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[TheDeadHeroAlistair]

Err,,, GPD Win is only using a CherryTrail Atom SOC. Switch should be able to trounce it in GPU and match it in CPU power.

I think he means the XD isn't as powerful as the WIN. I could be wrong, though.

 

[Schnozberry]

Technically, the vents could be for passive cooling that allows the hot air to rise out of said vents in portable mode. The dock could have a fan that blows air through these vents in docked mode.

Couple of reasons why this premise doesn't make much sense to me.

1. It adds moving parts to the docking station component, and makes what should be a fairly cheap accessory more expensive and marginally more difficult to manufacture.

2. Passive cooling generally requires a larger surface area than those vents are cut out to dissipate.

3. It purposely places a hard thermal limit on switch performance in portable mode, and means adding complexity to development that would necessitate much more aggressive downgrades to games when not played in the dock. It could make some software much more difficult to port to the platform.

 

[ggx2ac]

Didn't we hear some kind of report or rumor that you couldn't connect to a TV without the dock?

Not that I know of.

I imagine the dock could work like that Apple adapter you posted (minus the ridiculous profit margin). And that would "make things simpler" for consumers who already own a bajillion HDMI cables.

I didn't know Nintendo were selling the Switch with no cables at all.

 

[watershed]

Does the USB C charging cable really mean that the Switch will charge super fast?

 

[random25]

Does the USB C charging cable really mean that the Switch will charge super fast?

Not necessarily. There must be a supporting charging circuitry to take advantage of the high power delivery of USB-C.

 

[watershed]

Not necessarily. There must be a supporting charging circuitry to take advantage of the high power delivery of USB-C.

I see. I suppose it would make sense for Nintendo to design the Switch to be fast charging given that battery life is almost sure to be an issue.

 

[Hermii]

Very interesting about the USB-C dock possibilities.



And native 720p upscaled to a 1080p HDTV looked horrible in 2013, a native 720p image stretched to a 4K HDTV will look much worse esp when you consider it's a device released in 2017. Yes it's a hybrid console but by being a hybrid console Nintendo are also expecting people to use it on modern home HDTV's aswell as on the go. Getting the games to run at native 1080p will go a long way to closing the gap visually on the competition because of the increased image quality.



Why do people keep quoting my posts and mentioning PS4 Pro and Scorpio ? Do people really think I'm expecting a 4.3 or 6tflop GPU from a hybrid console lol !

I initially asked if WiiU games using the exact same asset quality would be possible on Switch if the dock provided additional GPU power. From calculations you would only need a 1.7tflop GPU to run Breath of the Wild at native 4K. If the dock does provide additional GPU power then I don't think that WiiU ports running at 4K is completely out of the question of course depending on how large the dock GPU boost is.

As I said before, Switch is a hybrid device so I don't feel like the excuse of "it's a handheld form factor, don't expect much" is satisfactory tbh because most people will spend at a good chunk of the time with it hooked up to their large HDTV.

I personally don't care if the Switch GPU is only a 3x leap over WiiU but I will be extremely annoyed if they expect us to play native 720p games on an HDTV in 2017 esp when there are quite a few native 1080p games running on WiiU. If they're going to go sub 1080p then 900p would be a far better compromise.

I didn't mention Scorpio or pro, I mentioned S and slim.

I doubt very much exclusive will be 720p, but if it gets port that are 1080p and 900p on ps and Xbox i wouldn't expect more than 720p docked and maybe less mobile,

 

[Vic]

Technically, the vents could be for passive cooling that allows the hot air to rise out of said vents in portable mode. The dock could have a fan that blows air through these vents in docked mode.

The intake grills seems to be at the bottom of the back of the device and they're also perfectly aligned with the exhaust vents on the top.

I doubt that a fan within the dock could efficiently push air through those thin intake grill then push the hot air upward. A fan within the Switch makes more sense.

 

[random25]

I see. I suppose it would make sense for Nintendo to design the Switch to be fast charging given that battery life is almost sure to be an issue.

I hope they will. Quick charging, different implementations aside, has been a mature technology by now so cost of putting it in as a feature is most likely not that expensive. And it's waste not having it given that USB-C is very much capable of handling high current unlike the older USB standards.

