo use old stuff to debut their hardware on consoles.. It will be something custom that is running on their newer chipset.
Skittzo0413
Member
Right, I agree that it seems intentionally vague. Some are speculating that Nintendo wants them to give as few details as possible, or that they are launching Volta chips next year which would make Pascal seem outdated.
But my main point was that a Tegra X1 should very well be our baseline for expectations, regardless of Maxwell or Pascal, while the poster I was responding to expected sub Wii U performance.
Its not just rumours though (which all point to either Maxwell or Parker BTW, not one to anything below), its also common sense as well. Even a super low clocked Tegra Maxwell can't fail to be more powerful than WiiU (even at 500Mhz its well above WiiU performance). Parker even more so.
As far as the trailer goes. Do you think they ran games on real Switch hardware in both modes (docked and handheld) then overlayed the docked footage onto the TV's and the handheld footage onto the Switch itself?, course they wouldn't, its just a trailer. All of the footage will have been from the same hardware and they'll then have picked out parts they wanted to show on each mode because of the content of the footage itself not what the footage was rendered on. So looking at the handheld parts vs the TV parts for performance difference isn't going to tell you anything.
Plus didn't a guy on here analyze the footage and come to the conclusion that duplicate frames had been added to certain scenes in order to stretch the footage out during editing so that the footage lasted for the full trailer? Which is why those parts looked like they were performing more poorly.
Sorceror12
Member
Just my opinion, I wouldn't doubt if those games were on targeted dev kit hardware.. or even running on Wii U as it's probably going to be the minimum baseline.
Yeah I wouldn't be surprised if they were on WiiU or possibly even on some kind of Switch dev kit. What would surprise me though is if the TV footage was rendered on Switch in docked mode and the handheld footage was rendered on Switch in handheld mode. I mean that's some attention to detail for no benefit what so ever, considered they were overlaying the video anyway.
RoadHazard
Gold Member
I haven't said anything else. I understand why they did it. I was only talking about the fact (yes, fact) that the home console aspect of the Switch will be compromised and underpowered because it also has to function as a portable.
If we take the Tegra X1 as a starting point, which was running hot in the devkits, let's assume it was pushing its full 512 GF, and that switching to Pascal would be used in portable with better power effeciency (60% according to Nvidia) to reach the same performance or aim a little lower and save even more power. They could in theory go for more performance (40% according to Nvidia) at the same power draw in docked mode, putting it at 700 GF or aim even higher and clock it higher still.
But let's take 700 hypothetical Gflops in fp32 for the Pascal successor to X1. According to an errr... source of mine here on gaf, improvements by going with fp16 where possible, might push performance anywhere between 20 and 50%. That means in a best case scenario, you could get over 1TF out of it (with clever use of fp16) or about 850 GF in other circumstances. I don't know how easy it would be to overclock the GPU and reach even better numbers maybe as a result of a further die shrink.
th3sicknness
Member
In almost all Nintendo hardware it was an improvement over the previous iteration. I have no doubt that the Switch is going to be a step above the Wii U easily (2 Wii Us duct tape together lol).
I mean it is obvious that while docked you will get better than Wii U graphics and while on the go you are going to get a step down.
I am sure in January they will talk about all the things the Switch can do better graphically. More foliage, more enemies on the screen, ice climbers, and so on.
I mean it is obvious that while docked you will get better than Wii U graphics and while on the go you are going to get a step down.
I am sure in January they will talk about all the things the Switch can do better graphically. More foliage, more enemies on the screen, ice climbers, and so on.
Schnozberry
Member
Nvidia's claims are generally a little bit "truthy" in regards to efficiency and power gains, but there is nothing implausible about it. We'll have to see if Nintendo uses the gains to really crank up the clock speed while docked.
We can be sure that the new Splatoon, Mario Kart and Mario were development builds built on development hardware.
(I'm guessing the other games were other builds and weren't necessarily Switch footage, but I could just as easily be wrong.)
Just as a minor aside, PS3 games that did pixel shading on the SPUs did so with fp32 precision.
