Phones are also pushing 2k resolution instead of 720p tho.
*blinks
Not this again
Those mobile games aren't native 2k
Phones are also pushing 2k resolution instead of 720p tho.
Plenty of cheap tablets have huge batteries though. It's the A73 that makes me doubt this supposed leak.A73's and 4300mah battery?
We $950 and on par with Xbox One, fam!
He's talking about how the phones have to power 2k screens instead of the 720p screen that Switch will have, therefore it be more power efficient than those phones. He's not comparing the graphics of them.*blinks
Not this again
Those mobile games aren't native 2k
Yeah that's pretty unrealistic. Right?
True, but that can be considered overhead not related to playing games, e.g. the power you spend when reading an e-book or something.He's talking about how the phones have to power 2k screens instead of the 720p screen that Switch will have, therefore it be more power efficient than those phones.
PCs make up for it by being more powerful.I guess PC development must be very hard what with there being so many different CPUs out there that devs have to manually program tasks for their individual cores
4300mAh battery isn't out of the question. Not an expensive battery by any means. I would anticipate 3000mAh is the smallest battery size for anywhere close to what's being suggested as battery life.
How exactly would A73 bump price lolA73's and 4300mah battery?
We $350 and on par with Xbox One, fam!
Any title that cross play with PC would need to be designed to survive performance differences. Not everyone can afford them i7s or even i5s. The idea that every, or even the majority, of the PC gaming population belongs in the "master race" tier of hardware specs doesn't really match reality.ARM requires recompile at least, but the power difference might force adjustment in some of the core code especially anything related to physics. Don't know if cross play would survive in that scenario.
Not in 2001, not in 2006, not in 2012, why would it be there in 2017? "After a dozen years of solid wi-fi use, it's important we add ethernet to our new non-stationary console."?I can't believe it looks as if there's no ethernet.
FFS Nintendo, in 2017, really?
Thinking more about it, the only way all the info/rumours that we know make sense together is if there are 3 SM in the SoC. That would also match what Laura said about the devkit in October being more powerful than the ones in July (assuming July devkits were stock Jetson boards).
But I refuse to get my hopes up for now.
I guess their excuse this time for the lack of an ethernet port is due to the whole dock/handheld situation? Which is a bit stupid, but who knows...
The other way to possibly make sense of the fan part (at least) is that Laura seemed to hint that the "console mode" clock rates can actually be used in portable mode. Whether this is just a dev function or the end user can decide, I guess we have no idea at this point. But as someone who will use it primarily as a handheld around the house and near outlets, that's good to know.
Just worried about the fan running when playing games with intense motion controls...
I would be very surprised if docked mode isn't docked only in the retail version. Just seems like a too complicated function and mainstream consumers wouldn't care about it if they could even be explained the difference. Especially if there is an extra fan in the dock its not a possibility.
It could also give developers an excuse to downprioritize dock mode and just ask consumers to plug it in.
Thinking more about it, the only way all the info/rumours that we know make sense together is if there are 3 SM in the SoC. That would also match what Laura said about the devkit in October being more powerful than the ones in July (assuming July devkits were stock Jetson boards).
But I refuse to get my hopes up for now.
What needs 3SM to make sense? While there's still some room for speculation all seems quite explicable without resorting to a conspiracy "there is more secret power inside" theory.
Fan thermal solution can be attributed to fab node, or the simple fact that all cpu cores and gpu working at full load for long periods of time requires it even at those clocks.
In the case of the audible fan in dev kits as someone pointed earlier that doesn't imply that was overclocked by itself.
Docked mode is pretty much guaranteed to only work when plugged on the dock because that's the only charger that is guaranteed to output the necessary power to both run the system at full clock and charge it at the same time, something the cheap 3rd party chargers people will inevitably purchase won't do.The fan could be there so when you use the switch while recharing (out of the dock) you can play at full speed. Maybe the downclock only takes place while using the batteries.
While docked the fan on the portable unit would keep quiet to avoid overuse.
Can we connect it to a GameCube to unlock boost power?
Can we connect it to a GameCube to unlock boost power?
Make sure to use the advance link cable.Can we connect it to a GameCube to unlock boost power?
Docked mode is pretty much guaranteed to only work when plugged on the dock because that's the only charger that is guaranteed to output the necessary power to both run the system at full clock and charge it at the same time, something the cheap 3rd party chargers people will inevitably purchase won't do.
I suspect if you turn down settings, playing a game at portable mode clock speed, it'll last more than three hours.
I initially heard 3 hours max battery, no clue if that's full clock or "portable" clock speed. I've heard longer estimates since which would lead me to suspect 3 hours is if you play a game fully clocked but not connected to power, which is doable at the very least with dev kits.
PAtents say that you can, in theory, run the Switch at full clock speed while portable. This is a developer level choice not a user level toggle.
The patent clearly allows for an ethernet connection to the dock, likely through a USB adapter, so that doesn't seem to be the reason. USB for everything seems a bit more convenient overall though, since you won't necessarily have any wasted ports if you don't want to use ethernet.
I want Crystal Chronicle and Four Swords remakes damnit
In Laura's AMA on Reddit she seemed to hint that games can be played at the docked clock rates even when portable and not on any power supply:
Source
It may wind up being the developer's choice regarding whether or not each game does this. If you get 3 hours of battery life for a game which needs docked clock speeds even to render at 720p, then it seems like it's probably worth it to do so. 3 hours isn't all that bad.
