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What is the actual power of the Nintendo Switch?

Most powerful handheld ever but judging on Zelda and Mario Kart not that much stronger than the Wii U is my impression.

But let's wait for Mario Odyssey and Xenoblade 2. Those two might surprise us.
They are Wii U games, ARMS is a better example for what the system can do.
 
I also desperately need this answer.

Can someone add Switch to this image so that I can understand?

BgzX4KgCYAA9hfA-646x425.jpg
 

PantsuJo

Member
What kind of response is that? You literally have NO evidence that Switch can't run those games. Especially considering most multiplatform AAA games are also on PC, meaning that they're capable of running on low graphics settings and resolutions.
But they are developed for x64 architectures (basically PC), not for a NVIDIA-ARM one (tablet designed).

This make everything difficult.
 

kruis

Exposing the sinister cartel of retailers who allow companies to pay for advertising space.
Can't stress this enough: Those are a bunch of fancy die shots and hot-aired words which don't actually confirm anything. I've seen it before, and it should be disregarded, because for it to be true, the collective horse's mouth (Nintendo, Nvidia and "third party" developers) would have to be lying - This is what I mean by a lack of robustness. They would be lying in that case, and research into this matter would determine that all have questions to answer. There are all sorts of technicalities and even legal reasons why it couldn't be an off-the-shelf Tegra X1, let alone an underclocked one. Furthermore, for that to be true, you would have to reconcile it with the fact that it is playing games that wouldn't be possible on those specs (Because the Tegra X1 was already struggling to keep up with games from the 7th Generation), while it never had the full-cream edition of Unreal Engine 4 on it. I suspect that many people have seen "Tegra" and simply assumed "It's an X1 chip" - the collective horses mouth has stated otherwise explicitly. Why their word isn't believed, but rumour mills and speculations are, I don't know. We don't actually know what customisations were made, but "clock speed" on its own isn't a "custom design". Some laptops share the same processor, but have different clock speeds; they aren't advertised and sold as "custom processors". There's a reason for that - They're not custom processors.

If any customizations were made to the Tegra X1 for Nintendo then it would immediately show in the design of the chip. The fact that the dies of the X1 and Switch chips are 98% identical mean they're indeed identical. It's direct proof, not PR talk.

Stop burying your head in the sand willfully.
 
From what I remember the Nintendo Wii was at least 1.5 to 2x times more powerful than the Gamecube, but not as powerful enough as the XBox 360 and PS3. It was way behind graphically in than that.
The Switch seems to be a little bit more powerful than the Wii U, but not as way behind graphically than the XBox One or the Ps4. At least from what I've seen from the ports so far. Granted we don't have some of the bigger AAA titles on the Switch, but it looks like those titles won't suffer as much if they were ported over to the Switch. Just my opinion on that.
 
It has full feature parity with current gen consoles. Thats the most important thing, and why Unreal Engine 4 supports the Switch so "easily". Anything (hardware wise) that the PS4 and Xbox One can run can run on the switch.

Beyond that, its just weaker.

You have to realize comparing different architectures (like the Wii U / Xbox 360 / PS3) just isn't something that is comparable with simple numbers or scales. They all do things very differently and with different strengths. The idea that someone says "Its 80% of Y" is just a ridiculous notion.

However, im confident that its "weaker" on a general scale. By "how much" is just too generic a question.

.
 
We have to wait for some big Third Party games at E3, to compare it to the other consoles.

Right now, its a Wii U + in handheld mode and 2,25x stronger in Docked Mode, allowing for 1080p in some games.
 

llien

Member
What kind of response is that? You literally have NO evidence that Switch can't run those games. Especially considering most multiplatform AAA games are also on PC, meaning that they're capable of running on low graphics settings and resolutions.

I only recall blizzard explicitly meh-ing about switch performance (and that in Overwatch context, which ain't a demanding game by any standard)

Blizzard hints Nintendo Switch may not be powerful enough for Overwatch

In a Reddit AMA thread last month, Kaplan vaguely said that "getting [Overwatch] on the Switch is very challenging for us, but we're always open-minded about exploring possible platforms." In a follow-up interview with the UK's Express newspaper published today, Kaplan elaborated. "I think the problem is we've really targeted our min spec in a way that we would have to revisit performance and how to get on that platform," he said.
 
