Diablohead
Member
it's possible but think about it, it's a smartphone that will be over twice the price of a Switch.
There's a lot of differences between the devices, both have their good and bad depending on what you use them for.
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Confirmed: The Nintendo Switch is powered by an Nvidia Tegra X1
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it's possible but think about it, it's a smartphone that will be over twice the price of a Switch.
There's a lot of differences between the devices, both have their good and bad depending on what you use them for.
icecold1983
Member
Iphone 7 cpu legit runs circles around the switch. Gpu is decently faster
Sorry to burst your bubble, but the iPhone 7 runs this, and the Switch runs this. So even if the new iPhone turns out to be more powerful than Switch, don't expect any dev to fully use its power to run complex games, especially in a market dominated by Candy Crush, Clash of Clans and other titles that could run on a 3DS. Aside from that, the hardware will still need to run a complex OS, will still throttle (and complex games need sustained performances) and would still run out of battery in like 20 minutes if it could use all of its power to run a complex game. So you can choose between drooling on this imaginary iPhone hardware that would STILL not be used for games, or actually play much better looking titles on the Switch. It's up to you.
That's cool but that's not what we are talking about.
If an Apple chip was to ever end up in a console they only partner it would happen with would be Nintendo.
Would likely be an Apple system with Nintendo games though and not a Nintendo system with Apple hardware though.
Complex OS? 20 minutes battery life? That ain't an iPhone you talking about. As far as game quality goes that's not what I am talking about. Obviously the Switch will have better games but I am talking about the power of the SoC.
What's the point if there's no meaningful application
You should buy a 1080ti and then use only Linux on your PC if you like the bragging rights without an actual usage.
Astral Dog
Member
RAM
The last time Nintendo had a completely new, built-from-the-ground-up console GPU (not merely semi-custom work based on a PC GPU) was the Flipper for Project Dolphin (GameCube).
Even the Wii U's Latte GPU was pretty much a semi-custom lower-end RV7xx with 32 MB EDRAM. -- And the Wii's GPU was just an overclocked Flipper.
Anyway, Flipper was designed by ArtX from about 1998 to 2000. It wasn't based on any Radeon design because there were no Radeon GPUs back in 1998-1999. ArtX had made a PC GPU for Acer and showed it at Comdex 1999 but this didn't go anywhere.
Everything ArtX did went into Flipper for Nintendo. There wasn't anything like it before or after, not counting the Wii's overclocked version (named "Hollywood").
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1145794
Yup. There's a reason Dolphin basically only runs on NVIDIA Shield and it's not the power of the hardware on paper...
EDIT: Since the Pixel-C also runs on Tegra, does it also run Dolphin well? Time to hit up google.
Minsc
Gold Member
Even without going to the Gatcha joke, my iPhone 7 has nothing on it that compares to BotW, FAST RMX, Mario Kart 8, etc etc. And guess what, it won't for a long, long time, probably not until a hardware revision on the Switch is out in another 3 or 4 years.
It's great there's all this nice tech out there and the Switch is essentially obsolete at release from that point of view, but in a portable gamer's hands, it's the best looking portable device for gaming by far. I don't really buy comparing it to consoles either, since it's a portable, at least from my POV.
Just saying, there's something to be said about actually enjoying what is available, and not looking down on everything because it's not shiny and technically amazing.
Well, back to the tech talk. Speaking of, is 40-50C really that hot for running under load? Laptop GPUs frequently hit 80-90C don't they? And can idle at 40C right? My Note 4 got way hotter than the Switch does too, have no idea the exact temperature though.
The iPhone has some good looking games, it's just that no one really wants to put a high budget AAA title when you can make a Clash of Clans and rake in the money.
However, that's not what this thread or my original post is about. I was simply commenting on the SoC of the Switch.
I already ordered one and 90% of the time it will be to watch Netflix.
byron_hinson
Member
I own the Switch as well as an iPhone 7 plus - not sure where you get these ideas from, but even graphical complex games on iOS won't kill the battery in 3 hours let alone 20 mins. Also find some more recent comparisons to the Switch game considering the one you showed on iOS is 3 years old now.
Living the Dream
Member
1 billion iPhone users ask the same about Switch. Don't be foolish.
The collective world doesn't care about Zelda.
Ok, but what's your point relative to gaming?
My 980ti goes to 80c under load, my 4790k was above 70 before I bought liquid cooling. 40-50c for a gaming device seems quite fine
This thread is not about gaming, it's about the SoC that powers the Nintendo Switch. My point was as a portable device the Switch will be surpassed by the end of the year.
byron_hinson
Member
Does 1GB RAM make a lot of difference?
3GB Nvidia Shield and 4GB Nintendo Switch
This thread is absolutely about gaming. We're talking about specs which will be used almost exclusively for gaming. So yes, on paper, there will likely be a higher performing piece of hardware by the end of the year that doesn't utilize that power for higher fidelity games. You've made that statement but I'm still failing to see what point you're trying to make. If you're just stating a fact then OK but it doesn't really have much relevance to the topic at hand.
