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DF: Nintendo NX Powered By Nvidia Tegra! Initial Spec Analysis

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Z

z0m3le

Banned
The Abominable Snowman said:
But you're comparing extreme conditions (low battery states) to being undocked when they're completely different scenarios. One is prolonging the life of the device when the basic needs of the device user must be met (which is going to be nonintensive scenarios) when another is the state the device is expected to be in a big majority of the time for a majority of users. And secondly, if it's just resolution, then no one would care and I doubt it would've spawned a billion posts about how great an idea it would be. Like I said, expectations are high here.
Click to expand...

My phone (gs7e) is currently in "power saving mode" it works the same as when it is full powered, the screen dims almost unnoticeably and it probably drops clocks a decent amount, but it isn't a different device. Laptops when plugged in use higher power profiles that include higher clocks, but they don't become different devices. This clocking we are talking about is only on the gpu side and would allow for seemless transition between console mode and handheld mode.

Basically factually there is no reason why this wouldn't work and there is almost no reason why they wouldn't do this as it is free performance needed to display higher resolutions on the TV.
 
K

KingSnake

The Birthday Skeleton
Sometimes I wonder if people have ever changed or noticed the power profiles on a laptop. It's neither magic nor some new tech discovery.
 
M

mrklaw

MrArseFace
z0m3le said:
My phone (gs7e) is currently in "power saving mode" it works the same as when it is full powered, the screen dims almost unnoticeably and it probably drops clocks a decent amount, but it isn't a different device. Laptops when plugged in use higher power profiles that include higher clocks, but they don't become different devices. This clocking we are talking about is only on the gpu side and would allow for seemless transition between console mode and handheld mode.

Basically factually there is no reason why this wouldn't work and there is almost no reason why they wouldn't do this as it is free performance needed to display higher resolutions on the TV.
Click to expand...


Also - GPUs (and CPUs) often ramp up power requirements significantly when you get towards their maximum performance capabilities (think how much extra you often need when overclocking for example). So down clocking could provide massive savings in watts required, while leaving plenty in the tank for when power isn't an issue (mains powered when docked)

Combined with a difference in resolution (eg 540p-720p on the handheld, 1080p on TV) and maybe some adjustment of detail levels, I could see that working. It would allow Nintendo to use a chip that has a 'normal' TDP beyond what you'd normally out in a handheld/tablet, knowing you'd only get near that TDP when docked

Caveats
- cooling. When docked you'd still need the handheld chassis to be able to handle cooling the chip running at full speed. This could be a big issue. Could you have vents in the case and a fan in the dock (like those laptop coolers you can buy)?

- cost. Putting in an expensive chip when it won't be used at its full potential all the time may be an issue. Anyone buying an NX only for handheld gaming would essentially be paying more for performance they'll never use.
 
M

Mr Swine

Banned
I think a good reason for Nintendo to go with Pascal as the GPU is for the new Colour Compression method and new Texture Compression. Both which can save bandwidth if the handheld is bandwidth starved other than lower power consumption and better performance
 
R

Rodin

Member
Lovely Salsa said:
Its around xbox 360 level
Click to expand...
Tegra X1 is vastly more powerful than last gen consoles. The semi custom chip in the NX could be even more. Think about what the same sources that knew about the form factor already said about its power (geek, osiris, alberto, emily comparing it to xbone).
 
D

Durante

Member
mrklaw said:
- cost. Putting in an expensive chip when it won't be used at its full potential all the time may be an issue. Anyone buying an NX only for handheld gaming would essentially be paying more for performance they'll never use.
Click to expand...
That's the basic nature of a hybrid device though. People who use it as a console are going to be paying a significant amount for handheld features.

If it doesn't offer somewhat higher performance in docked state, it's really more of a handheld with HDMI out than a "hybrid".

Lovely Salsa said:
Its around xbox 360 level
Click to expand...
At its stationary 1GHz clock TX1 is at least twice as fast as 360 GPU wise.
 
L

Lovely Salsa

Banned
Rodin said:
Tegra X1 is vastly more powerful than last gen consoles. The semi custom chip in the NX could be even more. Think about what the same sources that knew about the form factor already said about its power (geek, osiris, alberto, emily comparing it to xbone).
Click to expand...

What games run better on X1 than on xbox 360? Some games even run worse
 
B

brainchild

Banned
Rodin said:
Tegra X1 is vastly more powerful than last gen consoles. The semi custom chip in the NX could be even more. Think about what the same sources that knew about the form factor already said about its power (geek, osiris, alberto, emily comparing it to xbone).
Click to expand...

Yeah, I've been thinking about that. I wonder if they're referring to an NX at full power (docked) or on the go. If the latter, that is just an insane amount of portable power and there's no way it could be powered by a stock Tegra X1 chip. It has to be custom.
 
