Nintendo to finally shed more details about the NX early tomorrow (Update: this is the Nintendo Switch)

[randomhkkid]

Just now, Misanthrope said:

There is no cheaper-to-manufacture equivalent for this form factor: using discs it's just fucking stupid i.e. The PSP Third party support will not be affraid of read only memory given how it' was already massively successful with the Nintendo DS and 3DS.

 

It's like we're fucking talking about things Nintendo already done here guys, if anything technology has gotten better since fucking 10 years ago when they've done it successfully and density it's good enough to fit even fairly large games. Just stop ok? This is the worst kind of non-issue I've seen some of you raise.

I never mentioned that it was a bad idea haha. The original statement was based on comparing costs of using disc based media vs carts in general. Carts are definitely a good fit for the switch and it helps massively with piracy and resilience to damage.

[GoodBytes]

8 minutes ago, Pyrii said:

I know this much. Honestly it can be used as a dummy controller for anything if yu know what you're doing so I wondered if they were using NX hardware back then.

Yea that is the same controller (but in black), from older E3's when Nintendo is on the floor. Nintendo has said that Zelda game demoed is the WiiU version.

The reason why you see a big box, and big cable, is that there is 0 optimization on it. This is engineering device. It probably has USB cable, HDMI cable separate, power line separate (as USB 2.0 doesn't have enougth power), the box has an converter circuit.. probably hand build (so takes space), to convert the HDMI signal to the wireless video signal the console uses, or HDMI controller to feed directly to the display, and the USB controller to handle the controller buttons being pressed. It is most likely a mess in the box as it was not the original design of the controller.

[Mira Yurizaki]

15 minutes ago, Sniperfox47 said:

That's not as much a problem when you can load big swathes of resources into memory with consoles with lots of fast memory but as a portable device the memory on the switch is likely more constrained and that means fetching resources more often.

I only used GTAV as an example, but consider GTA on the PS2. Or consider this train level from Uncharted 2

Granted it's the PS4 version, but the PS3 version could all of this without installing anything. (EDIT: You might go "but it's just recycling set pieces". It probably is, but only when you're inside).

 

There's also Watch Dogs on the WiiU, it installs a 128MB file and that's it. I think Assassin's Creed for the WiiU also has no install that would make up a portion of the game.

 

Most games don't need to be installed and if structured right, can run off its media and load everything it needs into RAM. I also don't really have any reason to believe RAM on the Switch will be that sparse. Besides, even the RAM for games on the PS4 and XB1 are considered paltry if you compare it to how much space is available for PCs. 3GB on either console is reserved for system functions. 5GB is given to games. Since the PS4 and XB1 use unified memory and the only metric I have is from Guerilla Games, 3.5GB is used for the GPU, leaving 1.5GB for the game itself.

[skywake]

16 minutes ago, Pyrii said:

I know this much. Honestly it can be used as a dummy controller for anything if yu know what you're doing so I wondered if they were using NX hardware back then.

Well for a start what they showed of the NX doesn't actually have a screen on the controller. The system itself has a screen on it and you can either dock it in a cradle hooked upto your TV or in two controller sections. And the hardware they used at E3? It was definitely a Wii U. No question about it. They use different units for demos like that so they can capture the video on the GamePad amongst other things. 

 

As for the horsepower of the NX.... I guess I should start calling it the Switch. It's hard to say for sure. But it is Tegra based which on paper at least puts it quite a bit above the Wii U. Theoretically at least it should have at least twice the memory bandwidth and at least twice the raw GPU performance. But really, it depends. For all we know they're using a lower powered chip to reduce costs and increase battery life.

 

..... but it does have vents on the top. So if you want power? That's a good sign.

[Sniperfox47]

3 minutes ago, skywake said:

..... but it does have vents on the top. So if you want power? That's a good sign.

That's why I'm thinking a Parker plus a dGPU.

 

The Parker can run in mobile mode, possibly in a low power state, and the dGPU can kick in when you have the extra power headroom and hopefully cooling headroom from the dock.

 

And with Nvidia's talk about special physics APIs in their release it reinforces my idea, since you could use the Parker iGPU for dedicated physics with the boost from HSA, and then use the dGPU for rendering (similar to a dedicated PhysX card).