Interestingly XB1 is about 2.5x more powerful than the Switch (according to some)

But the Switch only can use about 11 Watts of power Vs 120 Watts for the XB1, that's about 11x the power difference

so

Switch to XB1 is about 2.5x the power output
Switch to XB1 is about 11x the power usage

The Switch has a very modern and efficient architecture to say the least

If Switch could use the 120 watts of power that the XB1 uses the Switch would be 3x times more powerful than the XB1
 

Oblivion

Fetishing muscular manly men in skintight hosery
Wii-U to Switch looks almost exactly the equivalent jump from GC to Wii.

Seriously. It's actually shocking how Nintendo seems to have followed nearly the exact same playbook:

- 2.2X jump on RAM for GC > Wii, 3X jump from Wii-U >Switch
- 1.5X jump on GPU for GC > Wii1.4X jump from Wii-U > Switch
- 1.5X jump on CPU for GC > Wii1.3X jump from Wii-U > Switch

The only possible thing that makes this jump better than what happened with GC > Wii is that unlike that situation, Nintendo seems to be using completely different architecture for the CPU and GPU compared to its predecessor. And even then, that's not guarantee that it makes it a substantial jump in any way (it could be possible that the newer architecture simply does things that Wii-U's CPU/GPU did in a different, but not particularly more efficient manner).

Ignoring specs, and letting the games do the talking, there is not a single game on the Switch that makes one think it is significantly more powerful than Wii-U. Super Mario Odyssey looks about as improved from SM3DW as Super Mario Galaxy did from Sunshine. And it should be pointed out that even with SMG, as much as I loved that game and think it looks gorgeous (for a Wii title), part of its visual improvement was due to the additional power of Wii, but ALSO due to the fact that it was a completely different style of game than Sunshine which made it look more impressive than it would have. Galaxy probably could have ran on GC with minor downgrades here and there, just fine. Similarly, I wouldn't be surprised if SMO's different design style from SM3DL might give the illusion of it being more impressive and pushing more of the hardware than it's actually doing.

So until I have evidence otherwise, Switch is basically a Wii-U turbo.
 

notaskwid

Member
What kind of response is that? You literally have NO evidence that Switch can't run those games. Especially considering most multiplatform AAA games are also on PC, meaning that they're capable of running on low graphics settings and resolutions.

Yeah, it probably can run them. My 2013 Ivy Bridge ultrabook can also run them. Just not at a playable resolution/framerate.
 
Digital Foundry's Lego City comparison answers that question. Pretty much all the modern features and visual effects - that the Wii U is just too old to do - made it to Switch, and it does it all at 1080p.

Shadow resolution up, physically based rendering, much more modern lighting and shading, normal maps, higher quality assets, higher resolution textures, improved draw distance.

Switch's graphics architecture is basically modern. From what I understand its featureset is that of a Maxwell graphics card, but its lower number of CUDA cores, memory bandwidth and GPU clock rates will hold it back on certain titles, there will be more bottlenecks.

Wii-U to Switch looks almost exactly the equivalent jump from GC to Wii.

This is false. GC to Wii was the exact same architecture boosted up, Switch has a drastically more modern featureset than Wii U, and is capable of far more than a Wii U when docked.

Better comparisons of a GC to Wii boost would be something like the DSi, which got an upclocked CPU and more RAM, which didn't lead to any major boosts. Even the New 3DS is a bigger jump from 3DS than Wii was to GC - double the RAM, more VRAM, three more CPU cores, triple the max CPU clock, and two extra co-processing units (for face tracking).

It has full feature parity with current gen consoles. Thats the most important thing, and why Unreal Engine 4 supports the Switch so "easily". Anything (hardware wise) that the PS4 and Xbox One can run can run on the switch.

Beyond that, its just weaker.

You have to realize comparing different architectures (like the Wii U / Xbox 360 / PS3) just isn't something that is comparable with simple numbers or scales. They all do things very differently and with different strengths. The idea that someone says "Its 80% of Y" is just a ridiculous notion.

However, im confident that its "weaker" on a general scale. By "how much" is just too generic a question.

Basically this.
 

cw_sasuke

If all DLC came tied to $13 figurines, I'd consider all DLC to be free
It feels like people are being overly ridiculous in response to all the port begging. Damn near any game(maybe not 4x) can run on any "modern" hardware with enough sacrifices. Also, it seems as if big Western 3rd parties decided long ago that porting games to Nintendo hardware isn't worth it. I guess I would pull my hair out too like some on this forum if I only owned a Nintendo system.

Year one of PS4/XBO pretty much the whole forum was about users wishing game X to come to PS4/XBO. It was fine then to be excited about your new console and wanting as much support/games on it as possible...PS2/PS3 games getting HD Remasters and new version on PS4 wasnt frowned up on.

