So.. You're telling me there won't be a snapdragon 820 in the portable NX
I think that was very clear to all of us from the very beginning...
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What we know so far about the Nintendo NX with sources
- Thread starter Hero of Legend
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I think that was very clear to all of us from the very beginning...
Large size (i.e. bigger screen) needs higher resolution to look sharp, which requires more powerful SoC, which needs more cooling, which makes the size larger, and necessitates larger batteries, etc., etc.
Going bigger means making the device more expensive, and Nintendo will want to keep the device as affordable as possible out of the gate. They can always release a larger one later like with the DS and 3DS.
My bet is still on a 4.5 inch 540p screen, which is cheap and readily available (see ~$100 smartphones like the second gen Moto E), wouldn't chew up batteries, and would still look relatively sharp for 540p. If the hardware-independent development is implemented well enough, they could even go up to a 720p screen for the larger model, with an updated SoC to power it.
I'm naive! or rather i'm not really aware of the price of smartphone components.
So let's say, let's take the Vita example, just for the sake of it, and imagining Nintendo wants a powerful portable this time to be the drive of their unified offer.
Back when the Vita was released, how did it compare to smartphones ? Wasn't it more powerful ?
Now I... ah... have to... mmmm... look any... ah... Nostalgia Critic... errr... impersonation of Jeff Goldblum... ah.
I think by the time PS Vita released it was probably using close to state of the art mobile tech, at least in the CPU side (although with lower clocks) so it would have compared positively to high end smartphones. But maybe I'm wrong?
blu
Wants the largest console games publisher to avoid Nintendo's platforms.
Generally true, but I have a couple of remarks:
1) while the CPU ISA does not really matter for app devs, it does matter a lot for the OS dev, namely the platform holder - we are talking hypervisors, kernels and VMs/sandboxes here. Nintendo would literally halve their platform support expenditures with a A53 hh + A57/A72 console combo. I'm not speaking figuratively.
2) Looking at NX as the foundations for the next few generations, the sooner a console vendor goes ARM, the smoother their future will be. On one hand, you have a healthy architecture market with everybody and their dog, and on the other you have AMD and Intel. AMD are smart but feeble and Intel are.. intel.
Well i remember it having abetter version of the Iphone 4 gpu if i'm not wrong.
So, what if Nintendo aims for something equivalent.
1 is Nintendo's issue and even then it's not that big an issue because they aren't going to be writing from scratch either. I'd expect them to adopt common open-source pieces like Xen and OpenBSD.
2 also doesn't matter. If you're system works across two architectures not only do you have more choices it's no issue if you decide to drop one in the future.
I can't imagine Nintendo going for a device that'd cost so much. With internal storage, unlike the Vita. So no subsidized price.
Imagine a Nintendo Kimi-san. Named after El Presidente.
So he's a bean counter, not a video game guy. Eh, not so sure about him anymore.
BRocknRolla
Member
Really? I thought that Apple's gpu's were a custom design? (Something that others wouldn't be using.)
Regardless, I think the Vita probably was more powerful than phones at the time, with the caveat for gaming. There's a lot of power in a phone that isn't be specifically tapped for gaming. That's probably changed a lot though too since the Vita's original release.
I've said it before and I'll repeat it again, people drank the kool-aid hard when PS4/X1 went x86 and thought it some sort of magical "great" thing.
"You must use x86 if you want to be modern like the cool kids!"
While using a crap processor that will cripple this gen's capabilities in the long run.
An ARM based SoC doesn't have to match top-performing x86 cores (i.e. Skylake), it only has to match plausible x86 candidates for a console (i.e. Jaguar/Puma). The A57 and A72 are well within the performance range of Puma in a console environment (one of the reasons AMD's dropping it in favour of ARM).
It was for a while (I think the iPhone had similar performance within about a year). And, from a theoretical point of view, there's nothing to stop Nintendo using a 14nm SoC with eight A72 cores and a PowerVR GT7800 GPU, which would put them well up there against any smartphone chip. The problem is they'd have to either charge serious money for the handheld or sell it at a loss, and Nintendo's history doesn't suggest they'd do either of those things for the sake of performance.