 

[antonz]

The intake grills seems to be at the bottom of the back of the device and they're also perfectly aligned with the exhaust vents on the top.

I doubt that a fan within the dock could efficiently push air through those thin intake grill then push the hot air upward. A fan within the Switch makes more sense.

Fan in the unit does make sense. The Switch itself is pretty much in line with the size of the Shield TV.

 

[Pasedo]

Reading this there seems to be alot of emphasis on custom design and specially built software. Perhaps this thing will redefine our understanding of hardware and software capabilities by taking it to another level?

https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2016/10/20/nintendo-switch/

 

[Principate]

Reading this there seems to be alot of emphasis on custom design and specially built software. Perhaps this thing will redefine our understanding of hardware and software capabilities by taking it to another level?

https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2016/10/20/nintendo-switch/

Nah that's just usual ot fluff

 

[NeOak]

Reading this there seems to be alot of emphasis on custom design and specially built software. Perhaps this thing will redefine our understanding of hardware and software capabilities by taking it to another level?

https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2016/10/20/nintendo-switch/

It means they made a chip for it that won't be sold anywhere else, with a gaming purpose, and it won't run anything like a regular OS (like "stock" Android or a version of it) but something leaner (very likely a LTS Linux variant such as L4T, could be FreeBSD based like PS4 too but I'm not familiar with the ARM port since ARMv8 is a Tier 1 architecture).

In other words, "Tegra Switch" SoC with a very likely Vulkan inspired API that works better with the Pascal GPU. Who knows, they probably could have added CUDA instructions to the NVN API.

TL;DR: PR stuff for "we made something"

 

[Pasedo]

But how about the 500 man years of effort man. Surely that would have made the Switch a force to be reckoned with???

 

[NeOak]

But how about the 500 man years of effort man. Surely that would have made the Switch a force to be reckoned with???

Could mean anything from 500 people working for a year on it, to 125 people over the last 4 years.

SoCs can take like 2-3 years to come to market, so it's pretty standard. They could be counting the Pascal architecture development time too.

Without a complete breakdown of what that 500 number is for, it's PR fluff.

 

[Hermii]

It means they made a chip for it that won't be sold anywhere else, with a gaming purpose, and it won't run anything like a regular OS (like "stock" Android or a version of it) but something leaner (very likely a LTS Linux variant such as L4T, could be FreeBSD based like PS4 too but I'm not familiar with the ARM port since ARMv8 is a Tier 1 architecture).

In other words, "Tegra Switch" SoC with a very likely Vulkan inspired API that works better with the Pascal GPU. Who knows, they probably could have added CUDA instructions to the NVN API.

TL;DR: PR stuff for "we made something"

So at least it means it will perform significantly better in games than similiarly specced Devices on the market?

 

[NeOak]

So at least it means it will perform significantly better in games than similiarly specced Devices on the market?

Depends on what you machines you refer to. You can take the Shield Tablet as an absolute minimum, but that is already 2 generations old compared to any SoC with Pascal.

It won't have the Android overhead though, so that should free some resources.

Interestingly, the TX1 can drive 4K displays at 60fps. So they could do upscaling like the XB1 S does for games.

 

[Drkirby]

But how about the 500 man years of effort man. Surely that would have made the Switch a force to be reckoned with???

Engineers and the stuff supporting/managing them aren't always the most productive people.

 

[bomblord1]

Could mean anything from 500 people working for a year on it, to 125 people over the last 4 years.

SoCs can take like 2-3 years to come to market, so it's pretty standard. They could be counting the Pascal architecture development time too.

Without a complete breakdown of what that 500 number is for, it's PR fluff.

We know they've been in partnership for 2 years based on what Nvidia has said. Which means assuming a consistent team size it's been a 250 person team over a 2 year period.

 

[LordOfChaos]

But how about the 500 man years of effort man. Surely that would have made the Switch a force to be reckoned with???

As mentioned I wouldn't think on it much without a breakdown. A new CPU core or ground-up SoC effort can take teams of hundreds of engineers 4-5 years, in that lens 500 hominid years sounds like what we expect, a customization of an existing SoC.

