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[Jizz_Beard_thePirate]

JEMC said:

You call it gimmicks, they call it new forms of gameplay .

All in honesty, I think that this is some kind of vicious circle (or chicken and egg) situation. Nintendo went with the wiimotes, the first "gimmick", because they couldn't compete in the hardware depantment and had to try something different with a weaker machine. The problem is that nowadays we don't know if they keep doing that because they think that they need that differential to offset their hardware limitations, or the hardware limitations come because they focus too much on the incorporation of some gimmick.

In any case, I'd like to think that Nintendo is smart enough to realize that with some DLSS capable hardware, they would no longer need to develop their games with two resolutions and setting in mind. Just one set for the handheld mode and then turn the DLSS on when hooked to a TV. That is an improvement that even them would appreciatte.

In any case, Nintendo's decision still depends on what Nvidia offers them because, right now, the only SoC from Nvidia that's already in production and that could be a somewhat viable option for a console, without counting on the Tegra X2, is the Tegra Xavier. The good news is that Xavier uses the Volta architecture that was the first to include Tensor Cores, but the bad news is only has 48 1st gen Tensor Cores, which would be hardly enough to do the task, let alone think about ray tracing.

So well, we're in a situation where, as far as we know, Nvidia doesn't have a SoC for Nintendo with the features we would like to see and, even if they did, we don't know if Nintendo would choose it over a cheaper, but with limited capabilities, chip.

Yea that's true. Alex from DF did do some interesting theorizing to see whether or not a "Switch Pro" would be able to do DLSS. The video overall is interesting if you have some time to kill:

The results are quite insane!

Chazore said:

Captain_Yuri said:

I think Nintendos main problem is that they really like to add gimmicks which takes cost away from the core hardware. The Switch has quite a lot of unnecessary gimmicks that I never use and I would rather have taken away for better hardware that would give me a better gaming experience. But Nintendo isn't that type of a company and that has lead to both their successes and failures.

And this is realistically what I fear about the Switch 2. Nvidia has a great technology called Tensor Cores. Combined with DLSS, it's able to give you unprecedented results from an upscaler that in some areas are better than Native. If Sony or Microsoft had access to this technology, you would be your arse that they would make full use of it. Nintendo is the type of company that would instead of including Tensor cores with the Switch 2 would rather include more waggle functionality and make everyone facepalm.

And imo, that is one of the main reasons why they go with such old hardware. It's not so much that they want to per say but their priority is gimmicks first, hardware second. They would rather use outdated hardware thats cheap but add more gimmicky features than state of the art hardware that costs more with less gimmicky features.

Hopefully that changes with the Switch 2 but you can never know with Nintendo...

They more or less took a look at PS2 sales vs their expensive and superior GC hw and haven't looked back since, because since then it's been weaker hw after weaker hw.

I really do wish they would amp up their perf and visual gains. Some of their stuff definitely has artistic flair, but at the same time some of it doesn't and looks sparse and muddy/blurry af, and it's primarily down to them going for weaker hw. With Nvidia they could absolutely gain better perf and IQ clarity, but I'm going to agree with you and bet they'll likely settle for yet another gimmick (instead of fixing their god damn joycon issue, which has rendered my second set of joycons utterly useless now, which means I'm not touching my Switch until joycon prices come down). 

Yea I think they need to take a step back and have an evolution of the switch than another complete redesign. Don't pull a Switch U so to speak. If they can keep the switch formula, improve up on a few things (especially the joy cons) and have that Nvidia hardware that we are all hoping for, the next Switch can be incredible.

It's also pretty clear that third parties want the hardware so they can port games to it otherwise Capcom wouldn't have made Nintendo to have 4GB of Vram instead of just 2GB. Imagine the insanity if the Switch had only 2GB to work with when it launched but it's also why it's hard to trust them. Hopefully they learned their lesson because man... If Nintendo goofs up the type of opportunity they have with Nvidia. Like I'd face plant so hard.

Last edited by Jizz_Beard_thePirate - on 27 September 2021