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[Mihael Mello Keehl]

Easily imho.
The real problem would be optimization, since this is a project that started on WiiU first. If the project was started on an X1 equivalent, you would see graphics easily like current ones, at 1080p, solid rock framerate at 30 and some visual improvements. The WiiU is trashcan tier in comparison (176 Gflop vs 500, way , WAY worse CPU, AMD vs Nvidia flops, much less modern architecture etc... only the RAM is probably comparable or worse in the X1).
If this is a port, most depend on how long they worked on it. Dunno what to expect at this point. Something better for sure, but how much? Dunno.

Actually Aonuma states NX and Wii U version were developed simultaneously. I've always had the opinion the Wii U version is the ported version. The slowdown and lack of touch controls and Wii U signature features are missing from this game gives me more flames to fan on that topic.

 

[Rodin]

Is there really no way that they use the SCD from the patent to increase power when the console is docked (meaning, the scd basically IS the dock)? That way, the portable hardware is what it is (for example, 400gflops targeting a 720p screen), but the dock increases the power to >1tflop for 1080p gaming with better assets. They use nvlink or some sort of proprietary connector to achieve that.

I remember people dismissing the possibility but not the argument against it. Maybe it would be too expensive?

 

[Ganondolf]

he people saying the dock wont have extra processing power, Nintendo could have 2 docks. 1 that comes with the console which is a basic (cheap) and a extra powered unit version which will be sold separately for an extra cost (but still cheaper than the console itself) and work like the surface book discrete gpu.

also if the controls separate to make 2 controllers then each would require its own battery so the NX would have 3 batteries which may help with battery life.

 

[KingSnake]

Is there really no way that they use the SCD from the patent to increase power when the console is docked (meaning, the scd basically IS the dock)? That way, the portable hardware is what it is (for example, 400gflops targeting a 720p screen), but the dock increases the power to >1tflop for 1080p gaming with better assets. They use nvlink or some sort of proprietary connector to achieve that.

I remember people dismissing the possibility but not the argument against it. Maybe it would be too expensive?

he people saying the dock wont have extra processing power, Nintendo could have 2 docks. 1 that comes with the console which is a basic (cheap) and a extra powered unit version which will be sold separately for an extra cost (but still cheaper than the console itself) and work like the surface book discrete gpu.

also if the controls separate to make 2 controllers then each would require its own battery so the NX would have 3 batteries which may help with battery life.

Not at launch, it would make things too complicated to sell. But I can see it happen 2 years down the road, like a revision/add-on.

 

[G.ZZZ]

Is there really no way that they use the SCD from the patent to increase power when the console is docked (meaning, the scd basically IS the dock)? That way, the portable hardware is what it is (for example, 400gflops targeting a 720p screen), but the dock increases the power to >1tflop for 1080p gaming with better assets. They use nvlink or some sort of proprietary connector to achieve that.

I remember people dismissing the possibility but not the argument against it. Maybe it would be too expensive?

Because it cost way too much. Think essentially doubling the cost of the console. Nintendo ain't going out with a 350$+ portable in 2017.

A clocked down that then clock up GPU in the handheld is way more reasonable and would cost little enough (a X1 should be relatively cheap since tablets with it costed 200$ in 2015 and this is going out in 2017).

Maybe a year later or two, if the thing is a success AND if Nintendo actually included a good enough connector between dock and portable (aka: they considered the idea in the first place). Which personally i don't think will be the case.

 

[Durante]

Is there really no way that they use the SCD from the patent to increase power when the console is docked (meaning, the scd basically IS the dock)? That way, the portable hardware is what it is (for example, 400gflops targeting a 720p screen), but the dock increases the power to >1tflop for 1080p gaming with better assets. They use nvlink or some sort of proprietary connector to achieve that.

I remember people dismissing the possibility but not the argument against it. Maybe it would be too expensive?

It would be too expensive.

(It's somewhat more likely but still far from certain that they will use the additional power and cooling capabilities in a dock to run the SoC at significantly higher clocks)

 

[Mihael Mello Keehl]

It would be too expensive.