[Pyrii]

I actually think disc-based media is having trouble right now on consoles and Nintendo may have hit on a massive boon since cart-based games tend to be quick/instant loading with minimal or no "install" problems other than patches. (At least in my experience with 3DS). Chip access is orders of magnitude quicker than an disc. And MS/Sony have been screwing up First-Experience for users in a big way as highlighted by Jim Sterling (Warning: Probably bad language)

 

[Mr.McMister]

Here's hoping that dock has a hard drive in it for downloadable games, the cartridges have some writable storage to hold updates, and maybe a blank writable cartridge can be released to hold downloadable games on the go. If the cartridges can't have game updates written to them then it's dead in the water for 3rd party support past the first year due to lack of storage space for updates.

 

It kind of disappoints me that we get this and not a new nvidia shield. As much as I like nintendo stuff, I can't imagine it will be as open as android is on the shield stuff. If I bought the switch it'd have to replace my tablet and I can't see nintendo opening the platform up enough to allow easy 3rd party development with play store support or side loading.

[HKZeroFive]

Great! It's nice see NVIDIA go back to consoles. And the Switch is far from a conventional console which makes things even more interesting.

 

I bet that it's powered by a Maxwell-based Tegra though. NVIDIA have been real ambiguous with their wording... I feel like if it was based on Pascal, they'd be rubbing that fact in everybody's faces already.

[Mira Yurizaki]

10 minutes ago, Sniperfox47 said:

That's why I'm thinking a Parker plus a dGPU.

 

The Parker can run in mobile mode, possibly in a low power state, and the dGPU can kick in when you have the extra power headroom and hopefully cooling headroom from the dock.

 

And with Nvidia's talk about special physics APIs in their release it reinforces my idea, since you could use the Parker iGPU for dedicated physics with the boost from HSA, and then use the dGPU for rendering (similar to a dedicated PhysX card).

I don't think including a separate GPU anywhere would be beneficial from a development standpoint because it creates parity. Developers didn't like the PS3 having separate memory pools and they have grumblings about the XB1 having separate memory pools. Having two different power modes is going to aggravate them because it's essentially like supporting two different machines. And then you have the issue of "what if the user disconnects the unit while in game?" And I'm pretty sure they're all grumbling about the PS4 and PS4 Pro.

 

Besides, the Tegra K1 already can produce some nice visuals:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/VAy7bPCFm746Hg3hpbqjPI1msds8x_67ffStfcWWg_cZSBUaUClQs09c6pfdF0CwAg=h900

[Agosto]

Wait a minute

WAIT A MINUTE

FROM SOFTWARE

[Sniperfox47]

3 minutes ago, M.Yurizaki said:

I don't think including a separate GPU anywhere would be beneficial from a development standpoint because it creates parity. Developers didn't like the PS3 having separate memory pools and they have grumblings about the XB1 having separate memory pools. Having two different power modes is going to aggravate them because it's essentially like supporting two different machines. And then you have the issue of "what if the user disconnects the unit while in game?" And I'm pretty sure they're all grumbling about the PS4 and PS4 Pro.

 

Besides, the Tegra K1 already can produce some nice visuals:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/VAy7bPCFm746Hg3hpbqjPI1msds8x_67ffStfcWWg_cZSBUaUClQs09c6pfdF0CwAg=h900

They don't need to worry about discrete memory pools with Pascal unless they want to because of unified memory. That was one of the big aspects of Pascal from a development standpoint (and if I remember it sort of not really got back ported to Maxwell v2 too?).

 

You're going to need power modes to a degree at least. The X1 couldn't run full speed in a device with a similar form factor to the switch, and with the move away from mobile devices with Parker it doesn't look like it runs any cooler than the X1 did.

 

The key is scalability. When you drop to handheld mode there's a substantial drop in resolution which would make up for some of the performance difference, and if Nvidia's APIs handle some of the aspects for developers it shouldn't necessarily lead to increased complexity on the developer's side.

 

You also have to consider that a Parker in its full configuration only has about half the graphical performance of the Xbox one, and about a third the power of the PS4, so if it's using just a single Parker that in itself would add complexity to any major company looking to support it, since it would still be at a *very* different performance level from similar consoles they'd be developing for.

[randomhkkid]

3 minutes ago, valdyrgramr said:

Is your Soul ready?

[Agosto]

7 minutes ago, valdyrgramr said:

Is your Soul ready?

 

3 minutes ago, randomhkkid said:

I AM SWITCHMEYER OF CATARINA

AND YOU SHALL FEEL MY SWITCH

[GoodBytes]

Look like Mario Kart 8 will have DLC on the Nintendo Switch

From the trailer, we can see King Boo, a new character and also it looks like you can handle now 2 items... some sort of Mario Kart Double Dash style mode?