R

Rodin

Member
Lovely Salsa said:
What games run better on X1 than on xbox 360? Some games even run worse
Click to expand...
Doom and trine run vastly better (1080/60 vs 720/subhd with drops and 1080/30 vs subhd with drops) despite running on an android device. When you cut that out and use better APIs (Vulkan) things get even better. A lot better.

brainchild said:
Yeah, I've been thinking about that. I wonder if they're referring to an NX at full power (docked) or on the go. If the latter, that is just an insane amount of portable power and there's no way it could be powered by av stock Tegra X1 chip.
Click to expand...
Yes i was thinking about performances when docked. He was comparing it to a home console (360) after all.

People need to understand that with a new form factor, what you can expect from its performances should be different than what's to be expected from a normal home console.
 
D

Durante

Member
Lovely Salsa said:
What games run better on X1 than on xbox 360? Some games even run worse
Click to expand...
You can't compare 360 games optimized for what was at some points the largest high-end console base of the previous generation to games ported to an Android device that a few orders of magnitude fewer people own -- especially since we are talking OpenGL/pre-Vulkan.

That said, the port by the one company who actually knows how to write high-performance OpenGL code (Id with Doom 3 BFG) runs at 1080p60 on the Shield TV.
 
L

Lovely Salsa

Banned
Rodin said:
Doom and trine run vastly better (1080/60 vs 720/subhd with drops and 1080/30 vs subhd with drops) despite running on an android device. When you cut that out and use better APIs (Vulkan) things get even better. A lot better.
Click to expand...
Doom has toned down graphical settings compared to 360 version

It looks worse
 
K

KingSnake

The Birthday Skeleton
Mihael Mello Keehl said:
I watched it 2 times now.. so yall think its gonna play wii u games in 1080?
Click to expand...

Until we don't know at what clocks is running when docked I don't think anybody can tell. Especially since it will most probably be a custom X1. But it should be doable, unless they hit some kind of heating issue.
 
M

Mihael Mello Keehl

Banned
brainchild said:
There's no reason it shouldn't be able to.
Click to expand...

KingSnake said:
Until we don't know at what clocks is running when docked I don't think anybody can tell. Especially since it will most probably be a custom X1. But it should be doable, unless they hit some kind of heating issue.
Click to expand...
Without any downgrades? I see games like BotW and find it hard how it will play that in 1080p without losing detail.
Log4Girlz said:
It should play Wii U games at slightly higher settings. I think 540 p when mobile, 720 p when hooked to tv.
Click to expand...
Im saying running Wii U games at a higher resolution than Wii U. Like can this run Bayo 2, Mario Kart 8, XCX, 3D World in 1080p and keep the Wii U framerate without loosing detail.
 
L

Log4Girlz

Member
Mihael Mello Keehl said:
Without any downgrades? I see games like BotW and find it hard how it will play that in 1080p without losing detail.

Im saying running Wii U games at a higher resolution than Wii U. Like can this run Bayo 2, Mario Kart 8, XCX, 3D World in 1080p and keep the Wii U framerate without loosing detail.
Click to expand...

I was giving my expectations
 
K

KingSnake

The Birthday Skeleton
Wii U's GPU is on paper weaker than 360's GPU, but is more modern. Tegra X1 is on paper twice as capable as Xenos and an even newer architecture. I don't see how this is even questionable.

With a good API (and we know Nintendo is on board with Vulkan) and assuming the custom X1 won't be too much cut down when docked, it's should be way above 360's power.
 
M

Mihael Mello Keehl

Banned
KingSnake said:
Wii U's GPU is on paper weaker than 360's GPU, but is more modern. Tegra X1 is on paper twice as capable than Xenos and an even newer architecture. I don't see how this is even questionable.

With a good API (and we know Nintendo is on board with Vulkan) and assuming the custom X1 won't be too much cut down when docked, it's should be way above 360's power.
Click to expand...
Ima take yo word king. We'll see
 
Ploid 3.0

Ploid 3.0

Member
Maybe this will mean more controller based games for android phones and tablets (3rd party that put games on NX), or maybe it'll mean more phone and tablet games for NX actually. (evil laugh)

Still shocked that it's a handheld and nintendo is out of the console space. Wow

Ton of free to play games for the NX incoming! The best way to play Marvel Future Fight? (come on give us controller support)
 
B

brainchild

Banned
Mihael Mello Keehl said:
Without any downgrades? I see games like BotW and find it hard how it will play that in 1080p without losing detail.

Im saying running Wii U games at a higher resolution than Wii U. Like can this run Bayo 2, Mario Kart 8, XCX, 3D World in 1080p and keep the Wii U framerate without loosing detail.
Click to expand...

If you knew how weak the GPU in the Wii U was, you'd find it hard to believe that the Wii U could run the game as well.

Nintendo just did a good job at pushing the hardware and having good art direction. But considering that the Tegra X1 is at least a few times more powerful than Wii U, there's no doubt in my mind that it can run BOTW at 1080p.
 