I believe it a both sides issue were some troll just started to bring up Switch in every discussion announcement threads, to rile up some community members, creating the situation we have right now were people just feel incredible offended if the System is even brought up.

Well lets hope it slows down after e3...and people realize what we can expect from the system. Right now we are still in the Honemoon phase.
 

Oblivion

Fetishing muscular manly men in skintight hosery
This is false. GC to Wii was the exact same architecture boosted up, Switch has a drastically more modern featureset than Wii U, and is capable of far more than a Wii U when docked.

You'll notice that I pointed this out in the original post, SIR.
 
How close is the Switch's GPU to the custom one in the original Surface Book? That was Maxwell based, and similar to a 940M. I would be wary to compare games running on a Surface Book to the Switch since Nvidia and Nintendo's libraries and APIs are going to produce better performance than what you'd get out of Windows.

You'll notice that I pointed this out in the original post, SIR.

But those points about it having a drastically more modern featureset completely rule out any possibility of it being a GC > Wii-style upgrade, and the games speak for themselves if you look at the upgrades made to Lego City and Mario Kart 8 in so little time. You wouldn't be able to upgrade GC games to that extent on the Wii.

Also I don't think the ratios for CPU/GPU are accurate - four x Core A57 @1Ghz wipe the floor with the Tri-Core PowerPC 750s in the Wii U, and the GPU is a lot more capable, particularly with its clocks up to 866Mhz.
 

Stop It

Perfectly able to grasp the inherent value of the fishing game.
The actual power?

About 11 Watts (16W while charging) docked, and around 9 Watts unlocked.

That was the question, right?
 

geordiemp

Member
Switch bandwidth is similar to the 360 / ps3, and even with Nvidia compression means the way I see it

1. Games that are not large world triple AAA, say Injustice 2, would punch close to Xb1 / Ps4. See Snake pass / racing game / fighter etc

2. Games like Assassins creed or say GTA5 will run closer to 360 / ps3 last gen.
Probably wont see them on Switch IMO.

..
 

Oblivion

Fetishing muscular manly men in skintight hosery
But those points about it having a drastically more modern featureset completely rule out any possibility of it being a GC > Wii-style upgrade, and the games speak for themselves if you look at the upgrades made to Lego City and Mario Kart 8 in so little time. You wouldn't be able to upgrade GC games to that extent on the Wii.

I can't speak for Lego City, but MK8 on Switch looks nearly identical to the Wii-U version. Didn't someone from Nintendo basically say they didn't change/add anything aside from a resolution bump?

Also I don't think the ratios for CPU/GPU are accurate - four x Core A57 @1Ghz wipe the floor with the Tri-Core PowerPC 750s in the Wii U, and the GPU is a lot more capable, particularly with its clocks up to 866Mhz.

866 Mhz for the GPU? Isn't it 786?
 

opricnik

Banned
This.


Wii U was actually more powerful than the PS3 in raw power, so it's more between Wii U and Xbox One.

PS3 had cell processor that was literally 3x or more powerful then what wiiu had as cpu.

also none of wiiu games near close to ps3 in technically and graphically
 
I can't speak for Lego City, but MK8 on Switch looks nearly identical to the Wii-U version. Didn't someone from Nintendo basically say they didn't change/add anything aside from a resolution bump?

Mario Kart 8 DX is indeed a quick port with nothing else but 1080p and fixing the frame pacing issue. The LODs are still the same, which is disappointing in multiplayer, as in split-screen non-player characters are rendered with less detail. It's particularly obvious in two player.

As for Lego City:
Digital Foundry's Lego City comparison answers that question. Pretty much all the modern features and visual effects - that the Wii U is just too old to do - made it to Switch, and it does it all at 1080p:

Shadow resolution is up, there's now physically-based rendering and more modern lighting and shading, the environment has normal mapping, higher quality assets are employed, there are higher resolution textures, there's improved draw distance.
 

FinalAres

Member
Xbone is 2-2.5x more powerful than the Switch in docked mode. Looking closer to 2x in GPU if devs optimize the Switch version of games to the fullest.

Also, devs don't have to just increase the resolution in docked mode. If they want, they can increase graphical fidelity or framerate instead. Minecraft is a good example.

We should be judging the Switch by its undocked mode, because undocked will always hold docked back. In terms of development time devs will always go for something simple like a resolution or frame rate upgrade. It makes no sense to make the games substantially different in the different modes, and its against what Nintendo wants. A seamless experience.