 

[MuchoMalo]

As mentioned I wouldn't think on it much without a breakdown. A new CPU core or ground-up SoC effort can take teams of hundreds of engineers 4-5 years, in that lens 500 hominid years sounds like what we expect, a customization of an existing SoC.

The problem is that some people seem to expect the only customization to be an underclock. Obviously they haven't made a whole new new architecture, but there's still a decent amount that can be done in 2 years.

 

[Broken Hope]

I guess I'm coming at this from a non technical view but someone who has followed these threads all the way back to the Wii U pre launch analysis. It just seems that brands are too reliant on the hardware. If anyone is going to break this cycle it would be Nintendo as they have the resources and the mentality. I guess the thought in my mind is that perhaps all the way back to when they merged their divisions in 2013 that they have been working on innovative more efficient coding that will make games run on less powerful hardware. Its like start with that first and then work with hardware architects to make the code run as intended on the hardware. This could be why everything they do is never just off the shelf but customised to suit this coding style. Ideally this coding technique also makes it super duper easy for 3rd party developers to Port their games across. So ideal scenario is they can get Ps4 level graphics on less powerful but customised hardware to suit their innovative programming technique. They get themselves out of the cycle of this silly incremental hardware updates PS and Xbox are getting into and they have created a competitive advantage IP that is difficult for competitors to immitate. They are doing what Nintendo has always done and approaching the industry differently and at all angles. Provide awesome gaming experiences to customers. Make it cost effective to developers to help them out and try to lower manufacturing costs to make it affordable for all consumers. Not sure if there is any technical evidence of truth in this scenario. I think regardless Nintendo will suprise us again.

Based on pretty much every single Nintendo OS, expecting them to somehow become wizards at coding is just setting yourself up for a disappointment.


Nintendo aren't going to use magic coding tricks to somehow make the Switch as powerful as much bigger consoles with much better cooling and a higher power draw.

 

[bomblord1]

Based on pretty much every single Nintendo OS, expecting them to somehow become wizards at coding is just setting yourself up for a disappointment.


Nintendo aren't going to use magic coding tricks to somehow make the Switch as powerful as much bigger consoles with much better cooling and a higher power draw.

Nvidia on the other hand...

 

[Malakai]

...
I don't see Nintendo wanting their games running at native 720p on massive 4k HDTV's in 2017, it's not a good look for them at all. I understand they are no longer interested in a hardware arms race with Sony and MS but they will not want their games completely embarrassed when running side by side with the competition. Their franchises deserve better.
...

Why would Nintendo care about 4k, something that haven't even broken 15% of the market-share yet? Are you forgetting that there 65 million Xbox Ones and PS4 that will be ruining games a 900p and 1080p? Are you talking about the general population that doesn't even notice the different between SD and HD. Let alone the people that play games that couldn't tell the difference between 900p and 1080p?

 

[Broken Hope]

Nvidia on the other hand...

Yes I'm sure dev tools for the switch are going to be the best Nintendo has ever had, they still aren't going to work miracles.

 

[Skittzo0413]

Based on pretty much every single Nintendo OS, expecting them to somehow become wizards at coding is just setting yourself up for a disappointment.


Nintendo aren't going to use magic coding tricks to somehow make the Switch as powerful as much bigger consoles with much better cooling and a higher power draw.

I think he's referring to the fact that Nintendo are wizards at getting the most out of their hardware, and so are Nvidia. But that type of coding only really applies to first party games. There's really no reason to assume Nintendo will be able to provide much improved development tools, though Nvidia likely will (improved over Nintendo's previous tools that is).

But yeah they aren't going to double the performance of the console or anything that crazy.

 

[LordOfChaos]

The problem is that some people seem to expect the only customization to be an underclock. Obviously they haven't made a whole new new architecture, but there's still a decent amount that can be done in 2 years.

250 people
2 years
The universe's most precise underclock




I'm hoping the customization is memory side, often the limitation on mobile chips. A large cache of some sort could make a big difference over run of the mill mobile chips.

Some of that 500 biped years would no doubt be creating that NVN API too.