Anyhow, fp16 is definitely a net win for performance. I'm surprised that Nvidia decided to gimp fp16 in the 1080 when all indications are AMD are looking to add double rate fp16 in their desktop cards.
Well the full clocked version is still memory bandwidth limited compared to last gen consoles. It does have colour compression and other rendering optimizations that improve bandwidth efficiency, but even the PS3 had double the GPU bandwidth.
So depending on where you fall on the spectrum of how much emphasis you put on the leaked dev kit, it could be a worrying sign that dev kits were running on TX1 hardware. If you're one of those who thinks that Nvidia's custom SoC statement implies a Parker like SoC, then the good news is the memory bus is 128bit for the chips inside the Drive PX2. I still have my doubts that NS is going to resemble Parker in any meaningful way though.
Tegra X1 has 4K streaming and HDR. The Switch could easily be adapted to a gear vr style headset and offer similar resolution to original oculus rift dev kits... It seems to have USB type C connector on the bottom of the tablet, so selling you an alternative dock for 4K @ $199 could be possible by the end of 2017/2018.
We have no idea what the plans are for this device beyond what was shown in a 3 minute teaser.
Do you have the actual retail version of the Nintendo Switch in your hands? No? Then... rumors.
Nvidia posting official news on their webpage does not constitute a rumor.
Let's put the speculation aside for a second and pretend that the device is out, it does 720p when docked of XB1 games at same frame rates and slight downgrade in graphics on the go, but only has a 3 hour max battery life. How do you feel about the device? I feel like that is a $299 device and that it will sell very fast.
Are we sure it is Nvidia and not a janitor? smh
Are we sure it is Nvidia and not a janitor? smh
I'm not talking about the manufacturer. I'm talking about the graphical capabilities.
Skittzo0413
Member
"The high-efficiency scalable processor includes an NVIDIA GPU based on the same architecture as the worlds top-performing GeForce gaming graphics cards" is straight from the OP.
Is that broad? Yes, I guess. But it corresponds quite closely to the highly credible rumor of TX1s in the devkits.
I guess you're technically right that that is just a rumor, but it's by far the best we have to work with.
Grampa Simpson
Banned
I don't think you're ever going g to play Mario on a steambox.
Even if it does 720p while docked it's fine for be to be honest. I was playing some MK8 with a friend recently on a 42'' full hd tv and it looked fine, same for COD:BO2. Being able to play all the games on the go sounds like a fantasy, i played so much on the WiiU gamepad which had a kind of shitty resolution, and still enjoyed games like Mass Effect and the Batman games. Having that available everywhere sounds freaking great, and of course there will be sacrifices, it cannot compete with PS4 and Xbone. Indeed if it has a good lineup of games $300 sounds good considering all the possibilities.
The manufacturer and the product gives you a very good idea about the range of graphical capabilities. According to Nvidia:
Depending on how you want to interpret the "top-performing" part, there are only 2 Tegra products that fit into the description: Tegra X1 and Tegra Parker. So Switch is powered by a custom SoC built on one of these. GPU on X1 is approximately 3 times more powerful than Wii U's and Parker's GPU is 4.25 times x Wii U GPU, only considering FP32. CPU on both is also more capable than the Wii U's. The architecture is more modern.
This based on the official information from Nvidia.
On top of that you have all the rumours and additional educated guesses that corroborate into a pretty clear picture about the range of graphical capabilities of Switch.
So this is where we stand.
http://www.gamespodcast.de/2016/10/23/runde-81-ft-teut-weidemann-nintendo-switch/
The following information comes from Teut Weidemann, one of the first German professional game developers. He worked at Rainbow Arts, Microsoft USA, cdv Software Entertainment, Ubisoft and more. It does not seem that Mr. Weidemann is working on the Switch himself, but he is in contact with devs that have dev kits.
