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Forums - Nintendo Discussion - Nintendo Switch probably more powerful than the Xbox One S, gets PS4 ports

DonFerrari on 22 October 2016

Yes.... Nvidia just made it possible to make the same power on 1/3 the volume of PS4 and all that at a cheaper price point, can you imagine how powerfull their Titan X will be when they apply this to it?



duduspace11 "Well, since we are estimating costs, Pokemon Red/Blue did cost Nintendo about $50m to make back in 1996"

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Mr Puggsly: "Hehe, I said good profit. You said big profit. Frankly, not losing money is what I meant by good. Don't get hung up on semantics"

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Arkaign on 22 October 2016
Soundwave said:
se7en7thre3 said:

Can you link if possible? 

But yeah, its hard to expect miracles from mobile tech, esp. when you factor in battery life, cooling & Nintendo lol.

https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/nintendo-switch-is-powered-by-nvidia.2481278/page-21

Devs name is Zlatan, he has the last two posts on the page, and the next page has reaction to his comments. He has been vetted as a developer in the past, for what that's worth, but obviously I can't know for 100% sure if this guy is legit. 

It does make sense though it's simply thermal dynamics ... you can't have a 50 watt chip comparable to a XBox One inside of a form factor that is only 1/10th the size. Even with a fan your internals will melt after like 2 hours of continous gameplay.

I'm a big hardware guy who lives in Texas, and have friends that worked in semiconductor since the 1980s (AMD and TI). What you're saying is 200% correct.

Even with 14nm and the MOST optimistic side of the potential reality in performance ceiling, with Nintendo going on the side of a hot/loud tablet at 20W (LOL), this would still fall far under OG Xbox 1, and memory would massively limit things to boot.

Take Frostbite Games for example, if Scorpio does turn out to have 6TF and much faster memory, then a hypothetical Battlefront 2017 would probably line up like this : 

Scorpio : 4K Native

PS4 Pro : 4K Checkerboard

PS4 OG : 900P

X1 OG : 720P

NS : 480P and much lower textures/draw distance

People need to go back and look at the Mario game in the trailer. We know it's a new game, and well, it looks like great fun, but it looks like WiiU level at best. The Skyrim footage looks like it's just playing a generic placeholder video, but there's a funny history with handheld Elder Scrolls : 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrWtz7M_OHc

At the end of the day if the NS can't play third party AAA tentpole titles because they either aren't ported, or run like crap, this is simply going to be another niche system. And if it's expensive, it will outright fail. It really needs $199 or less to be a potential hit. $249 will be maybe GC numbers lifetime. $299 will be courting disaster, and anything north of that and it's getting close to virtual boy levels.



alternine on 22 October 2016
oniyide said:
its almost like people didnt learn their lesson from Wii U

Whats the definition of insanity again?



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Game_God on 22 October 2016
Soundwave said:
se7en7thre3 said:

iAs you may know, the X2 pascal chip is touted at 1.5 tf, fp16 (half precision) so 750 gf ,fp32 (single prec.) is the max.  Considering Nvidia >>>>> AMD flops, performance wise brings it closer to XB1.  This lines up exactly with what  Emily declared the entire time , about NX performing similar to XB1 but power comparison being a stretch, etc.

Of course, that could be the dev kit simulated performance, so the final NS product could be clocked higher or even lower.  With the ventilation grill on NS, this thing has some mobile ower, but still hard to predict.   Again, maybe in portable mode, the thing runs on a "power saving" setting  350-500 gflops & while docked, "performance setting",  750 gflops more/less.

But I think the worst case scenario, regarding 3rd parties, NS will be a 540port system, displacing Vita. 

I think the developer compared the systems (XBox One and NS) directly though and he was pretty clear ... NS is not close to XBOne in real world performance.

1/3 of XBox One maybe with a lot less memory bandwidth (this is just as important as gigaflops guys). 

If Nintendo is willing to offer a supplemental dock with actual hardware in it, that could change the story, but then developers would likely have to make two versions/settings for each game. Mind you, this is now becoming the case for Sony/MS developers too, but I can see Nintendo as always being stubborn about that. 

Tegra X1/X2 are very good *mobile* chips, but mobile is worlds different from desktop/home console cards, the electrical envelopes are miles apart, NS probably at maximum can only run at 9-12 watts, and not all that can be for the GPU either, the LCD/memory/WiFi/CPU will also chew up some of that electrical budget too. An XBox One S even with a large die shrink (16nm) and more efficient design still consumes 50+ watts (it's a monster reduction from the OG XBox One that consumes 110 watts). 