 

[Polygonal_Sprite]

Why would Nintendo care about 4k, something that haven't even broken 15% of the market-share yet? Are you forgetting that there 65 million Xbox Ones and PS4 that will be ruining games a 900p and 1080p? Are you talking about the general population that doesn't even notice the different between SD and HD. Let alone the people that play games that couldn't tell the difference between 900p and 1080p?

Options. The more Nintendo offer, the more hardware they will sell. I can see Switch being the first of many devices from the same family of systems with a dedicated handheld coming next, then a dedicated console, then maybe a $99 tablet (once they have enough mobile content, this will replace 2DS imo) and finally a refresh to the hybrid.

I don't think they will ever sell 100 million units of a single device again so I think their strategy will be to sell 20-25 million units each of four separate devices (hyrbrid / handheld / console / tablet) which will all share the same hardware architecture, OS, digital accounts and most important of all, play the same games at different graphical fidelity.

 

[th3sicknness]

Interesting image from Laura Kate Dale.

Explains a lot and the functionality confirms a few things we been discussing kinda of an awesome way to show the device off to the the press. Selling docks stand alone for cheap so people can have them in multiple rooms so the switch can be taken to any area is a great idea.

I'm thinking now the handheld is 200 bux and the dock is 50. So 249.99 price point seems likely. Makes a lot of sense now sine the shield portable is priced at 199.99 as well with no dock.

 

[Skittzo0413]

Interesting image from Laura Kate Dale.

Explains a lot and the functionality confirms a few things we been discussing kinda of an awesome way to show the device off to the the press. Selling docks stand alone for cheap so people can have them in multiple rooms so the switch can be taken to any area is a great idea.

I'm thinking now the handheld is 200 bux and the dock is 50. So 249.99 price point seems likely. Makes a lot of sense now sine the shield portable is priced at 199.99 as well with no dock.

If the dock is literally just a piece of plastic with a USB-C connector, fan, and power/HDMI ports, then I can't imagine it will retail for any more than $20 or $25.

 

[th3sicknness]

Kinda makes sense now. They could be targeting 1080p docked and 720p not docked. Essentially running the same settings with both resolutions but when the power gets cut on the go the resoultion gets dropped.

 

[Vic]

Interesting image from Laura Kate Dale.

Explains a lot and the functionality confirms a few things we been discussing kinda of an awesome way to show the device off to the the press. Selling docks stand alone for cheap so people can have them in multiple rooms so the switch can be taken to any area is a great idea.

I'm thinking now the handheld is 200 bux and the dock is 50. So 249.99 price point seems likely. Makes a lot of sense now sine the shield portable is priced at 199.99 as well with no dock.

Exactly what we were discussing about yesterday lmao.

 

[foltzie1]

If the dock is literally just a piece of plastic with a USB-C connector, fan, and power/HDMI ports, then I can't imagine it will retail for any more than $20 or $25.

So to help set some expectations, Nintendo sells 3DS docks for about $15 each, but those only support power.

Whereas, USB-C multiport adapters cost between $25 to $40 on Monoprice. I would hope Nintendo's costs would be close to what a generic adapter would cost, but with the added size for the dock function and fan, it may be a bit more.

 

[Skittzo0413]

So to help set some expectations, Nintendo sells 3DS docks for about $15 each, but those only support power.

Whereas, USB-C multiport adapters cost between $25 to $40 on Monoprice. I would hope Nintendo's costs would be close to what a generic adapter would cost, but with the added size for the dock function and fan, it may be a bit more.

And add onto that Nintendo could easily charge a bit more for a nice bit of profit, while sort of implying that the dock is important to the overall experience and therefore has a good bit of value, then maybe $50 does make sense.

 

[Schnozberry]

So to help set some expectations, Nintendo sells 3DS docks for about $15 each, but those only support power.

Whereas, USB-C multiport adapters cost between $25 to $40 on Monoprice. I would hope Nintendo's costs would be close to what a generic adapter would cost, but with the added size for the dock function and fan, it may be a bit more.

Well, if LPVG is correct, then the dock also has a fan and all the requisite hardware for being a multi-port adapter. I would guess replacements could retail for $40, if they are ever sold separately. Generally these things are replaceable only through Nintendo's online store.