EDIT: I think this the most interesting development from the AMA, although the October devkit info is also intriguing. But this is seemingly indicating that, instead of a developer having to lock into 720p for handheld mode and 1080p for docked mode, they could choose to do 720p for both using the same clock speeds. This could be a way to get much more demanding games onto the system, as you essentially go from a 156GFLOPS system to a 400GFLOPS system by ignoring the portable mode clock speeds. This would also explain why a fan is necessary in the portable. Hopefully it's constructed well, since a fan running in a portable seems like a recipe for disaster to me.
Forgot it was in the patent. Hopefully they'll make a dock with it.
GC VC!
The dock has no additional processing hardware. It's just a stabilised power supply. Thus, in theory, there's no reason a portable Switch couldn't run at docked speeds as the hardware is identical in both scenarios. The power draw however would hit the battery life hard.
Seems like a very un Nintendo like decision to me so I dont know if I quite believe it. Does the game box say "3 hour battery" or "5 - 8 hour battery"?
Leaving it at developer's discretion would be a terrible move because then everyone will just target the higher power mode. It would make it harder for developers if they did want to target low power mode because then they'd get criticized for their game not looking/performing as good as competitors.
Right. If this is true it would probably be only Nintendo's first party developers taking advantage of the portable clock speed. It could be that her info about this is just from the previous devkits, and the new clock speed info comes with the "mandate" essentially that when portable, clock speeds have to be portable clock speed.
None of their previous hardware has had game dependent variations to this degree. All previous hardware has only had one specified clock speed.If Laura's info is accurate this would mean about ~3 hours of battery life in that mode. Which seems pretty reasonable for this type of handheld, no?
Does the box (game or hardware) ever say anything about battery life? Are there official numbers given for battery life for any of their previous handhelds?
Leaving it at developer's discretion would be a terrible move because then everyone will just target the higher power mode. It would make it harder for developers if they did want to target low power mode because then they'd get criticized for their game not looking/performing as good as competitors.
Yeah, if it portable clocks were mandated but users had the choice to manually override it that's one thing but allowing games to run only at the higher clocks sounds not good for consumers.
And therein lies the debate. I can see both sides.
I think it comes down to how aggressively Nintendo is planning to court 3rd parties with Switch. I'm sure they would love the high clock baseline for their PS4/XBO ports. You know, checking off the tick box that says "and here is the low rent portable version of our PS4 game that's fairly comparable at 720p, satisfying the platform gimmick of console gaming on the go" - and doing nothing more.
Given Nintendo's history I'm inclined to think they'll force the lower clocks in portable mode and expect 3rd parties to deal with it.
I don't think giving users the choice to override makes much sense. If the clock speed difference is primarily for achieving the 720p>1080p transition, then what do you really gain from choosing the higher clock speed? Slightly sharper IQ due to supersampling?
If Laura's info is accurate this would mean about ~3 hours of battery life in that mode. Which seems pretty reasonable for this type of handheld, no?
Does the box (game or hardware) ever say anything about battery life? Are there official numbers given for battery life for any of their previous handhelds?
Ehh if anything Nintendo has a history of not enforcing platform features. Overall I don't think there would be much difference in developers willing to target 150gflops vs 400Gflops and I think it would be unwise to kneecap the platform unnecessarily.
Well we know at least that UE4 does more than drop the resolution. It also decreases the quality of the effects(and textures?).
I doubt Nintendo would do this for another reason. The increase of GPU power is mainly about rendering a game to a higher resolution (generally 720p to 1080p going by the ratio of change), so allowing that power in handheld mode will not allow it to be used that way. I guess there could a third option mode that allows the user to pick what gets modified in docked mode, but that gives devs more pressure and it sounds very un-Nintendo.
It is worth noting that at one point we were told developers were only developing for one performance target. I can't remember exactly when/where but I remember someone saying that.
Given Nintendo's history I'm inclined to think they'll force the lower clocks in portable mode and expect 3rd parties to deal with it.
Not in 2001, not in 2006, not in 2012, why would it be there in 2017? "After a dozen years of solid wi-fi use, it's important we add ethernet to our new non-stationary console."?
EDIT: I think this the most interesting development from the AMA, although the October devkit info is also intriguing. But this is seemingly indicating that, instead of a developer having to lock into 720p for handheld mode and 1080p for docked mode, they could choose to do 720p for both using the same clock speeds. This could be a way to get much more demanding games onto the system, as you essentially go from a 156GFLOPS* system to a 400GFLOPS* system by ignoring the portable mode clock speeds. This would also explain why a fan is necessary in the portable. Hopefully it's constructed well, since a fan running in a portable seems like a recipe for disaster to me.
What needs 3SM to make sense? While there's still some room for speculation all seems quite explicable without resorting to a conspiracy "there is more secret power inside" theory.
Fan thermal solution can be attributed to fab node, or the simple fact that all cpu cores and gpu working at full load for long periods of time requires it even at those clocks.
In the case of the audible fan in dev kits as someone pointed earlier that doesn't imply that was overclocked by itself.
Not in 2001, not in 2006, not in 2012, why would it be there in 2017? "After a dozen years of solid wi-fi use, it's important we add ethernet to our new non-stationary console."?