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[Toadthemushroom]

From the Nvidia blog post regarding their support on Switch software and hardware:

The Nintendo Switch’s gaming experience is also supported by fully custom software, including a revamped physics engine, new libraries, advanced game tools and libraries. NVIDIA additionally created new gaming APIs to fully harness this performance. The newest API, NVN, was built specifically to bring lightweight, fast gaming to the masses.

Gameplay is further enhanced by hardware-accelerated video playback and custom software for audio effects and rendering

Would it be correct to assume that NVN is the NX's equivalent to Vulkan, OpenGL, DirectX? I'm guessing something like PhysX forms part of the tools and libraries available to developers as well.

3DS supported several ways to program the GPU (see below), so I'm guessing Switch will support NVN and Vulkan. Are Nvidia's libraries and tools going to form part of Switch's equivalent of NintendoWare?

Another thing: Nintendo now supports five different ways to program the GPU. The easiest way is DMPGL (OpenGL|ES with Maestro stuff), which is easy to use but has a very high overhead. Then comes GD, a functional equivalent but not compatible to OpenGL and more lightweight, followed by GR, which is even more low level and offers better performance, but requires more in-depth knowledge of the GPU. The next option is NW4C (NintendoWare for CTR), Nintendo's official middleware solution, complete with graphical frontends and stuff. Supposedly easy to use and high performance, but I assume flexibility is limited. And last, but not least, is direct register access, which requires arcane knowledge but offers the best possible performance (and the most ways for stuff to go horribly wrong).

The interesting thing about Nvidia putting in lots of work on the libraries and graphics API for the Switch platform is it seems like it will guarantee top performance, at least according to this comment over at Ars Technica:

I think that's a bit uncharitable.

For the past six months, I've been doing work on computer vision and deep learning with the X1 platform. It's pretty impressive, not just because of its ability to run reasonably complex neural networks in a small, low-power module, but because Nvidia has pulled out all the stops to ensure all libraries are highly tuned for the platform. The investment of developer resources that Nvidia made into the X1 (and its upcoming successors) must be astronomical.

We're running workloads on the X1 that we couldn't have dreamed of deploying on an embedded system previously. It's such a huge step up from the K1 in terms of real-world performance that it still has me agog sometimes. We're running workloads on a platform the size of a credit card that previously required a full PC with a dedicated graphics card.

Assuming that the graphics and physics libraries are similarly tuned, the Switch should have no problems outperforming the Wii U by a very significant margin.

Remember that the Wii U used an incremental update of the same micro-architecture that drove the original Bondi Blue iMac, and a GPU architecture that seems derived from the AMD's R600 (i.e. similar to the ATI Radeon HD 2xxx series). This is a monumental modernization when compared to that.

It's not going to match a PC with a 10xx series graphics card, but it certainly gives much, much better real-world performance than anything else we've tried in a similar form factor.

My initial concerns with this handheld/console weren't about performance, just about battery life - the X1 is very efficient in terms of power per watt, but it can still draw up to 15W TDP. From the vents, it looks like they are going with fan-based cooling, which is a bit of a surprise (we're making do with a heat spreader in a smaller form factor), so that suggests this may be a more powerful spin on the X1. In which case, let's just hope they put a big enough battery in there to give a decent play-time.

One thing's for sure, this is going to be one really powerful handheld, and a credible platform for a home console.

What do you think of Switch using an Nvidia graphics API as the standard, with Vulkan being a likely option instead?

 

[Jackano]

Need tech-GAF or dev-GAF to explain but sounds a bit concurrent with Vulkan, or those are different layer of APIs.

Other thought, but I'm not that kind of low-level tech guy, NVN could be used by Nintendo themselves, as a different option from Vulkan, which is the one already implemented by the 3rd party engines.

 

[KingSnake]

NVN seems to be the "native API" for Switch, while Vulkan is the one ensuring compatibility/porting.

There was another interesting tidbit in the blogpost:

We’ve optimized the full suite of hardware and software for gaming and mobile use cases. This includes custom operating system integration with the GPU to increase both performance and efficiency.

 

[BakedYams]

as long as i get 60 fps both on dock and on the go, im a happy camper. i play a lot of fighting games so if a new smash were to come out, this would explode.