If you're going to continue saying we're not talking about gaming though, allow me to switch the conversation to gaming as of this point.
of course it'll be surpassed, PS4 and XB1 were surpassed 3 years before their launch from PCs...point is Switch is a gaming focused machine, with Nvidia(top for gaming hardware/software) support and Nintendo plus third party traditional console games. The other devices which will surpass Switch will be twice the price and with not even comparable games
Check the section of the forum.
You guys need to decide. Either the iPhone 7 is capable of Switch-like graphics, which would obviously tax the hardware much more than the usual mobile games, and the battery would obviously take a bigger hit to sustain that kind of prolonged stress on the hardware, or these are the best graphics possible on mobile devices and they can handle them for 3 hours. Can't be both.
And i don't think Real Racing was ever beaten graphically. I've seen Asphalt 8 videos for example, you should be happy i posted RR3.
LordOfChaos
Member
For trying to run one system completely within another, yeah, starting with less RAM on the host system would make it a non-starter.
The endless debate over Switch specs is getting tiresome. I see the merit in this conversation in general, but man has it been cyclical in talking about the same shit for months now.
Personally, I'm not that bothered. 3DS was the worst system of last gen power-wise but the one I gave the most time too. What I care most for is games. The X1 has plenty of power and nothing I want to play (that isn't on my PS4, and even then FIFA/PES are probably the only multi platform games I care about). So long as I feel there's value in my purchase in terms of good games, the power element isn't going to be a problem.
Personally, I'm not that bothered. 3DS was the worst system of last gen power-wise but the one I gave the most time too. What I care most for is games. The X1 has plenty of power and nothing I want to play (that isn't on my PS4, and even then FIFA/PES are probably the only multi platform games I care about). So long as I feel there's value in my purchase in terms of good games, the power element isn't going to be a problem.
But porting games should be fine, right?
Erebus
Member
Isn't it already though? Again, even theoretically isn't Apple A10 more powerful as a SoC than Tegra X1?
Ricerocket
Member
Yes. Their job is to take die photos of chips and sell them but we got this one free like the Wii U one. It 100% confirms a stock X1.
Yes, especially given the different setups. On the Shield, those 3GB are shared between the game, the Android OS, and whatever other apps and background tasks it's running. Practically speaking, the game will have quite a bit less than 3GB to work with, and need to be written to cope with varying amounts being available and allocations potentially being delayed while background tasks are shut down to free up working memory.
On the Switch, 3GB (3.2GB per one rumor) are dedicated solely to the game. The OS and everything else is confined to a 1GB (800MB, per that rumor) dedicated section of memory. Dedicated resources make a big difference.
Osiris
I permanently banned my 6 year old daughter from using the PS4 for mistakenly sending grief reports as it's too hard to watch or talk to her
Yes.
wonderful103
Member
It's 3.2
I only dabble a little bit with mobile stuff but has anything surpassed Mobius FF yet?
That's probably higher budget than anything SE will make for Switch(that isn't named DQXI) and it doesn't look nearly as good, even on max settings.
EDIT:
It was 3.25 in the summer docs. A minor difference but still.
Living the Dream
Member
And yet the Switch OS barely does anything at all even compared to the original X360.
CPU wise sure, but it has less RAM and the GPU is less powerful. Remember that the benchmarks you see online are comparing iOS/Metal vs Android and OpenGL API, and that both those platforms suffer from throttling (Shield may actually throttle more on top of that). Switch is a different story.
It is reserved for future feature additions.
It's not complete yet. For example, we already know that video capture will come in the future. 800MB have to last for its entire lifetime, that's not going to change.
Even better would be a hackintosh just to have the most powerful macOS machine, for some reason.
They give it a high initial memory footprint so they can add features in later on without it breaking older titles, it's pretty standard. Sony and MS ended up giving some memory back to the games towards the end of the last gen life-cycle once they were done adding features to the OS.
Hopefully the high memory footprint indicates they are going to consider adding memory hungry features like game recording and in-game voice chat to the system at some point in it's lifecycle.
Mercador
Member
And you should, that's the good philosophy.
Though, the discussion isn't worthless imo, because no one expected that the Switch would be xone-ps4 levels, but more if third party will do some games on that platform (besides porting old x360/ps3 games).
I don't know that the GPU is less powerful. There aren't a ton of benches. Iirc an a9x and x1 trade blows GPU wise, so I would assume an a10 is markedly faster even from a GPU perspective than an x1. An iPhone also costs $650+ though.
Switch might be in a pretty awesome spot actually because mobile GPUs are pretty much now at the point where that's possible. I hope we start seeing a ton of last gen ports for both mobile and switch.
More like 1/4 to 1/3 XBOMy simple take:
Wii U x 1.25, 12 x Vita while portable.
XBOne x 0.5 whole docked.
I was hoping for some for some memory optimizations. Oh well, still a gen ahead of Vita while portable. But I'm not paying $10K MXN.
This news is hilarious if true. Nintendo charging a premium for mediocre tech whilst adding shit no one wants (joycons)
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