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NX will launch in March 2017 globally, won't be at E3 (focusing on Zelda instead)

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Eolz

Member
It can obviously be a console if it's put in one, but it would be closer to Wii U than Xbone in terms of power. A handheld with Tegra could easily run Zelda at 720p or even 1080p depending on which Tegra it is. This is extremely exciting for the handheld, but leaves a ton of questions on what the console plans are.

Hm... Industry leading chips... Hm...



Look, I'm just trying to work out the possible implications. I don't even believe the guy since he's pretty hit-or-miss. It's all part of the fun. These aren't me saying what I think will happen, but rather me trying to figure out how this could work.

Fourth Storm is just repeating what is on SemiAccurate, aka handheld. Until someone gets a membership there, hard to believe otherwise.
There's no point thinking Tegra is for the console or kills the console (since all good rumor/leaks point out to the console being released first, on top of Nintendo themselves talking about the console), but sure speculating about how both will work is interesting.
Just no hybrid, nor saying "it's over everything is doomed".
 

antonz

Member
It's also true that, if I've read the article correctly, direct comparisons won't be that easy to make i.e. mere numbers aren't enough. Correct me if I'm wrong, gentlemen.

Direct comparisons would certainly not be very effective. You would need to get into the nitty gritty on how the parts perform themselves. Newer parts perform more efficient and all sorts of other areas you would need to look at
 

QaaQer

Member
Seems like it may be talking about the handheld? No idea about the home console, but NVidia confirmed according to SemiAccurate. Nvidia's stance on console's was supposedly a cover for the fact that MS and Sony wouldn't let them in on negotiations after the previous console contracts.

Yes, this info is from the article.

Maybe Nvidia are going in whole hog to combat amd's stranglehold on the console market. If so, Nintendo could be the beneficiary of well below market priced Nvidia products.
 
Emily said the NX is close to X1 power? Oh boy another weak console from Nintendo. Nintendo is going to get blasted hard by the media...

I really hope the SCD thing is real and it's going to make the NX more powerful or Nintendo is screwed again....

Btw I always thought the NX was going to be close to X1 power so they can sell it cheap.
 

MuchoMalo

Banned
Well, Emily has chipped in with what she heard about NX from her sources:

https://arcadegirl64.wordpress.com/2016/05/13/so-about-nx/

I have doubts about Emily because her knowing exactly where NX and the next Xbox are being fabbed is extremely dubious, and if she were talking about the current Xbone then there would be a huge contradiction here. Still, this jives with my theory that Nintendo is sticking to low-power, and from the sounds of things, as I thought, Emily's definition of "good specs" just means that it's better than Wii U.
 

KingSnake

The Birthday Skeleton
I think Emily's info is pretty in line with my guess about NX being the best tech $299 can buy. Maybe even $249, who knows?
 

Eolz

Member
Emily said the NX is close to X1 power? Oh boy another weak console from Nintendo. Nintendo is going to get blasted hard by the media...

I really hope the SCD thing is real and it's going to make the NX more powerful or Nintendo is screwed again....

That's not exaclty what she says if you read it.
Basically numbers are close, but since it's hard to compare with an architecture like this...
 

antonz

Member
The best Takeaway from Emily's post is until you know what the parts are its pointless to squabble over what performs how.

People already automatically assume because it might be ARM that it is somehow doomed when ARM can more than keep up with the bargain bin CPUs in the PS4/XBO.
 

QaaQer

Member
Yeah, there's also the question related to strategy. Would Nvidia offer a good price for the handheld chip while the console gets still an AMD one? That doesn't sound like too much of a win.

Nvidia would demand the console as part of their strategy. It would make zero sense to only go for the handheld if this is a move to combat amd.
 

KAL2006

Banned
This is great news

The only people disappointed will be people who want NX to be as powerful as PS4. All I want is a cheap console that has a shared library with NX Handheld. Think Vita and Vita TV but Vita TV being a bit more powerful than the original Vita handheld.