I don't understand why people feel the need to act as mini marketing departments for Nintendo (and by that I mean spouting meaningless bullshit that doesn't relate to real world application). The Switch is an incredible piece of hardware, not just as a handheld but as a console. We don't need to pretend its "nearly as powerful as an xbox one". Be real.
 

2+2=5

The Amiga Brotherhood
About Switch's power there's a lot of confusion because people don't understand that the "power" that really matters is the one of the undocked mode, the power of the docked mode doesn't really count, why?

Simple, think of undocked mode as Vita and docked mode as PS4, there are many multis between Vita and PS4(God Eater, Toukinden, Digimon and so on) and obviously they are way better on the PS4, but if the PS4 was forced to play only games that runs also on Vita the PS4 couldn't play games like Horizon even if the PS4 is actually able to run them because they wouldn't run on Vita.

In the same way even if the docked mode is able to play heavier games it's forced to be limited to games that can run in docked mode.

Another way to see this is to think of undocked mode games as the original games and docked mode games as remasters of undocked games, PS2 remasters are cool and all but the PS3 can do more than those, PS3 remasters are cool and all but the PS4 can do more than those and so on.

That said the undocked mode seems more or less close to the WiiU and docked mode more powerful than the WiiU but way behind the XB1.

Switch should be able to get PS360 games.
 

Rncewind

Member
We should be judging the Switch by its undocked mode, because undocked will always hold docked back. In terms of development time devs will always go for something simple like a resolution or frame rate upgrade. It makes no sense to make the games substantially different in the different modes, and its against what Nintendo wants. A seamless experience.

I don't understand why people feel the need to act as mini marketing departments for Nintendo (and by that I mean spouting meaningless bullshit that doesn't relate to real world application). The Switch is an incredible piece of hardware, not just as a handheld but as a console. We don't need to pretend its "nearly as powerful as an xbox one". Be real.

basicly this

but hey seems like for some people incredible piece of hardware is not enough. Its almost like the secret sauce thing wie xbox one release where people conjured a power increase from nothing
 
About Switch's power there's a lot of confusion because people don't understand that the "power" that really matters is the one of the undocked mode, the power of the docked mode doesn't really count, why?

Simple, think of undocked mode as Vita and docked mode as PS4, there are multis between Vita and PS4(God Eater, Toukinden, Digimon and so on) and obviously they are way better on the PS4, but if the PS4 was forced to play only games that runs also on Vita the PS4 couldn't play games like Horizon even if the PS4 is actually able to run them because they wouldn't run on Vita.

It should really be a comparison between PS3 and Vita. PS4 ports are stretching the Vita thin, at a time when Vita's followup should have arrived. But the Vita, released at the tail-end of 2011, was comfortably able to recreate a lot of PS3 titles to varying degrees.

Interestingly however, the gap between Switch and PS4 is less than that between Vita and PS3, due to the Switch's Maxwell featureset.

In the jump to Vita, for instance, Need for Speed: Most Wanted 2012 was missing many features just because the Vita's PowerVR GPU couldn't do them: Deferred shading was chopped in favour of a forward renderer, for example. That was in addition to the game running at 1/4 of the resolution (360p), having simplified lighting and shadowing, simpler geometry and lacking many effects.
 

2+2=5

The Amiga Brotherhood
It should really be a comparison between PS3 and Vita. PS4 ports are stretching the Vita thin, at a time when Vita's followup should have arrived. But the Vita, released at the tail-end of 2011, was comfortably able to recreate a lot of PS3 titles to varying degrees.

Interestingly however, the gap between Switch and PS4 is less than that between Vita and PS3, due to the Switch's Maxwell featureset.

In the jump to Vita, for instance, Need for Speed: Most Wanted 2012 was missing many features just because the Vita's PowerVR GPU couldn't do them: Deferred shading was chopped in favour of a forward renderer, for example. That was in addition to the game running at 1/4 of the resolution (360p), having simplified lighting and shadowing, simpler geometry and lacking many effects.

Yes, i wasn't saying that the gap between undocked mode and docked mode is comparable to PS4 and Vita, it was just an example to explain the concept.

I disagree that the gap between Switch and PS4 is smaller than the one between Vita and PS3 though, either flops-wise or visually, you should compare one of the best games of one platform with one of the best games of the other, the best looking Vita game Killzone Liberation is comparable to Killzone 3 that's one of the best looking PS3 games, Zelda BOTW is nowhere near comparable to Horizon.
 
You should compare one of the best games of one platform with one of the best games of the other, the best looking Vita game Killzone Liberation is comparable to Killzone 3 that's one of the best looking PS3 games, Zelda BOTW is nowhere near comparable to Horizon.