 

[greyskull]

Oh boy, more fragmentation.

Having so many differing APIs is bad for the industry. Maybe NVN isn't awfully proprietary, but let's be real, it's Nvidia. OpenGL, Vulkan, Direct3D, NVN, whatever PS4 uses. Depending on which platforms you want to target, you have a lot of platform layer work on your hands.

The Switch better sell like mad (I think it will), otherwise having to support a vastly different platform with another proprietary API is going to be a hard sell for multiplat publishers.

EDIT: What makes you think Vulkan will be an option? I don't see any reason why they would support two APIs for a single hardware target, especially when it's Nvidia and an entirely proprietary platform. Maybe I'm just cynical.

 

[Jackano]

NVN seems to be the "native API" for Switch, while Vulkan is the one ensuring compatibility/porting.

There was another interesting tidbit in the blogpost:

The GPU + OS thing isn't promising for the battery life, but it sounds like a new normal thing to do (usage of the GPU as a GPGPU).

 

[UnemployedVillain]

There was another interesting tidbit in the blogpost:

This is what makes me think that there is a bit more to the dock than simply allowing charging + connecting to the TV, the fact that they separated "gaming" and "mobile use"

 

[KingSnake]

Oh boy, more fragmentation.

Having so many differing APIs is bad for the industry. Maybe NVN isn't awfully proprietary, but let's be real, it's Nvidia. OpenGL, Vulkan, Direct3D, NVN, whatever PS4 uses. Depending on which platforms you want to target, you have a lot of platform layer work on your hands.

The Switch better sell like mad (I think it will), otherwise having to support a vastly different platform with another proprietary API is going to be a hard sell for multiplat publishers.

EDIT: What makes you think Vulkan will be an option? I don't see any reason why they would support two APIs for a single hardware target, especially when it's Nvidia and an entirely proprietary platform. Maybe I'm just cynical.

Both Nvidia and Nintendo are members of Khronos.

https://www.khronos.org/members/list

Also Nvidia fully supports Vulkan on everything, including Shield and Jetson which are powered by Tegra:

https://developer.nvidia.com/Vulkan

This is what makes me think that there is a bit more to the dock than simply allowing charging + connecting to the TV, the fact that they separated "gaming" and "mobile use"

It could be something as simple as power states, running at different clock when plugged in.

 

[Luigiv]

EDIT: What makes you think Vulkan will be an option? I don't see any reason why they would support two APIs for a single hardware target, especially when it's Nvidia and an entirely proprietary platform. Maybe I'm just cynical.

Because every platform supports multiple API. It's really not a big deal to support more than one.

Anyway, I personally suspect that Switch is going to have, if not vanilla, at least one Vulkan derived API and one OpenGL derived API.

 

[UnemployedVillain]

It could be something as simple as power states, running at different clock when plugged in.

Yeah, but that alone would offer a small "power" boost when docked

 

[Salmon]

As long as the screen is at least 1080p I'm happy. That's whats matter nowadays

 

[Renekton]

Nvidia proprietary? Sounds like fun.

 

[Stairouais]

As long as the screen is at least 1080p I'm happy. That's whats matter nowadays

It isn't.

 

[UnemployedVillain]

As long as the screen is at least 1080p I'm happy. That's whats matter nowadays

Well prepare for disappointment unless you mean capable of rendering in 1080p, which I have no doubt it'll be able to considering the Wii U had a number of 1080p games and Nintendo has never gone backwards, resolution wise or power wise

 

[Candescence]

There's no doubt that Nvidia really want a foot in the door with dedicated console development, and after fucking up with the original Tegra when it came to the possible 3DS use, they likely are pulling out all the stops to make Nintendo and third-party devs happy. This is gonna be very interesting indeed.

 

[Salmon]

Well prepare for disappointment unless you mean capable of rendering in 1080p, which I have no doubt it'll be able to considering the Wii U had a number of 1080p games and Nintendo has never gone backwards, resolution wise or power wise

I just wish the screen is 1080p though. I can't live with low res screens. But if games only run in 900p, I can live with it, as long as the portable screen is 1080p

 

[NumberThree]

They call it a gaming API (or rather, gaming APIs) and not graphics API. Makes me think it's somewhere between GameWorks and a graphics API?