I expect NX Console to be slightly more powerful than Wii U and nowehere near PS4

I expect NX Handheld to be weaker than Wii U but good for a handheld with a 540p screen and No 3D or 2nd Touchscreen

I expect price to be targeted for casuals and secondary console buyers and not compete with PS4

NX Home Console - £180
NX Handheld - £150
 

Eolz

Member
The best Takeaway from Emily's post is until you know what the parts are its pointless to squabble over what performs how.

People already automatically assume because it might be ARM that it is somehow doomed when ARM can more than keep up with the bargain bin CPUs in the PS4/XBO.

Thank you.
Basically this, but it's like when everything change architecture, people just don't want to accept it might be similar.
 

Vena

Member
Thank you.
Basically this, but it's like when everything change architecture, people just don't want to accept it might be similar.

Her wording will haunt the next thread on this info I guarantee it as people latch on to "X1 specs" and fail to comprehend anything else.
 

MuchoMalo

Banned
I think Emily's info is pretty in line with my guess about NX being the best tech $299 can buy. Maybe even $249, who knows?

$250 is the most I'd pay for trash hardware like that 2017. She seems to be implying that it may even be weaker than Xbone, or at best on-par. It looks like I was 100% right about Nintendo still targeting super low power consumption.
 

AmyS

Member
An Nvidia Pascal-based successor to Tegra X1 (which was Maxwell based) could indeed be jaw dropping for NX handheld and/or console.

Tegra K1 and X1:

TObUkD4.jpg


KTZb0uU.jpg


Sooner or later, Nvidia will have a Pascal-based Tegra, lets call it P1. No doubt it will surpass XBone and (base) PS4..
 

spekkeh

Banned
This is great news

The only people disappointed will be people who want NX to be as powerful as PS4. All I want is a cheap console that has a shared library with NX Handheld. Think Vita and Vita TV but Vita TV being a bit more powerful than the original Vita handheld.

I expect NX Console to be slightly more powerful than Wii U and nowehere near PS4

I expect NX Handheld to be weaker than Wii U but good for a handheld with a 540p screen and No 3D or 2nd Touchscreen

I expect price to be targeted for casuals and secondary console buyers and not compete with PS4

NX Home Console - £180
NX Handheld - £150
Not much point for Wii u owners to upgrade if true. unless they have a nice extra hook.
 

QaaQer

Member
An Nvidia Pascal-based successor to Tegra X1 (which was Maxwell based) could indeed be jaw dropping for NX handheld and/or console.

Tegra K1 and X1:

TObUkD4.jpg


KTZb0uU.jpg


Sooner or later, Nvidia will have a Pascal-based Tegra, lets call it P1. No doubt it will surpass XBone and (base) PS4..

never trust nvidia marketing.
 

KingSnake

The Birthday Skeleton
She seems to be implying that it may even be weaker than Xbone, or at best on-par.

She doesn't imply that at all. She says that on paper is between Xbone and PS4, closer to Xbone. So definitely above Xbone. And that it's a different architecture so a comparison just on paper doesn't do it justice because it uses more modern chips, so supposedly more efficient ones.
 

ozfunghi

Member
Emily is specifically talking about "raw power". She also mentions "modern custom chips".

Modern custom chips, with a modern feature set, with the raw power of a XBO, might still handily outperform a PS4. In this regard i have to agree that her statements about hardware seem more dubious because i feel like she doesn't really know how to interpret the information she's been given.
 

Vena

Member
She doesn't imply that at all. She says that on paper is between Xbone and PS4, closer to Xbone. So definitely above Xbone. And that it's a different architecture so a comparison just on paper doesn't do it justice because it uses more modern chips, so supposedly more efficient ones.

ARM is a much more modern, much less baggage architecture. This is going to be like the GameCube vs. the Xbox or PS2, where real world metrics likely are muddy to the point of indistinguishably but on paper Xbox was superior.
 

Eolz

Member
Her wording will haunt the next thread on this info I guarantee it as people latch on to "X1 specs" and fail to comprehend anything else.

If this is true NX is doomed , specially if price difference compared to PS4 or even PS4 Neo is small.

With Sony releasing PS4 Neo this year and NX March 2017 just hope NX cost 200-250 US if it's technology is similar to Xbone.