A

AzaK

Member
Mihael Mello Keehl said:
Without any downgrades? I see games like BotW and find it hard how it will play that in 1080p without losing detail.

Im saying running Wii U games at a higher resolution than Wii U. Like can this run Bayo 2, Mario Kart 8, XCX, 3D World in 1080p and keep the Wii U framerate without loosing detail.
Click to expand...

Well if it's a 500Gflop Tegra then probably. Wii U is 176GFlops. So Tegra @ 500 would be 2.84x. 720 -> 1080 is 2.25x more pixels.
 
B

BreakAtmo

Member
Gotta say, I would love to see the docking station add more power. Imagine if there was a Tegra X2 in the handheld, and another Tegra X2 in the dock. Devs could then program their games to run at 720p on the handheld, and (roughly) 1080p from the dock with the extra power. It would jack up the price for sure but the extra juice would really help the console stay up to par, and the handheld would look no worse due to the smaller screen.
 
G

G.ZZZ

Member
AzaK said:
Well if it's a 500Gflop Tegra then probably. Wii U is 176GFlops. So Tegra @ 500 would be 2.84x. 720 -> 1080 is 2.25x more pixels.
Click to expand...

Not only that but the GPU is more modern (and has Nvidia flops which are 15-20% better than AMD ones) and the CPU is leap and bounds better. Only thing is that the RAM is probably worse, i have no idea on what are the level of performance of mobile ram.4

EDIT: stop thinking that the dock will have extra processing power. It won't. It would cost easily an extra 100$ or so and nintendo want to get out with a cheap console, not something that cost significantly more than an Xbone.
 
Z

z0m3le

Banned
G.ZZZ said:
Not only that but the GPU is more modern (and has Nvidia flops which are 15-20% better than AMD ones) and the CPU is leap and bounds better. Only thing is that the RAM is probably worse, i have no idea on what are the level of performance of mobile ram.
Click to expand...

~40% better (GTX 1060's 4.3tflops out performs RX 480's 5.8tflops)

G.ZZZ said:
EDIT: stop thinking that the dock will have extra processing power. It won't. It would cost easily an extra 100$ or so and nintendo want to get out with a cheap console, not something that cost significantly more than an Xbone.
Click to expand...

Yeah, the dock wouldn't have it's own chip, an alternative dock(AKA Console) could be sold later that does, but the one that comes with the device would be plastic and wires, and allow the device to go from it's battery powered clocks to wall clocks, possibly activating a fan inside the device to switch from passively cooled to actively cooled like a surface. Pascal clocks stable at 1.5-1.6ghz so if they go this route, it would end up around XB1 and PS4 level.
 
C

Cow Mengde

Banned
mrklaw said:
Caveats
- cooling. When docked you'd still need the handheld chassis to be able to handle cooling the chip running at full speed. This could be a big issue. Could you have vents in the case and a fan in the dock (like those laptop coolers you can buy)?
Click to expand...

What if the device already has a fan inside, and it'll only activate if it's docked? The current rumors clearly says there's a fan in the device.
 
Q

qko

Member
My question is, will Sony respond to this? Is Vita the end of the line when it comes to handheld gaming for them?
 
L

Litri

Member
Cow Mengde said:
What if the device already has a fan inside, and it'll only activate if it's docked? The current rumors clearly says there's a fan in the device.
Click to expand...

And what if the fan is silent enough to be on while undocked? We don't know how big is the fan and how much power does it draw...
 
G

G.ZZZ

Member
Cow Mengde said:
What if the device already has a fan inside, and it'll only activate if it's docked? The current rumors clearly says there's a fan in the device.
Click to expand...

This is a possibility and would cost nothing in term of performance or battery while undocked if the fan is just turned off in handheld mode.

Another possibility i thought of is that the back of the screen case could be metal at least in part, making an additional fan in the dock possible too.
 
C

Cow Mengde

Banned
Litri said:
And what if the fan is silent enough to be on while undocked? We don't know how big is the fan and how much power does it draw...
Click to expand...

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.
 
M

Mihael Mello Keehl

Banned
brainchild said:
If you knew how weak the GPU in the Wii U was, you'd find it hard to believe that the Wii U could run the game as well.

Nintendo just did a good job at pushing the hardware and having good art direction. But considering that the Tegra X1 is at least a few times more powerful than Wii U, there's no doubt in my mind that it can run BOTW at 1080p.
Click to expand...
constant 30 ?
 
G

G.ZZZ

Member
Litri said:
And what if the fan is silent enough to be on while undocked? We don't know how big is the fan and how much power does it draw...
Click to expand...

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".
 
G

G.ZZZ

Member
Mihael Mello Keehl said:
constant 30 ?
Click to expand...

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.
 
D

Durante

Member
G.ZZZ said:
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".
Click to expand...
Yeah, I think if they decide to go for any performance difference at all it should be significant, at least a factor of 2.25.
 
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