Alternate history: Switch a generation earlier

[Pemalite]

Conina said:

But the onscreen benchmarks are useless for the fast GPUs which can render the sequence much faster than 60 fps but are v-sync-limited by the 60 Hz displays.

Another advantage of the offscreen benchmarks is that they are benched all in the same resolution (in this case 1280x720, other GFXBenchmarks like T-Rex up to 1080p and Aztec up to 4K), no matter the different native resolutions of the displays.

The issue with off-screen rendering is that operations are performed in a region of memory that is not directed to the display output and is thus managed directly by the program itself and is often used to generate intermediary images like reflection maps, shadow maps and more... And thus can by-pass driver optimizations for specific abstraction and other software layers causing a performance hit on certain architectures which are very driver/kernel/api reliant which nVidia and AMD historically have been.

Just remember, on-screen is real-world.

Soundwave said:

I also doubt 2GB of RAM would have happened, Nintendo originally wanted 1GB of RAM for the *Switch*, lol, go look up the Nintendo NX leaked documents, it was supposed to have a 480p screen + 1GB of RAM total.

People are lucky they didn't go with that crap Eriksson chipset + 1GB RAM.

Were they legitimate leaks with verifiable and legitimate evidence? Or one of the many millions of fake rubbish that circulated the internet that pertained to the console prior to launch?

It's an important distinction to make.

Because remember the Switch was supposed to be AMD powered at one point.

Soundwave said:

I don't think Vita level hardware would look very good on a TV either circa 2012, even Miyamoto said HD is important, by 2011/12 everyone and their grandma (literally) had a HDTV ... to have a "console" that only outputs at like 540p (sub HD resolution) would be another blow against it.

The concept just wasn't ready for prime time in 2011/2012. Mobile chip tech just wasn't there yet. The console side experience especially would've been quite underwhelming.

The other thing is it would have likely cost $250-$300 with mostly the 3DS library ... and take a gander at how the 3DS was selling at $250.

It basically would be a more powerful version of the 3DS with TV output, but I suppose minus the 3D screen quite probably. The Tegra 3 was still a very new chip circa November 2011. 

A large portion of Switch games are sub HD and in-fact run at 360P or 480P. And people are okay with it.

Last edited by Pemalite - on 28 March 2024