 

se7en7thre3 said:
Soundwave said:

I think the developer compared the systems (XBox One and NS) directly though and he was pretty clear ... NS is not close to XBOne in real world performance.

1/3 of XBox One maybe with a lot less memory bandwidth (this is just as important as gigaflops guys). 

If Nintendo is willing to offer a supplemental dock with actual hardware in it, that could change the story, but then developers would likely have to make two versions/settings for each game. Mind you, this is now becoming the case for Sony/MS developers too, but I can see Nintendo as always being stubborn about that. 

Tegra X1/X2 are very good *mobile* chips, but mobile is worlds different from desktop/home console cards, the electrical envelopes are miles apart, NS probably at maximum can only run at 9-11 watts, and not all that can be for the GPU either, the LCD/memory/WiFi/CPU will also chew up some of that electrical budget too. An XBox One S even with a large die shrink (16nm) and more efficient design still consumes 50+ watts. 

Can you link if possible? 

But yeah, its hard to expect miracles from mobile tech, esp. when you factor in battery life, cooling & Nintendo lol.

 

DonFerrari said:
Yes.... Nvidia just made it possible to make the same power on 1/3 the volume of PS4 and all that at a cheaper price point, can you imagine how powerfull their Titan X will be when they apply this to it?

 

Arkaign said:
Soundwave said:

https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/nintendo-switch-is-powered-by-nvidia.2481278/page-21

Devs name is Zlatan, he has the last two posts on the page, and the next page has reaction to his comments. He has been vetted as a developer in the past, for what that's worth, but obviously I can't know for 100% sure if this guy is legit. 

It does make sense though it's simply thermal dynamics ... you can't have a 50 watt chip comparable to a XBox One inside of a form factor that is only 1/10th the size. Even with a fan your internals will melt after like 2 hours of continous gameplay.

I'm a big hardware guy who lives in Texas, and have friends that worked in semiconductor since the 1980s (AMD and TI). What you're saying is 200% correct.

Even with 14nm and the MOST optimistic side of the potential reality in performance ceiling, with Nintendo going on the side of a hot/loud tablet at 20W (LOL), this would still fall far under OG Xbox 1, and memory would massively limit things to boot.

Take Frostbite Games for example, if Scorpio does turn out to have 6TF and much faster memory, then a hypothetical Battlefront 2017 would probably line up like this : 

Scorpio : 4K Native

PS4 Pro : 4K Checkerboard

PS4 OG : 900P

X1 OG : 720P

NS : 480P and much lower textures/draw distance

People need to go back and look at the Mario game in the trailer. We know it's a new game, and well, it looks like great fun, but it looks like WiiU level at best. The Skyrim footage looks like it's just playing a generic placeholder video, but there's a funny history with handheld Elder Scrolls : 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrWtz7M_OHc

At the end of the day if the NS can't play third party AAA tentpole titles because they either aren't ported, or run like crap, this is simply going to be another niche system. And if it's expensive, it will outright fail. It really needs $199 or less to be a potential hit. $249 will be maybe GC numbers lifetime. $299 will be courting disaster, and anything north of that and it's getting close to virtual boy levels.

 

Pemalite said:
HoloDust said:

Well, not saying it would be SLI, more like what Cerny did with PS4 Pro (mirror copy of PS4's GPU, one half disabled in PS4 mode, other running at original PS4 clock).

But, as I said, it's just a thought experiment, I really doubt Nintendo went berserk with tech...one can hope though.

You still need to power gate all that though, which costs transisters and die space and thus costs if you do it at a hardware level.

Sony doesn't need to worry about power consumption to the same degree as a mobile device, so they might have limited it at the Software/OS/Firmware/BIOS/Cats level.

malistix1985 said:
It proberbly won't even have more then 4GB of shared memory, even if it would match the Tflops it would still be worse resolution because of this and I doubt its going to match the Xone TFlops, actually, concidering the nvidia chips used the processor will even be slower and it won't be a octacore either, and the processor in the ps4 and xone is already pretty terrible.

It will be a 720P and under device. Tegra doesn't have the capability to drive high resolutions whilst pushing high levels of fidelity.