Well...he helped form the Pokemon Company, so he clearly did something right.
Because the video game guy CEO they just had was a marvellous success with the Wii U, 3DS, Current online infrastructure and third party support.
He made sure its bills were paid. He's a banker who became a CFO who became a president who's now the CEO. He knows money, not game development like Iwata did.
I'm sorry, this has nothing to do with NX, I just wanted to give my reaction to the posted snippit about him.
A lot of the games for the Wii U are fantastic, though. And he saved Bayonetta 2.
But with that state of mind what is the best they could put in a 3ds form factor for -200$, if they go classy i mean. Cause they won't do that for the sake of being high tech, sure. But they could if they need their portable to drive their software. I see the GT7800 GPU is 332gflops. That's not far from WiiU isn't it. But with a 540p rez they would need less to have WiiU graphics.
He doesn't develop games, but we truly know absolutely nothing about the extent of his knowledge about video game development. For all we know he stays up late at night porting Tetris to old G&W devices. It's too reductive to say he just made sure bills got paid.
Their CPUs are custom-designed, but they use relatively off-the-shelf PowerVR GPUs (as does the Vita.)
One important thing is that the NX handheld isn't going to be using nearly as high resolution a screen as today's top-end phones. Even if they have decent GPUs in them, a lot of them are effectively crippled trying to push 3.6 million pixels, so it's not unreasonable to expect better graphics from the NX handheld than you'd get on most phones, just at a lower resolution.
I will be honest, I am expecting a least a year before you see it on store shelves... And that is on the guess that of the rumoured two devices, the one that they show first is the portable.
You know, call this a guess... but I highly doubt that Nintendo cares much about PC/console development as it stands currently. In fact, I have reason to believe that what ever is in the NX as SOC/APU will likely be ARM-based for one very large reason. And you likely have one, you know... your cellphone.
Over the last few years, I have noticed that Nintendo has spent a lot of time trying to court mobile developers over to the 3DS. Only this time, it's met with some success... Monster Strike and Puzzles & Dragons would not be on the platform otherwise. And WHY in hell would Nintendo outline it's partnership with DeNA well in advance?
Of the Japanese publishers that Nintendo tends to attract, quite a few of them have either a large interest in the mobile sector, or a large presence in the mobile sector.
It would make no real sense to be targeting that developer/publisher pool and then suddenly build a device that doesn't cater to them at all. It would trample on efforts that the company has made well before the surge of the DS.
You also have to take into account that since the Gameboy Advance SP, Nintendo has been a ARM shop. Nintendo, in general, tends to favor RISC-styled processors (ARM, PowerPC, an assortment of Texas Interments chips, etc.) in their hardware. Moving to x86 would be a monumental task, and with ARM being so popular at this point, I don't see why they would move now.
I would not think that developer relations being a concern would effect that since the indie games that Nintendo has been targeting are the ones that have either, have been build to be multi-platform, or are shops that are more than willing to port the game in question.
There are other ways to simplify the transition to other hardware, I can't see the chip itself being much of a barrier given Nintendo's focus and priorities.
blu
Wants the largest console games publisher to avoid Nintendo's platforms.
Nobody writes from scratch. Surely nintendo will branch something existing to step on. That said, past that branch point the OS support will be practically entirely nintendo's responsibility. Just imagine:
nintendo os dev1: 'Hey, we have a root exploit at 12 o'clock!'
nintendo os dev2: 'No worries, mate, the upstream guys will fix it eventually.'
But it's not like we don't have examples of such things in console space already. Case in point, Sony and AMD, who took over portions of the LLVM tree. Can you guess why? And do you expect nintendo to take leadership over some domains in, say, Xen?
iOS largely works across architectures (the entire dev emu is x86). How many x86 iOS devices have apple released again? That's right, none. They support just ARMv8 (ARMv7 being quickly deprecated). Perhaps it's cheaper..
OG_Original Gamer
Member
If the home console CPU is AMD and handheld ARM, will software be enough to make porting between the both easy? Any chance handheld games can be played on the home console, and then be played at 1080p? Like work similarly to the WiiU GamePad, just in reverse.