(It's somewhat more likely but still far from certain that they will use the additional power and cooling capabilities in a dock to run the SoC at significantly higher clocks)

Wouldnt people be able to hack it to run in Docked mode undocked?

 

[Ganondolf]

Is there really no way that they use the SCD from the patent to increase power when the console is docked (meaning, the scd basically IS the dock)? That way, the portable hardware is what it is (for example, 400gflops targeting a 720p screen), but the dock increases the power to >1tflop for 1080p gaming with better assets. They use nvlink or some sort of proprietary connector to achieve that.

I remember people dismissing the possibility but not the argument against it. Maybe it would be too expensive?

yes the SCD could be used to increase the power, Microsoft does it with the Surface book. the questions is does Nintendo want to sell a separate SCD dock (as they wont include it with the base unit because they want to hit the low price). They would also need games which scale to the extra power but it would be no different from the PS4 games working on the PS4 and Neo.

 

[AzaK]

It would be too expensive.

(It's somewhat more likely but still far from certain that they will use the additional power and cooling capabilities in a dock to run the SoC at significantly higher clocks)

But what if people were willing to pay? That is you buy the handheld NX with "dumb dock" but for another US$100 you can buy an SCD dock that, using say thunderbolt provides additional GPU etc to augment the experience.

That's pretty much the only way I'll buy a NX. If I can spend PS4 level dollars and get PS4 level output, regardless of how that happens (one unit, SCD etc)

 

[Durante]

That's pretty much the only way I'll buy a NX. If I can spend PS4 level dollars and get PS4 level output, regardless of how that happens (one unit, SCD etc)

That will never happen with a hybrid, because batteries and screens are not free.

 

[Graphics Horse]

Wouldnt people be able to hack it to run in Docked mode undocked?

Probably? But that's the least concerned thing they should have for hackers, especially if it just enabled a 1080p output.
Hackers unlocked the psp's 333mhz mode years early too.

 

[spekkeh]

Nintendo's secrecy is working. I'm going crazy and want to buy this thing just to know how amazing/disappointing it really is.

 

[Mihael Mello Keehl]

Probably? But that's the least concerned thing they should have for hackers, especially if it just enabled a 1080p output.
Hackers unlocked the psp's 333mhz mode years early too.

Im not saying they should be worried, but whoever hack it hands might get burned or NX will blow up lol

 

[Graphics Horse]

Im not saying they should be worried, but whoever hack it hands might get burned or NX will blow up lol

Well you know what they say about playing with fire

 

[AzaK]

That will never happen with a hybrid, because batteries and screens are not free.

Sorry I should have been more specific. I didn't mean in a handheld, I meant as a home console because I don't care for handheld. If I can dock it for augmented power level close to PS4 (Even XBO) and along with that come western third parties then I might be in.

I say PS4/XBO level power simply because I'm not convinced western third parties would entertain supporting Nintendo unless it hit that base level.

 

[Brohan]

So what are the chances of the NX sporting a Tegra X2?

 

[NingenJanai]

So what are the chances of the NX sporting a Tegra X2?

0%, Nintendo never uses the newest chip from the manufacturer on their hardware. At best it will have a customized X1.

 

[Ganondolf]

So what are the chances of the NX sporting a Tegra X2?

I would guess that Nintendo will have a custom tegra chip closer to a X1 with some improvement found in the x2.

 

[Mr Swine]

So what are the chances of the NX sporting a Tegra X2?

Kinda low if not the X1 is a custom made with a Pascal GPU core. I would love it if Nvidia would boast about the X2 being in the NX having a handheld that does Xbo e 1 graphics (on a 540p screen)

 

[Mihael Mello Keehl]

So what are the chances of the NX sporting a Tegra X2?

they either using custom X1 or custom X2.