 

[linkandzelda]

I just wish the screen is 1080p though. I can't live with low res screens. But if games only run in 900p, I can live with it, as long as the portable screen is 1080p

All the rumors which were correct stated the screen was 720p. There is near zero chance of a 1080p screen.

 

[zoukka]

I just wish the screen is 1080p though. I can't live with low res screens. But if games only run in 900p, I can live with it, as long as the portable screen is 1080p

I'd rather have native 720p content than upscaled 900p TBH. Also the lower the rez, the better the performance.

 

[Kareha]

I'd rather have native 720p content than upscaled 900p TBH. Also the lower the rez, the better the performance.

It's weird though considering my SHIELD Tablet comes with a 1920x1200 IPS screen and games run on it like a champ

 

[KingSnake]

Yeah, but that alone would offer a small "power" boost when docked

Depends on how low are the clocks in handheld mode. Because the point is not to overclock when docked, but to downclock in mobile mode and use normal clocks docked.

It's most probably a 720p screen so they could theoretically half the clocks in handheld mode. Now, it doesn't necessarily work like that in real world scenario, but it still can be quite a difference.

It's weird though considering my SHIELD Tablet comes with a 1920x1200 IPS screen and games run on it like a champ

But it doesn't render console games at that resolution. The native resolution is much lower than that.

 

[I Stalk Alone]

I just wish the screen is 1080p though. I can't live with low res screens. But if games only run in 900p, I can live with it, as long as the portable screen is 1080p

You live with low res all the time if you ever game on your phone or tablet or any handheld console, most games are not native res.

It's weird though considering my SHIELD Tablet comes with a 1920x1200 IPS screen and games run on it like a champ

at 1280x800 30fps or even lower res

I could understand having a 1080p native screen for movies and stuff and playing games at 720p or 540p, but having all your gaming on a non native resolution might be a bit blurry and cause inpuit lag. Better to be able to play on a native res since that is the main focus, not movies or browsing, I have my expensive as hell phone for that shit

 

[Renekton]

There's no doubt that Nvidia really want a foot in the door with dedicated console development, and after fucking up with the original Tegra when it came to the possible 3DS use, they likely are pulling out all the stops to make Nintendo and third-party devs happy. This is gonna be very interesting indeed.

They were vocally disdainful of console margins, plus they already screwed over Sony on PS3.

I wonder how much Nintendo is paying Nvidia per chip.

 

[Salmon]

You live with low res all the time if you ever game on your phone or tablet or any handheld console, most games are not native res.

I don't. I use them for other things but I read text and stuff on them, and that's where I think that even 720p on a 4,7" screen is too low. Text isn't as sharp and so on. I can't even pick up my DS or 3DS any more, because the screens are awful.

 

[jmga]

NVN will probably be a superset of Vulkan+CUDA with direct access to the hardware features.

 

[Toadthemushroom]

I don't. I use them for other things but I read text and stuff on them, and that's where I think that even 720p on a 4,7" screen is too low. Text isn't as sharp and so on. I can't even pick up my DS or 3DS any more, because the screens are awful.

750p on the iPhone 7's 4.7" display still appears perfectly sharp at any reasonable viewing distance, since it's the same DPI (~350) as the 640p iPhone 4, which also appeared perfectly sharp. Good subpixel rendering across the OS helps a great deal with this, of course.

If it's a 720p OLED screen with the PenTile subpixel matrix then yes, you can actually make out the pixel grid at that screen size and resolution, since you only get 2/3rds of the effective resolution due to the sharing of blue subpixels. I remember it being quite irksome on a Samsung ATIV S phone of 2012. LCD or RGB-subpixel OLED displays don't have this issue.

720p on 6.2" should be fine on Switch so long as developers make sure their UIs aren't shrunken down, downscaled 1080p ones from the TV image. Switch has the same DPI as Vita (~220dpi), but the problem with Vita is it squandered that advantage with tiny text and interface elements, so for many games you had to hold the system quite close to your face and it didn't look so sharp anymore.

 

[Easy_D]

Revamped physics engine? So they built custom PhysX software for it? Yo Switch exclusives gonna have them cool particle effects and shit? Nvidia being so hands-on with both hardware and software development has me *really* excited. They know their shit.

