Nuvendil said:
From the research I have done, the difference is that the X1, in ideal conditions, is a huge leap from the U, but still a noticeable gap between it and the Xbone. The X2, under ideal conditions, can output inbetween the Xbone and the PS4. Now keep in mind, "ideal conditions" is tech speak for "conditions that will likely never occurr in practice" :P . So it's a question of how close to said conditions you can get. Now, the Switch having active cooling moves it closer to the ideal than pretty much any Tegra device out there since phones, tablets, and the Shield don't have active cooling, which limits how hard they can push the chips. Then there's the customizations Nvidia is bragging about. If those customizations are as extensive as they claim, that will also move the system closer to that ideal. Then comes the fact the Switch will use a more optimized OS designed for gaming, which alleviates some of the issues caused by Droid. Again, moving it closer to that ideal. Just look at the Vita's accomplishments with what are frankly ancient chips, because it is customized and optimized for gaming in terms of both hardware and software.
Now does that mean that if it's straight up X2 with all these above factors it will hit that ideal and push out that lauded 1.5 TFLOP performance? No, not likely. But it gets it closer than with a tablet or phone. And with optimizations and customizations on the hardware and software side, real world performance parity with the Xbox One is definitely possible.
None of this guarantees the Switch will see that, but it is definitely possible. My personal feeling is it will use a combination of Tegra tech to ballance cost, power consumption, and performance and get at or close to Xbone parity in real world performance, even if it falls a bit short on the much discussed GFLOPs. It does come down somewhat to Nvidia's willingness to give Nintendo good deals. I think there's a pretty good chance they did, what with the Shield failing they need a good win for the Tegra brand.
PS: The active cooling and such does raise concerns in battery life, but worth noting that while the fan will hurt it, not having an optical drive or hardrive (other spinning components) will help with that. So we'll see.
|
