Your thoughts on the Next Ninty Console

[Miyamotoo]

Pemalite said:

Miyamotoo said:

My bad, XB1 operates at 1.75GHz.

Yeah, I know that, but ARM A57 was in Switch was heavily constrained buy 20nm, thats why has 4 core and operates at only 1GHz.

ARM A57 was designed for 20nm.

The issue with the Switch is that... It's not going to have short, bursty processing workloads.

For example, in a typical mobile device the A57 would clock up to 2ghz whenever there is demand and race back to idle... For example, you open up the browser and the CPU will clock to 2ghz during the initial load and then settle down to it's idle clocks, there isn't a need for the full clockrate when browsing a webpage.
This phenomenon is known as "race to idle" - Where you want the processing done as fast as possible so the chip can enter a power saving state.

The Switch on the other hand doesn't get that privilege... Video games, demanding video games will peg every single core at 100%, which means there will be significant power drain, it cannot race to idle because there is always more work to be done.
That's not a design issue with the Switch or the A57 or the node it's fundamentally on, that's just the nature of the processing load.

So Nintendo rightfully opted to limit clockrates and voltages so that power consumption will always be in check for CPU loads.

THAT is the real reason why the Switch's CPU's are at only 1ghz.

Miyamotoo said:
Thats just jump when you talk about same clock and some Core count, tell for instance about how much difference we talk only if Switch 2 uses for instance A76 6-Core CPU clocked at 2GHz compared to A57 4-Core 1GHz? And its safe to say that potentail Switch 2 will use more stronger CPU than A76.

I would be very surprised if the Switch 2 used anything less than a 6-core complex to be honest.

Whether the Switch will use A76 or a newer derivative is still up for debate though, nVidia has Denver remember, they might wish to push their own CPU design over ARM's direct architecture.

Miyamotoo said:
Like you wrote earlier, 8-Core ARM A57 at 1.7GHz would be very comparable to PS4/XB1 CPU. I was very clear that PS5/XB2 will again have stronger CPUs than Switch 2 in any case, I dont arguing that. But with all that on mind, Switch 2 could easily have stronger CPU than PS4/XB1 have, and IMO that would be enough to run 4K PS5/XB2 games at least 1080p in docked mode maybe even in 1440p with maybe some other downgrades, and that was my main point.

I think you might find that because of the large CPU performance delta between Xbox One/Playstation 4 and Xbox Two/Playstation 5, that the Switch 2 will struggle to get demanding ports, especially ports that leverage Ryzen to it's absolute fullest extent, that's not to say the Switch 2 won't get ports, it should get some, not every game is going to be running stupidly complex simulation on the CPU next gen... And the Switch 2 should get those if the developer/publisher bothers.

The jump from Jaguar to Ryzen is a significantly larger one than what you will get with Switch and Switch 2. - Nintendo simply lucked out as AMD didn't have a decent CPU for the consoles, let alone PC.

The Switch 2 should be able to match or exceed base the Xbox One/Playstation 4 CPU's. - By how much is yet to be determined for obvious reasons... The Xbox One X's CPU does muddle things though as it does offload some processing and has the highest clockrate.

Miyamotoo said:
Well that's my point, Tegra X2 would alow Switch to have higher CPU and GPU clocks than currently has, even higher memory bandwith (double compared to current one).

Indeed. Or Nintendo could have kept the same performance level and increased battery life substantially.
I am sure Nintendo had it's reasons for opting for the old chip that it did.

It's still a very capable device though at the end of the day, it just could have been that little bit more.

Miyamotoo said:
Switch has enough power to run some games at higher resolution than it does currently, but doesn't have enough CPU power to maintain probably even 20 FPS in that case. From specs reveal devs said that biggest bottleneck is A57 that has 3-cores available for games and operates at only 1GHz. Next biggest bottleneck is RAM bandwidth, when you look hole Switch configuration, GPU is biggest advance of Switch hardware and after that size of RAM.

I think you are trying to paint to much of a black and white scene.
Whether the CPU, GPU or Ram is the biggest limiter really comes down to the individual games themselves.

Some games will drive home the CPU loads more than others... Whilst other games will push the GPU harder.

Miyamotoo said:
I am pretty sure it will be, they several times said they considering Overwatch for Switch, probably it will be E3 announcement same Rocket League and Fortnite were.

It's just one of those games that just makes sense for the platform. - Plus Overwatch is not technically demanding anyway, it can run on a toaster... And even when downscaled to low visual settings still looks semi-decent thanks to blizzards atypical strong art style.

Well you have A57 at 28/20/16 and 14nm. Tegra X2 is 16nm and it includes A57 cores also.

I am very aware of that, same like fact that A57 throttles (same like Tegra GPU)  at higher speeds than 1.7/1.8GHz. But I already said that only reasons why Nintendo went with 1GHz and not for instance 1.5GHz are battery life and heating. But Tegra X2 and lower nm would allow them higher clokcs because we would have lower power consumption and power heating in any case.

 

 

Yeah, I also expecting at least 6-Core CPU for Switch 2, but my point is that we will talk about huge difference in any case compared to 4/3 Core A57 1GHz that operates in current Switch.

SoC that Switch 2 will have will most likely be adjusted much more to Nintendo needs and wishes, even if they again use already available chip from market, it will probably be much more customized than Tegra X1 in Switch has. Nintendo used available Tegra X1 because it was best suiting their needs for their first handheld, but with point that we will most likely have Switch 2 and Nintendo and Nvidia will have long term partnership, Nintendo and Nvidia will plan much better SoC for Switch 2.

 

 

From standpoint of games, I dont expecting huge jump in graphics on PS5/XB2 compared to PS4/XB1 games, I expecting little improved current gen games that will run at 4K resolution, so most of that power difference will go to much higher pixel count and maybe 60FPS that will devs maybe start pushing much more. So I do think that in plenty cases, Switch 2 will probably could run 4K PS5/XB2 games at least at 1080p maybe even at 1440p with some other cut backs (like lowered effects or maybe lower frame rate if we talking about some 60 FPS games..). Difference would be that 1080p or even 720p (for handheld mode maybe) sound much better compared what devs would need to with some current big games in order to run on current Switch where we have some AAA 3rd party games working below 720p (go down to 540p, 480p even to 360p in some sequences), because some devs just simple want cut so much resolution for their games and that their games run at those resolutions on big screen, but for instance 1080p is nice resolution in any case.

Probably will be larger jump, but Switch 2 will also have huge jump in CPU side in any case.

 

Well I guess its combination of points that Tegra X2 probably couldn't be ready on time for Switch and there were already some rumors that Nvidia had tons of unused Tegra X1 chips and that they apparently gave Nintendo very good offer.

Yeah, I mean it ending Win-Win situation for Nintendo and Nvidia, and Switch is doing its job.I am personally very interesting to see what Switch will have with its revisions, for instance Tegra X2 is very possible for Switch revisions, or would Nintendo go at lower NM with current Tegra X1 chip (that has less sense) that would allow them higher clocks.

 

I disagree, I just talking about objective look of Dev point of view when just he looks Switch specs, right away it obvious that CPU is biggest bottleneck followed by RAM bandwidth. But I agree that not all games are equally CPU or GPU intensive.

 

Yeah, I agree, especially because it seems that Diablo 3 is selling quite well so that will also push them more to bring Overwatch to Switch.

Last edited by Miyamotoo - on 03 December 2018