Ahahah
 

Vena

Member

I know. I am a prophet!

Emily is specifically talking about "raw power". She also mentions "modern custom chips".

Modern custom chips, with a modern feature set, with the raw power of a XBO, might still handily outperform a PS4. In this regard i have to agree that her statements about hardware seem more dubious because i feel like she doesn't really know how to interpret the information she's been given.

She's not an engineer and it shows in her word choice. But she's also clearly being conservative with her presentation. And its very hard to explain the differences between an ARM based modern console and chipset, and an X86 one. The whole discussion is already fucked because people will read ARM and immediately defualt to "not x86, therefore crap" because they've fallen into the Sony/Microsoft marketing pit of "supercharged PC architecture" aka "crap we sold you".
 

Trago

Member
If we're getting Tegra, then the handheld will be more powerful than I thought it was. And with Emily Roger's post, I'm hoping that this lends truth to my theory that Nintendo will be aiming for a cheap price point with the home console. Cheap is good in this context people. Nintendo shouldn't be dead set on one upping Sony or Microsoft, they should work at making their platform relevant. Also, if the shared library thing really is a thing, then I'm wondering if the handheld will be treated as the flagship device since it's their bigger money maker.

Cool info today regardless.
 

thefro

Member
Keep in mind "raw power" (which I presume is specs) != performance either. Folks have already mentioned NVidia FLOPS v.s. AMD. The ARM chips NX would likely use also beat the Jaguars even though you couldn't guess it from the clock speeds.

If we assume both rumors are true, I'd deduce Emily knows the AMD chips screwup rumor isn't true because she heard NX is using NVidia.

Still think we need a source from a major site before we can jump to conclusions.
 
I don't think you guys understand. It doesn't matter about "modern chips" and if it's more "efficient". People will see it say "raw power NX will be close to Xbox One" and every media outlet and gamer will run with that line and say how underpowered NX will be and say Nintendo is "doomed".
 

KingSnake

The Birthday Skeleton
ARM is a much more modern, much less baggage architecture. This is going to be like the GameCube vs. the Xbox or PS2, where real world metrics likely are muddy to the point of indistinguishably but on paper Xbox was superior.

Yeah, this is my interpretation too. Unfortunately the comparison will probably have to wait until the first DFs on some common games.
 

Rodin

Member
The only thing i get from that article is that emily doesn't really know much about tech. No offense.

That being said, if closer to xbone is true, this shit better be 250$ max in 2017. But i don't understand what
In terms of raw power, numerous sources tell me that NX is much closer to Xbox One than PlayStation 4. Even that might be stretching it a tiny bit.
the fuck is the bolded supposed to mean. Is it less powerful than x1? Is it so different that you can't directly compare them? Is it using Nvidia so it has less flops on paper but it's actually more powerful? A bit of clarity would be appreciated.

Anyway, assuming semi accurate is correct, nvidia for the portable would be huge as long as it doesn't end like with the 3DS.
 
A tegra sounds reasonable. NVidia hasn't really had a big win for their mobile parts in quite some time. And a newer tegra on 14/16nm could be quite fast and power efficient.
 
The best Takeaway from Emily's post is until you know what the parts are its pointless to squabble over what performs how.

People already automatically assume because it might be ARM that it is somehow doomed when ARM can more than keep up with the bargain bin CPUs in the PS4/XBO.

Agreed. The proof will be in what the games actually look like which I imagine will be plenty good based on what we saw from the Wii U.
 

Eolz

Member
ARM is a much more modern, much less baggage architecture. This is going to be like the GameCube vs. the Xbox or PS2, where real world metrics likely are muddy to the point of indistinguishably but on paper Xbox was superior.

This is a great comparison actually.

I don't think you guys understand. It doesn't matter about "modern chips" and if it's more "efficient". People will see it say "raw power NX will be close to Xbox One" and every media outlet and gamer will run with that line and say how underpowered NX will be and say Nintendo is "doomed".