Crazy that the dock and the Switch tablet both have fans. They must have that thing cooking with gas.

 

[Skittzo0413]

Well, if LPVG is correct, then the dock also has a fan and all the requisite hardware for being a multi-port adapter. I would guess replacements could retail for $40, if they are ever sold separately. Generally these things are replaceable only through Nintendo's online store.

Crazy that the dock and the Switch tablet both have fans. They must have that thing cooking with gas.

I wonder if we need to move our GFlops estimates upwards a bit. Up until now I've been assuming either 512 or 768 will be the docked/max GPU power, but <512GFlops in portable mode wouldn't need a fan, would it? Assuming Pascal/16nm of course.

Either way, they sure seem to not be messing around with this.

 

[Vic]

nvm, I was wrong. There IS a fan in the dock...

 

[Schnozberry]

I wonder if we need to move our GFlops estimates upwards a bit. Up until now I've been assuming either 512 or 768 will be the docked/max GPU power, but <512GFlops in portable mode wouldn't need a fan, would it? Assuming Pascal/16nm of course.

Either way, they sure seem to not be messing around with this.

Presuming 16nm, I think 750GFlops is on the high end of what we should consider, but it doesn't seem completely unfeasible.

 

[th3sicknness]

I was thinking that most 3ds games are 35 to 40? Switch games since they are being marketed as a home console would sell for 59.99? They could offset the cost of some hardware by simply selling games for more than they usually do?

 

[MacTag]

I was thinking that most 3ds games are 35 to 40? Switch games since they are being marketed as a home console would sell for 59.99? They could offset the cost of some hardware by simply selling games for more than they usually do?

You can probably expect a range of pricing. Zelda BOTW might be $60 but something like Dai Gyakuten Saiban 2 might still be $30-40 for example. Of course it does allow them to push uppricepoints on handheld series too, I would not be surprised if Pokémon Stars ended up $50-60.

 

[foltzie1]

So to help set some expectations, Nintendo sells 3DS docks for about $15 each, but those only support power.

Whereas, USB-C multiport adapters cost between $25 to $40 on Monoprice. I would hope Nintendo's costs would be close to what a generic adapter would cost, but with the added size for the dock function and fan, it may be a bit more.

And add onto that Nintendo could easily charge a bit more for a nice bit of profit, while sort of implying that the dock is important to the overall experience and therefore has a good bit of value, then maybe $50 does make sense.

Well, if LPVG is correct, then the dock also has a fan and all the requisite hardware for being a multi-port adapter. I would guess replacements could retail for $40, if they are ever sold separately. Generally these things are replaceable only through Nintendo's online store.

Crazy that the dock and the Switch tablet both have fans. They must have that thing cooking with gas.

Seems weird to quote myself, but here I go.

Nintendo could potentially bundle a game with an extra dock, as a way to sweeten the deal. Sort of like how Nintendo did with the Wii Remotes with Wii Play, Nintendoland, Flingsmash ect.

Might make it slightly easier to hide the cost of an extra dock, especially if they want to push the concept so you can game on your main TV and in your bedroom easily. Kind of like the original Wii U reveal video.

 

[LegendofLex]

Nintendo could potentially bundle a game with an extra dock, as a way to sweeten the deal. Sort of like how Nintendo did with the Wii Remotes with Wii Play, Nintendoland, Flingsmash ect.

There is absolutely no reason to do this when a second dock doesn't add any extra functionality without a second Switch unit.

They can sell it separately on a "willing to pay" basis, but this isn't like past software bundles where they give you a required accessory in the box.

They'll also be happy to sell multiple Switch units into your household.

 

[Shikamaru Ninja]

Seems weird to quote myself, but here I go.

Nintendo could potentially bundle a game with an extra dock, as a way to sweeten the deal. Sort of like how Nintendo did with the Wii Remotes with Wii Play, Nintendoland, Flingsmash ect.

Might make it slightly easier to hide the cost of an extra dock, especially if they want to push the concept so you can game on your main TV and in your bedroom easily. Kind of like the original Wii U reveal video.

That's a really weird pack-in combination.