So 50% chance

 

[dlauv]

this thing sounds pretty sick to be honest.

i thought they were going to go with another laborious whack-o gimmick.

the idea of playing a full, console experience anywhere: like, a park, your friend's house, yadda yadda; and, it's as simple as plopping the sucker down onto a coffee table. if marketed right and it gets any kind of main stream gaming support, this thing could be huge.

call of duty or lan parties in the university cafeteria.

 

[Brohan]

Thanks for all your replies. I guess i'll just count on it having a X1, that way i can't be disappointed.

 

[Mr Swine]

Thanks for all your replies. I guess i'll just count on it having a X1, that way i can't be disappointed.

Think of it having a Tegra 4 instead, win win situation

 

[Mistouze]

this thing sounds pretty sick to be honest.

i thought they were going to go with another laborious whack-o gimmick.

the idea of playing a full, console experience anywhere: like, a park, your friend's house, yadda yadda; and, it's as simple as plopping the sucker down onto a coffee table. if marketed right and it gets any kind of main stream gaming support, this thing could be huge.

call of duty or lan parties in the university cafeteria.

Pretty much. Zelda BOW on the go!

 

[dr_rus]

True, but not by the 40% we see in OpenGL and DX11.

This has more to do with AMD's drivers than NV flops being "better". There are no AMD drivers on consoles with AMD h/w so it's not really applicable.

 

[McHuj]

0%, Nintendo never uses the newest chip from the manufacturer on their hardware. At best it will have a customized X1.

I think chances are lower that they ship the NX with a plain X1 versus a X2. They're not going to ship a 20nm SOC since that process is pretty dead for high volume parts. That would be a big blunder imo. with the upcoming volume of 16nm chips shipping in phones and GPUs, the cost of the process is only going to drop over the life time of NX.

 

[wwm0nkey]

Wasn't there a rumor Nvidia was going to sell chips at a loss to enter the console space more?

 

[NingenJanai]

I think chances are lower that they ship the NX with a plain X1 versus a X2. They're not going to ship a 20nm SOC since that process is pretty dead for high volume parts. That would be a big blunder imo. with the upcoming volume of 16nm chips shipping in phones and GPUs, the cost of the process is only going to drop over the life time of NX.

That would be what makes sense, but remember we are talking about Nintendo... who still uses resistive touchscreens ( much more expensive to manufacture for a long time than capacitive ) ...

 

[McHuj]

That would be what makes sense, but remember we are talking about Nintendo... who still uses resistive touchscreens ( much more expensive to manufacture for a long time than capacitive ) ...

There's alway 28nm....

 

[Durante]

I think chances are lower that they ship the NX with a plain X1 versus a X2. They're not going to ship a 20nm SOC since that process is pretty dead for high volume parts. That would be a big blunder imo. with the upcoming volume of 16nm chips shipping in phones and GPUs, the cost of the process is only going to drop over the life time of NX.

I don't think 20nm makes much sense either, but on the other hand Nintendo made moves that are very different from what I would have considered in each of their past 3 HW releases.

 

[brainchild]

0%, Nintendo never uses the newest chip from the manufacturer on their hardware. At best it will have a customized X1.

Wrong. Their most recent handheld used the newest chip from a manufacturer. It's called the Pica200 and it certainly was not a known quantity at the time.

 

[G.ZZZ]

Yeah , wasn't also the problem for Nvidia the fact that they'd have to pay big penalties if they didn't order at least some more millions of units from TSMC on the 20nm process? That could also point toward Nvidia giving Nintendo 20 nm to avoid said penalties. Take this with a grain of salt because it was something i remember reading but could remember wrong or could just be a fake news.

As for the screen, i checked for the most common, cheapest screens around 6-7", and they seems to be 1024 x 600 (614400 pixels), and cost about 1 dollars on ebay, i suppose they'd cost like a tenth of that to a big manifacturer. Compare to 1080p which is 2073600 pixels. This would imply a ratio of 3/10, or a 300 Mhz speed in mobile vs 1 GHz full clock X1 on dock. Not sure how much less does a X1 consume at 300 Mhz, if it's feasible in term of handheld consumptions. At that speed, you would be looking at 153 Gflops, or about WiiU power in HH mode (assuming a stock X1).