I was thinking the same thing but then I watched this video with Nico Wav who is a french gamemaker/insider, close to Ubisoft & Nintendo was invited by The Share Players to share his views on the Switch reveal & he says some very interesting stuff starting around the 38.00min.
He has time with the Switch devkit & to sum-up if you don't understand french, he says that the Switch is on par & even slightly more powerfull than the regular PS4, apparently Nvidia worked very well & did some black magic with the insides of the Switch, because they seem to port PS4 games with no trouble at all & even have some margin left to exploit. Take that as you wish, I myself am quite intrigued by this, as I assumed that with the Handheld layout, the Switch would be half the power of X1 in the best case, but from what he is saying it's quite superior to X1 & a bit superior to PS4...
Color me shocked, I don't know if I believe that 100%, but Nico Wav is well trusted & a real insider. He seems very confident about the Switch & about the power inside it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=salk2e0BCHY

Personnaly, if the Switch was on X1 level in such a form factor, that would just awsome crazy & would be enough to grant 3rd party ports since X1 is getting them, now to be on par with PS4 would require the involvement of serious black magic with the making of the chips by Nvidia!!! Wait & see I guess...



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n29CicBxZuw

01001011 01101001 01110011 01110011 00100000 01101101 01111001 00100000 01110011 01101000 01101001 01101110 01111001 00100000 01101101 01100101 01110100 01100001 01101100 00100000 01100001 01110011 01110011 00100001

se7en7thre3 on 22 October 2016
Arkaign said:
Soundwave said:

https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/nintendo-switch-is-powered-by-nvidia.2481278/page-21

Devs name is Zlatan, he has the last two posts on the page, and the next page has reaction to his comments. He has been vetted as a developer in the past, for what that's worth, but obviously I can't know for 100% sure if this guy is legit. 

It does make sense though it's simply thermal dynamics ... you can't have a 50 watt chip comparable to a XBox One inside of a form factor that is only 1/10th the size. Even with a fan your internals will melt after like 2 hours of continous gameplay.

I'm a big hardware guy who lives in Texas, and have friends that worked in semiconductor since the 1980s (AMD and TI). What you're saying is 200% correct.

Even with 14nm and the MOST optimistic side of the potential reality in performance ceiling, with Nintendo going on the side of a hot/loud tablet at 20W (LOL), this would still fall far under OG Xbox 1, and memory would massively limit things to boot.

Take Frostbite Games for example, if Scorpio does turn out to have 6TF and much faster memory, then a hypothetical Battlefront 2017 would probably line up like this : 

Scorpio : 4K Native

PS4 Pro : 4K Checkerboard

PS4 OG : 900P

X1 OG : 720P

NS : 480P and much lower textures/draw distance

People need to go back and look at the Mario game in the trailer. We know it's a new game, and well, it looks like great fun, but it looks like WiiU level at best. The Skyrim footage looks like it's just playing a generic placeholder video, but there's a funny history with handheld Elder Scrolls : 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrWtz7M_OHc

At the end of the day if the NS can't play third party AAA tentpole titles because they either aren't ported, or run like crap, this is simply going to be another niche system. And if it's expensive, it will outright fail. It really needs $199 or less to be a potential hit. $249 will be maybe GC numbers lifetime. $299 will be courting disaster, and anything north of that and it's getting close to virtual boy levels.

Really appreciate for your input.

With your expertise, can you help explain or phrase this better for us commoners, from the official nvidia blog:

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

"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."

Does "lightweight, fast gaming" mean mobile(ie android) versions of games?



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David_Hernandeez on 22 October 2016

I'm giving it a chance, this may have the power of the X1 because well there is a small chance of Tegra x2.. or even a modification of the old Tegra that could make the consolo closer to X1 levels.
Edit: Also add the fact that AMD is the king of the console market, having this gen chips on the 3 consoles, Nintendo working with Nvidia may be the gate to Nvidia start conquering this market, like DF said why is not a new Shield using Tegra X2? maybe was desing it for it, but drop it in favour of NS.



ArchangelMadzz on 22 October 2016

Yeah no way.

Technically Xb1 gets PS4 ports aswell, so you can't use that as a comparative gauge of power.



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Soundwave on 22 October 2016

I honestly think it's going to be in a real world situation basically 2-2.5x the Wii U. Quite short of the XBox One, but if a developer is really willing to do work and code to the metal, they can get some results that will look surprisingly close in *some* cases at a lower resolution (like how Resident Evil Revelations on the 3DS some times looks kinda like a 360 game).

That Mario Switch game looked a bit better than 3D World, but it didn't look anything close to what a Mario game on a XB1/PS4 level hardware should look like.



se7en7thre3 on 22 October 2016

With an exhaust vent being on top side of the unit, doesn't it lend credence to a fan blowing air through the bottom when docked? I think there's a legit shot NS could have the full X2 capabilities in home console mode.

 




DonFerrari on 22 October 2016
Game_God said:
Soundwave said:

I think the developer compared the systems (XBox One and NS) directly though and he was pretty clear ... NS is not close to XBOne in real world performance.