We understand too well sadly, but that also depends on how Nintendo will talk about it and how partners talk about it either.

edit: yeah emily isn't good about hardware, but great at relaying rumors without compromising people at least. Guess we can deal with that until more leaks :/
 
Tegra is much more mature today and if they went 16nm FinFET it probably gets pretty good battery life as long as they don't go crazy with the clocks.

Yeah, should be fine. For example, the Tegra X1 in Nvidia's reference platform consumed less power than Apple's A8X of 2014:

NVPower2_575px.jpg


Why is that important? Well, Apple's GPUs (semi-custom PowerVR GPUs) don't throttle at all in operation, same with their CPU cores.

What I don't get is why the Shield console has to be actively cooled despite a supposedly lower power consumption? Would a Tegra part for the NX handheld be semi-custom? Just realised we haven't heard anything about a Pascal-based Tegra chip fabricated on 14nm yet...

Anyway, this is actually pretty exciting if true. Usually I'm not excited about Nvidia's SoCs because developers can't utilise their full potential with Android and OpenGL. But with (rumoured) Vulkan or a Nintendo graphics API and Nintendo OS we could be seeing something special.
 

Vena

Member
The only thing i get from that article is that emily doesn't really know much about tech. No offense.

That being said, if closer to xbone is true, this shit better be 250$ max in 2017. But i don't understand what

the fuck is the bolded supposed to mean. Is it less powerful than x1? Is it so different that you can't directly compare them? Is it using Nvidia so it has less flops on paper but it's actually more powerful? A bit of clarity would be appreciated.

Anyway, assuming semi accurate is correct, nvidia for the portable would be huge as long as it doesn't end like with the 3DS.

If its using a Maxwell/Pascal GPU, the raw FLOPS could be as low as or lower than either the PS4 or X1 probably, but mean much more in terms of performance of comparable GPU generations. This could easily lead to Emily's confused/misworded description.

This information has certainly turned discussions on their head.
 

KAL2006

Banned
Not much point for Wii u owners to upgrade if true. unless they have a nice extra hook.

First of all there are not many Wii U owners. And the ones are usually hardcire Nintendo fans. The reason to upgrade from Wii U to NX Home Console without a bug power junp would be software. To play Splatoon 2, Pokemon and the next Mario you would need to buy the next NX Handheld or Home Console. The good news is that it will be cheap. Same price as a Wii U or even cheaper.
 

Thraktor

Member
Isn't it far more likely that there just isn't a console if this is true? I still have no idea who that ARM APU could be for in that case, but having a completely different GPU in the console and handheld would mean that porting wouldn't be much easier. Vulkan would help a bit, but they'd still have the same issues.

Well, there are three things which can make Nintendo's (and third parties') lives easier when it comes to cross-developing games for both handheld and console:

1. Using the same GPU architecture for both
2. Using the same API for both
3. Minimising the performance differential between the two

Let's say Nvidia simply offered Nintendo a much higher-performing part for their money than AMD did. The benefit in terms of reduced performance differential may have simply outweighed the cost of using two different GPU architectures. The same could be true if they used a PowerVR-based chip, or a Mali-based chip, or anyone else besides AMD. Given that AMD's never put out a competitive chip in this segment, it shouldn't exactly be a massive surprise that they wouldn't get a design win.
 

MuchoMalo

Banned
She doesn't imply that at all. She says that on paper is between Xbone and PS4, closer to Xbone. So definitely above Xbone. And that it's a different architecture so a comparison just on paper doesn't do it justice because it uses more modern chips, so supposedly more efficient ones.

She also said that it's stretching it a bit. She completely ruled out Polaris as well, and GCN 1.2 isn't a notable improvement over Xbone's GCN 1.1 other than power consumption. If it's a stretch to call it more powerful than Xbone on paper, the same would apply in practice unless Vulkan is a big boost. From this description, best case is probably 14CUs GCN 1.2 @800MHz for the GPU.

it's not really any skin off my back either way, but I don't see this console selling better than Wii U in this case unless a miracle happens. it's going to be a Nintendo box again, and honestly if they're not going to match PS4 at least I think it makes more sense to go even weaker than this and target a $200 price point. $250 is stretching it for a Nintendo box. I've said it multiple times: Nintendo needs to go with an extreme approach in either direction. This half-measure has no chance of success.
 