Nice misleading cherrypick.

Why are you comparing Killzone to Killzone, and then Zelda to Horizon?

Not to mention that Vita Killzone was tailor-made for Vita over a three year period, and even then it isn't actually comparable in visuals to Killzone 3. Tech wise Killzone on Vita is more like an original Xbox game.
 
It smokes PS4 and Xbox One in terms of performance-per-watt, but obviously comes up quite short in absolute performance. Nvidia's tech is quite impressive - particularly considering the TDP of this thing.
 

wbEMX

Member
PS3 had cell processor that was literally 3x or more powerful then what wiiu had as cpu.

also none of wiiu games near close to ps3 in technically and graphically

Because a CPU that was hard to develop for is basically everything that is needed to outdo another console, right? Let's forget the much more powerful GPU and the fact that the Wii U literally had eight times more RAM. That's completely irrelevant, right?

The only reason that Nintendo didn't have a powerhouse like The Last of Us is that they didn't have any IPs that would fit for the realistic art style. A game like Xenoblade X or Breath wouldn't have been possible on the PS3, just going from the RAM alone. Wii U was stronger than the 7th gen except for the CPU, that's not difficult due to the console coming out when PS3 and X360 were basically done for. But that's not the right thread to discuss such things anyways, so...
 

Chao

Member
It is powerful enough to run a game as beautiful as Mario Kart 8 at 60fps 1080p, which is a port of a wiiu game.

Once they start pumping out games built from the ground up for the switch we will truly know what its capable of.

Developers struggle with Xbone specs already, so don't expect red dead redemption 2 on switch anytime soon though
 

2+2=5

The Amiga Brotherhood
Nice misleading cherrypick.

Why are you comparing Killzone to Killzone, and then Zelda to Horizon?

Not to mention that Vita Killzone was tailor-made for Vita over a three year period, and even then it isn't actually comparable in visuals to Killzone 3. Tech wise Killzone on Vita is more like an original Xbox game.

In fact i could have posted this:

Virtua+Tennis+4+PS+Vita+Vs+PS3+%25283%2529.jpg


and said that Vita is as powerful as the PS3, but i didn't because Virtua Tennis 4 isn't one of the most advanced PS3 games.

That's why you should always take some of the most advanced games for a fair comparison.

You are free to think that Killzone Mercenary wasn't comparable to Killzone 3, but you are in minority, also Mercenary used a modified version of Killzone 3 engine, just saying.
 

wildfire

Banned
You'll notice that I pointed this out in the original post, SIR.

Well sure you implied that but you contradicted yourself 1 second later and 3 seconds previously exactly like Donald Trump...


Anyway. Your assertion that the Switch ports haven't looked drastically different from Wii U level games is already proven false by third parties.

Fast Racing series compared to the Wii U version, Dragon Quest Heroes compared to the ps3 version already shows distinct graphic features not capable on either relatively closer hardware platform because the Switch has the right feature sets.
 
In fact i could have posted this:

and said that Vita is as powerful as the PS3, but i didn't because Virtua Tennis 4 isn't one of the most advanced PS3 games.

That's why you should always take some of the most advanced games for a fair comparison.

You were literally talking about PS4-to-Vita ports, and how that should be the benchmark for comparison. You can't make that point and then proceed to compare Vita (and Switch) games with something completely unrelated to what you just said.

Killzone Mercenary isn't even based on a PS3 game. It's its own separate game made specifically for Vita over a three year development period and even then despite being bespoke, there are obvious limitations compared to the PS3 games anyway. It has more in common with an original Xbox game technically speaking.

Borderlands 2 and Need for Speed: Most Wanted are the best representations of how ambitious console games can be scaled to Vita. They are impressive ports but with obvious compromises.

Currently on Switch we have Lego City Undercover, which is leaps beyond the Wii U version while maintaining competitive with PS4 and Xbox One. There is also Snake Pass which is (according to DF) a technically demanding game running on Unreal Engine 4. Snake Pass was ported in two months to the Switch.

But it's too early to say for now...I guess there's Cars 3 in July, and Nights of Azure 2. Note that Switch has yet to receive its own "Killzone Mercenary" either. It's only been out for two months, and we haven't seen any big budget Switch exclusives that have been in development for Switch hardware specifically for three years.

Virtua Tennis 4 is a great port, but who's trying to say Vita wasn't or was as powerful as PS3? Killzone Mercenary isn't even a good example to use for that case either. I'm just saying that Switch is more conforming to the current gen featureset than Vita was to last gen hardware. That is all.
 
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