1/3 of XBox One maybe with a lot less memory bandwidth (this is just as important as gigaflops guys). 

If Nintendo is willing to offer a supplemental dock with actual hardware in it, that could change the story, but then developers would likely have to make two versions/settings for each game. Mind you, this is now becoming the case for Sony/MS developers too, but I can see Nintendo as always being stubborn about that. 

Tegra X1/X2 are very good *mobile* chips, but mobile is worlds different from desktop/home console cards, the electrical envelopes are miles apart, NS probably at maximum can only run at 9-12 watts, and not all that can be for the GPU either, the LCD/memory/WiFi/CPU will also chew up some of that electrical budget too. An XBox One S even with a large die shrink (16nm) and more efficient design still consumes 50+ watts (it's a monster reduction from the OG XBox One that consumes 110 watts). 

 

se7en7thre3 said:

Can you link if possible? 

But yeah, its hard to expect miracles from mobile tech, esp. when you factor in battery life, cooling & Nintendo lol.

 

DonFerrari said:
Yes.... Nvidia just made it possible to make the same power on 1/3 the volume of PS4 and all that at a cheaper price point, can you imagine how powerfull their Titan X will be when they apply this to it?

 

Arkaign said:

I'm a big hardware guy who lives in Texas, and have friends that worked in semiconductor since the 1980s (AMD and TI). What you're saying is 200% correct.

Even with 14nm and the MOST optimistic side of the potential reality in performance ceiling, with Nintendo going on the side of a hot/loud tablet at 20W (LOL), this would still fall far under OG Xbox 1, and memory would massively limit things to boot.

Take Frostbite Games for example, if Scorpio does turn out to have 6TF and much faster memory, then a hypothetical Battlefront 2017 would probably line up like this : 

Scorpio : 4K Native

PS4 Pro : 4K Checkerboard

PS4 OG : 900P

X1 OG : 720P

NS : 480P and much lower textures/draw distance

People need to go back and look at the Mario game in the trailer. We know it's a new game, and well, it looks like great fun, but it looks like WiiU level at best. The Skyrim footage looks like it's just playing a generic placeholder video, but there's a funny history with handheld Elder Scrolls : 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrWtz7M_OHc

At the end of the day if the NS can't play third party AAA tentpole titles because they either aren't ported, or run like crap, this is simply going to be another niche system. And if it's expensive, it will outright fail. It really needs $199 or less to be a potential hit. $249 will be maybe GC numbers lifetime. $299 will be courting disaster, and anything north of that and it's getting close to virtual boy levels.

 

Pemalite said:

You still need to power gate all that though, which costs transisters and die space and thus costs if you do it at a hardware level.

Sony doesn't need to worry about power consumption to the same degree as a mobile device, so they might have limited it at the Software/OS/Firmware/BIOS/Cats level.

It will be a 720P and under device. Tegra doesn't have the capability to drive high resolutions whilst pushing high levels of fidelity.

I was thinking the same thing but then I watched this video with Nico Wav who is a french gamemaker/insider, close to Ubisoft & Nintendo was invited by The Share Players to share his views on the Switch reveal & he says some very interesting stuff starting around the 38.00min.
He has time with the Switch devkit & to sum-up if you don't understand french, he says that the Switch is on par & even slightly more powerfull than the regular PS4, apparently Nvidia worked very well & did some black magic with the insides of the Switch, because they seem to port PS4 games with no trouble at all & even have some margin left to exploit. Take that as you wish, I myself am quite intrigued by this, as I assumed that with the Handheld layout, the Switch would be half the power of X1 in the best case, but from what he is saying it's quite superior to X1 & a bit superior to PS4...
Color me shocked, I don't know if I believe that 100%, but Nico Wav is well trusted & a real insider. He seems very confident about the Switch & about the power inside it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=salk2e0BCHY

Personnaly, if the Switch was on X1 level in such a form factor, that would just awsome crazy & would be enough to grant 3rd party ports since X1 is getting them, now to be on par with PS4 would require the involvement of serious black magic with the making of the chips by Nvidia!!! Wait & see I guess...

thanks for the info... so it probably is counting the power of the dock, because I don't see much possibility otherwise



duduspace11 "Well, since we are estimating costs, Pokemon Red/Blue did cost Nintendo about $50m to make back in 1996"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=8808363

Mr Puggsly: "Hehe, I said good profit. You said big profit. Frankly, not losing money is what I meant by good. Don't get hung up on semantics"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=9008994

Azzanation: "PS5 wouldn't sold out at launch without scalpers."