 

[cw_sasuke]

0%, Nintendo never uses the newest chip from the manufacturer on their hardware. At best it will have a customized X1.

The last couple months haven shown that the past doesnt matter much when talking about Nintendos next move. I mean no mobile games ? No hybrid ? etc.

So far they could gimp on the handheld because they knew they had their home console for the bigger and more expensive experiences. If this indeed is the main sku for their NX plattform and all their upcoming games, they be more interested in future proofing it from the start.

 

[TLZ]

Hmmm... I would go for X2 if WSJ's industry leading chips holds any weight.

 

[E-phonk]

I don't know if it has been shared, but this was the original article that first mentioned a tegra based NX
http://semiaccurate.com/2016/05/12/guess-whos-silicon-is-in-nintendos-nx/

GAF thread:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1218933

 

[Easy_D]

Nobody uses 3G on the Vita. There is a reason why it got phrased out in the revision model to cut cost.

Nobody used the Vita :lol. But for real though, if this is intended as a portable gaming device/tablet it wouldn't be so out of place, most tablets have sim slots, don't they?

There's literally no reason not to include it, unless a 3G/4G antenna is costly due to licensing fees?

 

[KingSnake]

As for the screen, i checked for the most common, cheapest screens around 6-7", and they seems to be 1024 x 600 (614400 pixels), and cost about 1 dollars on ebay, i suppose they'd cost like a tenth of that to a big manifacturer. Compare to 1080p which is 2073600 pixels. This would imply a ratio of 3/10, or a 300 Mhz speed in mobile vs 1 GHz full clock X1 on dock. Not sure how much less does a X1 consume at 300 Mhz, if it's feasible in term of handheld consumptions. At that speed, you would be looking at 153 Gflops, or about WiiU power in HH mode (assuming a stock X1).

There is this post from Thraktor:

I agree, but even using a low-clocked X1 is a very un-Nintendo thing to do in terms of handheld hardware design. The X1 should be able to clock the GPU to around 500MHz in a handheld environment, and at 256 Gflops that would put it in the theoretical range of top end mobile chips, while using a full desktop class architecture. The 3DS, by comparison, was using a GPU which was an order of magnitude less computationally powerful than contemporary mobile chips, and on a less capable architecture to boot.

and the benchmarks it links to which show that it can go quite above 300 Mhz with an average power draw of 1.5 Watts so 1024 x 600 should not be an issue for X1 under portable conditions.

 

[Branduil]

While undocked? Not a chance imho. It would mean both the processors and the fan would draw additional power. It would easily cut the duration of the battery in half or more.

There's also another thing imho. If there isn't a clear , multiplicative difference between docked and undocked mode, then scaling the games between handheld and docking mode would get more complicated. On the other hand, if, for example, the GPU is simply clocked at 1/4th the speed and then clocked up 4 times when docked, you could have a 540p screen that would easily scale up at 1080p image on TV (the CPU clock would have to remain the same because CPU requirements don't depend on resolution), pratically seamlessly. Having a slightly difference between docked and undocked just isn't pratical imho, as you would need to finely tune images differences between the two versions which seems more of a waste of time.
Another possibility is a 2.25 multiplier, which go 720p->1080p, but i think a 720p screen on a nintendo portable is unlikely and wouldn't be that much of a stepup on a 540p screen anyway on 5-6".

Do flops and resolution scale linearly like that? As in, a game that runs smoothly at 540p runs smoothly at 1080p if you quadruple the flops?

I would think even if so, you'd still want to adjust things going from handheld to TV. Things like aliasing and pop-up are going to be far less noticeable on the handheld screen vs. a giant HDTV.

 

[Subaru]

Ops, wrong thread. I can't wait to see that Nvidia meeting on Aug 22th.

 

[bomb]

it's hard for me to believe that nvidia is going to have a conference on the new X2 then a month later Nintendo is going to have a NX conference and say "It is powered by Tegra, the old model X1."