[Pyrii]

Remember boys and girls that games seen in the teaser might not come to pass or may be modifications of existing games in order to show uses for the Switch. This isn't the first or last time Nintendo has done this with console reveal trailers, showing un-named mario/zelda/other IP gameplay in order to demonstrate the device.

[Space Reptile]

[spellmanuk]

I'm so pumped for this if it's even half as good as the advert it will be amazing but as with any console it's success will ride on support of people buying and developers making good games for it 

[VagabondWraith]

So when do preorders go up?? ??

[GoodBytes]

To confirm that the new console runs on an Nvidia chip:

https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2016/10/20/nintendo-switch/

 

[Dietrichw]

Kinda sucks that it is indeed NVIDIA based, another barrier for devs for porting. Would have been really interesting if it was a low power x86 HBM zen APU with a 460 or 470 in the dock switching between the iGPU and the GPU in the dock, which would be easier if they were the same arch. Could even use the igpu when in the dock as a physics co-processor etc.

[Mira Yurizaki]

23 minutes ago, Sniperfox47 said:

They don't need to worry about discrete memory pools with Pascal unless they want to because of unified memory. That was one of the big aspects of Pascal from a development standpoint (and if I remember it sort of not really got back ported to Maxwell v2 too?).

Again, the disjoint memory pool was an example.

23 minutes ago, Sniperfox47 said:

You're going to need power modes to a degree at least. The X1 couldn't run full speed in a device with a similar form factor to the switch, and with the move away from mobile devices with Parker it doesn't look like it runs any cooler than the X1 did.

I'm not arguing it won't have any.

23 minutes ago, Sniperfox47 said:

The key is scalability. When you drop to handheld mode there's a substantial drop in resolution which would make up for some of the performance difference, and if Nvidia's APIs handle some of the aspects for developers it shouldn't necessarily lead to increased complexity on the developer's side.

My only problem with this is you still introduce complexity in that you now have two different resolutions and power settings to work with. Consoles are supposed to offer a consistent environment that you shouldn't have to worry about things like system performance changes. Besides, if you introduce a much higher power state while docked and developers take advantage of this, you introduce a disparity problem within your own ecosystem. Meaning if you do this poorly, nobody will want to take it off the dock to play your game.

 

23 minutes ago, Sniperfox47 said:

You also have to consider that a Parker in its full configuration only has about half the graphical performance of the Xbox one, and about a third the power of the PS4, so if it's using just a single Parker that in itself would add complexity to any major company looking to support it, since it would still be at a *very* different performance level from similar consoles they'd be developing for.

Performance disparity between Nintendo and its competitors is the least of the developer's worries. Using NVIDIA already throws a curve ball to console developers because all of the best practices you use for AMD GPU develop don't work on NVIDIA's GPUs. Then there's the fact that they're using an ARM chip. The huge advantage here though is that major engine developers already have an ARM port. Nintendo can now use UE4, Unity, and Source, among other ones right off the bat.

 

Besides, Nintendo doesn't care about matching the performance of either Sony or Microsoft.

[TopWargamer]

I don't think you guys understand how hyped I am for this console. Judging from the trailer, it's everything I've ever wanted wrapped up in a fairly small package. Looks dope.

[TopWargamer]

20 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

To confirm that the new console runs on an Nvidia chip:

https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2016/10/20/nintendo-switch/

 

Any idea what chip it actually uses though? I would imagine either the X1 or X2.

[GoodBytes]

12 minutes ago, Dietrichw said:

Kinda sucks that it is indeed NVIDIA based, another barrier for devs for porting. Would have been really interesting if it was a low power x86 HBM zen APU with a 460 or 470 in the dock switching between the iGPU and the GPU in the dock, which would be easier if they were the same arch. Could even use the igpu when in the dock as a physics co-processor etc.

Not really. Today, we have very good ARM compilers. Heck, Visual Studio supports this already. Yes, devs might need to do some work to adapt things for better performance, but it is minimal compared to PowerPC. What helps A LOT, is that the GPU is a full Nvidia chip, fully featured. That means that they don't need to do custom shaders like they need to on the PS4, it fully support OpenGL and Vulkan. All Nvidia libraries to make game dev life easier such as GameWorks is supported (many games uses that for the PC version, in any case), and supports OpenCL and CUDA for physics enhancement or other tasks, which game dev can do for the PC in any case... so it is on their way.

[GoodBytes]

1 minute ago, TopWargamer said:

Any idea what chip it actually uses though? I would imagine either the X1 or X2.

X1 is 2 years old.

So probably be X2, which should match the XBox One performance.