KingSnake

The Birthday Skeleton
She also said that it's stretching it a bit. She completely ruled out Polaris as well, and GCN 1.2 isn't a notable improvement over Xbone's GCN 1.1 other than power consumption. If it's a stretch to call it more powerful than Xbone on paper, the same would apply in practice unless Vulkan is a big boost. From this description, best case is probably 14CUs GCN 1.2 @800MHz for the GPU.

it's not really any skin off my back either way, but I don't see this console selling better than Wii U in this case unless a miracle happens. it's going to be a Nintendo box again, and honestly if they're not going to match PS4 at least I think it makes more sense to go even weaker than this and target a $200 price point. $250 is stretching it for a Nintendo box.

What if it's not AMD?
 

Vena

Member
She also said that it's stretching it a bit. She completely ruled out Polaris as well, and GCN 1.2 isn't a notable improvement over Xbone's GCN 1.1 other than power consumption. If it's a stretch to call it more powerful than Xbone on paper, the same would apply in practice unless Vulkan is a big boost. From this description, best case is probably 14CUs GCN 1.2 @800MHz for the GPU.

it's not really any skin off my back either way, but I don't see this console selling better than Wii U in this case unless a miracle happens. it's going to be a Nintendo box again, and honestly if they're not going to match PS4 at least I think it makes more sense to go even weaker than this and target a $200 price point. $250 is stretching it for a Nintendo box.

If its nVidia then its potentially no longer on GCN. nVidia has lower raw numbers for their FLOPS, and this can easily lead to a very confused Emily.

1.31 TFLOPS is the Xbox's current spec on the Radeon GPU they have in there. A 1.31 Maxwell/Pascal would outperform that handily, but the raw number is identical.

We effectively, if the ARM and NVidia info are true, know nothing about the systems' real world performance.
 

Rodin

Member
If its using a Maxwell/Pascal GPU, the raw FLOPS could be as low as or lower than either the PS4 or X1 probably, but mean much more in terms of performance of comparable GPU generations. This could easily lead to Emily's confused/misworded description.

This information has certainly turned discussions on their head.

If its nVidia then its potentially no longer on GCN. nVidia has lower raw numbers for their FLOPS, and this can easily lead to a very confused Emily.

1.31 TFLOPS is the Xbox's current spec on the Radeon GPU they have in there. A 1.31 Maxwell/Pascal would outperform that handily, but the raw number is identical.
Yeah pretty much. A 1.31 maxwell/pascal would probably slightly outperform ps4 as well. A 970 (3.5tflops) is roughly on par with a 290X (5.6tflops).

If this happens (which is far from being a given at this point) the "problem" on forums would be that people would shit on it and downplay the graphics it produces because they don't realize the difference between nvidia and amd flops. Look at how many people think that a 4.2tf ps4 neo would be on par with the 970 or even better. Tons of people will swear that ps4 is better than nx.

That being said, i think nvidia would be a great fit if they want a win to the point that they would lower their prices. Even a semi-custom gpu based on the 750ti would give Nintendo performances very close to the ps4 at ~50 watt.
 

Ogodei

Member
Emily is specifically talking about "raw power". She also mentions "modern custom chips".

Modern custom chips, with a modern feature set, with the raw power of a XBO, might still handily outperform a PS4. In this regard i have to agree that her statements about hardware seem more dubious because i feel like she doesn't really know how to interpret the information she's been given.

Yeah. You'd think people would have learned when talking about raw numbers and Nintendo consoles, at least since the GC era (and possibly since the SNES era, despite the Genesis' high-clocked CPU).

Edit: Super-custom makes it sound like ARM. Who else would it be, unless it were someone WAY out of left field.

But that doesn't gel with "Tegra for the handheld" that seems to be all-but-confirmed here.
 

Vena

Member
If it is really xbone level, it better be pretty cheap.

It isn't because the comparison is irrelevant if its on ARM and, potentially, nVidia GPU. We won't know anything until a tear down or hard leaks on information of internals due to multiple architectural differences.
 
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