 

[efyu_lemonardo]

That's why the fan won't work when it's not docked. The GPU will be down clocked as well thus producing less heat and power draw.

I have a real hard time believing Nintendo would put a fan into a handheld. It goes against the design philosophy of every one of their handhelds.

 

[Always-honest]

it's hard for me to believe that nvidia is going to have a conference on the new X2 then a month later Nintendo is going to have a NX conference and say "It is powered by Tegra, the old model X1."

That wouldn't exactly be industry leading either at that point..

 

[E-phonk]

Would 22 aug be a date to watch, with recent news in mind?

http://www.fudzilla.com/news/mobile/41165-nvidia-tegra-next-soc-announcement-august-22

(apparently already mentioned)

 

[tuxfool]

Do flops and resolution scale linearly like that? As in, a game that runs smoothly at 540p runs smoothly at 1080p if you quadruple the flops?

I would think even if so, you'd still want to adjust things going from handheld to TV. Things like aliasing and pop-up are going to be far less noticeable on the handheld screen vs. a giant HDTV.

Also people are forgetting memory bandwidth. At 540p a 64bit memory bus will be more than good enough but then if you quadruple the pixel count is such a bus fast enough?

These are the things that I'm talking about when considering the scalability and constraints of being a handheld.

 

[Durante]

it's hard for me to believe that nvidia is going to have a conference on the new X2 then a month later Nintendo is going to have a NX conference and say "It is powered by Tegra, the old model X1."

You think Nintendo would talk about hardware specs in such concrete terms? I'd say that's unlikely regardless of the actual specs.

 

[efyu_lemonardo]

Also people are forgetting memory bandwidth. At 540p a 64bit memory bus will be more than good enough but then if you quadruple the pixel count is such a bus fast enough?

These are the things that I'm talking about when considering the scalability and constraints of being a handheld.

We have had consoles with add on memory or coprocessors in the past, but not since the days of cartridges

 

[Schnozberry]

You think Nintendo would talk about hardware specs in such concrete terms? I'd say that's unlikely regardless of the actual specs.

If anybody blurts it out it will be Nvidia. Custom Tegra is probably all we're going to hear from Nintendo.

 

[dr_rus]

Also people are forgetting memory bandwidth. At 540p a 64bit memory bus will be more than good enough but then if you quadruple the pixel count is such a bus fast enough?

These are the things that I'm talking about when considering the scalability and constraints of being a handheld.

Memory bandwidth is an interesting problem, and I don't see many options here but to go with some sort of on-chip/on-package memory. I wonder if Tegra for NX will make use of HBM2?..

 

[Bony Manifesto]

You think Nintendo would talk about hardware specs in such concrete terms? I'd say that's unlikely regardless of the actual specs.

They probably wouldn't mention it in their initial presentation, but I think if they genuinely had some decent hardware they wouldn't be as secretive as they have been with their recent consoles. I firmly believe that Nintendo's recent philosophy of hardware specs being a distraction was born out of necessity.

It's not like they're adverse to heading off into the weeds when talking about their hardware. Hilariously, there was that Iwata Asks on the Wii U hardware when instead of revealing anything at all about the specs, they were excitedly talking about how they've improved the EMI shielding cage for better airflow.

 

[Enkidu]

There's literally no reason not to include it, unless a 3G/4G antenna is costly due to licensing fees?

There are no licensing fees for antennas (unless you are paying someone to make them for you). What's expensive is the modem. In this case, Nvidia might have some good licensing options already available since they are targetting this platform for mobile devices, otherwise Nintendo would have to buy that from a third party. Such modems can be relatively costly, but mainly since they tend to come bundled with the whole baseband part. Since Nintendo will be using Nvidia for that, they should be able to get a relatively cheap 3G/4G modem (performance is probably not a priority here). The issue with the antennas is that you need to fit them into the device and cellular antennas can get relatively large, and for LTE you also need to have two of them since diversity is required.