 

[Metal B]

They were vocally disdainful of console margins, plus they already screwed over Sony on PS3.

I wonder how much Nintendo is paying Nvidia per chip.

There was the rumor, that Nintendo got a great deal, because Nvidia was pissed, that no console uses there chips, and wanted a strong push into the console market.

 

[Toadthemushroom]

EDIT: What makes you think Vulkan will be an option? I don't see any reason why they would support two APIs for a single hardware target, especially when it's Nvidia and an entirely proprietary platform. Maybe I'm just cynical.

Nintendo being on the list of contributors to the Vulkan platform (and Nvidia, as KingSnake pointed out), and Nintendo's always provided several graphics APIs. 3DS offered several ways to program the GPU.

Since Iwata previously mentioned that the aim was to make NX software "more portable" I'd suspect Nintendo won't be allowing for direct register access as it'd be too easy to break games on different CPU architectures?

Last year we also started a project to integrate the architecture for our future platforms. What we mean by integrating platforms is not integrating handhelds devices and home consoles to make only one machine. What we are aiming at is to integrate the architecture to form a common basis for software development so that we can make software assets more transferrable, and operating systems and their build-in applications more portable, regardless of form factor or performance of each platform. They will also work to avoid software lineup shortages or software development delays which tend to happen just after the launch of new hardware.

 

[Buggy Loop]

One word : Tile based rendering

Nintendo really made a good move with Nvidia. One of the most powerful mobile chip AND Nvidia writing your API & tools?

 

[TLZ]

Both Nvidia and Nintendo are members of Khronos.

https://www.khronos.org/members/list

Also Nvidia fully supports Vulkan on everything, including Shield and Jetson which are powered by Tegra:

https://developer.nvidia.com/Vulkan



It could be something as simple as power states, running at different clock when plugged in.

I can't believe we'll have to wait til God knows when next year to find out about all their surprises.. The wait has been painful enough since 2015 and now we wait some more...

 

[Datschge]

Nintendo being on the list of contributors to the Vulkan platform (and Nvidia, as KingSnake pointed out), and Nintendo's always provided several graphics APIs. 3DS offered several ways to program the GPU.

Since Iwata previously mentioned that the aim was to make NX software "more portable" I'd suspect Nintendo won't be allowing for direct register access as it'd be too easy to break games on different CPU architectures?

Not only that, Nintendo previously said their subsequent systems build upon the graphical capabilities of the Wii U. So I imagine while Nvidia is free to offer additional frameworks they likely first had to accommodate to the development environment Nintendo has built since the beginning of Wii U (which always included a push for GPGPU for example).

 

[Plinko]

There was the rumor, that Nintendo got a great deal, because Nvidia was pissed, that no console uses there chips, and wanted a strong push into the console market.

Yep. Semi-Accurate (in the same article they broke the story fo Nvidia being the chipmaker) said the deal was insanely good for Nintendo.

 

[Principate]

There was the rumor, that Nintendo got a great deal, because Nvidia was pissed, that no console uses there chips, and wanted a strong push into the console market.

Or the more likely scenario Tegra isn't as successful as the rest of NVidia's product lines and NVidia had already lost trust and reputation with Nintendo because of their inability to go through the deal Nintendo had with them for the 3DS chips, so Nintendo was able to get a better deal on this.

 

[brochiller]

Most people are concerned about the graphics performance of the Switch when docked. People see a tablet and they think it's going to be as powerful as other tablets they've seen.

The thing is, no other tablet has had the opportunity to be in a state where power consumption wasn't an issue and where it could be actively cooled. I think this completely changes what we can expect in terms of performance when docked.

The people who have said that it will throttle itself to save battery on the go and run in full power mode when docked hit the nail on the head.

 

[Hermii]

Most people are concerned about the graphics performance of the Switch when docked. People see a tablet and they think it's going to be as powerful as other tablets they've seen.

The thing is, no other tablet has had the opportunity to be in a state where power consumption wasn't an issue and where it could be actively cooled. I think this completely changes what we can expect in terms of performance when docked.