BRocknRolla
Member
Yeah, now that you say it, that is what I was thinking of. Thanks for the correction.
Very true. While I love the crystal clear resolution on my phone screen, and would absolutely love to see that on a handheld, the tradeoff there is very significant. A resolution that high really isn't a necessity for a handheld game. (Though I will say the Wii U gamepad's screen really leaves something to be desired, so I hope it's a step up from that.)
PdotMichael
Banned
Do you think we would see so many PS3/PS4/Vita releases if it isn't easy?
It's hard to know without actually being in the business of buying leading-edge IC's for a multi-billion dollar business, because there's no publicly available information on how much, say a 100mm² chip manufactured on a 14nm process would cost in mid-2016 for a multi-million unit order. There are websites which publish "cost breakdowns" for things like this, but they can be all over the place. For example this cost breakdown for the iPhone 6 claims the A8 processor cost Apple $37, while this cost breakdown of the iPhone 6s claims the A9 processor cost them just $22 (despite the fact that it should be notably more expensive than the A8, being one of the first chips made on the new 14nm process).
That said, at a guess they might just be able to squeeze something like the PowerVR GT7400 or GT7600 (the latter is what's used in the iPhone 6S) if they were using a 14nm process and willing to take a small loss at $200 (assuming everything else in the handheld is cheap as hell). Basically I'd say Vita performance is on the bottom end of what's possible and XBox360/Wii U performance is on the top end.
Yes, surely.
BRocknRolla
Member
I really think this is what we should be expecting from a handheld coming out in 2016 at a minimum. However, I'm going to seriously temper my expectations until we see it in action. I could see really conservative pricing on Nintendo's part playing an unfortunate role in bringing the specs to that lower level.
I think at most we're likely to get a confirmation of whether to expect the system's release (Whatever system that might be) in the fiscal year. Perhaps they'll also give a general timeline for when the product will be revealed to the public, but I'd wouldn't bet on the latter. Maybe we'll get lucky and someone will drill Nintendo for more specifics and we'll get there.
Hero of Legend
Member
Honestly, I'd like to see the handheld do THIS:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PV9LjF6yCnM
That looks beyond Vita and pre-360 I think.
Of course Killzone Mercenrary is outstanding-looking, but of course that's a AAA 1st-party game by Geurilla Cambridge (well, AAA for Vita I mean haha
).Basically the handheld NEEDS to support Unreal 4 Mobile at minimum. That will make or break 3rd-party support on a grand scale I feel, since Japanese 3rd-parties are ALL OVER that engine. And of course the console would benefit most from the proper Unreal 4 being supported.
I don't think a "kinda, maybe, sorta" Unreal 4 will work. Armature is doing just that with Bloodstained on Vita and Wii U, and... I don't see that working out well. We saw how Unreal 3 tried to be on Vita with Mortal Kombat IIRC and that was AWFUL. It has to be proper verified support.
To be honest I don't know what they'd have to do to end up less powerful than Vita. Even a single cluster of PowerVR's four year old Series 6 GPUs would be more powerful than the Vita. Not that I'm expecting anything like XBox360/Wii U power levels, either, just that they're at the top end of what would in theory be possible if Nintendo did choose to go for performance.
Handheld games with those graphics are enough for me to buy only a NX Handheld.Honestly, I'd like to see the handheld do THIS:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PV9LjF6yCnM
That looks beyond Vita and pre-360 I think.
Of course Killzone Mercenrary is outstanding-looking, but of course that's a AAA 1st-party game by Geurilla Cambridge (well, AAA for Vita I mean haha
Basically the handheld NEEDS to support Unreal 4 Mobile at minimum. That will make or break 3rd-party support on a grand scale I feel, since Japanese 3rd-parties are ALL OVER that engine. And of course the console would benefit most from the proper Unreal 4 being supported.
I don't think a "kinda, maybe, sorta" Unreal 4 will work. Armature is doing just that with Bloodstained on Vita and Wii U, and... I don't see that working out well. We saw how Unreal 3 tried to be on Vita with Mortal Kombat IIRC and that was AWFUL. It has to be proper verified support.