 

[foltzie1]

There is absolutely no reason to do this when a second dock doesn't add any extra functionality without a second Switch unit.

They can sell it separately on a "willing to pay" basis, but this isn't like past software bundles where they give you a required accessory in the box.

They'll also be happy to sell multiple Switch units into your household.

That's a really weird pack-in combination.

Yeah, I'm not really convinced myself that its a great idea, but I bought every Wii Remote pack in title.

 

[ggx2ac]

So there was that LPVG news about the dock and how there are fans in both the dock and the Switch and it mentions this:

Both video and power will be transfered over USB-C when docked.

http://letsplayvideogames.com/2016/...increases-performance-not-via-extra-hardware/

Maybe it does mean the ports on the dock for video output and power for the Switch are USB-C rather than having an HDMI port and a regular cord power connector?

Who knows.

Going from my posts about the dock using USB-C ports, if we stuck with that. The next question relates to the news that the Switch and the dock have fans inside which means the Switch does change clockspeed.

So, what USB-C standard are they going to use? There is a 15W standard and a 100W standard. (Apparently there is another one at 60W.)

The rumour is the Switch will render from 720p to 1080p when docked. I don't know if that will require exactly doubling the clockspeed of the GPU to render at that resolution.

The other factor is, we shouldn't expect it to perform as good as a PS4 just because fans are the new secret sauce. The hardware would still be limited by the supposed 4GB of RAM.

If the Switch in portable mode is running around say 6W which is a bit high. Then it would probably only double when it is docked.

That would mean only a 15W USB-C cable would be needed to power the Switch when docked. However, I don't know if the Switch will have fast charging when you have the Switch in portable mode, that would mean Nintendo would have to provide a 100W USB-C cable to do fast charging.

 

[Skittzo0413]

So there was that LPVG news about the dock and how there are fans in both the dock and the Switch and it mentions this:

http://letsplayvideogames.com/2016/...increases-performance-not-via-extra-hardware/

Maybe it does mean the ports on the dock for video output and power for the Switch are USB-C rather than having an HDMI port and a regular cord power connector?

Who knows.

Are you suggesting that the dock would only have a single USB-C port at the back, rather than an HDMI port and a power supply port? I can't tell if that's what you mean here, but if so that would be impossible. The dock needs to connect to a TV and to a power supply (AC outlet) so there's no possible way to get both of those inputs from two separate sources into a single USB-C port.

And anyway you need an HDMI cord to connect to an HD TV. I don't know if TVs in the future will start adopting USB-C but as of now you definitely need HDMI.

 

[ggx2ac]

Are you suggesting that the dock would only have a single USB-C port at the back, rather than an HDMI port and a power supply port? I can't tell if that's what you mean here, but if so that would be impossible. The dock needs to connect to a TV and to a power supply (AC outlet) so there's no possible way to get both of those inputs from two separate sources into a single USB-C port.

And anyway you need an HDMI cord to connect to an HD TV. I don't know if TVs in the future will start adopting USB-C but as of now you definitely need HDMI.

I said ports in the quote you bolded, plural.

Yes, TVs do need HDMI still. That's why it's convenient that HDMI licences USB-C to HDMI cables now.

 

[Astral Dog]

If the SCORPIO will leave OG Xbox ONE games looking an archaic laptop where does that leave the Switch? Game Boy?

 

[Skittzo0413]

I said ports in the quote you bolded, plural.

Yes, TVs do need HDMI still. That's why it's convenient that HDMI licences USB-C to HDMI cables now.

Oh I see- you're saying that it's possible that the two USB ports we've seen on the side of the console (or others on the back) might be for power and USB > HDMI so that the dock doesn't need any additional type of port (AC adapter, HDMI port). I guess at this point since we have no images of the back of the dock there's no way to know.

But I think it would be a bit of a pain if they require al USB-C > HDMI cable which definitely isn't standard, and there aren't a lot of those lying around everyone's household. Unless they do include that in the box.

 

[hoserx]

If the SCORPIO will leave OG Xbox ONE games looking an archaic laptop where does that leave the Switch? Game Boy?

Not sure where you're getting at or going with this post.