The people who have said that it will throttle itself to save battery on the go and run in full power mode when docked hit the nail on the head.

Woudnt surprise me if the fan is idle at all times when portable.

 

[User123456]

as long as i get 60 fps both on dock and on the go, im a happy camper. i play a lot of fighting games so if a new smash were to come out, this would explode.

IMO expect framerate to be identical and only the resolution to be downgraded.

From 1080/900p (depending on game) to native 720p.

 

[Corleth the Fey]

The only possible difference between docked and un-docked will be 720p when mobile and 1080p in TV mode.

There's no way there will be any other graphical enhancements in TV mode, and there cannot be a lower framerate or downgraded graphics in mobile mode. Not without a large backlash, anyway. Nintendo need this to be as capable on the road as it is at home - it would trash it's unique selling point otherwise.

 

[Metal B]

Or the more likely scenario Tegra isn't as successful as the rest of NVidia's product lines and NVidia had already lost trust and reputation with Nintendo because of their inability to go through the deal Nintendo had with them for the 3DS chips, so Nintendo was able to get a better deal on this.

... what? Nvidia lost trust and reputation with Nintendo and that's why Nintendo was able to get a better deal? This makes no sense ...

 

[Principate]

... what? Nvidia lost trust and reputation with Nintendo and that's why Nintendo was able to get a better deal? This makes no sense ...

If you sort arrange a deal with a company put in money and road maps and design your entire product around have that component and they said company failed to deliver, forcing you to scramble around to find a new replacement in time, what on earth do you think happens? things are just rosy afterwards? The company will be less likely to buy your products at any sort of premium, Nvidia being the one that disappointed Nintendo but still wants their business would more likely to lower the price to what Nintnedo was demanding or near it. This happens all the time in business. You either lose their custom if you mess up or your more likely to get a worse deal when you make deals with them.

 

[primasaurus]

I wonder how much Nintendo is paying Nvidia per chip.

My guess is Nvidia is giving Nintendo a sweet deal, this could be a long and fruitful partnership

 

[KingSnake]

My guess is Nvidia is giving Nintendo a sweet deal, this could be a long and fruitful partnership

Considering the fact that Switch is supposed to start a new family of devices for Nintendo, if it's successful will practically guarantee Nvidia as the supplier for future devices.

 

[Kimawolf]

Considering the fact that Switch is supposed to start a new family of devices for Nintendo, if it's successful will practically guarantee Nvidia as the supplier for future devices.

Yep. They wlll sell more "tegras" than anything Nvidia could sell barring self driving cars.

Im really excited to see what Nvidia has come up with now.

 

[Doctre81]

They already have an API called "NV" this one is just called "NVN" because it's the Nintendo version of it.

https://developer.nvidia.com/nvapi

 

[James Scott]

My guess is Nvidia is giving Nintendo a sweet deal, this could be a long and fruitful partnership

Either this or part of the deal was for NVIDIA to help with stuff like getting Unreal Engine 4 support (they're close partners with EPIC).
But, yeah, it could be them giving them a good deal.

 

[Durante]

Nvidia proprietary? Sounds like fun.

Every console graphics API ever has been proprietary.

I'm not saying that is desireable, but "proprietary" sort of comes with the "console" territory and most people on GAF don't seem to mind that at all.
Associating it with Nvidia now and painting it as exceptional in this particular case just seems petty.

 

[mieumieu]

Every console graphics API ever has been proprietary.

I bet most people on GAF dont know that.

 

[CO_Andy]

the big N working with the big N

what an age we live in

 

[EDarkness]

The only possible difference between docked and un-docked will be 720p when mobile and 1080p in TV mode.

There's no way there will be any other graphical enhancements in TV mode, and there cannot be a lower framerate or downgraded graphics in mobile mode. Not without a large backlash, anyway. Nintendo need this to be as capable on the road as it is at home - it would trash it's unique selling point otherwise.

I feel like there are things that can be adjusted when on the go without too much trouble. The first being obviously the resolution. The other being texture quality. When docked, then everything is juiced up to 1080p and sharp textures. This shouldn't affect the way the game is played or how it looks very much considering the size of the screen.

 

[Painguy]

Its probably just nvidias version of GX2 on WiiU or GX on gamecube.