Yeah, but that is assuming that Nintendo already discusses things in a open channel. And it's been well proven that what ever cards they have, they play it close to the chest... Look at OpenGL/Vulkan, Nintendo has been a member on OpenGL for years. It is very rarely that you hear input from the company on that spec. They use it, but that seems to be about it. There is no real company effort to have some say in the direction of the spec, and I highly suspect that there resent membership with Vulkan will be much of the same.
That said, if I am to make an guess... The merged there handled and console R&D's for a reason. And there are already hints that, going forward... the 3DS will likely be the last of it's kind. What ever they are branching from would likely be internal.
You know, that might also be something to consider... Just about everyone knows that Nintendo is VERY picky about prices and pricing.
It's 480p, and it was likely done with Wifi in mind (considering that is what is streaming video to the game pad via a custom protocol). Given that it seems to be Broadcom more than Nintendo's I would say that it is likely to have it's resolution cap upgraded with a new device... assuming that they use the protocol again.
Thx!
Graphics Horse
Member
Well it at least has to have an Asphalt game, it's tradition by now.
shark sandwich
tenuously links anime, pedophile and incels
Yeah, there is nothing magic about x86. Jaguar is on-par with the Cortex A15 from several years ago. The main selling point was probably that it was cheap, easy to program (out-of-order), had a decent integrated GPU, and decent power consumption.
If Nintendo goes with x86 this gen, it'll be for those same reasons. Not raw performance.
What Mega Pokemon do you think Mr. K has on his team?Imagine a Nintendo Kimi-san. Named after El Presidente.
BRocknRolla
Member
Of course Killzone Mercenrary is outstanding-looking, but of course that's a AAA 1st-party game by Geurilla Cambridge (well, AAA for Vita I mean haha
Basically the handheld NEEDS to support Unreal 4 Mobile at minimum. That will make or break 3rd-party support on a grand scale I feel, since Japanese 3rd-parties are ALL OVER that engine. And of course the console would benefit most from the proper Unreal 4 being supported.
I don't think a "kinda, maybe, sorta" Unreal 4 will work. Armature is doing just that with Bloodstained on Vita and Wii U, and... I don't see that working out well. We saw how Unreal 3 tried to be on Vita with Mortal Kombat IIRC and that was AWFUL. It has to be proper verified support.
As you said, I think people can do impressive things with lower powered systems if enough time and optimization are put into it, but for a handheld, at least in the west, I just don't know that the will for that sort of thing will exist among devs.
As such, and as you said, strong engine support is really essential. If we're still assuming a pipeline between the two NX consoles (Still obviously speculation), that'll mean both will benefit from whatever optimizations occur. Nintendo had better make sure what they put out can properly support the common engines and software that devs are using today, or third parties are going to push back very hard once again regardless of how interesting the ideas are.
Right. I think the Vita is at the lowest rung possible. I can just imagine a situation here someone says, "I want 12 hours of battery life," and someone else says, "But we can't guarantee that with the sort of specs we're targeting," and the ultimate response is to throttle back the specs to make that happen. It's pessimism. I would just really prefer to see the performance be strong, and am preparing myself for a future in which it wasn't the main driving force for the design.
Mega Piplup.
R
Rösti
Unconfirmed Member
Then the previous information appears incorrect. First indication was Hotel New Otani Tokyo. I'll look into it.
Yes, I'm not expecting a whole lot myself, but it's very hard to judge, especially with the expected shared software library, which is much easier for them to implement the closer in performance the two devices are (i.e. the more powerful the handheld is).
On the battery life I'd be very surprised with 12 hours, as even the n3DS XL only managed around 6.
Rösti;193927400 said:
We'll be expecting some nice ballroom shots, Rösti!
It isn't easy. They have incentive by not wanting their software to get stranded and subsequently murdered by the PS4 in the local market where it is struggling to be more relevant than a Vita.
Moreover, the PS3 and Vita by virtue of their ancient middleware support (or lack thereof) and built in functionality (shaders and what not), serve as the common denominator against which games have to be programmed and as such are ultimately hobbled by these considerations.
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