- Switch screen is a touchscreen that supports up to 10 points of interaction
- current dev kits are running on older hardware specs
- Switch may be based on the new Tegra X2, which is quite a jump from the X1
The following information comes from Teut Weidemann, one of the first German professional game developers. He worked at Rainbow Arts, Microsoft USA, cdv Software Entertainment, Ubisoft and more. It does not seem that Mr. Weidemann is working on the Switch himself, but he is in contact with devs that have dev kits.
- Switch screen is a touchscreen that supports up to 10 points of interaction
- current dev kits are running on older hardware specs
- Switch may be based on the new Tegra X2, which is quite a jump from the X1
Toot toot.
Schnozberry
Member
Now that the other thread is open that states Nintendo Switch prototypes have USB C, I think it adds credibility to the rumor that we're dealing with a more modern SOC than a Tegra X1, since that chip had no onboard support for USB 3.1.
Sometimes I have to remind myself when I see "X1" people actually mean Tegra X1 and not the Xbox One lol
Skittzo0413
Member
Cool, another source suggesting Pascal. And I'm gonna assume when he says Tegra X2 he means Parker. Going from a base Parker chip, what are the likeliest modifications we're going to see? I've read before that Denver cores have no business being on a console, so I imagine they'd go.
tkscz
Member
Another source calling it X2, however, I can understand why they would. The Tegra Parker was made for auto-driving cars, ergo it's name
(IT'S A CAR PUN!)
I think it's like with NX, once you used a (code)name for some time it's difficult to switch to the official name.
Interesting, as that conflicts with what the developers that worked on the PS3 in that forum thread were saying about pixel shaders on PS3? Or you mean that they could use FP32 if they used the SPU's for it and that is separate from the GPU doing pixel shaders in FP16?
Oh and I can tell you why Nvidia gimped FP16 in the 1080, as they want to sell those Titan cards as it was eating into those cards sales with the Maxwell 9XX series strong FP16 performance
funny that it will be AMD that force their hand to include strong FP16 performance again in their 11XX cards.It's actually named Parker after Peter Parker. The X1 was Erista (Wolverine) and the next one will be called Xavier.
Nvidia have been using superhero codenames since Tegra 3/Kal-El.
"Worst" case scenario is it X1 as base with heavy customization, maybe that's why some devs are saying it's probably closer to X2, which wouldn't be a surprise since Nintendo went all out including active cooling, something I never thought they'd include.
The main issue with X1 is that it uses the 20nm fab process which is pretty much obsolete with everybody skipping it and go for 16nm.
Interesting, as that conflicts with what the developers that worked on the PS3 in that forum thread were saying about pixel shaders on PS3? Or you mean that they could use FP32 if they used the SPU's for it and that is separate from the GPU doing pixel shaders in FP16?
Oh and I can tell you why Nvidia gimped FP16 in the 1080, as they want to sell those Titan cards as it was eating into those cards sales with the Maxwell 9XX series strong FP16 performance
That's correct, SPUs don't have native fp16 support.
blu
Wants the largest console games publisher to avoid Nintendo's platforms.
The main issue with TX1 is that it was a stop-gap design on a stop-gap fabnode.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UksesXbDG80
Skittzo0413
Member
Parker itself (the current official name for X2) gets 750GFlops in FP32, 1.5TFlops in FP16. It's unknown exactly how much game code can be FP16 (and it would vary wildly game to game), but speculation puts us at somewhere between 20%-50% being possible in FP16. I don't think that translates exactly to up to 1.12TFlops, but it should perform a decent amount better than the 750 number indicates.
Nice so we could be looking at something quite close to XB1 which is 1.3TF right?
Skittzo0413
Member
In pure flops? No, that would be unlikely. It's possible in this type of form factor but it's likely too expensive for what Nintendo wants to charge.
But Nvidia typically has better tools and software that end up getting better performance out of their hardware, at least on PC (which is apparently where we get the whole "Nvidia flops are better than AMD flops). We don't know if that will be the case on a console though.
So we really don't know what the real world performance will be, but it's likely much closer to XB1 than Wii U.
I couldn't ask for much more from a handheld.
Tacklemacain
Member
But its also a stationary console, not just a handheld.
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